The Butterfly Effect: What If It Happened to You?

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To first understand the Butterfly Effect movies, understanding what the Butterfly Effect really is is very important. 

The phrase typically is dependency (or sensitivity) on initial conditions with the chaos theory.  If the initial condition gets tampered with, even in the smallest way, it can created large variations on the initial condition in time.

What is the chaos theory?
The chaos theory is a branch of mathematics that studies behavior that could be sensitive to initial conditions. 

Evan (played by Ashton Kutcher in his college years) took advantage of the gift, and almost ruined everything. 

While Even goes through his childhood and teenage years, he experience blackouts, or times when he can not remember what happened.   Understanding what the effect is shows importance here so you can put the pieces together.   He has the blackouts because of what happens when he is in his early 20’s.   While reading one of his journal entries from back when the blackouts occured, Evan traveled back to the moment that he had written about.  One time he traveled to when his friend Tommy (Jesse James) killed his dog, Crocket.  The first time he traveled back into his past he did not change anything, he tried to save Crocket but it did not work. 

Sometime after his first travel, he found Kayleigh (Amy Smart) and asked her questions about what happened when they were seven years old.  Kayleigh’s father was a disgusting pedophile father who beat, and molested her.  Evan’s questions upset her, and on that night she killed herself.   After finding the truth of what happened, Evan went back to the night when they were seven and had a ‘talk’ with Mr. Miller (Erik Stoltz).  After the talk, Evan woke up to find Kayleigh was alive and they were in a relationship.  Unfortunately that could not last.  Tommy found out and was going to try to kill Evan (he never liked the fact that Kayleigh liked Evan), but instead Evan killed Tommy and wound up in jail. 

Evan kept traveling back in time to fix things.  Each time the result would be a bit worse.  Sometimes they would look like good results, but Evan was getting sicker.  Things got better, then the next time things would get progressively worse.  He went back in time to ask his father how to fix things, and told him that he would make everything perfect.    Unfortunately that never happened. 

Evan went back and tried to save a woman and her baby from the dynamite and blew off his arms instead.  Later, he tried to destroy the dynamite (blockbuster) and killed seven year old Kayleigh as a result.  There he found himself in a mental institution with no way out.   

There are three different endings to this film.  The one on the film is where Evan goes back to when he first meets Kayleigh and tells her that he hates her.  He just wanted no harm to come to Kayleigh, even if it meant she would not be a part of his life.  It ends in them passing each other on a busy sidewalk, and them both just walking on. 

Another that most probably have never seen where they pass each other on the sidewalk (in New York perhaps) and they say hello as if that is the first time they have ever met.

The directors cut is the saddest ending I have seen.  It ends in Evan killing himself right before he was supposed to be born by strangling himself with his umbilical cord. 

It may be confusing to some, but once you see the film it will definitely make more sense!  If you have seen it, what are your thoughts on the film?