[KidMoe]

Originally Posted by IslandNiles

I'm not going to give away any plot spoilers (apart from in tags below) but even what I'm about to say next might be considered a bit spoilerish.

I loved it, but felt the last minute ruined it somewhat. There were two way better places to end it just a bit earlier, but they had to try and go for the slightly happier ending.

Spoiler

I thought the perfect ending would have been the kiss, the frozen carriage, just as Goodwin pressed the button. In fact, I really don't know why that wasn't the ending.

Then, I didn't mind the bit with them seeing Chicago and deciding how to spend their day. Even that could have been some sort of afterlife or what the brain experiences in death.

But, they had to go for the everyone on the train being saved, and the future being rewritten. I wasn't a fan of that.

Great film - but for me it finished five minutes before the credits.

Spoiler

The ending does make sense with the revelation at the end that the source code is not a time machine, but a device that creates an alternative reality every time it's used. So, when Colter goes into the Source Code he is not merely rewinding memories but living out a entirely new reality that only ends when he dies - which explains why, in his earlier attempts to save the girl etc the reality continues beyond Sean's (?) death. In this reality he is, for all intents and purposes no longer Colter - each time a entirely seperate Colter is created who will be in a life support machine who we are shown towards the end of the film when new Colter sends Goodwin a text asking to give the other Colter a break.

(This does beg the question though of how the Colter in the original reality is aware of the consequences of the actions of the alternative Colters, however.)

Still, ignoring that, in the final source code run as he manages to deactivate the bomb and doesn't die it makes sense that his reality continues, only with the difference that this time if he dies, his original version is dead also.

I do agree that finishing on the freeze frame would have been a more emotionally charged and less tidy ending though.