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Has nothing to do with Alternate Universes

posted 13 years ago by rollexx
69 replies | jump to latest

Nope, I can't believe that Source Code not a simulation of Sean's short term memory track, because that's how they programmed it. Its just a computer program, and computer programs do not make alternate universes.

The only reason to believe that it actually created alternate universes is that his simulated life continued on after his life is terminated, meaning a universe must continue beyond this computer simulation.

This can only be explained by:

1) Plot hole, thus inexplicable. Director just trying to make the movie more complicated than it is, and in doing so it allows for viewers to make their own conclusions about the ending, just as we are right now.

2) "The brain is like that. It's electromagnetic field remains charged just briefly even after death. Circuits remain open."

This is a quote from the movie from the Doctor as he explains how the Source Code can work. Just like they are using Sean's brain and memory after he is dead, Colter's brain and memory can still continue on even after life is terminated, but only briefly.

3) The entire movie has some supernatural, external forces - such as Fate. In the last scene, they visit Cloud Gate, the reflective sphere thing. So this alternative universe ending was fated to occur, in which case I will believe alternate universes happened (albeit supernaturally).

[–] fnj2002 13 years ago

Couple of thoughts on this.

First, Stevens is definitely NOT dead until the end of the movie. Take it to the bank. He is clearly on life support. Most of his body was destroyed, and much of his brain may have been damaged or destroyed, but definitely there is brain function left. Goodwin obviously ended Stevens' life at the end of the movie.

Second, and call it supernatural if you like, but if you believe that sentience and self (soul in at least some sense, if you will) are more than electrical signals inside a brain of flesh and blood, then you are free to believe that death need not end the experience of self.

If then sentience/self does continue after death, it is pretty clear that it must do so in a different "universe" than the one we know. Many religions/faiths postulate meeting one's pre-deceased loved ones again after death (and by simple logic, equally meeting one's post-deceased loved ones as their times come). It is a reasonable generalization to suppose that this could occur in an alternate universe, peopled by all those one has had contact with in this universe, and perhaps even those one has NOT had contact with. See for example Philip José Farmer's Riverworld.

The twist is the overlaying of Fentress' and Colter's essence during those eight minutes.

[–] rollexx 13 years ago

Well I was trying to say AFTER Goodwin pulls the plug, his residual brain function after he is "dead/off life-support" is what keeps the movie going after the frozen scene. So it's not an alternate universe, but the same universe continuing on briefly as his brain slowly but surely dies.

I think your assumption is a bit circular. If you define self as soul and self-consciousness (intangible things), then of course it must be more than material flesh and bone.
Well I guess that's up to the viewer, but great thoughts.

[–] Marginal_Crogeny 13 years ago

If that were correct, how could he send an email from a false reality?

[–] rollexx 13 years ago

It wasn't sent from one reality to another, he sent it to the Captain in that same simulation reality, where the train bomb was prevented entirely.

[–] uncleosbert 12 years ago

but she doesn't "exist" in the simulated reality. if rutledge were right, she would exist only for the 8 minutes the simulation runs, because she only exists so far as sean interacts with her. she could not receive the text message because obviously the simulation ends at the time the bomb is supposed to go off, not when frost is apprehended and the news reports it, as is shown in the end of the film.

this of course begs the question, is this why she disobeyed her orders and cut his life support? because she had already received the same text message weeks or years earlier and knows that sean will be "freed" by having his life support cut off? at what point in the infinite chain of seans does this disaster occur?

[–] Insomniatic102 10 years ago

Why would the simulation end after the 8 minutes? It could all just be in his head, as he's dying. Time doesn't have to go by at regular speed in your mind, and the time it take to die could be MUCH longer from his perspective. And he could easily imagine her getting a text in his imagined world. An imagined reality, instead of an alternate reality.

[–] movieliker1 9 years ago

It is not a simulation. It is an alternate universe. He was transported to an alternate universe where he could continue to live.

[–] movieliker1 9 years ago

There is no simulated reality. It is an alternate reality which everyone exist in. The alternate soldier sends the email to the alternate her who is working on the alternate Source Code program.

The alternate her didn't disobey her orders and terminate his life.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ThirdDegree 13 years ago

I wouldn't try to make sense out of something so unrealistic. They tried the best they could to make it real and kind of failed at explaining the source code. Obviously there has to be some kind of alternate universe because how else would he change what Sean did instead of just reliving his last 8 minutes exactly as they happened. If it's not an alternate universe then it's just creation of possible outcomes and they wouldn't have caught the terrorist.

