Triangle: An Objective And Thorough Analysis (Spoilers)
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warrior-poet — 12 years ago(December 30, 2013 10:57 PM)
Back to Part X:
http://www.imdb.com/rg/e/bt/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092?d=2 23982324#223982324
Time Loop Structures (Normal vs. Triangle)
In this section Ill lay out some of the basics of the loop structure in an effort to depict how it MUST be based on how a time loop works in conjunction with what we see in Triangle. Not only is it logical for Jess to meet her future self because of the temporal fragmentation the temporal disruption creates, it's the ONLY way it would happen. In a non-fragmented situation this of course would not happen, and the only duplicates that would ever exist would be in the past. Jess would kill herself, take original Jess' place, and continue the loop, without ever meeting any other versions of herself on the Aeolus. But time is fractured, which is why we get the triplicate result we see in the film (with perpetual integration of 3 loops at a time).
Let's break it down into several scenarios and see what happens. Remember that the number's I'm adding are merely a designation for the purpose of keeping track of the loop Jess is in (i.e. its still technically the same Jess entity). Refer to the Loop Structure worksheet in my Triangle Event Matrix.xlsx that can be downloaded from
http://sdrv.ms/MoXetr
for a diagram of this. In addition, in this scenario the exit event entails Jess choosing to not go home and kill her original self. Theres a couple of ways this exit could actually occur, but this is the one Im choosing for the example because its simpler to convey (i.e. Im ignoring the paradox for the examples).
Scenario 1:
1-loop cycle (no fragmentation is possible since theres only one loop):
Jess 1 drops Tommy off at school (since Jess 2 didnt go home and kill her)
Jess 1 drives to the harbor
Jess 1 experiences the Aeolus (no duplicates)
Jess 1 accidentally slips and falls into the past (becomes Jess 2)
Jess 2 hitches a ride out of state and never returns (end of loop). While she's doing this, since she didn't go home to kill Jess 1, the following happens simultaneously:
Jess 1 drops Tommy off at school (since Jess 2 didnt go home and kill her)
and so on
Scenario 2:
3-loop cycle WITH NO temporal fragmentation (i.e. typical multi-loop time travel scenario):
Jess 1 drops Tommy off at school (since Jess 4 didnt kill her)
Jess 1 drives to the harbor
Jess 1 experiences the Aeolus (no duplicates)
Jess 1 accidentally slips and falls into the past (becomes Jess 2)
Jess 2 hitches a ride home and kills Jess 1
Jess 2 crashes and takes a taxi to the harbor
Jess 2 experiences the Aeolus (no duplicates)
Jess 2 accidentally slips and falls into the past (becomes Jess 3)
Jess 3 hitches a ride home and kills Jess 1
Jess 3 crashes and takes a taxi to the harbor
Jess 3 experiences the Aeolus (no duplicates)
Jess 3 accidentally slips and falls into the past (becomes Jess 4)
Jess 4 hitches a ride out of state and never returns (exits loop). While she's doing this, since she didn't go home to kill Jess 1, the following happens simultaneously:
Jess 1 drops Tommy off at school (since Jess 4 didnt kill her)
and so on
This simpler, non-fragmented scenario illustrates the repeating cycle structure. If at any time Jess does something to no longer perpetuate the loop for herself, the original events of her driving to the harbor are allowed to unfold unhindered, thus starting the overall pattern over again. In this manner the last loop feeds into the first loop. This also tells us that Jess MUST at some point exit the cycle. If she did not, then there was never a version of events that entailed Jess driving to the harbor. Because Jess goes to the past at all, there cannot be a version where an iteration of looping Jess isnt waking up on the beach while original Jess is getting ready at the house. We know this because of the very nature of a time loop. Scenarios 1 and 2 make it easier to understand why this is.
In other words, every time Jess is allowed to drive to the harbor there is ALWAYS a Jess that wakes up on the beach. One of two branches of events then occur. Option 1 is that she then chooses to not go home and kill her original self (e.g. perhaps she hitchhikes out of state and never returns). For option 2 she does create the paradox by killing her original self, but either after the car crash she chooses not to go to the harbor, or if she goes to the harbor she tells Greg shes not going with them and returns to the cab driver/Ferryman as she promised. In both of these cases the timeline collapses and Looping Jess, along with all the changes she made, disappears.
