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Let’s Count All The Parallel Worlds in Alpha Gateway

Taylor Holmes
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Let's Count All The Parallel Worlds in Alpha Gateway - or how to physically break your brain on your next date night.
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So yeah! Let’s Count All the Parallel Worlds in Alpha Gateway – because holy cow, the ending of that movie is CONFUSING. Even more confusing? I’m literally not sure if the movie is called Alpha Gateway or just plain old Gateway. Anybody know?

These are the kinds of movies I love talking about here on THiNC. Maybe mediocre? Possibly meh. And yet, they are the kinds of movies that are Just total mind jobs. Movies that can get crazy confusing to decipher and are just fun to talk about. Chris T. has brought this one to us. Thanks amigo. Thankful that you mentioned it.Why? Because Gateway is a magician’s trick of a movie – and we gotta figure out if we have a woman sawn in half in the box or not! Hahaha. 

But stop! If you dig movies like this one, with shattered, parallel worlds? Then you totally have to check out Coherence. It takes this idea, and turns it all the way up to eleven. Ok? Oh, also, if you haven’t had a chance to see this movie yet? Oh wow, have you come to the wrong place, too early. Go watch the movie – Alpha Gateway – and then come back ok? Here’s the trailer for ya, just to entice you a little more:

Let’s Start By Discussing Mathematical Universes

The movie kicks off with lots of talk petawatts and gibberish about getting these multiverse teleporters to work, right? But they also talk a lot about Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH). The movie doesn’t dive too deeply into the theory, but basically, the theory states that our external reality is a mathematical structure. That mathematical existence is the same as real existence. That humans are nothing more that “self-aware structures”. And that all SAS’s will perceive themselves as existing in a “real” world. If you totally want to geek out on this stuff, MUH’s are a different permutation of Pythagoreanism and Paltonism. 

Now, within this idea of the MUH, Tegmark categorizes four different layers of multiverse possibilities. And these four are nested layers of potential diversity with differing layers of initial conditions. Level 1 is the physical constants. Level 2 are the quantum branches. Level 3 consists of altogether different equations. And Level 4 is totally different mathematical structures. So, if I have this right, two realities in Level 1 will be based on our same idea of Physics and the constraints therein. Level 2 worlds will be within the same quantum rules. Level 3 would be totally different equations of math that could pull up wildly divergent realities. And then with the fourth layer, all bets are off, they might assume different ideas of what math even is. Hahah. (“WHY DID THEY CHANGE MATH!? MATH IS MATH!”)

So, within this idea of Tegmark’s MUH – there are gazillions of different of parallel universes based on these 4 different conditions. Land in a world in level one, ok. Your brain could probably deal and cope with the differences. Level two? It’s a coin toss. Level three… forget about it. And let’s not even talk about four, ok? And that is what Jane (played by Jacqueline McKenzie) is attempting to do, build a portal to these different parallel MUH’s. 

Gateway’s Universe Prime & Secunde

After we’ve jumped past all the mind numbing expositioning and failed experiment tests, we get our first apple transport. And that is our Prime universe. Actually. No. The universe Jane is in should be Prime. Our apple teleport trick should be our Secunde parallel universe. 

Gateway’s Universe Tertie

After their first lost apple or two (please, let’s just assume that we have a pile of apples somewhere in our Seconde universe. Can’t deal with the thought that we are littering the multiverse with apples in different parallel universes) Jane makes her first jump herself. And we are going to call this universe Universe Tertie (or third). And it’s in this universe that Jane finds Matt (played by Myles Pollard). Now, it’s pretty significant to note that Matt Prime died in the midst of Jane’s research. So Jane Prime finding Matt – ANY Matt – is a significant development. Right? And so, it is understandable that Jane Prime brings Matt Tertie back to world Prime. 

