Predestination Movie Ending Explained: The Fizzle Bomber's Real Identity & How Time Travel Works

The Predestination movie ending explained the Fizzle Bomber’s identity, the mind-bending time-travel elements, and so much more. Directed by the German-Australian brothers Michael and Peter Spierig, this 2014 sci-fi action thriller is in a long lineage of time travel movies, and, like the best of them, it offers an original twist on a classic story device. In the film, Ethan Hawke stars as Agent Doe, a New York City detective, but not of the NYPD. Doe’s jurisdiction concerns time, not city blocks, and his hunt for a terrorist known as the Fizzle Bomber takes him through the decades.

Despite flopping at the box office, critics and audiences loved Predestination. It’s a mysterious noir, combined with an engaging romance, and time travel elements that are interesting from the technical side of the film’s structure, as well as from a thematic standpoint. In a film titled Predestination, the idea of what is and isn’t ordained by fate is constantly put into question. It’s one of Ethan Hawke’s best movie performances and his chemistry with Sarah Snook as Jane Doe is undeniable, even after Predestination‘s shocking ending tilts their relationship on its axis.

What Happens In Predestination’s Ending?

How Does John Meet Jane?

Predestination‘s plot weaves back and forth over itself, and the beginning is as important as the end. At the start of the film, in 1975, Agent Doe is trying to stop the Fizzle Bomber from blowing up a building. He fails, and his face is burned off in the explosion. Doe escapes to 1992, to the Temporal Bureau’s headquarters, with the aid of a mysterious man who hands him Doe’s time travel device. At headquarters, Doe’s face is reconstructed, and his voice altered, so he appears as someone completely new (and someone who happens to look like Ethan Hawke).

Agent Doe then travels to 1970 where he meets a barfly, John, who tells him this story. John was born female and named Jane. After giving birth via Caesarean section in 1964, doctors discovered that Jane was intersex. The doctors did not wait to get Jane’s permission before performing a necessary hysterectomy due to birthing complications, and also forcing her through gender reassignment surgery. While these surgeries were happening, someone abducted Jane’s child. Jane adopts the name John and goes to a bar, which is where Agent Doe meets him in 1970 and where John tells this story.

The Agent asks John to take his job with his secret agency, the Temporal Bureau, with the promise that John can get revenge on the mysterious man who fathered John’s baby. That mysterious man disappeared in 1963, leaving John to fend for himself, and John blames the man for his life, which has since fallen apart. The Agent and John travel to 1963, and John sees Jane and recognizes this as the moment Jane fell in love with the mysterious man. Meaning John fell in love with himself and made a child, with himself.

After John impregnates Jane, the Agent tells John he must leave to complete the mission. John leaves, breaking Jane’s (his own) heart. Secretly, the Agent also travels a year forward to 1964, abducts Jane and John’s child, and brings her to the Cleveland orphanage in 1945. That means John, Jane, and the child are all the same person. The Agent has helped create a time travel paradox problem.

Agent Doe Is The Fizzle Bomber

The Twist Pits Ethan Hawke Against His Future Self

The Fizzle Bomber is a terrorist shown at the beginning of Predestination whom Agent Doe fails to capture. However, the bomb that disfigures the Agent’s face is not the problem. The problem is that years after 1975, in 1992, the Fizzle Bomber will strike again after lying dormant for over a decade and kill 11,000 people. The Temporal Agency wants to nip this in the bud as early as possible. It is not until the end of Predestination that the identity of the Fizzle Bomber is revealed. They are Agent Doe.

Years of time traveling have shattered the Agent’s mindand convinced him that by unleashing his bombs, he will save countless more people in alternate futures. As out of sorts as the Fizzle Bomber sounds, he could be right with how much Predestination plays with time. Exploding a bomb in one reality could very well save many more people in another. The Fizzle Bomber claims that if the Agent shoots them, he will seal his fate, and eventually become the Fizzle Bomber, as predestined.

The Agent, vowing that his future will be different, shoots the Fizzle Bomber before he can use his device. As the film fades to black, a tape recording of a message the Agent left for John can be heard, pondering if the future can ever really be changed.

Mr. Robertson Is Responsible For The Agent’s Existence

The Leader Of The Temporal Bureau Is The Puppet Master

One of the few characters in Predestination who is not multiple people is Mr. Robertson (Noah Taylor), Agent Doe’s superior at the Temporal Bureau. Mr. Robertson first approached Jane to recruit her to SpaceCorp, but she was rejected for being intersex. Later, he approaches Jane again, right after John leaves her, and tells Jane that he lied and that he actually works for the Temporal Bureau. Jane is recruited and rejected again since she’s pregnant. Later, Mr. Robertson reveals another twist: the Agent is also Jane/John.

Mr. Robertson has orchestrated the conception, birth, and death of the Agent, creating what he sees as the perfect time-traveling agent. He has no family, no history, no reason to be anything but an agent of the Bureau, unable to be killed even, as the Agent ensures he is born, before he sets off on his quest to stop the Fizzle Bomber. Mr. Robertson even allowed the Agent to become the Fizzle Bomber, claiming that his actions motivated the need and growth of the Temporal Bureau.

Mr. Robertson presents an interesting idea in Predestination. All along it has seemed that the Agent/Jane/John/Fizzle Bomber are unable to change their futures, that their fates are predestined. However, Mr. Robertson has been influencing events himself, leading his Agent from one year to another. If he can so influence the past and future, then it’s reasonable to assume that the Agent can if he would ever try.

