Not the old “You didn’t like it because you didn’t *get *it” routine again. :rolleyes: I got it just fine, in fact I really enjoyed it up until
the “freeze frame” unfroze and the alternate universe continued to exist after Gyllenhaal died in the real world. I thought the reveal of the remains of his body and the freezing of the alternate world at the time of his death was great. What I *intensely *disliked was the need to Hollywoodize the ending so that the hero gets the girl and everyone is alive and happy, all fluffy bunnies & sunshine yay! It completely invalidated the movie’s own internal logic for the sole purpose of tacking on a happy romantic ending, which I agree with Dio, is really creepy and doesn’t make any sense if you actually think about it.
Eyebrows, they practically beat you over the head with the fact that such things could happen…
[spoiler]The service messed up, in a manner of speaking. They should realized they were dropping in an alternate past. In fact, I don’t think they created an “alternate timeline.” They didn’t realize that one quantum state is no more valid than another (though more probable). Colter was interacting and seeing that noone could have seen. Therefore, he was interacting with a valid reality. When he altered it to syuch an extent that it became more probable, that reality took over. It is, in fact, the old reality which is now a thin substitute for the world.
As far as it goes, we know Colter was literally meant (somehow) to achieve that ending for himself: he kept seeing that “ending”. Fentriss was meant to die that day, sort of. He still exists, and he is Colter and vice versa.[/spoiler]
In short, the ending isn’t random. It is exactly where the the hero’s story was going from the beginning. It’s the other people who got it wrong.
I just saw this today, and I enjoyed it, but I did notice some of the inconsistencies that others have mentioned and the ending seemed odd to me. What I didn’t understand was what the Source Code people had been doing with Colter for the 2 months before the train incident. I know they were keeping him alive, but were they training him in some way for the mission? Did they do something else with him and then wipe his memory? I thought that maybe they had done a previous (unsuccessful) mission with him and then cleared his memory, but he had obviously talked with Goodwin at some point that he could remember, because he vaguely knew her. So why did he just ‘wake up’ on the train?
The train mission was the first successful real word use of the Source Code. But I imagine they’ve been testing it before. Seeing as how routine it seemed when they decided to wipe him, they’ve probably been testing him, wiping him, and then keeping him in some sort of stasis. When they wipe him, they probably keep just enough so he can do those memory exercises and remember Goodwin. Considering the time sensitive nature of this mission, they just dumped him in without getting his “full” memory back.
I had high expectations (mainly based on Equi’s OP) but I was somewhat disappointed. Gyllenhaal was good, and the structure of the movie was fairly interesting, and I like trains, but my reaction was very much the same as Diogenes’s. It didn’t seem to follow its own rules and it raised a lot of unanswered questions with disturbing implications. It didn’t handle its made-up technology as well as Inception or even as well as Quantum Leap.
Moon wasn’t about cloning? I mean it wasn’t a documentary, but didn’t the idea of cloning, and the ethical implications of it, figure pretty prominently?
If Source Code is as good as some reviews have claimed, whoever is responsible for the trailer should be fired and blacklisted because they sure made it look like a complete stinker.
The trailer gives a completely accurate picture of what the movie is like. If you’ve sen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie. It goes exactly where the trailer would lead you to predict. There are no twists or surprises, nothing cerebral, original or thought provoking - just dumbed down sci-fi with an uninteresting, ticking clock plotline (the denouement of the “find the bomber” crisis ends up being remarkably lazy and phoned-in, by the way. The movie really has no interest in it and just wants to get it out of the way of the romance) and a hackneyed, Hollywood ending.
The more I think about this POS, the more it annoys me.
It doesn’t even rise to that level of tension, because if (and when) the bomb DOES go off, they just send him back eight minutes to try again.
Here’s another, minor issue I had. The first time Jake tries to take the gun from the conductor’s office, he turns around and is confronted by the conductor (and arrested). Back in the “real world” he is told to shoot someone if he needs to. Cue to him breaking into the gun cabinet again. I fully expected the conductor to show up and get shot, but instead Jake easily gets away. Where was the conductor that time? The movie didn’t bother to show what was different about that attempt compared to the first time.
You got from the trailer that he was already dead?
It took him a while to find the ofiice and figure out how to get the gun. The subsequent times, he knew exactly what to do so it was quicker and he was gone before the conductor saw him. At least that was my interpretation.
so it’s a stretch to say that if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie.
