Written in the front: I thought of "Butterfly Effect" when I was writing a film review of "12 Monkeys", so I found out and looked at it again, still impressed. I think most of the perception is because of the ingenious conception and strong expressiveness of the story, which obscures Evan's affection for Kelly. And the part that touches me the most is precisely this part.
Like most time travel movies, "Butterfly Effect" is also an attempt to return to the past and change history with a strong purpose. But the only difference is that Evan is not for himself, it is for others, Kelly, mother, or Lenny. This is also clearly revealed at the beginning of the film: "If anyone find this, if means that my plan didn't work, and I'm already dead. but if I can some how go back, to beginning of all of this , I might be able to save her." The film focuses on the words "to save her". It is obvious that Evan loves Kelly too deeply. This affection can even make him give up the opportunity to meet her, making them two drops of water that will never meet in the vast sea of people.
Back to the topic.
It is undeniable that "Butterfly Effect" is a good-looking movie. The male protagonist is very Greek and man. There are not many actors but the acting skills are in place. The idea is very strange, the suspense is abundant, and the presentation of time travel is also very smooth. Purely from a time travel movie is already very good. Especially at the end, there is plenty of room for aftertaste. A small action in childhood will have such a big impact on the future life, it is not difficult to imagine why adults often say "seeing old age at the age of three".
The following are some interpretations of the plot.
There are two explanations for the phenomenon that happened to Evan that he can change history through time travel:
First, Evan suffers from the same mental illness as his father.
Connecting the two parts before and after the time travel, when his father heard that Evan was trying to change the past and make everything perfect, his father said this: "He must die. This is the only way. "Evan's father is a mentally ill person, and he believes that he can go back to the past through some means. This is also explained at the end of the film. At the same time, the doctor who is also Evan's father said to Evan: "You The way he yelled at me, he looked like your father. He always yelled for those albums, even though those albums never appeared." The film about the mental illness suffered by Evan’s father did not say anything about it. In a detailed explanation, on the one hand, he pointed out that Evan’s brain was normal, but on the other hand, he said that Evan’s father also yelled for a photo album. Obviously, this is a genetic disease. Like his father, Evan tried to go back to the past through some memories (such as albums, diaries, and video tapes).
Is Evan mentally ill? Of course we can say that things that travel through time and space and change history will happen, because this is in the movie, but don’t forget, the movie we are watching is narrated from Evan’s perspective, and everything may just be Egyptian The fabricated in Wen's mind, the real fact is that he is mentally ill. The reason for the illness is that he lit a detonator and killed his favorite person, Kelly. The whole movie is just illusory.
This is very similar to "Fatal ID", the only difference is that all the characters in "To" are the personality of the protagonist, and Evan suffers from a kind of "trying to travel through time and space" fantasy. The whole movie is a beautiful and moving imagination. This kind of imagination comes from a crazy mind, which makes us sigh.
Second, time travel did happen and history is constantly being rewritten.
So many people will wonder why Evan has such power to change time. Changing time means changing the whole world, which is too big. If he can really rewrite history, then Evan can go back in time to kill a certain historical figure, and even change the history of a country.
Therefore, in order to avoid such a situation, the director will only control the missing parts of Evan through the time point, and the time to travel is also limited, so that if the history is changed, it will only change the life around Evan.
The most ingenious part of the film design is also the "missing memory" part, which is perfect to provide a fit with the later return to the past, while at the same time verifying the time travel paradox.
The following are a few scenes of his memory loss during his growth.
Scene 1: Why did Evan draw strange paintings in the classroom when he was a child? The content of the painting showed him holding a knife and killing two people, one of them was blond hair, the other was bald, and had tattoos with fascist patterns on his arms. This is when Evan felt angry after being insulted by two inmates in prison. He happened to be back when he was a child and then painted this kind of painting. Then Evan returned to this point in time like a religious inmate to show how he was entrusted to dream by Jesus.
Scene 2: Why Evan would hold a knife: He came back from the past and tried to figure out a way to change the fact that his mother had lung cancer. But going back to this point in time obviously has no effect, so the facts have not changed.
Scene 3: Evan and Kelly are in the basement. Evan's father asks them to make a movie. He suddenly loses his memory. When Kelly died, Kevin went back to this point through time travel and changed Kelly’s father’s molestation of Kelly’s past, but brought the disaster to Tommy. Evan recalled this scene twice, the second time he used a detonator to kill Kelly by mistake.
Scene 4: Why did Evan suddenly lose his memory in prison, and then his father tried to kill him. When Evan told his father through time travel that he was trying to change everything, his father realized that his son might suffer from a certain disease like him and wanted to kill him.
Scene 5: Evan and his friends are hiding in the bushes waiting for the detonator to explode. Evan has amnesia until the detonator explodes and he wakes up. Later, Evan traveled through this point of time and saved the mother and daughter but lost his hands. Kelly and Lanney are very happy, and Tommy has become very kind. Originally, Evan did not intend to cross again, because Kelly said it was worth it, but seeing his mother suffering from lung cancer because of the loss of her hands, Evan tried to change everything again.
Scene 6: Tommy wants to burn Evan's dog. Evan loses his memory for a while while trying to save enough. When he wakes up, the dog has been burned to death and Tommy's personality becomes more distorted. In the end, Evan went back through time travel, but Lanny killed Tommy, which changed Lanny's life.
What needs to be pointed out is that many moviegoers think that Evan travels time through his diary, but every time he will only return to the moment of memory loss. He would not be able to go back if there was no memory loss from the things recorded in the diary.
In fact, on the whole, every time Evan's shuttle makes things worse and worse. He traveled 8 times in total. Among them, scene three Evan traveled 2 times. But the fact is, no matter what he tried, Kelly did not have a full and happy life. Every time travel changed one thing, but made the other worse. So there was one last time travel, Evan recalled the moment he and Kelly had just met through the video tape, and he scared her away. This way she would not stay with her father because of him, nor would she be molested by her father, nor would Tommy kill the mother and daughter. They returned to their mother and grew up happily. No tragedy will happen.
However, this is the ending I can't bear to see. Two people with the wrong shoulders seem to have known each other before, how about the shock of thousands of troops at the moment of meeting, how about remembering the times of hundreds of thousands of times, how about having the deepest and most memorable past, everything is just wrong Shoulder to shoulder.
Just as a butterfly can't fly over the sea, we will never reach the time to rush away. The greatest love will eventually die.
If I come to see, even if I have been deeply hurt, I have to meet, so that I will not regret having a short life, missing the one I love, as if I have come to this world for nothing, and everything I have experienced is the grandest The most beautiful illusion. No matter what, if you have an intersection with the one you love, you can be regarded as living up to your affection. I really can't do it like Evan is so open-minded and patience to give up.
The direct impact and enjoyment that this movie brings to us all come from time travel, so it is extremely in place as such a movie. But from a deep point of view, the "Butterfly Effect" gives us too little room for thinking, and the tight convergence and transformations allow us to have no time to consider the deeper themes that the director wants to express. Some endings are also slightly far-fetched and extreme, but this is also For the performance of movie effects. The name "Butterfly Effect" is also extremely vivid and real, and it is an examination of one's own life that is overwhelming. I like this movie, generally speaking.
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