Table Of Contents
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warrior-poet — 12 years ago(December 30, 2013 10:52 PM)
Back to Part VI:
http://www.imdb.com/rg/e/bt/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092?d=2 23982234#223982234
The Seagull Pile Controversy
In this section I propose an explanation for the piled up seagulls. It will be primarily presented from a science fiction time travel standpoint, but the methodologies can be applied to any interpretation. Although Im drawing upon information from the film directly, I will not disagree that it is a speculative venture. However, based on what were shown in the film, I deem it reasonable speculation. I will also not claim that this was Chris Smiths intention, but I dont see that it matters. He has not addressed this aspect of the film, and therefore Im assessing the matter on its own merits, based on whats presented within the movie itself, including the structure of the loops as theyre depicted and the mere fact that theres a pile of seagulls.
Three assumptions can be made based on what we observe in the movie:
Assumption 1: The Grandfather Paradox
Time travel paradoxes as theyre understood in mainstream science fiction are at play in Triangle, creating a situation that allows Jess to repeat the causal loop she and the seagull are in after creating a potential temporal paradox by killing her former self from the originating timeline fragment at the house. This entails some form of innate natural function, whatever that may be, that works to prevent or in this case correct temporal conflicts, i.e. the so-called Grandfather Paradox where an object that goes to the past interferes with its own history in a way that would have prevented it from going to the past.
The previously cited Seth Lloyd Grandfather Paradox experiments (see Part III) utilizing quantum entanglement and post-selection techniques seem to prove the existence of some natural mechanism that prevents temporal paradoxes on at least a quantum scale (which may be the only scale for which time travel will ever be possible). I invoke this premise as presented in science fiction literature and cinema and within the movie itself since Triangle clearly depicts a macroscopic sentient entity being transported back in time to a different locality than she was, in fact her original iteration still is, at that point in her past.
Assumption 2: Linear Timeline Fragments Looping Sequentially
The temporal anomaly, whether an actual physical Bermuda Triangle phenomenon, a metaphysical construct designed by a sentient non-human agent, or a combination of those two things (e.g. a god-like being posing as the Ferryman, or who the Ferryman reports to, could very easily create physical Bermuda Triangle events), has created a kind of contained multiverse environment composed of fragments spun off of a linear timeline (i.e. splitting off asynchronous timeline fragments in a manner that allows them to interface with each other), and each thread is being fed back into their shared originating timeline fragment one at a time in sequential order (despite it being a fixed point in their shared past), however that might be occurring. To clarify, what we observe is a single linear timeline thats being fragmented and then looped back around into itself sequentially.
Ill dedicate Part VIII to expounding upon this particular item in-depth.
Assumption 3: The Following Seagull
This assumption proposes the idea that a seagull follows the Triangle yacht into the Aeolus Environment, follows Jess back out again into the past, then hits the car. Im forming this conclusion simply because the seagulls are piling up and because at first blush this creates a logical incongruence with the rules established by the film regarding why other objects are piling up within the anomalous temporal/spatial event. I am not suggesting that this was Smiths intent. He merely wanted an eerie way to reveal that Jess is in fact still in a loop at the end of the film. But Im compelled to explain it nonetheless.
So Im invoking the pervasive seagull theme present throughout the movie (a reference to The Rime Of The Ancient Marinersee Part II) that seems to be intimately tied to Jess circumstance. Persistently throughout the film were shown that a seagull is following Jess (e.g. above her car while shes driving, as the yacht disembarks, as the yacht sails out on the ocean, the numerous seagulls milling around the Aeolus, the seagull flying far above just after Jess falls overboard during the shot of the sun, etc.), as well as a number of scenes where Jess hears a seagull and looks up at the sky (e.g. while taking laundry from the clothes line, as she gets out of the taxi, etc.). And Im using the pile of seagulls itself as evidence to support the notion that they are a byproduct of the temporal disruption, even though they are no longer in it, that the anomaly is having an impact outside its threshold due to how it interfaces with the outside world sequentially and by rendering objects that pass through it anomalous (i.e. out of sync with their own originating timeline segment). -
warrior-poet — 12 years ago(December 30, 2013 10:53 PM)
Back to Part VII:
http://www.imdb.com/rg/e/bt/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092?d=2 23982258#223982258
Assumption 2: Linear Timeline Fragments Looping Sequentially Additional Notes
The following is exposition for Assumption 2 in Part VII. Note that Im avoiding mythological references here, with maybe one or two exceptions, and transposing them fully to a science fiction scenario, but more to point Im deviating a bit from Triangle and focusing more on the general time looping concept itself.
