Are we given one life? But not in the movies! A lot of fantastic and mystical paintings allow their heroes, by virtue of the circumstances, or of their own free will, repeatedly return to the past, re-live the present and try to change the future. Such projects include the film “The Butterfly Effect” (2004), starring Ashton Kutcher (“Where's my car, man?”) And Amy Smart (“Adrenaline”). The project received a Saturn Award nomination, its IMDb rating is 7.70. In addition to many other advantages, the tape has several alternative finals. And if the producer did not demand a happy ending from the director, the studio did not conceive a sequel, and the audience did not act up on test screenings, the ending of the “Butterfly Effect” could have looked completely different.
According to the concept of the butterfly effect from Chaos Theory
The outstanding writer Ray Bradbury had only one perished butterfly to radically change the course of development of human civilization and write the story “And the Thunder struck” about the unpredictability of the consequences of time travel. The authors of The Butterfly Effect, the directorial duet of Eric Bress and J. Mackey Gruber, even though they placed an epigraph in their project, stating that the flap of the wing of an insect is enough for a hurricane, they do not suffer from laconicism. They subject the characters to repeated transformation, trying to bring something new to the frankly hackneyed topic. They succeed only with the alternative endings of the film “Butterfly Effect”.
Short storyline
The protagonist Evan Treborne inherited from his father, who is in a psychiatric hospital, a gift in a very unusual way to move in time. In order to return to the past, he only needs to read his personal diaries, which the young man has been keeping since childhood. Reading the documented details “enlivens” the memories, and the hero literally falls into the past. Moreover, Evan’s childhood and adolescence cannot be called happy. Moreover, any penetration into the past causes dangerous consequences, unpredictably affecting the present. Each time, Evan faces a choice - to correct the mistakes of the past or to preserve the well-being of the future. From this it is no wonder to move the mind, then no records will save. It’s impossible to describe the story without spoilers, you just have to notice that after watching the viewer will definitely want to know how many endings in the “Butterfly Effect” could be.
Alternative
In general, the ending of the picture leads the hero Ashton Kutcher to the understanding that the cause of all the misfortunes of him and his beloved Kelly is himself. Treborne repeatedly uses his gift to help himself and the girl find happiness with each other, but nothing came of it. With each attempt to make adjustments, future development options turn out to be more terrible and worse. As a result, the young man understands that Kelly can be happy only without him, he decides to delete himself from her life. And it turns out to be right; individually, a more prosperous fate awaits them. But this is not the end of the Butterfly Effect. Having matured a successful psychologist, Evan, walking around New York, will still meet Kelly.
Three options
And here the creators of the picture came up with three options for ending the “Butterfly Effect”:
- Neutral - Evan and Kelly, having met on a street of New York, exchange glances and diverge.
- Open - Evan, interested in the beauty, goes after her.
- Happy - exchanging glances, young people get to know each other, and now everything will be different with them.
The psychological thriller hit the first. But initially, the authors proposed an even darker version of the finale, in which Evan decides to act extremely radically and suffocates himself with the umbilical cord, while still in the womb. Naturally, on the test viewing, such an ending of the “Butterfly Effect” audience, craving for a happy end, booed. The creators immediately corrected the situation. But in the film, by the way, there was a mention that before the birth of Evan, his mother had three miscarriages. If the “tragic" ending remained, this would mean that the character, tired of the futility of his efforts, killed himself three times with each attempt to be born.
To be continued
Since the original picture received positive reviews, a decent rating and paid off at the box office, the producers decided not to stop there. In 2006, the sequel “Butterfly Effect-2” (IMDb: 4.50) was released, being positioned as a continuation of the 2004 project. The tape was removed in just 20 days, the main roles were played by Eric Lively ("American Pie") and Erica Durance ("Secrets of Smallville"). Critics greeted the film very cool due to the fact that, according to cinema experts, he did not add anything new to the subtext of the first picture, but only repeated it, but with new characters. The audience did not like the fact that the protagonist traveled in time exclusively with mercantile purposes - he pursued a career, and not the personal life and well-being of loved ones, like Evan Treborn. An even more negative public reaction was caused by the ending with a hint of continuation. But it took place. In 2008, the “Butterfly Effect 3” was released, which is an independent product, in no way connected with the two previous parts.