And it’s back in Prime that the family begins to realize that Matt isn’t THE Matt. Matt Prime and Matt Tertie are worlds apart (pardon the pun). But Matt let’s them know that Jane Tertie died recently in an accident. But we learn that in all actuality? Matt Tertie killed Jane Tertie because he was jealous of Regg Tertie (played by Ben Mortley), Jane’s lab assistant. 

Well, Jane Prime, afraid of Matt Tertie, decides to head back into Tertie world to learn more about this new “husband” of her’s. And that’s when Matt Tertie kills Regg Prime, and locks Jane Prime over in Tertie world but busting the doorways in Jane’s Prime lab. But Regg Tertie shows up and let’s Jane know that he has his own lab setup that he’s been working on at his place. And so Jane helps him fix his setup (with a screwdriver? really? hahaha.) and she teleports out of Regg’s lab… to where? 

Gateway’s Universe Quarte

Well, the title tells you where I think she went when she teleported out of Tertie, Jane finds a new universe we will title Quarte. And it is Quarte that Jane has a screwdriver in her hand when she walks in and see’s Jane Quarte, and Matt Quarte and the kids. Whoops! This is the wrong world – this definitely isn’t Prime! Gah. Phew. So let’s review – Jane has left Prime, gone to Tertie, and Reggs and Jane have moved through Reggs teleporters to Quarte. Ok? This is a dead end. But Riggs stays here. Why? Because there is a Jane here in this world, and there isn’t one anymore in his world. Everyone up to date? Everyone getting this? Because we still have one more to go.

Gateway’s Universe Quinte

Well, Jane has Riggs catapult her back to Prime. And this time? This time they’ve gotten it right. How do we know? Simple. When Jane gets out of the machine, there is Riggs’ lucky shirt. The shirt that Jane told Riggs he needed to wash in the beginning. Remember? So yeah. She’s totally back! 

But the biggest glitch? We’ve still got Matt Tertie running around in Prime man! He’s going to kill us all. So Jane gets the kids and tells them to hide. And when Mr. Tertie walks into their bedroom, he’s about to kill Jane Prime. But Jane’s son knocks the daylights out of the guy. They tie him up, and shove him in the box and Teleport him across the mult-verse to at least a Level 2 universe, if not a Level 3, right? It’s some weird Maze Runner world and he’s stuck there for good. Universe Sexte! Woot! Happy endings for everyone! You get a happy ending! I get a happy ending! Everyone gets a happy ending!!! That is, until Riggs shows up there in Universe Prime, and informs Jane that she, in fact, is not actually in Prime, but rather in Quinte. Wait huh?!

Alpha Gateway’s Ending Explained

So, when Riggs teleported Jane from Universe Quarte to Prime, she in fact didn’t make it to Prime. Now, it’s a little tricky to extrapolate too much because the movie didn’t follow all of its own rules. But, we got the feeling like the universe targeted, quasi-related to the amount of energy used to make the leap. So, if the petawatts … ok, stop, I can’t keep talking about “petawatts” without just cracking up. So let’s talk about petawatts for a second and then we’ll get back to my original point.

So, I went and looked up an Australian power station at random – just for context. And the Kwinana power Station happens to be in western Australia, and it has four main turbines driven off of steam created by coal and natural gas. Ok? Well, this power plant can operate at 420 megawatts of energy. The entire plant. And a megawatt, 

is Synergy’s second-largest power station and is located in Naval Base, Western Australia. It has four turbines driven by steam from boilers fired by coal, natural gas or fuel oil, and one gas turbine. Together they generate a total of 420 MW of electricity. And a a Megawatt is 106 watts. So 420×106 watts. And a Petawatt? Oh not much, just 1015 watts. So, yeah. I just looked up the power usage of all the households in Australia for like a year? And in 2015, the entire country created 258 billion kilowatt hours, or 258 terawatt hours. And a terawatt is 1012 watts. Remember, a petawatt is 1015 watts. Ok? And they are just like what? Plugging a chord into the wall?!? hahahaha. I’m sorry. 

