A movie about time travel and parallel universes, ‘ Source Code ‘ deals with the human desire to revisit the past and conveys the lesson that the choices we make in the present determine our future. More than just entertaining, the movie is deeply thought-provoking and reminds viewers of the importance of living in the present.
Just as we can save and reload in games, it would be great if we could do the same in real life. It would be great if we could go back in time. It’s a thought we’ve all had at least once. The human imagination has been expressed in many ways through movies. Time travel is a subject that intrigues people because it is impossible, at least so far, and it allows directors and writers to imagine their own unique worlds. This imagination is not possible in real life, but it can be vicariously fulfilled through movies.
Many time travel movies go back in time. Some event in the past creates a new present. In the movie “The Butterfly Effect,” the protagonist goes back in time to make a small change in order to change the present situation, and the change skips through an intermediate process that the protagonist has no control over and creates a greatly changed present. However, what they hoped would be a slightly better present becomes a mess, and they try to fix it again by traveling back in time several more times, only to arrive at an increasingly bleak present. In the end, through the most tragic ending, the director seems to convey the message, “There is no point in going back to the past! Many other famous time-travel movies, such as Back to the Future and The Terminator, show people struggling in the past to change the present or to make the present stay the way it is. Just as these films use time machines or diaries to go back in time, Source Code uses its own unique device to access the past.
While there have been many sci-fi movies about traveling back in time, Source Code doesn’t actually go back in time. First, a part of the brain of ‘A’, who has already died in an accident, is kept alive to preserve the memories of the moment before his death, and then the consciousness of another brain-dead person, ‘B’, enters this memory to find clues to solve the case. Even if you go back in time and save someone, it doesn’t reflect in the real world. It’s as if we’re searching for the key to saving our world in another parallel universe. Unlike movies that vaguely suggest that we can go back to the past because we have developed a time machine with incredible technology, in Source Code, we travel back in time thanks to medical advances that connect to the human brain.
The movie begins in a train cabin bound for Chicago, where a terrorist attack is about to take place. Suddenly, the main character, Coulter, wakes up in his cabin and finds himself in a very unfamiliar situation. As he looks around, not knowing what to make of it, eight minutes pass and the train explodes. A few moments later, Coulter wakes up in another strange capsule. On a screen on the wall, a woman tells him he’s running out of time and forces him to fulfill a mission. The mission is to access the Source Code, which connects the brain of Sean, a victim of the train attack on the morning of the incident, with the consciousness of the protagonist, Coulter, so that Coulter, as the victim Sean, can go in search of the terrorists on the train. Through this source code, the protagonist vividly experiences the time of the accident that the dead could not convey.
While the plot is about preventing future disasters by accessing the past through memories, it also contains the concept of parallel universe theory. Parallel universes were once dismissed as the realm of science fiction, but nowadays, many scientists claim that they actually exist. These theories are based on the Big Bang theory, quantum mechanics, expansion theory, multiverses, parallel universes, etc. Imagining these theories is just as fascinating as time travel. In the movie “The One,” there are 125 versions of yourself living on 125 different planets, and if you eliminate all the other 124 versions of yourself from this parallel universe, one of you will become the absolute master of the universe. The movie “The 13th Floor” depicts a parallel world using computerized virtual reality. In order to solve an incident in the real world, the protagonist returns to the past in a virtual reality that is realized exactly like reality and searches for clues.
Source Code is a kind of virtual space created from the memories of the dead, but the scope is beyond imagination, with every detail recreated that Sean, who is obviously dead, could not have known. As a result, Coulter was able to perfectly locate the terrorist’s secondary bomb in a parking lot, which was outside of Sean’s cognitive realm. The information he gained in Source Code helped him catch the terrorist in real life. In addition, through the Internet, Coulter was able to read articles about his death and make phone calls to the agency that operated Source Code. It’s safe to say that Source Code has created a new world, not just a fragment of memory.
In the movie, Dr. Rutledge, the head of Source Code, emphasizes that Source Code is simply a memory of the past eight minutes. However, for Coulter, who finally enters Source Code for the last time and turns off the life support system, the world that was supposed to disappear after the eight-minute time limit has not disappeared even after stopping the terrorist attack. In other words, from this point on, the protagonist remains completely as Sean in the “world that stopped the train attack” instead of the current world. This means that the world in Sean’s consciousness was the same world as the real world outside, just like the idea of “the universe in a speck of dust” taught in Buddhism.
‘Source Code’ is a movie that utilizes time travel and parallel universe theory to great effect, making it exciting to watch and ending with the best possible happy ending. It’s a science fiction movie, but it doesn’t involve absurd time travel, which made it easier to immerse myself in the story. With the advancements in brain research today, it was recently reported that they have developed a technology that outputs images from the brain on video. Although the images are still blurry and fuzzy, it seems that continued medical advances will make it possible to create virtual worlds from memories, just like in movies. While it would be literally a movie story if the world in our memories could be a perfect representation of the real world, having access to our memories could actually do a lot of useful things.
We shouldn’t just focus on the intriguing themes of time travel and parallel universes, but also think deeply about human desires, regrets, and lessons learned from them. We often get so caught up in wanting to undo our past mistakes that we neglect to live in the present. But these movies remind us that we can’t change the past, and how important the choices we make in the present are. Instead of dwelling on regrets, it’s important to live in the present and build a positive future.
From this perspective, Source Code is not just a movie about time travel and parallel universes, but a deep reflection on how we should live in the present. With the message that the choices we make in the ‘here and now’ determine our future, the movie gives audiences a direction for their lives.
Therefore, when watching a movie like “Source Code,” it is a good idea to reflect on the deep meaning behind the movie and apply it to our own lives, rather than just being enthralled by the interesting subject matter.
I’m a blog writer. I want to write articles that touch people’s hearts. I love Coca-Cola, coffee, reading and traveling. I hope you find happiness through my writing.