Seems like the bad guys were under the impression Affleck's character would be dead at 3:03. I can't figure out why they thought that. Yeah, he was with the FBI in the interrogation room, but why would they assume that was going to kill him?
I believe that The Machine had told them that he would be dead from brain overheating at the hands of the FBI interrogation. Of course, being new to the future-seeing business, they didn't know that the future was changeable, and that a forewarned and forearmed (with a pack of cigarettes) Jennings could escape from the FBI's clutches with his brain intact. That's my theory, anyway.
I wonder if that 3:03 is s sly reference to Wag the Dog (1997)? Love that leopard skin!
OK may it is believable that by seeing the future he could engineer the FBI escape but then events AFTER the escape and his ability to reshape the NOW ALTERED future doesn't make sense at all. How is he able to see the need for the paperclip, or set the time of his death/being shot in his watch? Those new future events hadn't yet been set into motion and since it is time viewing not travel, he can't "test" his solutions to see what he needs.
I suppose if you totally ignore the usual paradoxes you can say that he starts putting together the envelope that he intends to send to himself and one by one he puts things in there, testing each item's effect by viewing the impact on the future... Really stretching it as there would be so many blind alleys, he may need to do the trial/ error viewing a thousand times or more to get the right future. I think the company would have noticed it...
I can only assume that he originally died at 3.03 because the Feds were trying to extract memories from Michael's brain and his brain wound up being cooked because of how careless the technician was.
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