Twist Monster and Unanswered Questions

Includes SPOILERS for Rise (2024).

The world is in danger from the Reapers in new dystopian thriller Elevationand there is a lot to understand about monsters. Anthony Mackie and Morena Baccarin lead the Elevation cast as Will and Nina, a duo who leave the safety of their community to gather equipment that could save Will’s son’s life. At the beginning of the film, It has been three years since the initial apocalypse occurred, and Nina has spent her days formulating a plan to defeat the Reapers.that forced humanity into small communities at high altitudes in the Rocky Mountains.

On their journey, Nina convinces Will to travel with her to her laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where she plans to complete a chemical mixture that could hypothetically kill a Reaper. She tests the mixture several times without success, but eventually manages to destroy a Reaper that attacks her in her laboratory. Put Elevation in the end, Nina shows the human communities living on the mountain peaks how the Reapers can be killed, creating hope for a new future.

Reapers are machines programmed to kill humans

Reapers are not natural creatures, they are engineered

Only when Nina kills the first Reaper does she confirm her long-held theory: Reapers are not natural life forms. She has observed for years that as the Reapers swept the world, mass murdering the human population, other species, like horses, began to overpopulate. The Reapers are not killing animals and are not eating the humans they kill, so she determines that they are not natural predators. but instead, something else. The film’s ending confirms that the Reapers are machines explicitly programmed to kill humans.

This idea raises numerous questions for Elevation to potentially respond in a sequence. If the Reapers are mechanical, that means they can be engineered by humans. But the technology shown in the world doesn’t seem to be futuristic, so it would be bizarre if there were man-made killing machines that were nearly impossible to kill. The other possibility is that they were built and programmed by aliens on another planet, but that would drastically alter the scope of the mission. Elevation story in a way that would reduce the human component of it.

Elevation doesn’t explain where the Reapers come from

Elevation leaves the origins of its monsters ambiguous

Elevation the ending leaves mysteries ambiguous about the origin of the Reapers. The first wave supposedly came from underground, but Elevation the post-credits scene suggests there may be another new wave coming from the sky now that the first batch has been resolved. The mystery of where these monsters come from seems quite important to the story Elevation is trying to count. The first film was a relatively grounded post-apocalyptic story centered on its characters and the human reaction to such a dire situation, but Reapers’ engineering changes the framing.

When talking about the film’s themes (via Nerd Reactor), director George Nolfi said: “Our greatest gift as human beings is our rationality, and yet that rationality, particularly collectively, when we use it together, creates nuclear weapons and climate change and AI and all sorts of things that can threaten us..​​​​​”Although Nolfi seems to purposely leave the idea ambiguous, the quote could suggest that the Reapers are a man-made force of accidental self-destruction. Perhaps they were an invention gone wrong and that human engineers lost the control of.

Reapers can be killed by triggering an electrical pulse

Cobalt-tipped bullets cause Reapers to implode

Bullets and grenade launchers don’t even seem to bother the Reapers, and the only explosion that actually seems to do any damage is Will detonating O2 tanks at the hospital in Boulder. Realizing that killing the monsters will require a different strategy, Nina hypothesizes that combining chemicals and coating her bullets will trigger an electrical pulse upon contact with the Reapers.but she struggles to get the formula right.

Nina reveals her story while in her lab with Will, explaining that on the day the Reapers arrived, she was there testing the effects of cobalt to increase battery power. After several rounds of failed testing, Nina realizes that cobalt is the keyand she coats her final test bullet, allowing her to kill the next Reaper that attacks her. As she predicted, the chemically coated bullets cause the Reapers to implode. Humans begin to replicate the formula with cobalt, allowing them to finally fight the monsters.

The Reapers came from underground

The Reapers initially appeared below the surface

The first wave of Reapers supposedly came from underground, though it’s unclear how they got there. This adds an element of fear to the scenes in the mines, as the Reapers are designed with superior subterranean senses. It is important to highlight that also contrasts the arriving meteors in the post-credits scene if it is assumed that a new threat is coming from the sky. The underground Reapers have forced human communities to migrate to higher altitudes, so if new Reapers come from the sky, it could imply that they will push human communities underground.

Given that the title of the film is Elevationaltitude is obviously part of the trick. The Rocky Mountain peaks to which human communities are forced are compared to the prisons in the film. This creates an interesting duality, as normally a mountain peak is a location that humanity would find quite liberating due to the open air and expansive views. If Elevation has a sequel, it would be fascinating to expand on these ideas.

Reapers cannot exceed 8,000 feet in altitude

Reapers have a maximum altitude encoded into them

The number of 8,000 feet seems quite arbitrary to both the film’s characters and the audience, and leaves it ambiguous as to why this number is so important. Given how the Reapers were designed, it appears 8,000 feet is part of their lineupand this adds some context to why they would have such a specific cutoff point. However, it still doesn’t explain why this number was chosen or what exactly it means for the broader story of the work.

8,000 feet could just be an arbitrary number chosen for the film’s gimmick, or it could be a value assigned as a test for humanity. Elevation, At its core, it appears to be a story about humanity’s ability to react and adapt in the face of an existential threat. Will and Nina can only overcome the Reapers when they experience moments of self-realization, and as soon as the first Reapers are defeated, a new threat arrives from the sky. The film could represent a series of tests for its humans, but for now it’s all speculation.

Sources: Nerd Reactor