65 time travel explained

What is 65 Even About? Attempting to Explain the Adam Driver vs. Dinosaurs Movie

Wait, is Adam Driver an alien?

65, the newest film from writer-director duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods ( Haunt ) is finally roaring into theaters. But with its vague title (65 what?!) and mysterious setting, you’d be forgiven for having no idea what it’s about.

The Adam Driver-starring thriller is an efficiently told sci-fi yarn about a pilot with futuristic technology trying to save one young passenger from their crash on a planet full of, well, dinosaurs. But if this premise makes you think this is a new-age spin on Planet of the Apes , you’d be dead wrong.

There’s more than a little confusion around some of the movie’s central plot elements, so here’s a brief (largely spoiler-free) explainer of what you should know about 65 .

What the heck does 65 even mean?

This one’s the easiest. The title 65 signifies 65 million years ago, the era of the film’s setting, and most of it takes place on Mesozoic-era Earth.

65 million years ago? Is this a time travel movie?

This seems to be a point of confusion , as humanoids with sci-fi tech typically scream “from the future!” Our heroes are actually from far, far in the past.

There’s literally no suggestion of time travel in 65 (recently confirmed by Adam Driver ), even of the accidental Planet of the Apes variety. Their advanced extraterrestrial civilization existed 65 million years ago, it was just more technologically advanced than we are. Driver explains that the characters are in a “parallel universe,” but you should probably forget that — it’s not needed to understand the film.

Wait, Adam Driver’s playing an alien?

Yep, Mills (Adam Driver) and young passenger Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) are both extraterrestrials. Mills is from a planet called Somaris, and Koa is from elsewhere in his space-faring civilization.

65 ’s intro title cards confirm that “before the advent of mankind … a visitor crash landed on Earth,” so it’s clear that the pair are aliens, just humanoid ones.

Why does Mills have an Earth name and seemingly speak English? Not clear. Maybe both our planet and theirs evolved the name Mills in the same way the Earth keeps independently making crabs . He’s definitely never stepped foot on Earth prior to the movie, and it’s best to think of them as aliens that really look like us, but which aren’t connected to humanity beyond their fateful crash in our galactic neighborhood.

Adam Driver is not of this world — literally.

So why are they traveling through space?

Your usual space travel reasons. Mills agreed to pilot the long interstellar voyage in order to make enough money for the healthcare of his ill daughter on Somaris. Koa was traveling with her family, who were lost in the crash.

Why can’t we understand what Koa is saying? What language is that?

One from within the boundaries of their extraterrestrial civilization, but it’s a working language that was invented for the movie . It’s not an Earth language, we’re not supposed to understand it, and Mills can’t speak it either. That said, if you really, really wanted to translate it, it’s not gibberish: you might be able to!

Who is the “bad guy” in 65? Is it an evil dinosaur?

There’s no Chris-Pratt-in- Passengers humanoid villain, no: it’s a simple survival tale, where the main antagonist is mostly the comet, somewhat the dinosaurs. In a way, it’s also Somaris’ for-profit healthcare system, which is why Mills took on the trip to begin with. Is it somewhat soul crushing that a high-tech spacefaring civilization still has bottom-barrel capitalist healthcare? Yes, yes it is.

Adam Driver is not a time traveler, probably.

What’s up with that time-lapse ending? What does it mean?!

There’s definitely credits footage worth watching, but it’s not a sequel tease. As the credits roll, there’s a time lapse of the area where the comet struck the Earth. We watch the progression through the planet’s recovery into the modern skyscraper era. That’s it.

The time lapse does not mean Adam Driver travels to the future. It’s just a pretty cool shot — even if it might have been badass to see Future Us hit the stars in a perfect moment of circularity. That said, realistically it would double the confusion people have, and this article would need to be SO MUCH LONGER, so perhaps it’s for the best.

65 is playing in theaters now.

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65’s twist makes the dino-fighting movie just a little more interesting

Adam Driver explains his character, and why he was thinking more about Alien than Jurassic Park

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Is a twist a twist if it twists right in the first five minutes of a movie? According to Sony Pictures, yes — which is why marketing for 65 has emphasized the part where Adam Driver fights dinosaurs on a prehistoric planet Earth rather than answering the question of how he got there in the first place. But the truth left me absolutely giddy.

“After a cataclysmic crash on an unknown planet,” reads Sony’s carefully worded plot description for 65 , “pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth… 65 million years ago.”

But here is the thing: Mills does not discover that he’s actually stranded on Earth 65 million years ago!

[ Ed. note: The following interview contains spoilers for 65 .]

That’s because Mills has never been to Earth, or even heard of the planet. There is no time travel in 65 ; the pilot’s crash was simply a work accident during a routine shipping mission across the galaxy, coordinated by beings from another planet. Driver isn’t “human” — he’s an alien!

Finding an organic way back to the time of the dinosaurs was a naturally tricky endeavor, according to writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, and even more so when they landed on the idea that Mills would arrive on Earth from an entirely different civilization.

“We needed it to feel grounded,” Beck says of the challenge. “There were wild ideas that were left on the page, like Adam speaking another language, or different facial modifications [to make him look more alien]. But we needed to find a blend where we didn’t lose the audience in the first five minutes. We were always pressure-testing.”

The duo spent a good portion of preproduction on 65 weighing world-building options with production designer Kevin Ishioka. The questions ranged from basic — Has this civilization embraced digital technology, or do they rely on analog? — to the fantastical. At one point, Beck and Woods considered a design of Mills’ galactic freighter that would have been made entirely out of rock, unlike anything the average moviegoer might immediately detect as a spaceship.

“We talked a lot about how the technology in the film should both be at times futuristic — meaning more advanced than our technology — and at other times regressed,” Woods says. “We wanted to run that line between futuristic and retro, a hybrid of ancient and future. That was the benchmark for us.”

The opening scenes of the film, set on an alien beach speckled with spiraling vertical rock formations, only give us traces of a larger world established in the far reaches of space. The focus is more on Mills’ soul-searching: The only reason he took his shipping job was to earn enough money for a medication that might or might not save his terminally ill daughter. When it all goes wrong (thanks to an ill-timed chunk of space rock that sends his ship spiraling down to Earth, a precursor of a much bigger meteor headed toward the planet), Mills’ fight for survival is immediately pressurized by a need to get home to his child, and to protect another survivor, a young girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), who has also been stranded in the Cretaceous Era.

“We try to show more than explain,” Driver tells Polygon, “but you know what the relationship means to him in his unwillingness to talk, when he’s faced with someone who, in every detail, reminds him of his past.”

Mills isn’t a conventional hero. While Jurassic Park comes up as an obvious sci-fi touchstone for the film, Driver compares Mills to Harry Dean Stanton in Alien . He’s just a blue-collar guy punching a time clock. “It could almost be considered the equivalent to a truck driver. It’s not a planet where being a pilot is foreign to them. There isn’t some kind of hierarchical thing [because he’s an alien]. This is what he does.”

While 65 does get pulpy, Beck and Woods also cite Alien as a way of rooting the potentially far-fetched setup in something real. While they created a new planet and sculpted a world where aliens like Mills ship cryogenically frozen people as cargo, they ultimately take him to a familiar planet, where he faces creatures the audience knows a great deal about already. That meant respecting the known science about dinosaurs while also diving into science fiction.

“We had a Venn diagram, where one circle was all about science,” Woods says, “And then in the other Venn diagram circle, we had Ridley Scott’s Alien , one of the scariest movies ever made. And so we just wanted to kind of combine interesting science and also something that’s frightening.”

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The Ending Of 65 Explained

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of the first "A Quiet Place" film, deliver their third directed feature together with "65," a sci-fi action thriller that sees the future collide with the past. The film follows Mills ( Adam Driver ), a pilot whose mission to transport people is upended after asteroids damage his ship, causing him to crash on an unknown planet. Although Mills has no idea where he is, the film tells us that he has landed on Earth — albeit 65 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the land and human civilization was nowhere in sight. With few options, Mills grabs Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) -– a young girl who's the only other survivor -– and begins traversing these dangerous lands in the hopes of reaching the other half of his ship to possibly escape.

"65" does its best to make dinosaurs scary again through its intense action and some of the creepier creatures that Mills and Koa come across. Along with some thrilling sci-fi action, the film delivers some interesting story beats for Mills and Koa as their personal struggles are touched on and they gain a stronger connection with one another. The film's finale is especially rich with story moments and action as the pair attempts to escape before a cataclysmic event keeps them in this prehistoric prison. With a lot happening in the film's final moments, let's delve into the fast-paced finale and nail-biter ending of "65."

Future meets past

While it might seem strange to see a futuristic soldier like Mills stuck in the middle of a prehistoric world, the film does delve into how he got there. Mills is actually from a distant planet whose people act and speak like human beings. The film never clarifies what species or race Mills people exactly are, so it's safe to assume that they must be humans too. Either way, Mills is tasked with transporting people to an undisclosed location, but his ship suffers severe damage from a cluster of asteroids, forcing him to crash-land on Earth.

So rather than Mills arriving on Earth through some kind of time-traveling or universe jumping, he simply exists 65 million years before our time. Mill's people are just so advanced that they've been able to develop the sophisticated technology and weapons that ultimately help him survive. Even with these tools, though, Mills faces fierce opposition from both the environment and creatures he's forced to fight against, leading to him nearly losing his life on more than one occasion. "65" is truly a future meets past scenario that pits futuristic tech against prehistoric beasts to see who's really dominant.

The meteor that killed the dinosaurs

Throughout the film, there is an obscure red-looking entity in the sky that seems like it's drifting closer to Earth. Koa is the first to see it when she notices a weird light phenomenon above her. However, when Mills sees it sometime later, it looks much more ominous and massive. At first, you can't help but hope that maybe it's just the rescue transport Mills called for coming down to Earth, but once Mills is able to get an actual read on what this strange entity is, it's much worse than expected.

Mills' scanner says that it's actually a gigantic meteor with the mass to cause cataclysmic destruction once it impacts Earth. Perhaps you are familiar with the idea that the dinosaurs were killed by a massive asteroid that caused a mass extinction event ? Well, this is that meteor — and it surprisingly has a stronger connection to Mills' current situation. 

The asteroid cluster that Mills encountered earlier, which ultimately caused the ship to crash, actually came from this world-ending meteor, and it looks like it's coming to finish the job. This meteor adds new stakes to Mills and Koa's escape and plays a big role in making the finale of "65" super intense and visually stunning.

Brought to the edge

Mills crashing into this rough survival situation has a deeper effect on him than initially expected and hints at a secret he hides throughout the film. Once he's able to get up after the crash, he sees that nearly all the passengers are dead and that half of his ship is missing. Even worse is that the part of the ship containing the escape pod is nowhere in sight, which means that there's virtually no way off the planet. After his first few steps outside, Mills also sees how dangerous the environment truly is. Rather than try to survive, he looks like he's ready to end things.

While he attempts to call for help at first, he eventually just tells them that he isn't worth looking for and prepares to end his own life right then and there. However, he soon finds Koa, and she gives him a reason to keep going. Given how harsh this environment is and how vicious the creatures are, it's hard not to blame Mills for thinking that things are over. 

It later becomes clear that Mills' hopelessness stems from the death of his daughter, Nevine (Chloe Coleman). Mills' willingness to accept his fate after the crash is the first moment that hints at that. 

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by callin g 1 -800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Seeing something more

Mills' relationship with Koa starts on some rocky ground. Their inability to communicate — because they don't speak the same language — makes for some frustrating moments between the two, with Koa sometimes doing her own thing, which really gets under Mills' skin. However, Mills eventually warms up to Koa because he sees her as something more than just a helpless survivor — he almost begins to see her as a surrogate daughter. While it at first appears to annoy Mills, he definitely appreciates Koa's interest in learning about his daughter through video messages. They watch a hologram of her together in the cave and it feels like a real bonding moment between them. 

Ultimately, Mills and Koa have some real father/daughter energy in some of their more light-hearted moments together. It's these moments, which connect back to Mills' daughter and the way that he does everything he can to protect her, that make it clear that he sees his daughter in Koa. Plus, once we learn that Mills already knows that his daughter is dead, it becomes obvious that he's trying to make up for what he couldn't do for Nevine. 

Mills and Koa's bond is a central part of the film's heart and arguably the main thing that keeps them going over the course of their survival adventure. 

Environmental horrors

The vicious dinosaurs in "65" are certainly enough to make surviving in this world a daunting task for Koa and Mills, but it's far from the only thing they have to worry about. While the big creatures are tough to deal with on their own, there are also some big nasty bugs that cause the pair some trouble in their journey. There's a gut-wrenching moment when one of the bugs crawls down Koa's throat while she's sleeping that is sure to leave a massive knot in your stomach. Beyond that, just looking at the sticky goo that comes from one of the bugs that Mills crushes makes you not want to touch an insect ever again. 

Unfortunately, the environment is just as deadly as the creatures they find in it. As Mills learns, it's very easy to walk into deadly tar fields or quicksand. Mills and Koa's cave exploration nearly proves fatal when a cave-in occurs. Of course, there's also the geyser field that Mills first comes across after landing on the planet spews water so hot that it could melt skin. 

"65" makes viewers thankful that Earth isn't like this anymore since it looks like a genuinely nightmarish world to try and survive. 

Is there help?

Almost as soon as he crashes on Earth, Mills attempts to contact his people to try and organize a rescue for him and the other passengers. However, after realizing that all the passengers are dead, he deletes the help message and calls off help — largely because he thinks it's hopeless anyway. Once Mills finds Koa still alive, though, he creates a message that once again signals the need for assistance, and he's left wondering if anyone will come. So, does anyone pick up Mills' distress signal?

Luckily for him and Koa, his message manages to reach someone, but they're not exactly within easy reach. Based on what his scanner says, a ship will meet him at an interception point in space to take him and Koa home. However, the only way for Mills and Koa to get back to space is by finding a distant escape pod before the fast-approaching meteor strikes Earth. 

It's a shame that no one can come and just scoop up Mills and Koa from this horrific situation, but the realization that there is a way home at least drives them to survive and push forward.

Koa's realization

Koa's main concern throughout the film is finding her parents. Mills initially tells her that her parents are at the top of the mountain where the escape pod is, but he only tells her this to get her to go on the journey with him. In reality, Mills knows that her parents are dead and only tells her otherwise to keep her motivated as they journey toward the escape pod. There's even a point where Mills becomes so frustrated by their situation and language barrier that he tells her that he lied. Unfortunately, since Koa can't understand him, she still doesn't know that her parents are dead until she finds the destroyed escape pods. 

This realization that Mills has lied about her parents being dead understandably hurts her and she becomes furious with him. For Koa, the journey to the ship likely feels like it was for nothing now, and part of her would rather just stay on the planet and die rather than go on without her parents. It's a tough moment for Koa, and it almost seems like she's not going to go along with Mills to leave Earth. 

However, he's able to get her back on his side by deeply opening up to her about what happened to his daughter. 

The truth behind Mills' daughter

When Koa gets angry at Mills for lying about her parents, he decides it's a good time to tell her about what really happened to his daughter Nevine. When Mills first left, his daughter was set to go through a procedure that would cure her of a mysterious illness. This procedure would be paid for by this transport job Mills was completing when he crashlanded on Earth. Although he would be away from his daughter for two years while completing the trip, at least she would be healthy when he returned. Unfortunately, Nevine died while he was out doing this job — which means Mills never got to see her again after he left. 

The death of Mills' daughter is hinted at throughout the film, and there are some key moments that show Mills' frustration. As noted earlier, his willingness to accept his fate at the start of the film shows the lingering pain he has from his daughter's death. The video messages from her also start to take a dour turn that matches the gut-wrenching feelings of some of the dreams Mills has about her. Further, the way Mills views Koa as a daughter and how he protects her also make more sense once it's clear that his daughter is gone. 

Mills opens up to Koa about his lingering pain and how he felt that protecting her was a way for him to feel like he did something right. This admission helps Koa forgive Mills, and she decides to continue on with him to try and return to their home. 

Botched launch

Now that Koa and Mills have unpacked some of their emotional baggage with one another, they have little time to spare. Fragments of the meteor are crashing all over the place, and there isn't much time left until the meteor collides with Earth. They quickly hop into the escape craft and start the launch sequence. Unfortunately, the fragments begin to impact the mountain they're on and cause the terrain to collapse, sending the ship hurtling toward the ground. 