Scenario 3a:
8-loop cycle WITH temporal fragmentation (Triangle time travel scenario):
Note that in this scenario there is a minimum of 8 loops, with Loop 1 also being loop 6 (meaning loops 1 and 6, with 6 being the exit loop, occur simultaneously as Loop 1 and 4 did in the scenario above). Because of the anomalous fragmentation and overlapping, the normal 3-loop cycle is multiplied by 3. However, 8 is the absolute minimum number pos -
warrior-poet — 11 years ago(May 18, 2014 11:41 PM)
Back to Part XI:
http://www.imdb.com/rg/e/bt/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092?d=2 23982359#223982359
Pivotal Excerpts From Interviews With Chris Smith
Internet Shortcut Links for the entire interviews these snippets are extracted from can be viewed in my SkyDrive Triangle folder at
http://sdrv.ms/MoXetr
in the Internet Links subfolder, and the entire interviews have been compiled in the Triangle - Chris Smith Interviews document. In addition, video and audio interviews with Chris Smith can be found in the Interviews subfolder.
http://www.imdb.com/board/11187064/trivia
The film is set in Miami, Florida, but was filmed entirely in Queensland. Both Florida and Queensland are known as "The Sunshine State"; a nickname used on a road sign in the film.
The film makes many oblique references to The Shining. The number 237 crops up, which was the same number of the spooky hotel room Danny was forbidden to go into; there are also words written on a mirror, a ballroom and an axe.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/movietime/triangle/310520 2
An empty ocean liner is the eerie centrepiece of this psychological thriller about a young single mother caught in a parallel reality nightmare. A British-Australian co-production (the first to receive Screen Australia's new Producer Offset), it was shot in Queensland with an Australian cast, but it's actually set off the coast of Miami, presumably the Bermuda Triangle.
http://www.film-news.co.uk/show-review.asp?H=Christopher-Smith&nIt emID=74
I had been trying for a long while to actually make this film. I started to write the script and gave it to my agent to read and probably only got as far as loop 2 when I went mental. I said to my agent Am I insane here, or this gonna be alright for a film, or am I going crazy? and he said, You should look at The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner and read it. So I tried for a long while to add elements of that and have a wedding sequence. Then theres the aspect of the Bermuda Triangle. We were playing with the idea of having Jess (the main character) getting off the boat and attending her sons wedding, because the myth of the Bermuda Triangle is that you disappear and come back years later. I very nearly had her come back thirty years later to attend his wedding, while thirty years ago she had left him to run off with a handsome man and never came back to pick him up from school. So it almost worked.
I had the original idea, which was what would it be like if the person looking over the bow of a ship is you, and youre looking at yourself as you arrive on the ship. Then from that I built the whole story with a group of characters, the central one was a mother, but is she a good mum or a bad mum? Is her child autistic, or is it in his mind or her mind because she has a sort of Munchausens syndrome by proxy? There were all these mad ideas I had, but then there was the idea of what happens if there isnt really a beginning and an end and we keep her trapped in this kind of circle.
So what is that circle? Is it some sort of purgatory because shes a bad mum? Is it guilt, because if youve done something wrong you cant escape from it and cant escape from yourself? Or is it just a kind of ghost ship movie? Or a psychosis movie? There were all these layers, and I wanted to have all of them. Even when we shot the movie, we had three endings. They were all at the same point, post-car crash, so it was does she have amnesia there or the other alternative is that she proactively goes back into the circle. So the question then is why would she choose to go back into it all again?
There are moments when I throw verbal questions at the audience, for example when the other characters in the film say that she (Jess) is crazy. I think in the armory sequence where she starts to write the notes you begin to think shes lost her mind because shes talking to herself. I think the movie reeks of her whole breakdown; there are always lots of shots with multiple mirrors where shes seeing herself. Of course, the film is also about her guilt of being a bad mother or simply just being a bad person. You can never escape your own guilt. All those evil things on the ship happen because of her, but she cant remember why. Although in the end, it becomes obvious why. She realizes that she isnt the mother she thought she was and thats the morality aspect of it.
I like the title and the echoes of the Bermuda Triangle. Originally it was an idea and for some people the idea is naff, for others its kind of cool. But yes, its deliberately misleading but at the same time sells the mythology to those who want it. So yeah, I felt for those who wanted it to be that, its fine. For those who dont want it to be that, its about a triangle, like three sides to a character. It still works as an enigmatic title, I think.
http://www.moviemuser.co.uk/Features/3099/INTERVIEW-Christopher-Smith- Talks-Triangle.aspx
There was -
fillshertease — 11 years ago(August 04, 2014 01:41 PM)
I don't know if you remember me from the discussion about water over on the Signs board? We had a bit of a shaky start but soon connected and in the end I was going to go off and do some polling of everyday people to see what they thought and knew about water. That didn't work out so well and I abandoned it in the end
Anyway I just watched Triangle and then immediately came to the boards here and was not at all surprised to find you waist deep in discussions about this quite amazing film!
We're from the planet Duplon. We are here to destroy you. -
warrior-poet — 11 years ago(August 04, 2014 08:54 PM)
Hi! Yes you were one who was quite reasonable in your approach and discussion on that board. No worries about the poll. I imagine that would be quite an effort.
