The Butterfly Effect
The Butterfly Effect mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After Evan beats Tommy to death on the college campus, it shows him kneeling over the body, and there is no blood on his collar. The shot changes to Kayleigh screaming, then back to Evan, in the same position, but now with blood splatter on his collar. He had already finished assaulting Tommy, so there shouldn't have been anymore blood spray. (01:09:25)

Macalou

The Butterfly Effect mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Evan gets his first nosebleed, during the hypnosis session, the blood on his face changes quite a bit as shots change while the doctor is trying to wake him up. One shot shows two streams of blood, another shows only one, and yet another shows hardly any blood at all. (00:18:00)

The Butterfly Effect mistake picture

Revealing mistake: In the first scene of the film, Evan is writing frantically in a journal and his last words that the camera zooms in on are "Save her". Look closely and you can see that those same words are already indented on the page as indicated by a visible letter "s" and "h" and a period that had already been written on the pad of paper. Obviously they had done some other takes. (00:01:35)

Lynette Carrington

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: An alternate ending to the film on the DVD Director's cut has Evan going back to when he was in the womb and killing himself by squeezing the umbilical cord to save his friends from events he may cause.

Nick N.

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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