Miraculously, not only are Koa and Mills somehow not dead from that violent crash, but the escape pod is also still seemingly operable. However, they can't launch it right away because the ship has been flipped upside-down. As they scramble to deal with the inverted spacecraft, they soon realize they have bigger problems on their hands — two giant dinosaurs are approaching them, creating a deadly predicament. Although safety seems right in their grasp, this meteor once again causes Mills and Koa problems that could put the final nails in their coffins. 

Sacrifices and rescues

Mills and Koa have a lot on their plate — an unflyable ship, a giant meteor racing towards them, and two dinosaurs looking to gobble them up — so Mills springs into action. He's able to distract the two dinosaurs away from the ship, but his gun is malfunctioning which leaves him a sitting duck. Everything seems hopeless for once again, but Koa is able to show him a hologram of his daughter that motivates him to kill the two dinosaurs. Even better, one of the dinosaurs has actually reoriented the ship by slamming into it, which means it can fly again. 

However, before they can escape, the dinosaur Mills has wounded approaches them seeking revenge. To protect Koa, Mills sacrifices himself to lead the dinosaur away from the ship towards the hot geysers he came across at the start of the film. 

At first, the geysers don't seem to do much damage to the dinosaur, and Mills' wounded leg makes him easy prey. Luckily, Koa is there to rescue him by stabbing the dinosaur in the eye with the makeshift weapon she crafted earlier. This causes the beast to fall into the geyser, where the intense heat causes its skin to melt and ultimately kills it. The big finale action sequence of "65" is full of emotional sacrifices and rescues that show how Mills and Koa have come together. 

Having killed the dinosaur, Mills and Koa have one last thing to do -– escape! 

With the world-ending meteor nearing impact and Mills severely injured, there's no time to waste. Koa helps Mills back to the escape ship and Mills launches the ship. They narrowly fly into space, just missing the meteor, and make their escape from this prehistoric hellscape. Mills and Koa even get some satisfaction knowing that all the dinosaurs that have been hunting them down have been wiped out by the meteor and will no longer roam Earth.

Mills and Koa's fates are never truly revealed, but they should be heading to the interception point, which implies that they will be rescued. Throughout the end credits, the film even shows what happens after the meteor causes the extinction of the dinosaurs and the evolution that eventually leads to human civilization. Although the climax of "65" kept Mills and Koa on the run and near death the entire time, they finally have a moment of well-earned rest.

Could there be a sequel?

There's no news on a sequel for "65" going into development and there likely won't be one. The film ends on a pretty conclusive note, with Mills and Koa escaping Earth before the meteor hits and the end credits show how humanity developed over time. The dinosaurs are gone and there are no hints that someone else crash-landed there beforehand, so a prequel isn't likely either. Not to mention, the box office predictions for "65" aren't looking too hot. The film faces stiff competition in "Scream VI" and is projected to earn just shy of $10 million in its opening weekend — which isn't great considering its $45 million budget.

If the film does better than expected or becomes a hit on streaming, there's certainly a chance that a sequel could happen. Although there are no hints that someone landed on Earth before Mills, it's possible that a prequel could go back further to show someone else having to fight for their life. In this case, "65" could turn into a bit of an anthology series that sees futuristic soldiers having to face off against dinosaurs in a battle for survival. 

Sequel ambitions for "65" will likely be snuffed out by lackluster opening weekend box office results, but a cult following could change things.

Wait, What Is ’65’ Actually About?

The new Adam Driver film has an enigmatic title and seemingly straightforward log line … or does it?

If you’ve seen the marketing materials for “65,” Sony’s upcoming sci-fi action thriller, one thing is made abundantly clear: futuristic spaceman Adam Driver is in the muck, battling dinosaurs using a laser gun. And for most, that is all that you need to know about the movie, which is both written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, whose screenplay for “A Quiet Place” launched a hugely profitable franchise. Dinosaurs, space travel and a movie star fighting for his life make pretty good excuses to buy a ticket for “65.”

But if your mind is stuck on the big questions — Who does Adam Driver play? Why is a human being interacting with dinosaurs, a species that, as the title suggests, went extinct 65 million years? And is there time travel involved? — we have answers. Just be warned – heavy spoilers for “65” follow .

What is Adam Driver’s Deal?

As it turns out he’s an alien from another planet.

Wait, what?

Yeah, you briefly see him with his family on the beach of an alien world. It’s somewhat Pandora-ish except way less expressive (or expensive). He’s some kind of space trucker, who is driving a cargo of human colonists (or something) to a new world. That’s when disaster strikes.

He’s an Alien?

Yes. We just said that.

But He’s Not Blue or Anything?

No, he’s just Adam Driver.

Is Adam Driver a Human Being?

In real life, yes. Adam Driver is a human being. As far as we know.

How is This Conveyed to the Audience?

Through a series of weird title cards about 20 minutes into the movie (which is also pretty awkward). “65 million years ago a visitor crash-landed on Earth …” and some such. It’s extremely odd.

But What About Time Travel?

Here’s the other interesting thing about the plot of “65:” the whole thing takes place 65 million years ago.

But Adam Driver has a laser gun? You already said that he did.

Yes, that is true. He does have a laser gun. 65 million years ago, on a distant world populated with humans or at least human-like creatures, Adam Driver is a space trucker and he crash lands on ancient Earth, still populated by dinosaurs.

No time travel then?

Yeah. Driver’s spaceship runs into what turns out to be the asteroid field that winds up wiping out the dinosaurs. Smaller asteroids destroy his ship and maroon him on the planet with a young girl. He realizes that a giant asteroid, the one we know as the one that slammed into the earth and killed all the dinosaurs, is actually on its way. Which gives the movie a nifty ticking clock story mechanic and also reminds us of Countdown to Extinction (aka Dinosaur), the ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom where you travel back in time for a million but wind up trying to outrun the asteroid. It seems like the attraction and the movie “65” are both going for a similar mixture of genuine thrills and more lighthearted escapism. And both feature plenty of dinosaurs.

Seems like it maybe would have been easier if Driver was just a space traveler in the future who went back in time a la “Planet of the Apes” and used his knowledge of both dinosaurs and the extinction-level event that wiped them out to his advantage.

Anything else we should know about “65”.

Not really. The little girl Driver pals around with on ancient earth doesn’t speak English (or whatever language he speaks on the planet where he comes from) so there’s a failure to communicate that is ringed for some comedy and drama and will remind you a bit of “A Quiet Place.” Other than that, it’s pretty straightforward… besides all that we’ve already covered.

“65” is in theaters now.

What Earth Would Have Really Looked Like in Adam Driver’s ‘65’

If you were to travel back in time you’d find a mix of the familiar and strange on our planet

Riley Black

Science Correspondent

If you were to travel back to when dinosaurs walked the Earth, it might take you a little while before realizing that you had slipped into another time. A wandering Tyrannosaurus or a shovel-beaked Edmontosuarus chewing a rotting log would be immediate giveaways, of course, but the forests, floodplains and other landscapes of the time would not be so alien as to immediately arouse your suspicion. We still inhabit the same planet as our favorite saurians, after all, and the world of the dinosaurs was not quite like what we often see in the movies.

The trick almost every dinosaur movie tries to perform is how to bring us in contact with the terrible lizards. Sometimes the creatures live on a lost world—a plateau or island where the Age of Reptiles never ended. Jurassic Park popularized another method: genetic reinvention, returning dinosaurs to the world they supposedly ruled. Time travel is another favorite, either bringing the scaly stars to the present or throwing humans back into the past. The latest prehistoric romp, 65 , in theaters this weekend, attempts something a little different, with future humans seeming to drift through both space and time to crash land on Earth just before the Cretaceous come to a fiery close .

First thing’s first—the title 65 is a dino-sized mistake. In 2012 the International Commission for Stratigraphy, or geologists who determine Earth’s timescales, revised the end of the Cretaceous Period to be about 66 million years ago rather than the previous estimate of 65.5. If you were to visit Earth about 65 million years ago, during a time called the Paleocene, you would find thick forests where the descendants of mammals that survived the asteroid impact were starting to get big . Triceratops would have been extinct for a million years.

But when did accuracy ever stop Hollywood? From the trailers released so far, 65 follows the struggle of a pilot (Adam Driver) and a child (Ariana Greenblatt) as they stumble through Cretaceous forests and past ancient geysers as they’re chased by Tyrannosaurus , Velociraptor -like carnivores and other prehistoric terrors. The question the movie invites viewers to entertain while munching on their popcorn like an enthusiastic Edmontosaurus munches on leaves is how humans could survive in a forest primeval inhabited by creatures that could gobble us up in two bites. Before considering a stroll through the Late Cretaceous forest, or to the theater, you should know a few things.

We have a relatively incomplete view of the Late Cretaceous world. That’s because the fossil and geologic records are uneven, preserved in some places but not others. Much of what paleontologists have studied comes from places where sediment was being laid down—like sand in oceans or silt carried by streams. Still, all the individual pieces help outline the bigger picture. “If a time traveler should be lost in the latest Cretaceous of North America,” says Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a paleontologist with the University of Vigo in Spain, they would see “lush tropical forests covering the lowlands to an abundance of streams running through them from nearby mountains.” The range wouldn’t look like it does today, but would be lower and still be in the process of being pushed up. “The Late Cretaceous Earth would be a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar,” says Caleb Brown, a paleontologist with the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Canada. Despite the impression that the Late Cretaceous was the peak of the “Age of Dinosaurs,” the great reptiles wouldn’t necessarily be around every other tree. “The iconic dinosaurs would be rare on the landscape,” Brown says, “so you would likely see many more turtles, frogs, birds and lizards cross your path before you stumbled into a lumbering ankylosaur or tyrannosaur.”

Even the arrangement of the Earth itself would look like an altered version of what we now know. What we’d eventually name North America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica would all have recognizable outlines. Still, plenty of notable differences existed 66 million years ago. India was an island continent, sitting near prehistoric Madagascar, and Australia was still connected to Antarctica. The Americas wouldn’t touch for tens of millions of years, and what’s now Europe was largely an archipelago flooded by shallow seas. The world was warmer than it is now, with an average summer temperature of about 82 degrees, but ice had once again begun to build at the poles. Earth was still very much a greenhouse world, with high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but relatively lower amounts of oxygen than today. A time-traveling human would be able to breathe without difficulty, even lacking the specialized air sacs that allowed dinosaurs to breathe more efficiently than any mammal.

The obligatory presence of T. rex in 65 indicates that the story unfolds in what’s now western North America, one of the areas of the Cretaceous world we’ve come to know quite well. The lowlands where the tyrant dinosaur stalked might have resembled parts of the modern Gulf Coast, with forests of conifers growing among swampy habitats dotted with ancient relatives of willows, magnolias and sassafras. You wouldn’t find fields of grass, though. Vast, grassy plains only spread about 36 million years later, so much of the low-growing groundcover of the Late Cretaceous was ferns, cycads and similar plants. For that reason, many production companies often shoot their prehistoric films in places like British Columbia, where mossy forests of redwoods at least approximate the Cretaceous look.

Many of the perils a Cretaceous traveler would face would be familiar to anyone who’s stumbled through the backcountry or gone camping far away from roads and fire pits. Thunderstorms and heavy rains would likely pose a problem. Chiarenza notes that a time traveler would have to contend with fierce seasonal storms not unlike those seen in the southeastern United States each hurricane season. And, much like these hot and humid areas now, biting insects would likely present a hassle, too. The scene might recall someplace in Florida, wet and buzzing with bugs. Turtles, crocodile relatives, birds, lizards, fish and small mammals would be everywhere. Still, sooner or later you’d see a dinosaur and realize that you’d traveled far from 2023.

Small dinosaurs lived in the Late Cretaceous, including carnivores such as Acheroraptor . But the average dinosaur would be much larger, an animal closer to three tons. Most of these were herbivores such as Edmontosaurus and Triceratops , great plant eaters that changed their habitats through where they walked and what they ate. In one area of the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation in Montana, for example, about 40 percent of the fossils found were attributed to Triceratops . The infamous T. rex was still fairly common—about 24 percent of the sample—but still significantly scarcer than any of the plant-eating species. And those herbivores were far from harmless. We know from damaged bones that Triceratops fought each other with their impressive horns, and injuries sustained by visitors who try to get too close to bison at our modern national parks are a reminder of how dangerous herbivores can be.

Almost certainly mysteries and dangers existed in the Late Cretaceous of North America that we don’t know yet. “We know only a small fraction of extinct animals due to the vagaries of fossil preservation,” Chiarenza says. “An unexpected predator, or a big, dangerous kind of horned dinosaur, might represent a physical threat to anyone wandering this terra incognita.” We know practically nothing of dinosaurs in upland, more mountainous habitats, and so anyone who wandered upslope would start encountering organisms paleontologists have never seen.

Of course, the question hanging over all of 65 is whether the inhabitants of the Cretaceous world would chase down a human morsel just for the novelty of it. We’ll never know the answer for certain. But given the behavior or large carnivores, T. rex would probably not stalk a human given how much energy would be required for a relatively lean payoff. Paleontologists have estimated that an adult T. rex would need about 200,000 calories a day, or roughly an adult human and a half. Raptors probably wouldn’t be too enticed, either, as their curved claws evolved to pin down modest morsels like mammals and smaller dinosaurs rather than taking on big prey.

Sorry, Adam Driver, but to a T. rex , at least, you’re not really a snack.

Editors' Note, March 22, 2023: Due to a math error this article misstated the daily caloric intake of a T. rex. It should be 200,000 calories a day, not 2,500 calories a day.

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Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian  magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications. 

65 ending explained: what happens in the Adam Driver sci-fi movie?

In 65, people from the future fight for survival on earth when dinosaurs stalked the lands.

What happens at the end of 65? Here's how the sci-flick starring Adam Driver (and a whole host of dinosaurs) played out.

65 sees spacefarer Mills (Driver) leaving his family and home planet behind on a two-year-long deep-space voyage in order to earn some extra cash. However, the trip really doesn't pay off. During his flight, the ship is hit by an asteroid and ends up crashing down to Earth, 65 million years in the past. 

Initially, he thinks he's the only survivor, though his ship soon detects signs of life from one of the spacecraft's cryo pods. With Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) to protect, he resolves to get both of them off the planet, having to do battle with all manner of "alien" creatures — aka dinosaurs — en route. 

Be warned, there are big spoilers ahead. If you'd prefer to find out what happens for yourself, check out our article explaining how to watch 65 instead. Otherwise, here's 65 's ending explained.

65 ending explained: what happens to Mills and Koa?

The bulk of the film sees Mills trying to escort the young girl, Koa, to the other half of his crashed ship, which is embedded in a mountain 15 kilometers away. 

By the time they reach the top, they've already encountered a number of dinosaurs, but there's a second problem on the horizon. Aside from the variety of predators lurking around every corner, there's also a giant asteroid on course for an imminent collision with the planet.

Against all odds, the pair reach the mountaintop. There, Koa is devastated to learn that Mills had lied to her. At the outset of their journey, he'd told her that her family was waiting at the top of the mountain in order to convince her to come on the hike to the other half of the ship.

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Understandably, she's fairly upset. To bring her back around, Mills confesses that his daughter had died. Since he'd taken the long-haul flight job to earn enough money to pay for treatment for her unknown illness, the whole thing was essentially rendered a pointless journey. 

With this new common ground established, the pair are even more determined to flee together. They climb into the cockpit of the vessel and prepare to launch, but a smaller meteorite smashes into the ship and flips the escape pod over. Mills and Koa come to just in time, as two large dinosaurs emerge and begin to close in on the ship.

The pair work together and Mills manages to kill the two creatures before they can destroy the ship. They're not out of the woods yet, though, as another, larger quadrupedal dinosaur — the one they'd fled into the caves from — returns to seek its revenge.

During the ensuing struggle, the dino rights the spaceship. Mills urges Koa to launch the ship whilst he leads the creature away on foot. Mills is basically out of options to fight the creature, but he lays eyes on the hot springs he stumbled on shortly after his crash. He dives past a geyser, expecting it to kill the beast, but the giant predator survives the first blast and bears down on him whilst Mills is lying on the ground.  

