For all the complaints about the time travel aspect, the one rule the movie sticks to is how messy it would be. The events in the movie might be an ever degrading series of loops.
It's possible that the young version of Old Joe kills a version of himself that went to Paris and was sent back by a non-Rainmaker future gang, but that future is altered and degraded from the small changes that loop around creates, causing a Rainmaker-lite. Rainmaker-lite starts closing down loops out of general self interest, creating angry Old Joe, who in turn creates an even worse version of the Rainmaker. One loop changes the next loop, causing constant changes in both the past and future that play off each other endlessly.
We can't be friends anymore. I can't remember the last time I agreed with you about a movie! (Did you like Speed Racer? I can't remember. And choose wisely, what's left of our tattered friendship depends on it!)
I loved the movie, but have thought of several problems involving the rules of time travel that the movie presents.
Most of them have to do with the whole
body-scarring/event changing thing. So they capture young Seth and start cutting him up while old Seth is making his get-away. First of all, how does this not completely destroy the timeline anymore than killing young Seth would? Both things completely disable Seth and change every single thing he does in his life. That brings me to my second problem with this. They cut off his legs, fingers, nose, arms, etc etc. How the fuck did old Seth run/drive from the train station to the city with no legs? At the start he was able to run because he only lost his legs in real time as they cut off young Seth's legs. But once they are cut off, and he presumably lived his entire life as a disabled freak, how then is it explained that he ran back into the city? Nevermind that, how the fuck did he even run away from young Seth when he's sent back in time? If he's had no legs since he was young Seth, he shouldn't be able to run then!
That's the problem with most of the movie. The changes in time lead to a plethora of paradoxes that the movie struggles to deal with. As soon as old Joe went back in time and faced young Joe he should have forgotten his wife because he changed the timeline for young Joe. At the end of the movie when young Joe kills himself to stop old Joe, so young Joe never was able to live into the future to become old Joe and go back in time to try and kill the rainmaker, why then would young Joe be forced to kill himself over an old Joe that hasn't existed since he killed himself? Yeah it's confusing as fuck, and it's nice the movie tries to deal with these things in ways that the audience can easily read and understand, but the entire concept of past events changing future people physically and mentally, but not the events in their lives is just... kinda dumb.
That said, still a really enjoyable, fun movie. Can't think of a movie I enjoyed more this year.
Does anyone have access to the number on Bruce Willis' hand in the movie? Because the present day is 2042, and the first part of that number sequence tells us the kid's birth date.
As for my thoughts on the movie: Loved it, thought it was great. The only thing that really bothers me is
why did Old Joe still want to kill Cid after Young Joe had a change of heart about him? If Young Joe had an experience that made it so he would never want to kill Cid, why would Old Joe still then want to?
I loved the movie, but have thought of several problems involving the rules of time travel that the movie presents.
Most of them have to do with the whole
body-scarring/event changing thing. So they capture young Seth and start cutting him up while old Seth is making his get-away. First of all, how does this not completely destroy the timeline anymore than killing young Seth would? Both things completely disable Seth and change every single thing he does in his life. That brings me to my second problem with this. They cut off his legs, fingers, nose, arms, etc etc. How the fuck did old Seth run/drive from the train station to the city with no legs? At the start he was able to run because he only lost his legs in real time as they cut off young Seth's legs. But once they are cut off, and he presumably lived his entire life as a disabled freak, how then is it explained that he ran back into the city? Nevermind that, how the fuck did he even run away from young Seth when he's sent back in time? If he's had no legs since he was young Seth, he shouldn't be able to run then!
That's the problem with most of the movie. The changes in time lead to a plethora of paradoxes that the movie struggles to deal with. As soon as old Joe went back in time and faced young Joe he should have forgotten his wife because he changed the timeline for young Joe. At the end of the movie when young Joe kills himself to stop old Joe, so young Joe never was able to live into the future to become old Joe and go back in time to try and kill the rainmaker, why then would young Joe be forced to kill himself over an old Joe that hasn't existed since he killed himself? Yeah it's confusing as fuck, and it's nice the movie tries to deal with these things in ways that the audience can easily read and understand, but the entire concept of past events changing future people physically and mentally, but not the events in their lives is just... kinda dumb.
