Looper [spoilers]

Olgar Shiverstone · Oct 7, 2012

Saw Looper today. Very well done from both a character and action perspective, and mind-blowing as you would think for any time travel movie. I'm surprised there isn't more discussion of this on the board, since it's certainly an EN World-favoring movie.

(space for spoiler warning)

Although,

I would think that when Joe shoots himself at the end, and thus eliminates his future self, the fact that his future self ceased to exist would have undone all that had been done, restarting the time loop all over again. And my wife had some paranoid fantasy about Sid and Joe being the same given the stories of their origins, though that has to be parallel structure since Joe didn't have TK.

Morrus · Oct 8, 2012

I enjoyed it. The CGI on JGL's face was a bit off at times, but it was a fun movie. Some logical time travel criticisms, but that's par for the course with time travel stuff.

RangerWickett · Oct 9, 2012

I liked how they kinda hung a lampshade on young Joe not being smart enough to just blow his hand off instead of killing himself outright. Old Joe points out that there was another waitress with a shorter name than Beatrix, on the same arm that Joe would have needed to blow off to stop old him from shooting Cid.

By the way, Joe shoots right-handed. Why did he carve a name in his right arm with his left hand. Hell, why did he cut such giant frikking letters?

Still a fun movie.

Plane Sailing · Oct 12, 2012

I liked it.

I liked the way that at

every step of the way it was changing time - after all, the first time Willis appears he is murdered, Joe grows old and turns into Willis and then the second time through things turn out differently - and then in the final scene we see that there won't be a third time through.

I enjoyed the minor TK setup, and the borrowing from other classic stories on that theme.

Fast Learner · Oct 13, 2012

Saw it tonight. Really, really great film. Much (much) more violent than I expected, which I don't actually enjoy anymore, but still, amazing film.

JustinAlexander · Oct 14, 2012

Olgar Shiverstone said:
Although,

I would think that when Joe shoots himself at the end, and thus eliminates his future self, the fact that his future self ceased to exist would have undone all that had been done, restarting the time loop all over again. And my wife had some paranoid fantasy about Sid and Joe being the same given the stories of their origins, though that has to be parallel structure since Joe didn't have TK.

The movie is actually pretty consistent on this point: Causality changes only propagate forward from the point at which they're made. The maiming, memories, and death all follow this rule.

More details on that.

Morrus said:
I enjoyed it. The CGI on JGL's face was a bit off at times,

That wasn't CGI.

Fast Learner · Oct 14, 2012

One thing I don't exactly follow: if Joe killing himself eliminates his future self — which I get, based on the way time travel is presented — why didn't they simply kill the younger version of the one escaped older Looper, the one they cut bits off of? If you're going to do all of that horrible stuff to the guy anyway, what, are you going to keep his younger self alive without all his limbs and such?

Why? If they'd just killed the younger version then poof, older one vanishes and the problem is solved, no? Or is killing yourself different from someone else doing it?

Stumblewyk · Oct 15, 2012

Fast Learner said:
One thing I don't exactly follow: if Joe killing himself eliminates his future self — which I get, based on the way time travel is presented — why didn't they simply kill the younger version of the one escaped older Looper, the one they cut bits off of? If you're going to do all of that horrible stuff to the guy anyway, what, are you going to keep his younger self alive without all his limbs and such?

Why? If they'd just killed the younger version then poof, older one vanishes and the problem is solved, no? Or is killing yourself different from someone else doing it?

I think it was implied by Jeff Daniels's character, that killing the younger Looper would be too much a change from the established timeline/future history. If he's kept alive, that man would still exist in the future, and while it would certainly result in changes, they'd be relatively minor, compared to killing him outright to stop his future self.

Fast Learner · Oct 15, 2012

A criminal organization keeping a limbless guy alive for 30 years so they don't screw up time is crazy creepy. I don't suspect they're going to be especially kind to him through those decades.

Stumblewyk · Oct 15, 2012

Fast Learner said:
A criminal organization keeping a limbless guy alive for 30 years so they don't screw up time is crazy creepy. I don't suspect they're going to be especially kind to him through those decades.

Oh yeah. Agreed.