ANYWAY. Petawatts aside. If they dialed the teleported (trans-universe-converter?) all the way up to 350, the machine sent the occupant to one location. if they set it to 400, it’s another multi-verse. I think. But like I said, they weren’t exactly consistent. And if that is the case, then we know where secunde is. We know where Tertie is. And Quarte, and Quinte. Because they have records, I’m sure, of what they dialed the machines up to. But they had never traveled to Prime. They only left Prime. Which would mean that Jane actually never arrived back home with Matt Quarte to Jane Prime’s home. But I didn’t label the universes that way as I explained it.  So did Jane ever get home? I personally don’t think so. Which would mean, that Matt’s hellscape prison world? Yeah, that’s world Septime. hahaha. 

I don’t know. How do you explain the ending? I personally think the machines were capable of leaving Universe Prime. And even shuttling between the universes they discovered after Prime. But I don’t think Jane ever made it back. Do you? 

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Taylor Holmes

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24 Responses

  1. I’m calling this movie “Careless Coherence.” Jane was a very selfish and relatively unlikable protagonist.

    On the other topic, I think Jane Prime visited 9 or 10 alternate realities. I kind or lost count somewhere in there as she carelessly jumped in and out of the Petawatt Primer. But the ending clearly implies that she never returned to her original reality or visited the same reality twice. Some realities were simply more similar to her Prime reality.

  2. Instead on focusing on the original Jane, think different Jane…not different family. She might have been a totally different Jane that Rigg met while he was universe hopping.

  3. I think that since Rigg now knows how to do the universe jump, he went back and saved HIS Jane. That is the Jane that he is talking about. Right family, different Jane.

  4. Actually, I’m thinking about the apple and the camera they first sent. They both arrived at the right place, so it’s not impossible to hit world Prime more than once. It was just an unnecessary plot, that’s all. She also used the necessary amount of energy to hit this particular world, right? I liked the movie, but in my opinion, these things weren’t considered just right.

  5. I believe the family is the original family, Jane, however, is not the original Jane. She is probably Riggs lover Jane, who is out to get to Matt before he kills her. Basically to change her fate.

  6. If Jane Prime and Riggs Tertie travel from Tertie to Quarte, and Riggs Tertie stays in Quarte (b/c there’s a living Jane there), then wouldn’t there be 2 Riggs in Quarte? (or was RIGGs the one who was dead in Quarte, since Jane Quarte & Matt Quarte are both alive)?

  8. So you said “After their first lost apple or two (please, let’s just assume that we have a pile of apples somewhere in our Seconde universe. Can’t deal with the thought that we are littering the multiverse with apples in different parallel universes) Jane makes her first jump herself. And we are going to call this universe Universe Tertie (or third).” I think You might have misunderstood what happened in the movie. They only sent one apple and it was sent back with a bite in it by the Jane who recorded the video. So really the universe where the evil Matt was from and where Jane sent the first apple should be considered the second universe, if you follow me.

  9. It makes no sense that Riggs stayed in the universe because there was a living Jjane there. Jame prime was also living and with a dead husband to boot – makes more sense he woukd follow her back if it was just about a living Jame.

    Also something already seem fishy when he said “my jame?” when jame prime said your jame is dead.

  10. I really believe the writer wanted people to have this conversation. But I don’t think the ending makes any sense.

  11. I think that the first pair of pods were tied together, so traveling back and forth would be possible to those realities. The second pair of pods are not paired the same way as we see in the first jump. They adjust it, but I guess it didn’t pair to Prime’s pod but to a similar pod. Maybe Regg never finished the second Prime pod, so it connected to the next closest one. That means there are no working pods to Prime, and no one alive to fix that side. My theory gets a bit screwed up by Matt being sent to the maze reality. That is unless that platform is pod enough to pair.

