65 (2023) Full Recap

Long before the first humans ever walked the Earth, a civilization of people just like us lived on a faraway planet called Somarus. On a rocky beach there, a pilot named Mills sits with his wife Alia. He's just accepted a 2-year deep space mission, the longest of his life. The job pays three times his usual salary, and they need every cent.

Their daughter Naveen is very sick, and this money is the only way they can afford her treatment. Mills stares out at the water trying to figure out how to tell her. Aliyia tells him to just go and say it because two years is hard. But when he comes back, Nine will still be here.

Mills walks over to Nine, who's trying to whistle with a blade of grass between her thumbs. He shows her how to blow gently, and she can't believe how easy he makes it look. Then she tells him she knows he's leaving, and she knows it's because of her. Mills tells her it's not because of her, it's for her.

Naveen just looks at the ocean and asks how long he'll be gone this time. Mills doesn't have an answer that will make her feel better. Months later, Mills is flying a huge exploration ship called the Zoic through deep space. The trip is long and very quiet, and the only voice he hears is the ship's computer.

Behind him, 35 passengers are sleeping in frozen pods, safe for the long journey. Then, the alarms start blaring. The ship flies straight into a swarm of asteroids that no map ever showed. Rocks tear through the hull and Mills grabs the controls to fight for a crash landing on a planet he's never seen before.

The computer warns him that manual control is required and the whole ship shakes like it's coming apart. The last thing Mills sees is the ground rushing up at him through the window. When Mills wakes up, the cockpit is glowing red and a piece of metal is stuck in his leg. He pulls it out, patches himself up, and limps back through the wreck.

The ship has been torn in half. One by one, he checks the frozen pods. Every passenger he finds is dead. The cold chambers that were supposed to keep them safe failed in the crash. Mills stands there in his helmet, looking at the rows of broken pods, and he can't breathe. He walks out into a dark swamp.

The ship is scattered across the mud, still burning in places while rain pours down on him. There's no sound except the fire and the strange calls coming from the trees. Mills drops to his knees in the mud. He has no idea where he is and the only people who knew he was out here are thousands of light years away.

Back inside, Mills records a distress message. He explains that he's crashed on an uncharted planet, that the ship is split in half, and that every passenger is dead. Then he deletes it and records a shorter one. All passengers are dead. No reason for a rescue. He sends it anyway.

Nobody answers. Mills plays an old video of Nine and watches her smile at him. Alone in the dark, he has nothing left. He sits in the dark cockpit for hours, ready to give up. He can't see any way forward. But then something moves out in the darkness. In the mud, Mills finds a footprint far bigger than any animal he knows.

Whatever this planet is, it's alive, and whatever made that print is enormous. Mills grabs his rifle and stays awake all night listening. He has no idea that this strange world is Earth 65 million years ago and that the creatures in the forest are dinosaurs. In the morning, Mills wakes up on the floor of the wreck with the sun coming through the cracks.

He runs a scan for the ship's missing escape vessel if it survived the crash. It might be his only way off this planet. At first, the screen says the location is unknown. He loads his rifle, straps on a pack of supplies, and heads out into the forest. The trees here are covered in thick moss, and steam rises from hot springs all around him.

After an hour of walking, his scanner picks up a signal. The front half of the Zoic with its escape vessel landed on top of a mountain 15 km away. 15 km through this jungle could take days. On the way back, Mills spots one of the frozen pods lying in the forest. It's open and it's empty.

Then he hears footsteps. A young girl is running through the trees, terrified of him. Mills shouts at her to stop, but she disappears into the brush. For a moment, he just stands there, stunned. Someone else is alive. Mills finds her hiding behind a tree and slowly brings her back to the ship.

She sits in the corner with her knees pulled up and she won't say a word. He checks the passenger list. She's number 35 and her name is Ka. Mills introduces himself as the pilot who was flying her home. She's about 9 years old and she's been frozen for a very long time. She stares at him like he's a monster.

He sits down across from her and speaks slowly. He tries to explain that there's an escape vessel high up in the mountains, that something dangerous is living out there, and that the vessel is their only chance to get off this planet, but Ka speaks a completely different language, and the translator was broken in the crash. Mills can't understand a word she says, and she can't understand him. He gets so frustrated that he says everything else on this planet is broken, too.

So Mills draws a map of the mountain and the ship. Ka points at the drawing and asks about her family. Mills knows her parents died in their pods, but he also knows she won't follow him if she knows the truth. So he lies. He tells her they're waiting on top of the mountain. Then he records a new message saying that a child survived and that he's taking her to the escape vessel.

For the first time since the crash, he has a reason to keep going. That night, Mills watches the video messages Navine sent him during the trip. In the first one, she's smiling and cheering because he's halfway home. In the next one, she's angry and says she hates him for leaving.

In the last one, she's lying in a hospital bed. She whispers that she's tired. So tired. Mills turns off the screen and sits alone in the dark. In the morning, Mills and Koa set off for the mountain. He keeps his rifle up and tells her to stay close and stay quiet. Ka trails a few steps behind him, staring at all the strange plants.

There are huge footprints in the dirt, and a few trees look like something just walked right through them. Mills tells himself it's just some kind of alien animal. He has no idea how right and how wrong he is. Deep in the forest, they find a small armored creature stuck in a pit of black tar.

Ka wants to help it, so Mills pulls it free. It scramles off into the trees and Koa smiles as she watches it go. But a pack of predators is already waiting for it. And in seconds, the little creature is gone. Mills grabs Ka's hand and tells her to leave it and they run. Behind them, the sounds coming from the trees make Koa cover her ears.

In the chaos, Mills slips down a muddy slope and gets hurt. When Koa tries to help him, he yells at her that she has to leave him or she'll get herself killed. Koa doesn't leave. She pulls a strip of cloth from her bag and helps him wrap his wound. And Mills looks at her like he's seeing her for the first time.

They stop at a waterfall to rest. And Mills washes the blood off his arm in the cold water. Mills fills a bottle with water and teaches Ka the word for it. She points at a little flower and teaches him a word of her own. Mills tries to repeat it and Ka almost smiles. Little by little, they find ways to talk without a translator.

It's a flower. She even offers him a bite of the strange food in her pocket and he pretends to like it. Then the scanner loses its signal. Mills climbs a fallen tree to get a better look and the branch snaps under him. He crashes to the ground and a pack of small, fast predators comes rushing out of the ferns.

Mills fights them off with his rifle while Koa runs for her life. The creatures are small, but there are so many of them that Mills barely gets back on his feet. Koa ends up alone on a log by the shore with a giant flying reptile circling overhead and screeching at her. She covers her ears and waits, shaking.

Then Mills finds her. He's covered in scratches and mud, but he's alive. Ka runs to him, then stops herself like she isn't sure she's allowed to be happy to see him. Out in the open hills, they can see a herd of huge, long-necked animals grazing far away. The mountain looks closer now.

Koa's legs are shaking and Mills isn't doing much better. While they rest by the rocks, Mills cups his hands and whistles just like he did with Nine. Ka is exhausted and scared and she starts to cry, so Mills sits with her until she's ready to keep going. He doesn't say anything. He just stays.

That night, they take shelter in a cave. Mills builds a small light and gives Ka his jacket to use as a blanket. He tells her she's safe now and she can sleep. Koa points toward the opening and says the word home and Mills tells her home is out there, but his scanner picks up something strange in the sky.

It could be more of the asteroid storm. Then he catches Koa holding his device, the one with Navine's messages. He asks her why she took it. Koa has found the last message Mills never wanted to play. It's from his wife Alia. She tells him that Navine loved him so much, that she didn't suffer, and that she just slipped away.

Mills has already lost his daughter and he's known it this whole time. He just couldn't bring himself to hear it. Ka looks at him and now she understands his pain. Mills turns away so she can't see his face. Ka quietly hands the device back to him. Then something huge pushes its head into the cave.

A massive predator snaps at them in the dark. Mills fires and shoots it right in the eye. The creature roars and pulls back and Mills drags Koa deeper into the cave. Its roar echoes off the stone walls as they run with the flashlight bouncing in the dark. They crawl through the tunnels on their hands and knees and the flashlight shows old bones scattered on the floor.

Then the rocks shift and a rockfall cuts them apart. Koa ends up outside in the jungle and Mills is trapped behind a wall of stone. Since she can't understand him anyway, Mills tells her the truth. At last, there's no one on the mountain. Her family is gone and he's sorry he lied.

On the other side, Koa just keeps saying the word family, waiting for him to answer before they lose each other. Mills passes Koa. A few small bombs through a gap in the rocks just in case. Inside the cave, another creature attacks him in the dark. He fights it off and starts searching for a way out.

