The Butterfly Effect

SPOILERS FOR ALTERNATE ENDING
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In the alternatre ending, Ashton Kutcher, at the end of the movie goes into the doctor's office ans is watching 8mm home movie footage of his mother giving birth to him...

He puts himself back in time when he is still in the womb and commits suicide as a baby by wrapping the umbilical cord around his neck and strangling himself.

Causing his mother to have him stillborn, and negating any influence he had on the world at all.




It is a much better ending than the theatrical cut, but such a sad ending.

It might sound goofy to those reading this, but it is done in such a way that it is shockingly tragic, and very unexpected.

It really is a sad ending, and it is very emotionally done.
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END SPOILERS

***SPOILERS FOR ALTERNATE CUT****
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I really liked this movie but I thought that director's cut ending was kind of ridiculous. The aftermath was sadder, but I wasn't buying the sight of a fetus committing suicide. C'mon! Babies cant' even move, but Evan was wrapping an umbilical cord around his neck while he's still in the womb? I borrowed my DVD to a few people and they all liked the theatrical ending better. There is also an extra scene in the directors cut where Evan and his mother visit a psychic. The psychic says that he doesn't have a life line and that he was never meant to be. His mother then tells him that she had other babies that were all stillborn.
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End spoliers.

I agree that the ending was implausable (in a very implausable movie), but remember when he goes back in time, be becomes that facet, with his current knowledge intact.

So if that logic is applied to the above ending, it's not so much the _____ (trying to preserve spoilers for people) doing the deed, but "himself" in another body or another aspect of himself.


Either way, it's an extreme ending, better than the theatrical ending in my opinion, and it is a real downer, whether fitting or misguided as an ending.

sounds like a Donnie Darko for the MTV boys and girls

The director's cut was superb.

I thought that Donnie Darko was a David Lynch movie for the MTV crowd. I do see a few similarities with his death at the end of the director's cut, but they were miles apart in terms of story and execution. I thought I had the ending to the director's cut figured out when I read that the studio wouldn't let that ending out in the theatrical version. I was expecting that little Evan would throw himself under a car at the party, but he went back just a bit further. I did think that Kutcher did a good job in the role. He acted a bit goofy in a couple of scenes, but you chalk that up to Evan having so many conflicting memories in his head.

Ugh, I absolutely hated the character of the psycho little brother.

He was such an asshole (I know, that was the point), and I just wanted to reach into the TV and wring his little neck.

When he clocked the guy in the movie theatre lobby, it was just frustrating to watch, especially the scene with the dog.
I absolutely hate animal violence, whether implied or shown.

Seeing that poor dog getting roasted got to me, too. It is kind of surprising that this movie got made. Animal cruelty, pedophilia, child murder, murder with a baseball bat, prison rape, a baby blowing up and a baby strangling itself. That was not exactly a feel good studio movie!

Agreed...I nearly sat their crying becuz I do not like animal violence. I was sooo piss off at that kid, I was so happy when Ashton was a frat guy and beat him to death (sorry for those who haven't seen it) it was very satisfying.
The alternative ending does seem really sad, I ain't watching for fear of crying my freakin' eyes out for the rollercoaster ride I been having.
The only thing that doesn't work for me is the logic, how can his life only affect mostly 5 to 6 people, why wouldn't it affect more, isn't the theory goes that we're all connected somehow and altering once life would be catastrophic?? IDK it's too early to go into deep conversation.

[SPOILER]

See. thats why I hate the movie: it felt like those things were all just tossed in there to shock the audience. "Hey I know, lets have him actually kill the dog! Yeah, and when he's in prison, he gets raped by a bigger guy! Thats totally original! And how about we have him kill himself while in the womb, even though a fetus doesn't have the manual dexterity or mental ability to smile voluntarily let alone convert his umbilical cord into a makeshift noose!" What is he, some kind of fetal MacGyver?

I thought U-Turn was David Lynch lite for the MTV kiddies???


Again, apples and opinions

It isn't. It doesn't have much in common with Donnie Darko and it definitely doesn't have the mtv stamp on it.

I think the movie in a way suffered from the fact that Ashton Kutcher's the lead. Not because of him - he's right for the role and he's a decent actor - but because of the way the movie is perceived now. I know some people who refused to see it because he starred in it.