  12. i know. i know… it’s not teh wrong world. it cant be the wrong world. otherwise the guy she brought wont be there in the wrong world roaming around with teaser. i know what is it…the ending from my understanding!!! Awesome movie my gosh!!!but the ending is like this…when jane came back to real world, did he find his friend lying dead on the floor???no!!!!right???!!!! it means she has travelled to wrong world on 2nd attempt also, from the other guy’s lab in other reality!!! Bt think again. How did she find the guy with teaser around her house. It is the same world. Bt there was something that the friend guy knew and wants her to know which she didnt hear before she left in hurry. and pls note that parallel universe means you can have similar people and also similar situations created by you. Also pls note that jane sat in the right side box when she went to the other reality. So it could be possible that in this wrong reality she came by chance, she found the guy because this wrong reality girl also made a similar mistake and brought a wrong guy in her world and so she found a similar guy with teaser in his hand. So she and her children attacked him and killed him. Never knowing that in her real reality somewhere, her friend still is lying dead and the wrong guy probably killed everyone in her family. And now she has to built a time machine to bring them back in next part 2. :)

  13. Remember evil matt said his world is violent so maybe he is just messing with her at the end so he can get close and he is a killer too.

  14. I am on the side of Marcus. I think Regg went to the Prime universe to get Jane because his Jane is dead. He is trying to trick her into coming with her.

  15. Actually, there’s no way to know. In order to go anywhere reliably, you’d need coordinates. The only numbers given was the amount of energy needed to make the process work and frequency for the coils: 350 petawatts and 36.9 MHz respectively. All during this movie, I kept wondering how are they choosing which universe to go to vs to reply to. When they replied to the note, instead reporting a change in either of those numbers they replied with “Greetings” and an apple with a bite out of it. Basically, they set their dials to 350 petawatts and 36.9 Mhz and that’s all we hear. But how does that work? One could assume that it just punches a hole to another world, but why would it necessarily be the same world each time for each universe? And why does the same dial setting send a return signal? Assuming there are no other inputs, shouldn’t it be either a different wattage and/or a different frequency to reply?

    What about the fact that going there might make an entirely new world almost identical to the one you contacted? What universe did Jane THINK she was going to when she found Nutty Buddy Matt? Was it the one she contacted initially? If so, why in hell didn’t she question why she was dead there, when she just had seen herself on video? Why didn’t she at least attempt to verify which universe she was contacting? Perhaps, she could manufacture or obtain a radio-nuclei sample, similar to how they make one specifically for you when you do a stress test. When she sends ANYTHING next door send a radio-nuclei to tag that universe. When they reply they have to send the same radio-nuclei back, plus their own radio-nuclei. That way both universes have tags. Anytime these universes communicate they send tags both ways. The two samples are highly unlikely to match if they’re not the same universes.

    Not only that, later on she manages to get “back” to “her” lab FROM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT UNIVERSE with the other end still damaged? It had already been established when Matt damaged the device, she couldn’t get back. Or was it damaged? Why wasn’t it damaged? Who fixed it? Rigg was dead. Where was Rigg body? So who was that Rigg at the end? Was that her Reg? Did he somehow survive? A Rigg from another universe? Perhaps the one that followed her to that one where they stole the car? Or, as I think happened, the Rigg from the universe that she was currently in. No dead Rigg means wrong universe IMO.

    I think she’s definitely in the wrong universe. There are multiple Janes, Matts, and worlds to consider. Matt called to find out the address where her children were staying with Ruth. I had hoped that Ruth left before he could get there, but after the ending I’m certain this is another universe entirely. This Matt never left to go get the kids.

    I really didn’t like any of the characters in this movie. The kids were cardboard cutouts of people. Rigg was the same. The husband was barely in the movie before he got killed and replaced by the ahole husband. The Ahole Husband was just weird. Didn’t even make a good villain. Jane was really an unlikable character. She was selfish, stupid, and shortsighted. I understand grief can make people do stupid things, but this is her field of interest. She’s supposed to be at the cutting edge of her field. She should’ve immediately started asking all the questions I asked long before the first time the heifer jumped her behind into the device. Not doing so makes here incredibly stupid.

