Source Code: Explained
Instead of going about my traditional review style I decided to focus on the science behind the fiction of the movie Source Code. For face value, the movie is quite fun to watch, Jake Gyllenhaal has a belivable performance and gets rid of the silly hair he had in last year’s Prince of Persia. I obviously have limited factual scientific knowledge but I’ll go ahead and throw some logic your way. So I’ll skip the narrative of the movie and go into detailed spoilers leading to my conclusions of the movie.
As the story unfolds we are lead to believe that the Source Code is a sort of simulation program that allows the subject to relieve the last 8 minutes of a deceased person. We are told that as someone dies they leave a sort of “echo” that can be tapped into. A kind of sample of their existence of some sort.
Any how, the character is quickly frustrated by the whole process since he has a hard time getting the right approach to find where is the bomb and who is the bomber within 8 minutes. The interesting thing is that by reliving those 8 minutes multiple times he is able to piece together more and more informations to eventually help him stop the bomb.
However we are also told that he can’t change the outcome of what happens in the Source Code. He’s told they are past event, and they’re pretty much just an alternate reality of what could of happened.
The final twist of the movie, is that the Source Code actually works differently if he manages to save the life of whomever his connected to. The only way to explain it is he was actually controlling the body of someone who was about to die. It’s the only way the character could derive so much information from his surroundings and other people, a single guy recalling of the past 8 minutes of his life does not contain detailed information such as passengers names, license plates or other. Now the bug is that each time he dies into the Source Code, he’s back to square one, connecting to someone who died, who was going to die. The point where the reality is altered is when he successfully changes the events to a point where he does not die, thus never connecting in the first place.
My deduction is far from perfect, and I’m still trying to piece it together. But it’s a start. I’ve you’ve read this far and haven’t watched the movie your not going to regret going anyway. It’s a decent movie, well paced and leaves room for reflexion.