Annihilation Earth
Encyclopedia
Annihilation Earth is a 2009 made-for-television science fiction film
for Syfy Channel, directed by Nick Lyon, written by Rafael Jordan, and starring Luke Goss
, Marina Sirtis
, and Colin Salmon
. It follows the attempts by an energy scientist to determine the causes of a deadly explosion at a particle collider and mitigate its aftereffects. It premiered on December 12, 2009.
The film's original working title was Doomsday.
Forty-eight hours earlier, David Wyndham (Luke Goss
), the same team leader, is informed by his UN superior, Paxton (Marina Sirtis
) of a security breach involving another scientist on their project, David's friend and colleague Raja. Unauthorized access of the project's mainframe the night before was made using Raja's access codes. As a precaution he has been removed from the project; but David suspects a more sinister motive.
Paxton holds a press conference about their project, codenamed "EVE" (for Electromagnetic Vacuum Energy), which has provided most of Europe's energy for the past ten years beginning in 2010. The project utilizes three high-power particle colliders, located in Geneva
, Barcelona, Spain, and Orleans, France. With the project's continuing success, Paxton is enthusiastic that the technology can be utilized worldwide. David, unhappily agreeing with Paxton's claims, confronts her afterward that she has no intention of sharing the technology with the Middle East
, which she verifies.
Outside the meeting hall David receives a mysterious phone call, then is approached by a reporter, whom he dismisses with a handshake. The reporter furtively copies David's fingerprint from his hand using a piece of tape and stores it in a case.
A countdown appears on the screen, reading "84 Hours to Extinction."
At home, David receives a visit from Raja (Colin Salmon
), who has already surmised that Paxton's plans for the technology. Raja believes he is a scapegoat for the security breach because he is the only Arab with level 5 project clearance. When David is rejects his claims, he angrily leaves.
That night, the "reporter" that accosted David dons a lab coat and fake ID to sneak into the Orleans facility. After using a recording of David saying his name and the copied fingerprint to gain access to the lab, he enters a series of codes into the computer. When he is confronted by another employee he uses a silenced dart gun to kill the man. A short time later, after the mysterious man has escaped, the plant explodes, destroying Orleans and a quarter of France including Paris, killing between 20,000,000-30,000,000 people.
As he tries to sort out what happened the next day, David meets with Raja again. Raja has been named the top suspect and is running from the police. He is also being watched by Paxton's men, which David learns from Paxton herself. She shows him photos of Raja apparently meeting with the mystery man, a known terrorist named Aziz Khaled. Though stunned by this revelation, David insists he be allowed to go to ground zero to investigate the explosion before judgments are made.
Later that night, Raja, pursued by both Paxton's men and the French police, attempts to board a train before being cornered in an underground station. A sudden earthquake
allows him to escape. Paxton, watching in her office, nearly cries when the worst hit area by the earthquake is the Middle East, specifically Bahrain
, where thousands have perished due to the quake. The next day, Raja calls David near the French-Spanish border, revealing that because the earthquake happened one day after the blast and hit where the EVE grid was absent. He deduces that someone has discovered the Doomsday Equation, which is a set of codes for each collider that, if used, could destroy the world.
David and his team travel to Orleans via helicopter
but they crash, killing the pilot. They find evidence that a Higgs field has formed, confirming Raja's suspicions. Meanwhile, Raja's electric car runs out of power at the border, leaving him helpless. A few hours later he is abducted by Khaled. David's team, meanwhile, attempts to escape France in a Humvee sent to rescue them only to be caught in a meteor shower
. To his horror the "meteors" are actually falling satellites, and his team barely escapes.
Khaled takes Raja to the Barcelona facility. After murdering all the workers and ordering his men to get as far away as possible, he tries to force Raja into giving him the site's Doomsday Equation, believing the meltdown will not cause the end of the world, but Raja steadfastly refuses. After returning to Geneva, David is taken to the facility, where his family is already sheltered. He concludes that the surviving colliders are feeding the magnetic field, and asks Paxton to order a full system shutdown.
After becoming tired of Raja's stubborn defiance, Khaled shoots him in the knee, but doesn't see him grabbing a pen. Raja stabs Khaled in the leg, stunning him. He then shoves the terrorist into the reactor's shaft and Khaled falls to his death. Raja returns to the computer and opens an instant message to Geneva, telling David his suspicions about the Doomsday Equation were right - and the only way to save the world is to increase the system's output and choke the field out of existence, otherwise it will expand into a black hole
. Still believing Raja is a terrorist, Paxton cuts the connection and a tearful and distraught David has no choice but to carry out the system shutdown, knowing that this action will only seal the doom of the entire planet and everyone and everything on it.
The system announces that the full shutdown will take twenty seconds. David joins his family at the window overlooking the reactor and solemnly assures his oblivious family that things will be okay now that he's fixed the problem.
