History Film / TheTomorrowWar

** Dan accidentally cuts into a cable buried in his yard. In the end, [[spoiler:Dan and company cut into the aliens' spaceship, buried beneath the surface]].

* ImmuneToBullets: The Whitespikes, except for the specific weak points of their necks and bellies. Even then, it seems to take multiple shots to bring them down. Rounds landing anywhere else on their bodies, even right in their faces, only seem to annoy them.

* SoftWater: Dan and the survivors of his draft company fall into a recreational swimming pool from the height of about 100 stories above it and simply splashes in like he just jumped off the diving board.

* ShoutOut: To ''Film/{{Alien}}''. [[spoiler:In the final battle, Dan and co. discover the hibernating aliens -- possibly created as bioweapons -- being carried in a crashed ship with a dead pilot in a cold, wintery environment. Sound familiar?]]

** The Whitespikes are like ''{{[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Dungeons & Dragons]]}}''' [[https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Displacer_beast Displacer Beasts]] - with their 6 legs and 2 tentacles - on steroids. Compared to their tabletop counterparts, they are much more durable, faster and can [[spoiler: throw spikes from their tentacles]], but the basic structure is not so different. Fortunately, they do not possess the Beasts’ eponymous Displacement ability, but make up for it by being [[MadeOfIron exceedingly difficult to wound]], [[NighInvulnerability let alone kill]], even if a shot lands on them.

** The Whitespikes are like ''{{DungeonsAndDragons}}''' [[https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Displacer_beast Displacer Beasts]] - with their 6 legs and 2 tentacles - on steroids. Compared to their tabletop counterparts, they are much more durable, faster and can [[spoiler: throw spikes from their tentacles]], but the basic structure is not so different. Fortunately, they do not possess the Beasts’ eponymous Displacement ability, but make up for it by being [[MadeOfIron exceedingly difficult to wound]], [[NighInvulnerability let alone kill]], even if a shot lands on them.

** The Whitespikes are essentially ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' [[spoiler: Displaces Beasts - with 6 legs and 2 tentacles]], on steroids , compared to the tabletop counterparts they are much more durable, faster and can [[spoiler: throw spikes from the tentacles, but the basic structure is not so different]].

** The Whitespikes are essentially ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' [[spoiler: Displaces Beasts - with 6 legs and 2 tentacles]] on steroids , compared to the tabletop counterparts they are much more durable, faster and can [[spoiler: throw spikes from the tentacles, but the basic structure is not so different]].

* ZergRush: The only tactic of the Whitespikes. Given their numbers, speed, and combat ability, it's plenty effective-- everything the humans throw at them in the battles we see only slows them down a little bit from whatever target they're swarming at or chasing after.

* ShoutOut: To ''Film/{{Alien}}''. [[spoiler:In the final battle, Dan and co. discover the encased Whitespike being carried in a crashed ship with a dead pilot in a cold, wintery environment. Sound familiar?]]
* YouAreAlreadyDead: {{Exaggerated|Trope}} with the various conscripts-- not only are they practically guaranteed to die due to the power and ferocity of the Whitespikes, but everyone sent into the future is revealed to have died before the aliens arrived in the original timeline, so that no temporal paradoxes are caused if they die.

* ZergRush: The only tactic of the Whitespikes. Given their numbers, speed, and combat ability, it's plenty effective-- everything the humans throw at them in the battles we see only slows them down a little bit from whatever target they're swarming at or chasing after.

** The kid in Dan's class who's obsessed with ancient volcanoes, who is able to determine that [[spoiler:the Whitespikes had to do with the Millennium Eruption that happened near China and Korea, and through the melting ice caps, they were shifted to remote northern Russia.]]
* ChekhovsGun:
** Dorian's souvenir spike [[spoiler:ends up revealing where the aliens were hiding in the present day]].
** Charlie is shown to have trouble loading his weapon before the Jump. Sure enough, it jams up during the final battle. [[spoiler:Charlie decides to use a simpler weapon instead, [[LudicrousGibs to great effect]]]].

** The Secretary of State, when Dan goes to him with [[spoiler:the theory that the Whitespikes are already on Earth in 2022, buried in a glacier in northern Russia.]] The Secretary argues that they don't know if it will work and the US can't send a mission into Russian territory, but given that the prevailing belief at this point is that [[spoiler:the Future War will inevitably be lost and humanity itself is doomed]], there is really no excuse at all not to at least give it a chance. At the minimum, one would think the information would be shared with the Russians so that they could act on it, given that the entire world apparently had no trouble uniting to draft its citizens into the Future War.

* AllForNothing: The toxin Muri develops to kill all the Whitespikes. The key to defeating them turns out to be [[spoiler:finding the alien spacecraft housing them in a glacier back in 2021, where they've been frozen since crashing-landing in medieval times, then killing them all there before they have a chance to escape the ship and begin reproducing. This is mostly accomplished by blowing up the ship with C4 rather than using the poison.]] Muri's mission to capture the female Whitespike and the subsequent [[spoiler:destruction of Deepswell-9 that it causes when the Whitespikes retaliate]] is all done to develop a weapon that is only ever used to kill a few of the aliens, in circumstances where conventional weapons easily could've done the job anyways.

* AnAsskickingChristmas: The story begins around Christmas time and is implied to also end around Christmas time about a year later due to Christmas decorations still being up when Dan returns home.

** In about thirty years into the future, the Earth has been invaded by alien creatures that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and by the time the survivors have constructed a method of time-traveling, the world's population is below 500,000. [[spoiler:Then their only safe haven is overrun and their Jumplink is destroyed, leaving their only hope in Dan and the toxin that he and Muri were able to find at the last second.]]

** Dorian's souveneir spike [[spoiler:ends up revealing where the aliens were hiding in the present day]].

* CowardlyLion: Charlie, who reveals he hid for a large chunk of his tour after his first mission. [[spoiler:He ends up killing a Whitespike by ''ramming a circular saw in its face'']].

* HollywoodAcid: The toxin Muri develops seems to function more like this than a poison, causing the Whitespikes' body to melt away progressively starting from the point of injection.

** Dan himself and his team when they decide to [[spoiler:go to Russia on their own, since the government refuses to act.]] Rather than sharing their information with other governments or just posting it on the Internet, they go by themselves simply hoping that [[spoiler:the cases of Muri's toxin]] will be enough to get the job done. Sure enough, they turn out to be under-equipped for what they encounter, [[spoiler:getting several of them killed and very nearly allowing the Whitespikes to escape into the wild 30 years ahead of schedule.]]

* ImmuneToBullets: The Whitespikes, except for the specific weak points of their necks and bellies. Even then it seems to take multiple shots to bring them down. Rounds landing anywhere else on their bodies, even right in their faces, only seem to annoy them.
* JustBeforeTheEnd: Mankind has been reduced to a population of ''500,000'' by the time Dan heads into the future, and it's very clear that humanity is a hairsbreath away from extinction. [[spoiler:Future!Muri reveals that the forces from the future don't even have the ability to mass produce the toxin that can kill the Whitespikes, so their plan is to send the toxin back to the present and mass produce it so that the aliens can be killed ''before'' they wipe out mankind]].

* MilitariesAreUseless: The head of the Department of Defense refuses to do anything when [[spoiler:Dan and co. try to explain to him that they know a way they could prevent the BadFuture]], citing that he doesn't want to waste money and time on something they're not sure about, forcing them to do it themselves. At the end, [[spoiler:in a news interview, [[BlatantLies he claims credit]] for Dan and co.'s success, gave it the go immediately, and says he would do it again if he had to.]]
* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: The female Whitespike is larger, stronger, more aggressive, and more durable than the male, and it's implied they might be capable of asexual reproduction [[spoiler:not that the cast is going to take that chance.]]

* SanDimasTime: In a brief InfoDump, it's explained that time is always moving forward, but that humanity figured out how to establish a somewhat stable connection between the present and a point thirty years in the future. Humans and materials can only go back and forth between the two points and that the points move forward in time at the same rate, so no one can jump to some time before the Whitespikes arrived to preemptively stop the war.

* YouAreAlreadyDead: {{Exaggerated|Trope}} with the various conscripts - not only are conscripts practically guranteed to die due to the power and ferocity of the White Spikes, but everyone sent into the future is revealed to have died before the aliens arrived in the original timeline, so that no temporal paradoxes are caused if they die.

** In the future, [[spoiler:Dan will also leave his family and cease contact with Muri]].
* ZergRush: The only tactic of the Whitespikes. Given their numbers, speed, and combat ability, it's plenty effective--everything the humans throw at them in the battles we see only slows them down a little bit from whatever target they're swarming at or chasing after.

* AllForNothing: The toxin Muri develops to kill all the Whitespikes. The key to defeating them turns out to be [[spoiler:Finding the alien spacecraft housing them in a glacier back in 2021, where they've been frozen since crashing-landing in medieval times, then killing them all there before they have a chance to escape the ship and begin reproducing. This is mostly accomplished by blowing up the ship with C4 rather than using the poison.]] Muri's mission to capture the female Whitespike and the subsequent [[spoiler:Destruction of Deepswell-9 that it causes when the Whitespikes retaliate]] is all done to develop a weapon that is only ever used to kill a few of the aliens, in circumstances where conventional weapons easily could've done the job anyways.

** In the future, [[spoiler:Dan will also leave his family and cease contact with Muri]].

** In about thirty decades into the future, the Earth has been invaded by alien creatures that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and by the time the survivors have constructed a method of time-traveling, the world's population is below 500,000. [[spoiler:Then their only safe haven is overrun and their Jumplink is destroyed, leaving their only hope in Dan and the antitoxin that he and Muri were able to find at the last second.]]

* RasputinianDeath: [[spoiler:Due to her insane durability, the final surviving Whitespike is, in order, [[MoreDakka shot to hell]], [[AnArmAndALeg has her arm cut off]] (''of her own volition'' to avoid being poisoned), [[EyeScream stabbed through both eyes]], [[DeathOfAThousandCuts hacked up several times with both a knife and another Whitespike's severed claw]], before finally having the last remaining poison shoved down her throat, after which she falls quite a distance and is ''vaporized'' by the final impact]].

* CowardlyLion: Charlie, who reveals he hid for a large chunk of his tour after his first mission.

* MilitariesAreUseless: The head of the Department of Defense refuses to do anything when [[spoiler:Dan and co. try to explain to him that they know a way they could prevent the BadFuture]], citing that he doesn't want to waste money and time on something they're not sure about, forcing them to do it themselves. At the end, [[spoiler:in a news interview, [[BlatantLies he claims credit]] for Dan and co.'s success, gave it the go immediately, and says he would do it again if he had to.]]

* MilitariesAreUseless: The head of the Department of Defense refuses to do anything when [[spoiler:Dan and co. try to explain to him that they know a way they could prevent the BadFuture]], citing that he doesn't want to waste money and time on something they're not sure about. At the end, [[spoiler:in a news interview, [[BlatantLies he claims credit]] for Dan and co.'s success, gave it the go immediately, and says he would do it again if he had to.]]