By the way the directors once said that at first they didn't have him in mind at all; they actually said no when he asked for an audition. But he kept asking and one day they finally agreed, so they went to his place (weirdly enough) for the audition and he'd covered the walls with drawings and ideas and stuff related to the script and to the character he wanted to play. Apparently that's what made them change their minds and hire him.

I thought this looked crappy, but thanks to this thread I'm gunna see it. It sounds pretty promising.

Sounds like there may be an audience for that show I know I would watch it.

Just caught this on DVD. I watched the directors cut, but not the theatrical one. What changed? I gather from reading this thread that the baby part is different at the end. But is there anythig else? As for the person who said it was stupid for a baby to choke himself, you have to realize it wasn't just "a baby." It was Ashton's character, with all of his knowledge and facilties, inside the baby.

I'm not sure if this was discussed in the theatrical cut, but my main problem with the film is that they never attempt to explain how this all happened or how it works. They allude to the fact that Kutcher's father and grandfather were "crazy" and that he was acting like them, but what does that mean? How exactly does reading about things that lead up to a black out cause him to time travel?

When he was a kid and had his brain scanned after the dynamite incident, the doc said that there was nothing physically wrong with his brain. So it begs the question if he had time travel powers from the beginning, why wasn't there any evidence of something going on in his head? To me this isn't just a loop hole, it seriously undermines the whole premise of the movie.

Actually its more like Quantum Leap. MacGyver never time traveled.

One thing I can't quite figure out, were the blackouts occuring because he was actually traveling back in time to fix something at the time, kinda like the whole thing in Terminator where the guy is sent back to save the guy that wouldn't have been born if he hadn't been sent back since he was his father, or were they just there to give him the opportunity to do so if he needed to?

I always believe the blackouts in the beginning of the movie were becuz he suppress his memories because they were so tramautizing, but as we proceed in the film it seem that he was going back, which just confuse me and made me wanna go to sleep on my girlfriend's shoulder.

The blackouts were caused by Ashton's future self occupying his younger body. Old Ashton takes control of the body, young Ashton has no memory of the actions that take place.

All the blackouts - at least I think all of them - coincide with when old Ashton jumped in.

There's the kitchen knife blackout when he tried to destroy the dynamite, the blackout when he visits his father to find a way to fix things, the school drawing blackout when he draws the dead skinheads, etc...

I got dragged to see this by my girlfriend and I was very surprised by it... it was actually a fucking good flick.

I agree about the psycho brother, my gf had to tell me to shut up numerous times with my chuntering and ranting about how I wanted to kick his stupid little face in. Kinda reminded me of my own little brother. The spacktard.

Anyway, anyone know when the R2 edition is out in the UK? Thought about picking it up on R1 but decided on Battle Royale II instead (which no, I do not regret ).

SPOILERS
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The theatrical ending has him going back to the first time he met Smart when they were little, after they are introduced Ashton tells Smart that if she ever comes near him again he will kill her and her family and she runs off crying. It then cuts to present day New York and shows the presumably successful Smart passing Ashton on the street without even glancing at him.
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END SPOILER

The Directors cut of this movie fucking rocked. Biggest suprise of the year for me

I thought this movie was asshat. Ashton was terrible, very mumbly, no chemistry with his co-stars. The logic of the time traveling didn't make sense... for instance, if he wakes up in bed with Amy Smart after all those changes are made, logic dictates he should know what he's doing there, because his whole life had been leading up to that moment. There should be no sudden realization.

Every scene seems like it's in a rush to dispense with minimal exposition: we get nothing on his father, or his grandfather, we get nothing on his roommate (randomly goth), we get n scientific explanation as to his behavior, we get no understanding of the six or so years he has without a blackout (pivotal), and we get a genuine lack of payoff from a series of sick-for-sick purpose scenes (the dog burning echoed George Lucas' sentiments about manipulating audiences).

For the record, it WAS an independent film made for $10 million and picked up for wide distribution.

man i hated the directors cut ending of this. not because of what happened but because of how it was handled, ive never laughed so hard until i saw the doctor look at the monitor and yell "he's choking himself!!" like the doctor automatically assumed the baby was commiting suicide. that ridiculous. the movie is great but its moments like those that make it not classic. moments that just seem really fake and ridiculous, like whenever the little kid says 'mommy' or 'fuckbag' or practically anything the little evil kid says, its sounds so scripted it takes you out of the movie.

yea, i aint seen the director's cut, but im with you

ashton was really pretty terrible in some scenes.
but atleast he's trying.
with a more experienced director, this could have been something.

some good ideas.. with unfortunately some mediocre execution.