As soon as the system shutdown is complete, the Geneva facility melts down in an explosion exponentially larger than the Orleans disaster. Everything and everyone, including David, his family, the facility's staff, and Paxton, within hundreds of miles of Geneva are incinerated in an instant. A view from outer space shows shock waves from the blast radiating throughout the Earth's surface, a large fissure forming in Europe and cracks forming around the globe. Finally, the Earth's core is breached, and the planet explodes violently. Nothing survives.
The film concludes with a shot of pieces of what was once Earth floating through space, followed by a blank screen reading simply, Extinction
.
in the year 2020. It explores themes of terrorism
and racism
in an era where global communication and trust are paramount. The consequences of racist actions are reflected in the ending, where Paxton's racist distrust of the Arab Raja results in his suggestions being ignored, therefore causing the end of the world.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
for Syfy Channel, directed by Nick Lyon, written by Rafael Jordan, and starring Luke Goss
Luke Goss
Luke Damon Goss is an English singer and actor. Since 1994, he has been married to backing singer Shirley Lewis, , and has one stepdaughter, Carli. In January 2007, he and wife Shirley moved permanently to Los Angeles, but still maintain a residence in London...
, Marina Sirtis
Marina Sirtis
Marina Sirtis is a British-American actress of Greek descent. She played the role of the human/Betazoid Commander Deanna Troi, ship's counselor, on the television and film series Star Trek: The Next Generation.-Life:...
, and Colin Salmon
Colin Salmon
Colin Salmon is a British actor best known for playing the character Charles Robinson in three James Bond films.-Personal life:...
. It follows the attempts by an energy scientist to determine the causes of a deadly explosion at a particle collider and mitigate its aftereffects. It premiered on December 12, 2009.
The film's original working title was Doomsday.
Plot
The film opens as a team of scientists in the year 2020 wander through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with the team leader calling for help on a radio, until they come upon the ruins of a city.Forty-eight hours earlier, David Wyndham (Luke Goss
Luke Goss
Luke Damon Goss is an English singer and actor. Since 1994, he has been married to backing singer Shirley Lewis, , and has one stepdaughter, Carli. In January 2007, he and wife Shirley moved permanently to Los Angeles, but still maintain a residence in London...
), the same team leader, is informed by his UN superior, Paxton (Marina Sirtis
Marina Sirtis
Marina Sirtis is a British-American actress of Greek descent. She played the role of the human/Betazoid Commander Deanna Troi, ship's counselor, on the television and film series Star Trek: The Next Generation.-Life:...
) of a security breach involving another scientist on their project, David's friend and colleague Raja. Unauthorized access of the project's mainframe the night before was made using Raja's access codes. As a precaution he has been removed from the project; but David suspects a more sinister motive.
Paxton holds a press conference about their project, codenamed "EVE" (for Electromagnetic Vacuum Energy), which has provided most of Europe's energy for the past ten years beginning in 2010. The project utilizes three high-power particle colliders, located in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Barcelona, Spain, and Orleans, France. With the project's continuing success, Paxton is enthusiastic that the technology can be utilized worldwide. David, unhappily agreeing with Paxton's claims, confronts her afterward that she has no intention of sharing the technology with the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, which she verifies.
Outside the meeting hall David receives a mysterious phone call, then is approached by a reporter, whom he dismisses with a handshake. The reporter furtively copies David's fingerprint from his hand using a piece of tape and stores it in a case.
A countdown appears on the screen, reading "84 Hours to Extinction."
At home, David receives a visit from Raja (Colin Salmon
Colin Salmon
Colin Salmon is a British actor best known for playing the character Charles Robinson in three James Bond films.-Personal life:...
), who has already surmised that Paxton's plans for the technology. Raja believes he is a scapegoat for the security breach because he is the only Arab with level 5 project clearance. When David is rejects his claims, he angrily leaves.
That night, the "reporter" that accosted David dons a lab coat and fake ID to sneak into the Orleans facility. After using a recording of David saying his name and the copied fingerprint to gain access to the lab, he enters a series of codes into the computer. When he is confronted by another employee he uses a silenced dart gun to kill the man. A short time later, after the mysterious man has escaped, the plant explodes, destroying Orleans and a quarter of France including Paris, killing between 20,000,000-30,000,000 people.
As he tries to sort out what happened the next day, David meets with Raja again. Raja has been named the top suspect and is running from the police. He is also being watched by Paxton's men, which David learns from Paxton herself. She shows him photos of Raja apparently meeting with the mystery man, a known terrorist named Aziz Khaled. Though stunned by this revelation, David insists he be allowed to go to ground zero to investigate the explosion before judgments are made.
Later that night, Raja, pursued by both Paxton's men and the French police, attempts to board a train before being cornered in an underground station. A sudden earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
allows him to escape. Paxton, watching in her office, nearly cries when the worst hit area by the earthquake is the Middle East, specifically Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...
, where thousands have perished due to the quake. The next day, Raja calls David near the French-Spanish border, revealing that because the earthquake happened one day after the blast and hit where the EVE grid was absent. He deduces that someone has discovered the Doomsday Equation, which is a set of codes for each collider that, if used, could destroy the world.
