(The full text is reproduced on WeChat official account Original Redefinition, Future Film Bureau 2018-09-24 )
01 Travel through film history
"Twelve Monkeys" is a classic time-traveling movie in 1995. It was adapted into an American drama in 2015. It has been broadcast to the fourth season in June this year, which is enough to show that this IP has a place in time-space movies. The author has read a lot of fantasy works, but very few of them can be logically self-consistent as a whole.
Among them, Asimov's "The End of Eternity" in 1955 amazed the author the most. In that long-term era, the parallel space-time and the butterfly effect were written in such detail at the macro level, which is basically the originator of space-time movies; Cameron 1991 "The Terminator" in 2009 is a space-time film earlier than "Twelve Monkeys" in the last century. This film also discusses the variables and certainties of the future from the perspective of individuals;
2004's "Butterfly Effect"'s interpretation of the effect of historical change can be regarded as an individual perspective of "The End of Eternity"; 2011's "Source Code" is a deconstruction of parallel time and space; 2014's "X-Men" : Reversing the Future" recognizes that the future is a fixed real-time, and "Interstellar", which was released in the same year, is an avant-garde thinking on the five-dimensional space-time. There is no doubt that every successful time-travel movie will leave a classic scene in the audience's mind and a profound thought that subverts the worldview.
02 Space-time features
All movies that travel through time and space will subconsciously avoid a problem - the time paradox . The time paradox is also known as the grandfather paradox. Including "Interstellar", there is no reasonable explanation for the time paradox. Once the time paradox is investigated, all the logic of the movie will collapse, because the time paradox has subverted The cornerstone of natural science - the law of causality.
Cole already knew the contents of her call
Therefore, all time-travel movies are silent about the paradox of time. Once people acquiesce to the existence of the law of causality, they can only avoid the problem of the paradox of time. But "Twelve Monkeys" and "The End of Eternity" face this problem head-on. Both works use a close-up perspective to capture the scene where the protagonist travels to the past and sees himself. Unfortunately, "Twelve Monkeys" does not To solve the riddle of the time paradox, we can only assume for the time being: once the time travel begins, time will no longer be a linear structure, but a circular structure, a cyclic structure with no beginning and no end.
Just as the question of which came first the chicken or the egg has lost its meaning, once human beings truly understand and master time, they will find that everything is simultaneous, with no beginning and end. Just like the line in "Twelve Monkeys" : No matter 35 years ago or 5 minutes ago, there is no difference for future people, they are all at the same time.
All time-travel movies discuss an eternal proposition that the future is a fixed number or variable. We read most of the classic time travel movies, and they all believe that history cannot be changed, because the history that has happened has already constituted a kind of reality, and this reality is the accumulation of space in time, so the future (especially what has happened) The future) is a proposition that is chosen by the vast majority of works. Among them, "Twelve Monkeys", "Source Code", "X-Men: Reversing the Future", and "Interstellar" all agree that history cannot be changed. fact. Once history is a given, writers and directors have to start writing scripts from the perspective of changing the future or creating parallel universes.
If you have read Asimov's "Base" trilogy and thoroughly understand his psychohistorical theory, you will be more convinced that the future is a fixed number, because the torrent of history will not change with the will of the individual. If the future history is a river, and everyone is a water molecule in the river, the random movement of water molecules will not pose a threat to the overall trend of the river, and the historical development of human beings is also equivalent to the principle of group dynamics.
Similarly, although quantum mechanics believes that the state of quantum is uncertain every time you observe it, the uncertain state that constitutes the basic unit of the universe also determines that the universe itself is also an uncertain state, that is, every possible result will constitute a kind of parallel universe, But each outcome is a definite fact that cannot be changed.
03 Detailed analysis
The author can guarantee that many people are still confused about the ending of "Twelve Monkeys", but after reading the detailed analysis of the author, you will find that this film is actually not controversial, and all the details are the answer to the result, but we Just don't want to find out.
Detail 1: Preliminary ending
The beginning of the movie is actually the pre-end of the ending. Unfortunately, the protagonist Cole has not changed the future. The protagonist is wearing a transparent isolation suit, walking in a dead world where snowflakes are flying in the sky, collecting virus-infected bugs in the snow, and the world has long been Destroyed by the virus, there are only sporadic animals on the surface. This is actually a time when the protagonist has crossed many times. The time is after 1996 (about 1997).
The flyer on the ground is printed with the logo of the Twelve Monkeys, and it says that we have succeeded. In fact, it is just the success of the animal protection organization in releasing all the animals. It just takes care of Jeffery's foreshadowing of releasing all the animals.
Cole in the clothing store should be his fourth time crossing. At this time, the angel statue just happened to be placed in the store. At the beginning, the clothing store that Cole crossed to for the first time, together with the angel, have been abandoned, and the front and back correspondences are confirmed to be the same parallel. world.
And the two appearances of the protagonist encountering the bear are all hints that the abandoned world at the beginning and the world the protagonist traverses for the fourth time are the same.
Therefore, the main axis of history has not changed, and the protagonist just plays the role of an observer. People in the future will understand these truths. Even if the female scientist and the doctor's assistant are the neighbors of the plane in the end, it will not stop the process of history, because they give Cole A gun is not for him to revise history, but to make history happen smoothly. That is to say, the most tragic thing about this film is that the death of the protagonist was arranged by scientists. Giving him a gun is not to let him save the world, but to save the world. Let him sacrifice - be a hero. The scene that appears in the protagonist's many dreams is the best proof.
