After Earth is a sci-fi action film directed by M. Night Shyamalan about a father and son who get stranded on a post-apocalyptic Earth when their ship crashes. The film’s official website has gone live with a lot of great details and photos about the movie and its universe. There’s even a hint at a possible ARG in the future. Details after the break.
The website has a scrolling feature similar to the website of another Sony film, Looper. As we scroll down the page, we first are introduced to Jaden Smith’s character Katai Raige. After seeing some of his basic stats, we next get to see him use a “cutlass”, which the website describes and shows as being a long blade with a handle in the middle. Next, we get a history of the United Ranger Corps, which are the elite military force for the displaced humans. We also learn a bit about Ranger cadets and Katai’s father, Cypher Raige (Will Smith), who is the Commander General of the Rangers.
The next section down talks about humanity’s alien enemies, including the Skrel and the Ursa, as well as an interesting technique called “ghosting”. We then learn about Nova Prime, mankind’s new home planet, and its unique three-part government. The last section on the bottom explains how and why mankind had to leave Earth.
On the side of the page, one of the buttons you’ll see is for “Project Next Generation”. This is the mission explained in that last section about “arks” that are leaving Earth before it becomes inhabitable. There are only 750,000 spots total on these 6 ships, just enough to restart the human race. Unfortunately, the link provided on this section of the website just takes you to the film’s Facebook page. I’m not sure if this will turn into an ARG, but the building blocks are there with the Application concept. We’ll just have to wait and see. For now, their Facebook is a good way to get some more in-world details about the film.
After Earth opens in theaters on June 7th.