David and his team travel to Orleans via helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
but they crash, killing the pilot. They find evidence that a Higgs field has formed, confirming Raja's suspicions. Meanwhile, Raja's electric car runs out of power at the border, leaving him helpless. A few hours later he is abducted by Khaled. David's team, meanwhile, attempts to escape France in a Humvee sent to rescue them only to be caught in a meteor shower
Meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller...
. To his horror the "meteors" are actually falling satellites, and his team barely escapes.
Khaled takes Raja to the Barcelona facility. After murdering all the workers and ordering his men to get as far away as possible, he tries to force Raja into giving him the site's Doomsday Equation, believing the meltdown will not cause the end of the world, but Raja steadfastly refuses. After returning to Geneva, David is taken to the facility, where his family is already sheltered. He concludes that the surviving colliders are feeding the magnetic field, and asks Paxton to order a full system shutdown.
After becoming tired of Raja's stubborn defiance, Khaled shoots him in the knee, but doesn't see him grabbing a pen. Raja stabs Khaled in the leg, stunning him. He then shoves the terrorist into the reactor's shaft and Khaled falls to his death. Raja returns to the computer and opens an instant message to Geneva, telling David his suspicions about the Doomsday Equation were right - and the only way to save the world is to increase the system's output and choke the field out of existence, otherwise it will expand into a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
. Still believing Raja is a terrorist, Paxton cuts the connection and a tearful and distraught David has no choice but to carry out the system shutdown, knowing that this action will only seal the doom of the entire planet and everyone and everything on it.
The system announces that the full shutdown will take twenty seconds. David joins his family at the window overlooking the reactor and solemnly assures his oblivious family that things will be okay now that he's fixed the problem.
As soon as the system shutdown is complete, the Geneva facility melts down in an explosion exponentially larger than the Orleans disaster. Everything and everyone, including David, his family, the facility's staff, and Paxton, within hundreds of miles of Geneva are incinerated in an instant. A view from outer space shows shock waves from the blast radiating throughout the Earth's surface, a large fissure forming in Europe and cracks forming around the globe. Finally, the Earth's core is breached, and the planet explodes violently. Nothing survives.
The film concludes with a shot of pieces of what was once Earth floating through space, followed by a blank screen reading simply, Extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
.
Setting
Annihilation Earth takes place in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in the year 2020. It explores themes of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
in an era where global communication and trust are paramount. The consequences of racist actions are reflected in the ending, where Paxton's racist distrust of the Arab Raja results in his suggestions being ignored, therefore causing the end of the world.
Errors and Plot Holes
The film contains many plot holes and errors. Among them:- Particle colliders, such as the Large Hadron ColliderLarge Hadron ColliderThe Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
, do not provide energy as depicted in the film. They merely smash particles together at high speeds, experiments which may one day lead to new energy sources. The "colliders" in the film are more akin to nuclear reactors, which is supported by the presence of mushroom clouds when they explode. - Likewise, Raja's apparent meeting with Khaled is not explained, as when he is kidnapped by the terrorists later in the film, he speaks as if he has never met Khaled.
- In one scene, Paxton tells an aide, "Get me the President." Though the events in the film happen in Europe, presumably meaning she'd be contacting the President of the European UnionPresident of the European UnionPresident of the European Union could be a reference to any of:* President of the European Council * President of the European Commission...
, the film was produced before that office existed, meaning that the filmmakers were guessing at its existence. - Raja consistently warns of a black hole forming if the expanding higgs field is not eradicated, but the world is destroyed by an explosion in the ending instead.
- After chase scene in railway station, Paxton pours herself a drink of scotch that shows carbonation in the bottle as she stops pouring her drink.
Cast
- Luke GossLuke GossLuke Damon Goss is an English singer and actor. Since 1994, he has been married to backing singer Shirley Lewis, , and has one stepdaughter, Carli. In January 2007, he and wife Shirley moved permanently to Los Angeles, but still maintain a residence in London...
... David Wyndham - Marina SirtisMarina SirtisMarina Sirtis is a British-American actress of Greek descent. She played the role of the human/Betazoid Commander Deanna Troi, ship's counselor, on the television and film series Star Trek: The Next Generation.-Life:...
... Paxton - Colin SalmonColin SalmonColin Salmon is a British actor best known for playing the character Charles Robinson in three James Bond films.-Personal life:...
... Raja Bashir - Xenia SeebergXenia SeebergXenia Seeberg is a German film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Xev Bellringer in the science fiction television series Lexx. She also debuted as a singer in 1996 on the EMI Electrola label with her maxi single "Heartbeat"...
... Muireann - Louise CliffeLouise CliffeLouise Cliffe is a British actress, singer, writer and model. Although much of her career has been in the UK, she started to appear in US productions as of 2009. She is best known for playing the role of Sophie James in the horror film Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead...
... Nya - Velislav Pavlov ... Aziz Khaled