History Film / TheQuietEarth

* TokenMinority: Considering the film's premise, Api may well be the only Maori (or non-white person ''period'', for that matter) left in the world.

* InNameOnly: As mentioned in the description, the film has very little to do with the book it is based on. For starters, the book [[spoiler: implies that the protagonist is trapped in an eternal loop as punishment after he let his son drown, which he states as being his "external suicide". He will always wake up at 6:12 in his apartment, live for three weeks, then commit suicide, which will restart the cycle.]] The film acts as if [[spoiler: everything is real and Zac, Joanne, and Api are really the only humans left on Earth.]]

* BookEnds: The film begins with a slow shot of a sunrise. The film ends with, well, [[spoiler: a planetrise - yeah, that enormous ringed world on the cover finally makes its appearance in the film's closing shot.]]

''The Quiet Earth'' was a film created in UsefulNotes/NewZealand and directed by Geoff Murphy, starring Bruno Lawrence as a scientist who awakens in a hotel room to find himself [[LastOfHisKind the last man on Earth.]] The film was originally [[FilmOfTheBook based on a novel]] by Craig Harrison, but bears very little resemblance to the novel's plot. While the film was marketed as a film about the last man in the world, [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the trailers did a good job of spoiling that particular plot point.]]

''The Quiet Earth'' was a film created in UsefulNotes/NewZealand and directed by Geoff Murphy, starring Bruno Lawrence as a scientist who awakens in a hotel room to find himself [[LastOfHisKind the last man on Earth.]] The film was originally based on a novel by Craig Harrison, but bears very little resemblance to the novel's plot. While the film was marketed as a film about the last man in the world, [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the trailers did a good job of spoiling that particular plot point.]]

--> "Zac Hobson, July 5th. One: there has been a malfunction in Project Flashlight with devastating results. Two: it seems I am the only person left on Earth."

''The Quiet Earth'' was a film created in New Zealand and directed by Geoff Murphy, starring Bruno Lawrence as a scientist who awakens in a hotel room to find himself [[LastOfHisKind the last man on Earth.]] The film was originally based on a novel by Craig Harrison, but bears very little resemblance to the novel's plot. While the film was marketed as a film about the last man in the world, [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the trailers did a good job of spoiling that particular plot point.]]

!!The film contains examples of the following tropes:

--> Zac: I've been condemned to live.

* PlayingAgainstType: Bruno Lawrence was known for playing working-class roughs; he does a good job as a quiet, introverted, tormented scientist, but it isn't a role he would've been expected to play.

* TheLastManHeardAKnock

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Zac.

* TitleDrop: during Zac's crazed speech at the cutouts of political figures.

* LoveTriangle: Between Api, Joanne and Zac.

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Zac

* TokenMinority: Considering the film's premise, Api may well be the only Maori left in the world.

* MinimalistCast: The credits list a whopping nine actors for the entire movie. Six of those only appear in brief flashbacks or recordings.

* AlienSky. The final shot (see the trope page).

* GoodTimesMontage: Zac gets one early on, as he enjoys all of the pleasures that the empty world has to offer, including playing with both train sets and ''real trains'' and driving a new car through a shopping mall, and decorating a mansion with as many pieces of fine and expensive art that he can find. [[ItGotWorse It gets worse]], though, as the emptiness of it all [[spoiler: and his own guilt over causing it]] starts getting to him.

* GainaxEnding: See AlienSky. Beautiful shot, but what the hell's going on? What happened to the other two characters?

* AlienSky

* GainaxEnding: [[spoiler: Zac wakes up on a beach with mushroom-like clouds rising from the sea and a ringed planet rising in the sky]]. Beautiful shot, but what the hell's going on? What happened to the other two characters?