MovieChat Forums > After the Dark (2013) Discussion > There something bugging me

There something bugging me

posted 9 years ago by pjr235
19 replies | jump to latest

In the first experiment where they decided to lock the teacher out, I could swear to all the heavens that the chemist would put something together that would melt the strong glass where bullets couldn't break it. They couldn't use acid battery or fuel to create an explosive or corrosive? Why didn't this class of geniuses plan on how to break the glass over the course of a year using another thought experiment and the skill sets of a chemist and an engineer, they just waited to the last minute and panicked like monkeys and ate each other? The second test was a test-run to find out the code, pretty smart. And the last was stupid. I agree with all the others who think that a poet would be quite useless super-cool-hidden-talents not included. I kept lmao every time the poet god shot in the head.

Also why didn't the other group of survivors sail back and rescue the others in the last experiment? Super-also what was the point of living out an entire year trapped in a hole if the plan was to get blown up in the end?

I get that the deceitful redhead wanted to flip the experiment on it's head but it just made the entire exercise stupid. Pasting rainbows over a serious situation and dying happily.. Just sing kum by ya, hold hands, and let it take you. AND they didn't even get anyone prego's either time. They had money in the budget for a fake rubber belly...

I kind of enjoyed it but I wont be leaving any kind of 'rated' review.

[–] MissAngelCakes 9 years ago

That was one of the "philosophies" raised in the film.

In a situation like that, should it always be about "continuing the human race" in such a cold and purely scientific manner? Or in your last years of living shouldn't you be selfish, and I don't know... Enjoy them?

[–] essex9999 9 years ago

In a situation like that, should it always be about "continuing the human race" in such a cold and purely scientific manner? Or in your last years of living shouldn't you be selfish, and I don't know... Enjoy them?

It's a good thing our ancestors didn't feel that way, or we wouldn't be here. The drive to propagate the species is the most basic drive of any living thing. Letting the human race die out because you want to drink wine and listen to music and then can't be bothered to even try to survive in the post-apocalypse world is just about the most monstrously selfish act one could commit. I think that's the point of the final scenario, in fact. Petra was never a likable character, and this was the filmmaker's way showing that she is actually a terrible person besides being a blithering idiot who happens to have a high IQ.

[–] MissAngelCakes 9 years ago

Also, it's to show that there's no simple or even purely beneficial way to select 10 people. Everyone has vices, everyone has things that will make them seem more viable.

[–] MerovingianGoddess 9 years ago

This is really a very good movie. I suggested it to a group associated with Satre's Being and Nothingness. The randomness of the skill set is offset by the positive or negative aspects inside the card, is really no different from the many quirky ironies that the Twilight Zone used to draw it's audience. A lonely man finally finds the time at the end of the world to read all the books he never had time to... and then he steps on his glasses. The Gift of the Magi... surely someone thinks of these things?

Delinquent Nancy*
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

[–] SpiltPersonality 8 years ago

Screw that. If it takes a minute to put in a code and you enter 0000 then 0001, working around the clock (they've got nothing else to do right) it would take then a week to get to 9999 if that was the code. It's likely to be a 4 digit code (most basic codes are, and this one would only be so some numpty doesn't acidentally open it before time).

[–] yurenchu 8 years ago

It was a five digit code.

______
Joe Satriani - "Always With Me, Always With You"
http://youtu.be/VI57QHL6ge0

[–] SpiltPersonality 8 years ago

Ok, so 10 weeks. What else have they actually got to do with their time?

[–] yurenchu 8 years ago

I don't think they had 10 extra weeks after the year was over.

See also my posts in these threads:
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1928340/board/thread/226518530
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1928340/board/thread/228154163

______
Joe Satriani - "Always With Me, Always With You"
http://youtu.be/VI57QHL6ge0

[–] SpiltPersonality 8 years ago

But they inew that they needed the code from the beginning. They can start at the 9 month mark. Sure, if it opens on 0000 they are going to be exposed to more radiation etc than giving it another 3 months, but alove rather than dead...

[–] yurenchu 8 years ago

Actually, they didn't know that they needed the code. They assumed that Mr. Zimit was just messing with them, and so they spent the whole year in denial. Until the year was up and they tried to open the door and they found out that Mr. Zimit hadn't been lying: there is indeed an exit code.

______
Joe Satriani - "Always With Me, Always With You"
http://youtu.be/VI57QHL6ge0

[–] SpiltPersonality 8 years ago

I find it impossible to believe that all 10 of them (was it 10, I can't remember) would be in denial for an entire year. It's been 3 or 4 DAYS since I saw this movie, and in that time I've had a tonne of things to do, yet my head has had a bit of time to think about this movie. In that time (literally a few minutes) I've been wondering what I would do in that situation, and I'd try opening the door after a set amount of time. I'd leave effor in my calculations (assume it's 4 digits, but like you said it's actually 5, but I'd also start early to compensate for error). So, let's say I started on the 11th month, they would then KNOW that thy needed an exit code, and you could start a program of trying the one up codes. I know it's just an ad hoc scenario, but they didn't even address it, and to me it's obvious. If you had a YEAR, you're not going to sit around in denial for that length of time... not all of them

[–] yurenchu 8 years ago

It could just as well have been a six-digit or eight-digit code; the kids didn't know that until they tried the "open door" button for the first time.

