Monday Morning Talkback: Let's Hear About Source Code
Source Code didn't lead the box office this weekend (congratulations, Hop), but it's not like we can all sit around this proverbial campfire and talk about the layered texture of an animated would-be Easter Bunny that poops jellybeans. So! Click ahead to get the Source Code discussion started in detail (that means spoilers). For reference, you'll be allowed to stay longer than eight minutes.
· Let's just get right to it: What's your interpretation of the ending? Is Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) in a new source code? Or Is he dead, and that's his version of some afterlife? Did he really create a new reality? If so, did the events that occurred in reality, as we watched the film, never take place?
· During the film, Colter enters the leftover short-term memory of a man named Sean Fentress. From what we are told initially, this isn't reality -- just the memories captured from Fentress' mind before his brain stopped functioning. If this is true, how can Colter have conversations with people on the train -- and get real information -- whom Fentress never spoke with?
· In your opinion, does the ending at all explain away why the above is possible?
· Also, if the ending does explain that away, why do Dr. Rutledge (Jeffery Wright) and Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) trust this information when they are adamant that a new reality is impossible?
· One more: Again, if this is Fentress' short-term memory, how can Colter leave the train entirely and snoop around train stations and parking lots that Fentress never visited? Shouldn't there be some sort of gray void of oblivion where Fentress' memory never visited? Put it this way: I live in New York but I've never been to Coney Island. If my brain was used for the source code, it appears that Coney Island can indeed be visited. How do you explain that?
· Is the source code itself not accurately explained enough to answer these questions? We, the audience, only really know what Rutledge wants Colter to know about the source code.
· The references: Christina's ringtone was "The One and Only" by Chesney Hawkes, which is the theme song to Michael J. Fox's Doc Hollywood. Was than an indirect reference to Back to the Future? Scott Bakula as the voice of Colter's father was an obvious tip of the cap to Quantum Leap (the only thing missing was Colter sighing, "Oh boy"). Were there any more you spotted?
· Was Source Code too much like Groundhog Day for your tastes? Or too much like Inception meets Quantum Leap?
· Or was it the opposite? Was Source Code, despite all the questions, a lot more fun than you initially guessed that it would be?
· What to you think the box-office performance means for director Duncan Jones, and for Jake Gyllenhaal as an action star? The reviews were largely positive, but $15 million is a little underwhelming -- even though the budget was only $32 million. Do you think Summit Entertainment is happy this morning?
· Could the stink of Sucker Punch -- a fellow, higher concept action film -- have kept wary movie goers away from Source Code?
Follow Mike Ryan on Twitter
Follow Movieline on Twitter
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
The movie reminded me actually more of La Jetée more than Inception or Groundhog Day. I figured since Colter was now inhabiting Fentress memories, it was really Colter seeing new things, not Fentress' memories anymore.
So the last scene with the text message back at the military base wasn't reality?
I haven't seen the film yet but can try to answer one of the points.
Chesney Hawkes' craptastic song The One and Only was used by Sam Rockwell's alarm clock in Moon so I think it was most likely intended a throwback to Jones' first film.
As for the Box Office - who knows? As it was not marketed as a big tent pole release maybe it won't experience the 60%+ drop off in its second weekend as has become common.
I usually have problems with plotholes that you can fly an Airbus through, but I think the script does a good job of not being too specific. It was fairly obvious that the Source Code people didn't know what they were doing and as this was the first successful attempt, they were even more obvious in their trying to grasp what exactly was going on. They clearly believed they were putting him into Sean's memory, and they were originally only telling him to look around and see who's acting suspicious. It wasn't until they learned he could interact, that they told him to DO things, like get the gun. They were very adamant that this wasn't time travel, but it obviously was. They already knew of the bombing, so they were sending him back in time to Sean's brain, where he evidently took over and changed the future. So it wasn't an alternate reality, as he was able to send a text from there to Goodwin, who received it as she was starting work, who then learned the bombing was avoided, the van was found and that Colter was still vegging in the tank. I think this answers everything.
oh this conversation never really took off. I saw that one had been attempted and decided to go to the film after all, because I thought it must be better than I'd assumed. As it turned out, I enjoyed it.
I thought he had created a new reality and that made sense to me because it wasn't explained in great detail and came at the end. Like you, I worried about how he was using the man's memories while having new experiences.
What I actually liked about the movie was the ending where he resolved his story with his father everyone was laughing and he kissed the girl and the 8 minutes was up. I could have left the movie then and been quite happy. I wondered if the following coda was added in a much later stag of story development. However the continuation of the story made more sense of what otherwise would have been a plot hole, and I didn't mind it. Had the ending been that ambiguous freeze just after the 8 minutes was up, I would have imagined that the story continued in the way it was shown to.