From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

The butterfly effect: a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon could potentially trigger a tornado in Texas, USA. This is a chaotic phenomenon.

Although he couldn't recall when he learned this in geography class, Anson remembered that his most profound experience with this phenomenon came from the movie: “The Butterfly Effect.”

The movie tells the story of a young man named Evan, who had a terrible childhood, having committed a major transgression that filled his childhood with unbearable memories; but in fact, he only vaguely remembered some terrifying scenes that haunted him and affected his normal life.

On the advice of a psychologist, Evan began recording the trivial details of his life in a notebook and inadvertently discovered that he could use the notebook to return to the past.

Gradually, he remembered that he had made many mistakes during his childhood.

So, he fantasized about using his current consciousness to enter his childhood body, to make up for the harm he had caused people, especially hoping to be with the girl he had a crush on back then.

However, he discovered that his repeated trans-temporal changes only made the real world worse and worse, like a butterfly effect.

So, what should he do?

Although there have been a series of movies before and after that have focused on the butterfly effect, this movie truly and meticulously shows the potential consequences of the butterfly effect, making it an outstanding work among many.

At the time of the film's release, as Edgar's colleagues judged, because the film was too brain-intensive and too profound, it failed to awaken the audience's resonance, seriously affecting the film's market response, like those science fiction films in history that were ahead of their time and therefore misunderstood or even distorted and criticized. "The Butterfly Effect's" box office performance was not worth mentioning.

"Blade Runner", "RoboCop", "Frequency", "12 Monkeys", "Predestination", "Run Lola Run", "The Man from Earth", and so on, are all like this.

However, gold always shines.

After time's polishing and precipitation, and after veteran movie fans sift through the sands, those excellent works will eventually win their own brilliance.

"The Butterfly Effect" is also like this. Although the box office performance was disappointing, the film was very popular in the video rental market. Those niche science fiction movie fans exclaimed that they met too late and highly recommended the film.

Thanks to the film's subsequent revenue and excellent reputation, the film company saw the business opportunity and actually restarted the film, successively filming the second and third installments.

Although the latter two sequels were dog-tail sequels, the quality was appalling; but the fact that the series of films could develop to the third installment shows the far-reaching impact of the first.

Even twenty years later, when people list "niche" science fiction films, they still cannot do without the name "The Butterfly Effect."

Now, this movie has come into Anson's hands—

With a little excitement.

In the countless types of movies, science fiction always occupies a place. Perhaps it is an exploration of the past, perhaps it is an exploration of the future, perhaps it is an exploration of the spiritual world, perhaps it is an exploration of outer space and the universe, showing imagination while also being an excavation and extension of human beings themselves.

Anson also very much hopes to star in a science fiction movie.

Have you ever regretted anything? Have you ever wanted to change a past mistake? If you hadn't said that sentence back then, if you had made another choice back then, would your life have taken a completely different path?

I'm afraid everyone has thought about such an idea at least once at some point.

Anson is no exception.

In fact, more than once.

In his previous life, in the days and nights after his father disappeared, in the moments of tossing and turning and sleepless nights, he stared at the ceiling and couldn't help but think like this.

It is precisely because of this that human beings are always particularly obsessed with time machines.

And in "The Butterfly Effect", Evan has such an opportunity and does so. The repetition and pulling of those emotions, the impact and torment of those experiences, are not just regret, but often a mixed and complex taste.

Anson still remembers that enthusiastic movie fans interpreted this movie from different angles and aspects. One of the discussions focused on Evan's motivation:

If Evan really liked that girl so madly, willing to return to the past again and again through the notebook at all costs, even at the cost of shattering his bones, then he would never have looked for that girl all these years, and he also seems to have a happy emotional relationship.

Anson thought that perhaps that was an obsession.

If there is no opportunity to change the past, and there is no possibility of realizing that emotion, then keep a distance, silently bless her, and preserve the beauty of those young years, fixing it on the youthful and pure first love.

But after having the opportunity, you can't help but magnify that beauty and potential happiness, as if that is the only possibility for you to have an ideal life, so you go all in like a moth to a flame, and finally it evolves into an obsession.

The so-called obsession is often without reason, at least seemingly without reason. The real cause-and-effect relationship is hidden inside; but it becomes a person's behavioral criterion and completely destroys a person's reason.

It's like "The Butterfly Effect", recklessly going crazy.

Perhaps, the only pity is that the movie failed to present such an emotional context, nor was it able to present the character's psychological struggle.

On the one hand, it is because the director must focus on the narrative rhythm.

After all, the movie is still a commercial work aimed at the box office. The film's own thinking and exploration are already philosophically meaningful, and it cannot continue to sacrifice the rhythm at the risk of scaring away the audience, so the director puts all the real thinking space at the end of the film.

Naturally, the space given to the development of the character's emotional arc is very limited.

On the other hand, it is the actor's understanding of the character.

In such a story that focuses on the butterfly effect and is based on human beings' own thinking about tragedy, fate, and life, if the actor cannot understand this complexity and sadness, he will naturally be unable to give layers through performance in the limited space in front of the camera.

In fact, the paranoia of the character in "The Butterfly Effect" reminds Anson of the character played by Daniel Day-Lewis in the Oscar-nominated work "There Will Be Blood", who was blinded by greed and desire to the point of being possessed. If you dig deep, his soul is complex and diverse, and he can show the appearance of an ordinary person finally evolving into a demon.

The difference is that the demon in "There Will Be Blood" has blood on his hands, while the demon in "The Butterfly Effect" finally aims the blade at himself.

It's a pity that this movie didn't make the character shine like "There Will Be Blood".