In a normal time travel scenario an object would encounter itself if it were to be transported into its own localized past (meaning it goes into the past at a point in time that intercedes with its own history). This means if a time traveler were to stand on a temporal sending platform for 1 hour and then get transported to the past 30 minutes to a receiving platform 10 feet away from the sending device, there would be two of them temporarily. As a result, the sending version would see himself appear from nowhere next to him 30 minutes before being transported. Their temporal existence would overlap.
But there would never be more than two of them at a time, and it would only happen once as long as he stepped off the receiver and didnt crowd in next to himself on the sending platform or do something that would interfere with what was already observed, which he knows he didnt do because its already happened, hes already witnessed that future. This outcome would adhere to the Novikov self-consistency principle (which basically states that any attempt to change the past would only end up producing an outcome identical to that known history, i.e. the past cant be changed in a way that creates a paradox). This conclusion is bolstered by the aforementioned Seth Lloyd quantum teleportation experiments.
The implication to free will this time travel scenario invokes is thought-provoking, but theres actually a logical explanation for it. In a fictional scenario akin to what we see portrayed in Triangle, lets have the time traveler kill his former self 15 minutes after he appears in the past on the receiving platform, before his past self gets transported 30 minutes later. There is every indication that this is impossible, that something would occur to prevent such paradoxes. What could that mechanism be? As discussed previously, a causal loop collapse, i.e. the timeline fragment would collapse back into its original state, undoing the events that led up to the temporal conflict, either preventing it entirely or erasing it so that it effectively never happened.
So the time traveler goes back in time then kills himself. Perhaps in this fictional universe the laws of physics function in a manner that corrects paradoxes after the fact instead of preventing them as long as the possibility of a correction exists, i.e. up until a point of no return. We could throw in that perhaps something inexplicably compels him to step back on the platform, something akin to the seagull being used as the long arm of the Aeolus Environment to guide Jess back into the fold. In this case, maybe a light fixture falls from the ceiling, or some other seemingly natural event, making him jump back on the platform. But lets remove that concept from the scenario for the sake of simplicity (and consider the possibility that the seagull looping through the temporal anomaly and then hitting the car windshield in Triangle is truly just a coincidence).
If our time traveler were to loop back 30 minutes then kill his past self whod been standing on the sending platform for 30 minutes, creating a potential paradox, we can boil down his subsequent choices to: 1) he gets on the sending platform and waits to be transported again, or 2.) he doesnt get back on the platform. If he chooses the first option perhaps he then perpetuates the loop by taking the place of his former self who he killed (we have to assume in this case that physical laws allow for this), but the laws of physics kick in and nullify any other choice he makes, anything that doesnt involve being transported again and fulfilling his own past.
It does this by collapsing the loop and resetting it to its original state, erasing any event that alters the past that was already established. So if he were to wait beyond the 30 minutes, hed disappear, the body would disappear, that span of time and any byproduct of his deviant actions would disappear. The paradox would be resolved simply by expunging it, by forcing a do-over. Similar to the outcome of the Seth Lloyd Grandfather Paradox experiment cited in Part IV, the effort would simply fail if it hit, or predicted, a paradox.
Technically this timeline fragment collapse would also occur if he killed himself. Its doubtful that some mechanism would allow him to go back in time and replace his past self to fulfill the transportation event. As soon as he did anything that would cause a paradox it would all evaporate, and the effort would fail. But to align this wi -
warrior-poet — 12 years ago(December 30, 2013 10:54 PM)
Back to Part VIII:
http://www.imdb.com/rg/e/bt/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092?d=223982277#223982277
A Fragmented Linear Timeline
This section includes detailed exposition pertaining to Assumption 2 of Part VII (and the outline presented there), and exists as further elucidation on the Assumption 2 musing introduced in Part VIII.
