The most difficult problem with the film Butterfly Effect, which we began examining last time, pertains to the blackouts experienced by the young Evan Treborn. It is clear that he does something during these times, and that he does not remember what he does. The logic of the film suggests that we should believe that these are the moments when his future self has taken control of his younger self, and thus all the actions are controlled by the future self and all the memories belong to the future self. There are, however, at least four problems with this idea.
First, toward the end of the film Evan manages to return to points in his past for which there is no evidence that he ever had experienced a blackout. The first of these is when he was in the woods with two friends before his dog was killed, when he prepares them for what is about to happen. The second is when he uses a home movie of a family party to disrupt his relationship with Kayleigh before it begins. It is possible that the second was a blackout of which we were unaware, but the first clearly was not. Further, his father traveled to the past using a photo album, and it is unlikely that these were photos of his times of blackout.
Second, unless we are using fixed time theory, there must be an original history in which Evan took action, in order for there to be a future from which Evan can return to change events. Yet if it is fixed time, then it is impossible for Evan to change the past (Cheeseman's Emotional Energy Theory aside). It would thus have to be that Evan had no blackouts until the time when he used his journals to travel to the past and relive those moments; but he only has the journals because of the blackouts, and thus the blackouts become dependent on themselves in a predestination paradox in which the blackouts create the journals which create the blackouts. Note that whether we use replacement theory or parallel or divergent dimension theory, Evan must have the journals in the history from which he departs, and we recognize from the penultimate timeline that without the blackouts he would never start the journals.
The third problem is that in the earliest returns to the past, Evan acts like the seven year old child that he was. Granted that he is confused and disoriented, he sees the events as remembering what he did, not deciding what to do. This demands that there was an original history, some course of action that he followed, during each blackout prior to the changes he made.
The final problem is that once he understands what is happening, he makes real changes to the past which make real changes to the future. If, though, the blackouts were caused by his intervention from the future, then we must conclude either that (in true fixed time fashion) he changed nothing, and thus that what happens is what had always happened (not consistent with the film), or that for each blackout there was a previous moment when he became his younger self and did whatever he originally did. However, some of the things he did are inexplicable on that theory, leaving us with the question of how the blackouts and the time travel fit together.
Our working solution is that neither causes the other, but both are the result of a common cause. That is, Evan Treborn has a condition which will ultimately allow him to enter his own mind at points in the past and relive those moments, even change events as he does so; that condition also causes him to have memory lapses, moments when he is not aware of what is happening to him. Those memory lapses give him the opportunity to learn that he can re-enter his own mind at points in the past, and ultimately to do so at moments which were not memory lapses.
With this as a starting point, we can attempt to reconstruct the original history.
Comments
Whether it was Bress & Gruber's intent I do not know, but I don't see the requirement for the journals to "timetravel" (get into his mind or whatever we choose to call it). He uses home movies (like his father did) as well.
I see the requirement that he has to be able to get into the "past frame of mind" and then he can enter it. I don't know what you plan for the "original timelines" but there are other (unconscious things) which could have put him into these same states of mind, (scents from the past, suggestion of a favorite moment, etc) where he could have inadvertently "went back" causing a small blackout interval and changing very little (so no extra memories). This then (in later timelines) could have led to the journals and then the later conscious travels with them.
Steve, I think that's what I said. His father used a photo album, though.
But we know that he was not blacked out for the period before coming to the junkyard, because we saw that part at the beginning. Yet if the blackouts are caused by the time travel, then Evan must do what the time traveler would do. What the time traveler would do is what he later does, which changes history.
So the blackouts are not caused by the time travel, but since both he and his father have both, they are probably symptoms of the same condition.
--M. J. Young
I imagine (to explain away the holes) that there could have been blackouts that we did not see or that occurred in an earlier timeline that did not occur in a later one.
Unlike my other posts, I was not disagreeing with you on this film, just trying to find ways to explain the things given what we do know. It is only a true hole if there is no way to explain it: if it can be explained, even if not intended I don't see it as a "hole" (though one can argue sloppiness...)
Thanks again for your comments (here and elsewhere), Steve. I agree both that there might be events we do not see and that mistakes might be mere sloppiness. I think, though, that the picture Evan draws of himself stabbing two men is misplaced, and cannot be in the original history nor in any history in which he does not also stab his own hands--but that is still ahead, and there is a lot in this film.
--M. J. Young
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