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The Butterfly Effect (2004) - 15 questions

starring Amy Smart, Ashton Kutcher, Ethan Suplee

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Entry What song is playing as Evan is walking through the girl's dormitory after waking up with Kayleigh? Also, who is the artist?
Entry Ok I'm guessing that Evan can travel back to "memories" an infinite amount of times as he has been to the junkyard and the basement memories at least twice, but what I don't get is why, after he saw the horrible repercussions of giving Lenny the shard which led to the psychotic brother's death, why didn't Evan just NOT give Lenny the shard, but still give the bro the moving motivational speech that made him rethink the burning of the dog? Then the dog would be safe and the bro wouldn't be killed traumatically, damaging Kaylee? Why didn't he keep that bit that seemed to work out, but not give Lenny the weapon? [The point of the movie was that, no matter what he did and how he tried to change things, they always ended up bad. If he went back and did that, something unforseen would have happened to make things terrible. Evan realized that everything bad that happened to them was because of him. He then decided the only safe way to make things right is if he just took himself out of their lives all together. That's the logic the filmmakers went by, if you don't want to accept that, then you will just have to consider it a plot hole.]
Entry There's one thing that bothers me. It's when Evan ends up in mental hospital, and his brain is once again attacked by torrent of new memories, then we see very fast switching pictures of various faces, with lots of mixed voices in the background. What is the meaning of this? [Those are his "new" memories rushing into his brain.] Answered by Phixius
Entry What tune is Thumper whistling after launching a ball on the table of the frat boys? Is it from a song? [He whistles "Rock-A-Bye Baby" in order to menace the frat boys.]
Entry This movie confused me. I know that when Evan blacked out was actually when he went back, but what I don't get is how he got back or why the hemoragging happened. I also don't get the whole scar thing. Wouldn't he have hemorrhaged from having the scars or is it only at major changes that he hemorrhages? [He hemorrhaged because his brain had a hard time adjusting to all the memories of an entirely new lifetime. The doctor explained it when he showed how very little memory space Evan had left near the ending of the movie (the brain scans). The scars would've healed by the time he got to each new reality.]
Entry After seeing the directors cut (I haven't seen the theatrical) we know that Evans mother has two still births, could this be Evans brothers who have lived similar lives to Evan, made the same choices, come to the same conclusions, travelled back to the womb and killed themselves?? [Yes, it is in fact two brothers of Evan's. They travelled back and killed themselves the same way Evan did. This is explained in the Director's Cut DVD commentary by the writers.]
Entry If the reason that Evan is blacking out is because he's returning to the past and he returns to the school room the day that he draws the picture to get the stigmata, Why does he draw the picture when he hasn't killed the inmates yet? [Because that what he was planning to do.]
Entry I have watched both endings to this movie and I love the director's cut much better...BUT, I don't understand somethings about the alternate ending. When Evan is killing himself in his Mother's stomach, his Mom says "Be for you I was pregnant THREE times" Is this a mistake? or what. After Evan and his Mom went to the physic she told him that she had been pregnant TWO times before him and that they where still births. Also what confused me was that they flashed forward to show that his Mom had a child with his Dad and what looked like to be a little girl...so, does the cycle start all over again? and is that why she said THREE times instead of TWO? [This is already dealt with in corrected mistakes, but, we are being shown what happens after Evan has killed himself. We hear his mother tell her new daughter that she had three stillbirths (Evan being the third). And the cycle will not continue because only the males were affected (Evan's father and grandfather before him).]
Entry I just saw the movie on DVD and I was kind of surprised when I saw that the ending was different than what I heard. In the movie, the ending was that Evan goes back and dies in his mothers stomach. However, I have heard from a friend and read in magazines that Evan lives and meets up again with the girl. I was wondering, why did i watch a different ending? Is it maybe cause i live in Europe? [The DVD has two sides, here in the US. One side is the Director's Cut with 6 additional minutes of footage (including the fortune teller scene), with the ending you saw. The other side is the Theatrical Cut, which was released in the cinemas here. SPOILER: The ending is that he goes back to when he first meets Kayleigh and says something to make her dislike him, therefore going to live with her mom and never see him again. At the very end, he passes her on the street, but they don't "get together".]
Entry In the entire movie all of the events that help Evan are there because he put them there when trying to go back. For instance when he goes back from when he was in prison he draws the drawing of him killing the two inmates. When he goes back to get the knife, he made himself do it. I couldn't understand where to put this in this website but if anyone could help me understand it would help my mind out greatly. [That's what the blackouts are all about. Its the future changing the present and because, for him, the future hasn't happened, he can't know about them.] Answered by SexyIrishLeprechaun
Entry Why does Kaitlin have the horrible scar on her face after Evan saves the dog? She didn't have a scar before, even though she got hit quite hard. [The time that Evan goes back and saves the dog, she gets hit in a different way and her cheek is split open - hence the scar. In the "original" timeline, she got hit in the head, not the cheek.]
Entry What was the picture Evan drew all about? He didn't kill anyone, he had no recollection of drawing it and it seems to have only been put there so he would start his journals. [Exactly.]
Entry In this movie Ashton goes back in his life to change the past. In his final "time travel" he goes all the way back to when he was a kid to tell Kaylee to stay away from him. This means that she would never make contact with him, the events with her and her brother would never take place, and since his lifeline is changed, he wouldn't have blackouts and he would have no need to write in his journals. But at the end of the movie it shows him throwing away all his stuff, including his journals, and setting it ablaze. If he changes his life, how could his journals have been written when there is no need for them? I'm a little confused about the whole journal thing so if someone could help me out, that'd be great. [Evan had journals to record his whole life, not just the blackouts. He would still have them regardless of the blackouts.] Answered by Xofer
Entry Within the last 5 minutes of the film, Evan (Ashton Kutcher) wakes up from his very last life changing flashback in a dorm room with his roommate, Lenny, the fat blonde kid from his childhood. If you recall, in the flashback which preceded this, Evan as a young kid tells KayLee at her birthday party to "Never talk to me again or I'll kill you and your family." The flashback changes his future so KayLee would still be alive, as she is appeared on the streets of New York when Evan (the stockbroker) walks past her, in the final scene of the movie. The question is, if the flashback is supposed to correct the past to change his future, how is Evan still friends with Lenny (fat blonde kid), but has no relation or 'real' knowledge of KayLee, nor does Lenny.....? [During the movie Kaylee specifically told Evan that after her parents split up the reason she chose to stay with her abusive father was because of her friendship with Evan. Since Evan changed the past by never becoming friends with her, Kaylee and her brother went to live with their mother after the split which was ultimately a better life for them. Lenny was also a neighborhood friend and there is nothing to suggest that Evan wouldn't still be friends with him even though he never became friends with Kaylee.]
Entry What is the song that plays at the end of the movie in the scene where Evan is in New York City and continues into the credits. Also, who is it by? ["Stop crying your heart out" by Oasis.]

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