As the beast goes to eat him, Koa rushes in to save him by stabbing the dinosaur through the eye with the large piece of bone she'd stashed in her bag earlier. Distracted, the creature thrashes in pain and stays rooted in place just long enough to take a full blast from the geyser, finishing it off and allowing the pair to escape.

With no more dinos in their immediate vicinity, the pair make their way back to the ship and get off the planet just before the asteroid strikes the planet, triggering a mass extinction event and wiping out all life on Earth.

65 is now available to watch in theaters. For info on movie listings near you, head to the official 65 website. And for more films to look forward to, check out our guide to the biggest new movies coming out this year.

Martin was a Staff Writer with WhatToWatch.com, where he produced a variety of articles focused on the latest and greatest films and TV shows. Now he works for our sister site Tom's Guide in the same role.

Some of his favorite shows are What We Do In The Shadows , Bridgerton , Gangs of London , The Witcher , Doctor Who , and Ghosts . When he’s not watching TV or at the movies, Martin’s probably still in front of a screen playing the latest video games, reading, or watching the NFL.

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Your Guide to Movies

65 explained (2023)

Welcome to our Colossus Movie Guide for 65 . This guide contains our detailed library of content covering key aspects of the movie’s plot, ending, meaning, and more. We encourage your comments to help us create the best possible guide. Thank you!

What is 65 about?

65 is dinosaur spectacle meets a horror survival in the woods meets a story about grief meets an exploration of found family. In other words: Jurassic Park + Predator + Gravity + Big Daddy . Thematically, you can view the time Mills and Koa spend on Earth as metaphoric for being in a state of grief and the process of working through such tremendous loss in order to move on with your life. 

Movie Guide table of contents

The ending of 65 explained, the themes and meaning of 65.

• Why is the movie called 65?

Important motifs in 65

• Questions and answers
• Mills – Adam Driver
• Koa – Ariana Greenblatt
• Nevine – Chloe Coleman
• Alya – Nika King
• Written by – Scott Beck | Bryan Woods
• Directed by – Scott Beck | Bryan Woods

The end of 65 begins after Mills and Koa make their way to an escape pod. Koa discovers her parents aren’t alive and is, for a brief time, upset at Mills. But at any minute a gigantic asteroid will hit this exact area, so there isn’t much time. Smaller debris striking nearby causes the escape pod to plummet down a cliff. Back on ground-level, the ship attracts the attention of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Then a second. 

Mills leaves the pod. Fights the dinosaurs. But a third appears and chases him. He leads the hungry creature to a nearby geyser. The combination of the scalding water and a poison spear strike from Koa take out the last dinosaur. The duo flee Earth before the meteor strike. 

Instead of following the characters, the camera stays on Earth. Time passes and a city develops. It’s our modern civilization, or something like it. 

What we see with the end of 65 is tragedy and recovery. The meteorite hits Earth. It annihilates the dinosaurs. But, after some time, human civilization replaces them. It’s not the same but it’s not nothing. Life goes on. 

You can apply this to Mills. The death of his daughter, Nevine, is the equivalent of a meteorite strike. It’s awful. Time passes. And wild, random circumstances bring him and Koa together. She’s not his daughter. They’re not even related. But this experience bonds them forever. You can easily imagine when they return to Somaris that Mills adopts Koa and they form this new kind of family. 

Gravity had a similar story. Same with the video game and TV show The Last of Us . In The Tree of Life , Terence Malick used the same meteorite impact for the same symbolism: the loss of a child, how that loss changes the world as you know it, and how even though it doesn’t seem possible that some form of recovery can occur. 

Guilt and grief 

Mills’s daughter, Nevine, is sick. The treatment she needs is expensive. To pay for it, Mills accepts a job that needs two years to complete. It’s a hard decision because if he passes on the job then it might be impossible to pay for Nevine’s treatment. But if he takes it, there is no guarantee. The worst case scenario is he goes on the job, the treatment doesn’t work, and Nevine dies before Mills returns. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happens. 

So when we pick up with Mills, he’s not the same hopeful man from the beginning of 65 . This is why when he first arrives on Earth, he tells Somaris not to send help. Nevine has already passed. His guilt is tremendous. Mills doesn’t want to fight to live. He’d rather let his grief consume him. 

Redemption and fear

When Mills discovers Koa, his parental instincts kick in. The opportunity to save her is, in some small way, an opportunity at saving himself. It’s redemption. What he couldn’t do for Nevine. This comes with mixed feelings. Fear of failure. Fear of reliving the pain of losing someone you care about. Fear of caring for and about someone. Mills believes he fumbled that responsibility once before. This time, will he succeed?

Found family

Mills no longer has Nevine. Koa no longer has parents. Their situation is similar to Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us . While they’re not related, circumstances bring them together in this father-daughter dynamic. You can imagine a situation where Mills and Alya adopt Koa. It may not be the family they thought they’d have, but it’s family nonetheless. 

Why is the movie called 65 ?

65 ’s story is about what happens when this alien crash lands on a strange planet. It just so happens that the planet is Earth and the alien is human-like. And the time period is 65 million years ago, the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs were the dominant form of life on Earth. By calling the movie 65 , it puts extra emphasis on the idea of the when . It also allows for the initial shock/twist of realizing that the planet Mills winds up on is our own. 

It’s not uncommon for sci-fi stories to explore this idea. Prometheus , Jupiter Ascending , and a famous TV show (that I don’t want to spoil the twist to) all rely on the idea that humans are foreign to Earth. It’s a bit more complicated in 65 as we’re not sure if what we see is a discovery of Earth and Mills’s planet will eventually colonize it? Or if Mills somehow is the reason humanity exists on Earth? Or if humans will just evolve naturally and Mills being there had nothing to do with our eventual formation and rise to prominence?

The dinosaurs

We’ve discussed how 65 is a metaphor for the grieving process. With the dinosaurs being the main antagonists of the story, constantly being a threat to our main characters, you could view them as symbolic for the bouts of negative emotions that are part of grieving. You’re trying to live your life, you’re trying to go about your day, when suddenly the negative feelings appear and wreak havoc as you struggle against them. The horror genre uses this symbolic technique a lot. In The Babadook and Talk to Me the monsters represent grief. Or in It Follows , the monster is a stand in for anxiety. In Smile , it’s trauma. 

Questions & answers about 65

How did mills go back in time in 65 does 65 take place in the past or future.

He didn’t go back in time. 65 just takes place 65 million years ago. There is no time travel. 

What does the ending of 65 mean?

It’s a statement on the way in which life can keep going after something traumatic happens. In this case, it compares the asteroid striking the planet to a parent losing a child. It seems like the end of the world, but there is a tomorrow. 

Are Mills and Koa human?

No. They’re humanoid. But clearly from another planet. So 100% alien. The question the movie doesn’t really answer is whether or not Mills’s planet eventually colonized Earth. In which case Mills would be “human” since we’d be descendants of his planet. But if people just evolved naturally then we’re similar but genetically unique. 

“How would people just evolve naturally?”

The same way they do in other sci-fi movies. The idea would be that species evolve based on the atmosphere and makeup of the planet. If a planet had a similar atmosphere to Earth, then you could assume the life that evolves there would be similar. If there are 10 million planets like Earth, more than one might evolve humanoids that appear identical. 

What planet was Mills from?

Somaris. And he’s a pilot for what is essentially an intergalactic UPS. 

What is the creature at the end of 65 ?

It has the head and neck of a Tyrannosaurus but is a quadruped much like a Dimetrodon except lacking the sail. As far as I’m aware, there was no quadrupedal carnivore the size of a Tyrannosaur. Which would make the dinosaur at the end of 65 fictional. Most of the four-legged dinos were herbivores like the ceratopia, sauropods, stegosauria, and ankylosauria. 

Did any of the other passengers on the ship survive?

Nope. There were no other survivors. 

What caused Mills’s ship to crash?

Going through an asteroid field. Nothing special.

Is 65 about the advent of humankind?

No. Despite taking place on prehistoric Earth, there’s nothing in the film that confirms that the crashed ship is what leads to the evolution of humans. 

Now it’s your turn

Have more unanswered questions about 65 ? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!

Chris Lambert is co-founder of Colossus. He writes about complex movie endings, narrative construction, and how movies connect to the psychology of our day-to-day lives.

