Warning: SPOILERS for The Tomorrow War.
The Tomorrow War depicts a devastating future conflict between humanity and extraterrestrial monsters called the Whitespikes. The film's final act delivered some crucial info about the alien invaders' background and how they arrived on Earth. But even though a team led by biology teacher and former Green Beret Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) destroyed a crashed spaceship containing the monsters, The Tomorrow War leaves behind many open questions about the Whitespikes.
As a sci-fi time travel movie, The Tomorrow War operates on two timelines. In 2022, soldiers from the year 2051 emerge to deliver the grim news that mankind was hopelessly losing a war with the Whitespikes. The aliens, who were believed to have stealthily arrived on Earth by avoiding all satellite detection, suddenly appeared in Russia in 2048. The creatures swarmed outward across the continents while rapidly reproducing thanks to their Queen, which is stronger and more impervious to harm than the male footsoldiers. With their tough hides, strength, prehensile limbs, and the ability to use spikes as projectiles, the Whitespikes decimated the human race. Within 3 years, the Earth's population was reduced to a mere 500,000 survivors. The Whitespikes used humans for food and while they are ferocious pack hunters, they seem to have no interest in technology, money, or other aspects of society. When Dan is drafted to fight in 2051, he discovers that his adult daughter Muri (Yvonne Strahovski), is a Colonel who develops a toxin that can kill the Whitespikes, but she needs her father to bring it back to 2022 and mass produce it to prevent the apocalyptic future.
After they return to 2022, Dan and his fellow soldier Charlie (Sam Richardson) obtain the help of Martin (Seth Scenall), Forester's volcano-obsessed student. Martin determines that ash on the claws of the Whitespikes is from the 946 A.D. eruption of the Changbai volcano, also known as Paektu Mountain. Known as the Millennium Eruption, it was powerful enough to scatter ash as far as Northern Russia. Dan and Charlie concluded that means the Whitespikes have been on Earth and dormant in the arctic ice of Northern Russia for at least a thousand years as opposed to suddenly arriving in 2048. The Tomorrow War is a parable about climate change and the melting of the arctic ice in 2048 somehow awakened and freed the Whitespikes. Leading a team to Russia, which included Charlie and Dan's estranged father James (J.K. Simmons), Forester proved his theory correct when they found the Whitespikes' spaceship. Unfortunately, during their efforts to kill the aliens with Muri's toxin, they awakened the Whitespikes and had to fight and kill the Queen.
Dan made two more crucial discoveries in Russia: the Whitespikes crashed on Earth centuries ago and they didn't arrive alone. The Whitespikes were actually cargo being transported by another alien race that appears more humanoid and possess a higher intelligence than the savage, monstrous Whitespikes. Unfortunately, in the chaos that erupted when the Whitespikes awakened and the ship was destroyed, Forester and his team didn't learn anything more about the other aliens who owned the spacecraft. There was also no time to determine where the Whitespikes came from or any way to determine the true name and origins of their race.
Before the Whitespikes' rampage in The Tomorrow War's final action scene, Charlie and Dan theorized that the other aliens were intergalactic colonists who used the Whitespikes to wipe out the existing inhabitants of a planet. However, it's unknown if the aliens intended to bring the Whitespikes to Earth or if crashing on our homeworld a thousand years ago was an accident. If it's the former, then the Whitespikes fulfilled their purpose in the original timeline, which Dan, James, and Charlie seem to have prevented by killing the Queen and the Whitespikes in 2022. However, there are likely more Whitespikes in outer space and there's no telling if another horde of the monsters will arrive on Earth. There may also be more Whitespikes hidden elsewhere on Earth. If The Tomorrow War 2 happens, hopefully, more answers about the Whitespikes and their origins will be revealed.
The Tomorrow War is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.