Sauce Code

Have you watched the movie Source Code?

If you haven't, you should go watch it now ^o^ Don't worry, I'll wait right here ^_^

Watched it already? Nice right?

Not nice? :(

Ok nevermind, anyways. Whenever I watch movies, I'm always impressed by new mechanics in each movie, whether its the superhero's superpower, some law-defying invention or concept, its amazing *o* Even the most seemingly janky mechanics can still have so much depth and spawn so much discussion~!

..just that I don't have anyone to really discuss with :( ah well.

Which is why I'm doing it here ^O^ I guess

So yeah, in Source Code, there is this mechanic that resembles a time loop. The character experiences the same 8 minutes (of a dead person) over and over throughout the course of the story. But what we learn later from the creator of the Source Code, some limping professor, is that it is not time travel.

Wait, what? Its not? Then what is it? Well apparently, he spoke scienglish (science+english) so even the guy doing the subtitles just went "ah whatever man *leaves empty*" and I couldn't catch it because I watched the movie only once, so here goes nothing;

Apparently, what the main character is going through is actually the dead guy's memories of the last 8 minutes of his life being replayed over and over again (to find out who the bomber of the train is and *insert some bomb related storyline here*) through some break through technology (called the Source Code.. tada~!) where the dying memory of a dead person can be retrieved and replayed in another's mind like a CCTV recording!

Well, at least that's my understanding of the limping doctor's explanation...

This works because the Source Code isn't a disaster prevention machine. Its not made to go back in time to avert catastrophes. The reason for our main character's mission is to find out who the bomber is to stop a bigger bomb that is about to go off. The train has exploded and there's nothing our hero can do to save the already dead people :(

Storyline aside, knowledge of how the Source Code is supposed to work allows us to come to the first very obvious problem that occurs from the discontinuity of two truths in the movie; If the 8 minute joyride is just a replaying of the dead guy's memories, how the heck can the main character deviate from what the dead guy originally did and walk around the train doing whatever he wants?! You can't read a book and punch a character you don't like in the middle of it, right?

The second problem stems from the direct spit in the face of the doctor's theory. SPOILER ALERT ^O^ the ending shows an alternate timeline in which the main character saves the whole train and gets the girl and lives happily ever after in true Hollywood fashion ^O^ (I mean.. seriously? lol -o-). So what now, after Inception its suddenly cool to fuck around with audiences minds? Tell them one thing and then totally contradict yourself later?

Yup, its the new trend, folks :D Politicians have been doing it for centuries... tried and true method of the entertainment industry ^o^ First, tell them a nice lie, then sucker punch them with the revelation afterwards! XD (yes, politics is as much entertainment as wrestling is entertainment, bad entertainment, but still entertainment XD)

So of course, everyone is a movie analyst these days and there are tons over tons of opinions and explanations that stemmed from these plotholes ^o^

One opinion is that the movie's writers SUCKS BALLS and don't know a thing about story continuity. That, or are helpless, spineless souls that succumb to the expectations of Happy Endings ^_^ OR maybe they just wanna be cool like everyone else and make a totally WTF ending :( Stupid bandwagon jumpers. Get your own bandwagon!

Another opinion is that the doctor who created the Source Code accidentally created a method of time travel instead. This idea is mainly attributed to the fact that towards the end, the main character actually says that "the Source Code works better than [the doctor] thought," implying that there might be more to the Source Code than the doctor's explanation. 

So all those 8 minutes would actually be alternate timelines stemming from the same starting point. Its that parallel reality idea where when you travel back in time, you create an alternate timeline which, while changed, does not affect the timeline you came from, so in a way, you can't change your past but can change the past in a parallel reality. Dragonball Z uses this logic. This explains the ending where the hero happily ends up with the girl and everyone's safe and sound ^o^

But it creates a new slew of problems. If the Source Code does enable parallel time travel, what happens to the dead guy every time the hero gets transported into his timeline?! Does his consciousness get replaced by the hero when the hero gets transported into his body? Is it consciousness that gets displaced, ..or his soul? Poor guy! @O@; the hero just comes in and freaking possess him and takes over his life, his money, and his girlfriend! What a jerk!

The moral implications are mind blowing. Which transitions nicely to our next opinion, which is a spiritual and religious one v_v A religious person can see the whole experience of the hero as a journey of redemption (especially highlighted by his drive to help out after hearing his father's speech, and resolving his 'unfinished business' by telling his dad how much he actually cares for him and vice versa) There is no time travel here, but the focus is more towards the journey of the hero, re-living the last 8 minutes of another's life and trying to selflessly serve his country and save countless lives.

What happens in the end, then, is the main character finding peace with himself and being able to successfully move on... to heaven, which is depicted in the scene where everybody is happy and alive in his world, and he gets to spend the rest of his life with a beautiful girl (there needs to be an incentive after all, right?) It helps that everyone in that world in the end is actually dead in 'the real world', which backs up the theory that that might be a depiction of heaven ^o^

These are just a few of the many, many theories that could be produced from the minds who watched the movie, and all of them have their merits and weaknesses. All of them are possible, though. Just like the theory that multiple parallel timelines can exist, multiple interpretations of a story are possible. None are absolutely correct, and none are wrong and unacceptable either ^_^ Yes, even if the movie makers made a press release tomorrow and told everyone that "yes, this is what we meant to say with the movie," it doesn't make that interpretation absolute.

There's this concept brought up by Roland Barthes called The Death of the Author. I don't really remember the details, but basically what the theory says is that literary analysis, which in olden times were done with respects to what the writer was trying to say through his works, is outdated and has shifted towards the reader instead. Hence, the death, of the author ._.

Sure, the writer is the creator of the writing, but according to this theory, the meaning that the writer assigns to the writing is not the absolute meaning. Once the writing is read by another person, a new meaning is formed in that other person's mind (because no two people think exactly alike), and so on, and so forth. J.K Rowling can claim that Dumbledore is gay all she wants, but if some homophobic chap wants to see it as a publicity stunt to get more readers and that Dumbledore is that nice old grandpa he knew since 12, nobody can tell him otherwise.

And that's what's so beautiful about this theory. That interpretation is up to you ^o^ I've had this theory in my mind for a very long time now, but the movie Source Code really emphasizes this theory nicely~ The parallel timelines aligning nicely with the parallel interpretations possible to the story, the very possibility that the doctor's explanation about the Source Code he created could be wrong, that it is more than he thought it was, makes you think as if the movie Source Code was written by a subscriber to the theory of The Death of the Author, right? ^_~ maybe, maybe not.

What I like about this theory, though, is that it is not only applicable in literary analysis or movie analysis. It is applicable to anything and everything! *O* How we understand everything in our lives is from our own point of view, from what we believe and what we interpret things to be, and everybody is different because everybody understands things differently. The best part? Nobody is right, and nobody is wrong! ^o^ Whatever works for you works for you, and you alone ^o^

Another reason why I like this theory is that it applies amazingly to the most read work of literature known to mankind; The <insert holy book of choice here> XD That's right, the bible, or the quran, or the torah, or whatever else, is subject to the reader's interpretation, and nobody is wrong! Nobody is right! From the selfless and pious worshipers set on a one way trip to heaven to the most extremist of suicide bombers, they're all rightfully living out how they interpret the words of their creator - which is how religion is supposed to work, anyway, as religion is between you, and god ^o^ There is never a need for a mediator to do the interpreting for you :(

...at least, that's the way I interpret it ;P