01
Travel through the history of cinema
"Twelve Monkeys" is a classic time-travel movie in 1995, which was adapted into an American drama in 2015, and has been broadcast to the fourth season in June this year, which is enough to show that this IP has a place in time and space movies.
Among them, Asimov's 1995 "The End of Eternity" is the most impressive to the author, in that long era, from the macro level of parallel space-time and butterfly effect written so in detail, basically the originator of space-time film; Cameron's 1991 "Terminator" is a space-time film that predates "Twelve Monkeys" in the last century, and this film also explores the variables and fixed numbers of the future from the perspective of the individual;
2004's "Butterfly Effect" interpretation of the effect of historical transformation can be counted as an individual perspective of "The End of Eternity"; 2011's "Source Code" is a deconstruction of parallel time and space; 2014's "X-Men: Reversing the Future" recognizes that the future is a fixed real-time, and "Interstellar", released in the same year, is an avant-garde reflection on five-dimensional space-time. There is no doubt that every successful time-traveling film will leave a classic scene in the audience's mind, and a deep idea that subverts the worldview.
02
Space-time features
All films that travel through time and space subconsciously avoid a problem - the time paradox. The time paradox, also known as the grandfather paradox, cannot give a reasonable explanation for the time paradox, including "Interstellar", and once the time paradox is deeply investigated, all the logic of the film will collapse, because the time paradox subverts the cornerstone of natural science - the law of cause and effect.
Cole already knew the contents of her call
Therefore, all the films that travel through time and space are silent about the time paradox, and once people acquiesce to the existence of the law of cause and effect, they can only avoid the problem of the time paradox. But "Twelve Monkeys" and "The End of Eternity" face this problem directly, both works use a close-up perspective to capture the protagonist's journey to the past to see himself, unfortunately, "Twelve Monkeys" does not solve the mystery of the time paradox, we can only assume for the time being: once the crossing begins, time will no longer be a linear structure, but a circular structure, a beginningless and endless end-to-end bite cycle structure.
Just as the question of chicken or egg has lost its meaning, when human beings understand the real meaning of time and grasp time, they will find that everything is simultaneous, there is no end to the beginning and the end. Just like the line in "Twelve Monkeys": Whether it was 35 years ago or 5 minutes ago, there is no difference for future people, it is all the same.
All time-traveling films discuss an eternal proposition that the future is a definite number or variable. We read most of the classic traversal films, and they all believe that history cannot be changed, because the history that has happened has constituted a reality, this reality is the accumulation of space in time, so the future (especially the future that has happened) is a proposition that the choice of the vast majority of works, of which "Twelve Monkeys", "Source Code", "X-Men: Reverse Future", "Interstellar" these works agree that history can not be changed. Once history is a predetermined fact, the writers have to start from the perspective of changing the future or creating parallel universes.
If you have read Asimov's "Al Qaeda" trilogy and understand his psychohistorical theory thoroughly, you will be more convinced that the future is a fixed number, because the torrent of history will not change with the will of the individual, if the future history is a river, everyone is a water molecule in the river, the irregular movement of water molecules does not pose a threat to the overall direction of the river, and the historical development of mankind is equivalent to the principle of group dynamics.
Similarly, although quantum mechanics believes that the state of the quantum is uncertain every time it is observed, so the uncertainty of the basic units that make up the universe also determines that the universe itself is also an uncertain state, that is, every possible outcome will constitute a parallel universe, but each result is a definite fact, and this fact cannot be changed.
03
Detail analysis
I can guarantee that many people are still confused about the ending of "Twelve Monkeys", but after reading the author's detailed analysis, you will find that this film is actually not controversial, all the details are the answer to the result, but we are not willing to find it.
Detail 1: The ending is prepended
The beginning of the movie is actually the premise of the ending, unfortunately the protagonist Cole has not changed the future, the protagonist wears a transparent isolation suit, walking in the dead world of snowflakes, collecting bugs infected with the virus in the snow, the world has long been destroyed by the virus, there are only sporadic animals on the surface, here is actually the protagonist's many crossings, the time is after 1996 (about 1997).
The leaflets on the ground bear the logo of the Twelve Monkeys, and the words "We Succeeded" are nothing more than the success of animal protection organizations in releasing all the animals, just in response to jeffery's release of all the animals.
Cole of the clothing store should be his fourth crossing, when the angel idol is just put into the store, and the clothing store that Cole crossed to the first time at the beginning, along with the angel, has been abandoned, and the correspondence before and after confirms that it is the same parallel world.
And the two appearances of the protagonist encountering the bear, both imply that the world abandoned at the beginning is the same as the world that the protagonist crosses for the fourth time.
So the main axis of history has not changed, the protagonist only plays the role of an observer, these truths in the future people understand, even if the last female scientist and doctoral assistant is the neighbor of the plane did not stop the course of history, because they gave Cole a gun, not to let him modify history, but to make history happen smoothly, that is to say, the most tragic thing about this film is that the death of the protagonist is arranged by scientists, and giving him a gun is not to let him save the world, but to let him sacrifice - to be a hero. Scenes in which the protagonist appears in multiple dreams are the best proof.
