Corrected entry: The bad guy soaks the woman with fuel. The bad guy then shoots Denzel, and runs outside. He then fires at a propane tank that causes the entire building to explode. The fireball is enormous, and flaming debris is everywhere, including being inches from the woman. But she never ignites. (01:31:00 - 01:33:05)
Corrected entry: In the ending, as Claire replicated the "what if you wanted the tell the most important thing and no one would believe it" quote, it means she also travelled in time to rescue Doug.
Corrected entry: When they send the warning note to Denzel Washington from the present to the past, it takes so much power that the whole "time machine" system as well as the power in the whole city breaks down. When they send Denzel back to the past it happens much faster and without any problems. When the "transfer" from Denzel to the past works that fine, a transfer from a simple paper with some words on it should be no problem at all. They also said that they tried to send a hamster to the past and that it did not survive it. Why should an adult survive this?
Correction: Doug didn't exactly survive the trip. The electrical paths of his body were disrupted, that is why he was sent directly into a hospital room with doctors with a message to revive him. He was for all intents and purposes dead and had to be brought back. It was a huge risk and the doctors may not have been able to revive him, but they were able to. It is likely the hamster could have been brought back if someone happened to be there when he appeared and had the medical skills to do so.
Correction: 1) A radio news report in the past mentions a massive blackout that took out much of the eastern seaboard, implying that sending Doug back took considerably more energy than sending the note back earlier when the blackout was local and brief. 2) Any number of reasons for Doug making it when the hamster didn't: a) humans are larger and more resistant to the forces involved b) They figured out some tweaks and improved settings since the attempt with the hamster c) the hamster simply died of fright.
Corrected entry: At the beginning of the movie, one guy in Doug's office gives him Claire's message, written on the outside (colored side) of a candy wrapper. When Doug goes back in time, the guy gets Claire's call again and he grabs the candy wrapper, beginning to write on the opposite side of the wrapper.
Correction: The wrapper (which was a gum wrapper btw) had no handwriting on the colored side. It did however have black printing that was blurred by the film quality. When Greg is dialing the number he is clearly looking at the white side.
Corrected entry: Surely if Doug can go back 4 days and he's saved the people on the ferry then why can't he go back again to stop Larry dying?
Correction: Doug saw Larry's death which happened 4 days ago. He can't go further back in time to stop that because of the 4 day limit in the time machine.
Correction: Theoretically he could, but since Doug from the original timeline died, the Doug from the altered timeline would have to go back and save him, and for that to happen, he would have to be approached by the time surveillance crew again, and with the ferry bombing averted, it's not likely they would approach him.
Corrected entry: Using logic then this movie does not make sense. The "you can save her" on the fridge, the blood stained clothes and the cotton swabs. These were all done by Doug in the past. If Doug in the past managed to show this to future Doug as he was looking around the house for clues then surely he'd already done the deed of stopping the ferry.
Correction: This is complicated, but the way I understand it is that Doug in the past had tried to stop the ferry but failed.
Corrected entry: After the ferry explodes at the start of the movie and they start evacuating survivors, there is a shot of people waiting on the dockside talking to a cop. One of the people, a black man with dreadlocks in a white T shirt is smiling at the cop, while the others are shouting a him. Bizarre considering the disaster that had just occurred. (00:05:55)
Correction: Bizarre, yes, but not a movie mistake. People cry at weddings, laugh at disasters, and attack emergency personnel who are there to protect them all the time.
Corrected entry: In the first time line Claire lost 4 of her fingers and she washes up on shore at 10:48. In the second time line Doug saves her from losing her fingers and stops her from dying by the bad guy burning her and dumping her body. Back to the first time line and finally to the plot hole. If she loses her fingers in the first time line and is supposed to be dead, then how is she in her apartment to answer the phone when Beth calls? In the second timeline Doug tells her what Beth says to prove he knows what is going to happen in the future, he knows this because he played her messages back in the first time line. How did she answer the phone if she was dead and about to wash on shore?
