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Okay, About Source Code…

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More Links Soon...‹ PreviousOkay, About Source Code…April 18th, 2011

Just gotta get this off my chest…
(it’s all in the first comment)

SPOILERS!

DON’T READ UNLESS YOU’VE SEEN THE MOVIE.

Posted in Film
Discussion (15)¬Scott says:April 18, 2011 at 7:00 am

1) Okay, wallet guy? C’mon. HAD to be him from the start.

2) Does Michelle Monaghan’s character seem kind of… cra-a-azy to you? Watch out, Jake! You’re not out of the woods yet.

3) Jeffrey Wright’s weirdly autistic performance was a lot of fun, but I swear it made it seem (especially when he gives that ridiculous pseudo-scientific explanation) that he was simply making it up as he went along.

4) Yes, I mostly liked it. Mostly. Though all movies are vastly improved when I see them with Ivy.

5) Who thinks the freeze frame ending was the original ending (before script doctors/test audiences)? Ivy liked the happy tack-on fake out. I was… okay with it. But the freeze frame was more elegant.

6) Vera Farmiga is 50% of everything that works in that movie. What a pro.

7) Did a lot of young screenwriters see Vanilla Sky at an impressionable age or what? (or Fight Club? Matrix? Is this a genre yet?)

Okay thanks! Just had to say something. Peace out.

ReplyDov Torbin says:April 18, 2011 at 7:40 am

I liked the freeze frame ending better also Scott.

The whole thing felt like Groundhog’s Day…but with a bomb instead of a groundhog.

I think they could’ve picked a better character to have been the bad guy. It was pretty obvious.

ReplyScott says:April 18, 2011 at 7:43 am

Yeah, I thought of Groundhog Day once or twice, though I think they steered clear in the end.

ReplyDoug Smith says:April 18, 2011 at 7:56 am

I was thinking Groundhog Day mashed up with Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun” even before the reveal of Jake’s character in the lab.

And I actually thought credits were about to roll when the freeze frame hit. The “here’s how parallel universes work” explanation ending was flat. Not sure how that tested out better than the freeze if it was indeed tested.

Reply5x5world says:April 18, 2011 at 7:45 am

I enjoyed the movie and I agree with the Groundhog day comment. But the ending totally spoiled the whole experience. I’m sure they were trying to get an ending that would leave you thinking…but I’m so tired of movies that tie up loose ends with a plot hole.

So you have an explosion, you send in your dead solider, he fixes it and then you discover that he wasn’t going back to an experience in the past but to a future event?

Classic time-trap, so how do they know to send him?

ReplyScott says:April 18, 2011 at 7:49 am

Not that any of this really makes sense, but I assumed they were telling us that every venture created an alternate reality — the all purpose killing-your-grandpa loophole.

ReplyGeorge Harris says:April 18, 2011 at 11:48 am

I loved and hated that they got Scott Bakula as the voice of Colter’s father. Loved it for the obvious reason, hated it because it broke me out of the story, and got me thinking on a meta-level.

ReplyAlison Wilgus says:April 18, 2011 at 7:53 am

I actually went to a screening of this with the director, Duncan Jones, who did a Q&A. Apparently the “freeze frame” was the end of the original script, which he didn’t write. But as a fairly devoted SF fan, he felt it left too many implications unexplored, and decided to extend it and pursue various SF elements a little further. I’m a little undecided about the result, but I definitely get where he was coming from. This was his first time working with someone else’s script — Gyllenhaal brought Jones onto the project because of his work on Moon — and he’s normally more of a hard-SF person.

ReplyScott says:April 18, 2011 at 7:58 am

Ha! I knew it that was the original ending!

Gotta say, DJ’s reasons may have been sincere, but surely the elephant in the room was that Hollywood Just Doesn’t DO that.

ReplyB. Clay Moore says:April 18, 2011 at 8:04 am

I agree regarding the freeze frame ending, but I saw it with my wife and I know she would have complained endlessly about the unresolved nature of that ending.

So I’m grateful they pushed it one step beyond. It made the ride home more pleasant.

ReplyJohn M says:April 18, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Scott,

Don’t really know what’s going on here, but regarding this (Clay’s) point mom and I went to see “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969) and she was **really** annoyed we never found out who won …

ReplyDon says:April 18, 2011 at 8:22 am

I have to say, I think the claim that the ending as-is is the more pat ending are missing the implications. The fact that it provides a facile happy ending for people who don’t want to pursue it further is a bonus – similar to MINORITY REPORT’s happy ending which is acknowledged to be a fantasy being played out in the head of the imprisoned character.

This ending is set up from the get-go by Gyllenhall’s flashes during transitions where he sees the Chicago ‘bean.’ Does that mean this was predestined? Maybe it means all these realities already exist and he’s just bopping around them.

If they’re being created every time the Source Code fires off then that’s pretty significant – in an effort to resolve what is a cosmically insignificant and very localized event they’re creating entire universes of people to ogle the result. Who is to say that in future SC jumps they won’t do something horrible in pursuit of finding the information they need? They already revealed their willingness to do that in their instructions to Gyllenhall in past ‘jumps.’

And despite Gyllenhall from ‘universe prime’ now being happily ensconced in someone else’s body there’s still one of him being kept in a bubble like a toy waiting to be played with.

I think looking at this ending as a simply happy one overlooks how subversive it is.

ReplyJosef says:April 18, 2011 at 11:09 am

If you didn’t like the ending (especially the last eight minutes) I recommend going back to see it again. But just the very end of the movie. If you *still* don’t like it, try going back to see the ending again. And if you still don’t like it after that, try going back and seeing it again. And if you still don’t like it…

ReplyBrian says:April 18, 2011 at 12:22 pm

Here’s what bugged me all the way home about the “new” ending. What happened to the teacher who originally got on the train in the “new” reality? No matter how you slice it, I don’t think you can avoid the conclusion that Gyllenhaal’s character is a murderer.

ReplyBen says:April 18, 2011 at 3:09 pm

Yes, that annoyed me too. Are we to suppose the poor teacher’s consciousness just ceased to exist in that version of reality after Jake took over his body?

Overall, good but not great film. The central premise of Source Code and the explanation of how it works was just too clunky to make it a classic, as well the other reasons mentioned here. Lacked the elegance of something like The Matrix. Although I concede that calling The Matrix elegant is faintly ludicrous in itself.

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Shoe #4 – About to Drop

Scott McCloud | Journal » Archive » Shoe #4 – About to Drop On the Shelves Popular Destinations DonateGods Who Walk Among UsArt SpiegelmanChris WareDavid ByrneEdward TufteJim WoodringWill WrightNewsComics ReporterFleenJournalistaThe Beat

More Links Soon...‹ PreviousNext ›Shoe #4 – About to DropMarch 10th, 2011

More than a year and a half ago, I wrote about four upcoming books and promised to post updates as each became available.

Those books were David Small’s Stitches, David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp, Hope Larson’s Mercury, and Vera Brosgol’s then-untitled graphic novel for First Second.

Well, the first three came out to well-deserved acclaim, and now at last that fourth one—quite possibly my favorite of the whole bunch—is finally available for pre-order. And it has a name!: Anya’s Ghost.

Brosgol points out on her blog that now’s the time to tell your local comics store to put in their orders through Diamond. I can very highly recommend this one (as does a rather famous Neil on that cover, above, in case you didn’t notice).

Vera Brosgol is the kind of cartoonist I want to be when I grow up, and I know several other cartoonists who feel the same way. Get a copy of Anya’s Ghost for yourself and find out why.

Posted in Cartoonists, Graphic Novels
Discussion (6)¬Mike L says:March 10, 2011 at 9:18 am

Utterly unrelated, but have you seen this article on the info from the never-ending Kirby vs. Marvel being released?

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/09/the-stan-lee-deposition-on-the-origins-of-the-marvel-universe-for-kirby-family-vs-marvel-lawsuit/

ReplyScott says:March 10, 2011 at 9:24 am

Yikes.

It’s really sad that Jack’s voice in all this has been silenced forever.

The world is a frustratingly unfair place sometimes.

ReplyMike L says:March 10, 2011 at 10:09 am

Sorry to mess up your day, but I know this issue is important to you and thought you should know in case you didn’t.

ReplyRob Berry says:March 10, 2011 at 7:17 pm

Well, back on point, she’s exactly the kind of cartoonist I want to be when I grow as well.

But, dammit, I’m old and she’s set into really good ways.

Dammitt.

Brilliant work by brilliant youths is the real reason artists work beyond when normal people seek retirement and well up to death.

Brilliant excites art at any age.

Dammitt. We all have to draw harder just to keep up.
-R

ReplySean Barrett says:March 10, 2011 at 9:53 pm

Ah, it seems so long ago when you first introduced us to Vera and Jen Wang and whoever else was in that crew.

Probably not just “seems”, but I don’t really want to know.

ReplyScott McCloud | Journal » Archive » Catching Up with Nate Simpson says:March 14, 2011 at 7:32 am

[...] on last Thursday’s post, here’s another cool comic we got a sneak peek of in an old blog post that’s finally [...]

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