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?
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