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Ivan (Ashton Kutcher) once had a bad childhood. His behavior caused catastrophe, which made his childhood full of unbearable memories. In fact, he did only vaguely remember some horrific scenes, which had been entangled in his normal life. Ivan accepted the advice of a psychologist and recorded his trivial life in a notepad, but accidentally discovered that he could go back to the past through the notepad. ?Only then did he clearly remember that he had done so many wrong things in his childhood. He fantasizes about using his current consciousness to sneak into his childhood body to make up for the harm caused to people by various mistakes, especially hoping to finally get back together with Casey, whom he had a crush on back then. However, his repeated changes across time and space can only make the real world more and more irredeemable.

Chinese name: The Butterfly Effect

Foreign name: The Butterfly Effect

Distribution company: NewLineCinema

Production region: United States

Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller, Horror

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Cast

The Butterfly Effect I

Drama Introduction

Ivan (Ashton Kutcher) once had a bad childhood, because he got into a big disaster, which made his childhood full of unbearable memories. In fact, he did only vaguely remember some horrific scenes that had been haunting his normal life. Ivan accepted the advice of a psychologist and recorded his trivial life in a notepad, but accidentally discovered that he could go back to the past through the notepad.

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The Butterfly Effect

It was then that he clearly remembered that he had done so many wrong things in his childhood. He fantasizes about using his current consciousness to sneak into his childhood body to make up for the harm caused to people by various mistakes, especially hoping to finally get back together with Casey, whom he had a crush on back then. However, his repeated changes across time and space can only make the real world more and more irredeemable. Everything is like a butterfly effect, affecting the whole body.

The butterfly effect is a concept in chaos theory. It refers to a phenomenon of dependence on sensitivity to initial conditions: small differences at the input end will quickly amplify to the output end. The butterfly effect abounds in economic life.

The protagonist Evan, like his father, suffers from intermittent amnesia. He does some strange things, like picking up a knife for no reason and scaring her mother, but Evan has no memory of why he did it. Before Evan moved, he suffered from the condition. The psychiatrist suggested that Evan keep a diary to help him improve his memory.

Evan’s teacher asked each child to draw the career they wanted to do when they grow up, but Evan drew a scene in which he killed two people. Evan's mother, Andrea, was devastated and took Evan to a psychiatrist for a checkup.

One weekend, Andrea asked Evan's childhood sweetheart, Kelly's father George, to look after her children.

George is a pedophile, so he has some special "hobbies". Daughter Kelly and son Tommy have lived in a repressive environment since childhood and have distorted personalities. That day, Evan lost his memory. When he woke up, he found himself and Kelly stripping naked and standing in front of the camera.

The psychiatrist suggested taking Evan to visit his father. But in the middle of the conversation his father went crazy and wanted to strangle him. The security guard who came to subdue his father accidentally beat his father to death. Evan saw his father fall at his feet.

Six years later, Evan has become a decadent teenager, smoking and hanging out in a dark room.

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Youngster Caleb and young Evan

Tommy used his own detonator to test Lanny's courage and let him light the The detonator was put into the mailbox in front of a house. But Evan lost his memory again. When he woke up they were helping Lanny through the woods.

Lanny was too frightened and received treatment. Andrea confronts Evan, hoping to awaken Evan's memory through hypnosis. During the hypnosis process, Evan was in great pain and even had nose bleeding. Andrea stopped asking.

Kelly was beaten by her father, and Evan's words of comfort made the two children's hearts grow closer, and Tommy happened to see their tender kiss. Tommy loves his sister very much because she is the only person in his life who doesn't think he is an asshole.

The crazy Tommy decided to take revenge. He put Evan's dog in a sack and prepared to burn it to ashes. Evan and Kelly, who came after seeing the smoke, were knocked down by Tommy with a wooden stick. Lanny, who sneaked around behind, was unable to open the rope that tied them up. In the end, the crazy Tommy burned Evan's dog to death, Kelly and Evan sat on the ground and cried bitterly, and Lanny became even more fragile because of his deep self-blame.

While driving, Evan wrote a note telling Kelly that he would be back. Just like that, Evan moved. The mother and son left this sad place.

Evan was admitted to the psychology department of a state university and lived the life of an ordinary boy. One day, he asked the girl to read out his diary and went back to the scene he had written down in the past, recalling some details. He wanted to find Lanny to confirm. Lanny still can't let go of what happened back then and has a weird personality.

In a rage, he kicked Evan out of the room.

After Evan confirmed the incident, he returned to his former town and found Kelly, who was working as a waitress in a small restaurant, to confirm that George was "shooting a movie" that weekend. Kelly, who was full of joy and thought that Evan would reconnect with her, was so nervous about this question that she lost control instantly and ran home crying.

Tommy called Evan's dormitory to tell him that Kelly had committed suicide and asked him for her life. While Evan was shocked, the only thing he could do was to send a bouquet of flowers to Kelly at her funeral and write the note he had written to Kelly, "I'll come back for you." yours) into the grave.

The sad Evan returned to the weekend when George was "shooting a movie" by reading his diary, and advised George to give Kelly a good growing environment.

The first time

The story of Evan and Kelly begins again. He woke up next to Kelly, and everything seemed so beautiful. He and Kelly were happily dating in college.

Evan decided to propose to Kelly, but Tommy, who was released from prison, disrupted their plans. Evan changed George, but George imparted all his perverted tendencies to his son Tommy.