Correction: Actually, there are 4 timelines. One where the terrorist uses a Blazer to blow up the ferry and Minuti survives with the team sending a note back to the past to be read by Doug/Minuti, but because they sent the note back, they create the 2nd timeline. In the 2nd timeline Doug leaves and Minuti chases the terrorist. The terrorist kills Minuti and gets his blood all over the Blazer, so he has to use Claire's car to blow up the ferry. Nobody goes back to the 2nd timeline and the boat explodes. Then in the 2nd timeline, Minuti doesn't exist because he is dead. Doug thinks that Minuti is on vacation and everything goes the same as we see it in the movie. Doug decides to go back in time, but fails to completely save Claire's life and fails to stop the ferry from exploding. We know this because Doug from the 3rd timeline hears his phone ringing from inside of a body bag. A body bag that contains Doug from the 2nd timeline. The third timeline and the 4th timeline are exactly what we see in the movie. They send the letter back in time, killing Minuti, Doug then goes back in time, creating the 4th timeline and successfully saves Claire and the passengers aboard the ferry and he dies when the car explodes.
See I thought the phone ringing in the body bag was Minuti because Doug was trying to call him and when he dials Minuti's number the phone rang in the body bag that's why he was staring at it.
Correction: There are altogether 3 timelines. In the first timeline Doug does not yet time travel, therefore Claire is killed at the shack and gets her fingers cut off. In the second timeline Doug drives the ambulance into the shack and saves her. He then takes her to her apartment and leaves her there. The Killer then catches up with her, kills her at her apartment, cuts her fingers off and dumps her into the river after all. Also in this second timeline Doug informs the police, but the killer sees the police coming and so he detonates the bomb manually and the ship explodes as well. In the third and final timeline, Doug has a "Deja Vu" and somehow remembers what happened in the second timeline and learns from his previous mistakes. Therefore he doesn't leave Claire at her apartment and takes her with him, because he knows she would get killed there, and neither does he inform the police, because he knows that would alarm the Killer.
Doug remembers the bomber man told him that he went to Claire's house pretending to buy her car, then he attacked her and took her to his place - after that he blows up the ferry, that's why Doug didn't leave Claire at her house.
Corrected entry: After going back in time, Carlin appears at Charity Hospital. Charity Hospital has been condemned since Hurricane Katrina and would have still been flooded inside during the time frame of the movie.
Correction: Deja Vu started filming before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. There's nothing to say that the shots of Charity Hospital were not done before the hurricane struck, and since the film makers could not predict the hurricane nor the condemnation of the hospital, it is acceptable to include it in the movie.
Corrected entry: What caused the original time-line to change was essentially the terrorist jumping on the ferry instead of riding his motorcycle to the bridge to view the bombing. Nothing unusual was done to cause the terrorist to jump to the ferry as opposed to the original time-line where Denzel was present and doing everything the same up to that point, since both time-lines had Denzel using the car the terrorist would be familiar with. This of course operating under the assumption that Denzel saved the girl from getting her fingers cut off in both time-lines, which would only make sense plot-line wise to avoid plot-holes. Her fingers probably were dismembered in failure to save the ferry in the original time-line, but then it would be impossible for her body to end up upstream 2 hours before the explosion. Mistake is the car triggered the terrorist to jump to the ferry in the new time-line but not in the original time-line.
Correction: This theory is incorrect. What made Oerstadt jump on the ferry instead of his motorcycle (assuming he had it staged before hand) was that he saw his truck there, which Doug drove from Oerstadt's fish camp to Claire's house to the ferry dock. Oerstadt knew he just had had an encounter with Doug, but thought he was killed in the explosion of the propane tanks. When he saw his truck the only possibility was Doug drove it there, since Oerstadt had Claire's Bronco.
Corrected entry: Carlin realizes that the bomber only needed to steal Claire's vehicle because Carlin's partner shot up the windshield of and got blood in the bomber's own car. Otherwise Claire would not have become involved at all. The problem? As they are watching the events of the past, they see the bomber calling Claire about her truck BEFORE Carlin's partner confronts him and shoots his windshield.
Correction: The bomber rang Claire about her truck because he was keeping his options open. Perhaps truck owner 1 wasn't answering his calls so he rang Claire about hers, but then he got truck 1. Then when it was ruined, he had Claire's as a back-up.
Corrected entry: Carlin was wounded when he saved Claire from being killed and her fingers dismembered. After that Claire bound Carlin's wounds in her home and put bloody bandages into a basket. It is not possible to have dead fingerless Carla and the bandages in the same time branch.
