The idea of the director of the film “Butterfly Effect” is absolutely novel, and its creativity is no less than the famous director Nolan’s “play” with time. The whole film has six different life endings through six times of amnesia and five times of “crossing”, and the director shot four versions of the ending in one breath, so that the audience can shout!
The movie uses genetic memory loss and “time travel”, the hero returns to the place where he lost his memory before to change those “regret” things, but this small change has six different life endings, and it is not the same as expected every time.
Evan’s father was admitted to a mental hospital at an early age, and Evan lived with his mother. However, Evan would occasionally experience memory loss, which also caused the movie to feel like it was cut down and not connected. There are a total of six episodes of amnesia in the film, and each time something bad happens.
First memory loss: kindergarten painting incident
When Evan, the first boy, was in kindergarten, his teacher suddenly called his mother to school and gave her a picture that Evan had drawn. It was a bloody scene of murder, but Evan couldn’t remember it at all! The doctor said it was because he was feeling insecure and stressed because he missed his father.
So the doctor advised Evan to keep a detailed record of the time before and after the loss of memory in a diary, and these diaries were the “medium” for later travel.
Second memory loss: Knife in kitchen
Once Mom was looking for Evan around the house, and suddenly found him in the kitchen with a knife, and the footage was still scary.
Third amnesia: Meet the psychotic dad
The doctor said Evan was stressed out and needed some relief from not having a father. So he went to see his father in the mental hospital. Suddenly the camera turns and his father tries to kill him!
Fourth amnesia: Shooting a little movie in the basement
Evan has a childhood friend named Kelly, who chooses to live with his perverted father in order to see Evan. One day Evan was in the basement of Callie’s dad’s house, and this creepy dad made them a little movie.
The consequences of this matter: Kelly’s heart is a little broken, and brother Tommy’s heart begins to twist!
Fifth amnesia: Detonator kills mother and daughter
Six years later, when the four children (Evan, Callie, Tommy, and Lanny) have grown up, Tommy tries to play a prank on Tommy by taking his father’s detonator and blowing something up, but Lanny’s place kills a newborn and her mother.
Consequence of the event: Lenny’s psychological breakdown!
Sixth amnesia: Tommy burns Evan’s dog
To get back at Evan for spending time with his sister, the twisted Tommy tied Evan’s dog up in a sack and burned it to death, where Lenny was humiliated and even more psychologically isolated, and Callie and Evan were beaten!
These six memory lapses become the time that Evan travels through as he grows up, and these times have different life endings, which is known as the “butterfly effect”. It involves Evan, the male number one, Kelly who is insulted by his father, Tommy who is tortured by his father and mentally twisted, and Lenny who is mentally autistic because of the prank manslaughter.
Normal developmental outcome
This is the normal world without any time travel, so much has happened after Evan moved to live on his own, seven years later the four kids are grown, and Evan has gone to college to major in psychology. Kelly, who has been hurt, is depressed, Lenny is autistic, and Tommy is still violent.
Evan accidentally found that reading the previous diary can restore the memory lost before, so the previous six blanks are remembered. He went to find his love object Kelly, did not expect to meet Kelly because of the thought of having been insulted by his father and all kinds of misfortune, suicide!
Grief-stricken Evan looks into his father’s and grandfather’s past through his journal, and discovers that he can travel back in time to the memory loss that occurred in the notes, so he tries to change his unhappy childhood and save Callie’s life.
(2) The first crossing, the goal: save Kelly
This time through back to the fourth time of amnesia, Kelly’s father made a small movie in the basement, this time Evan did not let the tragedy happen again, but severely hit back at the pervert father, with legal knowledge of his whole one by one!
The “butterfly effect” of this crossing is that Kelly’s psychology is not affected by the torture of her perverted father, and Evan is in love with each other.
However, this time, the father took out his anger on his brother Tommy, which also led to his serious violent tendencies. Tommy gets into a fight with Evan to stop his sister from being with him, but Evan kills him, which leads to his own incarceration.
(3) Second crossing, goal: Stop Tommy from violence
Because he lived a life of daily abuse in prison, the male owner must not be satisfied with the ending, and Tommy is dead, so he looked for the opportunity to cross again. In fact, one of them traveled back to the kindergarten where he lost his memory for the first time, in order to prove to his fellow inmates that he could travel.
