If you plan on watching it, you don't want to read this for any potential spoilers. If you did watch it, what do you think of Dr. Rutledge, the creator of the sourcecode? Obviously he was a self absorbed maniac. But in the end, his creation saved millions of lives. Would you torture indefinitely a soldier hero to save the lives of millions of innocent people?
I haven't seen it yet, but plan to. It sounds intriguing and the reviews were generally positive. Duncan Jones's earlier effort, Moon, was so good that I'd see anything he directed.
SPOILERS ALERT SPOILERS ALERT SPOILERS ALERT First of all, I don't think it was torture. It was in the beginning involuntary, certainly, and perhaps there may have been more humane ways to introduce Colter to his situation, but once he understood the situation his participation became voluntary. Did he have any choice? Would Rutledge keep sending him back if he refused to cooperate? I think if Colter made it clear he wasn't interested in cooperating, and refused to cooperate during any subsequent returns, Rutledge would haved been forced by sheer pragmatism to call it off. No point beating a dead corpse, so to speak. But is your question about the movie or about the ethics of torture? I'll leave torture ethics to another thread and just say that I thought it was damn gripping film with an original premise, even though the plot was hackneyed, and I enjoyed it enough to see it twice and take friends with me. The tracking freeze frame was the film's proper ending - carrying it past that point to give it a happy hollywood outcome tarnished it, but hollywood has to satisfy bottom line expectations and people don't pay to watch downbeat endings (even though that "ending" was actually pretty upbeat). That tracking freeze frame is the first time I've seen that technique; it was the perfect technique for that point in the story, but I haven't been able to find how that kind of shot was carried out. With CGI all things are possible but I'm not sure that shot was all CGI. Good flick! Joe Bob says, check it out!
Remember the original ending of Blade Runner, with the two young lovers flying off into the sunshine? Everyone knew that was wrong, and the Director's Cut restored the much more fitting and satisfying conclusion. I hunch the Director's Cut is by far the preferred version - maybe the same will be true with Sourcecode in a few years. In the meantime, I'm going to just forget what you said about the film, and repeat to myself that it's a good ending.
"Groundhog train." Yeah. I too felt it was too tightly sewn up in the end. I don't think it ruined it, and I still liked it. How else was the director going to throw in that "fate" question with the Chicago Art imagery that was shown throughout the movie. It's the director's imperative to either spoon feed the audience or let their mind finish the movie. Considering this movie was aiming to be broadly shown, the director probably felt the spoon feeding was necessary. (disclosure, I admit, I usually need some spoon feeding cause stuff often times flies right over my head).
I searched the local listings, but couldn't find Sourcecode still playing. Those of us who missed it will have to wait for the DVD in a month or so.
So, I bought the DVD, and I've seen it twice now. Great movie. Duncan Jones must be a fan of Twilight Zone. There's an episode with a man on a train that stops in Willoughby. He has a recurring dream of a children's playground, and when he gets off the train to see it, he stays there and becomes part of the continuing dream. The train moves on without him - I can't remember if he 'dies' on the train or not - I'll have to see if I can find the episode. It was one of my favourites; so cool to see it made into a movie.
I still want to know how that tracking freeze frame was accomplished. That was brilliant screenplay/cinematography. Might even wind up in the great shots hall of fame.
In the 'last second' kiss when he crosses over to live in the dream? Yeah, that was pretty neat. Edit: Will that moment become 'The Director's Cut' ending? It seems eerily similar to Deckard and Rachel in the elevator, before the tacked-on ray of sunshine at the end of Blade Runner.
[ame="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734550/"]"Twilight Zone" A Stop at Willoughby (TV episode 1960) - IMDb@@AMEPARAM@@http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQ0MTIzNDA0Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODQ2MzcyMQ@@._V1._SX99_SY140_.jpg@@AMEPARAM@@BMTQ0MTIzNDA0Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODQ2MzcyMQ@@@@AMEPARAM@@SX99@@AMEPARAM@@SY140[/ame] Next Showing on TV: Sunday Aug 7, 5:30AM on SYFY: IMDb: TV Listings Hope you can catch it!
Did the time after the freeze frame kiss happen to be exactly eight minutes? Maybe that was Coulter's last brain activity, meaning the ending sequence of events was his dream, not reality....hmm...
