Terry GilliamX 12 monkeys remains one of the director’s most compelling films, filled to the brim with whimsical scenery, narrative twists and thrilling action. One of the most difficult moments of the film is its ending, which creates a fair amount of ambiguity even for viewers paying close attention. For those who are bewildered by the sudden delivery of weapons or the role of a scientist on an airplane, let this article serve as an explanation of time travel in 12 Monkey and his role in this film’s gripping conclusion.
What is 12 Monkeys about?
One of the reasons why 12 monkeys It is interesting to reconsider from a modern point of view its post-apocalyptic future. The movie starts with James ColeBruce Willis) is imprisoned in a dreary underground prison cell in 2035. James is forced to perform a “volunteer service” that requires him to be brave on the planet’s surface. Since the outbreak of the virus in 1996, life above ground is no longer safe for humanity, although it appears to be perfectly acceptable for fearsome creatures such as the bears and lions that James encounters during his visit to the surface. Because of his reliability, James is chosen by a strange group of scientists for a special mission: he will travel back in time to 1996 and find a group known as the Army of the 12 Monkeys, who are believed to be responsible for releasing the virus. The overall goal of scientists is to pinpoint the location of the virus in its purest form so that they can study the sample and thereby develop a cure for the people of 2035.
Unfortunately for Cole, the time travel device the scientists use is slightly inaccurate, resulting in it sometimes being sent to the wrong year. At one point, he even finds himself in the middle of a World War I battlefield, thus securing a place for himself in the history books as an example of what psychiatrist Dr. Katherine Raleigh (Madeleine Stowe) calls the “Cassandra Syndrome”, a reference to the Trojan priestess of Greek myth, whose fatal prophecy was never taken seriously. Cole also has a habit of disappearing suddenly whenever the scientists of the future decide he needs to return, confusing the people of the past in the process. Cole is drugged and tossed through time and space, often turning him into a drooling mess. Not surprisingly, like Cole, many viewers 12 monkeys struggled to track down exactly what happened, what events (if any) were predetermined, and how much of those misadventures were Cole’s imagination.
To understand how 12 Monkeys ends, you need to remember how it all began
To understand the ending 12 monkey, It’s important to keep Cole’s dream in mind from the beginning of the movie. While sleeping in his prison cell in 2035, Cole dreams of a 1990s airport scene. The dream begins with the sound of a gunshot. The boy watches as the bloody, long-haired man falls to the ground. The woman screams “No!” and rushes to the long-haired man, cradling him. The film shows footage of a boy watching the shooting and an adult Cole Bruce Willis sleeping in his cell, implying that Cole was a child in the dream and that the dream is based on his memories. Due to the complexity of time travel in 12 monkeysturns out to be Cole and the kid watching the shooting at the airport as well as long-haired man shot dead by airport security. In an attempt to escape with Dr. Rayleigh, his newfound lover and former psychiatrist/kidnap victim, Cole dons a wig and a Hawaiian shirt, thus disguising himself from the police as well as from onlookers who might otherwise recognize him in his dreams in the waiting room. the beginning of the movie. In the dream, Dr. Reilly also wore a blonde wig, her face only briefly shown before being partially blocked by Cole’s hand. In this way, Gilliam deftly anticipates the film’s ending in a way that audiences fail to grasp its full impact.
Despite the film being a sort of narrative ouroboros, there are hints that despite the adult Cole’s demise, there is still hope to end the terror of the virus in the future. One of these clues comes in the form of an astrophysicist (Carol Florence), one of the scientists from 2035, who appears on the plane next to the villainous Dr. Peters (David Morse), a virologist responsible for spreading the deadly plague. The astrophysicist introduces herself as Jones and says that her business is “insurance”. Her lack of animosity towards the man who doomed the world suggests that her presence was intended as insurance against the spread of the virus. After all, the goal of scientists No to prevent the spread of a deadly virus, but simply to find a sample of its purest form so that a cure can be made for the people of the future. While their motives for wanting to secure a pandemic rather than prevent it are never explained, the astrophysicist’s final scene confirms that this is indeed their goal.