Evan believes that Tommy’s violence is related to the burning of the dog, so this time to the sixth amnesia of the burning of the dog scene, did not expect that this time Lanny directly killed Tommy. The “butterfly effect” of this crossing is that Lenny ends up in an insane asylum and is tied up.
Callie is frustrated by the excitement of life and becomes a low-level girl, and Evan goes to college and lives a normal life with his mom.
(4) Three times through, the goal: to stop the explosion hoax
In an attempt to once again save his lover Callie and his friend Lenny’s mental problems, Evan decides to travel back in time, this time to the site of the explosion that caused Lenny’s psychological breakdown.
This time the “butterfly effect” outcome is relatively good, Tommy because to save the mother and daughter conscience, began to work and become a successful person. And Lenny did not experience the trauma of the explosion, became a happy young man, and Kelly fell in love and married. The only problem was male number one, who lost his arms trying to save the mother and daughter.
But this time, her mother was about to die because she was physically disabled from childhood and had cancer caused by overwork and smoking.
(5) Fourth crossing, goal: save mother, kill Kelly’s bad father
This time, he travels to the kitchen where he loses his memory for the second time with a knife, thinking about killing the culprit of all the tragedies, Kelly’s father.
The knife was found confiscated by his mother, so he went to the basement to pick up the detonator and threw it at Kelly’s pervert father, never expecting that Evan, who was not intelligent enough at that time, killed his lover Kelly, and Evan was confined to a mental hospital.
(6) Five times through, the goal: kill yourself
After many times through, found that no matter how his life is painful, so he decided to cross to the mother pregnant, hoping to pinch himself at the time of the embryo, don’t let yourself come to this world.
So I went back to when my mother was pregnant and tired herself to death with the umbilical cord in her stomach. Of course, there would be no Evan in this world, and Kelly would not be because of seeing her beloved Evan live with her father, she followed her mother away from BT dad. Lanny lived a happy life without Tommy’s bullying. Evan’s mother chose to remarry because she did not have a husband and children, and was very happy after remarrying, only the male master died, a perfect ending!
A fatalistic mess
The whole story involves four children, and it’s hard to have a happy ending anyway. Callie wants to live with Evan, but she has to follow her pervert dad because they live close, and Tommy will follow and still get violent. The bottom line is that Callie’s love for Evan and her perverted dad and Evan are neighbors, unless that’s changed! (In fact, this was changed at the end of the other three versions.)
Mom’s two stillborn babies
Evan’s mom had talked to Evan about how happy Evan was to come into this world, as two previous pregnancies had resulted in stillbirths. Evan’s father in the movie theater entered a mental hospital, and his father went mad and died, which can be seen that the disease is inherited in their family, but it is gradually weakening.
When Evan told his father in the mental hospital to revise these fates, his father strangled him until Evan was going to suffer as he did, possibly killing his mother. The two stillborn babies in Evan’s mother’s belly should have happened the same thing that happened to Evan, also traveling back to the embryo to end their lives.
Of the six different endings that result from these five journeys, the best ending is the last one, where the hero is not born and everyone else is fine. Followed by the fourth outcome, the man became disabled, and the mother got seriously ill, the rest of the people are fine.
In fact, the film director shot four versions of the finale at once, of which there are three non-movie theaters, are completely different endings.
Version 1:
It’s ending six, where Evan dies and everyone else dies!
Version 2:
Evan travels back to the party where he and Callie became best friends, choosing not to meet Callie. So Callie doesn’t choose to live with her perverted dad for Evan, and instead lives happily with Tommy and her mother. One day when everyone grows up, Evan and Kelly meet in the street, Evan recognizes Kelly as a childhood love, but chooses not to say hello, he is afraid of tragedy again, two people are separated.
Version Three:
Back in time as in Version 2, the two run into each other on the street as adults, but this time Evan chooses to chase Kelly!
Version 4:
And version 2 is the same time to travel to the party, this time when Evan meets Kelly after growing up, the two recognize each other, and still love each other, the reason is together, perfect reunion!
This movie story mainly tells us that a small action in ordinary times may change their lives and the outcome of the people around them, and even the changes. Of course, in reality, we can not verify, for example, we learn not well can only move bricks, thinking that if you study hard now must be a luxury car to live in a mansion.
Through this movie, we know that maybe only change one thing, may affect more people, study better, a lot of people and things around themselves have changed, maybe parents in order to read more tired, the ending is not necessarily good.
This film weaves a story full of life philosophy through the “butterfly effect” theory, which can definitely go into the classic movie history.
