But you have to remember that in the ORIGINAL “timeline”/“source-code-is-only-a-simulation reality”, he did indeed succeed and they got their funding and everyone was happy (well, except for Farmiga & the Gyllenhaal character).
However there will always be an ALTERNATE timeline, where he changed history and averted the disaster and noone knows about any other reality. In this world, I imagine their funding will run dry pretty soon…
Well, yeah, the timeline that the film finishes in (the one where Vera Farmiga receives the text message and Gyllenhaal alerts the authorities before the bomb is detonated). There’s a bit where Farmiga goes into Jeffrey Wright’s office - apparently to tell him about the text - and he’s being briefed about the intercepted bombs by an Air Force officer. He ruefully says, ‘maybe next time’ or something to that effect.
Universe A: the train gets blown up. There’s intelligence that a much bigger attack will hit, and the Source Code project is activated to see if they can get any information because people kind of like downtown Chicago when it’s not a radioactive deathzone.
Universe B: first iteration seen. Train gets blown up, Chicago presumably does too later, due to our hero being thoroughly disoriented. Try a little briefing next time, guys!
Universe C, D, etc.: Subsequent unsuccessful iterations as our hero tries to figure things out. Train keeps going boom, and Chicago presumably likewise from no information gained.
Universe…let’s call it P for penultimate. Could have been more, because I read montages before that point as our hero getting sent through repeatedly. Train goes boom, and he learns there’s a backup detonator because of it. He also gets the bomber’s identity, vehicle make and license plate #, etc. Granted, he and love interest end up dying in a parking lot, and Chicago in Universe P still goes boom. Still, mission success!
Back in Universe A, Source Code project is successful. Train has still gone boom, but they apprehend the nuclear terrorist before Chicago can go likewise. Whatshername nobly self-destructs her career by pulling hero’s plug.
Universe Q - our happy ending. Train does not go boom. Chicago does not go boom. Everyone lives happily ever after, except Sean, who has been taken over by a parallel-universe body snatcher.
Seems straightforward enough to me.
There’s some pretty disturbing ethical calculus going on depending on whether use of source code actually technically “creates” entire new parallel universes each time it’s used, because each unsuccessful iteration kills that many millions of people “again.” So if Chicago not going boom in Universe A saves five million people, that’s actually at the cost of, say, fifty million people still going boom later–or rather, quantumly parabolically technobabbly parallelly. (Give or take, depending on how many iterations he went through. I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.) Plus, if he’d failed in Universe Q, that would have been especially selfish.
I didn’t like it as much as Moon, but still liked it a lot.
I thought that there’s already a Universe in existence for each possible event and every possible permutation. And time travel isn’t really time travel, it’s just him jumping into a Universe that’s slightly behind in time.
Or am I wrong and this rabbit hole is actually a giant ant lair?
I think the most likely explanation is that each alternate universe ‘forks’ off universe A at the point Gyllenhal enters the teacher’s body.
It gets even worse than fifty million people though, since every universe where Sean/Colter fails to prevent the train explosion is a universe where the Source Code project is activated and the process begins again. Potentially an infinite number of Chicagoans die.
I feel really bad for Sean. It’s not clear that there exists a universe in which he doesn’t either die or have his body snatched by Colter.
Well, Sean was guaranteed to die 8 minutes after Colter enters his body, so don’t feel too bad.
Why must you be so callous towards poor Sean? That’s 8 minutes of his life stolen from him an infinite number of times!
I saw this on a plane a couple of weeks back… oddly, I enjoyed seeing the movie in my head more, when I first read the script from Scriptshadow. In the screen version, the end felt really flat.
Still, a solid effort, and Gyllenhaal gave good act in the scene with his dad.
The upper most post is correct:
See, they were all new universes!
Yeah, but you COULD argue that they aren’t NEW realities, as in newly created ones, but more like newly visited/discovered ones though…
‘New Reality’ doesn’t seem to be what it sounds like. It doesn’t mean a new universe has come into existence somewhere, rather it means events have been altered and take a new path and so this changes the identity(for lack of a better word) of that universe.
One universe effecting another is how they discovered and applied quantum mechanics in the first place(though not with time travel of course).
My degree in this field may not exist.
In this reality, sure. But perhaps in another?
Just saw this a few days ago. This thread is making my head hurt more than the movie did. I thought it was about as mainstream as you could get with a multidimensional theory hook.
That’s not to say I didn’t like it. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. My biggest complaint was that the bomber’s identity was telegraphed so soon and so obviously.
I imagine there’s some universe where everything is hunky-dory and there’s never any opportunity to try out the source code project for years and years. Finally they cut funding, and then the world suddenly goes to shit.
I recently saw this and liked it far more than Moon. The main character was just much more involving, in Moon he was too laidback for me to get worked up about his situation.
The original guy, Sean, is dead so I don’t understand feeling bad about someone else usurping his existence from 8 minute section on.
You could say “Yeah, but in the successful timelines he saves the people on the train, so Sean lives”. No, that’s not how I see it. For him to be there in the first place, to even try the mission, Sean has to be dead first.
Unless you want to make a case that the entire project’s explanation was a lie, but then that makes the movie crap. The way I understand it, in order to place an agent in the scenario, there must be a death afterglow for them to exploit. That’s the core concept of the whole thing, it starts with Sean’s death.
Jesus wept.
Cool story bro.