When Cole and Dr. Reilly arrive at the airport, their plan is to sneak out together and enjoy their new romantic life. Things change when Dr. Riley spots Dr. Peters at the airport, recognizing him as a creepy attendee at a lecture she was giving about Cassandra’s Syndrome and a famous virologist featured on the cover of a nearby magazine. USA today newspaper. She determines that it is Dr. Peters who plans to release the deadly virus, and therefore rushes to find Cole and tell him about it. Meanwhile, Cole was contacted by his friend from prison 2035 Jose (John Seda), who tells Cole that the scientists want him to follow orders and supplies Cole with a gun. Although Cole is puzzled as to exactly who the scientists want him to shoot, the scientists’ plot becomes a bit clearer when Cole breaks through airport security, gun in hand.
Dr. Peters breaks through to the gate and Cole runs after him, aiming to kill him. Dr. Riley yells “No!”, giving Cole a pause. As he turns to look at her, he is promptly shot by airport security and falls bloodied to the floor as another airport visitor, young Cole, watches, thus recreating the exact situation from the dream at the beginning. If the viewer takes this sequence of events into account, along with the astrophysicist’s mention of “insurance”, it seems likely that the scientists gave Cole a gun so that security would view Cole as a threat, thereby ensuring that the virus would be released. World. Again, the movie never explains why the scientists prefer this outcome to potentially preventing the pandemic altogether, but it makes it perfectly clear that, given the choice between preventing the virus or releasing it, they want the latter outcome at all costs.
Was the end of 12 Monkeys an inevitable fate?
Some interpretations 12 monkeys suggest that the events at the end of the film were inevitable, that they were set in stone by fate, and that the characters in the film could never have prevented the spread of the virus. If we take into account the astrophysicist’s mention of insurance and the fact that scientists gave Cole a gun, one can come to a different conclusion. If Cole and Reilly had simply served their purpose, acting like helpless pawns doomed to repeat the vicious cycle of violence and disease, the scientists would never have had to intervene in the affairs of the airport. While it could be argued that the scientists themselves are at the mercy of fate and have no will of their own in these matters, the fact that the astrophysicist says she works in the field of “insurance” suggests just the opposite: her presence on the plane was to make sure the virus was released all over the world, whether it was Dr. Peters or herself.
When Cole and Dr. Reilly decide to run away together, Cole removes some of his own teeth as he was previously told the scientists were using his teeth to track him down. This is confirmed when José shows up at the airport to deliver the gun to Cole. José punishes Cole for having his teeth removed, suggesting that the scientists had a hard time finding Cole as a result of this decision. The scientists were only able to find Cole because he called them and left a voice message before entering airport security, a bug that allowed them to send José back in time to his location and supply Cole with a weapon that would lead to Cole’s death. Their behavior shows that scientists believe in the ability to change the past. The unpredictability of Cole’s behavior led them to fear that history might be rewritten. If it were not possible to deviate from history, then scientists would never have to send anyone to ensure the release of the virus, let alone send an astrophysicist as “insurance”.
How will changing the past affect the future in 12 Monkeys?
What is unclear in 12 monkeys (among other things) is whether changing the past will have a direct impact on the future inhabited by scientists, i.e. Back to the Future rules, or instead, if changing the past created a new, different timeline in a potentially infinite sea of parallel universes with different differentiating outcomes. While much of this film’s charm lies in its array of mysteries, misdirections, and red herrings (such as the titled 12 Monkeys themselves, who turn out to be nothing more than a sloppy animal rights brigade obsessed with releasing zoo animals), it’s unlikely that Gilliam wanted to make such things explicit. which is it’s clear that 12 monkeys depicts a cycle of time travel in which May you can change the past, but scientists are constantly colluding to ensure that everything happens exactly the way they want, probably for their own benefit. That being said, if the scientists were at least honest about their ultimate goals, it’s possible that they could use their newfound knowledge to invent a cure and save the underground inhabitants of 2035. The same cannot be said for James Cole, who appears to be doomed to be a victim, at least as long as the will of the scientists is done.
Source: Collider
