I notice it is assumed we start with Jim1, but why?

When the experiment is done for the first time (from our perspective) in front of Meisner, Jim catches video of himself running out the door, which would necessitate him already getting his heart broken by Abbey in another dimension/reality before we ever witness it, otherwise he wouldn’t jump through the wormhole, and we wouldn’t witness Jim observing himself after traversing at the very beginning of the movie.

Jim goes and chases after Abbey, and it’s clear she was already talking to the Jim that already traversed, evidenced by her asking “how did you do that?”

I notice a lot of people asking about the lighter and its origin, it’s a great question to ponder, but what about the dahlia?

They open the wormhole for the “first” time and the dahlia appears, but in order for the dahlia to appear, they must have already opened the wormhole prior, because from our perspective, we only send the dahlia through the wormhole once we have already opened the wormhole once, with the assumption being that the dahlia sent after the wormhole is opened for a second time from our perspective, is the dahlia initially received before Jim gets his heart broken.

I’m curious what others think of this.

1. The “prime” of this movie is a love story, not a scifi story. It’s just in a scifi setting.

2. The writer explores many of the tools used in scifi stories including Paradox, Time Travel and interdimensional travel and more. It’s not just one, it’s all of them.

3. To support my theory the lighter is introduced which many people ask about its origins. This is an example of the “bootstrap paradox.” Which is a “theoretical paradox which occurs when an object or piece of information sent back in time becomes trapped within an infinite cause-effect loop in which the item no longer has a discernible point of origin and is said to be “uncaused” or “self-created”.” For example, in Star Trek the Voyage Home when Scotty offers a new form of plexiglass back in time and McCoy asks if that will upset the timeline. Scotty replies, “how do we know he didn’t invent it.” You can’t solve the riddle, the riddle exists on it’s own to be solved or not to be solved as your choice as the viewer.

4. This brings me to the last point. A Paradox is something that can’t possibly be true but nevertheless is. I wrote a whole chapter about it in a book that I wrote.

Here is the punchline: Every post, every interpretation of the story in this discussion thread is correct. Why, how can that be true? Because YOU are the “Prime” in the story. You see it through your eyes, interpret through your experience and emotions, remember details of the story that only you remember. The OP thought that the ending claimed he was John, others rewatched and corrected him. Each of you were led through a tangled web of these story devices whether they were Paradoxes, time travel, love stories, interdimensional travel. There is something there for each of us like a story buffet.

Each poster got to pick off the buffet what they wanted to consume and leave the rest. Including myself. To me it’s a love story that transcends time and space. To others it MUST be a logical puzzle to be solved, to others it was gobblly gook nonsense. In our Prime, we are all correct, to those who say we are wrong, you are only the Jim2-X which won’t matter because you will dissolve, die and fade over time only leaving what I as the Scott Prime wish to preserve about my thoughts about this movie.

Choose to believe this and you will find peace with the movie plot and ending. If you choose to believe I am wrong, then you are 100% right.

Abby: An infinite number of possibilities. An infinite number of choices. An infinite number of outcomes.

Get it?

You might want to read his post before reading mine.

I think a complete explanation of this movie needs to account mainly for 4 things, while other details can be filled in from there:

1) What was the motivation of the first Jim to come through the wormhole?
2) How did there get to be 3 Jims?
3) What happens when the machine turns right? (My answer: nothing)
4) How do you explain what happens in the ending?
I can explain 1-3, and 4 I can take a reasonable stab at.

First, to avoid confusion I’ll summarize what I’m going to write below.
1) Love and jealousy are the drivers of the events in this story
2) There are 5 unique universe types created by the wormhole “answer” made in the beginning of the timeline and the different “calls” that were made. 1 call being made without the knowledge of Klaus (I call this “unauthorized”) and the other made with Klaus and Abby present (I’ll explain the turn-right and sabotage later)
3) 2 of these universes are especially complicated and this movie focuses on those
4) At the most complex, there are a maximum 3 Jims in any one timeline (Not Jim35, etc.. as suggested by Taylor in the blog post)
5) Activating the wormhole allows that world to receive travel/objects from more than one “call” at the same time. If this is not the case then I can’t give a reasonable explanation for these events. So I think this is the key to understanding this movie

In a refined version of Tony’s style I’ll explain the 5 universes or “worlds”:

World 1: Activate the wormhole –> nothing happens -> they send dahlia1 through as a proof of concept. The dahlia sets off a chain reaction that generates at least 4 more unique sets of parallel universes.
Total Jims: 0 come through + 1 Jim Prime = 1 max -> 1 remains

World 2: Activate the wormhole –> dahlia1 appears; no Jims arrive -> Jim2 goes through the wormhole in an unauthorized attempt like we see in the second half of the movie with the help of Chuck and Maddy in pursuit of love* Note that in this timeline Maddy turns left because the sheet of paper with the labels is still untouched.
*I can only speculate why this happens, but I have a hypothesis that I’ll share below.
Total Jims: 0 come through + 1 Jim Prime = 1 max -> 0 remain

World 3: Activate the wormhole -> *start of the movie* -> dahlia1 appears; Jim2 goes undetected -> there is no unauthorized attempt to go back but Jim2 needs to manufacture a reason for Jim3 to go back so he can steal his place in this world -> Jim3 (no knowledge of notebook) + dahlia3 go through wormhole.

