What happens to Jack at the end (spoilers)?
Why does Jack disappear when Wells takes out the golden key?
shareHe sent him hurtling through infinity without the machine. Basically, he went to his death.
________________
there will be snark
Someone somewhere (maybe Nicholas Meyer himself--needless to say, he's a Star Trek fan--or Karl Alexander who wrote the original novel, or maybe just some reviewer somewhere) put forth an interesting little theory.
Said theory was: John Leslie Stephenson's fate at the end of this movie was the birth of the "Redjac" entity that possessed people and forced them to murder in that one Star Trek episode. In short, Stephenson's bodiless form remained alive, and still bloodthirsty, when sent to the fourth dimension.
I'm not sure it quite lines up with the episode as it's written, but it's a neat little theory, isn't it?