In Triangle we see that a new timeline fragment (meaning its not a new timeline, merely a portion of the originating timeline cordoned off into a finite segment) is split off from the originating timeline each time they enter the bubble. This discrepancy produces an overlapping temporal loop structure that in turn produces multiple versions of the same object that then all exist within the same time frame indefinitely if they are left in a static positional state until they leave that state one way or another (e.g. get thrown overboard, cleaned up, etc.) In essence, the anomalous Aeolus Environment, the spacetime disruption bubble, has created a contained multiverse of sorts, except unlike the Hugh Everett Level III Multiverse conception where each split-off universe isnt aware of the others, each disparate timeline fragment interacts with and overlaps each other, contained so that they all occupy the same region of space. This part of what we observe in Triangle actually makes sense.
But then the anomaly does something even weirder.
It proceeds to loop and merge each asynchronous timeline fragment that it spawned back into the past originating timeline one at a time, sequentially. It essentially temporally resynchronizes each segment back with the originating timeline (which they all share, and is normal), yet simultaneously keeps them asynchronous from each other, allowing items or organisms orphaned in time as an anomalous object to pile up in the outside world, where under normal circumstances they would reset with each loop. This is bizarre to be sure, but its what Triangle shows us is happening, so is a rule we must live by, and is the assumption under which I will proceed.
So what if the time traveler from Part VIII had a transportation device that was doing the same thing, perhaps due to some glitch they missed until after an initial experiment that went awry? Each time hes transported it splits him off into a new timeline fragment thats out of sync with all other timeline segments, but then merges each fragment back into the original starting timeline in the past. Not only that, it does so in a fashion that compounds or merges the product of each timeline section with every subsequent timeline portion one at a time, where objects undergoing the transportation process are rendered asynchronous from each other, but sync back up to their shared originating timeline. This means each subsequent timeline fragment remains in the relative past of the previous timeline segments. This flaw in the system becomes apparent when our time traveler creates the paradox and goes through the process 6 times and things pile up unexpectedly.
Normally each time the time traveler is sent to the past he would loop back into the same unaltered originating timeline he just came from, prior to any changes that had been made. But because of the glitch, each time hes sent to the past he ends up in a merged timeline segment, one that retains the anomalous history (meaning time-orphaned objects) of all previous timeline fragments combined, where that history remains as the future for upcoming timeline sections in a causal loop manner. This produces some abnormal, although non-paradoxical outcomes. As long as he keeps closing the loop (i.e. either killing himself and taking his other versions place, or joining his other self on the platform), his past will quite literally also be his future, and if the coin is a part of the same errant series of one-at-a-time merging timeline fragments he is, theyd go with him even though hes not physically picking them up and bringing them along each loop. And theyd still be there when he circled back around, so theyd pile up on the table.
Heres how it would play out, and Ill utilize similar labelling that I did in part VII, with each timeline fragment designated as Timeline 0, Timeline 1, Timeline 0-1, etc. The time traveler picks up the coin in Timeline 0, goes to the past and is split off into Timeline 1 (well refer to it as Timeline 0-1, being a string with a shared history). He then appears in Timeline 0-1-0 (a combination of the originating Timeline 0, the Timeline 1 he was split off into, then back into Timeline 0), drops the coin, kills himself, picks up the coin, goes to the past and is split off into yet another Timeline (0-1-0-2), reappearing again in the past (Timeline 0-1-0-2-0), where he adds a second coin to the first one hed left there. And the timeline fragments continue to compile from there.
As long as he keeps killing himself and taking his original versions place (or not killing himself and instead joining him on the platform, in which case he -
warrior-poet — 11 years ago(July 08, 2014 09:00 AM)
In a way, here's some updated thoughts on the proposed/possible nature of the time loops (and theoretical science behind it) for a discussion taking place on the "Edge Of Tomorrow" board, for anyone interested:
http://www.imdb.com/board/11631867/board/inline/231686120?d=231742113 &p=1#231742113
I'm something new entirely. With my own set of rules. I'm Dexter. Boo.
