Elevation Ending, Explained: What Does Nina See Through the Telescope?

‘Elevation’ ends with Will and Nina’s journey taking on a greater significance as the mystery of the Reapers deepens with the emergence of a new potential threat. After surviving the harrowing encounter with the monsters at the Boulder National Laboratories, the two central characters emerge from their quest with pivotal discoveries that could change everything for humanity. Subsequently, their fellow humans begin leaving their nests to deal with their enemies, finally equipped with a weapon that works against their impenetrable armor. Everything seems to be heading in the right direction as Will and Nina become the trailblazers for humanity’s revival. However, a mid-credits scene brings a new variable into the mix that could spell trouble for humans moving forward. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Elevation Plot Synopsis

Three years ago, mysterious creatures known as Reapers surfaced from the underground layers of the Earth and started hunting down humanity. Their swift killing spree left most defenseless and with no time to react. A few people fled the attacks by climbing to higher elevations. For whatever reason, the Reapers do not venture any higher than 8.000 feet. The survivors drew a line to mark the points at which these elevation shifts occur and permanently shifted their residencies to higher areas. One such settlement is the Lost Gulch Refuge, where a single father, Will, lives with his chronically sick son, Hunter. Will lost his wife Tara a while back due to an expedition she embarked on with a former scientist, Nina. Her death still troubles Will, Hunter, and Nina.

Will’s son suffers from a lung disease, which requires a constant supply of oxygen filters to keep him healthy. When the oxygen filters run out, Will is left with no choice but to plan a journey to Boulder, California, to retrieve a fresh set of oxygen filters from the abandoned hospital there. Although he convinces Nina to join him on the trek, his close friend Katie also tags along against his wishes. The three head towards Elba Fire Road, planning to make a beeline for Calway Mine, an old working haunt of Will’s. The protagonist believes that traveling through the mine will get them straight to Boulder without any issues. However, during their journey, the trio attracts a Reaper’s attention near a ski lift, narrowly escaping it after using some quick-thinking and desperate planning.

After staying over at a lodge, the group heads straight for Calway Mine, where they realize that the main shaft entrance that keeps them above the 8,000-foot elevation has been sealed off. Frustrated at the setback, Will decides to take another route, one which places them in greater danger. As expected, they attract another Reaper’s attention moments after entering the shaft. Subsequently, they try to find their way out while the monster breaths down their necks. They almost make it out alive by distracting the creature. However, a small mistake by Katie leads to her death as the Reaper impales her with his tentacle and drags her into the tunnels. In the aftermath, Will and Nina make a straight journey to the Boulder Hospital, hoping to reduce their encounters with the predators.

Elevation Ending: Does Nina Find a Way to Kill the Reapers? Does She Save Will?

After arriving at the Boulder Hospital, Will and Nina procure the oxygen filters Hunter needs. However, during the search, another Reaper comes charging out to kill them. Will uses a gas canister explosion to derail the monster momentarily. Without waiting for it to get up, the duo travels to the Boulder National Laboratories, hoping that Nina can cook up some way to kill the Reapers. She tries a couple of methods with no results, eventually asking Will to return to his son without her while she continues to brainstorm some solutions. He is reluctant to leave her but follows her request. In the meantime, Nina gets a sudden inspiration when she notices some electrical batteries on the shelf. She laces her bullets with cobalt and turns around just in time to fire a bullet at a charging Reaper.

Outside, Will drives at full tilt towards the line, hoping to make it across before the Reapers find him. However, a burst tire leaves him stranded on the road as the car catapults into a crash. When he wakes up, he finds himself surrounded by no less than three Reapers converging on him from every direction. Just as everything seems bleak and his death assured, Nina appears from behind a rock and uses her cobalt-laced bullets to annihilate the monsters in an explosive flurry of combat. Once the three creatures lie around them as rubbles, Will realizes that the Reapers are not biological creatures. Instead, they are machines. Nina figured out how to get past their electromagnetic defense shields by lacing her bullets with cobalt. It is good that she did because Will would not have survived otherwise.

Why Does Nina Raise the Pirate Flag? What Does it Signify?