Indeed, "Triangle" stands out for me as particularly engaging. "Signs" was an okay movie and I post there merely to discuss what some erroneously claim are scientific inaccuracies.
"Triangle", on the other hand," is a film that really stuck with me and enticed me into deep thought, in part because of its ambiguity, but also because I'm intrigued by how what we observe might related to real-world theoretical and experimental scientific concepts like quantum teleportation, relativity, etc.
In addition, it's emotional core, connotation and message is just as thought-provoking.
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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fillshertease — 11 years ago(August 11, 2014 02:02 AM)
The problem with the poll was that I couldn't find many people who had seen Signs and remembered what happened. It's a relatively old film now so most people haven't seen it recently. That being the case I had to explain it to people before I could get their responses and that suffered from the uncertainty principle. I wasn't able to explain the scenario and then find out what people thought without biasing the outcome with my explanation. As such the results were always going to be unreliable so I stopped.
Triangle is awesome. Over the course of a few weeks it kept cropping up in various places so I decided to sit down and watch it. I'm glad I did. I then came to the boards to see what people were saying and quickly discovered that there was a lot of healthy debate going on. Which I love! I read through your thesis, then I went to your 'page' and downloaded your Word document which steps through the timeline. That is a bl00dy good document just quietly. It probably would have taken me another couple of viewings to pick up all the stuff you mentioned so I'm grateful to have been brought up to speed so quickly thank you.
Clearly it's possible to interpret all the events in different ways. At the moment I have some real issues with the whole Bermuda Triangle idea but I won't mention them here. I'll do some more reading and see if others have already brought them up. Part of my problem I think is that I once lived in Australia and as a result, when I started watching the movie it was an Australian actress and they were clearly in Queensland - in reality - so the idea that they were actually off the coast of Florida didn't register at all. It's funny how the mind can get stuck in cases like that
We're from the planet Duplon. We are here to destroy you. -
warrior-poet — 11 years ago(August 13, 2014 11:01 AM)
It's amazing to me that people are still finding this film. I have a feeling that "Triangle" is destined to become a bit of a cult classic that'll be drawing in new viewers for a long time to come.
You're definitely not the first person to be thrown a bit by the Australian location and the American accents that aren't always successful in the film. Especially for someone like yourself who lived in Queensland it's hard to see the film as being set in Miami.
It is, though, and this has been verified. Chris Smith's intent is that it takes place in Miami, and the Aeolus even has a Miami plaque on the inside of the bow. I can see how it may be hard to ignore the clearly Australian environment and actors, however.
There are a couple of quirks that become obvious upon close scrutinization. For example, when Jess is driving along the coast the ocean is on her left side. If she were truly in Florida it would be to her right. Also, although she's supposedly in the Miami area she reaches the "please come again" sign very quickly, even though it should have been a several hour drive to the Northern Florida border.
These could be seen as movie quirks/mistakes. Or, they could be taken to indicate that what we're observing isn't reality but is instead a dream/nightmare/afterlife experience. Or, perhaps we're viewing an alternate reality, which if you think about it all movies really are at least to some extent.
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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xalanxlp-21-263256 — 11 years ago(September 14, 2014 02:47 PM)
Thank you for this brilliant analysis of the movie. Some mind blowing research and detailing of literally everything. Been 2 hours reading and it's 3am! Absolutely amazing. Perhaps the movie would not have been as enlightening in my memory as it has now after going through all this. It's 2014 and I find it unbelievable how low this rating is and how I missed this movie in 2009. This is my first imdb post, was compelled to write this for the depth and effort you gave in for this.
10/10
to you. -
voyagerandsouthpark — 9 years ago(July 09, 2016 12:34 PM)
does anyone know where i can find a video of other jess who our jess threatens with the shotgun who later becomes mean jess? i have bought the dvd but it doesn't show that scene but i know it was shot and cut, just wondering if anyone has it or knows where to find it?
"sir, sir, i gotta check and see if you've soiled yourself, I'll get to you in a moment, sir!" -
warrior-poet — 9 years ago(July 09, 2016 10:22 PM)
I didn't realize there was a version that didn't include that scene. It's about 56 minutes in. Perhaps Spielburger may know if there's a version without the banquet hall face-off scene. Where'd you get your DVD? That scene is pretty important in my view. I'm surprised they have a version with that cut out. Sorry, I'm not much help on where to get a copy that includes that scene. I thought they all had it.
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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voyagerandsouthpark — 9 years ago(July 10, 2016 02:29 AM)
i don't mean the scene where she gets threatened, i mean afterwards when she hides and eventually kills mean jess who she later becomes, would be a good sequel where we follow that jess, a jess that remembers a previous loop, that's one theory anyway. I know the scene was shot when she runs away after being threatened but was never shown, just wondering if theres a deleted scene somehow with that in it.
