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Looper (dir. Rian Johnson; Gordon-Levitt, Willis)

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I thought the movie was ok. But Im sure its going to be a hit and ppl will put it on a pedestal im not really sure it belongs on. It movie had some great ideas in the beginning then just lost focus.
 
Phoenician_Viking said:
Cloud Atlas has the most buzz a month ahead of its release, and the striking visuals put together by directors Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix series) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) should be enough to draw some attention.
Unfortunately, reviews are mixed at this point, and the unique narrative structure (six stories in different time frames) is already proving to be a marketing challenge.
This all calls to mind Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, which bombed with just $10.2 million in 2006. Cloud Atlas will definitely do better than that, though the odds are it won't really connect with mainstream audiences.

I put spoiler just in case. Not sure if it´s really a spoiler.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3534&p=.htm
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I'm laughing at this post. I don't know why. I guess it's because you wrote it like you're writing for a Official Movie News Website! or something.
 
Scullibundo said:
I'm laughing at this post. I don't know why. I guess it's because you wrote it like you're writing for a Official Movie News Website! or something.
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Haha. I did not write it. I quoted it from BOM in their October preview. I just forgot to put the quotes :D. I did put the spoiler in case someone gets spoiled.
 
Quick said:
It would be weird when you have random dead bodies popping up either in one spot or everywhere in 2044 semi-consistently.
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So spread them around a bit? If you can go anywhere at any time you can put them anywhere you want.

Also if their body tracking systems are that advanced (that they can track across time) it seems like it should be a lot easier to catch these criminals.

I'm only talking hypothetically mind you, haven't got a chance to see the movie yet.
 
Solo said:
lol

Okay then, carry on with your "actor X looks like character Y and therefore logically is the perfect choice to play him!" line of thought. I'll just continue to laugh at them and remain happy that no Gaffers have jobs as casting agents.
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Yes the look had something todo with it, but the swagger, he acted a lot like Bruce willis, the manerisms which I thought would sell Max payne a whole lot better than Mark Wahlberg could. He could pull it off. Kinda like how people Instantly thought of James Bond when they saw Daniel Craig in Layer cake. I bet you were one of those people ;)
 
Quick said:
It would be weird when you have random dead bodies popping up either in one spot or everywhere in 2044 semi-consistently.
Click to expand...
Loopers in that scenario could do almost the exact same thing that they do in the movie minus the killing. Corpse destruction is already part of the job description.
 
AdventureRacing said:
So spread them around a bit? If you can go anywhere at any time you can put them anywhere you want.

Also if their body tracking systems are that advanced (that they can track across time) it seems like it should be a lot easier to catch these criminals.

I'm only talking hypothetically mind you, haven't got a chance to see the movie yet.
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I'm not sure if the time machines are sophisticated enough to travel at random times, or if it has to be around 2044. Either way, I guess that's a good point.

Mondriaan said:
Your loopers could do almost the exact same thing that they do in the movie minus the killing. Corpse destruction is already part of the job description.
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I guess the idea is that it's a lot more convenient to the mob and torturous to the victim to send him/her back alive and have the loopers do the actual dirty work, since killing in the future is absolutely difficult and traceable like Minority Report.

Also a good point, though.
 
Quick said:
I guess the idea is that it's a lot more convenient to the mob and torturous to the victim to send him/her back alive and have the loopers do the actual dirty work, since killing in the future is absolutely difficult and traceable like Minority Report.

Also a good point, though.
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It seems like the process of capturing and putting a sack on victims doesn't raise alarms, so adding a neck collar with explosives would be a more reliable system. Or, better yet, just have your time traveler (
or whoever would have otherwise organized/been in charge of the loopers
) set up an incinerator chute at the location the victims will appear.
 
Quick said:
I guess the idea is that it's a lot more convenient to the mob and torturous to the victim to send him/her back alive and have the loopers do the actual dirty work, since killing in the future is absolutely difficult and traceable like Minority Report.
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My problem is that we see no
consequences for shooting Bruce Willis's wife - well, beyond Bruce going on a rampage.