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warrior-poet — 12 years ago(December 30, 2013 10:56 PM)
Back to Part IX:
http://www.imdb.com/rg/e/bt/board/11187064/board/thread/223982092?d=2 23982301#223982301
Beginning And End
This further expands on certain aspects of the proposed origins discussed in Part VI. Ill preface that in this section I use terminology that correlates more to at least a partially physical (i.e. amalgamated) interpretation, but the logic behind the loop cycle structure would still apply to any interpretation. Again, the documents I refer to here (and anywhere else in this monstrously long multipart post) can be downloaded from the following SkyDrive link I provided earlier:
http://sdrv.ms/MoXetr
. And FYI, I do update these from time to time so if youve downloaded any of them you may want to make sure you have the latest version.
After laying out my matrix that correlated events between loops one very important bit of information became clear: a new Jess appears every 30 minutes, with each one appearing moments after another Jess falls overboard (whether nice or mean). Knowing this defines the nature of the loop cycle and restricts the possibilities for its overall cycle structure. In addition, although within the anomaly each iteration of Jess is 30 minutes ahead of or after the one behind or in front of her (triggered by when a version of her falls overboard), from a perspective within the "multiverse bubble (i.e. from within the temporal anomaly in the Bermuda Triangle where the timeline is fragmented) time spent in the outside world is instantaneous, or at least greatly accelerated, resulting in Jess cycling through the past and back into the anomaly mere moments after falling overboard, which results in the duplication effect, as depicted in the diagrams in my Event Matrix spreadsheet (and interestingly may be a variation of what may be happening in the movie The Prestige, one of my all-time favorites).
We could reasonably speculate based on what we see in the film that this process would continue until at some point in the distant future Jess goes to the past but instead of going home to kill herself she perhaps hitchhikes out of the state (or does anything but go interfere with original events), so no paradox is created. As a result, while Escapee Jess is moving on with her life, finally having let go of her guilt and obsession with saving Tommy, Jess Prime (a.k.a. Jess(0), or original Jess), drops Tommy off at school and drives to the harbor. The structure requires that the cycle loop back into itself (being the very nature of a loop).
One of the big problems during discussion since the release of the film has been figuring out how all this might end, and just as importantly how the cycle transitions back into itself and starts over from scratch, somehow dealing with the piles of objects in the process (so that they dont end up piling up infinitely, which is impossible since Jess 0/1 must start with a blank slate). Although the previous Parts of this post thoroughly discuss this subject, Ill now apply this to the various documents stored in my Triangle Skydrive folder and get into the details of how certain events might (emphasis on might) have played out during Jess first trip through, or in other words as the end of the loop cycle transitioned back into its own beginning.
The Loop Cycle End-To-Beginning Transition
To explain this Ill reference the 80-loop example depicted on the Event Matrix (Origin) worksheet of my Triangle Event Matrix.xlsx spreadsheet. What happens next is purely the product of imaginative deduction, but Ive devised how the cycles end-to-beginning transition might occur. It requires the advent of the aforementioned timeline collapse thats triggered by Non-Paradox Jess (i.e. Jess(0), Jess Prime, etc.) coming into the anomaly and crashing the multiverse party. When she does, the time streams for the byproducts of all previous loops collapse and vanish. Jess herself (during iterations 79 and 80 in my example) does not dissipate because she is technically still the same Jess, a.k.a. Jess Prime, just in a later loop (i.e. shes not a copy like the object piles are because shes looped back through time and time again, literally the same entity), but all the duplicate objects disappear, even the keys that Jess(80) has in her pocket (just a short while before she would have dropped them) since as Jess(0) enters with a new set of keys the keys that were cycling around become a duplicate.
We must place this within the framework of the Loop Structure diagram and the Event Matrix (Origin) worksheets in my Triangle Event Matrix.xlsx spreadsheet, which explains the timing of why Jess (and the others) reappear after she falls overboard and gets transported to the past. Its Jess(80), not Jess(1), who actually writes the first note and drops her necklace that gets caught on the grate of the duct. I envision a scenario based on information about how Chris Smith, as he reveals on DVD commentary, originally conceived this scene (with Jess nearly committing suicide with the -
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."