A 2001 sci-fi directed by Matt Codd that follows the discovery of a mysterious monolith and the trials faced by the team sent to study the object.
The movie stars David Keith, Ryan O'Neal, Stephanie Niznik, Brian Thompson, Steve Bond, Craig Wasson, and Michael Cavanaugh.
A sequel, Epoch Evolution, was released in 2003.
It aired on Syfy on November 24, 2001.
Tropes for the film:
- Big Dumb Object: The movie starts with a huge spinning alien object popping up from underground in Bhutan. As an added bonus, the Torus (as it's labelled) heals everyone in the vicinity, including mortal wounds. It turns out that the Torus is responsible for the evolution of life on Earth. By "responsible", it means that if it perceives that the experiments has reached a dead end, it will "wipe the slate clean" and start over. It had already done that once.
- Captain Superhero: Lampshaded where the protagonist is being escorted to the Big Dumb Object by Captain Tower. He mentions to his companion that it sounds like a superhero name.
- Living Ship: The ship acts completely autonomously and seem to be so advanced that they can change shape, resurrect the dead, and change between matter and energy forms with ease. It is theorized that they may have started life on Earth, controlling its cycles of extinction and recovery.
- Nuke 'em: The military wants to do this to the torus, and they eventually get a nuke inside the thing, but it absorbs the explosion, only shaking a bit.
- Wire Dilemma: Averted in the climax. Rand and Czaban find out that the US military plans to blow up the Torus (a huge, spinning alien artifact that threatens to cause a new Ice Age) with a nuke. Since the Torus is likely the reason for all life on Earth, they figure that this act of violence would only show its alien creators that humans cannot be allowed to live. They sneak into the Torus and reach the bomb site. Rand, an experienced engineer, tries to figure out how to disarm a bomb only to realize this particular design cannot be disarmed with this trope. They kiss, and the screen fades to white...only to reveal that the Torus absorbs the energy of the explosion and not only keeps Rand and Czaban alive but also cures Rand's terminal illness and impregnates Czaban with Rand's child.
