The boy sees the plane in the sky and he thinks it is a sign of the bomb about to be dropped. My question is whether he is wrong or was this whole thing for real? It is said by the principla that it was a false alarm but if it was, why was the plane there at the end? Was that part of the idea of the paranoia?
shareI think he's still under the illusion that it WAS a nuclear attack, since neither nor any of the children in Mrs Andrew's group hadn't learned that it was a false alaram in fact Mrs Andrews only learned that it was a false alarm as the truck driver turned on the radio and music and regular programming was being played
shareI understand about the principal saying it was a false alarm but do you think that he may have been misinformed? I am trying to make sense of the planes at the end. Maybe not really bombers but other kinds of planes?
Could be wrong but did regular bombers fly through the sky that often? I don't see many doing that now.
I take it as a routine flyover and the kid misunderstood. He had already tried digging into the ground to hide and that didn't work, so he just began yelling.
I recall a neighbor watched The Birds and had me running back and forth across the road to 'escape' the birds perched on the power lines. I thought they were going to attack me.
Likewise, I was big into all the killer bee movies of the 70s, so when by chance I was playing outside and what we have always deduced must have been a locust swarm sent me racing to the house thinking it was killer bees.
I was told I was as white as a ghost.
The true ending is if it wasn't the bomb, given the time of the movie, the oldest boys will be old enough by 1969 to be drafted and shipped off to Vietnam.
shareThe true ending is if it wasn't the bomb, given the time of the movie, the oldest boys will be old enough by 1969 to be drafted and shipped off to Vietnam.Interesting post from 3 years ago.
Couldn't have been a bomb, if it was, none of us would be here to talk about it.
shareI don't see planes, just one trail of smoke, so I take the ending as depicting a rocket launch. The missile is going straight up. When I was a kid, we all knew there was a 'Nike' base outside of the city.
shareIt was a false alarm. The boy didn't know this, however, and mistook a passenger plane or a routine military flyover as a bomber attack. He was too freaked out at the time to rationally figure out that the plane was no threat.
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A learning experience is something that says, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."
I remember seeing this on UK television years ago. Whilst not having such a heavy impact on me as Threads and The Day After (I still have occasional nightmares of nuclear apocalypse), it certainly left an impression and I never forgot elements of it such as the plane overhead (with contrails?) and the refrigerator.
In fact, when I first saw 28 Days Later in the cinema, I wondered if Danny Boyle had got the idea of Jim seeing the aircraft toward the end of the film (signifying that there was life somewhere that wasn't subject to the Rage virus) from Ladybug Ladybug.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English wayshare
I don't know, I took it differently, that it was indeed a nuclear attack. The sounds were much too loud to be just a passenger jet, and there seemed to be more than 1 sound. I interpreted it as a double irony: a false alarm that ends up being true. The kid didn't just hear something. He saw something. My instant impression was that of a nuke attack
shareThe ending is intentionally ambiguous, but I’ve always interpreted it to be a false alarm, and SPOILERS that the girl at the end died as a result of a tragic misunderstanding of what was happening. If it were a true attack, her death would not have as much dramatic power-- since she’d die anyway in a few minutes from a nuclear attack. What Steve sees in the sky is a jet trail-- occasionally seen in those days as jets go on training missions. He’s probably seen them before. But coupled with his growing paranoia, this time he believes it’s an enemy jet. The loudened sound of the jet I suspect is meant by the director to indicate his increasing fear.
shareMy interpretation of the ending was that there really was a bomb. I love that they left that open to interpretation.
shareNo it was clear that it wasn't a bomber the teachers wee told it was a false alarm earlier in the movie.
Promo for my film about self-injury:
https://vimeo.com/140529647