The MAJOR FLAW in Triangle
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Erniesam — 10 years ago(May 27, 2015 07:59 AM)
There are several presumptions in play here of course.
First we have to acknowledge that this is INDEED history, meaning that Jess in reality has been on this ship in real life. Furthermore we have to assume that if this is indeed the case, that all the other people have mysteriously vanished. This could of course be due to the anomaly itself, meaning it is not real history, but on the other hand there's nothing to suggest that Jess indeed has been on this ship in real life.
The second problem is that the first (real) Jess is than all alone on this ship. So WHY would she want to kill the second Jess? There's no history surrounding her (as far as we know) and there's no reason to get mad. We see the progression of cluelees Jess becoming violent and determined, but the first Jess on this ship would not have that incentive.
The biggest problem of all is of course that you need THREE Jesses to create the loop cycle that is presented to us in the movie that is "clueless" "determined" and "evil" Jess. At one point determined Jess sees the other two fighting at the rail. And we know that "evil" Jess is created on board. So if there's only the real Jess on board when the first clueless Jess arives, we CANNOT have the loop cycle that is presented to us. -
camcody — 10 years ago(May 27, 2015 08:30 AM)
What you say is true. However, I'm sure one could imagine many different scenarios as to what took place that first time. What would cause the first clueless Jess to behave in much the same way as we see that first time. The time traveler Jess could be killing her friends just as we see in the movie too because in her mind, it is the only way to get back home to save her son. Also, the anomaly would create the next Jess in the same way coming on board with clueless Jess and another crew.
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Erniesam — 10 years ago(May 27, 2015 10:34 AM)
Also, the anomaly would create the next Jess in the same way coming on board with clueless Jess and another crew.
That to me seems impossible. Since a new Jess can only arrive when a Jess on the Aoleus gets thrown overboard, we still would have only two Jesses on board. -
warrior-poet — 10 years ago(May 29, 2015 02:36 PM)
There's three because there's a temporal discrepancy causing an overlap of three loops at a time (intersecting each loop into approximate thirds at about 30 minutes intervals). Leaving and returning also skips through the "outside" world in a moment, meaning the Jess iteration that shows up moments after one falls overboard is the next progression in the loop cycle as the one who just fell overboard (meaning if it was a Jess 20 falling overboard, it's a Jess 21 showing up a few seconds later, which is three loops after the one she just left). My matrix depicts the structure. Check out the below links. The second one is my OneDrive Triangle folder, which includes an Event Matrix spreadsheet with a number of diagrams in it.
http://www.imdb.com/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092
http://sdrv.ms/MoXetr
To answer the question you start with, there is never just one Jess version on the ship. The very first time Jess boards the ship she encounters future versions of herself that are at the end of the entire cycle (around Jess 80 perhaps). The diagrams in my spreadsheet depict this a variety of ways.
Parts 5 and 10 may be most applicable, but the rest touches are various related concepts as well:
http://www.imdb.com/board/11187064/board/inline/223982092?d=223982359&p=1#223982359
http://www.imdb.com/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092?d=223982209#223982209
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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Erniesam — 10 years ago(May 29, 2015 11:06 PM)
To answer the question you start with, there is never just one Jess version on the ship. The very first time Jess boards the ship she encounters future versions of herself that are at the end of the entire cycle (around Jess 80 perhaps). The diagrams in my spreadsheet depict this a variety of ways.
Ah, I see. You are suggesting it is a closed loop which you have figured out must contain 80 loops? But in this case you would STILL have the same problem: there's no beginning and no real ending. If by the 80th loop the circle of the OVERARCHING loop is completed, than perhaps we are being switched back to the beginning again like an Escher painting. This would mean that the amount of bodies on the Aeolus would also be set at 1 of each. But any way you look at it, this overarching loop CANNOT have a beginning since one needs THREE Jesses to make it work.
