In After Earth, Kitai needs to leave the safe air of the spacecraft and go out where the air is harmful, so he grabs some containers of breathing liquid. The weird thing is he grabs the bare minimum - what he'd need in a best case scenario. The ship and/or fallen soldiers surely had some spare ones, so why only bring like six?
3
-
1Because he's a schmuck– ValorumCommented Jan 17, 2017 at 11:16
-
@Valorum - do we have a "schmuck counter" or list somewhere? Or is this like Hitchhiker's Guide, with the alien insulting everyone in the universe alphabetically?– RadhilCommented Jan 17, 2017 at 15:07
-
@Radhil - I point it out where I see it.– ValorumCommented Jan 17, 2017 at 15:35
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
In what laughably passes for the film's script, the air canisters were from an emergency landing kit. As there was only one emergency kit, there were only six vials.
[Kitai pulls his attention from the map. Cypher has opened a small black medical case marked: UNIVERSAL AIR FILTRATION GEL - EMERGENCY USE ONLY. Inside, six vials are lined up.]
CYPHER: You have air filtration inhalers.
[Cypher removes one of the vials.]
CYPHER: You need to take one now. The fluid will coat your lungs, increase your oxygen extraction, and allow you to breathe comfortably in the atmosphere.
Please note that this script was leaked as part of the 2011 'Sony Pictures hack'. Downloading the link above may be inadvisable in your country of origin.
In the movie we see that all the other passengers, and even the pilot and co-pilot are dead with everything else in rubble. Although the movie never states that there are only 6 containers of breathing fluid, one can imagine that the others broke in the crash.
The out-of-universe answer is, of course, that it makes for a more intense plot if he has a limited supply.
-
"The oou answer.." What language (& meaning) is 'oou'? Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 13:19
-
2