We see this play out. Abby doesn’t whisper anything in Jim’s ear at this moment. Jim2 and Abby3 live happily ever after in World3, however… Jim2 also arrives in World4
Total Jims: 1 comes through + 1 Jim Prime = 2 max -> 1 remains

World 4: Activate the wormhole -> dahlia 3 appears + Jim2 (sees Jim 3 so he panics and doesn’t reveal himself) and Jim3 go undetected -> Jim2 sabotages Jim3’s attempt to “fix it” by removing left and right -> Jim2 dies on hotel -> Jim3 watches Abby sleep with Klaus to get the MRD -> Jim3 dies and Jim4’s migraines stop -> Jim4 goes through wormhole with knowledge of notebook (but it would have been best that he just stayed!)
Total Jims: 2 come through + 1 Jim Prime = 3 max -> 0 remain (This is the tragic universe)

World 5: Plays out like in the movie. Perhaps all the Jims 2, 3, 4 go through and overload the receiver causing the explosion? It is Jim4 with the notebook that survives.
Total Jims: ?? come through + 1 Jim Prime + Jim4 -> 1 remains

For people who prefer a more narrative style explanation the rest of this post tries to account for all the key details.

The trickiest thing to answer is why the same results play out when the Jim Prime of the movie has different motivations after he was manipulated by the first “Jealous Jim” that travels through the wormhole (The Jim we know is there but never see). Here’s my account of that:

World 1: (Not seen in movie)
1. Wormhole comes up empty.
2. Dinner ensues.
3. A proof of concept is needed.
4. They send a dahlia through.

World 2: (Not seen in movie)
1. Dahlia shows up.
2. Abby arrives at lab and meets Jim, sees the dahlia
3. Abby and Klaus know, or at least suspect, they know where the dahlia came from. 4. Klaus gave her the dahlia (He is the someone who “gives her everything but his time”) Of course Klaus can’t reveal that information to his wife. Perhaps he’s willing to pretend he still needs a proof of concept?
5. We know from Abby’s explanation of her novel/notebook that Abby read an article about Jim and is interested in his work
6. Abby shows Jim her dahlia and her “other flower”.
7. In the movie Klaus shows up and Abby tells her she’s banging Jim. Meanwhile Jim prime of that timeline takes the dahlia to the lab. In this timeline we can imagine Jim takes Abby’s dahlia to the lab for testing (comparing to the one that come through the wormhole) and there is no other Jim to provoke Klaus.
8. This Jim would now confirm at the lab that the dahlia was given to Abby by Klaus and he would be jealous of Klaus. Maybe Abby doesn’t like the way Jim reacts to this information?

Hypothesis:
Jim originally jumps in the wormhole with the help of Chuck and Maddy because Klaus left his wife for Abby (ie; he gave her more of his time) and Jim was heartbroken that Abby chose Edison over Tesla.

World 3: (Start of movie)
Therefore there would be another world where Jim arrives but doesn’t want the other Jim to see him. That world is the one we see at the start of the movie. In that world Jim now competes with both himself and Klaus for Abby.

This Jim sabotages the relationship between Klaus and Abby while the other Jim is testing dahlias. That leads to the events of the movie where Jim Prime is suspicious of Abby stealing his ideas. “Jealous Jim” from World2 manufactured the whole thing and Jim Prime from World3 realizes this later and still ends up repeating the events that happened to him when it’s his turn in World4.

What he doesn’t realize is one of the Jim2s from one of the World2s also appears with him in World4 when he goes through. He sees him later on in the hotel after his travel attempt gets sabotaged. Jim2 is the guy who removed left and right from the cheat sheet so that Maddy wouldn’t send any more Jims back. Jim2 from a parallel World2 also the has a happy ending in World3. Because there are infinite universes there are infinite World2s and infinite Jim2s. In one variation the Jim2s go to World3 and get the happy ending. In the other variation the Jim2s go to World4 along with Jim3 and we get the tragic ending.

This leads us to the conclusion, where Jim4 goes to World5 and has that conversation with Abby. I’m suspecting that the reason for the explosion is that the machine picked up too many calls and that overload was the catalyst. I’m not sure about the significance, if any, of Jim/John. Maybe someone else can explain that bit.

The only way we could be viewing World1 would be if the cause of multiple Jims in World1 came from a Jim which hopped into World1 from a World we never got to view.

or not idk XD

Ah. Okay. Interesting.

At the end he doesn’t say it’s a coincidence that his name is John, he said it’s a coincidence that he too is a physicist.

Thanks for going thru the great effort of first suggesting great movies that are pst just entertainment and second, analyzing possible theories.

Your review on this movie was great, but after reading a lot if comments, I think Rob Dadario‘s explanation is the most valid one. I don’t know if you had the time to review it, but I’d tend to think after reading it thru, you might consider updating your post and adding his theory to the list