The Edge Of Tomorrow Ending Makes More Sense Now
Tom Cruise lives, dies, and repeats in the sci-fi war film "Edge of Tomorrow" — but once the dust has settled, the final moments are a bit confusing. This is what really goes down at the end of the 2014 time loop thriller.
Transcript
00:00 Tom Cruise lives, dies, and repeats in the sci-fi war film Edge of Tomorrow, but once
00:06 the dust has settled, the final moments are a bit confusing.
00:09 This is what really goes down at the end of the 2014 Time Loop thriller.
00:14 Audiences have seen Tom Cruise risk life and limb for his movies time and time again, whether
00:18 he's climbing the tallest building in the world or battling G-forces in a military jet.
00:23 But as unkillable as Cruise seems to be in real life, he's got nothing on his character
00:27 from Edge of Tomorrow.
00:29 Written by Doug Liman, this loose adaptation of the Japanese novel All You Need is Kill
00:33 takes place in an alternate 2020 that's somehow worse than the actual one.
00:38 An army of aliens known as Mimics have crash-landed in Germany and quickly conquered much of Europe.
00:43 Cruise stars as Major William Cage, a selfish PR officer with no real combat experience
00:48 who's demoted and forced to participate in an invasion against the Mimics.
00:52 When he gets covered in the blood of an unusually large Mimic and killed, that should be lights
00:57 out for Cage, but instead, he wakes up at the beginning of the day.
01:01 Confounded about the time loop he's become stuck in, Cage gets some clarity from Sergeant
01:04 Rita Vrtasky, a war hero who was formerly stuck in her own Mimic-induced time loop.
01:10 "What day is it?"
01:13 "For you?
01:15 Judgment Day."
01:19 For the most part, Edge of Tomorrow is pretty consistent in the way it lays out the story's
01:22 rules for time travel — at least until you get to the movie's somewhat baffling ending.
01:27 As Cage soon learns, the larger Mimics are known as Alphas and exist as part of a superorganism
01:32 controlled by the Omega.
01:34 The Omega resets the day whenever an Alpha is killed in combat, allowing the Mimics to
01:38 keep refighting the same battle until they win.
01:41 Rita, like Cage, discovered this after being exposed to an Alpha's blood, allowing her
01:46 to tap into the Omega's power until she got a blood transfusion.
01:50 Edge of Edge of Tomorrow consists of repeated scenes of Cage training at the military base
01:54 and trying to find the Omega with Rita.
01:56 This means that he has to die over and over again, giving him the chance to learn from
02:00 his mistakes, like he's stuck on a tough level in a video game.
02:04 Along the way, Cage grows more selfless and empathetic, a lot like Bill Murray's uncaring
02:08 weatherman Phil Connors did in the classic time loop comedy Groundhog Day.
02:13 Eventually, Cage and Rita do locate the Omega, only for Cage to lose his time travel abilities
02:18 after he suffers a severe injury and receives a life-saving blood transfusion before he can
02:22 reset the day.
02:24 As such, Cage seems to die permanently while sacrificing his life to kill the Omega before
02:28 unexpectedly making contact with the creature's blood, sending him back not one, but two days.
02:34 In this new reality, Cage was never demoted, and humanity is winning the war against the
02:38 Mimics.
02:39 While critics and audiences mostly liked Edge of Tomorrow when it first came out, its ending
02:43 left many perplexed, especially how it seems to break its own rules about time loops.
02:48 As co-writer Christopher McQuarrie explained, the original plan was to end the movie on
02:52 a darker note, but as the film evolved and began to play up the comedy of Cage getting
02:56 killed time and time again, those plans had to change with it.
03:00 As he noted to Film School Rejects,
03:02 "We really struggled to deliver what the movie needed to be emotionally.
03:05 I know the ending was somewhat controversial with some people who didn't like it, but I
03:09 think the only way to make those people happy would be to end the movie in a way that wasn't
03:13 happy.
03:14 We weren't interested in doing that.
03:16 It needed to end in a way that wasn't harsh."
03:18 Shaky logic aside, the ending is a satisfying conclusion to Cage's character arc.
03:23 At the start of Edge of Tomorrow, Cruise's character hasn't actually done much to earn
03:27 respect, but as Soldier snapped to attention in the movie's last scene, it feels like he
03:31 actually deserves it.
03:33 What's more, Cage is so happy to see Rita alive that he doesn't care that she no longer
03:37 remembers him or his actions.
03:39 After his many, many deaths, he's more concerned about people beyond himself and less fixated
03:44 on personal glory.
03:46 Interestingly enough, McQuarrie has said that Edge of Tomorrow 2 will clear up all the questions
03:50 about the first movie's ending, if it ever happens.
03:53 The sequel has been in the pipeline since 2015, based on an idea that Cruise pitched
03:57 to McQuarrie.
03:58 Several rewrites later, the script is now apparently done, with Cruise, Blunt, and Lyman
04:02 all ready to return as soon as Warner Bros. gives the green light.
04:06 Therein lies the problem.
04:08 Edge of Tomorrow grossed $370.5 million at the box office against a $178 million budget
04:14 — enough to make it profitable, but nowhere near enough to guarantee a sequel.
04:18 It doesn't help that Cruise and McQuarrie are still buried deep in the world of Mission
04:22 Impossible, not to mention the fact that Cruise and Lyman are apparently planning to shoot
04:26 a movie in outer space at some point.
04:28 Emily Blunt has admitted that scheduling is a big reason Edge of Tomorrow 2 keeps getting
04:32 postponed.
04:33 The other factor, obviously, is the budget.
04:36 It's not likely we'll see a sequel in theaters any time soon.
04:39 And unless everyone involved agrees to take a hefty pay cut, the odds are against Warner
04:43 Bros.' greenlighting Edge of Tomorrow 2 as a max-exclusive.
04:47 For now, the story of William Cage, Rita Vrtasky, and the Mimic invasion seems to have come
04:51 to an end.
04:52 "What do we do now?"
04:53 "I don't know.
04:54 We've never gotten this far."
04:57 "I don't know."
04:58 "I don't know."
04:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]