Detail 2: The protagonist creates two parallel worlds
The death of the protagonist at the airport is the core scene of the film, which has appeared at least five times. But every time there are subtle differences, these differences are also hard evidence of the two parallel worlds of Stone Hammer.
The protagonist Cole always said that he had been to the airport because he had foreseen the fact that he died at the airport many times in his dreams. In the second dream, Cole appeared that the person carrying the suitcase was Jeffery, the son of a virologist. , because the first time he traveled to 1990, he told the patient Jeffrey's future history in the mental hospital (5 billion people died of the virus in 1996), so the history has changed slightly, and the macro history of human extinction in the future will still be It happened, but the person who released the virus became Jeffery, and this time and space split into a new time and space due to Cole's travel, that is, the world where Jeffery spread the virus.
Tears why Cole fell in love with the psychiatrist Katherine, because the little boy at the airport is what the protagonist looked like when he was a child, that is, every airport scene in a parallel time and space has been witnessed by children. In this space, Cole met his childhood self. Before he Knowing that the child is missing is a prank, and it is also a foreshadowing that he is the child. Because he experienced all this as a bystander as a child, the end of his life in airport death always appeared in his sleep.
This dream also became the original motive for him to fall in love with the psychiatrist, and when Catherine confessed to him, she said that we seemed to have known each other before, but she was also implying this relationship.
The author briefly describes the four crossings. The first time traveled to the post-apocalyptic era (about 1997); the second time traveled to a mental hospital (1990); the third time traveled to World War I and was shot (1917), and then traveled to the hostess' church (1996). ); the fourth time across the streets of Philadelphia (1996).
Why did the person who carried the suitcase become a doctor's assistant in the end? After Cole's third time crossing, a new parallel universe was split again from the parallel universe that was split last time.
The causal relationship of the matter is like this. When the protagonist traveled back to World War I, he left a message and a photo that human beings will die from a virus in the future. It happened that in 1996, when a psychiatrist gave a speech, he mentioned the prophecy of human extinction and Cole's message. , the doctor's assistant also listened to this speech, and already believed in the prophecy. This was the assistant's first motive.
When the female protagonist found out that the bullet in the male protagonist's leg was from World War I, she confirmed that the person in the 1917 photo was the male protagonist, so she believed the fact that the male protagonist was from the future, and called the virologist to tell the virologist that his son was twelve The manipulator of the Monkey Legion made the virologist wary of his son and handed the virus to his assistant for safekeeping. As a result, his son failed, and the assistant naturally became the second person to carry the suitcase. All the slight changes are due to Cole's wrong crossing.
04 The essence of experimentation
Scientists in the future have long known that history cannot be modified, and the result of modification will only make a big mistake in multiple parallel worlds, so they repeatedly explained that Cole's first task to collect information is not to rewrite history.
The influence of individuals can only slightly change the details of history (such as the transformation of virus spreaders), and it is a torrent that cannot change history. It is the core theory of the film, and it should also deal with this line: all your piety and wisdom will not make it salvage, and all your tears will not make it change a little.
In fact, this experiment is not the protagonist alone. There have been many people who have failed due to willpower in the past, because they are nostalgic for the past world, knock out their teeth, and never go back. The tramp also told the secret of teeth and surveillance. He became the protagonist, and the voice in his mind was also transmitted to him by the homeless man through his teeth, so he was also addicted to that past love and couldn't extricate himself, and decided to travel through that world for the last time, and he also knew the fact that the future could not be changed, When he saw the bear and pig face in the clothing store, he was horrified! Because those signs made him understand that the world would end sooner or later.
Why did the third time crossing to collect data have been successful, and they still let the protagonist continue the fourth time crossing? Because the third protagonist has changed history, created a new parallel world, and the spreader of the virus has also changed, it is no longer Jeffery, so it is necessary to find a new poisoner, and ensure that the history cannot be modified and the parallel is split world.
So when the protagonist reported the information collection error on the phone, the future scientist sent someone to give the protagonist a gun, and took the female protagonist to send the male protagonist to death. In fact, the male protagonist took the gun to chase the suitcase man, not to change history, because he already agreed According to the theory of the future scientist, the individual cannot change the future, but only splits the multiverse. He shot to death just because he loved Catherine too deeply and was willing to die for her (obey the death arranged for him by the scientist).
Scientists must arrange for the hero's death at the airport to prevent him from splitting into a new reality. As the female science to the drug carrier's dialogue: "I am the last insurance . " She traveled here to ensure that this reality happened without fail. First, they had collected virus samples and poisoner information. Second, the death of the male protagonist ensured that the information collected would not be discarded by splitting into a new parallel world.
All in all, this is a time-travel movie with strict logic. The director's intention is not to change the future, but to make the future happen smoothly. The opening movie has confirmed the fact that the future has been destroyed, and explained Cole's arranged death through the dream. The most terrible thing is that the male protagonist already knew the end of his life when he was a child. For love, he did not resist fate at all. Instead, he surrendered to the predestined fate.
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