How The Time Travel In Predestination Works

A Head-Scratching Predestination Paradox Made Clear

The Predestination time travel rules can begin getting Byzantine if examined too closely, but at its most basic level, the time travel is simple. Any starting point is fine, seeing as the baby, Jane, John, the Agent, and the Fizzle Bomber are all the same person. An infant is placed at a Cleveland orphanage in 1945. That infant grows up to be Jane, a woman who is intersex. In 1963, Jane meets a mysterious man, has a romantic affair with him, and conceives a child. In 1964, Jane gives birth to a daughter who is abducted without her knowing.

Jane undergoes a hysterectomy and gender reassignment surgery in 1964 and begins living under the name John, and relocates to New York City. In 1970, John sits at a bar and is served by the Agent working undercover as a bartender. The Agent brings John back to Cleveland in 1963, where John falls in love with Jane. John is then whisked away to become a Temporal agent. One of his missions is to stop a man known as the Fizzle Bomber in 1975. He fails and John has his face disfigured and replaced. He is now the Agent.

The Agent goes back to 1970 and poses as a barkeep and takes John to 1963. While John and Jane are beginning a romance, the Agent jumps to 1964, steals Jane’s baby, then takes the baby to 1945 and places her in a Cleveland Orphanage, starting the cycle of birth. So what happens to the Agent now? Jane’s birth is on a loop, but what happens after baby Jane is sent to the beginning of the loop?

The Agent sits and waits for 1975. When John arrives to stop the Fizzle Bomber, the Agent is the mysterious man who helps him and sends him to 1992. Now it’s just the Fizzle Bomber and the Agent. How this stand-off comes about is unclear. At some point, the time loop broke, or shifted, or an alternate reality was created, because the Agent undergoes psychosis, something Mr. Robertson warned would happen with too many jumps, and decides that setting up the bombs himself is the only solution.

The Fizzle Bomber warns the Agent that killing him will lead the Agent down a road that will see him as the Fizzle Bomber, but the Agent kills him anyway. It’s never shown how the Agent goes on to become the Fizzle Bomber, so it’s possible that if there are alternate realities in Predestination, perhaps this time around the Agent managed to avoid his fate.

The Real Meaning Of Predestination’s Ending

The Agent Has To Learn To Let Go Of His Past

Predestination is such an excellent time travel movie not because of the mechanics of the actual time travel, but what the film has to say about fate, predestination, and dealing with the trauma of the past. Every iteration of the Agent could choose to change their fate. John could have stayed with Jane, the Agent could have not killed the Fizzle Bomber, and the Agent could have not abducted baby Jane. The Agent’s life is a never-ending cycle of trauma, and the Fizzle Bomber tells him that if he doesn’t shoot, the cycle could end.

However, the Agent lets his past dictate his future and plays right into a predetermined fate’s hands. Instead of confronting the source of his trauma, the Agent starts it all over again, forcing himself to relive it over and over. The tape recorder at the end of the movie, of the Agent wondering aloud to John whether the future can be changed, can be viewed as a grim ironic final note, or it can be a hopeful message for Predestination. This loop, the Agent has failed, but perhaps next time, he’ll realize the answer to his own question, is “Yes”.

How The Predestination Ending Was Received

The Final Twists And Turns Went Down Well With Critics And Viewers

Predestination was received well by audiences and critics alike, and is currently sitting on an 85% Tomatometer and 76% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes — an incredible juxtaposition to its box office take, which was just over $4.5 million (less than its budget of $5 million, via Box Office Mojo). However, despite the fact it was an arguable financial flop, Predestination continued to generate a reputation as a solid sci-fi thriller, with its twist-filled ending often cited as a reason why the movie deserved more attention than it got.

Time-travel is a trope that some feel has been worn out by sci-fi, with it being explored in multiple movies and franchises. The ending of Predestination was recognized as a fresh take on the idea, however. The movie was particularly praised for its ability to keep its multi-layered narrative cohesive, and the ending was an integral part of this, since it wrapped up all the various plot elements neatly and in a way that avoided major audience confusion.

There were, of course, some critics who didn’t respond as well to the ending of Predestination, with the general consensus among those who didn’t enjoy the finale being that its complex narrative could become untangled if scrutinized too much. Plus, there were those who saw the twist of Agent Doe being a younger version of the Fizzle Bomber coming before the reveal, as the “fighting against your future self” twist has been done before (even in kids movies like Pixar’s Lightyear).

All in all though, the ending of Predestination was a well-executed ending for an incredibly cerebral sci-fi movie, and a reason the film continues to be discussed a decade after release.

Predestination (2014)

Predestination is a science fiction thriller directed by the Spierig Brothers, starring Ethan Hawke as a time-traveling agent of a covert government organization. The film follows his efforts to recruit new agents and prevent future crimes, leading to a complex narrative involving identity and fate. The storyline intricately weaves through various timelines, creating a thought-provoking exploration of destiny and free will.

Director

Michael Spierig , Peter Spierig

Release Date

August 28, 2014

Cast

Ethan Hawke , Sarah Snook , Noah Taylor , Madeleine West , Christopher Kirby , Freya Stafford , Jim Knobeloch , Christopher Stollery , Tyler Coppin

Runtime

97 minutes