  16. For all of the comments referring to Rigg’s body, in the prime universe it was rotting in the ‘work’ lab, not Rigg’s home lab.

    Corona virus has given me a lot of time to think about this concept.

    In ‘spiderman: into the spider-verse’, as well as ‘Avengers: Endgame’ the avengers end up travelling back in time to multiple alternate universes where the people and situations were the same i.e. in this film she should still have kids in the other universe and having a teleportation machine was not required on the receiving end, so she should have been able to get back to prime from her work lab.

  17. Mon dec 14, 2020 hey! Reg prime (rp) is killed in world p (wp) by matt2in wp who damaged the pod on screen right, so, Jane p cannot get back home to wp. Reg2 sent her to a different reality from the lab in yet a different reality, but the cop: he came in response to the stolen car being reported, but no proof reg2 did it, so left and reg2 had2 go 2 his house to the machine ‘s set memory coordinates to teleport him self back to his own world2 (w2) lab, so the machine’s memory registers could enable him to jump! to jane’s wp…oops! but her lab’s machine is still broken, rp still dead, and matt2 still on the loose with access to her kids! So, all he gets is the same error message Jane wp got when failing to teleport back to her own wp from w2. Now, reg2 already knows this because she told him of the inability to teleport, and that’s why he took her to his house to do it, but, sent her, then himself immediately to a different world and Jane seeing the family together in her house, realised they were in the wrong reality, so, they drove off back to the lab in the stolen car where they had heisted it, and ran into the parked cop car and reg2 teleported her to this “a terrible thing has happened : you’re in the wrong universe!!! Yikes!!!” so, the aforementioned backtracking occurs because he has the stored memory coordinates at the house to backtrack to his own world2 lab. Whew! Uh-oh! But the machine in jane’s wp is still broken, reg1 of her wp is still dead, body removed and hidden somewhere by matt2 just as be had hidden Jane of w2 in bed all covered up…duh! The man was a psycho killer with a destroyed and distraught mind filled with jealousy and rage and paranoia from w2 events…he couldn’t do the experiments, satisfy jane2, and thought jane1 was guilty of adultery, raged over the girl’s inadvertent flippant sketch, killed reg1 of wp for nothing proven in passion…a real nut case! So, all reg2 can do is fire up the lab outer with/ coordinates from the wrong world with the copy there, and join her in her yet, other wrong world to deliver the cliffhanger news of the boo-boo-day, and perhaps they can stay! Here, or back in his more assuring reality they can get back to. Works for them both: he gets a replacement double for his dead Jane and she a replacement for her loss of matt of wp, but, no kids! The proprietor of the world lab and equipment can repossess, mothball, shut it down, and the kids can grow up to somehow own or utilise the stuff and technology notes far later, hook it up, reassemble and make the journey to w2, the machine’s memory registers still intact…providing they survive matt2 and conspire to overcome and overwhelm him in a kinda’ sorta’ AG2 production.

  19. Why do you think Jane2 abruptly stops recording the the (sorta) beginning? What did she see?… That could be the beginning of a new theory

  20. In the universe she jumps back to reggs house and jumps again they steal a BMW…and in the universe she jumps back to, supposedly the original universe she also drives a BMW..but she didn’t drive a BMW in the original universe did she? And another she was driving an SUV…and an Audi in 2 …so going by the cars …I’m sure she didn’t get back to the original aloha uni..m

