Spoilers Question about the movie "Source Code."

[Gingerbread Demon]

Just in case I marked this as spoilers....

And it's an OK movie that has grown on me. I like it for what it is.

However one item in the story I still don't get, at least not entirely.

If the guy is in that box in some kind of simulation world how did he manage to send a text message to someone outside the box unless what they were creating was a whole universe in that box, or other reality that can be connected to the outside world?

Anyone seen this movie care to comment / talk?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The technology used to create the simulation artificially created its own reality.

When the connection to this reality was severed, the artificially created reality became an independent actual reality for the soldier. The message sent at the end about the true potential for the technology was sent to the Air Force base in the new, independent reality that the soldier was now in.

I think Source Code is one of the most original and imaginative science fiction movie to come out in decades. Beats the fuck out of Interstellar.

 

[Christopher]

If the guy is in that box in some kind of simulation world how did he manage to send a text message to someone outside the box unless what they were creating was a whole universe in that box, or other reality that can be connected to the outside world?

That was exactly the point. The scientists in the film believed that what Stevens experienced was only a simulation or a replay, but they were wrong. He was actually accessing real parallel universes the whole time, but he was the only one who understood that, because the scientists outside didn't have his firsthand experience.

It's always surprised me how many people misunderstand this. The ending was criticized by multiple reviewers for "cheating" by contradicting the rules that had been explained earlier in the movie -- but the point was that the earlier exposition had been wrong to begin with. Stevens gradually figured that out over the course of the film because of things that happened to him that didn't fit the simulation/replay theory, things that proved he was observing things that the Fentress of his timeline couldn't possibly have known and interacting in real ways with people outside the train, as with that text message. But some people just assume that anything a character says in a story has to be unquestionable truth, that every character is speaking for the writer, so they didn't realize that the characters were intended all along to be mistaken about how their device worked.