History Headscratchers / NightOfTheComet

** If it was deep winter for the majority of land masses when the Earth previously encountered the comet, many animals could have been hibernating in burrows, making their metabolic rates too slow to absorb significant radiation.

** There is a huge "empty" section in the geologic fossil table, and it's rich in Iradium 80, an element not native to Earth.

** FridgeBrilliance: They're not throwing away the guns at all, they're ''hiding'' them in a place where it would be counter-intuitive for hostile survivors to look for them. If they're confident that the zombies have all finished disintegrating by now, and don't feel the need to haul heavy weaponry around any longer, then putting the guns in a place where they'll remain undisturbed and are sheltered from the elements isn't a bad plan.

** Being underground apparently ''would'' have sufficed to shield the think tank, had they not left their ventilation fans on. Possibly there were burrowing animals that survived because they were under the soil with no air flow in their tunnels, or at least their eggs were buried.

** It feeds into the idea of "the burden of civilization resting on their shoulders". They don't cross against the light, and so they also don't litter. But the idea of throwing away the guns is stupid anyways. Even if there's no more zombies, that's not to say that any survivors they meet after this are good people.

** I think it had to do with "direct exposure" to both the comet and it's radiation. If you were in an area that wasn't exposed to the outside you were okay. But if you were outside or had a window open, you were exposed. It looks like the people who were outside got the highest exposure and were turned into carbon-dust, while anyone with minimal exposure [[spoiler: like the think-tank scientists]] decomposed at a much slower rate. And I think it was said that the "haze" for the most part was the carbon-dust of the people living in Los Angeles and not actual radiation. When it started raining and the carbon-dust was washed away, the red haze went away too.

** We don't know how early in the night people started disintegrating or roaming around eating people, either. He may well have ''heard'' some of the zombies snarling and chasing victims near his truck in the pre-dawn hours, and set out to find shelter as soon as the coast was clear and there was enough light to see by.

* If the comet did indeed wipe out the dinosaurs, how come anything at all survived to evolve into modern lifeforms? It's not like there was an abundance of metal-lined structures to hide in back then.

** Because the focus of the movie is on the teenagers?

* Why aren't there a lot more survivors around? If all it takes to shield someone is a thin metal box, like the garden shed Sam slept in, you'd think there'd be thousands of people who happened to be sheltered in the same way, in a city as big as L.A. Anyone working the night shift in a building with metal walls, for example, or squatters living out of metal cargo containers.

* Why aren't there a lot more survivors around? If all it takes to shield someone is a thin metal box, like the garden shed Sam slept in, you'd think there'd be thousands of people who happened to be sheltered in the same way, in a city as big as L.A. Anyone working the night shift in a building with metal walls, for example.

* Why aren't there a lot more survivors around? If all it takes to shield someone is a thin metal box, like the garden shed Sam slept in, you'd think there'd be thousands of people who happened to be sheltered in the same way, in a city as big as L.A. Anyone working the night shift in underground facilities or basements or sewers or parking garages, for example.

** I think it had to do with "direct exposure" to both the comet and it's radiation. If you were in an area that wasn't exposed to the outside you were okay. But if you were outside or had a window open, you were exposed. It looks like the people who were outside got the highest exposure and were turned into carbon-dust, while anyone with minimal exposure [[spoiler: like the think-tank scientists]] decomposed at a much slower rate. And I think it was said that the "haze" for the most part was the carbon-dust of the people living in Los Angeles and not actual radiation. When it started raining and the carbon-dust was washed away, the red haze went away too.

** It ''really'' depends on the type of energy supplying the power. If the city is run on coal nuclear power then the power would go down rather quickly. Oil or hydroelectric energy could sustain a city for several months without anyone running them. And if it's solar-powered, then the power could stay on virtually forever.

** It feeds into the idea of "the burden of civilization resting on their shoulders". They don't cross against the light, and so they also don't litter.

* Why aren't the kids in danger from the disease? Isn't the haze in the air going to do anything?

** In their defense, the movie only takes place over the course of ''maybe'' three days. There's a chance that the power goes down shortly after the credits roll.

* Throwing the guns away in a city garbage can when no one is collecting trash anymore is ''really'' stupid.