Detail 2: The protagonist creates two parallel worlds
The death of the protagonist at the airport is the central shot of the film, appearing at least five times. But there are subtle differences every time they appear, and these differences are also ironclad evidence of the two parallel worlds of the stone hammer.
The protagonist Cole always said that he had come to the airport, because he had foreseen the fact that he had died at the airport in many dreams, and the person who appeared in Cole's second dream was Jeffery, the son of a virologist, because the first time he traveled to 1990, he told the patient jeffery the future history of Jeffery in a psychiatric hospital (5 billion people died of the virus in 1996), so history changed slightly, and the macro history of future human extinction would still occur, but the person who released the virus became Jeffery. And this time and space is divided into a new time and space due to Cole's crossing, that is, the world where Jeffery spreads the virus.
tears
Why Cole falls in love with the psychiatrist Catherine, because the little boy at the airport is the protagonist's childhood, that is, every airport scene in parallel time and space is witnessed by a child, and this space Cole and his childhood self meet, before he knew that the child's disappearance was a prank, and it was also a foreshadowing for him to be the child. Because he experienced all this as a bystander as a child, there was always the end of his life in his sleep at the airport.
This dream also became the original motivation for him to fall in love with the psychiatrist, and when Catherine confessed to him, saying that we seemed to know each other before, it was also hinting at this relationship.
The author will briefly describe the four crossings. The first time crossed to the end of the world (circa 1997); the second to the mental hospital (1990); the third to the world war (1917), and then to the church of the heroine (1996); the fourth to philadelphia streets (1996).
Why the ending box man became the doctor's assistant, all because after Cole's third crossing, a new parallel universe split up again on the parallel universe that was split last time.
The causal relationship of things is like this, when the protagonist crosses over to the First World War, leaving a message and photos of the future human death of the virus, just in 1996, the psychologist mentioned the prophecy of human extinction and Cole's message in his speech, and the doctor's assistant also listened to this speech and was already convinced of the prophecy, which was the first motivation of the assistant.
When the female protagonist found that the bullet in the male protagonist's leg was a world war, the person who confirmed the 1917 photo was the male protagonist, so she believed the fact that the male protagonist came from the future, called the virologist and told the virologist that his son was the operator of the twelve monkey legions, which made the virologist wary of his son and handed the virus to the assistant for safekeeping, and the result was that the son did not succeed, and the assistant naturally became the second person to carry the suitcase. Everything that changes slightly is due to Cole's wrong crossing.
04
Experimental nature
Future scientists already know that history cannot be modified, and the results of modification will only make big mistakes in multiple parallel worlds, so they repeatedly explain that Cole's collection of information is the first task, not rewriting history.
Individual influences only slightly change the details of history (such as the transformation of the virus spreader), and cannot change the torrent of history. It is the core theory of this film, and it should also deal with this line: all your piety and wisdom will not make it a little redeemable, and all your tears will not let it change a little.
In fact, this experiment is not the protagonist alone, there have been many people who have failed due to willpower in the past, because they are nostalgic for the past world, knocked out their teeth, never go back, the tramp also told the protagonist the secret of teeth and surveillance, the voice in his head is also the tramp through the teeth to pass him, so he is also addicted to the past love can not extricate himself, decided to cross the last time to stay in that world, and he also knows the fact that the future is unchangeable, when he sees the bear and pig face of the clothing store , is terrified! Because those signs made him understand that sooner or later the world would be destroyed.
Why did the third crossing collect the data successfully, but they still let the protagonist continue the fourth crossing? Because the third protagonist has micro-changed history and created a new parallel world, and the person who spreads the virus has also changed, no longer Jeffery, it is necessary to find a new poisoner and ensure that the parallel world cannot be modified and split.
So when the protagonist calls to report the information collection error, the future scientist sent someone to give the protagonist a gun, blackmailing the heroine to make the male protagonist die, in fact, the male protagonist took the gun to chase the suitcase person, not to change history, because he has long agreed with the theory of the future scientist, the individual can not change the future, will only split the multiverse, he raised the gun to die is only too deep love for Catherine, willing to die for her (obey the death arranged by the scientist for him).
The scientist must arrange for the man to die at the airport in order not to let him split into a new reality. As the women scientists say to the carriers of poison: "I am the last insurance." She travels here to ensure that this reality happens without fail, first they have collected virus samples and poisoner information, and second, the death of the male protagonist ensures that the information collected will not be split into new parallel worlds and invalidated.
All in all, this is a logical and seamless cross-over film, and the director's intention is not to change the future, but to make the future happen smoothly. The opening film has determined the fact that the future has been destroyed, and through the dream, it also explains the death ending that Cole was arranged, the most terrible thing is that the male protagonist already knows the end of his life when he is a child, for love, he does not rebel against fate at all, but submits to the fate that has been arranged.