They had the alternate universe continue after Sean died with the captain in sean's body just for the somewhat happy ending. The more realistic ending would be the alternate universe continuing as Sean as his actual self. And more realistic than that everything would have just been over after the freeze frame.

In the unrealistic ending that we saw couldn't he technically go hang out with his dad and have all of the Captain whatever's memories and explain that to him? It would be like he never lost his son. The fact that anything outside of what actually happened to Sean in his last 8 minutes can happen means that it's alternate universes. But since his dead body still exists in the alternate universe and he is inside Sean, doesn't that mean they are going to use him to go inside some other dead guy to prevent some other terrorist attack. Couldn't he theoretically go visit his half-body? They should have just had Sean be Sean in the alternate universe at the end when he was at that stupid Millennium Bean instead of Jake Gyllennhaal inside Sean. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Even inside the rules drawn up inside the movie.

[–] jasonbourneagain 13 years ago

The lack of a movie scientific explanation for creating an alternative universe within a simulation of someone's memory broke this movie for me. While Jake Gyllenhaal did a fine job with his performance, I could not suspend my disbelief for lack of a viable explanation of why this was happening. At least, Back To The Future had a time traveling car with a flux capacitor. The movie set up a situation similar to Buried where Gyllenhaal's character was trapped in a simulator in order to find a bomber. The repetitive nature of the film added to the constraints of this movie, but the screenplay was done well to overcome it. The harvesting of our memories or even a machine's memories provides information, not the alteration of time.

[–] lucied-961-960451 11 years ago

I do feel that this could be explained, and yes I do believe that alternative/parallel universes. The premise of a parallel universe that it is pretty much the same, but some different discisions were made, people made different choices. Thus changing history and it's future.

The same holds true for Source Code, he gets send to an alternative universe, that is largely the same up till that point, it's the actions of Gyllenhaal that change what happens at that point.

The reason he keeps coming back to "our" universe, is because he dies, thus is thrown back into his body "here". This is further proven in the movie, because at one point he isn't atcually in the train when it blows up, he is actually still in that alternative universe. Because he falls on the tracks and gets hit by the train he is send back again. You could see his death in the alternative universe as a trigger, to come back again to ours.

So I believe that at the end when he defuses the bomb and makes everything right, he would not recieve a trigger until maybe something tragic would happen. There is no real way of knowing this is true however, because the only instance this theory is somewhat proven, is when he is still in the alternative universe when the train explodes and he isn't on it anymore.

When his actual body then dies in "our" universe, even if he would get a trigger, he would just die, as there wouldn't be a connection between his mind and his Original physical body anymore.

I hope this makes sense.

[–] LibertarianSoldier 11 years ago

This is exactly how I understood the film! Well said!

I think time limit was the trigger.

After time was up, 8 minutes, the consciousness returned to original body in original universe. By ending his life support, that connection was lost and he was stuck in the last universe. Good for him, he gets to live on rather than die or live simulations in misery for foreseeable future

And this gave both him and all his alternates a life. Each time a tragedy occurred, he'd fix it then if Goodwin follows through, he gets to live on at the new universe, never truly dying.

Question is, what happened to the original consciousness? Sean's real consciousness?

[–] teodor_petrut 9 years ago

For me, what bothers me in this plot is that the last alternate universe did not colapse after those 8 minutes (is just because Goodwin hacked the system by pressing the button just in time?). There are three elements, Steven's brain, Sean's memories and the Source Code. The Source Code binds the first two. However, once the SC shutdown, the electro-magnetic activity ceases so the last alternate universe must collapse. Steven/Sean cannot exist because he's shutdown!

[–] niobe484 11 years ago

I think you've hit on it. The best ending would have been if, at the end of the 8 min., the camera panned up to Christina and...OMG...it's Sean, not Jake. And Sean's voice takes over. I think that the film co. Just couldn't resist having their star get the girl.

[–] dwacon-2 13 years ago

It seems to me a set-up for a series of films where Gyllenhaal takes on other lives in solving other mysteries... with the ability to communicate outside the source code in ways that change the "real" world.

But, as Dennis Miller would say... that's only my opinion. I could be wrong.

