MovieChat Forums > The Jacket (2005) Discussion > *spoilers* watched it a second time and....

spoilers watched it a second time and...

posted 14 years ago by PhreeRaddicalz
6 replies | jump to latest

he's dead. he's so dead. he's dead from the beginning of the movie.

First of all, we cannot know for sure, because the main character is the storyteller, and HE doesn't even know for sure.

But what do we know about "im not sure if im dead" movies? The ghost is ALWAYS in DENIAL! Life is all we know... of course it's going to be hard to let go.

He doesn't start Narrating until after he's first shot in the head. And he even comes out and says it:

"the first time i died... it felt like i was alive, but i was really dead."

He's all of a sudden walking down a desolate road, not sure where he's going.

The court room scene, the lawyers say there was no evidence of there being Jean or Jackie the day he supposedly shot the cop. It was windy, surely a hair follicle or two could have been left. The mom threw up. there was definitely evidence..... unless Jean and Jackie aren't even real to begin with, therefore the whole thing was just a trip.

In the scene where we see what Jack thinks happened with the cop, the gun doesn't fire real bullets every time. sometimes there is just the sound of the gun. and when Jack goes down, as if a bullet ricocheted and hit him..... if you pay attention and pause it, right when the cop is laying in the snow.... there is a quick shot of Jack laying all cadaverous on a metal bed... looking like he's been dead for hours. Now this shot is not one of those yellow, flashy images that we see throughout the film in his eyes.... it just a plain shot of Brody.. looking like he's dead.

When Jack is watching television... it's showing warfare, with a doll angel hanging in the bottom left corner of the wall. every tv after that is showing Christmas programming. Jack was born on Christmas.

there is always minimal movement in the background, no matter where the scene is taking place.

Jack:"I don't belong here."
Dr. Becker:"I don't think you do either, but there's nothing either of us can do about it now." That is CLASSIC "you're dead sooner than you wanted to be, kid" dialogue. Dr. Becker is the professional giving the treatment, but there's "nothing he can do?" and agrees that Jack shouldn't be there?...ok

Every main character is either popping pills, drinking, or smoking a cigarette. They also are all just hollow characters who either smile for no reason, or have the same general facial expression the whole time. they are all so empty.

He's in a tiny dark space that feels like a tomb, can't breath, can't move, can't see, cries for help that no one pays attention to..... that's when he gets flashbacks of his childhood and war and the "first time he died"

there are so many tongue-in-cheek ghost and/or after-life references.

"you look like him, you could be his ghost" "could be..."
"you look like you've seen a ghost"
"we're haunting you!"
"we're all dead"
"what's wrong with me, Doc?" "you're underweight"
"i have enough guilt to deal with"

an echoing voice says Jack Starks is dead. He is told he is dead so many times.

He can survive a bullet, clean across the brain, high levels of drugs, but slipping on ice finally kills him? no..... he's dead. been dead. very dead. He is dead from the first scene in the movie. this is exactly like Jacob's Ladder. the whole thing is just his warped interpretation of his own death.

sorrow, walking down a lonely road, hitchhiking, being on trial, imprisonment, a lost sense of tangibility, fragmented sense of time, a discord of memories, an insane asylum that feels just like purgatory, a fractured sense of identity. ("my dog tags are for incase i forget who i am" "the treatment makes me feel like a different person") Guilt is mentioned again in the group therapy scene. There is a shot of signs on the wall. "guilt vs. initiative" "autonomy vs. shame & doubt" "industry vs. inferiority"

I am very spiritual and understand the significance of the bible, but faith, regardless how much you have of it, will never be fact. NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE. There is no guarantee that a giant white man with a scruffy gray beard in a toga with a bright white light behind him, will greet you with a hug. Though that is what we hope happens and a popular view.... it might not happen that way. The brain stays active for a short time during death. The brain also makes a drug only when being born, when you die, and in small doses when you sleep. It is a very legit possibility that death itself is major psycho trip which will be different for everyone, therefore a different experience.

he's dead.

you lose -Team America, World Police

[–] Dataman325 14 years ago

The biggest clue for me were the lockers. Only dead bodies are put in those kind of lockers.

[–] PhreeRaddicalz 14 years ago

exactly!!!

didn't it look just like a morgue? and notice every outside shot, there is snow? he's always cold.... and on the DVD there is a deleted scene where is taking an ice bath.

you lose -Team America, World Police

[–] philadelphiaflyerseric 14 years ago

didn't it look just like a morgue? and notice every outside shot, there is snow? he's always cold.... and on the DVD there is a deleted scene where is taking an ice bath.

Uh... it looked just like a morgue because it was a morgue in the basement of the hospital.

[–] eugenia_loli 14 years ago

Indeed. He's dead.