  21. Jane was selfish and she shouldn’t even gotten in there in the first place, the look on her face when she got into that thing looked like she was scared and to me after spending a little bit of time with nutty matt she regrets what she did and thinking sending nutty matt way across the Multiverse is going to fix things or whatever and also what if the other regg is right about her not being in her parallel world, because remember she had ruth leave the house (in her parallel world)so she didn’t see the parallel matt but in the other parallel ruth sees him when she brought back the kids( not realizing that its a parallel matt) she says holy shit what do we do with him unless they told her about what’s going on?? seems like that ruth has no clue who he is or something because the ruth in her parallel world know that matt died unlessthat parallel ruth also knows what kid of work jane does, nutty matt has damaged the time machine well then her parallel world is probably lost forever and no way of getting back to her parallel world and since there’s many parallel’s that is the same but slightly different,unless there is away for her to get back to her parallel world,if she wouldn’t been selfish in gotten in there in the first place then she wouldn’t be dealing with the consequences that she’s dealing with, also i find it weird that nutty matt was in that girl room watching her sleep and if jane was really back in her parallel world then why didn’t she bother to go back to the lab to check in see if she would find regs body because come on you really think that nutty matt is really going to try an hide a body because he sure didn’t care to try hide that other guy he killed because the cops quickly found his body or some random person did then called the cops, she should of went back to the lab to find out if she really came back to her parallel world and even if he did hide the body she should of still went to the lab to see if the machine is still damaged since nutty matt damaged it! Also when the other parallel jane that was talking on the camera and was looking off the other way talking to someone that probably was nutty matt there to kill her and that was the last time we seen parallel jane up until the prime jane found parallel Jane’s body, also when she sees her lab partners lucky shirt how does she know if she’s in the right parallel because we see the shirt hanging on the clothes hanger but just think about it that might of been another parallel reggs shirt, I like time travel movies and all when I watch them I be thinking the movie is asking you(the viewer)are you paying attention and can you spot the differences and will you have the movie figured by the end or will be confused! I’m not sure how I feel about this movie because I already started disliking jane for going over to the other parallel world to bring back a parallel matt because she couldn’t accept the reality that her husband is gone and that in it self is messed up that she had the nerve to go over there and bring back a parallel matt thinking it would be like her husband never left when in reality HER husband is gone but she didn’t want to accept the truth in to me she should be a shamed of herself and to me she didn’t care enough about the lose of her husband because if she did then she wouldn’t of went over to another parallel world to bring back a parallel matt and she didn’t grieve much about her husband I know people grieve in different ways but she went too far when she went over to that world bringing back a parallel matt! And also I want to say after all those failed attempts and they eventually got it and she went over and was able to come back to her parallel world then she should just stopped right there, this movie kind of remind me of that Netflix movie I don’t remember the name of it but this girl and her friend after a few failed attempts on time traveling they was able to time travel and if my remember correctly the friend told her we should stop but she didn’t listen to him and she kept on doing it and then bad stuff started happening and pretty much and the end of the movie she kept going back to try to bring back her friend and brother that she lost!

  22. I liked the film and agree; it’s sort of a lightweight version of “Coherence”. For me, on the surface it seemed fairly easy to follow the different worlds Jane was visiting. Perhaps the makers of this film didn’t want people digging too deeply into paradox issues (as the reviewers on this site always do). The ending was a bit of a surprise because I really did think she had made it back to her “original” reality since a “bad Matt” existed in that final world and Jane sent him away. For me, ending scene supplied some insight into the concept of infinite worlds if there were obviously multiple (perhaps also infinite?) worlds where a “good Matt” died and Jane traveled to bring a “bad Matt” home.

  23. I liked the film and agree; it’s sort of a lightweight version of “Coherence”. For me, on the surface anyway, it seemed fairly easy to follow the various worlds Jane was visiting. Perhaps the makers of this film didn’t expect people to be digging too deeply into paradox issues (as the reviewers on this site always do). The ending was a bit of a surprise because I really did think she had made it back to her “original” reality since a “bad Matt” existed in that final world and Jane sent him away. For me, ending scene supplied some insight into the concept of infinite worlds if there were obviously multiple (perhaps also infinite?) worlds where a “good Matt” died and Jane traveled to bring a “bad Matt” home.

  24. Just watched this for the first time and then went back to look for clues. The one thing I noticed was that the Matt who killed Regg was wearing a different shirt (plain black) than Matt who got hit by the baseball bat (uniform shirt). So she really didn’t make it back to the prime world.

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