Dwacon
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[–] chirpie 12 years ago

So... it's the TV show, "Quantum Leap", right? ^_^

[–] Democracy_is_Intransitive 13 years ago

Where is the additional information(that correlates to reality) coming from ? Sean fentris did not have access to license plates or phone numbers. If i have a lucid dream and i start looking for information to verify i'm really floating around my neighborhood i may look at license plates or the contents of my neighbors bedroom, problem is the second i seek out this information the dream ends or i become aware i'm actively creating a license plate or an address(information i never possessed when awake but could obtain after i wake up in reality).

Unless your are to say there are infinite universes and frentris dies in each one different because of colter's interaction.

Without some coupling with objective reality Fentris could not produce the name of the bomber.

[–] denise1234 12 years ago

**SPOILERS**

If you watch the DVD with commentary (I just did), at the end (just before the credits roll and while the credits are rolling), the director and the writer of the story mention different ideas stemming from the end & what they perceive the ending as meaning...

And, at the end of their discussion, they basically say the ending is *not* that happy for reasons such as 'Sean is dead' & in alternate realitie(s), Colter is prevented from stopping the explosions & all those people die (at least, according to them).

BTW: Jake G. is also on the commentary & I enjoyed the three-part commentary to this movie more than many I have watched/listened to.

"We would have been fine, if there hadn't been any.....mess"

[–] Bob-45 12 years ago

"Schrödinger's cat". Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other? (More technically, when does the actual quantum state stop being a linear combination of states, each of which resembles different classical states, and instead begins to have a unique classical description?) If the cat survives, it remembers only being alive.

[–] ahmadx24 12 years ago

i think that

every thing happens after she(Goodwin) let him die is in his brain .his 8 minutes

including her getting the message .after 8 minutes it will be over .

[–] Xception 12 years ago

Yes! this the most simple explanation.

[–] veryhornyfox 12 years ago

Ooh, cool idea, but perhaps not right. At the end of the movie it seems that more than 8 minutes have passed since the train.

[–] Insomniatic102 10 years ago

Time from his perspective wouldn't pass the same rate necessarily. Dreams can seem to last longer or shorter the time your actually dreaming.

[–] avortac 8 years ago

This movie is what happens, when someone has the 'brilliant' idea of making a movie about time travel, parallel universes / alternate timelines, exploring other people's memories as if they were realities, 'brain in a vat'-type simulated 'virtual realities', 'invading other people's bodies', and 'groundhog day' type 'repetitions of a certain event', and tries to mash it all together, while injecting romance and woman-praise and sappy, teary-eyed moments into it.

Then add some crippled project leader, a 'noble woman' (because women can never be unfeeling and cold, cruel and calculating..) that makes a great sacrifice for the protagonist, lots of explosions (or technically, 'the same explosion' from many different viewpoints), and a typically kind-looking 'evil white mad bomber guy', and you're all set for a completely nonsensical, crappy claptrap that will charm the audiences that don't have big expectations or understanding of much anything (so, most of the population), and be a big success!

Just don't sweat the details, the consistency, making sense, or having at least some kind of internal logic. It's all about pleasing women and raking in the big bucks. Women don't care, because there's ROMANCE. Why should anyone?

I know I don't care to watch this kind of garbage. I wish I hadn't. But it's good for dieting..

[–] matthewrosenfelder 11 years ago

No:

As laid out in the movie, you can access the last 8 minutes that happened PRIOR to death.

This would require the brain to maintain consciousness for 8 minutes AFTER death.

Two different things.

[–] DaveFishBulb 12 years ago

I'm afraid alternate universes is the only way that the film makes some sort of sense. The Source Code boss guy mentions quantum stuff, which sounds like a half-arsed way of hinting at alternate universes (pre-existing, not created by the computer) and that they have somehow worked out a way to transfer a human consciousness between them. This makes sense because:

1. He can interact with his environment instead of just watching a "memory video" and he experiences new things that definitely weren't part of the dead guy's memories.
2. Subtly different things that were beyond his influence happen with each "trip".
3. He seems to continue to live well after his original body's life was terminated. And not in some crazy pre-death hallucination world either; it just looked normal like before.

What this means is; he didn't change the past in his original universe, or any of the others except the last one. He was able to come back and stop only the second attack in his original universe and then prevent both in the universe that he ended up in. The reflective sphere was probably just a strong memory of Sean's.

When the door goes down blow the bulbs.

[–] denise1234 12 years ago

DaveFishBulb^

"The reflective sphere was probably just a strong memory of Sean's."

Wow ~ I hadn't thought of that nor have I heard anyone else mention this possibility.

That's a good supposition :)

"We would have been fine, if there hadn't been any.....mess"