There's no one on that mountain. His flashlight is dying and the tunnels go on forever. Ka is on her own now. She jumps at every sound in the bushes, but she holds one of the little bombs tight and walks toward the mountain anyway. Back in the tunnels, Mills feels a breeze on his face and follows it.

Some of the cracks are so tight that he has to squeeze through sideways. Then, a raptor finds Ka. She runs and the creature chases her through the trees until it gets its leg trapped under a fallen log. Ka remembers the bombs. She throws one and the raptor never gets up. At the same moment, Mills climbs out of the cave, and his scanner starts flashing a warning.

A massive asteroid is on its way. Mills runs through the forest, screaming, "Coa's name, terrified that he's lost her for good." He steps onto what looks like solid ground, and it swallows him up to the waist. It's quicksand, and every move pulls him further down. Just before his head goes under, Koa finds him.

She grabs a long branch, holds it out to him, and pulls with everything she has until he's free. They both collapse on the ground, gasping for air. Mills shows Ka the scanner. The asteroid that hit their ship was just a small piece of a much bigger one, and the big one will hit this planet in 12 hours.

He draws it in the dirt so she understands. They have to reach the escape vessel before it lands. Ka looks up at the sky, then back at Mills, and nods. They keep climbing after dark over loose rocks and up cliffs so steep that Ka refuses to look down. Mills helps Koa over the hardest parts and tells her good job every time she makes it up.

Near the top, they see the front half of the Zoic wedged into the mountain side. After everything they've been through, they made it inside. Mills checks the escape vessel. The life support works, the navigation works, and the engines still have power. Even better, someone picked up Mills's distress signal and a rescue ship is on its way.

But Ka runs through the wreck searching for her family. She calls out for them over and over. Then she realizes there's no one here. She screams at Mills because he lied to her. The rescue bus is coming. Mills sits down with Koa and shows her a photo of Naveen. He tells her this was his daughter.

The last time he saw her, she was angry at him for leaving. While he was gone, she got very sick and she died without him. For a long moment, neither of them says a word. Ka can't understand his words, but she understands his face. Mills promises he's going to get her home no matter what.

And Ka wraps her arms around him. They strap into the escape vessel, and Koa grips the armrests as Mills runs through the launch sequence. But just as Mills hits the button, pieces of the asteroid start raining down. One of them knocks the vessel off the mountain and it tumbles all the way down into the valley.

The launch fails and the screen flashes red. Mills crawls out of the wreck and sees that the vessel is damaged, but it's trying to repair itself. Then the ground starts shaking and the trees around the valley begin to sway. A Tyrannosaurus Rex steps out of the trees, followed by a second one.

While the vessel repairs itself, Mills goes out to fight them. One of the giants corners him, and Ka thinks fast. She turns on the device and projects a hologram of Nvine. The giant turns toward the glowing little girl, confused, and that distraction gives Mills just enough time to grab his weapon and fire.

65 (2023) Ending Explained

Mills takes down both of them, using every weapon he has left. The explosions shake the whole valley. Inside, the screen says the repairs are complete and the vessel is ready. And Koa screams at him to launch the ship. Launch the ship. But the predator Mills, blinded in the cave, comes crashing out of the jungle.

It chases Mills toward a steaming geyser, and the blast only burns its face. The creature shakes its head and comes at Mills again, and he has nothing left to fight it with. Then Koa runs up behind it with a giant dinosaur tooth and stabs it in its last good eye. Blind, the monster stumbles straight into another geyser, and it doesn't get up.

Mills is badly hurt and can barely stand. Koa pulls his arm over her small shoulders and helps him to his feet. Meteors are streaking across the sky now and fires are breaking out everywhere. Together they limp back to the vessel and Ka doesn't let go of his hand the whole way. Mills hits the launch button one more time and this time it works.

The vessel blasts off just as the giant asteroid slams into the Earth behind them. A wall of fire spreads across the planet, swallowing the forests, the hills, and the mountain they just climbed. The age of the dinosaurs comes to an end. Mills and Koa watch it all through the window as they fly toward the rescue ship.

Mills thinks of Nvine on the beach back home, trying to whistle with a blade of grass. Then he looks over at Ka, and she smiles at him. He couldn't save his own daughter, but this time he kept his promise. Mills had lost everything and was ready to give up. Then a scared little girl gave him a reason to keep fighting and together they survived the deadliest day in Earth's history.

Do you think Mills was right to lie to Koa about her family to keep her moving?