Factual error: When Sam climbs outside the ship he grabs the frozen metallic pipes and rails with both hands - one half covered with a glove, one is bare. He has no problem gripping the cold metal and he can get his hands free every time. If the moisture froze before contact, his hands would be frozen too, so that can't be the reason.
![The Day After Tomorrow](/images/titles/4000-4999/4178_sm.jpg)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, Sela Ward, Dash Mihok, Jay O. Sanders
Jack Hall and Sam both survive the storm. Jack finds Sam in the library, they get rescued by some government helicopters and are flown back to Mexico. Laura Chapman also survives. Most of the people in the Northern States / Canada / Northern Europe die during the storm (including all the people who leave the library during the storm to walk south). The US president also dies. The rest flock down to Mexico which only allowed the Americans in because they nullified all the Latin American debt.
Rolf Campbell
Vice President Becker: I don't accept that abandoning half of the country is necessary!
Tom Gomez: Maybe if you'd listened to him sooner, it wouldn't be.
Vice President Becker: Bullshit! It's easy for him to suggest this plan. He's safely here in Washington.
Tom Gomez: His son is in Manhattan. I just thought you should know that before you start questioning his motives.
Trivia: Before the film was released, N.A.S.A. sent a memo out to all of its employees stating that they were not allowed to comment on the likelihood of the events portrayed in this movie.
Question: Why would Sam and his friends go to the library?
Answer: It was the closest building they could access. While the smarter move would have been to just go back to JD's apartment (which Brian and Laura suggest) it may have been too far a walk to get out of the flooding streets.
Why did they burn the books and not the wooden shelves that the books were on?
As for burning books rather than shelves, it was just easier. They would have had to expend more energy to break down the shelves into manageable size.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: Possibly because it was the closest building with height to it as they are about to be hit by a gigantic wave of water. There was no snow yet, so I don't believe burning books or snow was on anybody's mind yet. It turned out to be a great idea as snow soon starts to fall and those books were literally a life saver.
Susan D. Santos