Another thing that bugged me was them mutilating Seth to get to his future self. If you're going to make him an amputee, why not just kill him? How different are the two timelines going to be between limbless Seth kept alive in your basement vs. dead Seth? And if your goal is to have future-Seth get his ass back to where you can kill him ASAP, why go for his legs?

For the record, I did enjoy the movie - just had a few hang-ups :)

Edit -
I guess I was assuming Seth wouldn't be let go after they cut him up, but even if they did - if the goal was to preserve the timeline, wouldn't making him an amputee have serious consequences?
 
ultron87 said:
I guess the weird thing is that there
was never any thing that would cause Joe to get sent back with the hood on the first time but then fight his way out of it the second time.

But whatever. Whibbly wobbly. Movie was great.
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I dunno I felt it was pretty easily explained in the movie.
In timeline 1, everything goes according to original plan and Joe is sent back to have his loop closed. The act of killing himself causes a change in his heart and starts up timeline 2 where he goes to China instead. His life in China sets up timeline 3, where he goes back to try and kill the Cid but ultimately closes the loop on himself in the present.
.
 
greatestjediever said:
I dunno I felt it was pretty easily explained in the movie.
In timeline 1, everything goes according to original plan and Joe is sent back to have his loop closed. The act of killing himself causes a change in his heart and starts up timeline 2 where he goes to China instead.
.
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The Joe we see immediately shot would have done the shooting of his future self, too. There's not just some leftover future Joe with no knowledge of anything they sent back; he was sent back because he'd agreed to it 30 years prior. The difference is something else, but I don't really have a problem with that--every time anyone is sent back they risk something changing, especially every time someone manages to run off.
 
Watched it last night. Great movie.
One of the best I've seen this year. Possibly the best.

There were quite a few "hey, why didn't...?" type questions (e.g.
"hey, why didn't he just blow off his hand at the end? He could've stopped his future self from killing the mom and possibly stayed alive
), but I wasn't asking them while I was watching. It was that engrossing. Even afterwards, when I started thinking about things, it was a pretty tight plot... which is rare anytime time travel is involved.

Great stuff.
 
If you can track everyone in the future, wouldn't that mean that if a body suddenly disappears off the face of the earth, that time travel was used and you could investigate who did it to rid the body?
 
Questions/gripes:

So, part of becoming a looper is knowing
that your loop will be closed at some point. They know this, accept it, and they know when it will happen to them, right? 30 years into the future? Yet the movie made this big hooplah about the rainmaker because he apparently tries to close all of the loops at once... but wasn't that the agreement? That in 30 years when time travel is invented/outlawed they will kill all of the loopers to sever all possible ties with them? So what was the worry with the rainmaker? How was he doing anything differently than planned?

Secondly.
They dispose of the bodies in a big furnace. If they can time travel these people with such accuracy as to place a person directly in front of someone with a gun, why not just time travel them into the furnace in the first place?

Sorry if these have been mentioned. Just getting them off my chest. :lol
 
Whooter said:
It's explained in the first two minutes of the movie.

Essentially it's nigh impossible to get rid of a body in 2074, apparently.
Click to expand...
The Lamp said:
If you can track everyone in the future, wouldn't that mean that if a body suddenly disappears off the face of the earth, that time travel was used and you could investigate who did it to rid the body?
Click to expand...

Couldn't you just kill the guy in the future and just dump the body in the time machine?
Phoenician_Viking said:
Looper almost made $7 million on Friday.
Click to expand...

Jesus Christ that's low.
 
I never understand why some people can't just enjoy a movie for the fictional piece of entertainment that it is instead of overanalyzing it and boiling away all of what makes it entertaining to examine the wider logic of the bones beneath the entertainment.

I mean, we never see...

'Oh my god, I just found the worse mistake ever in this video game I was playing. I was fighting the enemy, I died, and then it let me try to defeat the enemy again! It makes no sense, why would it let me do that? Ruined the whole experience for me, so stupud lol'

/rant
 
Zebra said:
Questions/gripes:

So, part of becoming a looper is knowing
that your loop will be closed at some point. They know this, accept it, and they know when it will happen to them, right? 30 years into the future? Yet the movie made this big hooplah about the rainmaker because he apparently tries to close all of the loops at once... but wasn't that the agreement? That in 30 years when time travel is invented/outlawed they will kill all of the loopers to sever all possible ties with them? So what was the worry with the rainmaker? How was he doing anything differently than planned?

