The whole film made little sense to me. Human beings had no means to combat a lethal virus - ok - but humans were still flesh and blood and easily killable. The military could have killed the lot of them with little effort instead of letting them break into compounds and kill their personnel. It seemed that most of humanity had been affected - so what was the point of releasing the pods - there was hardly anyone left to infect and survivors would starve to death anyway. The hungries did not kill their own young - so their numbers would increase until with the death of all humans their food supply would end and so would they. And what was the point of educating them? Would they go on to university and become doctors and nurses and teachers etc? And what did the teacher eat - and how long before her air supply ran out? Just completely silly.

BOOK SPOILERS

The movie completely left out the Junkers. Junkers were uninfected humans who chose to live as scavengers. In the book, its the Junkers who herd a giant pack of hungries to Hotel Echo. They figured out tar works like the E-blocker gel and hides their scent from the hungries. So not only is it the hungries attacking the base, but dozens of Junkers. Base security just doesn't have the numbers to handle the attack.

As she was dying, Caldwell explained to Melanie that second generation hungries, those born from parents already infected or conceived by adult hungries retaining some remnants of human function (remember the woman pushing the baby carriage?) would keep their mental faculties and survive. The 2nd Gen could live among the infected so they would pose no danger to them like uninfected humans would. And the infected would eventually die out due to lack of food.

In the book, Parks is bitten but the scene is pretty much the same. Melanie explains to him why she wanted the pods to open. As long as there are healthy humans, second generation survivors would have to contend with them. She did like Kieran and Parks and of course Justineau and wanted them to be with her but you see what happened.

Why teach them? The feral children needed to learn how to communicate and become more civilized. The only reason they acted like they did is because they were never found like Melanie and her classmates and educated. You know they are intelligent (luring Kieran) they just can't vocalize.

As far as how Justineau would survive, there's the totally stocked grocery store Kieran found and I imagine the kids could hunt for her. As far as air, the mobile lab didn't have an air supply but an air filtration system that would work indefinitely. In the book, she actually leaves the lab in an environmental suit and walks among the children. Eventually, I would think, after some time, the spores would no longer pose a threat. That's just my thought.

Hope that helps =)

@jeninga75 said:

As she was dying, Caldwell explained to Melanie that second generation hungries, those born from parents already infected or conceived by adult hungries retaining some remnants of human function (remember the woman pushing the baby carriage?) would keep their mental faculties and survive. The 2nd Gen could live among the infected so they would pose no danger to them like uninfected humans would. And the infected would eventually die out due to lack of food.

Wait, what? First off, thanks for your thoughtful reply! Secondly, I still don't get what the food source would be for second generation hungries? The problem I see is they would all starve to death once the humans were dead?

The 2nd gen hungries didn't need to eat human flesh. Remember when Melanie gets the bowl of meal worms in her cell? Dr Caldwell explains in the book that the 2nd gen really just needs a high protein diet. In the book, when they're on the run, Kieran finds military rations. When they're eating, Justineau picks some meat out of a stew to give to Melanie to eat.

The movie wasn't bad, but it did leave a lot of questions and plot holes. If you liked the movie aside from all the loose ends, read the book. =)

@jeninga75 said:

The 2nd gen hungries didn't need to eat human flesh. Remember when Melanie gets the bowl of meal worms in her cell? Dr Caldwell explains in the book that the 2nd gen really just needs a high protein diet. In the book, when they're on the run, Kieran finds military rations. When they're eating, Justineau picks some meat out of a stew to give to Melanie to eat.

The movie wasn't bad, but it did leave a lot of questions and plot holes. If you liked the movie aside from all the loose ends, read the book. =)

Thanks. That makes sense (and kinda makes me rethink the whole film). I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but hey, at least it's some closure! :P

Sure, glad it cleared it up for you. 80% of the scenes in the movie were straight out of the book which was cool, but it seems like they didn't really care about continuity.