LIGHT Movie Ending Explained. Below is an explainer for the 2024 feature film LIGHT.

***FULL SPOILIERS BELOW***

A survivor named Niu from a colony spaceship disaster crashes in an escape capsule on a dark and misty alien planet. Putting on a battered old spacesuit she sets out in search of other survivors, including her young son. Quickly she discovers that the planet harbours bioluminescent lifeforms - including a predator which homes in on her helmet light and almost kills her.
 
As Niu, who strangely also calls herself Samira, recovers from the creature’s attack, she spots the distant emergency beacon light of a teenager named Tallie. Struggling to get there before the creature, Niu just manages to make radio contact and warn Tallie in time. Tallie however is unable to save another passenger she was in radio contact with, Avel - who was in turn in contact with a young boy. Avel is killed, cutting off Niu's son again.
 
Niu refuses to waste time finding Tallie, so the two women head off in search of the boy, in contact with one another only by radio. They bond as they try to figure out how the spaceship crashed whilst trying to avoid the predator, sinkholes and other dangers.

As they search, Niu begins to see hints of shadowy figures in the mist who vanish when approached, with one seemingly dropping a chisel. While sheltering from a storm they discover that the ‘boulders’ providing cover are actually piles of the predator’s dung, which also happen to be flecked with pieces of a precious material called perla. Tallie digs into the dung in search of her fortune, eventually finding a giant perla chunk - which seemingly distrurbs her...

As night falls and Niu wants to get moving again, she figures out that by mimicking lightning flashes they can see and avoid sinkholes while not attracting the predator. With the storm over, they set off again.
 
With her oxygen running low, Niu starts to become desperate. She uses her scanner despite the risk and manages to locate another capsule, tossing the scanner away just before the predator reaches her. She is however devastated to find that her boy is not there. Tallie convinces Niu to use the capsule’s more powerful radio in the hope of reaching her son. But Niu only succeeds in making contact with a rescue ship from Earth Defence Force (EDF) - which is still hours away. The rescuers, whom Tallie is oddly fearful of, indicate the location of another nearby capsule which might contain Niu's son.
 
Getting out of the capsule to continue her search, Niu discovers a patch of fresh blood and an out-of-place chain of broken lights. Beginning to suspect that she is being watched by the shadowy figures, Niu runs - but it is Tallie who is attacked by one of the shadowy figures, cutting off her radio abruptly.

Niu is forced to continue her search alone with a dwindling supply of oxygen, but she is unable to locate the capsule EDF pointed her towards. Just as she is ready to give up hope, Tallie gets back in radio contact claiming to have found Niu’s son’s capsule. Tallie flashes the capsule’s lights quickly to draw Niu to her.
 
Reaching the capsule, Niu finds that her son is not there, but that Tallie is waiting for her – armed with an electroshock gun. Tallie demands that Niu hand over her remaining oxygen. It is then revealed that Niu and Tallie are not actually from a colony ship, as they claimed, but that the Utopia II was transporting illegal immigrants attempting to reach Earth. Niu's real name is Samira - "Niu" is the name on her fake ID. Tallie believes that EDF are deliberately delaying rescuing them because they don't want to help illegal immigrants. Niu also figures out why Tallie seems so scared of EDF - because Tallie is not an immigrant like her, but is actually one of the people traffickers – a coyote. 

A fight ensues, ending with Niu escaping but being hit with an electroshock blast as she vanishes into the mist.
 
Niu awakes to discover she has been captured by the shadowy figures, who have tied her up in a chain of lights to attract the creature. Niu asks why they are doing this to people, since shooting their ship down and then leaving them on the planet would be more than enough to kill them all - but she receives no answer. She begs to know where her son is - and one of the figures nods in the direction her son is, indicating that he too has been captured.

The shadowy figures leave Niu covered in lights, ready to be eaten by the predator - but she cuts herself loose using the chisel she found earlier. She hurries off in the direction the figure indicated, where she spots a small boy being wrapped in another chain of lights by another shadowy figure. In a fury, Niu charges up and kills the shadowy figure with the chisel before finally coming face to face with her son…

Only she discovers that the boy she has been on the trail of this whole time is not her son. There was a miscommunication earlier with Tallie about the boy’s name. Niu realises that her own child is still missing and is almost certainly dead.
 
In shock, a devastated Niu turns the boy’s lights off just before the predator attacks - but an oxygen alarm goes off at the wrong moment, drawing it back. As Niu and the boy prepare to be eaten, Tallie reappears, blasting the predator with her electroshock gun, scaring it away.

Tallie and Niu face one another - with Tallie perhaps still thinking of stealing Niu and the boy’s oxygen - when the creature returns enraged, zeroing in on the fidgeting boy. Realising the boy is about to be killed, and with her own son gone, Niu sacrifices herself by turning on her helmet light, trusting that Tallie will save the boy. The predator eats Niu and Tallie escapes with the boy.
 
Tallie is now alone with the boy, her own oxygen almost gone. The boy’s penultimate oxygen canister runs out and Tallie takes out his last full canister, wondering what to do… She makes the decision to help him, connecting up his canister before the two of them set off for the rescue lander.

Suspecting that the rescuers are deliberately ignoring their radio messages, Tallie calls out her ID number over the radio, making it clear that she is not an illegal immigrant but is a real citizen. As if by magic, the rescuers get back in contact and reveal where they are landing.

As they reach the lander, with Tallie out of oxygen and gasping for air, two of the shadowy figures move to block their path. Close to death, Tallie again decides to help the boy, telling him to run before launching herself at the figures. Swinging her bag with the giant perla chunk like a mace, she manages to knock down one figure before being felled by an electroshock blast from the other, causing her to drop the bag, spilling out the giant perla chunk. Looking around, Tallie is dismayed to see that the boy has also been blasted and captured.
 
At that moment a rescuer emerges from the EDF lander, armed with a huge laser rifle. For a moment Tallie thinks they are saved... But the EDF Officer is only there for Tallie, the real citizen. Choking for air and screaming in desperation, Tallie is dragged onto the lander as the shadowy figure wraps the boy up in a chain of lights. A distraught Tallie is rescued as the immigrant boy is tied up in lights and left alone in the mist to be eaten by the predator.

The final shot shows the giant chunk of perla which spilled from Tallie’s dropped bag, revealing the reason for everything: Perla forms around the bones of people consumed by the predator. The shadowy figures are miners who are shooting down ships containing illegal immigrants and are feeding the survivors to the predators so that they can harvest the perla from their bones. The authorities are seemingly fully aware of this, but are allowing it to happen.