15 Years Ago Today, One of Sci-Fi’s Best Modern Time Travel Movies Released (& It Deserved a Sequel)

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On April 1, 2011, Duncan Jones sophomore sci-fi movie, Source Code, hit theaters and showed the world what this talented director could do with a nice budget.

Source Code Remains An Underrated Sci-fi Time Travel Movie

Image Courtesy of Summit Entertainment

Released 15 years ago, Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhaal as U.S. Army pilot Captain Colter Stevens wakes up on a commuter train going to Chicago. However, to everyone else, he looks like a different person and that only starts the mystery. The train then explodes, killing everyone onboard. The next scene shows Stevens waking up in a small cockpit and he is informed that he is being sent onto the train again to find clues about who committed this terrorist act.

While the first part of the movie has Stevens fighting this, believing he is in a simulation, the second half has him realize this is all true and his mission is to find out who set the bombs so the military can find the terrorists and bring them in. Of course, this makes it a mixture of a time travel movie and something like Groundhog Day, but there is no happy ending here. The train always explodes. The people Colter meets on it all dies. And, even more tragically, Stevens finds out what he was chosen for this mission and wants to die when his mission ends.

Source Code was a box office success, making $147.3 million on a $32 million budget. It also received high praise, with a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score and critics praising the direction, action, and acting, in what was a smart and different sci-fi thriller. The ending leaves things open-ended as well. Colter finds a way to save lives in the past and go on living in another person’s body, but did this really happen or was it, as The Matrix showed, a trick being played with his mind.

There are so many ways a sequel could go, with either a new person sent into the Source Code to stop a terrorist action from happening, or the Source Code used for nefarious reasons. There is also a way to bring back Gyllenhaal, especially if his happy ending was only in his mind, and he realizes he is still alive, and being used once again against his will. The first movie was a brilliant story that never got followed up on because Jones’s career hit a roadblock with his massive budget next movie, Warcraft, and disappointing Mute in 2018. That said, Source Code was a brilliant story and deserves a sequel.

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