A Quiet Place: Day One is an upcoming prequel film that may finally provide some long-awaited answers about the Quiet Place universe. Much of the appeal of the franchise thus far has been the mystery that it has been steeped in from the start. A Quiet Place never had a lengthy origin for the terrifying creatures that terrorize its characters. Instead, they’re simply there, and it’s up to the stoic Lee Abbott (John Krasinski) and his family to survive the chaos.
As fun as it is for audiences to slowly piece together the quiet apocalypse unleashed upon the world, the third installment of the Quiet Place series is an excellent opportunity to provide some concrete answers, as it’s set before the other two movies. There’s a lot of gray area within the timeline of the aliens arriving, wiping out the government, and where the world is when introduced at the beginning of the first film. While A Quiet Place: Part II teased possibilities about the creatures’ takeover, A Quiet Place: Day One will be a prequel that could unveil much more about how the world of this franchise came to be.
10 How The Aliens Came To Earth In A Quiet Place
The short answer to this burning question — they arrived via meteor — was already revealed in A Quiet Place: Part II. In flashbacks, the sequel depicts the first frantic moments of the aliens being unleashed upon Upstate New York as Lee struggles to round up his family in the chaos. But there are still a lot of unknown factors that could be at play when it comes to how the aliens wound up on Earth specifically.
The aliens’ violent entry into Earth’s atmosphere is indicative of meteors, but it’s also possible that they each arrived in a one-way spacecraft. No impact craters or meteorites are shown close-up, meaning that for all the protagonists know, the aliens could have arrived in vessels closer to drop-pods rather than naturally occurring meteors. Even more bizarre is the implication that each falling alien simply survived entry into Earth’s atmosphere on its own, a testament to the incredible durability of their powerful exoskeletons.
9 Just How Many Aliens Are There?
Whether the aliens arrived as individuals, hitched a ride on cosmic debris, or landed in purpose-built craft, their true numbers are still unknown as of A Quiet Place: Part II. As the survivors are generally forced to be silent at all times, there seems to be enough of the creatures present, at least in Upstate New York, that being attacked is a constant threat. With a total of only three individual monsters in the first two Quiet Place films, it seems that each creature can do incredible damage and take over a vast swath of territory by itself.
Yet the total number of crash sites that deposited monsters across the earth remains to be seen. A Quiet Place: Day One teased footage at Cinemacon showing a horde of meteors raining down on New York. This suggests the aliens’ numbers may be far greater than originally thought. Meanwhile, nothing is known about the creatures’ reproductive cycle, so they could have multiplied since landing.
8 Did Any Other Countries Manage To Survive?
The first film in the Quiet Place franchise put it in no uncertain terms that the United States government had been effectively destroyed by the alien invasion. No reference is made to even a remnant of the military, having been decisively defeated along with the National Guard. What’s left ambiguous, however, is the state of the world at large, and whether there are any countries out there that survived unscathed by the creatures.
Given that the United States military was quickly overwhelmed, it’s unlikely that other governments across the world were able to mount a fast enough response to protect themselves against the fast-acting aliens. The isolation of countries like Australia and Japan from any known meteor strikes makes them the strongest contenders for governments that were able to survive, and there’s a strong possibility that even more creatures were prematurely killed by landing in the ocean. That being said, the complete radio silence and lack of international rescue efforts felt in the first two films make any surviving national government an unlikely prospect.
7 Where Else Did The Aliens Land?
Thanks to Lee’s board tracking the Quiet Place monsters and their landing sites, it’s confirmed that meteors fell in Shanghai, Mexico, New Delhi, Singapore, Colombia, Russia, and London. Many of these crashes were within mere minutes of one another, signaling a total simultaneous worldwide invasion. Mexico’s landings in particular seemed to have been particularly bad, with a newspaper claiming that the impact was strong enough that it was thought to be a nuclear explosion.
The known impact zones spell bad news for the human race. Given the monsters’ devastating savagery and ability to quickly take over a wide area, it’s unlikely that any major population centers in mainland Asia, mainland Europe, or South America were left standing. But since the films are only told from the perspective of a handful of survivors, there’s a strong possibility there were even more crash sites, which the prequel could explore. Australia, Africa, and Antarctica are left as the only continents with no confirmed crash site as of the second film.
6 Are The Aliens Intelligent?
The sapience of the aliens of A Quiet Place is left up in the air. While they certainly behave like animals, claiming territory and mauling their prey with teeth and claws, the possibility of higher thinking is still there. The Quiet Place creatures don’t eat the humans they kill, suggesting an ulterior motive for hunting down Earth’s dominant species. Whether operating on instinct or by higher thought, the creatures appear to be capable of hunting in packs, according to Lee’s whiteboard, suggesting at least the intelligence to work together in groups.