At the end of ‘Elevation,’ a new dawn beckons for humanity as the means to kill the Reapers is communicated with the neighboring refuge territories. This comes about because Nina raises her pirate flag high in the air, which is spotted by the adjacent settlements. Earlier in the narrative, Will had explained to his son that because of dwindling resources, the neighboring humans had stopped using radio signals to communicate, instead relying on the use of flags. Thus, the raising of Nina’s pirate flag is a symbol of great hope for the humans around the mountains, especially as it pertains to their future. The Reapers had driven humanity into hiding because of their relentless killing drive and their invincibility. The symbol of the flag threatens to shift that world order in the favor of humans once again.

Even for Will, the notion of eradicating the Reapers is a message of immense magnitude, especially as it could secure his son’s future. The protagonist is only invested in keeping Hunter safe, no matter what. His sole reason for embarking on the Boulder journey was to procure the oxygen filters and return home. However, such a plan has an expiration date because, in a few years, Will will be back in the same situation again. As the survival of his son, Hunter, hinges on the oxygen filter devices, he needs a more sustainable way to obtain them. With the Reapers roaming around the Earth forever, it is unlikely that Hunter will ever survive long-term. Therefore, it is paramount that the Reapers are killed off or, at the very least, that humans have a way to fight back against them.

Does Humanity Kill the Reapers?

The final moments of ‘Elevation’ depict humanity leaving their safe haven by crossing the line and taking the war to the Reapers. Armed with their cobalt-laced bullets, the contingent of humans begin eradicating their tormentors and finally reclaiming the land that was lost three years ago. The battle is the first sign of victory for the human race, as, before this point, they were mercilessly executed and killed by the Reapers. The hard-coded programming of the monsters made them formidable opponents that humans had never come across before, especially with their unkillable nature and efficient murder routines. To make matters worse, humans had no way to counter their forces with the meager weapons they possessed, specifically because nothing worked against them.

Therefore, the final scene of Will and his human compatriots driving back the Reaper forces is a monumental shifting of the tide. The film’s ending credits also depict a map of the country and how most of it turns green slowly. It is a representation of human beings pushing back the Reaper forces from the edges of civilization to finally regain the ground that had been ceded to the monsters. In fact, with the cobalt-laced weapons, everything goes incredibly well as large swathes of land swiftly fall under human control once again, and people can reenter their old stomping grounds without any apex predator hunting them down. However, humans are still far from killing all the Reapers, given the status of the map. It is a matter of time before they do unless some new threat emerges.

What Does Nina See in the Sky?

While ‘Elevation’ concludes on a rather uplifting tone for the central characters, a mid-credits scene throws a spanner into the works. With the war against the Reapers going entirely in favor of humankind, Will and Nina can relax like the rest of humanity as they return to their ordinary life. However, during the mid-credits scene, the two stand in an empty valley, watching the sky through a telescope. As Nina takes her turn, she sees three glowing meteors streak through the sky. She turns to Will with a pensive look on her face as he, too, notices the ominous meteors heading for the surface. Considering the alien origin of the Reapers, the meteors could signify a whole host of possibilities, none of which seem good for humans.

The first possibility to consider is that the meteors are harmless, just another normal meteor streaking through the heavens. However, given Nina’s background in Physics, it seems unlikely that she would have such a grave reaction if the meteors were standard space debris. The likeliest and most obvious assumption is that the meteors are spaceships ridden by the alien originators of the Reapers. With humanity soundly beating the Reapers into submission, the aliens might have thought it prudent to show up and make the next step in taking over Earth’s surface by force. This might mean that the war against the Reapers could take on a whole different scale, one with more teeth and strategy on both sides. The Reapers might be formidable, but they are less elastic in their thinking process, which the aliens won’t be.

Moreover, it is worth noting that humans are not in good shape by the movie’s end. After three years of staying in hiding and countless deaths to the Reapers, the human population is a fragment of what it used to be, reducing the might of the race and leaving them at a disadvantage against any extraterrestrial force. They are still recuperating from their tragic losses, which are not just logistical but also emotional for some. For instance, Will is haunted by the death of his wife and also keeping his son safe. Thus, the added factors of human emotional “weakness” may put even more challenges on the central characters as they prepare for a clash against the makers of the Reapers. Whether they have a more elusive plan or not will be the territory of a future sequel.