Sorry if these have been mentioned. Just getting them off my chest. :lol
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I think the problem that Old Joe had was the fact that his wife was killed because of the Rainmaker's ascent as a mob boss. He travelled back in time to stop his wife from being slain, but he didn't necessarily have a problem with the Rainmaker himself. idk if this is the question you're asking btw but whatever

I have a few questions myself:
In the first timeline where Joe shoots himself and gets the loot, why would the Rainmaker feel compelled to close off all the Loopers as his first order? Assuming that the mom was the symbol of peace that would lead to a good Rainmaker, as the film itself implies, then why would he grow up as a stingy, revengeful man? His mother should be alive in the first timeline right? I thought that in the timeline where Joe fails to kill himself, then he would be the reason the Rainmaker didn't grow up bonkers because he was going to be somewhat of a father figure for Cid as he grows older, but he just shoots himself in the end. Can anyone elaborate on this please?
 
Ties said:
I have a few questions myself:
In the first timeline where Joe shoots himself and gets the loot, why would the Rainmaker feel compelled to close off all the Loopers as his first order? Assuming that the mom was the symbol of peace that would lead to a good Rainmaker, as the film itself implies, then why would he grow up as a stingy, revengeful man? His mother should be alive in the first timeline right? I thought that in the timeline where Joe fails to kill himself, then he would be the reason the Rainmaker didn't grow up bonkers because he was going to be somewhat of a father figure for Cid as he grows older, but he just shoots himself in the end. Can anyone elaborate on this please?
Click to expand...

That's my big issue with the movie and I can only come up with two possible answers.
The first is that Cid becomes evil anyway when he grows up, possibly due to his mother being killed by some other random asshole or he just grows up to hate his mother anyway. You can see in the movie that there is a lot of issues underlying that family and possibly in the original timeline without Joe's intervention into the family, Cid might kill the mother himself. The second possibility is that Willis killing the mother was going to cause a new branch that looped into the first one thus causing him to become the Rainmaker anyway. In the second option, the entire movie isn't a loop, only the last 10 minutes cause a new loop. My personal guess is along the lines of the first in that Cid becomes evil anyway even with the mother being there in the first timeline. As to why he closed all the loops, it might not have been anything personal but rather just eliminating something he thought was useless. He was conducting mass executions of vagrants so it's possibly a vagrant killed his mother in the original timeline and the Loopers were unnecessary at that point. The problem with both these theories this is that the movie implies the entire thing is a big loop, however there is just too much contradicting info.
 
Jarmel said:
Jesus Christ that's low.
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It's perfectly respectable for a movie to make back nearly a third of its budget in a single day.

Sounds like Looper will be a success, if only a modest one. They'll be in the green even before they start counting bluray receipts, and that's the most important thing.
 
Ties said:
I think the problem that Old Joe had was the fact that his wife was killed because of the Rainmaker's ascent as a mob boss. He travelled back in time to stop his wife from being slain, but he didn't necessarily have a problem with the Rainmaker himself. idk if this is the question you're asking btw but whatever
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Yeah, I can see it from that view, but then we have
Paul Dano's character freaking out about him from what I remember of the beginning, and then the guy that died getting Bruce Willis the birth date and hospital code before his wife was even killed, suggesting he was planning to take down the rainmaker irregardless of his wife's death. I guess all of the loopers were nearing their death sentence and freaking out and decided they weren't going to let themselves get killed. I don't know, I might have just been misreading the film, but I always got the impression that the rainmaker was an unexpected element to them, as was closing all of the loops at once.
Which didn't make sense to me.

maquiladora said:
I never understand why some people can't just enjoy a movie for the fictional piece of entertainment that it is instead of overanalyzing it and boiling away all of what makes it entertaining to examine the wider logic of the bones beneath the entertainment.
Click to expand...

