Source Code (Duncan Jones' new film)

[Johnny Townmouse]

the darkness of the ending is that

Spoiler alert

every time he goes into the source code he creates a new universe in which he fails and a large percentage of the population of chicago are killed in a dirty bomb. effectively, even though they saved thousands of lives in the original reality, they probably killed millions in all the others

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Spoiler alert

Surely they killed billions? Given that they created brand new universes in which billions of people will ultimately die, many of them in more agonising and awful ways than the lucky people in that train bomb.

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[phantom_power]

Spoiler alert

yes i suppose for each reality created then all the people in that reality would eventually die. but they specifically created universes where a dirty bomb goes off in chicago killing thousands or millions. the rest you could write of as the natural progression of life but that event is an almost certainty in the new universes.

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[Johnny Townmouse]

Spoiler alert

yes i suppose for each reality created then all the people in that reality would eventually die. but they specifically created universes where a dirty bomb goes off in chicago killing thousands or millions. the rest you could write of as the natural progression of life but that event is an almost certainty in the new universes.

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I don't think the specifics mean that much, in terms of the Chicago train bomb. I think they just happen to be dealing with that issue within the new 'universe'. Given that each new universe created contains that military facility carrying out the source code experiments, the amount of universes being created within each separate universe ultimately becomes infinite. Therefore the amount of deaths is not billions, or trillions, but is completely infinite.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

FUCKING BING

Was that not a cheeky reference to Groundhog Day?

[Johnny Townmouse]

I don't think the specifics mean that much, in terms of the

Spoiler alert

Chicago train bomb. I think they just happen to be dealing with that issue within the new 'universe'. Given that each new universe created contains that military facility carrying out the source code experiments, the amount of universes being created within each separate universe ultimately becomes infinite. Therefore the amount of deaths is not billions, or trillions, but is completely infinite.

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[The Roofdog]

Is the source code creating these alternate realities though? I don't think that makes any sense. Jeffrey Wright mumbles something about quantum mechanics a couple of times and the standard "many-worlds" interpretation has all possible universes simultaneously co-existing. These alternate realities exist and the source code allows Stevens to connect to them and select between them. Adding up the body count from each "branch" is the wrong way to look at it IMO since all these outcomes and an infinity of others already "exist", in some sense.

My reading of the ending was that

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Stevens could walk off into the sunset (albeit in another man's body, which is freaky, but he would've died anyway) whilst leaving an alternate version of himself that was never on the Chicago train plugged into the machine waiting for the next Big Bad to come along. He can keep doing this again and again, especially now he's got Goodwin's help. This has the unfortunate side-effect that eventually there'll be hundreds of versions of Stevens walking around in different people's bodies, and his Dad would have to be let in on it too, otherwise he's going to get hundreds of phone-calls from different weepy blokes claiming they served with his son. Yes, I like to think basically that this was the pilot for a new series of Quantum Leap with Goodwin as Al.

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That doesn't really tie in with the "bleak" that Duncan Jones was talking about at all though.

[phantom_power]

Spoiler alert

but the different weepy blokes would be talking to different dads in different universes.

i like the idea of the source code tapping into existing alternative realities. this solves some of the problems i have with the film

the bleakness i suppose is that the owner of the body stevens inhabits is sort of murdered and stevens has to live a different life, which isn't the complete happy ending that it seems at first glance

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[The Roofdog]

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but the different weepy blokes would be talking to different dads in different universes.

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I'm going all minimalist with the spoiler tags since this thread's becoming unreadable.

Did he phone his Dad in

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his final "victory trip"

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, or was it in a trip before that? I can't remember. If he did then it becomes officially part of the past since that's the reality we're running with. So if

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"Stevens #2"

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wakes up and decides he wants to phone his Dad (which he probably will since what Goodwin knows about the previous adventure is limited to

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what's in the email

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and he'll have to go through the whole

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"I'm dead" thing

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every time) that's 2 phone calls. And so on. It all depends whether he gets it out of his system before the final trip since that becomes "the past" at each iteration.

I agree that Stevens

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taking the teacher's body

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is a bit grim but "murder" is too strong since both of them

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were already dead

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, and this way

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one of them gets to live (even setting aside the saving everyone on the train/everyone in Chicago thing)

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. So I don't see it as too bleak. I saw the ending as pretty up-beat really since under my (probably completely wrong) interpretation

Spoiler alert

he's going to save hundreds of lives, and each version of Stevens only has to go through the source code once, and then gets to live, in some form.

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.

[Johnny Townmouse]

SPOILERS

Given that the source code technology exists in each separate alternate universe, and that many source code universes are created in each one, am I right to assume that the amount of alternate realities is infinite? To me that is the ultimate ending of this film – the notion of infinity. By the end of the film we are only experiencing two of those infinite universes, but in the 'train is saved' universe the source code project continues, awaiting another terrorist attack of some kind in order to utilise the technology. Whilst the film deals with death and morality, the colossal repercussions of infinite universes is the only important thing that I can get from it.

[Famous Mortimer]

I just don't get the many-universes thing - I'm not saying that wasn't the intention of Jones, but I don't think you need to have that for the film to work in exactly the same way; it's a theory, but it's no more valid than it all happening on one Earth.

Still, it's causing us to talk about it weeks after watching it, which is a rare thing indeed for a film, so thumbs up from me.

[The Roofdog]

Well I only got round to watching it last night which is why I bumped the thread but yeah, I loved it.

I just don't get the many-universes thing - I'm not saying that wasn't the intention of Jones, but I don't think you need to have that for the film to work in exactly the same way; it's a theory, but it's no more valid than it all happening on one Earth.

The main problem with this is that we see nothing he does inside the source code has any effect on Goodwin and the control room. The first time he saves the girl, the phone message he leaves for Jeffrey Wright. You'd have to say that Goodwin letting the clock run past zero is the trigger that alters the past and locks that version of events in, which I'm not too keen on as an explanation. Or maybe the trigger is Stevens saving everyone, but that's even worse.

[Johnny Townmouse]

I just don't get the many-universes thing - I'm not saying that wasn't the intention of Jones, but I don't think you need to have that for the film to work in exactly the same way; it's a theory, but it's no more valid than it all happening on one Earth.

I agree that the film works as a narrative without ANY of the SF musing on the repurcussions of the source code. But for me, the notion of infinite universes is a fact rather than a theory, at least within the logic of the story. Within each universe/reality the source code is being utilised numerous times, something that snowballs and compounds rather like an infiite Russian Doll. Within each 'created' universe, of which we only see about a dozen or so, the source code is utilised many times. This ultimately creates an infinite amount of universes/realities. I guess for some this isn't important, but if one of the outcomes of the film is to question how many people are saved vs how many people are killed, then this surely is the most important factor?

Well it is for me anyway.

[The Roofdog]

If you reckon that activating the source code actually creates a new alternate universe then why do you think there are an infinite number? Sure the source code can then also be run within each created universe but it's still a finite sum game, branching off like a binary tree.

I really don't think you're supposed to keep a running total of how many people were "killed" within each trip. Why didn't Stevens' email just tell Goodwin to smash the machine up if he thought he'd killed 12 times the number of people by going in 12 times? OK, you might argue that 12 x the number of people on a train is still less than the population of Chicago but Stevens has no idea what they're going to use the system for next time.

[Johnny Townmouse]

If you reckon that activating the source code actually creates a new alternate universe then why do you think there are an infinite number? Sure the source code can then also be run within each created universe but it's still a finite sum game, branching off like a binary tree.

Yes, a tree. But given that that each universe creates multiple universes, and each of those also creates multiple universes, and so on, surely it is ad infinitum? I'm struggling to understand what the possible finite point could be.

[The Roofdog]

Oh I see: because you create each universe from a point before you started using the machine so the machine probably always gets used in the new universe. Yes, you're right. I still don't think the machine is actually creating those universes, but I get where you're coming from.

[Johnny Townmouse]

Oh I see: because you create each universe from a point before you started using the machine so the machine probably always gets used in the new universe. Yes, you're right.

Exactly, and more importantly - how do we know that the 'current' universe that the film inhabits isn't trillions of source code leaps from the very first source code universe 'creation'.

I still don't think the machine is actually creating those universes, but I get where you're coming from.

OK, but given that the main character phones his own Father, it exists on some level, and that 'existence' is infinite. Sorry to be like a dog with a bone.

[phantom_power]

Spoiler alert

So if "Stevens #2" wakes up and decides he wants to phone his Dad (which he probably will since what Goodwin knows about the previous adventure is limited to what's in the email and he'll have to go through the whole "I'm dead" thing every time) that's 2 phone calls.

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no because in order to wake up he would have to traverse to a different universe by utilising the source code.

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[thugler]

I agree that the film works as a narrative without ANY of the SF musing on the repurcussions of the source code. But for me, the notion of infinite universes is a fact rather than a theory, at least within the logic of the story. Within each universe/reality the source code is being utilised numerous times, something that snowballs and compounds rather like an infiite Russian Doll. Within each 'created' universe, of which we only see about a dozen or so, the source code is utilised many times. This ultimately creates an infinite amount of universes/realities. I guess for some this isn't important, but if one of the outcomes of the film is to question how many people are saved vs how many people are killed, then this surely is the most important factor?

Well it is for me anyway.

It could just as easily be time travel as it could be infinite universes.

[Johnny Townmouse]

It could just as easily be time travel as it could be infinite universes.

Does (a) each new timeline shut down when his character is 'brought back', or (b) does it continue as a separate timeline? If the answer is b then that is essentially the same as a new universe, from a 'number of deaths' point of view. If it is (a) then it is only a few thousand deaths I guess, if we assume the experiment will only be carried put once.

[The Roofdog]

Yeah, it can't be time travel in the simplest sense of a single time-line with a single universe because nothing he does on any of the failed attempts has any effect on the timeline in the control room. It can be time travel in the BTTF 2 sense of branching off into a separate time-line, which is another way of saying parallel universes.

[Icehaven]

How did he get Goodwin's mobile number?