Anyway, the point of the thought experiment was not to test their resourcefulness in cracking a security device, but to explore their social interactions, their moral decisions and where the psychological pressure would bring them. It's not implausible that one person with some natural authority might say: "Alright, that's a problem for later, we're not going to let it eat at our minds for a whole year, especially when that issue might actually not exist; so let's not think about it. If necessary we'll solve it later.", and the rest simply followed his lead. Acknowledging the existence of an exit code meant (to them) that they had to acknowledge that they made a gross mistake when they banned Mr. Zimit from the bunker. However, admitting to that mistake is hard, and spending the year in denial is so much easier (although still no picnic). This was a useful, educative error that the class was now learning from.

I already wrote more about this in the two threads that I linked to earlier.

(By the way, in that iteration it was nine instead of ten people. The tenth person was Mr. Zimit, and they tricked him in order to keep him out of the bunker.)

______
Joe Satriani - "Always With Me, Always With You"
http://youtu.be/VI57QHL6ge0

[–] emokillss 8 years ago

i guess ur the only one who fully understand the film.

[–] Naldoman 8 years ago

ITA. I know I'd be punching those buttons within a week. Why are the buttons there if not for some kind of code? I didn't see a phone receiver or speaker to talk to other bunkers. I would not have been able to keep my hands off those buttons.

All the scenarios were flawed - but then - you never know what people will do. What bugs me is that the constraint is that it's an intellectual exercise and 1) Most people don't act that way, even intellectuals, and 2) Each scenario broke down due to EMOTIONAL reasons, not INTELLECTUAL ones.

In any bunker scenario, you don't have to tell people to breed - they're going to do it regardless of instructions.

In the third scenario, I think I would have murdered the harpist and the opera singer after the first performance. The New World will NOT have any such nonsense.

And the biggest factor - I would have stayed outside to watch the apocalypse, anyway.

[–] SpiltPersonality 8 years ago

And the biggest factor - I would have stayed outside to watch the apocalypse, anyway.

Yes indeedie.

Oh, another stupid thing that just occurred to me... who or what kind of PSYCHO) walks around with 'I'm the only one with the exit code' written on a slip of paper in their pocket?

It was a decent 'discuss around a dinner table' conversation piece, but a poor movie the more I think about it.

[–] yurenchu 8 years ago

And the biggest factor - I would have stayed outside to watch the apocalypse, anyway.

Yes indeedie.

When the hot particles of nuclear fallout burn through your skin and your organs start shutting down through radiation poisoning... try not to scream.
- http://www.subzin.com/quotes/M739804315/After+the+Dark/burn+through+your+skin+and+your+organs

Oh, another stupid thing that just occurred to me... who or what kind of PSYCHO) walks around with 'I'm the only one with the exit code' written on a slip of paper in their pocket?

The same kind of psycho who would readily shoot a poet for just being a poet, and who would be banned from the bunker?

That slip of paper was either the inside of Mr. Zimit's card (that said that he was a bunker-builder) which for the sake of the exercise had physically crossed over from the classroom to the hypothetical Prambanan setting; or he wrote it on the spot immediately after he got locked out of the bunker, in the hopes that he would still get an opportunity to show it to the students in the bunker and persuade them to let him back inside, before the bombs would fall.

______
Joe Satriani - "Always With Me, Always With You"
http://youtu.be/VI57QHL6ge0

[–] GrandWushu 8 years ago

The code turned out to be 73872. It took about 1 second to punch in the code, but lets say for every wrong entry, it takes one minute to reset the code panel.
They don't know how many digits the code is, so they must start at 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,00,01,02,03....10,11,12,....99,000,001,.....010,011....999....
So there are more than 73872 different codes.
1 digit code (0-9) = 10 codes
2 digit code (00-99) = 100 codes
So the number of codes they need to enter, if it's a 5 digit code, is 111,110. Using a brute force algorithm would take them 84983 tries to reach the code 73872.
That would take 1416 hours, which is 59 days, which is about 8 1/2 weeks.

If it took 10 seconds to enter each code it would only take 10 days, and if the lock reset instantly, it would probably take a single day of brute force number punching to open the door.

Of course, it could have been a 10 digit code and it would have taken years or even decades to open, but the 5 digit code it was should have been doable. They should have started the brute force number punching a week before the year was up.

[–] GrandWushu 8 years ago

The battering ram was a good idea, but they needed to concentrate the blow into a small area, like those emergency glass shattering tools. Anyone with some knowledge of physics should have been able to get out fairly easily with what they had in the bunker.

[–] dayvit78 8 years ago

All of what you say is true, but being a philosophical thought experiment, Zimit would have just changed the rules anyway. Like he would have said it locks down after 3 tries. That's why these experiments are completely useless - I love that they brought up the trolley car one because that is most hated one. Any answer you give makes you look like an idiot. The only way to win is to not play.

Petra should have walked out. Who cares if she gets a grade knocked down? She's not going to lose her acceptance to Cornell because of it - it's the last day of class FFS! She is not going to be haunted forever by people asking why she got a C in high school philosophy like the teacher said.