Tommy attacked Evan late at night. Evan, who was already prepared, sprayed Tommy's eyes with a spray gun. Evan thought that Tommy was blocking his relationship with Kelly, so he missed it. Beat Tommy to death and sent to jail.

In prison, Evan managed to get his mother to retrieve her diary, and he wanted to change the past. His diary was taken away, and he tried to persuade his cellmate to help him. In front of his fellow inmates, he read the diary and went back to the past. When he woke up again, the inmates found the "mark of God" on his hand and believed him.

Evan used a trick to regain the diary, and the inmates helped Evan block other criminals who wanted to attack. At the critical moment, Evan returns to the past.

The second time

He goes back to when Tommy killed his beloved pet dog. Before the incident happened, he found a sharp weapon and handed it to Lanny, telling him that he must cut the rope. For Evan, he knew that Tommy's weakness was Kelly, so he exchanged his beloved puppy on the condition that he never saw Kelly again. But Lanny kills Tommy with it.

Evan's life starts over again. He saw Lanny tied up in the mental hospital. He thought of Kelly and returned to the town to find her. Unexpectedly, the girl he loved has become a prostitute and addicted to drugs.

Kelly still loves Evan in her heart, but she doesn’t understand why Evan is so confident that he can change the past. Kelly left angrily. Evan burst into tears.

Evan opened his diary again and returned to the mental hospital where he met his father when he was a child. He looked to his father for a perfect way to change. His father, Jason, advised him to stop, otherwise he might kill himself and his mother. Evan wouldn't listen at all.

He goes back to the day of the explosion. When the owner of the villa approached the mailbox, he rushed forward and shouted to stop the mother and son who were about to come over. Tommy also ran in front of mother and son, blocking their progress with his hands. But the mailbox exploded next to Evan.

The third time

Evan woke up and everything seemed fine.

Lanny is having sex with his girlfriend. Evan stretched out happily and found that he had lost both forearms and became a disabled person. Evan is shocked to discover that Lanny's girlfriend is actually his beloved Kelly!

Because of Evan, Kelly, Tommy and Lanny changed the course of their lives. Lanny became a famous outstanding student on campus, and even Tommy became a patriotic and uplifting good young man because of saving people. Only Evan had nothing.

Evan just wants to say a few more words to his beloved girl Kelly. Kelly admits that she once loved Evan, but now she has Lanny. Evan decided to commit suicide. Tommy, who happened to arrive, rescued Evan and took him to see his mother.

Evan discovered that his mother was suffering from lung cancer and was dying. Evan understood that it was because of his disability that his mother became addicted to cigarettes and contracted lung cancer. As his father said, he killed his mother. Evan told his mother with bright eyes: Everything will be fine. The stunned mother saw a reflection of his father, Jason, in Evan's eyes.

Evan started his diary journey again. He decided to destroy the detonator that had caused the disaster. In the basement of George's house, Evan threatens George with a lit detonator. George rushes up and throws the detonator away, but Kelly picks up the detonator and lights it with a flash of fire. Everything has changed. Evan was admitted to a mental hospital because he accidentally killed Kelly.

The fourth time

Evan wanted to change the past again, but all his diaries were gone. Because he had changed his past, he never wrote a diary after entering the mental hospital. The only last hope he can find is the video of the past. He locked himself in the room and wrote his "last words" with many doctors and security guards banging on the door. Turned on the videotape.

From here the ending is divided into four versions.

Four major versions

As the film comes to an end, it returns to the beginning: Evan runs into his doctor’s office (his diary no longer exists at this time) , wants to change history one last time through home movie footage. Here, the director arranged four endings at once.

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Screenshots from the film

Director's version of the beginning of life: The home movie Evan saw was that Evan's mother was about to give birth to Evan. Evan, who entered history, decided to end it all by himself. He pinched the umbilical cord with both hands and ended the life he was about to start. There is no Evan in real life. Kelly and Tommy were taken care of by their divorced mother and stayed away. Abnormal father, naturally there will be no detonator incident. At this time, Evan's father had already entered a mental hospital, so the child her mother was holding at the end was actually born after his mother remarried. The narration said, "Before you were born, I had three miscarriages." Referring to the two previously aborted children and Evan. In the end, only Jason (Evan's father) in the mental hospital was left in the world with this ability.

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Screenshots from the film

In fact, this director's version of the ending is the final ending of the original script. It makes the theme of sacrifice for love even more noble. and great, and even more poignant and touching. But later, because New Line was worried that the plot and scenes of this shocking ending would cause uneasiness to some people and public opinion, it was changed to the current theatrical version when it was finally released.

Theatrical Version 1 Each grew up and took his own path in life. It was the home movie that Evan saw. It was the party where he met Kelly for the first time. Back in the past, Evan scolded Kelly. He and Kelly did not become good friends, and custody of Kelly and Tommy was obtained by their mother. After work, Evan met Kelly on the street, but did not recognize him.

The other two endings are set according to the ending of the theatrical version 1

Theatrical version 1.1, another ending of the "Butterfly Effect" theatrical version: Trailing (55 seconds), E After Wen met Kelly, he turned back to chase Kelly.

The happy ending abandoned in the theatrical version of "The Butterfly Effect" in Theatrical Version 1.2: getting acquainted (53 seconds), where Evan and Kelly recognized each other.