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Reader Interactions

December 28, 2023

I find it interesting that nobody seems to catch the scene in the geysers that put human footprints next to dinosaur footprints, which eludes to the mysterious finds by archeologists of today. This scene is a bit of an explanation to that discovery.

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'65' Directors Break Down Their Dino-Hunting Sci-Fi Adventure in New Featurette

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A month following its theatrical release, Sony Pictures Entertainment is revealing how the team built the prehistoric world seen in the Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt -led 65 . The one-minute video showcases the production design, sketches, commentary and more. The directors also share their inspiration behind the time travel adventure film.

Co-writers and co-directors Bryan Woods and Scott Beck shared their thoughts on filming the action drama. "The inspiration behind 65 was that Mills was going to crash-land from one movie into a better movie," said Woods. Beck explained that the duo was influenced by a production design created by Kevin Ishioka motivating them to travel back in time to a prehistoric earth 65 million years ago .

An astronaut crashes onto a mysterious planet quickly discovering he is stranded on Earth 65 million years ago. The pilot, Mill, teams up with the sole survivor of the planet, a young girl named Koa, to travel across dangerous terrain in hopes to make it to their only chance at being rescued. Through their journey the two must face off against prehistoric creatures such as carnivorous dinosaurs and more in a fight of survival.

RELATED: '65' and 9 Other Non-traditional Time Travel Movies, Ranked by IMDb Score

The Challenges of Filming '65'?

Challenges always arise when making out-of-the-box sci-fi films, and a film in which a pilot suddenly finds himself time traveling back to the dinosaur era is no exception. Woods shared that the unique challenge within 65 was attempting to capture what exactly would a prehistoric earth should sound like. Greenblatt also shared her fun experience set getting dizzy after filming upside down.

Woods and Beck have previously collaborated in films such as A Quiet Place , Haunt , Nightlight , and more. The duo is great at creating thriller films with intense moments that will have you gasping at the edge of your seat. The two served as primary writers for the thriller hit A Quiet Place with John Krasinski . In an interview with Collider , the duo also shared details on their upcoming adaptation of Stephen King 's The Boogeyman and more behind the scenes challenges when filming 65 .

65 stars Greenblatt and Driver, along with Cloe Coleman . Woods and Beck serve as producers alongside Zainab Aziz , Deborah Liebling and Sam Raimi . The film earned $56.2 million at the box office and received mixed reviews .

65 is now available to buy or rent on several platforms. Check out the behind the scenes clip below:

• 65 (2023) (2023)

Screen Rant

Adam driver fights dinosaurs in 65 movie trailer.

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The first look at Adam Driver's new sci-fi film has arrived as Sony releases the first 65 movie trailer. Following his stint with Star Wars playing Kylo Ren, Adam Driver returns to the sci-fi movie genre in 2023. 65 stars Driver as an astronaut who becomes stranded on Earth 65 million years ago. The original sci-fi film is written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the duo who wrote A Quiet Place . Sam Raimi also produced the movie, which was put into development by Sony in 2020 ahead of a planned 2022 release date.

After Sony elected to delay the highly anticipated sci-fi film to 2023, the studio has now finally released the first 65 movie trailer, providing the first look at Adam Driver's new potential franchise. The trailer shows Adam Driver's astronaut character crash land on an unknown planet with at least one other survivor, but they soon discover that they are on a prehistoric Earth filled with dinosaurs trying to kill them. Check out the 65 movie trailer below:

Related: Every Upcoming Adam Driver Movie

Everything We Know About Adam Driver's 65 Movie

Thanks to the first 65 movie trailer, many more details about Adam Driver's new sci-fi movie have now been revealed. It appears that the movie incorporates time travel somehow to explain how a futuristic astronaut leading an expedition mission crash lands on Earth 65 million years ago. The trailer also confirms that Arianna Greenblatt plays one of the other passengers on his spaceship. It was previously announced that Marry Me star Chloe Coleman also has a role in 65 , but it is not known what role she plays based on the trailer.

The big reveal from the 65 movie trailer is that Adam Driver's nemesis in the sci-fi film is dinosaurs. While he believes they are aliens at first, he soon comes to discover that the monsters hunting him and Greenblatt's character down are prehistoric animals. The 65 movie trailer only provides a few glimpses of the dinosaurs featured in the movie, which is likely a sign of how big of a role they will have in the movie. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods know from A Quiet Place that using the monsters sparingly can help increase the tension (and save on the budget), so they could be using the same technique for 65 .

Now that the 65 movie trailer has arrived, anticipation should start to grow for the movie ahead of its March 10, 2023, release date. Adam Driver remains one of the best actors working in Hollywood today, so seeing him tackle an original sci-fi movie where he fights dinosaurs is certainly enticing. If 65 movie becomes another A Quiet Place -level hit for Beck and Woods, they could be responsible for launching another new franchise in Hollywood too.

More: A Quiet Place Complete Timeline Explained

Source: Sony

Adam Driver Time Travels into the Past to Fight Dinosaurs in the '65' Trailer

By Jen Maravegias | Film | December 14, 2022 |

After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth…65 million years ago. Now, with only one chance at rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight to survive.

The movie is a mashup of some of my genre faves — Space without being a Star War or a Star Trek ; dinosaurs without being Jurassic Park ; and time travel without being Doctor Who . Let’s hope the filmmakers, Scott Beck & Bryan Woods ( A Quiet Place ), keep the best bits from all of those franchises and avoid the pitfalls. Nobody needs another Passengers .

65 , starring Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt ( Love and Monsters ), Chloe Coleman ( Marry Me ) and some dinosaurs, opens in theaters March 10th.

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65's Big Reveal Turns Adam Driver's Dinosaur Drama Into a Very Different Movie

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The following contains spoilers for 65 , now playing in theaters.

Sam Raimi's 65 is doing a lot of things in its relatively short 90-minute runtime. The film uses a high-sci-fi concept to justify throwing a technologically advanced pair into a situation where all their gadgets can barely keep them alive, all while finding a surprisingly human story about grief within its plot. At times, it's a wilderness thriller; at others, it's a character drama. But the third act introduces something very different to the proceedings.

65 's third-act plot twist -- which introduces a ticking clock to Mills (Adam Driver) and Koa's (Ariana Greenblatt) escape from prehistoric Earth by revealing the rapid descent of a giant asteroid -- shifts gears for the film. It's a huge tonal shift, forcing the pair to abandon their stealthy and quiet means of escaping in lieu of spaceship launches and gunfights against dinosaurs. But the effect works within the context of Mills' growth as a character and allows the film to fully embrace its truly bizarre potential.

RELATED: Jurassic Park Avoided a Character Death That Changed the Franchise Forever

What Happens in 65's Third Act?

One of the notable things about 65 is that it's a fairly straightforward (albeit wild) concept, focusing on Mills and Koa after the two crash land on Earth. Hoping to get Koa back to their intergalactic civilization, Mills leads her across prehistoric Earth in an effort to locate the other half of their spaceship -- which contains an escape pod they could use to return to space. For the most part, the film balances two very distinct tones and thematic throughlines as they make their way through the forest to reach the mountain where the ship landed. On the one hand, it's a survivalist thriller, pitting the two against the elements of a world they simply aren't familiar with. On the other, it's a film about two people going through the grief of losing loved ones and finding shared ground and the chance to move on together.

But all of this gets complicated when the real reason their ship crashed is confirmed, following a series of quiet teases. It turns out that their ship got caught in the veritable asteroid field caused by the truly massive asteroid hurtling toward the planet. Viewers can quickly recognize that this is the asteroid that will wipe out most life on Earth, including all the dinosaurs Mills and Koa encounter during their journey. If they're not fast enough to escape the planet, the two of them will also be among the casualty count. This reveal gives 65 's third act a far different tone than before, one that quietly works on a couple of levels.

RELATED: Jurassic Park III's Early Draft Changed the Fate of Dr. Grant - and the Series

How 65 Takes a Huge Turn Toward Action

The frantic third-act reveal forces Mills and Koa to quickly try and move past their internal problems, exasperating the tension that explodes when Koa realizes Mills had lied to her about her parents being potentially alive at the crash site. The ticking clock of the asteroid arriving is only made worse by the return of the T.Rex that had appeared at other points in 65 -- forcing Mills to make a decision to either lay down and give up or keep fighting to save Koa. Throughout the film, Mills is portrayed as being on the edge of giving up completely. When he first lands on the planet, he initially even intends to turn his gun on himself, only relenting at the last moment.

His efforts to protect Koa largely involve blasting away at dinosaurs and sprinting as far as they can, as fast as they can. But inspired by the image of his dead daughter (broadcast to him by Koa), Mills decides to fight the T.Rex directly, firing upon it until he runs out of ammo before using the environment to his advantage to lure it into a lethal trap. The shift suddenly comes with a big piece of character-driven energy, the defiance in Mills spilling out in a way that allows a movie that's mostly avoided celebrating his survival a chance to be triumphant. 65 's tone changes considerably in the third act, especially after the more tense and dramatic beats from earlier in the movie. Instead of simply trying to survive and overcome the dinosaurs, Mills turns into an action star , standing up to a creature many times larger than him, reflecting his own rediscovery of his will to live following his darker perspective.

After embracing a surprisingly grounded tone for a movie about human-looking aliens fighting dinosaurs with space shotguns, 65 allows itself to go wild with the premise and have fun with the sheer scale of the story. The film's ending -- which sees Mills and Koa just barely escape the planet in time before ending on a hopeful implication that they will indeed be rescued -- is never in doubt, but that doesn't make it any less effective. It turns a film mainly focused on horror and drama into something more triumphant, allowing the characters to finally achieve a major win after just barely surviving the proceeding events. 65 's final act is a wild shift in tone, but one that largely works for the film's intent.

To see its wild third act, 65 is now in theaters.

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• UNIT's latest time travel innovation sheds light on previously unexplored historical research.
• The Time Window chamber offers a unique way to look into the past without physically traveling through time.

Russell T Davies explains how UNIT's latest attempt at crafting their form of time travel via the Time Window fits into the organization's long-running Doctor Who history. Debuting during the Second Doctor's (Patrick Troughton) era, UNIT has safeguarded the Earth from extraterrestrial threat since 1958 and is currently headed by Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) from their London skyscraper HQ. After a brief appearance in "73 Yards'" alternate timeline, the organization returned in "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" as Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday use the Time Window to glimpse at the night of Ruby's abandonment.

Recently, Davies broke down UNIT's latest scientific advancement to Doctor Who: Unleashed , shining a light on an unexplored area of the organization's research. While UNIT has rarely engaged in mastering time travel, the showrunner revealed that the Doctor had forbade them from carrying out any experiments regarding science during the organization's early days in the show. Check out Davies' explanation below:

"The Time Window chamber is a great device that UNIT has had secretly hidden away. We've never seen UNIT traveling in time. It's funny, they've never invested in it, and we realized through a bit of dialogue that the Doctor's always forbidden them. It's a means of looking into the past without traveling there by TARDIS. For the Doctor, it's kind of crude."

UNIT's Brief History With Time Travel Explained

This goes all the way back to the third doctor..

While the complicated time-traveling scheme of Susan Triad (Susan Twist) sees her technology incorporated into UNIT's systems, it is unclear whether the Time Window is a UNIT project or part of Sutekh's (Gabriel Woolf) greater plans.

With Davies having previously teased that the finale had connections to Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who era , the Third Doctor is the incarnation that time travel experimentation became forbidden during his career as UNIT's first scientific advisor to prevent any historical change. Furthermore, UNIT has had an active presence in ensuring that the technology isn't crafted by the wrong hands, be it halting conspiracies involving dinosaurs in modern London or keeping the TARDIS safe when the Doctor isn't present. Despite this, Doctor Who 's UNIT organization has had its hands on time travel technology outside the Doctor's knowledge.

Doctor Who's The One Who Waits Identity Explained: How They Return & Fourth Doctor Connection

The One Who Waits finally shows his face in Doctor Who season 14, episode 7, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday," and he has a history with the Doctor.

In Doctor Who 's 50th-anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor," Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) joins Kate in visiting the newly relocated Black Archive in the Tower of London after the collection was moved from its previous facility after an alien incursion. A treasure trove of leftover alien technology the Doctor would not approve of UNIT owning, the area included items like Jack Harkness's (John Barrowman) donated deactivated Vortex Manipulator. While Kate claimed it was to keep it safe, the organization was clearly keen to keep its first scientific officer in the dark .

While alternate timelines have shown what UNIT could do if they attempted to harness the technology, Doctor Who season 14's recent episode has opened a glimpse at a previously unexplored chapter of the organization's history. While the complicated time-traveling scheme of Susan Triad (Susan Twist) sees her technology incorporated into UNIT's systems, it is unclear whether the Time Window is a UNIT project or part of Sutekh's (Gabriel Woolf) greater plans. Nevertheless, with Davies keen on having UNIT be a continued presence in the series, more hidden projects could be the focus of future stories.

Doctor Who releases new episodes every Friday simultaneously on Disney+ for international audiences and BBC iPlayer for UK viewers.

Source: Doctor Who: Unleashed

Cast Millie Gibson, Alex Kingston, Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Ncuti Gatwa, Jodie Whittaker

Release Date November 23, 1963

Genres Mystery, Sci-Fi, Adventure

Network BBC

Streaming Service(s) Brit Box, The Roku Channel, Prime Video, Tubi

Franchise(s) Doctor Who

Writers Steven Moffat, Chris Chibnall, Toby Whithouse, Neil Cross, Mark Gatiss

Rating TV-14

As the last of the alien species known as the Time Lords, the Doctor travels through time and space in his TARDIS, a time machine thats bigger on the inside than the outside, seeking out adventures in the ancient past and unimagined future while also serving as the protector of Earth and mankind. With a human companion by his side, the Doctor meets extraordinary and sometimes deadly - characters and creatures from across the universe.

Scientists probe a space mystery: Why do people age faster during space travel?

Research finds bodies in space were stressed and showed dramatic signs of aging during the journey. but 95% of the indicators studied returned to normal within a few months..

Humanity's future may involve getting to a planet other than Earth ‒ but first people will have to survive the journey. That's why in a new series of papers scientists explore the impact of space travel on the human body from skin to kidneys to immune cells to genes.

Four civilian astronauts allowed themselves to be researched from top to bottom as they circled in low-Earth orbit for three days aboard the 2021 SpaceX Inspiration4 mission and then returned to their normal lives.

One of the most important observations was that although their bodies were stressed and showed dramatic signs of aging during the journey, 95% of the indicators studied returned to normal within a few months.

Radiation exposure apparently causes the acceleration of disease and damages cells "even in three to five days," Susan Bailey, a co-author on many of the studies and a radiation cancer biologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, said in a Monday video call with reporters.

Space news: Starship splashes down for first time in 4th test

Bailey and other scientists have studied astronauts before, most famously, identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly, during and after most of the 520 days Scott spent in space. ( Mark is now a senator from Arizona , choosing to run for political office after his wife, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords , now a gun control advocate , was shot in the head by a constituent.)

But this collection of studies, published Tuesday in Nature and related journals , shows the impact of space travel both on more people and also on a more diverse group, not just the exclusive people who can pass NASA's rigorous selection process.

Hayley Arceneaux , for instance, a physician assistant who served as the mission's medical director, was treated for cancer at age 10 and was one of the rare women in space. At 29, Arceneaux was also the youngest-ever space traveler.

Each of the four members of Inspiration4 represented a different decade of life, and began to provide the kind of diversity that will be crucial to understanding how space travel may impact people of different ages and health status and with different lived experiences, the researchers said.

"It really provides the foundation as we think ahead and more futuristically," Bailey said. The papers, she said, encouraged her and her peers to "think a little bit more about what it's really going to take for people to live in space for long periods of time, to thrive, to reproduce. How is all of that really going to happen?"

Bailey spent months studying the biology of the space travelers. But Monday's video conference was the first time she'd seen them face-to-face. "I'm familiar with your DNA," she told Arceneaux and fellow space traveler Chris Sembroski. "But it's nice to meet you."

Better understanding the damage that accumulates and how the body adapts to space travel will also lead researchers to treatments and fixes, said Bailey and the two other co-authors on the call, Christopher Mason, professor of genomics, physiology, and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, and Afshin Beheshti, an expert in bioinformatics at Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Seattle.

