In order to escape from prison, where he was awaiting trial after having killed Tommy Miller, Evan Treborn must persuade his cellmate to help him. To do so, he claims to have spoken with Jesus, and that he can prove it given a minute. He thumbs through the few pages of his journal he has managed to salvage from the gang members who are right now reading the rest of them, and chooses to return to the moment he created that picture of himself stabbing someone. He is now in an elementary school classroom.
He delays to draw the picture because the teacher tries to focus him on it. Probably he chose this image because he needed to think of something quickly, and it was what he expected to do in this future. He then walks to the teacher's desk, where she has two metal spikes sticking upright for stabbing papers (the sort that are used by some merchants to hold sales receipts). Ignore the fact that even thirty years ago such dangerous devices would be at best very rare in elementary school classrooms, accept that he grits his teeth and slaps his hands down on the spikes, piercing both of them.
If the movie were true to its title, the ripples of this particular change would have made a serious difference everywhere; it is doubtful that he and Kayleigh would have been the fraternity/sorority couple. But strictly speaking, it does not have to derail the future that brings him to that jail cell, and so we can get there.
That, though, is where our problem arises.
Up to this point, it has been fairly simple: Evan changes the world, and everyone remembers the world he has created except for him--he remembers the world he destroyed. But this time, his cellmate sees the scars form on Evan's hands, right before his own eyes. This is the problem.
If Evan is the only one who remembers the other history, then for his cellmate those scars have always been there. His memory of today will be of having met the Evan Treborn who had those scars in his hand since he was seven years old. If, though, we allow that the cellmate sees the scars appear, that means that he is remembering the other history--and if he remembers the other history this time, then everyone must remember the other history every time. That is, Kayleigh must remember making the porn film which now was never made, and then losing Evan when he moved, becoming a waitress, killing herself, and then waking up in a bed in a sorority house with Evan, as if it were all a bad dream but she can't remember the reality. Evan's punk roommate must wonder why Evan is not his roommate now, and the frat brothers must be confused as to how he suddenly became one of them.
That is not how it happened. No one other than Evan Treborn remembers the world that was, and that means that the Evan Treborn this man knew already had those scars in his hands before Evan attempted to work the miracle. He cannot remember those palms without those scars, so the trick does not work.
Complicating it, if we approach this moment under replacement theory, once he has made this trip to give himself these scars, he must make the same trip to give himself the same scars, and he has no reason to do so. He cannot even think that giving himself those scars will persuade his cellmate of anything, because he already has them. That will create an infinity loop. It is less disastrous under other theories of time, but it is not clear that it would work under any of them.
Still, assuming that it works anyway, it was a clever idea that brings us to the next timeline.
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