65 (2023) Movie Ending Explained: Mediocrity is annoying. And surprisingly, mediocrity in cinema is often found built on exciting plots. It is almost like a writer comes across a great idea, and the urge to render the idea a definitive form leads to a mundane manifestation, suggesting that the greatness of the idea is only theoretical. This happens only when the idea is not well-formed and when a number of factors have not been considered that contribute to the inefficient fruition of the idea. 65 (2023) suffers from this problem itself.
The idea of a human-like species existing as aliens prior to the arrival of humanity on Earth during the Cretaceous period and one of them getting stranded on Earth right before the day dinosaurs go extinct is intriguing. It provides the opportunity for an action film that looks like the lovechild of Jurassic Park and Predator.
However, 65 has no intensity in the threat it offers to its protagonist and no thrill in the progression of events. Because the end goal is well defined and given the nature of the film, all challenges are faux, and as an audience, we are completely assured that the protagonists will succeed in their motives. In such scenarios, you get immediately detached from the people occupying your screen. You view them from a distance and fail to become intimate with their crisis.
65 (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis
Mills is an interstellar pilot from a distant planet called Somaris who has been offered a two years long mission. Despite being unwilling to take it, for it means a departure from his family, he agrees because he needs money for his daughter’s treatment suffering from an unnamed but life-threatening illness. Not many details are revealed about the planet Somaris, but it can be inferred that the civilization is Type III with the ability to engage in interstellar travel. The nature of Mills’ mission is not elaborated on either.
All we know is that he has been tasked to pilot a ship carrying a number of passengers in cryostasis. On his route, the spaceship is hit by an uncharted rogue mass of asteroid belt, leading it to crash land on a nearby unknown planet, which is revealed to the audience as Earth. Dinosaurs inhabit the Earth in what looks like to be the Cretaceous period. The crash landing divided the spaceship into halves, each of them falling at a distance of 15 kilometers from the other.
The passengers, who were in cryostasis, get killed in the crash, except a nine-year-old named Koa. Mills initially plans to end his life, thinking of himself as the lone survivor but is prevented from committing suicide by the memories of his daughter. As he becomes aware of another survivor, he feels driven by the urge to fly safely back to where they came from. It is later revealed to us that Mills lost his daughter while he was on the mission.
It can be safely assumed that he feels guilty about not being able to save his daughter, which drives him to save Koa. However, an escape pod is on the other half of the spaceship that requires Mills and Koa to walk their way, braving the unpredictable challenges the planet poses to them. Earth is inhabited by carnivorous lizards wanting to rip the flesh out of our protagonists. In the dearth of resources and information, the protagonists aren’t aware of what lies before them. But the dangers are imminent, evident from the numerous clues spread across their path.
Koa is said to belong to the upper territories in Planet Somaris, and therefore, she speaks a different language. The crash destroyed Mills’ translator, due to which there exists a language barrier between him and Koa. In any case, the protagonists have to communicate and make the situation conducive to their survival. To convince Koa of the journey to the escape pod, Mills lies that her parents are on the other end at the top of the mountain, and they must go to them.
Soon enough, Koa and Mills notice a shiny celestial body in the Earth’s sky. Mills’ device reads the celestial body to be a massive asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The collision is inevitable, and the danger level is apocalyptic. As an audience, we can correctly deduce that this is the asteroid that hit the Earth to cause the extinction of dinosaurs.
Mills and Koa have been put into a race against time because even if they survive in the wild that is full of predatory dinosaurs, they will be consumed in the catastrophic collision due in twelve hours from the time Mills becomes aware of the same. They have to escape the planet before the arrival of the asteroid into its atmosphere, winning against the different dinosaurs mistaking them for easy prey.
What is the meaning of 65 (2023)?
The film is set in the Cretaceous period, which defines the geological period between 145 million to 66 million years ago. In the year that was 65 million years ago, an apocalyptic event threatened all life on Earth. An asteroid is on a collision course with the planet that will cause the life on the planet to go extinct until it blossoms again. It was only because dinosaurs went extinct that humanity could prosper on Earth. The title is borrowed from the label to define the time the film is set in, causing the evocation of the complete title “65 million years ago.”
65 (2023) Movie Ending, Explained: Does Mills die in the end?
It is quite a common trope to allow your protagonist to engage in sacrificial play. Mills can be visibly seen ensuring Koa’s departure from the planet, even if it comes at the cost of his life. In the final moments of the film, when both the people have reached the escape pod, they get attacked by a couple of Tyrannosaurus-Rex. While Koa deviates the attention of one of the Rexes using a holographic projection of Mills’ daughter, Mills manages to shoot and kill it. The other Rex observes and learns and directly attacks the pod in which Koa is sitting.
Mills, driven by rage, shoots the other Rex to its death. Just when they breathe a sigh of relief, a third T-Rex enters the scene. This also happens to be the main antagonist of the film, as it had previously attacked the duo and was injured by Mills. Mills finds himself in an inescapable situation and asks Koa to launch the pod and leave in a classic example of sacrificial play. He provokes the T-Rex into chasing him and leads him away from Koa to a field of erupting hot springs in a bet to expose the dinosaur to one of the eruptions and burn it to death.
The beast manages to live through one of the eruptions and progresses to kill Mills but is stabbed by Koa with one of the bones laden with poisonous fruit pulp, something she had collected and prepared during their journey. After getting rescued by Koa, they both manage to leave planet Earth. The scene is followed by the asteroid falling on the surface of the Earth, leading to a massive explosion that presumably causes the extinction of dinosaurs.
What happens after 65 (2023)?
One might wonder at the beginning of the film about the uncharted character of the residual asteroid belt that hit the spaceship. It occurred to me how the planners of an interstellar mission could not accommodate the presence of this residual belt full of rocks. Moreover, Earth was not known to the system. But with the larger picture exposed, it is revealed that the residual asteroid belt with which the spaceship collided was a huge asteroid moving toward Earth along with its satellite rocks.
This asteroid is the one that caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which led to an immediate mass extinction of three-fourths of animal and plant species in the world. The film exists on the very edge of a fateful time in Earth’s history, after which the geological era changed from Mesozoic to Cenozoic, the latter of which is the current era. As the credits roll, we see a still image of post-apocalyptic Earth transforming with time. After the collision with the asteroid, the field burns, followed by an impact winter. The landscape changes to show a human settlement marking the arrival of humanity, which further changes into a developed city.
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