In addition to age-related diseases, the papers revealed other problems space travelers can develop, like kidney stones. "Here we can treat that, but a kidney stone halfway to Mars, how are you going to treat that?" Beheshti wondered aloud. "That wasn't on the radar before" these papers.

"As we start to unravel some of this," Bailey added, "we'll improve not only our ability to deal with radiation exposure but also be addressing some of these age-related pathologies like cardiovascular disease that certainly could influence astronauts' performance en route to Mars."

Another insight: Women seem to recover faster from space damage than men, though Mason cautioned that more women need to be studied to better understand the effect and that faster recovery could come at the expense of higher long-term risk of breast and lung cancer from extended radiation exposure.

The lessons learned from space travelers could help folks on Earth, too, the researchers said.

Learning how to keep cells safe from radiation, for instance, might be transferable to help minimize damage to cancer patients undergoing radiation treatments, Mason said.

New protection measures could also be useful for people exposed to radiation at work or in case of a nuclear reactor disaster like the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan after the 2011 earthquake there.

Because space travel speeds up aging, learning how to reverse or slow that process could help "extend health-span for us mere earthlings as well," Bailey said. The new skin study, for example, suggests approaches that might be used to help people keep their skin looking younger longer.

"There's all kinds of things that could potentially benefit people on Earth," she said.

The Inspiration4 mission, which raised $250 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis , Tennessee, also relied on some experimental technologies for recording medical information, including a handheld ultrasound imaging device, smartwatch wearables, a measurement device to check for eye alignment and new methods for profiling the immune system as well as other cells and molecules.

These devices and approaches could be useful for Earth-bound settings that are far from major urban medical centers, Mason said.

Relying on civilians rather than NASA astronauts also made it easier to study the space travelers, who signed waivers and aren't subject to government regulations, he said. Their data will be made available to other researchers.

Both Arceneaux and Sembroski, a data engineer who works for the space technologies company Blue Origin, said they loved their spaceflight and would do it again in a second if given the chance. But they also hope many others are given the same opportunity.

"We're not going to see the civilization in space that we want without people being willing to share that experience," Sembroski said about sharing his data for research. "It was fun to be part of this."

"Our mission had, not only a lot of heart behind it," Arceneaux added, "but we really wanted to make a scientific impact."

Arceneaux said she doesn't mind the mark left by the biopsy used to study how her skin reacted to space travel. "I love my space scar!" she said.

"Better than a tattoo," Bailey responded.

The best news from the research on both Kelly and the Inspiration4 travelers, Mason said, is that there's "no show-stopper. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to get to Mars and back."

Radiation exposure probably means people shouldn't be taking multiple trips to and from the red planet, he said. But "so far, from all we've observed, the body is successfully adapting to the space environment."

Karen Weintraub can be reached at [email protected].

U.S. News takes an unbiased approach to our recommendations. When you use our links to buy products, we may earn a commission but that in no way affects our editorial independence.

Travel Insurance for Seniors & Retirees: 5 Top Picks

Allianz Travel Insurance »

Trawick International »

GeoBlue »

IMG Travel Insurance »

WorldTrips »

Why Trust Us

U.S. News evaluates ratings, data and scores of more than 50 travel insurance companies from comparison websites like TravelInsurance.com, Squaremouth and InsureMyTrip, plus renowned credit rating agency AM Best, in addition to reviews and recommendations from top travel industry sources and consumers to determine the Best Travel Insurance for Seniors and Retirees.

Table of Contents

• Allianz Travel Insurance
• Trawick International

While anyone planning a trip overseas can benefit from having a travel insurance plan in place, older travelers need to prioritize this coverage more than others. The fact is, senior travelers and retirees have unique worries and risks to think about any time they travel far from home. These risks increase their need for travel health insurance and emergency medical coverage, as well as coverage for emergency medical evacuation that applies anywhere in the world.

Which travel insurance options work best for seniors? There are many travel insurance plans that were created with retirees in mind, although you'll want to compare them side by side. For example, you may want to look at coverage limits for medical expenses and coverage for preexisting conditions above all else.

U.S. News editors compared more than 20 of the top travel insurance companies to find the best plans for seniors. This list does the heavy lifting for you as you search for the best senior travel insurance of 2023, so read on to learn about the top picks.

• Allianz Travel Insurance: Best Annual Coverage
• Trawick International: Best Premium Travel Insurance for Seniors
• GeoBlue: Best Travel Medical Coverage for Expats
• IMG Travel Insurance: Best for Short-Term Travel Medical Coverage
• WorldTrips: Best for Flexibility

Available to senior travelers of all ages

Coverage for preexisting conditions is offered

Relatively low limits for emergency medical expenses

• Coverage for COVID-19
• Trip cancellation coverage up to $3,000
• Trip interruption coverage up to $3,000
• Emergency medical coverage up to $20,000
• Emergency medical evacuation coverage up to $100,000
• Baggage loss coverage up to $1,000
• Baggage delay insurance up to $200
• Travel delay coverage up to $600 ($200 daily limit)
• Rental car damage and theft coverage up to $45,000
• Travel accident coverage up to $25,000
• 24-hour hotline for assistance
• Concierge service
• Preexisting condition coverage (must be added to plan within 14 days of first trip deposit or payment)

SEE FULL REVIEW »

Customize plan with optional CFAR coverage

Incredibly high limits for medical expenses and emergency evacuation

Coverage is for trips up to 30 days if you're age 80 and older

• Up to $15,000 in trip cancellation insurance
• Up to $22,500 in trip interruption coverage
• Up to $1,000 for trip delays ($200 daily limit for delays of 12-plus hours)
• Up to $1,000 for missed connections
• Up to $150,000 for emergency medical expenses
• Up to $1 million in emergency medical evacuation coverage
• $750 in emergency dental coverage
• $2,000 in coverage for baggage and personal effects
• $400 in baggage delay coverage
• 24/7 noninsurance assistance services

Get comprehensive health insurance that applies overseas

Preventive and routine care included

Age limits apply for new applicants and renewals

• Preventive and routine care
• Professional services like surgery
• Inpatient medical care
• Ambulatory and therapeutic services
• Rehabilitation and therapy

Get overseas medical coverage for single trips or multiple trips

Plans were created with seniors and retirees in mind

Lower maximum coverage limits for travelers ages 80 and older

Limited nonmedical travel insurance benefits

• Inpatient and outpatient medical coverage such as for physician visits, hospitalization and surgery
• Emergency and nonemergency medical evacuation coverage
• Coverage for emergency reunions
• Return of mortal remains
• Trip interruption coverage worth up to $5,000
• Lost luggage coverage worth up to $250 (up to $50 per item)
• Coverage for terrorism worth up to $50,000
• Accidental death and dismemberment coverage worth up to $25,000

Customize your deductible and premiums

Generous medical limits for travelers ages 65 to 79

Limited medical coverage for travelers older than 80

• Up to $1 million in emergency evacuation coverage
• Medical benefits like hospital room and board, chiropractic care, and more
• Coverage for repatriation of remains
• Up to $25,000 in personal liability coverage
• Up to $10,000 in trip interruption insurance
• Up to $1,000 in coverage for lost checked luggage
• Up to $100 per day in coverage for travel delays of 12-plus hours
• Up to $1,500 in coverage for bedside visits
• Up to $100,000 in coverage for emergency reunions

Frequently Asked Questions

You can purchase some travel insurance plans (but not all) if you're older than 80 years old. However, your premiums may be higher and you'll typically qualify for lower coverage limits overall. Make sure you compare the best travel insurance plans for seniors to find the right fit for your needs.

Since seniors and retirees are more likely to face a medical emergency during a trip, most travel insurance plans for seniors include coverage for emergency medical expenses and emergency medical evacuation. Coverages vary among plans, as do limits, so make sure to compare options before you book a trip overseas.

Why Trust U.S. News Travel

Holly Johnson is a professional travel writer who has covered international travel and travel insurance for more than a decade. Johnson has researched and compared all the top travel insurance options for her own family for trips to more than 50 countries around the world, and she has successfully filed claims during that time. Johnson lives in Indiana with her two children and her husband, Greg, a travel agent who has been licensed to sell travel insurance in 50 states.

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