The End of the World - a contradiction

Would you buy into the movie's "end of the world" if it took place at, say, 2:37 AM?

The chances of being hit at midnight are 86,400:1 , so I guess it could happen.
In any case, a *white light coming from the sky* is a metaphor, not a celestial phnomenon.

You've still missed the point. Most likely, the reason for the conflicting bits of evidence is to discourage any effort to 'read in' any particular theory of why the world is ending. As you seem to know, that's not what the movie is about - it's about how various people deal with the certain knowledge of imminent death. It's an artificial situation on purpose.


I am the final word.

I'll put it this way. A film need not be completely realistic, but is plausible if it sets inviolable "ground rules" early on in the film. Even then, this isn't a hard-and-fast rule (and I slammed "The Terminal" accordingly :P ). Anyway, the one "ground rule" that is set is that the world will end at midnight, and we are not told why, merely because everyone has seemingly become so desensitized to the fact. It's clear that they've known for a while, as Patrick has had time to plan exactly the way he wants to go out of the world. And, well...you know the rest.

I tend to think that, although we're never explicitly told, in the last minutes of the film, it's implied that it has something to do with the sun, as there's an explicit shot of the sun looking "hot" and pulsing, to a degree. If it were the sun consuming the Earth, which is scientifically supported, then it would still be unrealistic, as, while it is believed that the Earth will be consumed by the Sun in another 3 billion years or so, it is also theorized that life on Earth will cease only 1 billion years from now, due to the Sun getting too hot for life on Earth.

So yeah...all around it is "unrealistic," but the only reason it works for me is because they set the necessary ground rules immediately in the film, so as to make suspension of belief likely. If this had been a love story that, out of the middle of nowhere at the end of the movie, we're then told the world is ending, then that'd be a whole different story. It would be a pretty crappy way to tell a story.

Overall, though, I think it works, even if it isn't perfect.

Just to clarify, the chances of being hit exactly at midnight and the chances of being hit on say... 4: 36 are exactly the same. For example, if you buy a lottery ticket with the numbers 01 02 03 04 05 you have the same chance of winning as anyone else. Not that it matters because I agree with all the theorys that people abandonned the normal time and set it with the end of the world.

A few scattered thoughts.....

While I agree that the cause of the total disaster that ends the world is incidental, I feel the end is almost certainly brought on by the impact of an enormous comet or other rogue celestial body. The pulsing fireball that we see at the end is surely not the sun, but a fairly accurate depiction of what an earth-bound comet would look like on its approach. In fact, a comet on close approach would be many, many times brighter than the sun.

Although...

If it were a solar event, it would really scale up the doom-factor. I mean, if a medium-sized comet hit the Earth, there would be a reasonable chance for the survival of some people - it wouldn't be pretty, but it would be possible. With a supernova or other solar disaster, there would simply be absolutely no hope for anyone.

This film really stirs some deep feelings within me. In my lowest moments, I feel that humanity deserves an imminent, firey end. At other times, I'm so moved by acts of kindness, bravery or genius that I feel we (humans) deserve better than the lives we have been given. The final frames of the film really get to the core of these conflicted feelings, and perhaps this is why "Last Night" resonates so strongly with me.

I'm surprised by some of the U.S./Canadian squabbling goin on in these forums. I'm a U.S. citizen and regard Canada, as a nation, as I feel I we all should: As our closest friend. We have never warred and share an incredibly open, enormous border and a great deal of culture. I love all of the little differences between our countries and get an enormous kick out of the fact that I can drive north for a day and find a place where the people speak French.

Still, could this film have been made in Hollywood? I don't know. I suspect that in the Hollywood version, a rag-tag bunch of misfits would have blasted the comet (or whatever) to smithereens at the last minute and then Pokey and Sandra Oh would have gotten married.

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The problem is the only two facts the film gives us about the end of the world directly contradict each other. One implies the end of the world is manmade; the other implies the end of the world is celestial. They cannot exist together.

Sure they can.

If the Earth is somehow losing its gravity and is falling into the sun, who's to say the government didn't decide to nuke itself just to save everyone the lengthy pain of getting hotter and hotter until we cook, not to mention avoiding the lawlessness, rioting, etc. that might come with just letting it peter out at the end.

After all, people could leave the city and try to escape a nuclear attack, but if you knew that it was coming, wouldn't you rather head *into* the city to avoid the chance you'd survive pitifully in the wasteland?

And with regard to the time issue, I like the idea that they either did it at midnight or that we all set our clocks so that whatever happened would happen at the stroke of midnight. I like the end of the day/end of humanity symbolism.