Edge of Tomorrow is a rare anomalous film that intersects several cross sections of film and media to create something unique, fun, and amazing. Ultimately, its low marketing budget and audience's saturation of mindless sci-fi action led to its poor box office returns, labeling it a bomb. But, this film is very underrated and under-appreciated, and it's a shame.
The overall story focuses on a single decisive battle between humanity against an invaded alien horde conquering most of Europe. Loss of this battle will result in the loss of the planet and life on Earth.
Tom Cruise is the star of the film, which both helps and hurts the film. One year prior, Tom Cruise starred in Oblivion, which wasn't that great. I think the reception of that film hurt this one quite a bit because people didn't want to see another stinker. At the time, I think Tom Cruise was seen as very humorless and self-serious because of viral clips online. But, his ideas created a lot of the humor and light-hearted situations in this film.
Tom Cruise portrays William Cage, the head of an advertising firm forced to join humanity's army because of his ROTC training in college. He is a coward and does marketing in the guise of journalism for the army to sway humanity's trust into their war efforts. To avoid battle, at the beginning of the film, he tries to blackmail the leading general of the frontline to avoid going to combat. He's arrested and thrown into the army with the new recruits.
While training with the new recruits, he doesn't know how to operate his weapons, he tries to run away from battle, and tries to convince others to get him out. In the battle, he squadmates are killed by alien enemies, known as Mimics, while he avoids getting hurt. As a final act, before the enemy kills him, he grabs a claymore mine and sacrifices himself as he blows away the enemy towering over him. Dead.
Cage awakes the previous morning, alive. The sergeant alive. His squad alive. He relives the same day again as it happened before. Once again, he's thrown into battle. Knowing the outcome of events, he attempts to save his squad members and others who had died. Ultimately, everyone still dies and he is killed. Cage awakes again the previous morning, and relives the day again.
Rita Vrataski is the army's most decorated soldier, played by Emily Blunt. In the previous major battle, at Verdun, Sergeant Vrataski killed thousands of Mimcs, saved hundreds of soldiers, and led them to humanity's first victory against the Mimics. Her victory was the first time humanity had hope at actually defeating the enemy, so she became an symbol for the war effort.
Cage first meets Rita in battle on his first day, but she is immediately killed by incoming fire. So, on Cage's second day, he tries to save her, but he is killed. As Cage dies and relives the same day, he comes closer and closer to saving Rita to get her help to win the battle.
So far, this is about 30 minutes into the film and it covers the first chunk of my English Expression Class. The goal of this class is for students to become more familiar with listening to and speaking native English with correct feelings and expressions. The majority of the class focuses on listening. Students will get a script with various words missing from the dialogue. While listening and watching the scene, they'll fill in the blanks with what's missing. We'll also go through the meaning so students can keep up with the story.
These listening activities lead to Performance Tests. Rather than doing a final Listening Test for the unit, students will make pairs and perform a scene from the film. Students will not only memorize and say the correct dialogue, but must act the scene with correct expression and feelings with their voice, face, eyes, and body.
The first performance test is when Cage meets Rita on the battlefield after days of trying to save her. From his actions, she realizes and understands Cage's situation. She throws down her weapon, and exclaims, "Find me when you wake up." Cage confused by the response replies, "What?" Rita, one more time clearly orders, "Come find me when you wake up," and they're both killed by an explosion.
Because the dialogue is so short, students exchange roles. My grading mainly focuses on the student performing as Rita. Cage's response is important to support Rita's dialogue, but ultimately it's Rita's dialogue that is key to this scene. Students must make a distinction between how the dialogue is said first compared to the second time when it is so clear, without any misunderstanding.
Again, check the course page for the full performance criteria, as well as worksheets.
Following orders, Cage ditches his squad during training to find Rita during her training. He tells her about what's happening, and she understands. She tells him that she used to have the power to reset time, and she used to win the battle at Verdun. She lost the battle when she was wounded and a medic transfused her blood.
Both of them go to meet Dr. Carter, played by Noah Taylor, a scientist who had previous helped Rita during the Battle of Verdun and understands how the Mimics operate.