Another clue is the last time he's in the locker. There's a split second of a special effect, where his faces changes to the kind of face he had in the combat scenes (dirty, camouflage makeup). For me, this was the biggest clue that he's actually dead, in Iraq. He never made it out of there.

[–] philadelphiaflyerseric 14 years ago

I think your theory is correct. It's probably the most popular theory out there, and the best theory to put everything together. Although some of your points don't really support that theory, just seems like something that a dead/dying man can imagine up, and not necessarily a clue that the writer put in.

The court room scene, the lawyers say there was no evidence of there being Jean or Jackie the day he supposedly shot the cop. It was windy, surely a hair follicle or two could have been left. The mom threw up. there was definitely evidence..... unless Jean and Jackie aren't even real to begin with, therefore the whole thing was just a trip.

-Jack doesn't remember anything other than meeting them, so the police wouldn't even know where to look for evidence of their existence, even if they believed him. There was also no videotape evidence of the cop pulling over a car and the real shooter. I'm not really sure if the writers intended this, it seems any inconsistency or anything that doesn't make sense could be explained away by that theory.

He can survive a bullet, clean across the brain, high levels of drugs, but slipping on ice finally kills him? no..... he's dead. been dead. very dead. He is dead from the first scene in the movie. this is exactly like Jacob's Ladder. the whole thing is just his warped interpretation of his own death.

-Again, the shot seemed to enter and exit through areas of the brain used for higher cortical function, which would leave vital areas intact. So slipping and hitting the back of your head at just the right spot could potentially kill someone by damaging the vital areas of the brain.

Most of your points are great, I didn't pick up on some of these. I'm just pointing out things that were probably irrelevant to the theory.

The Babak boy and the Iraqi boy who shot him are played by the same actor, so that was spot on. Also the Jamille, the mother of Babak are also played by the same actress, in the opening sequence, she seems to be yelling "Babak" as she is separated from the boy.

Also, there is a connection between the cop killer and the mental guy that tried to kill his wife 30 times. They're both seen with a green string around their fingers. I can't be sure what the significance is, but my guess is that those clues are featured so prominently to suggest that the two characters were created from the same source in his real life, someone who had something to do with the green string, maybe a fellow soldier, maybe they are all different manifestations of Jack himself. You can see that Jack had the same green string on his luggage when Jackie removed the dog tags from it.

Based on the Iraqi boy and mother, I think it's implied that the other characters in the movie are also people he encountered in real life, people he that maybe next to him in a hospital bed, maybe even manifestations of himself.

More death/afterlife references: The mental guy he meets talks about the four horsemen coming to claim him and he has no time to organize.

My feeling on this movie is that this is an attempt of a damaged brain in a dying person to make sense of internal and external stimuli. That's why there is are strange flashes of memories and also a sense of urgency, almost like the brain is perceiving the end closing in. I think the veteran actually lives for several days before dying and all the scenes after the opening sequence depict a confused brain trying to make sense and "organize" thoughts & memories. This grand hallucination/trip is also receiving external input. The doctors in the movie are psychiatrists, but in real life, I think they're implied to be neurologists. At one point, Dr. Becker asks him to blink, it reminds me of something that neurologists do to determine whether a patient is brain dead or not. The trips to the basement morgue could be his distorted perception of trips to get brain MRIs, head CTs and EEGs. Similarly, the small talk with Dr. Lorenson and the rest of the interaction with other medical staff could just be distorted perceptions of real doctors rounding on their patients and real hospital staff talking and doing things around him.

[–] scarletminded 14 years ago

You know, it is weird, but the dog tags are never mentioned as evidence. You'd think that would be the first thing they'd look for, since they have Jack's name right on them!

The whole "the first time I died" could be true...maybe because Jack has come back from the dead, in either a Donnie Darko type time loop which will close on itself or comes back because he can save two people (and more) in this loop of time he is given...he could be a ghost. The original ending leaves it wide open.

And yes there is that whole "I don't belong here" thing that was similar to the Butterfly Effect, which I saw again not too long ago. But it doesn't mean he is dead, just in a time loop or some ghostly thing that should normally be happening.

I thought the Christmas stuff was because the movie takes place from Christmas Eve until New Year's Day. They show holiday films then, no matter if you are alive or in dead type limbo.

I'd like to think he time travelled in the last part of his life to fix the lives of other people and make them better. Sort of how Donnie Darko goes back and dies because when he lives, the girl he loves, dies. Or Evan from Butterfly Effect, same deal...he has to sacrifice for his love as well. Then his ghostly state returned to his original death, victorious.

Or maybe Jackie and her mom are symbolic of something else? Or the kid who shoots him is symbolic as well? Then it gets all Mullholland Drive on me...taking it to places it's never been.

He never learns how to save himself either. Probably another theory that he is dead because he can fix others but not his own death.