An understanding of "Source Code"

This is an awesome science fiction film. It’s not that the film proposes any great scientific theories, but that the concept of the film is quite strange and shocking. You might as well think of yourself as a screenwriter. If you want to write a script for a time-travel movie, how would you write it so that it can be so thrilling?

First of all, the movie actually structured the story around the "eight minutes" that had already happened in the real world, repeatedly allowing the protagonist to penetrate it and solve the case immersively; and the purpose of solving the case turned out to be In order to prevent an earth-shattering terrorist nuclear attack that is about to occur (how did the police and scientists know that there would be a nuclear attack on the city of Chicago? Did the gangsters give a warning? I don’t understand, I hope you can tell me clearly). From this, the movie becomes very tense and exciting. Although the length of the movie is not short, because the plot is concentrated in these eight minutes, the case is repeatedly solved, the mystery is revealed a little at a time, and the audience also participates in thinking, which makes it very interesting. .

Secondly, the protagonist turns out to be a piece of source code, and the world he travels to turns out to be a computer virtual "past world"! This idea is awesome. Although the movie is vague, it does not tell us clearly how information about people other than the protagonist is obtained and how they become living people in the computer program. Moreover, there are many people who are still living in reality (such as the one in the middle of the movie). Those people in the car and the gangster), they are not dead, how to simulate it in the computer? But is there anything more exciting than running "historical reality" virtually through a virtual world, and finding logic and evidence to solve crimes in this "historical reality"?

Once again, the end of the film actually forms a parallel world - in the real world, the protagonist is still a corpse (or half a body, the film shows the half of the body "surviving" in the box body), and the train explosion has occurred, but the urban nuclear explosion was prevented; however, the protagonist saved the train through his efforts in the source code, but this can only exist in the virtual world. Therefore, at the end of the movie, an interesting plot like "the protagonist sends a text message in the virtual world to the female captain in the real world" is used to connect virtuality and reality. This seems absurd, but it is very interesting. Maybe a clue for a sequel?

Finally, the movie writes a story around love, focusing on human nature, which makes the movie very touching. The love between father and son, love between man and woman, attachment to life, etc. are all written very successfully. Therefore, it is not a science fiction film full of fancy CG animations, but a science fiction film full of intense and intense scenes that focuses on depicting human nature. Good movie.

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I am very grateful to see everyone enthusiastically participating in the discussion. I have not changed the original text above, and now I have simplified the question to clarify your doubts:

The scientist in the video reminded that after the train exploded in the morning, there would still be six hours before a dirty bomb would attack Chicago. , so this source code program was run in order to find out the murderer who was about to attack Chicago and prevent him from attacking Chicago with a dirty bomb (that is, a nuclear weapon). The movie also runs through the source code program, allowing the protagonist to enter the eight minutes of the morning that had already happened several times, and finally investigated who the murderer was. He also successfully prevented a dirty bomb from attacking Chicago, intercepted the murderer's vehicle, and caught the murderer.

The question is, how did scientists know that Chicago was about to be attacked by a dirty bomb?

Similarly, there is another question: According to the plot of the movie, eight minutes into the penultimate time, the murderer was successfully investigated, stopped, and his vehicle captured. Then, this means that in real life Chicago There has been no dirty bomb attack and it is already safe. However, after the last time the female captain privately started the source code program and the protagonist successfully deactivated the train explosion in the virtual world, we saw that the protagonist still called the police to tell the police where the murderer and his vehicle filled with dirty bombs were, and asked the police to go there. captured. Didn't the penultimate eight-minute spell end the Chicago danger? Isn’t Chicago already safe? So why report the killer and his vehicle to the police? If he hadn't called the police, there probably wouldn't have been a dirty bomb attack on Chicago, because the murderer had been investigated eight minutes into the last time, and the police had captured him in the real world (TV report in the real world). Didn't everyone already see the scientists celebrating, so they relaxed their vigilance, giving the female captain the opportunity to activate the last one privately?

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I just watched it again. I watched it carefully this time. I paused at special places and read the subtitles carefully. Unfortunately, there were many places where the subtitles were advanced or delayed, which caused confusion when I watched it for the first time. Now let’s clarify the plot for your reference:

Let’s talk about what happened in the real world first:

Captain Colt died on the battlefield in Afghanistan two months ago and gave His meritorious service was awarded posthumously, and his funeral was held. He had a quarrel with his father before he died, so his father felt very guilty about his death.

After Colt's death, half of his body was preserved and physiological science methods were used to keep his brain and half of his body alive for scientific experiments - to test source code programs and use human beings to The principle is that after death, the brain will retain the afterimage of the last eight minutes of memory, so you can travel back to the past eight minutes to solve real-world problems. On this day, an explosion occurred on a commuter train at Union Station in Chicago, USA, at 7:48 a.m., killing more than 200 people on board. But the police got an important piece of information through some channels: the murderer who bombed the train would also create an even greater terrorist case. This is: the murderer would use a dirty bomb to attack the Chicago area six hours after the train exploded. For this reason, the police had to immediately evacuate the people in Chicago. But this evacuation is not easy! Chicago is a city with a population of more than 2 million, and it is impossible for all of them to be evacuated before a dirty bomb attack.