The aliens also were intelligent enough to survive a presumably long journey through space, which is no easy feat for even a species as durable as they are to accomplish. It’s hard to believe the aliens were able to land on a habitable planet, primarily in major cities, by sheer dumb luck. However, if they were intelligent enough to control their flight path, it’s unlikely they would’ve chosen a planet covered in so much water, an inability to swim being a primary weakness of the species.
5 Where Are The Aliens From?
Despite their status as a space-faring race, the aliens of A Quiet Place probably didn’t come to Earth by choice. They hailed from a harsh planetary biome with much higher gravity. Franchise star/director John Krasinski confirmed (via Empire) that their home planet exploded, sending them rocketing through space. Perhaps through a state of prolonged hibernation, the aliens were able to survive the vacuum of space on their own. Little is known about the origins of the Quiet Place monsters or their home planet beyond the brutal conditions that must have been present there to cause such a durable and aggressive species to evolve and thrive on it.
Specifics like where in space the planet was located or whether there were other species also able to survive on it are unlikely to be answered. However, the distance of the aliens’ journey is a particularly pressing question, as it could offer key insight into whether humanity stands any chance of starving out the extraterrestrial threat. It’s even possible that “drowned” aliens could simply be dormant, or even alive at the bottom of the Earth’s oceans, making their inability to swim less of a weakness and more of a temporary setback.
4 Why Was The Military Defeated So Easily?
While the aliens of A Quiet Place are incredibly deadly, it’s still something of a mystery how they were able to totally overwhelm the country in the space of only a year and a half. The tough armor of the creatures is reportedly invulnerable to all forms of small arms fire, missiles, bombs, and even fire. But the creatures have two big weaknesses the military should have been able to capitalize on.
By sheer chance, the Abbotts were able to discover the aliens’ weakness to high-frequency sound waves thanks to their daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and her hearing aid. It seems unlikely that the military weren’t able to make this discovery within the space of a year, perhaps developing some kind of sonic weapon to use against the creatures. Other possible weaknesses like acid, electricity, or poison still seem untested on the aliens as well. The inability of the military to adapt against the single-minded organisms may hint toward something larger, be it a conspiracy, incompetence, or more sheer numbers of the creatures than thought possible.
3 Were The Boat People A Cult?
A Quiet Place: Part II introduced a group of bandits preying upon those seeking to make it off the coast. Led by the unnerving “Marina Man” (Scoot McNairy) as he’s named in the credits, the bandits halt Regan and Emmet’s attempt to use one of their boats to make it to the island, nearly succeeding in capturing them. The deranged behavior of the group may point to something more than just simple opportunistic raiding, as evidenced by the Marina Man’s bloodshot eyes, scars, and otherwise feral appearance.
The Quiet Place boat people may be cannibals, feeding on victims they capture as Earth’s available meat stores run drastically low thanks to the aliens’ hunting. Not only that, but they seem to have bizarre affinity or kinship for the beasts, as evidenced by their homemade device built to attract the creatures to their helpless victims should they try to escape. Most survivors would do anything they can to avoid attracting the aliens’ attention, suggesting they have a deeper connection. Also, the boat people could make for the safety of the islands at any time but choose not to, suggesting some disturbing ideals that the prequel may shed light on.
2 How Did The Man On The Island Become A Leader?
A Quiet Place: Part II introduces Djimon Hounsou as “Man on Island,” the de facto leader of a small community living safely on an island. His character was revealed to be among a group of survivors in the city escorted to the island by the National Guard once they learned the aliens weren’t capable of swimming. The man and his family were among one of only two boats to survive the journey of the initial 12, as the fear and panic of the intense boarding process attracted the creatures.
Hounsou’s character doesn’t appear to have a military background, identifying himself as only one of many civilians who sought refuge on the island. How he came to be recognized as a leader by the other survivors on the island remains a mystery, suggesting some kind of past heroism. Fortunately, Hounsou will return in the Quiet Place prequel, possibly explaining how he rose to the respected position before his untimely demise at the claws of an alien.
1 Will Any Of The Original Cast Return?
While Djimon Hounsou’s character from A Quiet Place: Part II is confirmed to be returning for the prequel, any appearance of the Abbott family remains to be seen. The primary cast consists of all-new actors and characters, showing us a new side of the first day of the alien invasion after flashbacks in the second film showed audiences how the Abbot family got through it. Though it seems unlikely, the possibility of at least a small cameo isn’t out of the question.
When directly asked if any of the first film’s protagonists would return, actress Emily Blunt’s comments about A Quiet Place: Day One cameos were vague, neither confirming nor denying the return of her character. The prequelwill certainly not focus on any of the Abbott family members, but a brief appearance in A Quiet Place: Day One placing them in the timeline of the earliest days of the invasion may provide some keen answers to how they were able to respond to the fall of civilization better than most.