"sir, sir, i gotta check and see if you've soiled yourself, I'll get to you in a moment, sir!" -
Spielburger — 9 years ago(July 10, 2016 06:26 AM)
Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but like Warrior_Poet I was a little confused as to exactly which scene you meant.
Yes, they did film the new "loop 1" Jess running off and hiding, and it was originally included in an early cut shown to a test audience, but we only know that because Christopher Smith mentions it in his DVD commentary. I've never seen it, and I've never heard from someone who has (although they obviously exist!).
I'm also not aware of any released deleted scene, but then again the whole issue of deleted scenes is a little mysterious (e.g. the way in which the only two official deleted scenes on the R2 DVD are numbered "1" and "3").
The original line seemed to be that very few changes were made post-production, but then when you go through Smith's comments it becomes clear that quite a few alterations were made. We know a number of changes to the script were actually made
during filming
(e.g. the locket scene), so that might be where some of the confusion comes from.
From the DVD Commentary:
[Timestamp 0:54:40]
And in the script, we had a sequence here where we actually ran off with that Jess there. So the one you see running away; I used to actually go off with in the story, and we would run away with her for a while, while she ran away and hid.
Now we actually did shoot it. And we used to see her go off and hide behind the funnels at the front of the ship. And thats a classic example of what we were saying before where when we did a test screening of the audience, the audience got very Sorry; when we did a test screening of the film for an audience, they got a little confused as to which Jess they were supposed to be following. Now that is actually the point of the movie in as way; that you realize that theyre all Jesses, and that you can actually care for all of them, but we decided to cut out the fact of her running off because it was more information than we felt an audience could cope with without becoming so spun out by the film they lost interest.
Its certainly something I wouldnt mind seeing put into a longer version of the film, to see if those moments could work.
Note: for those who are interested, this section of the commentary comes immediately before Smith's explanation of "the Mean Jess" that I've transcribed in the FAQ.
"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen." -
voyagerandsouthpark — 9 years ago(July 10, 2016 10:18 AM)
actually there is 3 deleted scenes on the dvd its just after 1 and 3. i know the deleted scene of new jess 1 is never shown but i wonder what she does after she gets threatened, hides for a while, apparently finds greg, victor and downey cause she mentions it to victor in her next loop, then shes heard running when our jess fights jess 3 and also when jess 1 fights our jess. 1 theory is jess 1 disposes of the bodies of victor, greg and downey but not sally cause shes on the top deck, its just a big gap missing from the film and i know that at the end of the movie our jess will become the jess that gets threatened later on.
"sir, sir, i gotta check and see if you've soiled yourself, I'll get to you in a moment, sir!" -
Spielburger — 9 years ago(July 10, 2016 11:07 AM)
actually there is 3 deleted scenes on the dvd its just after 1 and 3.
What are the three deleted scenes you're referring to?
The two on my DVD are "Deleted Scene 1: JESS SAVES VICTOR" and "Deleted scene 3: DOES SALLY LOVE GREGG?". This is on my R2 (UK and RoI) DVD copy that I bought when it first came out.
What other scene(s) do you have? Which region/country is your DVD from, and when did you buy it?
I want to make it very clear here that I'm not doubting you! It's just that it's been a nightmare keeping tabs on the different releases and what they contain.
"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen." -
voyagerandsouthpark — 9 years ago(July 12, 2016 01:13 AM)
theres a deleted scene of greg hearing jess 2 when she leaves through the door after jess 1 and greg 1 find the bloody message on the mirror, its a different video than the other 2 deleted scenes and is named deleted scene #2
"sir, sir, i gotta check and see if you've soiled yourself, I'll get to you in a moment, sir!" -
Spielburger — 9 years ago(July 12, 2016 05:16 AM)
Interesting - thanks.
Is this on DVD or Blu-ray? And which country/Region is it on?
I've currently got
three
copies of this movie, which is pretty extreme even for me, but I'd probably consider another one if it's got something interesting and I can get hold of it fairly cheaply
"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen." -
warrior-poet — 9 years ago(July 12, 2016 12:59 PM)
Kind of sounds like the missing deleted scene 2 on your disc was an oops that's since been corrected? Didn't you have one that had a 1 and a 3 but oddly no 2? Maybe what he's describing is the missing 2.
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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Spielburger — 9 years ago(July 12, 2016 03:11 PM)
Kind of sounds like the missing deleted scene 2 on your disc was an oops that's since been corrected? Didn't you have one that had a 1 and a 3 but oddly no 2? Maybe what he's describing is the missing 2.
Yeah; that's what I'm thinking. That's why in an earlier post I asked voyagerandsouthpark
when
he got his copy: I got mine as soon as it came out.
Another possibility is that it's on the Blu-ray: I've only got DVD copies
"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen."