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I wasn't aware of Gantz before, but it looks very good from the trailer and I definitely don't want to miss any film with Tomoro Taguchi in it!

Listening to the commentary after posting the commentators (Jones, the writer Ben Ripley and Gyllenhaal) get into the same idea over the end credits and put forward a few theories. They don't get into the 'evil twin of Quantum Leap' theory too much (apart from Ripley noting that Sean is definitely dead at the end!) but do talk about possibilities for the sequel that involve Colter in Sean being confronted by forty other parallel universe Sean Fentresses and having to fight them all off, something which sounds uncomfortably close to the plot of that Jet Li film The One!

I was also left thinking that the end of this film:

Spoiler

is very similar to the end of Southland Tales - the hero realising that he is a projection of his mangled body kept barely alive inside a modernistic 'coffin'. Add to that the way that Southland Tales also tackles the idea of a parallel universes which was created at the very moment of Boxer's accident, very similar to the accident in Donnie Darko, which of course starred Jake Gyllenhaal!

zedz wrote:It seems to me that the answer (not very satisfactory, I know), is that Sean's consciousness has been bumped into oblivion as collateral damage - which I assume is what would have happened with every other iteration of those eight minutes, since all of them represent alternative realities. Though I'm sure we're not supposed to think about this.

If I recall, at the end Colter says that source code is actually creating a new reality. So by bringing a new reality into existence, they create a reality in which there is no Sean, but a Colter who occupies the body of what is Sean only in the original reality. Perhaps it's the ultimate Deist ontology, as the mind responsible for the final reality depicted in the film does not exist therein. Any consciousness named "Sean Fentress" exists only in the original reality, in which he died in the train explosion. In the newer iterations of reality, there's only Colter Stevens, who has the physical characteristics but not the consciousness of his absent Creator.

Or am I totally out in left field here?

I have no idea what the filmmakers intended, but my reading, which might be a lot more dismissive than what they intended, was that since every decision creates an alternative reality, at the end of the film we just end up branched off into yet another of an infinite number of possible worlds, and carry on from there. Not so much a "what if?" as a "why not?"

Actually, thinking back to the tone of the film, I suspect that you're probably closer to the mark of what they intended: a kind of "Not just any old alternative reality, folks, this is a PROPER ONE! This is a really big deal! A whole new world!" Which is unfortunate, because then all those awkward logical inconsistencies / paradoxes do come home to roost and it ends up being merely some not-quite-smart-enough narrative sleight of hand.

Hm. Well, as usual you're a lot more insightful about its aesthetic than I am! I'm also going from memory, having watched Source Code on an Air France flight about six weeks ago. (Yes, I was watching it on the tiny screen embedded in the seat-back in front of me; don't tell David Lynch! :-$ ) So I don't remember it well enough to recall the paradoxes to which you refer, but I'm pretty sure he does call it a new reality in the extended text message/voiceover he sends to Goodwin.

On some level, however, it can't be a whole new world, because in the flashing images that accompany Colter's uploading into the source code, "the bean" (Cloud Gate) flashes through Colter's consciousness, leading him to question whether the creation of this particular new reality based on the fading remnants of a dead man's memories in the original reality is some form of "destiny." If this is the case, presumably there's some kind of drive toward the new reality embedded in the old one, but I have no idea which consciousness (Sean's or Colter's?), if any, would be responsible.

I believe the idea is that the Wright character told Farmiga who told Gyllenhaal that the source code only creates new realities when in fact it does effect the existent reality... but then how is his consciousness still going to be usable in the living corpse in the machine? Hmm... good brain tickler, Science Fiction Movie. I like zedz' defense for Gyllenhaal essentially erasing the teacher's continued consciousness, because the film's kind of assholish if you think about it too hard in the other direction. Maybe we're just supposed to look at Michelle Monaghan, sigh dreamily, and shrug our shoulders? Well, I already do that, so...

But yeah, this was a pretty good flick, though one oddly resistant to narrative conflict in the escalating "eight minutes" scenes. I figured the film would take dozens of trips to the well to sell the process, but the whole thing ended up being a four panel whodunnit executed with ridic prowess (like what, five tries?) by Gyllenhaal-- presumably because the film changes gears halfway through and decides it's a completely different film and gets bored with its own initial premise.

As I recall, there were more tries than that, but I think they were all montaged-up at one point, which I thought was a shame. But then, I would have loved to see it all stretched out Jeanne Dielman-like. And that wouldn't make for a hit action film.

Yes, but they are montaged up to created the 'torture' section where we are supposed to definitively lose all sympathy for Jeffrey Wright's character as he keeps sending Gyllenhaal to be blown up again and again without a break, supposedly due to the urgent race against time but also seemingly as a kind of punishment for Colter having asked questions about the mission, treating him more like just another malfunctioning part in his machine than as an actual person.

domino harvey wrote: Maybe we're just supposed to look at Michelle Monaghan, sigh dreamily, and shrug our shoulders? Well, I already do that, so...

Step back, dom! I saw her first!

jbeall wrote:

zedz wrote:It seems to me that the answer (not very satisfactory, I know), is that Sean's consciousness has been bumped into oblivion as collateral damage - which I assume is what would have happened with every other iteration of those eight minutes, since all of them represent alternative realities. Though I'm sure we're not supposed to think about this.

If I recall, at the end Colter says that source code is actually creating a new reality. So by bringing a new reality into existence, they create a reality in which there is no Sean, but a Colter who occupies the body of what is Sean only in the original reality. Perhaps it's the ultimate Deist ontology, as the mind responsible for the final reality depicted in the film does not exist therein. Any consciousness named "Sean Fentress" exists only in the original reality, in which he died in the train explosion. In the newer iterations of reality, there's only Colter Stevens, who has the physical characteristics but not the consciousness of his absent Creator.

Or am I totally out in left field here?

This is what I got out of it, and what is discussed on the commentary at the end of the DVD. Basically, Sean Fentress in the new reality which we are seeing at the end, is dead.

I really enjoyed Source Code, maybe not as much as Moon but still a very good follow up. It reminded me of (as mentioned earlier) the 60's Twilight Zone, but mixed with Chris Marker's La Jetee and Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys. I'm excited to see what Duncan Jones does from here.

mfunk9786 wrote:an absolutely perfect endpoint about five minutes prior (I think it's pretty obvious what I'm referring to) that I will just accept as my personal denouement.

For reals. IT WAS RIGHT THERE

I meant

Spoiler

the train exploding,

but ok