I enjoy movies as a fictional pieces of entertainment. But I also enjoy thinking about my entertainment afterwards. It disheartens me when a plot can't stand up to even a little bit of thought, but that's a problem that will forever plague the time travel genre, which I've come to accept. But I still enjoy talking about it and picking it apart. It's fun.
 
Secret_Riddle said:
It's perfectly respectable for a movie to make back nearly a third of its budget in a single day.

Sounds like Looper will be a success, if only a modest one. They'll be in the green even before they start counting bluray receipts, and that's the most important thing.
Click to expand...

That 30 mil though probably doesn't include marketing.
 
Zebra said:
Yeah, I can see it from that view, but then we have
Paul Dano's character freaking out about him from what I remember of the beginning, and then the guy that died getting Bruce Willis the birth date and hospital code before his wife was even killed, suggesting he was planning to take down the rainmaker irregardless of his wife's death. I guess all of the loopers were nearing their death sentence and freaking out and decided they weren't going to let themselves get killed. I don't know, I might have just been misreading the film, but I always got the impression that the rainmaker was an unexpected element to them, as was closing all of the loops at once.
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I feel as though
that he was freaking about the Rainmaker because he was sent back in time to be killed and the shock factor of that just suddenly happening made him freak about it. The movie implies that the Rainmaker is carrying out genocidal orders and that Old Joe wanted to kill the Rainmaker anyway. Old Joe was seen combating the mob in Shanghai, so I'm assuming that the men that he was up against were some of the Rainmaker's men trying to cause havoc?

Jarmel said:
That's my big issue with the movie and I can only come up with two possible answers.
The first is that Cid becomes evil anyway when he grows up, possibly due to his mother being killed by some other random asshole or he just grows up to hate his mother anyway. You can see in the movie that there is a lot of issues underlying that family and possibly in the original timeline without Joe's intervention into the family, Cid might kill the mother himself. The second possibility is that Willis killing the mother was going to cause a new branch that looped into the first one thus causing him to become the Rainmaker anyway. In the second option, the entire movie isn't a loop, only the last 10 minutes cause a new loop. My personal guess is along the lines of the first in that Cid becomes evil anyway even with the mother being there in the first timeline. As to why he closed all the loops, it might not have been anything personal but rather just eliminating something he thought was useless. He was conducting mass executions of vagrants so it's possibly a vagrant killed his mother in the original timeline and the Loopers were unnecessary at that point. The problem with both these theories this is that the movie implies the entire thing is a big loop, however there is just too much contradicting info.
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Yeah the first sounds fairly sound. But what did Joe do exactly that impacted the family to the extent where Blunt and Cid's relationship would be fixed? All I recall him doing is showing up and protecting Cid and his mother from any potentially dangerous force and talking to Cid about his mother. In the end of the film, Cid ended up coming to terms with Blunt being his mother so I'm assuming that happened as well in the first timeline? I don't really believe that his mom would have been killed by anyone, considering that because of the potency of Cid's TK powers.
 
Ties said:
Yeah the first sounds fairly sound. But what did Joe do exactly that impacted the family to the extent where Blunt and Cid's relationship would be fixed? All I recall him doing is showing up and protecting Cid and his mother from any potentially dangerous force and talking to Cid about his mother. In the end of the film, Cid ended up coming to terms with Blunt being his mother so I'm assuming that happened as well in the first timeline? I don't really believe that his mom would have been killed by anyone, considering that Cid a demigod because of the potency of his TK powers.
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Well I think him interacting with Cid and telling Cid to lighten up around his mother might have helped. Just giving both of them general advice might have served as an outlet where in the original timeline, Cid doesn't really have a chance to vent as he did in the movie and his resentment just builds up where he lashes out at her in a fatal manner down the road. Cid came to terms with his mother because WillisJoe was there. The mother also as we saw in the movie was pretty shitty in home defense and the whole incident with Joe maybe gave her incentive to learn how to protect herself. So again she possibly died in the original timeline due to some hobo coming to the farm and killing her. Cid might have been upstairs or out somewhere and she gets killed when he isn't around.
 
