Reconciliation of the Past, Collegiate Relationships, and Time Travel?

I'm not the biggest movie buff, but I know a good one when I see it. When I tell people my top three movies, the general response I get is that the underrated, oft typecasted Ashton Kutcher movie, The Butterfly Effect, does not belong in the same category as the Cartesian influenced The Matrix and the dynamic duo that gave The Shawshank Redemption life. What I enjoy about these movies is that they dig deep into the ethos our culture to identify various and sundry issues that are so ingrained into society that they go largely unnoticed. The 2004 sci-fi psychological thriller uses fringe psychology in order to investigate the consequences of chaos theory, hence its position of eminence in my mind.

How exactly does all this translate into an engaging plot line? The movie's protagonist, Evan Treborn, is a college student with a turbulent past. During the movie's present (it relies heavily on flashbacks to advance the plot) he experiences the same kind of blackout that existed during stressful moments throughout his childhood. Prior to the blackout shown during the particular scene in the movie, he kept them under control for two years. He eventually realized that the blackouts served as a literal conduit to those stressful moments in his life. He is then able to travel through time into his former selves in order to correct situations that were stressful enough to induce a blackout, such as being molested and assisting in the accidental death of a mother and her child.

Aside from the theories put forth in this film, I found The Butterfly Effect edifying for its simple yet cogent surveyance of  the dynamics of college life. I will point out a couple of scenes that accurately portray the different relationships that occur in college. Because of Treborn's ability to travel into the past, multiple scenes reenact the same moments in his life with different result because of the things he prevented or enacted in his exertions into the past.

Two scenes dealt with the same moment containing diverging results. The first scene saw Treborn ask his professor for an extension of sorts on an assignment. Treborn incubated a relationship with his professor to the point where his professor presided over Treborn's independent study on memory loss. The professor gladly gave him that extension.

After Treborn toys with the past after discovering of his time traveling abilities he wakes up with a totally different life. Because he was able to avoid a hardship sustained in his past, it led to a college lifestyle that ignored things he previously put an emphasis on. He joined a frat in order to engage solely in the party scene of college life. He saw the same professor for an extension and got reproachfully denied as the professor did not even know his name.

The juxtaposition explored illuminates several moral and social phenomena. Because he restructured the past so he did not have to deal with such a violent and capricious one, he became the type of college student that goes through the motions. His frat brother slips him the answers for the test and he then realized what tampering with the past has done to his future. Treborn went through lengths to make sure his past was a bit less tumultuous, and it turned him into a person of not only low moral characteristics, but also a person with a particular insouciance that plagues many college students today. College is a place where life's many problems should be explored and in many cases solved. If one goes through life experiencing no hardship, then it becomes difficult to develop a strong purpose for being in school other than immediate stimulus and the hope of attaining a job upon graduating.

The Evan Treborn that existed prior to his space-time journey had a strong reason for being in school. It was his goal to challenge theories on memory loss in order to help him understand his own condition. I don't think college is about trying to traverse through space and time, but it does help when students come in with some personal aspirations to become an agent of change where it is needed. While this may seem overly idealistic, it is something that can be achieved. If even a small particular outside influence is exacted on a student during (or before) their college years, the proper motivation can fuel them with the qualities needed to do things like reach out to a professor and nurture those extremely beneficial relationships.

The same blackout also caused diverging relationships with the same roommate. Treborn's roommate was not your typical college student (Treborn's Roommate). To the single-minded individual he would be considered a maelstrom of social debacles. To Treborn, he was an individual with a unique past. Treborn was able to perceive him through an unconventional lens due to his own experiences.

After Treborn tampered with the past, his relationship with that same person took a turn for the worst. Instead of rooming together, Treborn ended up living in a frat house (this move was essentially a constituency of the lifestyle he choose to pursue). His lifestyle was more important than those that existed in it. He made no effort to try and befriend the socially awkward student, because he was no longer socially awkward. The fact that that strong point of relation disappeared was not the overarching reason for the physical altercation he had with his former roommate as a result of changing the past. Treborn's life decisions (or lack thereof) gave him no impetus to create any point of relation. Being able to relate to one's roommate -- or anyone for that matter -- in school sets the groundwork for one's dorm life and consequentially, their social life.

It was very appropriate that the most pivotal setting of change came on a college campus. College is a place where one should be challenged not only intellectually, but also emotionally, socially, and personally. It is one of the most difficult points in a person's life. Many people choose their life partners in college. Decisions there have to be made that dictate the direction of one's life. In reality, there exist no time traveling methods that is known as of yet. Through the perspective of an orientation leader, this movie elucidates the importance of being a positive outside influence. That just might be enough to make up for the lack of a DeLorean, so there's no need to pay the ridiculous price for a Rutgers parking permit.

I hope this urged you to put this movie at this top of your list. Here's a trailer that might help further persuade you: