MovieChat Forums > The Jacket (2005) Discussion > POTENTIAL PLOT HOLE! PLEASE DEBATE

POTENTIAL PLOT HOLE! PLEASE DEBATE

posted 10 years ago by Farasheep-613-961953
3 replies | jump to latest

I just want to say that I liked the movie, but the ending of the movie made me think long and hard about the whole story.

If Jack's present timeline (1992) is directly affected by the future timeline that he was allowed to go to (2007), and there was a direct cause and effect relationship, then how was it possible that he changed the future?

I understand that there are different forms of time travel, and different theories and paradox but I feel like this movie was contradicting itself. Throughout the movie, we can see that BECAUSE Jack goes into the future of 2007, he is THEN able to help the doctor cure her friend's kid with shock therapy. It is also BECAUSE the evil doctor told him about the past victims, that he THEN knows about it and tells it to the evil doctor in the 1992 timeline. Going on this logic, it can be safe to say that everything he does or is about to do is pre-determined since his present is a product of seeing into his future.

And towards the end, if he NEVER had the motivation to write a letter to that chick he banged in the future, then he would've never gotten into that car with that doctor to drive to her house. IF HE NEVER GOT INTO THAT CAR, THEN HE NEVER WOULD'VE DIED/GOTTEN THAT HEAD TRAUMA BY SLIPPING. SO IF THIS IS THE CASE, that means everything was already pre-determined because he would've never grown to care for that chick so much if he was not even allowed to go in the future in the first place. So if his present timeline 1992 was a direct result of his knowledge of the future, then it would have never changed the future a single bit by writing that letter because that letter indirectly caused his death.

SO THIS IS A PLOT HOLE!

[–] mmmK-Ultra 9 years ago

Regarding your first paragraph: I think it helps to think of the future not as a point in space, but as a vector offset of a current position. Almost like a train. His travel to the future was 15 years to the future, but not that specific 15 years in the future. 15 segments of rail forward does not always take you to the same place, it depends on what tracks you're on. Up until he wrote and delivered his letter, that future was on one set of rails, like a train following the path of Jack, the locomotive, in 1992. But the letter changed which rails that 1992 locomotive was on, and now 15 years in the future is equally along a different set, and a totally different reality.

Regarding the second paragraph: I'm not sure how this is a plot hole, it seems consistent with everything else in the movie. To everyone involved, Jack Starks always died the day, place, and way that he did. It was shrouded by secrecy because he wasn't supposed to be out driving around with a doctor in the first place, and when he suffers a head injury, the proper medical response is not drugs, straight jacket and being stuffed in a small box. But that's what he insisted on, and ultimately what he needed, so they did it but they never wanted to discuss it for obvious reasons.

Another thought that wasn't really covered in the movie... Maybe if he didn't slip on the ice, later that day he would have been beat to death by the guard, or spasmed in the box and gave himself the head injury, who knows. Maybe when you're dead, you're just dead and no amount of time travel will change that, only the details, so some parts of fate are immutable and unchangeable.

Also someone else mentioned the possibility that he actually died in the Iraq war and the whole thing was a vision. I think that since Babek (who Jack never sees or meets iirc), is the same as the iraqi boy that shot him, this is a possibility. In that case the entire time travel story is more of a delusion his dying body creates as his brain runs out of oxygen.

[–] PsychoDingo 9 years ago

Or what we saw was the version of reality that was created as a result of all his manipulations throughout the timeline...in other words, perhaps what we saw was not his experience as he initially worked his way through time, but was the net result of that unseen initial journey, changes and all.

He was so crooked, he could eat soup with a corkscrew.

[–] NotASpeckOfCereal 8 years ago

And towards the end, if he NEVER had the motivation to write a letter to that chick he banged in the future ...

The letter wasn't for "that chick he banged in the future" -- it was for her mother.

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