But mostly, I just want to thank y’all – I noticed Scott Bakula’s name in the credits, and remember that he was that Quantum Leap guy…but didn’t connect those dots until just now. :smack:
And I think Quantum Leap + Groundhog Day is a pretty good synopsis.
No, I didn’t predict that plot point specifically (that he was a torso in a box), but I don’t think it was very important. What I predicted from the trailer was that he would end up leaping permanently into the other dude’s body, and that he would insist on trying to save the chick even though everybody kept telling him it was impossible and she was already dead. Anything a movie character says is impossible will always happen at the end of the movie, and the power of love conquers everything, especially the kind of undying love that happens between a man and a woman after 30 seconds of banter on a train.
Basically, when I saw the trailer I thought, “he’ll end up changing reality and saving the girl and then he’ll live permanently as the other dude in the new reality.”
It’s basically the same ending as The Adjustment Bureau, which was even worse.[/spoiler]
The trailers we’re all about “Let’s go back in time to stop a bombing and fall in love with a girl.” I would say both of those were actually smaller side plots to the whole movie.
[spoiler] The real movie was about doing something good before his impending death. The scientist people saw that as stopping a bomber, but he saw it as saving the train, even if it might just be all a simulation. And note I said train, not the girl. He talks about saving her, but he really wants to save all those people. I would say the important relationship in the movie isn’t between Colter and Christina, but between Colter and Goodwin. If you think the theme of the movie is “love conquers all,” then you clearly saw a different movie than me.
And for another point, I’m tired of people ragging on a happy ending as being cliche Hollywood. It could either be happy or sad, and a sad ending where he dies can be just as cliche. There’s nothing wrong with a happy ending. [/spoiler]
I saw this movie last night and I liked it a lot. I acknowledge every viewer’s right to his or her own differing opinion. I will also say that reading this thread reminds me why not to bother looking up internet reactions on movies as a basis for decisions on whether to see them. Some people’s standards are just absurd.
No of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with a happy ending, but for me, it did seem like a cliche for this film. There are plenty of sci-fi twisty-plot films I like that have happy endings where the hero gets the girl, the difference is that here that felt false and tacked on. I would not at all be surprised if the last bit was added after negative reactions from test audiences.
Oh, and one other thing I forgot regarding the identity of the bomber:
I knew the bomber was the guy who dropped his wallet the second I first saw him appear on the screen. He was played by Michael Arden, a name actor on Broadway, and I knew he wouldn’t take a role unless he had at least a few lines, especially since his name was listed in the opening credits. :rolleyes: I wish more actors did what Kevin Spacey did on Se7en, and did not have their names in the opening credits so that it’s actually a surprise when they turn out to be the bad guys.
[spoiler]Quantum Leap, but I’d agree with Groundhog Day + Robocop: they use this conscientious, honorable guy to complete One More Mission because isn’t this, such as it is, better than death?
Anyway.
I still don’t get the ending. What is the timeline? Goodwin and Rutledge already know about the train and the dirty bomb, so they’ve already happened. The whole Source Code project is supposed to help prevent acts of terrorism. Colter more or less “died” two months ago and they’ve been working with him, training him in some way since then. Somehow they are sending him to an alternate past reality to try to gather data and make changes in that reality which will then change their own present?
Why are they in such a hurry? Can’t they do any number of resets (at least until poor Colter goes nuts or just refuses)? Goodwin tells him to not waste time with questions; Rutledge tells Goodwin not to allow him so many rest breaks. Are we just keeping the tension up or is this a plot point?
How did Colter send Goodwin the e-mail? He’s a brain in a jar! (The first time Goodwin goes to look at his box, I noticed it was too short. Uh-oh.) Why was it so important to stall Rutledge and delay wiping Colter’s memory until the last eight minute cycle was up? I thought she was going to let him die for real, but he didn’t, er, “de-rez” back into his pod the last time. And presumably they can keep his remains stable in that box for a while longer at least. I mean… if I were only a brain in a jar, I think I’d rather help catch terrorists than just die… as long as they gave me some kind of downtime. Which leads me to…
I wondered if the whole happy ending thing existed only in Colter’s mind, possibly related to Goodwin’s actions.[/spoiler]
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