I thought Kelso was pretty good in this. Considering this was the first time he was a star of a movie where it was very removed from his 70's Show character- he did a fine job.

Was it perfect? No, but it was a good performance.

The blackouts:

Every blackout in the movie Kelso had he revisited - the Eric Stoltz touching, the father choking him, the knife, the explosion...everyone.

Look at it this way....
In the beginning (OUR timeframe of the movie) Kelso has blackouts while in traumatic events...

-He later goes back in time (in a very VERY far fetched way...no scientific principles at all, he should have used a blue police box...*ahem*) to the traumatic events and wakes in the blackouts.

Could those blackouts be because of his traveling back to a certain event - Young Kelso has no memory because OUR time Kelso is in his place...

or

were the blackouts already there and OUR time Kelso popped in them?

I believe, because it was heavily implied that the blackouts were a result of OUR time Kelso going back in time and taking the "place" of young Kelso.


The brain trauma:

Young Kelso had no brain damage because he did not travel in time. OUR time Kelso had exponentially worse brain damage everytime he traveled, which got worse in OUR time present day.




WHICH LEADS TO A PROBLEM:

The Grandfather Paradox:

If I go back in time and kill my grandfather when he was a child, how could my grandfather have my father or mother?
How could I be born?
If I wasn't born, how could I go back in time and kill my grandfather?


Paradoxes...the scourge of time travel.

Popular theory has it that you can not travel back in time through your OWN PERSONAL time line and alter past events because it's like a pebble in a lake - the ripples are far reaching.

You CAN, in theory, change FUTURE events in your OWN time line, because you have not experienced them, so to you they NEVER happened, and there for are not physically or theoretically part of the Web of Time.

I could not go back and alter the outcome of the Civil War without unraveling Universally-established history, but I can go into the future and depose a dictator and set the course of the future because the future has not happened yet to ME, so therefore it is a hypothetical existance, and can be altered.

Time travel is a bit of a hobby of mine (as big of a Doctor Who fan that you all know I am, how could it not be an interest?).

Okay, this explaination sounds relatively reasonable except I don't get what purpose drawing skinheads would do to help Ashton's life. That scene just doesn't make any sense except to show that Ashton's character is "different" from everyone else.

Wow that seems really lame. One would think Smart's character would be really fucked up if a neighborhood kid threatened to kill her.

Here's my problem with this theory. OUR time Kelso can apparently only jump into Young Kelso when he's had a blackout. So therefore, there had to be a blackout that had already occured prior to OUR time Kelso jumping into them.

Let's take the video porn example. The first time we learn of the blackout, Kelso and Smart did have sex. That's why she turned out so fucked up. But after OUR time Kelso jumps into young Kelso, he stops the sex from happening and Smart's character turns out okay.

Thanks for this thread. I usually don't get around to a lot of this Hollywood genre stuff til' cable, or a buddy turns me on to it or something. I was out at sam's and took a chance from the enthusiastic posts here. I've gotten a couple of these infinifilm discs and like what New Line is doing, but admittingly would have over looked this one for a couple of years probably. Too many films too little time and all that.

Yeah, that is the paradox. In this case, the movie seems to have the theory of time being like a circle. The events in the past and the events in the future have already happened. You can't go back in time and appear behind JFK during his inaugural address because you aren't in the picture in the present. Evan has blackouts because he is going back into his own head in the future. The time as a circle theory is how John Conner can send his Dad back from the future to impregnate his mother. This is also how Fry ends up being his own Grandpa in Futurama.

The way I recall this scene was he needed an out from prison, so he jumped back to school - the only journal page he had. The teacher was near the desk, inspecting children's work, so he couldn't get to the paper spikes to pull off the stigmata trick. I figured he carried on drawing to appear busy until she moved away from her desk, and considering he was just beaten and raped by skinheads, that's what he drew.

Although this brings up another flaw: Why, after this blackout the first time around, would the drawing be there and not the hand wounds. I mean, shouldn't he wake up in class with the drawing at his desk and his hands skewered?

Maybe, but that was before he altered his past. The black outs were black holes or door ways. Once he got older he realized how to go back and change things, thus altering his memories and life.

