There is a problem with Butterfly Effect which we have glossed over several times, because it is in one sense an "off camera" problem: although it impacts Evan Treborn, it does not impact this Evan Treborn. That is, where are all the Evan Treborns who have been displaced by the time travel?
To illustrate, consider the moment that Evan travels back and threatens Mr. Miller. When he returns to the future, he opens his eyes in Kayleigh's bed in the sorority house. Note that in this timeline:
- Kayleigh has known him as her boyfriend forever;
- the punk roommate Thumper knows him as frat scum;
- the fraternity brothers know him as one of their own; and
- the psychology professor does not recognize him.
All of these people have memories that are the memories of the history of this world, all of which involve Evan Treborn in some way. (Even the failure of recognition by the professor indicates that his memories are of the unimpressive Evan.) The logical conclusion of all this is that there has been an Evan Treborn who lived through this, one known to these people, who lived the life that they remember for him. This Evan who has created this history apparently is not that one; he has no such memories, but instead remembers the world he decided to alter. Where, then, is the Evan for whom this history is the one through which he lived?
For each of the altered histories, there must be this other Evan--the one who always had the cigarette burn, the one who grew up with scarred hands, the one crippled by the blockbuster. But it is even more complicated than that. Once he begins changing the past, he must also change those moments in his past when he traveled to the past. If he changes what happens with the dog, or at the mailbox, he also changes what his earlier selves discover when they in turn travel to those events. If he eliminates those events entirely (as he clearly does, more than once), then when his earlier self discovers time travel he will be changing different events in his past. We have the universe diverging into a great multiverse, but more significantly with every change we must have had an Evan Treborn who lived through the new version of history who now does not seem to exist.
One possible explanation is that we are creating divergent timelines in both directions. If when Evan travels to the past he causes a new universe to appear (without destroying the old), then he has left a version of himself behind to suffer the consequences of whatever happens in the old universe after his in this case failed departure and created a new version of himself in the new universe; then as he travels to the future perhaps he again splits the timeline into one in which he has no memories of any history other than the new one, and one in which he has displaced himself. That's a lot more histories, and all of them are strange and multifaceted, as in each of them at some point his alternate selves will discover the power to travel to the past, and will again make changes attempting to perfect the world they knew.
Evan's father was right: this is a very dangerous power that will create a lot of horrible circumstances for a lot of versions of yourself, half of whom will never escape because the power only works half the time.
The other explanation is that Evan destroys those versions of himself when he displaces them, or forces them into the world he left behind; but if we assume that he has undone the history he left behind, then the fates of all the displaced Evans remain a mystery.
Comments
I know you said you weren't going to deal with the director's cut, but in that version it's worse even than the above, as far as time travelers potentially creating and destroying multiple versions of themselves.
At the end of the movie, instead of merely breaking up with Kayleigh, Evan goes back to his birth and kills himself in his mother's womb by strangling himself with the umbilical cord. At this point, his mother begins to scream "No! Not again!" when she realizes she is losing Evan. Prior to this point, it was explained elsewhere in the movie that Evan happened to be his mom's first successful birth after something like 4 or 5 miscarriages.
The horrible implication here is that not only did Evan go through all of this, but that he'd had several siblings prior to him who all went through the same thing, and that they all came to the same conclusion in the end.
Yeah, that's why people say that the movie, or at least the director's cut, is so depressing.
I really like your analysis - I never thought of the problem with the scars appearing on his hands, but it seems so obvious now. As for the question above, I think the movie indicates the answer. When he returns from his time travels, he has intense pain, bloody nose, and a montage of alternate memories. Since after this, he only remembers the failed histories that he has gone through, it seems they are showing this Evan burning away the memories of the one who lived through the new history.
My apologies to Kane; for some reason the system did not alert me to your comment ten months ago when it posted, and I only just discovered it. Of course, if Evan kills himself before he is born, it's entirely unclear who kills him when he never lived.
David, while your suggestion is plausible, it seems then that we're combining parallel or divergent dimension theory with some sort of "spirit" or "soul" travel--Evan takes over the body of a doppelganger in the world in which he is arriving, and leaves his own now probably lifeless body behind. Of course, we don't know what happens in the worlds he leaves behind, so maybe he simply dies as his mind/spirit/soul leaps to a different universe.
They did not explain themselves; I'm inclined to think they didn't think it through.
Thanks to both of you for your interest and your comments. Have you seen Premonition? That's got some similar complications.
--M. J. Young
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