“Some people in this thread asked about other great SCI FI movies.”
I liked Minority Report, Silent Running, Fantastic Planet.
Now if you just want ambiguous enough for good conversation, and don’t care if it’s not SciFi, I’d go with Picnic at Hanging Rock, or the classic Roshomon.
When they recruited him, the plague had already happened.
Remember that although the past may be immutable, the scientists knowledge of the past is hazy and very incomplete. In fact, it turns out that it was Cole who helped them find out the information they needed, for which they pardoned him. So even when everyone gets to the airport, they still need some help from Cole. And maybe even try a hail mary pass of killing Peters.
I’d say that the truth, as usual, falls somewhere inbetween these two extremes. 
I agree. I believe I’ve said before that Cole’s purpose in the airport was not to kill Peters, but to point him out, so the scientists could pin point his location to get a sample of the un-mutated virus.
What I appreciate about this move is how many different ways the end can be interpreted, and the movie still works.
I take the ending to show that the future “scientists” are incompetent. I don’t think they are trying to maintain the status quo, as some have opined. I feel they really do want to restore the world to liveable conditions, It’s just that they are totally incompetent! The head scientist on the plane doesn’t say she’s in insurance as a joke during her mission to the past to retrieve the plague - she really was an insurance salesperson before the plague, and she isn’t time traveling in that scene. After all their well-meaning work, the joke is one of them was there at the beginning and they don’t even know it.
Whether or not Cole’s mission was ultimately successful is left ambiguous (as is the question of whether he really was time traveling or just delusional).
If that’s true, why is she the same age throughout the movie, while Cole’s 20 to 30 years older?
Yes, I think the age of the character on the plane (which is the same as we’ve seen in the Future era) eliminates the ‘she wasn’t time-traveling in that scene’ theory.
Also, the line (“I’m in insurance”) is surely far too pointed to be merely a statement of the character’s line-of-work.
Madelaine Stowe was def in top form. I don’t recall ever seeing her in a better performance. She seemed to largely retire after making this film. At least, she seemed to stop making very many films.
I loved her in most everything she did. I think she is one of the most stunning, most beautiful actresses that Hollywood has ever turned out.
There are a few exceptions. I didn’t think she was very good in:
We Were Soldiers
or …
Playing by Heart (1998)
or …
The General’s Daughter (1999)
or …
Blink (1994)
But, Blink was just not a very good film IMO. Hardly right to criticise her for that film.
I still love her work and would really love to meet her one day or get to talk with her for a few minutes.
ETA: Closet Land (1991) was also a real stinker of a film.
I felt that watching that was a real waste of my time. I certainly recommend that you avoid that movie if you ever get the chance.
She’s been a full-time television performer for the past three years (on the ABC show Revenge). I don’t watch it, but believe she is top-billed.
Actresses in their 50s infamously don’t have as many feature-film options as do younger actresses. It’s unfair, but does seem to be a fact.
Note: I am not wedded to my theory - it’s just a thought.
But the pointedness of this line works with my theory as well-by showing that the future leaders were not the brilliant scientific minds they appeared to be, but were just normal people who happened to survive, explaining why they were so bad at running the time machine and the virus retrieval operation.
I can see that logic (though as you’ve read, I don’t go along with it). I do agree with what you (I think) said earlier, though–that one of the things that marks this movie as a classic is the way it can bear more than one interpretation.
gilliam’s a genius. nobody knows. and he’s made a totally credible movie about time travel that actually highlights the paradoxes (paradoxi?) and impossibilities. “I’m in insurance.” it can’t be the most enigmatic line in cinema ever, can it? it’s gotta go close. actually, I only registered so I could ask how long did they think it was going to take to fight ignorance?
I think they figured it would be all taken care of by '78 at the latest.
20 to 30 years, like cold fusion power and the next great L.A. earthquake.
Apparently Syfy Channel is remaking the movie as a twelve-episode series, scheduled to start in January.
I had a slightly different impression of the end.
During the movie, Dr. Railly managed to convince Cole that he was insane, and that there was no impending apocalypse. On the flip side, Dr. Reilly changed her mind when she saw enough evidence to convince her that there would be an impending apocalypse. And, the decision the two made was, whether or not an apocalypse was going to happen or not, and whether or not Cole is sane or insane, they were going to don disguises and escape away to someplace nice - at least for the immediate future.
What I don’t see people mention is when everything comes together with the telephone message that Cole leaves, and Jose encountering him in the airport. To me, that is the crucial part of the movie when everything comes together.
Because Cole was in the past-present, and he removed his tracking device from his tooth, he was planning on escaping from the future, but decided to finish the job as best he could by leaving the telephone message about the 12 Monkeys not being responsible for the apocalypse - not even sure if he is sane, but Cole figured it’s better to leave the message rather than not.
Minutes later, Jose walks up to Cole in the airport and mentions the telephone message Cole just left. When Cole doesn’t understand, Jose says:
“Five minutes ago. Thirty years ago. The message was just reconstructed.”
The implication is that whenever something in the past changes, the future immediately knows. So, the future got Cole’s message, and knows that the apocalypse still happened anyway, so they know Cole is right, and that Cole probably has the knowledge to stop the apocalypse from happening. But, that Cole also died at that moment in the past.
Jose showed up with a gun at the airport. The ultimatum was that Cole was to find whoever really did start the apocalypse and shoot them, or Jose was to shoot Dr. Railly, as a threat. They needed to threaten Cole, because he already had his pardon, and was no longer traceable.
At that exact moment, that is when Dr. Railly recognized Dr. Peters, coincidentally saw the picture of Dr. Gaines on the newspaper, and simultaneously realized that the apocalypse was going to happen, and that Dr. Peters was going to start it at that airport, right now.
A recurring theme in the movie is that time travel is possible, but not perfected. As soon as the team of Cole, Dr. Railly, and Jose realized when, where, and who released the plague, why didn’t the future just send someone back to, say, a half hour before, and kill Dr. Peters as he entered the airport?
I think, since time travel wasn’t perfected, and the past is hazy from the future’s perspective, the best the future scientists could do was to get one of their own in the same place at the same time, on an airplane traveling between the first two cities where the plague was known to start. They knew that they couldn’t prevent the plague from happening, but they knew how to get a sample of the virus by that point.
I think Jose’s line “the message was just reconstructed” is consistent with this movie’s view of time travel: that the past cannot be changed.
Cole always made that phone call; it’s not a change in the timeline. The only reason that the future didn’t react to the information contained in the phone call sooner, is that it took them a long time (!) to decode the phone message.
For that reason, it wouldn’t be possible for the future to send someone back to a time before Dr. Peters released the virus in the security line. That didn’t happen, so it can’t happen.
Well, I finally got around to watching this film. I was interested in other’s thoughts on the ambiguous ending and found some good comments on this thread. But, I must admit, I have a completely different take on the ending. (Though I did think Brad Pitt’s performance in this was wonderful, despite some who disagree with that)
So, to lay the groundwork, here are some things to consider:
Nothing ever changed in the past. This is VERY important. For example, James’ history before he started time traveling was that he saw himself get shot (not knowing it was him), people got sick, and most people died. It wasn’t like he traveled back in time, made some changes, and then suddenly grew this memory of him getting shot. So, you have to assume that everything you saw was what happened in the original timeline.
The mission was never to stop the virus or change the past. The mission was always to act as reconnaissance, information gathering, and–at best–sample gathering.
Most time travel movies deal a lot with paradoxes. I find it interesting that paradoxes were not explored at all in this film, which makes it very unique. But let’s talk about paradoxes, because it is very important to my theories.
3a) You can’t build a time machine to change an incident in the past. That causes a paradox. To illustrate, if James’ mission was to go back in time and change the past and he succeeded, then it would lead to a timeline where time travel is not invented because there would not be a need to do so, which would then make it so that the time traveling doesn’t take place and then the virus gets released anyway. Boom, paradox. The universe explodes or–well, nothing good can come from that. Time doesn’t like being messed around with.
3b) I kept fearing the opposite kind of paradox, where the actions of the time travelers made it so that the event they were sent back to start was actually started by the event. I’m so glad that didn’t happen! To illustrate why this is a paradox, if the time travelers never went back, the event would not have happened in the first place, thus again negating the need to send people back to collect data.
James was partially insane. Not that he dreamed the entire storyline or anything, but time travel did seem to have some sort of effect on people… and James was sent back at least three times. I think he even recognized this in himself, when he tried to turn himself in at one point. It seemed the more he traveled, the worst it got. He seemed to be loosing it a bit at the end, but he still had his “eye on the prize”, so to speak. Just sayin’… not that this lends much to my theory on the ending.
The lady on the plane was, in fact, the lady in the future… from the future. It wasn’t supposed to be a younger version of herself, she doesn’t look 30 years or so younger. She completes the mission of gathering an unmutant variation of the virus.
Okay, so let me tell this story again from the old lady’s perspective:
She is one of the survivors of a plague that knocks out 99% of the world population. She is drafted onto some team to find a cure, for undisclosed reasons. My theory is that new born babies aren’t immune, so if they don’t find a cure, the human race is S-C-R-E-W-E-D! Also, for some reason, finding the unmutated strain is the answer. Somebody invents time travel, and they think this is the best way to find the original virus, but there is no information on when or how it started.
Recognizing the dangers of paradoxes, it is decided to not save the 99% that died, but to make it so the remaining 1% can survive and prosper. They use time travel to try to find out how it originated. They only know one thing, the year… last quarter of 1996 is where they need to begin to look.
Time travel isn’t perfect, and the first few attempts don’t go well. Some go back centuries further than they should. But as they continue sending people back, they fine-tune the time travel experience. Then they find James, and he is one of the few returning with real answers. First, the 12 Monkeys gives them a target. Some other voice messages also help get them closer. By the end of the movie, they’ve got it down to the correct date–if not hour and minute.
They get the message that the 12 Monkeys is a red herring, but they somehow piece together that it starts out at the airport. They send one person back with a gun. Not to stop the virus from starting (actually, it was too late by then anyway because the security guard was most likely infected), but to have James point out exactly who is carrying the virus. Coincidentally, young-James happened to be there to witness it as well.
James chases down the guy in yellow, but the police shoot James when he is distracted by his girlfriend calling for him. Virus is loose, but the guy in the yellow must be who is spreading the virus. James died? Oh well, they didn’t really care for him anyway.
With this information, the old lady then goes back, books a tickets on the flight with the man in yellow and even gets a seat next to him. She then collects the virus, either by shaking the guy’s hand or afterward by just taking one of the vials or a culture from one of them or something. (Cultures are bacterial, aren’t they? The viral equivalent to that)
She doesn’t fear shaking his hand, or literally, getting her hands dirty. She is already immune. She just wants the strain. After collection, she returns to her timeline and they use the strain to find a vaccination for what remains of the human race.
A horrible scientist, but she probably ends up as President or something that comes with a nice retirement package.
Okay, that’s my theory. Keep in mind, I only watched the movie once (hence the reason I’m terrible with the names). Thoughts?
jduckett, I agree with your analysis. I think you’ve laid it all out quite logically and succinctly.
With the US television series starting up in just a couple of weeks, the question arises: how do the showrunners understand those parts of the movie plot that have been debated and disagreed over, in the years since the movie’s release?
Time will tell. (!)