4 Things A Quiet Place: Day One Could Have Explained

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), the standalone prequel to 2018's "A Quiet Place", showed the beginnings of the horrific fate of the human race on planet Earth as they experience first contact with a blind but extremely dangerous alien species that smashes onto Earth, embedded inside shards/fragments of meteorites. In the A Quiet Place (AQP) movie universe, the days the blind aliens land on Earth is thereafter referred to as Day One. These aliens may have no sight but they have a super-acute sense of hearing and hunt by sound. Moreover, they are naturally so heavily armoured that bullets can't seem to do much damage to them. But these details are already known by fans and moviegoers who have watched even one of the A Quiet Place movies, the 2018 original and the 2020 sequel.

A Quiet Place: Day One is a powerful, well-acted prequel that keeps you engaged with the stories of the human (and feline) survivors and keeps your interest from waning during its 1 hour and 40 minutes runtime. At the same time, the sci-fi alien horror movie does not touch upon various possible plot points that would have rewarded its fan base. Here are four things A Quiet Place: Day One does not touch upon or get in to, with possible spoilers for the previous AQP series movies. If you haven't watched A Quiet Place Part I and II, do not read further.

The Backstory of the Blind Alien Monsters

The biggest reveal that A Quiet Place fans wanted was the prequel to show something about the blind armoured monsters that they already didn't know. But what did the prequel movie give them in regards to that? Zilch.

In an old interview with Empire magazine, actor and co-writer John Krasinski had disclosed something about the origin of the blind aliens in the AQP universe: that the home planet of the AQP aliens exploded and they arrived on Earth on meteorites. Going by that explanation, there are a lot of things we have to assume in this origin story of the blind AQP aliens. We have to assume that their entire planet exploding didn't kill them all, that their armoured hide is so tough that the absence of atmosphere and breathable air in space didn't affect them, that they somehow survived without breathing, and when the meteorites landed on Earth, that explosion didn't cause any damage to them too. From the backstory A Quiet Place writers have built, these blind aliens from A Quiet Place movieverse seem very much like the first or second cousins of the Alien (Xenomorph) from Ridley Scott's Alien franchise: armoured killing machines that can withstand almost any environment. But couldn't the A Quiet Place makers have shown even a little bit about what happened on the aliens' home planet and how they survived in space? It just takes a few scenes to show that. Why we are dissatisfied is that A Quiet Place: Day One took four years to arrive after A Quiet Place: Part II and it doesn't show anything even remotely related to the backstory of the aliens.

Do The Aliens Have A Master Plan Greater Than Exterminating Humans and Animals?

A Quiet Place alien monsters are agile hunters who can pick up on the slightest sound made by humans, like the sounds of a lamp tumbling on the floor or a thud. But how smart A Quiet Place aliens really are? How well and how deep can they think? Do they have a hive mind (looks unlikely) or do they act according to their own individual intelligence and answer to someone higher up like well-drilled soldiers? Do they actually have some kind of a plan for Earth or just keep killing because they can? Since they are just going about, killing every life form they can, what happens after they have killed them all? From whatever has been shown in the three A Quiet Place films till now, it doesn't seem like the aliens are more intelligent than humans.

From the sightless aliens' perspective, nothing is shown in the three horror movies. One may counter that it is a sci-fi monster horror movie, just expect the nerve-jangling experience of pure terror, watch that horror unfold as you watch it, all tensed up and let it be. Fine. But it could have been far more interesting if the workings of the minds of the alien species was included in the storyline. It would have made them slightly more interesting. What? If Ridley Scott's Alien (and the Alien franchise in general) is up there with the best of sci-fi monster horror movies, then, as a creative team, are you scared to think on the lines of developing a film scene that shows the sightless creatures working together to do something complex the humans wouldn't expect? Why not take the risk of outshining in the creature concept department? Why stay a somewhat inferior version of the Xenomorph, with no eyes and no acid for blood (although the Xenomorph could be killed with armour piercing rounds)?