Another problem would be that what we witness on the Aeolus through the one Jess we are following that the recurring nightmare consists of several loops. We do not see ANY rerun on the Aeolus at all. All Jesses we see are different in that all these Jesses walk slightly different paths. For instance: there's only ONE Jess that becomes mean Jess, there's only ONE that throws mean Jess overboard and only ONE that throws the Jess overboard who just threw the mean one overboard. So what we witness than is the development of one particular Jess (the one who throws the mean one overboard), while the other Jesses we see develop slightly differently due to their different circumstanes. So one recurring loop consists of several different loops. I'm not to sure about the amount of loops. I have to watch the movie again for that. I figure 5 times, but I'm convinced you will know the speceifics of the movie way better than I do. But let's say this recurring loop consists of 5 loops, than we have to conclude that there are 4 good Jesses and 1 mean Jess in every recurring loop. -
warrior-poet — 10 years ago(May 29, 2015 11:22 PM)
You're close, but still missing it (it's not an easy concept). Structurally it's closed, meaning from a bird's eye or God's eye view of the entire timeline it'd be a closed string of events that goes for about 80 loops (that's an approximate based on the number of objects in piles plus some extra possible future loopsit could be more than that) intersecting with the linear timeline. Like any loop, once it's closed the timeline moves on beyond that point. In this case it's just a more complex 3-overlapping structure instead of a successive progression of single loops one after the other. But although the structure is closed, members of that structure are not. They pre-exist the loop cycle and they exist beyond it. They can enter it then exit it. In fact, because the film implies an entry point for Jess (she has a son, she owns a house, etc. which tells us she's existed long before the loop) there must also be an exit point since in order for her to enter the loop she must exit it, which allows for her to enter. Hopefully that makes sense. It's pretty mind-bending.
We actually see snippets of a total of 6 loops during the film (the couple of the periphery only a few brief events are observed), as depicted in my event matrix. The evidence we witness, and which you touch on and seemed to have picked up on, suggests that each loop may change ever so slightly as the loops progress, but stay largely the same (meaning the basic structure is highly similar, but that deviations evolve over time). What we observe (and this became much more apparent once I matrixed all the events of the film) is that there are two alternating patterns, one with a nice/confused Jess and one with a confused Jess who turns "mean" or more accurately more cold-blood at the end. These two patterns alternately repeat at least during the segment of loops we see. There are actually two "mean" Jess' in the film. We see them fight each other on the deck. With how the pattern alternatives, a nice Jess always throws another nice Jess overboard, and mean Jess always throws another mean Jess overboard after beating her with the boat hook.
Hope that helps! If you look through the diagrams int he spreadsheet it may help.
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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Erniesam — 10 years ago(May 29, 2015 11:46 PM)
I've read your timeline of events just now and it made me see certain things more clearly. Yes I was wrong about the creation of mean Jess. I figured she was just an anomaly in the process, but you've made me see it differently. There are INDEED only two Jesses: good Jess and mean Jess and they venture on two different paths. The other Jesses are stages in their development.
I still have to disagree with you on other certain points. You say that mean Jess kills the other mean Jess and good Jess the other good Jess. I don't see it that way. Do you consider the Jess we are following from the beginning mean? Yes, she becomes something like mean Jess, but she hasn't a bullet wound to the head. Furthermore: she is the one who kills mean Jess.
It seems to me that for the loop to continue it can only be that good Jess kills mean Jess in that this is what's neccesary for the continuation we see at the house: good Jess killing mean Jess.
In light of this I guess there are TWO different loop cycles which overlap each other by missing only ONE loop: the development of good Jess and the development of mean Jess. -
warrior-poet — 10 years ago(May 30, 2015 11:13 PM)
That's correct, there's two basic alternating patterns. However, logically those patterns could evolve into something slightly different over time. They can't deviate too much, however, because the last pattern merges back into the first one continuously. You're mistaken that nice Jess kills "mean" Jess. What we commonly label the "mean" Jess is the one who gets shot in the head. Our Jess doesn't confront that one. She kills another nice one. You may want to watch that again (it's definitely a lot to absorb and only after careful study did I pin it down), although again my matrix is an exact replica of the events in the film and how the events of each loop correlate, and you can see that nice-defeats-nice and mean-defeats-mean. The only so-called "mean" Jess we see get thrown overboard is when "our" Jess (the one we follow) looks down at the main deck from where the dead Sally corpses are and watches one mean one beat the other with a boat hook (possibly killing her) before lifting her over the railing. In the nice Jess fight (which we watch twice, each time with "our" Jess on the other end of things), one swings with an ax at the other and the other nice Jess tumbles backwards, never getting hit. Hopefully that helps clarify things. It's rather complex.
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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Erniesam — 10 years ago(May 31, 2015 05:04 AM)
I've watched the movie yesterday again and it's amazing what wonders a second viewing can do. You're absolutely right: the pattern is indeed uneven number throws uneven number overboard and the evn numbers the even numbers. That way you get indeed that the nice and mean Jess take turns in getting thrown overboard. Weird how I got the impression that the nice Jess (the one we are following) is thrown overboard immediately after she throws the other one overboard. I was under the impression after first time watching it that she throws MEAN Jess overboard an wellyou can see how one can screw things up when thinking that.
I do see that you have studied it carefully indeed and that I was too pigheaded to take that at face value. I guess I'd like to find things out for myself and learn it the hard way. So I guess this means that we have indeed two cycles of Jess: the cycle of nice and the cycle of mean Jess. This means that after we have seen nice Jess murdering mean Jess at her house that the next time mean Jess will kill nice Jess at the house don't you think?
Last night I noticed another thing that I got wrong: when Jess walks up to the harbor and meets Victor at the end she states that she doesn't know him. This indicates that the process of erasing the memory has already begun and that the dream only constitutes the conclusion of the memory loss. -
warrior-poet — 10 years ago(June 01, 2015 03:37 PM)
This movie definitely requires some study to get the details ironed out. Chris Smith spent a long time working on those details to get them like he wanted them. This movie almost needs a 101 course!
For the bit about two patterns, bingo. Jess adopts the "nice" then "mean' personality each time she loops around. However, Jess 0, or Jess Prime, i.e. the Jess at the house that she bashes in the head, is only on the periphery of the loop. This is Jess in her original starting state, before the loops began (until she gets her head caved in, that is). She's neither "mean" nor "nice" because she gets prevented from ever going to the harbor. So the result is that the same Jess cycles around again and again and again, swapping between "nice" and "mean" each time. She only drives to the harbor and boards the Aeolus one time. She then loops around 80-something (or many more) times, killing her original self each time. Eventually, she must not kill her original self and let that past version drive to the harbor (or she has the crash and decides not to go with the Ferryman), which is how the end loop feeds back into the starting loop. Thinking about it is enough to make brain cells leak from your ears!
There's a lot of debate over exactly what Jess remembers, when she forgets what, and how much she remembers each time she experiences deja vu. For her comment to Victor, there's speculation that she's playing along at that point and in fact remembers him but lies about it, which results in a cleaner demarcation point for her amnesia (the dream on the boat). However, Smith didn't want to present things that cleanly. He wanted it to be ambiguous and for the audience to question certain things and form their own conclusions, which means there isn't a surefire answer regarding her amnesia and what she remembers exactly, which has sparked a massive amount of debate over the years. I can see it both ways. But it's simpler to conclude that she only loses her memory on the yacht, and that her behavior on the dock is her playing along knowing full well what's about to happen. Of course, she then forgets all of that, with her first deja vu moment being the dream she wakes up from.
This aspect of the film, like much of it, is open to interpretation, however.
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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m-vaskes — 10 years ago(July 23, 2015 03:31 PM)
There are some quotes from the film's writer and director, Christopher Smith, in the FAQ. If you read them, you'll see he has absolutely no idea what's he's talking about in terms of continuity. I'd say that is the major flaw.
http://straycatgraphics.com/ -
peter_rmp — 10 years ago(December 27, 2015 06:43 AM)
I see two small flaws in the movie. The ship that passes by already has the gangway ladder lowered for them to step on, which is strange as a moving ship would not have a gangway lowered on the move. Also when Jessie looks over the side of the ship and see's the upturned yacht with them all standing waving their arms for help, the yacht is at least 50 yards away from the ship and they would not be close enough to just step on the ship's gangway as they did.
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newbiesan — 9 years ago(June 16, 2016 01:11 PM)
You my friend have just noticed the hardest thign to realise about a timeloop. There is a beginning, but the looping itself re-writes the start, so it looks like there is no start.
Maybe I can paint it liek this:
imagine:
-The first loop: they arive on the ship. They find nobody there,they flip out and somehow they die except jess (How? don't know: accidents, she went mad etc. this does not matter). But because they all die, now we get:
-The second loop: She sees them arrive just like we saw in the movie. She sees everthign happen again liek it so we get:
-The third loop: She has completely lost here mind now and tries to kill her own copy. But her copy fight back just liek we see at the start of the film.
This marks the set of the next loop, just as we see in the movie now there are other her's on board because of the first 3 loops and the first loop is re-writen.