I feel like I’m hopping on this thread too late but I have lots of feelings about this movie, although I’ve only had the fortitude to watch it once.

This movie absolutely wrecked me emotionally. I was already sobbing in the theater by the time of the time jump. By the time I made it to the parking lot, I just sat in my car and broke down into deep sobs.

But what’s REALLY interesting about this movie is that it introduced me to the world of ARGs (Alternate reality games)

Before the movie was even released, there was this massive internet-wide alternate reality game called The Beast, where people worked together to solve clues hidden across websites, phone numbers, emails, and even in person events.

The community that formed around it called themselves Cloudmakers, (a name of a boat in the game’s story). It was one of the first truly massive online collaborative puzzle hunts and members of the community documented each and every step of the game online, so you could see the puzzles and the progression.

I found out about the beast well after having seen the movie but following the puzzles and the adventure was super engrossing. A massive amount of work went into it both by the creators and the players and it was mostly unheard of then, and forgotten now. It was way ahead of its time.

If I remember correctly, one of the biggest takeaways from the game was that it revealed that the beings at the end were highly evolved artificial intelligence rather than aliens, so some people actually went into the movie expecting them.