After seeing the movie “knowing” it left me somewhat depressed
Heres the plot
In 1959, student Lucinda Embry hears whispers as she stares at the sun. Later, she writes a page of seemingly random numbers and adds it to her school’s time capsule, set to be opened in 50 years.
In 2009, Caleb Koestler is a student at the same school. When the time capsule is opened, Caleb is supposed to read and write about some of the capsule’s contents. He’s given the page of numbers written by Lucinda. His widowed father Jonathan (Nicolas Cage), a professor of astrophysics at MIT, notices the numbers have a specific set of sequences referring to the times and locations of fatal disasters over the last 50 years, including 911012996 (the date and death toll of the 9/11 attacks). The last three sets of digits are dated in the immediate future.
In the following days, a car drives by the family home with two strangers. They give Caleb a small smooth stone. Caleb later dreams of one of the strange men, who points to the window showing the world on fire with burning animals running out from the forest.
Jonathan tracks down Lucinda’s daughter Diana and granddaughter Abby. Though apprehensive and scared, Diana eventually decides to help Jonathan. She says that her mother used to hear voices and that the next date in the document, October 19, was the day Lucinda always said she would die.
Copy of Matthäus Merian’s engraving of Ezekiel’s “chariot vision” (1670)
Searching Lucinda’s mobile home, they find pictures of the disasters she predicted, a copy of Matthäus Merian’s engraving of Ezekiel’s “chariot vision”, and a pile of small smooth stones near Lucinda’s bed.
The last number in the document appears to be “33” but they notice that it is really “EE” written backwards. They figure out that EE means “Everyone Else”, representing a cataclysm that no one will escape.
Outside, more alien strangers walk up to the children waiting in the car. John drives them away only to have Abby say that the “whisper people” want her and Caleb to go with them.
The next day, John has a sudden revelation and rushes them to the MIT observatory, where he discovers that a massive solar flare will soon reach Earth, making it uninhabitable.
Diana wants to hide in some caves. John reluctantly agrees at first, but Diana decides to take the children and heads for the caves without him. As Jonathan chases after them, he calls Diana and tries to persuade her against relying on the caves. He warns her that the solar flare will penetrate miles under ground.
While Diana stops for gas, the aliens take the children. Diana chases them but is broadsided by a truck. John arrives at the accident just as Diana dies, finding the small stone in Diana’s hand. He goes back to Lucinda’s mobile home, finding the children and the aliens waiting in a dry river bed covered with the stones. A space ship descends from the sky. John is refused entry but allows his son to leave with the aliens. The ships departs with the children and a pair of rabbits, and a distant shot shows many similar vehicles leaving Earth.
The next morning the skies are on fire from the solar flare. John fights his way through the chaotic streets of Boston, arriving at his estranged father’s home. They embrace as the solar flare burns away the atmosphere and incinerates the surface of the Earth, destroying all life on the planet.
The film ends as Caleb and Abby are deposited by the aliens on an Earthlike planet. They are seen joyfully running through a beautiful mountain field towards a giant white tree
The end of the world is a favourite subject throughout history, every man and his dog sees the signs of the end of the world.
A more original approach (alternate ending ) would be this
The aliens ascend taking the kids and you see the whole fleet disappear into space. Nicholas cage returns to his dad and says “I know” to him after being asked by his religious father that “you know this isn’t the end?”
You see the blast from the sun start to scorch the surface of the moon suddenly just before hitting earth a point of light appears in space near earth and a huge object suddenly appears between the earth and the moon and the sun completely blocking the blast hitting the earth. Its stays in orbit until the short lived blast dies away and then disappears as quickly as it came.
The religious man knows that god exists
The scientist knows he doesn’t
The aliens think they know everything
Suddenly something else turns up that the aliens don’t know about, saves the earth and goes.
What was it? No one knows – not even the aliens