Another Science Fiction film this week, this time it was Source Code. Staring Jake Gyllenhaal as an Air Force Pilot (Captain Colter Stevens) who awakes on a train bound to Chicago eight minutes before the train explodes killing everyone on board. Cpt Stevens is confused suffering from amnesia and facing an image in the mirror that is not his own – If it sounds like quantum leap that is understandable but this is more like quantum leap on steroids, there is a very nerd pleasing cameo by Scott Bakula as Stevens’ father – After the train explodes he is transported to an Air Force facility where it is explained that he is part of a project called the “Source Code”, The project places his consciousness into the mind of one of the victims and Stevens is tasked to find the bomber and thereby prevent another more catastrophic attack later in the day. Throughout the many trips back Stevens gets close to his bodies travelling companion Christina Played by Michelle Monaghan and starts to dream of not just finding the bomber but also saving everyone on the train, This is a good film which is well written and acted, obviously the technology behind it takes a leap of imagination and the form of time travel may not be consistent with your own beliefs (See below Spoilers for more information) and as with all time travel/repetition of events films there are necessary holes in the time lines that he experiences but hopefully these wont detract from the film.
Spoilers
Spoilers
Although I always try and avoid giving away too much about the films I review for this film I wanted to speak about the films take on time travel which is really focused at the end of the film, basically anyone who has an interest in time travel (More the fiction and theoretical side than actually trying it) will have heard of the Grandfather Paradox as beautifully exampled by the disappearing Marty McFly in Back to the Future, it goes that if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather would you cease to exist, or for that matter would the universe implode with the impossibleness of it.
The problem comes from the fact that if you go back in time and kill your grandfather you would “poof” out of existence, you could therefore not kill your grandfather so “Bang” he’s still alive so you are born as the time line is unaltered, but if you are born you will go back and kill him and the causality loop eventually destroys the universe whilst trying to reconcile these two events. Personally this has never seemed very likely to me as surely if you have been born then you have been born and the fact that you will not be born in future does not exclude your existence now – Basically as I see it as you travel through time you become detached from the time line, you will then exist out of time, if you then kill your grandfather as this current timeline moves forward you would then cease to exist, therefore after making the adjustment you can never return to your own time but you do in fact exist as a biological entity. Ironically this multi lane time line was also shown in the Back to the Future Trilogy when Biff goes back and alters the timeline in Back to the Future 2, mixing up their time travel visions as obviously in the world run by Biff then Marty would not have gone into the future to take the Delorian there at all.
Anyway this film uses the “trousers of time” theory enabling Stevens to live another life in his new body whilst his old body and mind sit in the army base, assumingly the source code project will eventually be used in this new reality and he will be sent back in time again, conceivably he will prevent whatever disaster is presented to him, fall in love with another person and live happily ever after again, Hopefully the project will be scrapped (ironically Due to lack of use) before he takes over everyone in the world. Perhaps a good sequel could be where he has to team up with himself to prevent another disaster! Obviously this is assuming that each person he jumps into dies at least 8 minutes after a previous incarnation has prevented whatever disaster he was sent back for. Otherwise I am not sure I can even be bothered to think about what that means.
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