While evacuating the citizens of Chicago, a secret agency of the U.S. military—CANCO-N, a secret scientific experiment agency of the Air Force—decided to activate the source code program to allow Colt’s body’s brain to enter The source code program uses the memory of a middle school teacher who died in the morning train bombing to investigate the murderer, find the murderer, and find the dirty bomb van that attacked Chicago. For this reason, Colt was repeatedly placed into the last eight minutes before the train exploded. After all the hard work, he finally found the murderer. The police successfully captured the murderer on a highway under construction in urban Chicago and seized his crime vehicle. , Chicago is safe. Scientists and Colt's brain achieved a major victory.

According to the scientist's original plan, once Colt completed his investigation mission, the scientist promised to let half of Colt's body die and let Colt's consciousness truly die so that Colt could rest in peace. Colt also hopes that he can rest in peace and that his brain and consciousness will no longer be tormented by this. However, after the crisis was actually resolved, the scientist broke his promise and decided to keep Colt alive so that he could be used to travel through time later. The reason is that it is very useful.

But Captain Goodwin did not agree with this cruel change. She felt that Colt should be left to rest, his life support system shut down, and he allowed to die. Therefore, Captain Goodwin took the risk and privately initiated the last time travel, allowing Colt to rescue everyone on the train in the last eight minutes before the train exploded. Then, after the eight minutes were over, Captain Goodwin didn't know whether Colt had successfully rescued the train, but she turned off Colt's life-saving system in accordance with the original agreement, and Colt died successfully.

Let’s talk about what happened in the virtual world:

Captain Colt woke up and found that he was on a train in the United States, and his appearance had changed, and there was a girlfriend with him. Talking endlessly and affectionately to yourself. After being dizzy, he communicated with Goodwin, a female Air Force captain who controlled the source code program in the real world, and learned that he had died on the battlefield in Afghanistan two months ago, and that he was currently being used by scientists to use his brain. Come and travel through the last eight minutes before the train bombing that occurred that morning to investigate the murderer of the bombing and find the means and explosives for the murderer's imminent dirty bomb attack on Chicago.

Captain Colt figured out all this after traveling back and forth many times. During this period, his sense of humanity had strongly resisted this inhumane scientific experiment. On several occasions, he almost accomplished nothing and returned empty-handed. Fortunately, he is a soldier after all and has a strong sense of responsibility. Although he understands that he is just a piece of source code traveling through the past, he finally decided to take on the responsibility of a soldier and find the murderer for the safety of the country and the people. During his penultimate time traveling, he found the murderer, and the police in the real world finally caught the murderer, seized the dirty bomb, and Chicago was safe.

But during the time travel, Captain Colt fell in love with the chattering Christina, the girlfriend of the middle school teacher (Shane) whose body he borrowed. She wants to change her career to become a lawyer, and she also wants to go to India to practice medicine. During his penultimate time travel, although Colt perfectly completed the investigative tasks assigned by Goodwin in the real world and put an end to the Chicago attack, he could not bear the fact that everyone on the commuter train was bombed to death. . Although this fact has already happened and cannot be changed in Captain Goodwin's real world, the principle of the source code program reminded Colt: Colt thought he could prevent the train from exploding and injure himself and the entire train. People - including Christina - survive in a parallel world.

Subsequently, Captain Colt asked Captain Goodwin to make the final crossing, and he wanted to rescue everyone on the train. But this fact has already happened, how can it be possible to save it successfully? But Captain Goodwin understood Colt's kindness and decided to fulfill his wish. Therefore, Goodwin did not obey the scientist's orders and activated the source code privately, allowing Colt to make his final eight-minute time travel. In these last eight minutes, Colt successfully disarmed the train bomb, captured the murderer, and called the police, ensuring that the Chicago attack would not occur in his parallel world. At the same time, he also spoke to his father in Sean's tone, asking for his forgiveness. The cell phone conversation between father and son brought tears to my eyes.

Then, the train did not explode and Colt survived in the parallel world, but in the real world he was terminated by Captain Goodwin. Colt also sent a text message to Captain Goodwin, telling her that if she saw this text message, it meant that Goodwin actually existed in a parallel world, and a train bombing would occur, and Colt's body would be used to enter the source code. Investigate the murderer's case. Sure enough, Captain Goodwin in the parallel world received this text message when he just went to work and was deeply puzzled. But she didn't know what was going on, but she didn't tell anyone. She just looked at the half of Colt in the life support system that had not yet been activated.

Colt told her in the text message that if the source code program is activated and he is used to investigate cases, don't forget to cooperate with him, etc. So, the next thing should be that Captain Colt is put into the source code program, but this should be a story in another parallel world. As a result, two mirror-like mirrors reflect each other, forming a never-ending infinite loop of parallel world states.

In the parallel world where Colt saved the train, Colt and Christina survived, walked on the streets of Chicago, and finally looked at the brain sculpture (a mirror-plated round egg) , happily existing in the parallel world, but he looks like the teacher, Christina's original boyfriend, whose name is Sean. We saw his teacher appearance in the round egg sculpture image