That said, still a really enjoyable, fun movie. Can't think of a movie I enjoyed more this year.
aspects of the movie wouldn't work at all if the voodoo aspect of time travel altered time lines.
For whatever reason (maybe bad writing), death is what alters timelines, not non-lethal injuries, which act instead like a one-way communication device for brain damaged people. Which is convenient, of course, because time travel causes brain damage.
I think I enjoyed this movie even more the second time! I saw way more things and understood so much more. I think I even have the whole time travel logic of this film worked out in my head now.
I really want to write a whole lot more but I can't be bothered with spoiler tags, I think I'll just wait til we can write freely, hehe.
This track is definitely my favourite on the soundtrack. I think the 30 year montage is my favourite part of the whole film, actually (go go Cowboy Bebop).
Looper is going to be one of those movies that I'll rewatch many times throughout my life, I can feel it now.
Just to add on, I loved the movie despite some smallish plot holes and the draggy middle.
Until the "climax" and ending, which had their own chronological alteration effect because it retroactively ruined the entire rest of the movie for me.
aspects of the movie wouldn't work at all if the voodoo aspect of time travel altered time lines.
For whatever reason (maybe bad writing), death is what alters timelines, not non-lethal injuries, which act instead like a one-way communication device for brain damaged people. Which is convenient, of course, because time travel causes brain damage.
it seems more that, what ever has happened in this present will continue to have happened even if something in this present has changed. There is a certain consistency to the present but the past and future have a potential flux to them.
this may not "work" but it seems to be the general rule the movie plays by.
it seems more that, what ever has happened in this present will continue to have happened even if something in this present has changed. There is a certain consistency to the present but the past and future have a potential flux to them.
this may not "work" but it seems to be the general rule the movie plays by.
Think about it a little bit more, because that doesn't make any sense. After living a life without any legs or arms, how could Old Sal possibly be at 100 Wilshire Street at that moment, let alone travel back in time and run away from a Looper?
You can't have one set of injuries affecting one person in real time, while another set makes the person vanish completely. It's inconsistent.
Think about it a little bit more, because that doesn't make any sense. After living a life without any legs or arms, how could Old Sal possibly be at 100 Wilshire Street at that moment, let alone travel back in time and run away from a Looper?
just got back from the cinema... same comments as everyone else basically, loved it, time paradoxes yadda yadda...
in the end i really just wanna say that i LOVED the environments and the fact that they finally made the near future look completely believable for once!
That would be a decent argument except that we were shown the past being changed when young Joe gets killed and then that particular day where he let old Joe go the first time never happened.
the kid and mom belong to the old time line that doesn't exist any more because Joe killed himself, but they were brought into a new time line where Joe is still dead, but old Joe isn't around any more.
In fact, everything is pretty much the same in this new time line except that old Joe doesn't exist. Contrast this with the time line where everything is reset and young Joe remembers nothing about dying the first time because bad writing. It's videogame reset logic. The reset button doesn't do anything any more after you've "beaten" the game.
I'll add that while I enjoyed the movie, the time travel aspects of it were not that good.
Me. Especially for Blurays. Picked up a ton for $10-20 NZD the other day from our local shops including some 3D ones, and frequently get these kind of deals. No online retailers come close, unfortunately. And if they do, they're overseas and the shipping kills it, and/or it takes a week or two to get here.
I'm expecting there will be some delay in us getting Looper here though so it probably won't be here on New Years Day.
First, I loved the movie and tried to not think too hard while watching it (if only I could have warned myself about Prometheus!). That said, I nearly laughed out loud in the theater when ...
Just got back. Everything I expected really. Some aspects of it were a bit iffy, not unlike every movie that deals with time travel, but overall I really enjoyed it. Might be my favorite movie of the year so far.
I love the fact that the movie got away with non-spoilery trailers. That was really refreshing for once.
and man you can tell Rian Johnson likes his anime. He's always been very spoken about loving Cowboy Bebop and stuff like that but this is the first time I could see Anime as an inspiration. Akira all up in this shiet
Just saw the movie, I hadn't heard anything about it before seeing it, so I had no clue what to expect, blow away best movie of 2012.
I didn't expect it to have so many layers, with stuff like the characters and why they do what they do and being a lot more complex then you must kill x from the future.