Correction: The timelines are not crossing. The bandages show up the exact same in this time line (as the movie carefully points out through other details as well, such as the phone call), is that no matter what Denzel does to stop Claire from dieing and the ferry explosion, the events are still falling into place. This was explained earlier when we find out that although Denzel effected his partners death by sending a note back in time, his parter still died and Claire did as well because he was not able to change the timeline enough.
Corrected entry: During the film, when Doug Carlin is in the "present" unaltered time, he sees things that eventually happen later in the movie when he goes back in time. What doesn't make sense is that if he saw all the other things, and considering he saved the ferry, how could he see the ferry explode at all in the beginning?
Correction: That's exactly why he went back in time in the first place, to keep the ferry from exploding. One of the great questions to time travel is what happens to the present when you go back in time. during the movie it is alluded that you create a different branch of time when you go back. In this case that "present" ceased to exist when Doug went back in time. In doing so he created a new "present" time, and erased the "first present" time that is shown at the start of the movie.
Corrected entry: In the original timeline in which the movie begins, Carlin is investigating Claire Kuchever's death including her missing fingers. In this same timeline we hear his co-worker tell him that his [Carlin's] fingerprints were all over Kuchever's home. We later find out that the killer cut her fingers off. However, the reason Carlin's prints are all over the home and the reason that certain items are set up in a certain way, was because Carlin was in the home with Kuchever after preventing her death and preventing her fingers from being cut off. So the flaw is: if he kept her fingers from being cut off, he would have been in the home and would have left the prints but her corpse wouldn't be missing fingers [if she died at all]. If he didn't prevent her death and dismemberment, he wouldn't have left his prints and certain items in her home. These scenarios could not both occur however.
Correction: This isn't true. It is useful to remember that this movie has multiple timelines. In the previous timeline everything was the same until Carlin left Kuchever's house to go to the boat. He left Kuchever at her house, thinking she'd be safe. Unfortunately, Oerstadt went to Kuchever's house to finish her off [including cutting off her offending fingers] before he blew up the boat. Carlin went to prevent the bomb alone and didn't succeed. In the next timeline, Carlin realises that everything is turning out the same and takes Kuchever with him, preventing Oerstadt from coming to her house and cutting her fingers off. With her help, Carlin succeeds in preventing the bomb.
Why would he leave her in the house in one time then take her with him in a different time line, every thing plays out the same every time because Doug always comes to the crime scene not knowing anything. She should always die, because he would have done the same things over and over.
Correction: So I rewatched the movie. Loved it. Only now the thought developed. The timeline in the past is 4 days 7 hours (something like that) and only 1 person of themselves can be at any time. So if Doug (present) went back and died in the explosion, Doug from the past came to meet Claire. Happy ending, right? So does this mean that due to Doug present seized to exist, Doug from the past have only 4 days 7 hours to live? I mean, this sacrifice of himself for saving 500+ people doesn't look bad.
Corrected entry: While listening to Claire on her cell phone, why can they hear the other side of the conversation?
Correction: Some phones are loud - I have a phone that every person in the same room can hear, not just the person speaking into it.
Corrected entry: Carlin forces the other agents to confess about the fact that they were really looking at the past in real-time and not looking at 4 day old footage. The way he does this is to shine a laser pointer into the equipment. It took amazing amounts of effort and machinery to send any item back in time. Even accepting that the infinitesimal size of the laser beam's particles would make it very easy to send the beam: WHY would it work that way pointing it at a MONITOR? It's just a viewing screen and is only 1-way. Further proof that it's just a monitor and not a 2-way portal: When they zoom through the scenery with the cameras in space (and yes, they were honest about the placement of the cameras) the screen shows that it takes a bit of time to render/display the image.
Correction: Remeber Carlin asks if the person in the past knows that they are being watched and the scientists don't know the answer for sure. It seems apparent that they do have some effect on the past just using the view portal and without using the larger machine (e.g. the girl comes out of the shower 'knowing' she is being watched). Therefore it is entirely possible that shining the laser also had some effect on the other side of the timeline too - it certainly caused a minor power fluctuation. It just happens that the machine for sending larger things through the wormhole is just bigger and takes even more energy.
Correction: He soaks her with diesel fuel. It is very difficult to ignite diesel unless it is very hot or atomized into a spray. You could throw a box of lit matches into a can of diesel and they would likely all go out without igniting the fuel.