The Quiet Earth (1985)

Bruno Lawrence: Zac Hobson

Photos 

Quotes 

• [recording his audio log] 

  Zac Hobson : Zac Hobson, July 5th. One: there has been a malfunction in Project Flashlight with devastating results. Two: it seems I am the only person left on Earth.

• Zac Hobson : I've been condemned to live.

• Joanne : If we find anyone alive, what do you think they will be like?

  Zac Hobson : We might find all manner of horrors. Politicians... Transvestites...

• [speaking to a cardboard cut-out of Adolf Hitler] 

  Zac Hobson : Look, I haven't got time to talk to you. I'm a very busy man! Besides, you've had your turn...

• Joanne : Anything else, sir?

  Zac Hobson : Ah... more crumpet?

  Joanne : Sorry, love, crumpet's off.

  [She turns and leaves the room, revealing that she has cut the back of her skirt off showing her bare buttocks. Zac begins to get up to pursue her, but screams as he accidentally dumps his cup of hot coffee on his crotch] 

• Zac Hobson : Something's changed. Can't quite measure it, but I can feel it. It's as though... we've been shifted sideways. The north pole is still up north, but the water keeps going down the black hole the wrong way. I get the feeling... we're either dead... or in a different universe.

• Zac Hobson : Do you know you're beautiful?

  Joanne : Hey, are you calling me stupid?

• Zac Hobson : I reckon the "effect" was a cosmic event, like the creation. And nobody's ever explained that properly.One the other hand, perhaps nobody disappeared. Only me. *I* am the "effect".

  Joanne : And us?

  Zac Hobson : You're not real. You're in my mind.

  Joanne : You're God.

• [Aiming a shotgun at a crucifix] 

  Zac Hobson : If you don't come out I'll shoot the kid!

• [first lines] 

  Zac Hobson : [trying to pay for gasoline]  Hello... Hello... Hello?

• Zac Hobson : I have dedicated all my scientific knowledge and skill to projects which I knew could be put to evil purposes. For the common good... they said.

  [recorded cheering] 

  Zac Hobson : How easy to believe in the common good, when that belief is rewarded with status, wealth and power!

  [echoes] 

  Zac Hobson : How hard to believe in the common good, when every fibre of my being tells me that the awesome forces I have helped to create have been put into the hands of madmen!

  [echoes] 

  Zac Hobson : I've been gagged by the volume of my own corruption! Is it not fitting, then, that I be President.. of this... quiet... Earth?