They didn't figure out their purpose until Hal showed up and told them.
Amongst all of their unfinished business, only Harrison's was plausible for Thomas to do at a young age. But, Milo returning the stamps, Penny finding out about her kids, and Julia fixing Thomas's or her own relationship is next to impossible if they attempted it in the early 60s when Thomas was merely a child.
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"Are you watching closely?" — Alfred Borden (The Prestige)
That's one thing that always bothered me about this otherwise great movie. The bus driver tells them that he should have picked them up about 15 or 20 years ago. How in the world could Thomas be expected to do all that stuff for them at such a young age?
shareThey had him betting on horse races, they'd be fine.
-Wait til Marco leaves his house, break in and get stamps (before he bought a guard dog, preferably)
-Write letter to Julia's beau, except he'd still be alive to read it, so this one works out better
-sing
-hell, they only found out about Penny's kids out of pure dumb luck in the movie, so who knows how plausible it would be at any time in Thomas' life
\o/ STEVE HOLT!
I don't think that was just dumb luck. I'm thinking about the saying "God works in mysterious ways." Everything that happened was timed perfectly, which I think is a theme that not very many people got when they watched the movie. Everything falls into place eventually, good or bad.
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