There is one scientist that states that a time machine to the past won't work, unless the door was was created in the past. Thus allowing future parties to go back to that time. Also, I don't think he had much time, the door ways or black outs were short and lasted only a few minutes.

I get the time as circular argument as I'm a huge Terminator fan, but thats not what's happening here. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, OUR time Kelso can only jump into Young Kelso's body at a time of a blackout, which leads us to conclude that the blackouts had to exist already for OUR time Kelso to jump into them. But in the Terminator franchise there was never a previous timeline for John (fathered by someone other than Reece) and then an altered timeline for John (fathered by Reece). They are/were always one and the same. Reece was always John's father.

But the result of his actions were there anyway, even if he hadn't done it yet, he would eventually.

The drawing was there. He only went back to that point once. During that blackout, he drew the picture of the dead skinheads and then skewered his hands. So if the drawing was there, the hand wounds should have been, too.

No, the hand wounds were how he convinced the guy to help him get his journals back from the skinheads in prison. During the original blackout, he didn't stab himself, he only did it when he went back and since the guy that was in the cell with him didn't realize he had gone back in time, he assumed the wounds were stigmata and agreed to help him.

After the original blackout, he's left with a drawing of an older version of himself standing over a group of dead skinheads in prison uniforms. He doesn't remember drawing it.

We later find out that he drew this when he travelled back in time from prison - the same time he skewered his hands to give himself the stigmata wounds in the future.

If the drawing is there after the blackout, then he should've woken up with his hands stuck on the spikes.

OUR time Kelso caused the blackouts for his younger self by jumping back in time. All those blackouts were caused by disruptions on his own time line.

Since Kelso was the one jumping time lines, only he would know of the past when he returned to his current body, in an alternate future.

Amy Smart was not screwed up once OUR time Kelso popped back and stopped the porno because she never knew the future ramifications, so her personage was NEVER effected by the past event.

Since OUR time Kelso jumped time lines, he was aware of every digression in the time line.

But to anyone else, whatever time/future OUR time Kelso returned to was reality for them.


Confusing isn't it.

If OUR time Kelso jumped back to a brand new event, then Young Kelso would have experienced a brand new blackout.

And OUR time Kelso would have yet another blackout in his memory.

Young time Kelso is effected by OUR time Kelso's actions, and Young Kelso would have this blackout and OUR time Kelso would know there was a blackout there, unexplained UNTIL he jumped back in time.

Confusing isn't it.

When OUR time Kelso jumps back, his younger self, momentarily has the knowledge of OUR time Kelso- it IS OUR time Kelso back in time in his younger body.

So he was able to draw the picture as OUR time Kelso and skewer his hands so they show up in the future as wounded.

The spikes were not in his hands in the future since nothing comes back from the past EXCEPT OUR time Kelso, effected either physically or mentally from past events.

The drawing was a physical thing that OUR time Kelso drew in the past - so it stays there. That time doesn't have a wounded Kelso because it didn't happen yet.

When OUR time Kelso went back and injured his hands, and came back to OUR time in prison, he had the wounds.

SO, THEN in his past would YOUNG Kelso have the hand wounds - they only manifest themselves once OUR time Kelso does the actual action.

THEN in the past as Young Kelso, he'd have hand wounds (which we don't see).

No. I agree with everything you said here.

Again, its not confusing. I just disagree with this being an example of circular time. It's more of a Donnie Darko where an alternate timeline occurs everytime OUR time Kelso jumps into Young Kelso. In circular time theory, OUR time Kelso would always jump back to the same event and would always cause the same repercusssions in the future.

In the Terminator franchise, there was never a timeline when Judgment Day didn't happen or when Reece wasn't John's father. All the events in John's past lead to the actions he does in the future. And all his actions in the future lead to the actions he does in the past. And it keeps going on and on, never ending, never changing.

That's not what happens in The Butterfly Effect. OUR time Kelso jumping back in time changes the events in the future. That is definitely NOT circular time.

True. In the Butterfly Effect, time itself can be looked at as a straight line, and every time Kelso jumps around a separate branch goes from the "main line" to another line and continues that time line.

Kinda like what Doc Brown showed Marty in Back to the Future part 2.

The Terminator movies showed time as one straight shot: certain events can be changed, BUT the core is still, and will always be, consistant.

Time travel is a great untapped resource in movie lore, but as we all see, there are so many problems with the concept when compared to the far reaching effects.


...that's why when I travel in time, I just go into the future. I call it binge drinking.