Otherwise, Evelyn Abbot (played by Emily Blunt) and her kids are someday going to find more people and teach them how to kill the monsters and these people, in their turn, are going to do so to other people. Provided the film universe allows it. A Quiet Place 3 will round off the trilogy. Till then, it is speculation time.

The US Government's Plan, Assuming There Are Enough People Left in the Government

Yes, we know, it is Day One. The US government (hell, the human civilization) has been taken completely unaware by this sudden and decisive alien attack that would take just a few days to dismantle most of the things the armed forces around the world can throw at them. Guns don't do much damage and even if someone is there firing a cannon or something like that will be taken out by the killers that came from another world. Every human would die if they are not careful about how much sound they make. But, but, but, speaking from a creative angle, this is the third A Quiet Place film. There are many who have come to watch this prequel after having seen the two that came before. Couldn't the filmmakers show something about how our top military minds work AFTER they learn that the blind creatures hunt by sound? In real life, there are underground bunkers and sites with walls thick enough to mask everyday sounds humans could make from coming out. There are nuclear sites. The top brass could regroup there with as many armed personnel they can get inside. Someone could get airborne in time, if not most of them. And what about the nations' navies? At least the naval forces that are on the ships, warships and aircraft carriers can get a breather from the relentless attacks of these aliens since these monsters can't swim in very deep waters and can't fly. There must be soundproof buildings somewhere. Won't the humans be able to make weapons inside them without attracting the monsters? Why not make A Quiet Place: Day One far more interesting by showing the armies around the world struggling with how to respond to this otherworldly threat and coming up with some sort of an immediate plan to save their men and women first so that they have some kind of a fighting chance?

Are The Aliens Being Controlled By A Species With A Higher Intelligence?

This one could blow the minds of those who haven't seen a lot of space-based/monster horror movies. As per A Quiet Place lore, we are to assume that the home planet of the blind aliens exploded and they somehow floated through space, entered Earth's atmosphere, got caught up in Earth's gravity and began wreaking havoc on us after they landed? It's too random to happen, don't you think? Unless the filmmakers disclose a new idea when AQP 3 comes out that the Earth shown in A Quiet Place is from a different solar system and some alien-infested planet close to a Milky Way type galaxy exploded and then these monsters were close to the Earth and they spilled onto the Earth's atmosphere (which is still not an idea that sits well).

Well, what if, a highly evolved and advanced alien species (as it usually happens in space sci-fi), tried to destroy the majority of the blind monsters since they were too many to control by blowing away their whole planet? What if they saw the military use of the blind creatures, captured several hundreds of them, experimented upon them and made them slaves to their will using some kind of tech? Then, assuming this highly advanced alien civilization wants to lord over every life form in space, it then trapped these monsters inside structures that look like meteorite shards and dropped them on Earth. For the sake of the story, one could assume that the advanced civilization we propose here is physically weaker than humans or is doesn't have a big enough army to defeat the people of Earth. But through their scientific breakthroughs, they have become quite more advanced than humans. So, they hatch up this plan to eliminate humans and ultimately gain Earth for themselves. Does this idea make you feel like A Quiet Place is going to go places since it increases the scale of the film and adds a big of sci-fi epic nature somewhat similar to Star Trek, if not as big as that? But this was one of the wildest theories we thought of.

These are the four story angles/concepts A Quiet Place: Day One could have touched upon to become a franchise bigger and more complex in scale. Not showing the backstory of the terrorizing aliens is frankly our biggest gripe with the prequel, followed by the absence of scenes showing the top human minds trying to assess the sudden invasion and putting their minds together to come up with some sort of a plan, even if the aliens overwhelm them eventually. We are not saying no to absolute dystopia, here. From what the three A Quiet Place films have to offer, humanity making a stand against the blind alien invaders is possible but it would require a lot of decibel-related planning and not some traditional attacks where soldiers and tanks go in, with guns and turrets blazing.

Additionally, showing the blind monsters working together to take out a team of elite human soldiers who are aware of the other side being blind and having an acute hearing sense would have been interesting too. What do you think? Do you agree with us? What else would you have wanted to see in the sci-fi horror prequel? Sound off in the comments below.