Jarmel said:
Well I think him interacting with Cid and telling Cid to lighten up around his mother might have helped. Just giving both of them general advice might have served as an outlet where in the original timeline, Cid doesn't really have a chance to vent as he did in the movie and his resentment just builds up where he lashes out at her in a fatal manner down the road. Cid came to terms with his mother because WillisJoe was there. The mother also as we saw in the movie was pretty shitty in home defense and the whole incident with Joe maybe gave her incentive to learn how to protect herself. So again she possibly died in the original timeline due to some hobo coming to the farm and killing her. Cid might have been upstairs or out somewhere and she gets killed when he isn't around.
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Ah! Thanks!

I can't help feeling that the ending was a bit of a copout, it felt so abrupt. I was expecting something on a grander scale and with more time traveling shenanigans. This is actually speculation but
a friend of mine wondered why Cid wouldn't just travel back in time to stop Joe from killing himself. It sounds completely asinine, but I felt like Cid, a kid of his intellect, would have problems accepting that the only man he had built a personal connection with would just "leave". Also I was wondering why Joe didn't just blow his hand back off or something similar, then just go to a medical facility and become an amputee. It seems much more fitting for his character to do something of that nature than just fully sacrificing himself.
 
The Bookerman said:
Yes the look had something todo with it, but the swagger, he acted a lot like Bruce willis, the manerisms which I thought would sell Max payne a whole lot better than Mark Wahlberg could. He could pull it off. Kinda like how people Instantly thought of James Bond when they saw Daniel Craig in Layer cake. I bet you were one of those people ;)
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Nope, I never saw Layer Cake until Craig was announced as Bond. And there is nothing Bond-esque about XXXX.
 
Ties said:
Ah! Thanks!

I can't help feeling that the ending was a bit of a copout, it felt so abrupt. I was expecting something on a grander scale and with more time traveling shenanigans. This is actually speculation but
a friend of mine wondered why Cid wouldn't just travel back in time to stop Joe from killing himself. It sounds completely asinine, but I felt like Cid, a kid of his intellect, would have problems accepting that the only man he had built a personal connection with would just "leave". Also I was wondering why Joe didn't just blow his hand back off or something similar, then just go to a medical facility and become an amputee. It seems much more fitting for his character to do something of that nature than just fully sacrificing himself.
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I thought the same thing for a minute or so, but then again I am really glad they didn't actually decide to do that in the movie.

sefskillz said:
lol?
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Well, it will definitely be nominated for some golden globes and/or oscars.
 
Secret_Riddle said:
It's perfectly respectable for a movie to make back nearly a third of its budget in a single day.

Sounds like Looper will be a success, if only a modest one. They'll be in the green even before they start counting bluray receipts, and that's the most important thing.
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Does it really matter? It isn't as if it is the type of movie that will get a sequel.
 
Should've cut the first 30 min or so. I actually saw a couple leave the theater. Maybe because it was so boring awful. I didn't ask. I know I was half asleep. Then the movie actually started and it got interesting.

Obnoxious, off-putting make up on JGL. Really enjoyed Emily Blunt.
 
maquiladora said:
I never understand why some people can't just enjoy a movie for the fictional piece of entertainment that it is instead of overanalyzing it and boiling away all of what makes it entertaining to examine the wider logic of the bones beneath the entertainment.

I mean, we never see...

'Oh my god, I just found the worse mistake ever in this video game I was playing. I was fighting the enemy, I died, and then it let me try to defeat the enemy again! It makes no sense, why would it let me do that? Ruined the whole experience for me, so stupud lol'

/rant
Click to expand...

Yeah, critical analysis be damned, just give me guns n tits n explosions, fuck yeahhhhhh!

>>>>>>>

<<<<<<<

>>>>>>>
 
Good lord - When Lincoln hits in November, JGL will have starred in 4 films in 16 weeks (TDKR, Premium Rush, Looper, Lincoln). Take a break, son!
 
Solo said:
Good lord - When Lincoln hits in November, JGL will have starred in 4 films in 16 weeks (TDKR, Premium Rush, Looper, Lincoln). Take a break, son!
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Premium Rush was supposed to have been released back in January. It got pushed back because I think they thought JGL's exposure in TDKR would help the film somehow.

In retrospect free blowjobs probably couldn't have helped a movie about bike messengers.
 
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