Okay, saw this tonight in a surprisingly crowded screening.
I'm confused about one thing and cant comb through this entire thread to see if someone else commented on it.
We see a scene in which Willis comes back with the hood on his head and is killed instantly. JGL slices his back and sees a ton of Gold. Is this the actual ending? Doesn't him killing himself in the final scene completely destroy the timeline in which Willis is alive and causing trouble? Did we see the film's true ending in the first 40 minutes? And then all the rest was the alternate reality that didn't happen?
Okay, saw this tonight in a surprisingly crowded screening.
I'm confused about one thing and cant comb through this entire thread to see if someone else commented on it.
We see a scene in which Willis comes back with the hood on his head and is killed instantly. JGL slices his back and sees a ton of Gold. Is this the actual ending? Doesn't him killing himself in the final scene completely destroy the timeline in which Willis is alive and causing trouble? Did we see the film's true ending in the first 40 minutes? And then all the rest was the alternate reality that didn't happen?
Think of it as being two separate timelines. In timeline 1, JGL kills himself, lives 30 years, they come for him, he fights them, goes back unhooded. This changes the past, because it's not how he originally went back, so he arrives in timeline 2. Timeline 2 is the timeline the movie takes place in -- Bruce fights JGL, escapes, etc. etc.
The movie tries to show you this as concisely as possible -- first it shows you what "really" happens from the movie's perspective, which is timeline 2 but contains a character (Bruce) from timeline 1. Then it cuts to Bruce's perspective -- which starts way back in timeline 1 with JGL closing his loop -- and goes all the way through to the current moment in Bruce's life -- which is him escaping in timeline 2.
It's basically a standard "X event happens, now let's cut back a while and show the train of events we didn't show yet that explain why X happens" structure, just more complicated because of all the time travel.
Think of it as being two separate timelines. In timeline 1, JGL kills himself, lives 30 years, they come for him, he fights them, goes back unhooded. This changes the past, because it's not how he originally went back, so he arrives in timeline 2. Timeline 2 is the timeline the movie takes place in -- Bruce fights JGL, escapes, etc. etc.
The movie tries to show you this as concisely as possible -- first it shows you what "really" happens from the movie's perspective, which is timeline 2 but contains a character (Bruce) from timeline 1. Then it cuts to Bruce's perspective -- which starts way back in timeline 1 with JGL closing his loop -- and goes all the way through to the current moment in Bruce's life -- which is him escaping in timeline 2.
It's basically a standard "X event happens, now let's cut back a while and show the train of events we didn't show yet that explain why X happens" structure, just more complicated because of all the time travel.
But the loop thing doesn't make sense because time should remain in a constant loop should it not? That means that there should've been no difference between the life that Bruce Willis 1 lived that lead him to die, and the life the Bruce Willis 2 lived. Like, the basic time travel rules don't make any lick of sense, but it's still a mindfuck even if the movie doesn't play by its own rules.
The movie came really late here, but I finally managed to caught up.
It was amazing. Quite probably my favourite action film of the year along Dredd.
I basically walked into the cinema knowing very little about it and with no expectations since I thought the trailer was kind of a dud and Willis has seen better days, but my mouth was agape for pretty much the entire film's lenght. Every actor was on top of his game and even the kid managed to be both sweet
and incredibly scary (monster does seem like the right word to use here).
Also, the change of tone during the second part didn't bother me at all. Actually, I tought the transition was exceedingly well done, which is quite a feat. Willis killing
that first boy
was fucking gut-wrenching.
I give it an extremely solid 8/10 and only because there were a few script niggles. Otherwise it'd easily be a 9/10. Gaffers who missed it at the cinema should pick the Blu-ray and enjoy it with an open mind.
I liked Willi's take: "there would be a lot of diagrams and stuff". It's just another way to tell the public not to overwork their noggins and just follow the characters.
Edit: I forgot to say that Emily Blunt was fiiiiine in it.
I liked Willi's take: "there would be a lot of diagrams and stuff". It's just another way to tell the public not to overwork their noggins and just follow the characters.
Edit: I forgot to say that Emily Blunt was fiiiiine in it.
Saw this today. Went in with 0 expectations and was blown away. Best movie I've seen in the last year or maybe more. The child was an amazing actor. Loved the end.