The Mimics operate as a single entity. The normal orange enemies are the Drones. They operate as an unthinking appendage of the horde. Killing them has no real effect. The larger blue enemies are the Alphas. These act as the enemy's eyes, ears, and nerves. When killed, an alpha sends a signal to the brain, which is called the Omega. When the Omega receives this signal, it restarts the day and corrects its course to victory.
On the first day, Cage killed an Alpha, but Cage was covered in the Alpha's blood. By absorbing the Alpha's blood, he also absorbed the Omega's power of resetting the day. When Cage dies, the Omega resets the day, and everything starts again.
To win the war, the Omega must be killed. Cage and Rita train together to make Cage mentally strong enough to kill the Mimics. Each day, Carter searches for the location of the Omega. As Carter gets closer to finding the Omega, Cage and Rita work on a strategy for plowing through the battlefield and reaching the location of the Omega.
After days and days of dying and little progress each day, Cage and Rita make it to a farmhouse miles inland from the battle. They find a helicopter which can bring them to the Omega.
Through their conversation and Cage's actions, Rita realizes that Cage has been leading her away from the helicopter in an attempt to save her life. Cage confesses that no matter how much they train and plan, she will always die here. There's no scenario where both of them can leave in the helicopter without one of them dying in an attack that follows.
Unlike Cage, Rita is not someone who quits. She exclaims that she's a soldier. Soldiers die for their country and their army. It's their sacrifice that propels others forward to ultimately defeat their enemy. Her death and the deaths of others are a necessary sacrifice for the victory of humanity. In the wake of that ultimate goal, her life doesn't matter.
Cage pleads with her to stay at the farmhouse. Go into the bunker in the basement, and stay safe. It's impossible for him to save her otherwise. "Why does it matter what happens to me?" she asks. He reluctantly replies, "I wish I didn't know you, but I do."
This is the second performance test for my class. Because the dialogue is longer, students will perform as either Cage or Rita in the pair and focus of their performance only. Both students must show these emotions felt by both Cage and Rita through their dialogue and expressions.
Does Cage's words and feelings finally convince Rita to not turn the key of the helicopter?
No.
Frustrated and Disgruntled, Cage gives up on Rita. He continues to the Omega, but it's a trap anyway. Cage escapes and they continue with a new plan to find the Omega, infiltrating army command and stealing Carter's equipment. They successfully get the equipment, but Cage is wounded in the attempt, not killed. He wakes in a hospital, his blood transfused, losing the power of resetting the day.
Knowing the true location of the Omega, Rita and Cage must go to Paris. They convince Cage's squad to join them, and they fight through hordes of drones without the safety of being able to die and try again. The Omega seems to be throwing all of its troops against them, almost as if it knows that they are coming.
Rita and Cage make it to the Omega after each of Cage's squad members are killed off. Rita runs off diverting the lone Alpha guard away for long enough for Cage to get closer. Rita is killed as Cage jumps in the water, swimming down to the Omega's core. The Alpha catches Cage and stabs him as he releases his grenades into the core. The core is destroyed, disrupting all signals to Alphas and Drones who become inert and lifeless. The war is over.
Cage's dying body sinks to the smoldering core, and absorbs its blood.
Cage awakes, days before the final battle, in the helicopter leading him to the army command from the beginning of the film. With the enemy destroyed and inert, the war is over and the battle is no longer necessary. All of his squad members are alive having never entered battle. Rita, too. The film ends with Cage meeting Rita at the base.
There are several morals to be learned from the film that I like to imbue on students. The first moral or lesson is the importance of repetition and continuous efforts towards your goal. Winning the entire war seemed absolutely impossible at the beginning of the film, but it was through Cage's reluctant yet continuous efforts that he gained the confidence and knowledge needed to win.
Additionally, he was not successful on his first attempt or even his fiftieth attempt. Cage constantly experienced failure and learned from his failures every day to progress further and further to eventually achieve victory. These efforts ultimately rewarded him with the ability to know what to do in an unknown situation when he no longer had the ability to reset the day at the end.
Also, through all of his daily failures, he showed his bravery. In the beginning, he was a coward who would do anything to run away from battle and danger. But, even on his first day, he showed bravery by killing himself to destroy the Alpha. That small showing of bravery gave him this power, and each day he showed more bravery trying to save his squad mates, and save Rita, too.
One of the key quotes in the film is "Battle is the Great Redeemer." Battle shows a person who they truly are as they shed whatever person they were in society. Cage was ultimately victorious because, at heart, he was courageous and brave. When pushed to the ultimate limit, what kind of person are you, really?
All morals are important for life, and the film shows this through Cage's journey.
The finished film we received has a pretty happy ending overall, and doesn't necessarily play by its rules at the end. The whole film Cage always goes back to the base. But now, just to wrap everything up in a nice bow, he goes back to before he dishonored himself with the general, escaping punishment. His overall sacrifice ended up rewarding him with a happy ending.
The original script was not so kind. Leading to the final battle, it seemed like the Omega knew they were coming. One of Cage's squad mates even yells this out, "They know we're coming, man!" This is because, in the original script, in this battle previously, they had killed an Alpha. Killing an Alpha resets the day, but anyone outside of the Omega living that day wouldn't know it.
The Omega knows they are coming, and kills them all off one by one. The Mimics take over the Earth, and humanity is lost.
Tom Cruise and the production crew did not like this ending for several reasons. Thematically, it didn't really fit with the direction of the story towards the end. It didn't make sense for Cage to learn everything and grow, just to be killed in the end. Also, it wouldn't balance the overall feelings of the film. There are some comedic moments, but everything is so tense. There needs to be some relief. And, we've seen everyone die over and over again throughout the film that seeing more death wouldn't really have the weight to it.
I think they made the right choice.
Edge of Tomorrow is adapted from a Japanese "light" novel entitled, All You Need Is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. It has since been adapted to a manga, too. There are some key differences in the story that lead to a different ending than both movie versions.
The biggest overall difference in the story which leads to many other story differences is that there's a fourth Mimic type. In addition to Drones, Alphas, and the Omega, there are also Antennas. For every Alpha, there is an Antenna, and the Antennas receive the signals sent from the Alpha to trigger the Omega to restart the day. For Rita and Cage to destroy the Omega, they must first destroy all of the Antennas, and then the Omega.
In the end, Cage and Rita (actually his name isn't Cage in this, but it doesn't matter) eventually destroy every Antenna and land the final blow on the Omega. But, the day resets. Even killing all the Antenna didn't work. This was because an Antenna still existed.
Much like Edge of Tomorrow, Rita had previously gained the time power from fighting in Verdun. But, when she lost the power, she didn't lose it completely. She became an Antenna and Cage is her Alpha. All Antenna must be killed. So, after killing all other Antenna, Cage and Rita face each other, and Cage delivers the final blow. He then destroys the Omega, ending the war.
Out of the three endings, I like this one the best. Rita can finally make her sacrifice that she decided on earlier. She's able to join everyone who died with her at Verdun, and the rest of the world is able to survive the Mimic invasion.
Even with these three endings, people online have come up with lots of other ideas for endings. Also, recently (2024), there have been talks with Tom Cruise and Warner Bros to make a possibly sequel. With such a happy ending, there is still room to have more time shenanigans. So, how will they continue the story? What could they do?
Concluding class, I ask students to come up with a premise for the sequel.
One of the more creative endings from fans was Cage still retaining the time power from the Omega. After living his life with Rita, Cage finally dies of old age. But then, he wakes up back at the beginning of the final battle only to live his life again. The film could revolve around Cage becoming a bit of a demigod with the time power warping him. Ultimately, Cage has to figure out how to truly die.
Overall, Edge of Tomorrow is an incredible film. It's one of my strongest classes that revolve around a film. There's so much good in the film. This post is pretty long, and I never even talked about Bill Paxton's incredible performance as Master Sergeant Ferill.
I already spoiled the whole movie, but if you've made it this far without seeing it, you've gotta see it.