The Butterfly Effect

Continuity mistake: Young Evan puts the cigarette on the fuse of the blockbuster, and as Lenny walks away the butt is shorter than when Lenny stands up near the mailbox, after tying his shoe lace. (00:12:25)

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: When Evan and his mom came out from the psychic, she confessed to Evan that she had two stillbirths before Evan. But during the last scene, when baby Evan was trying to kill himself, we hear a different dialogue saying that his mom had three stillbirths before getting him. (00:42:26 - 01:52:09)

Continuity mistake: After Kayleigh's suicide, Evan travels back to time to the part when he's in Mr. Miller's basement. When young Tommy appears on the steps, he leaves a small opening on the door, but when Mr. Miller argues with him about keeping the door shut, you can see that the door is wide open, which it wasn't in the shot before.

Continuity mistake: In the original junkyard scene Kaylee is wearing a completely different outfit than later on when Lenny kills Tommy. The first scene she is wearing two shirts and some high waisted, ill fitted jeans. Then when Lenny kills Tommy she's wearing a bright blue with white stripes spaghetti strap shirt and tight, well fitted jeans. Plus, a lot of the points of time travel change throughout the movie. In the original junkyard scene they have already made it to Tommy and Kaylee has been hit by the board before Evan has his blackout. When Lenny kills Tommy they're still walking through the junkyard. It could be argued that it has to do with where he started reading from the journal but the blackouts from his childhood are predicated on his future trips into the past. So he should have blacked out before he ever made it to Tommy.

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Suggested correction: It's safe to assume that the basement incident and probable continued abuse in the first timeline destroyed Kay-lee's self worth, image, and esteem. In a world where that never happened, she would definitely at least of been dressing differently (the point would have been better illustrated had her hair been different too). As for the second part, I'd have to agree, unless in Evan going back the first time he changed the day Tommy decided he wanted to kill Crockett, this changing the exact day of the blackout. And changing what Kaylee was wearing, I guess.

Plot hole: When Evan is in jail with the religious prisoner trying to get him to help him get his journals back he goes to the scene where he is drawing that homicidal picture in kindergarten, but he gets up and puts the spikes that holds documents through his hands, creating a stigmata-style scar. The religious guy in the cell with him is so amazed because of this he thinks Evan is a prophet and he decides to help him. If Evan had gone back in time and got those scars on his hands, he would have changed the original timeline and would have arrived in jail with those scars the whole time. Some people try to correct this using the "If I can create scars, then can I fix them?" statement Evan made to defend the mistake and suggest he can create instant scars but he was using the word "scars" to refer to the negative events; not literal scars on his body. The scar he got when he burned himself in the past didn’t magically appear on him the moment he returned from the past; it became part of a new, slightly altered timeline (just like the scars on his hands should have been) and it let him know he can change history.

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Suggested correction: This isn't necessarily a correction so much as a possible explanation. It's possible that the religious inmate (I think his name was Carlos) just simply didn't see the scars on Evan's hands when he first came to the prison in the timeline where he got the scars or Evan knew to hide them in the scar timeline (due to the fact that it was the sole purpose of him going back) and due to his fanaticism he didn't question him a second time.

Nope, after jamming those things in his hands Evan simply came into the prison with the scars already on his hands and would have never thought of showing the religious guy his powers using that particular moment in the past to convince him, or doing what he did a second time as he already had done it. It doesn't matter if the religious guy didn't see them before, they won't be the object of Evan convincing him. He would have had to try it some other way, each and ever time. That how this time travel works and its definitely a plot hole that it worked as it did, whilst it shouldn't have. Of course, it's a time travel movie and they never make sense.

lionhead

Additionally, the inmate was looking at Evan's palms when Evan traveled back, and when he returned to the present, the inmate remarked that the stigmata marks came out of nowhere.

Phaneron

More mistakes in The Butterfly Effect

Dr. Redfield: Just think of your mind as a movie, you can pause, rewind or slow down any details you want.

More quotes from The Butterfly Effect

Trivia: The main character's full name is Evan Treborn. This is very close to "event reborn", which sums up the point of the movie.

More trivia for The Butterfly Effect

Question: What is the song when Evan is in the lecture room talking with his professor and then he rides his bike to his dorm? Not the Ap2, but it sounds like an electric guitar with distortion and an acoustic guitar.

Answer: The Shazam app on my phone didn't recognize it, so it is probably just some nameless incidental music composed for the movie.

Phaneron

Hear You Me, performed by Jimmy Eat World.

More questions & answers from The Butterfly Effect

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