Looper *SPOILERS FROM POST 137*

tok9

Josey Wales wrote: »

Some of that is addressed here by the director. Particularly the plot point

about Bruce Willis' wife being murdered in the future.

Looking at that my question has been answered with a no definite answer.

2. The film surmises Old Joe killing Sarah eventually made Cid become the Rainmaker. But Old Joe can’t become Old Joe without first being killed and letting Young Joe grow up to meet his wife. In that timeline though, Cid would grow up normal because Sarah wasn’t killed by Joe. How does that all work? How does the Rainmaker exist in a timeline where Old Joe didn’t kill his mom?

Unfortunately, this is the chicken and the egg explanation. There is no answer. One thing is dependent on the other but couldn’t have happened if the other didn’t. I’ll let Johnson take the lead here.

“That’s the Terminator question. If it’s important to you to really justify that beyond ‘It makes sense in a story type way,’ you’ll have to get into multiple time lines existing in neverending loops of logic. You can shoehorn it into making sense,” he said. “For me it’s a trope of time travel movies and there’s a slight amount of magic logic that you have to apply in order for a story like this to make sense.”

He does, however, point to the mention of the Rainmaker having a fake jaw in the future, then being shot in the present, as one particular connection. “That specific thing must have already happened, but he’s still in the timeline where that has yet to happen. Although, in my mind, what happens is cause his memory is shifting to accommodate, that’s one of the things that’s changed in his memory.” I guess we’ll never know for sure but my guess is that this loop has happened lots and times, we’re just seeing the final one.

Banjaxed82

Josey Wales wrote: »

Some of that is addressed here by the director. Particularly the plot point

about Bruce Willis' wife being murdered in the future.

Kind of explains things, but doesn't explain why

in the future the mob guys don't just shoot old Joe (after shooting his wife) and throw him in the house fire too. So authorities don't do post mortem tests and discover he's a looper? This doesn't make sense, as surely on discovering who his wife is, they'd discover who her husband, Bruce Willis is. In short, still can't understand why they didn't burn him down with the house.

The justifications for avoiding doing this seem convenient to plot more so.

krudler

tok9 wrote: »

Looking at that my question has been answered with a no definite answer.

2. The film surmises Old Joe killing Sarah eventually made Cid become the Rainmaker. But Old Joe can’t become Old Joe without first being killed and letting Young Joe grow up to meet his wife. In that timeline though, Cid would grow up normal because Sarah wasn’t killed by Joe. How does that all work? How does the Rainmaker exist in a timeline where Old Joe didn’t kill his mom?

Unfortunately, this is the chicken and the egg explanation. There is no answer. One thing is dependent on the other but couldn’t have happened if the other didn’t. I’ll let Johnson take the lead here.

“That’s the Terminator question. If it’s important to you to really justify that beyond ‘It makes sense in a story type way,’ you’ll have to get into multiple time lines existing in neverending loops of logic. You can shoehorn it into making sense,” he said. “For me it’s a trope of time travel movies and there’s a slight amount of magic logic that you have to apply in order for a story like this to make sense.”

He does, however, point to the mention of the Rainmaker having a fake jaw in the future, then being shot in the present, as one particular connection. “That specific thing must have already happened, but he’s still in the timeline where that has yet to happen. Although, in my mind, what happens is cause his memory is shifting to accommodate, that’s one of the things that’s changed in his memory.” I guess we’ll never know for sure but my guess is that this loop has happened lots and times, we’re just seeing the final one.

Ahh, I forgot about the line

saying the Rainmaker has a prostethic jaw, which makes since since the kid gets shot there, but that only happened because of the changes young Joe makes, which stops the Rainmaker from becoming him in old Joes reality, gahhh, my brain

Theta

One thing i thought at the end was ,

Why didnt he just shoot off his own hand? Then the gun would have fallen to the ground. Then the could have killed old Joe and everyone wins?

podgemonster

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Kind of explains things, but doesn't explain why

in the future the mob guys don't just shoot old Joe (after shooting his wife) and throw him in the house fire too. So authorities don't do post mortem tests and discover he's a looper? This doesn't make sense, as surely on discovering who his wife is, they'd discover who her husband, Bruce Willis is. In short, still can't understand why they didn't burn him down with the house.

The justifications for avoiding doing this seem convenient to plot more so.

If they

don't send Old Joe back, young Joe will be never close his loop thus creating a different timeline, a different journey for younger Joe in becoming Older Joe. The Gatt men can't risk this, he has to die in the past otherwise to loop isn't closed.

Gotta love time travel movie for these debates. I really enjoyed this one. I found the moral conflict throughout it excellent. The corruption and ruthlessness that much more evident in older Joe than younger Joe.

Both struggle to kill a child but only Old Joe does it

.

Joe is both hero and villian, older Joe selfish in not wanting to lose his love and memories of his wife although showing her picture to younger Joe would have spared her life most likely

Special mention

for the scene where Bruce goes to absolute town on the Gatt men, all he needed was a vest and a nice on-liner and it was a die hard scene

R P McMurphy

krudler wrote: »

Ahh, I forgot about the line

saying the Rainmaker has a prostethic jaw, which makes since since the kid gets shot there, but that only happened because of the changes young Joe makes, which stops the Rainmaker from becoming him in old Joes reality, gahhh, my brain

I don't think there is anything to stop him becoming the rainmaker after all as the person he viewed as his mother was already dead and still fits in with his background

Theta

podgemonster wrote: »

If they

don't send Old Joe back, young Joe will be never close his loop thus creating a different timeline, a different journey for younger Joe in becoming Older Joe. The Gatt men can't risk this, he has to die in the past otherwise to loop isn't closed.

Gotta love time travel movie for these debates. I really enjoyed this one. I found the moral conflict throughout it excellent. The corruption and ruthlessness that much more evident in older Joe than younger Joe.

Both struggle to kill a child but only Old Joe does it

.

Joe is both hero and villian, older Joe selfish in not wanting to lose his love and memories of his wife although showing her picture to younger Joe would have spared her life most likely

Special mention

for the scene where Bruce goes to absolute town on the Gatt men, all he needed was a vest and a nice on-liner and it was a die hard scene

I thought that

in that scene he would remember the kindness/love shown to cid by young Joe so would change his attitude

Goldstein

They explained all this

Mickeroo

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

I've just copied and pasted this from another message board. It's regarding a huge plot hole. The guy has a point....

The premise of the movie is this: in the future, it's too hard to dispose of bodies. They gloss over it, but basically everyone is "tagged" so they made it really hard for mobsters to kill people and get away with it. This is why the mob of the future uses time travel to send victims back in time to be shot/killed.

Now first off, I don't get why they don't just KILL THE PERSON in the future and send the DEAD BODY back in time. It's never explained, but that's not the whole I'm talking about.

You know from the trailer that Bruce Willis (Old Joe) is sent back in time to be killed by his younger self (Young Joe). Initially this makes sense--the whole premise is no murdering people in the future, send them back in time to be murdered.

Except at one point in the film we do follow Bruce Willis in the future (before he's sent back in time). The world is in a state of chaos because this super villain ("The Rain Maker") is basically going on a killing spree. He has control of the time travel ****, yes, but he is bringing down terror on the entire world. Nobody can stop him--we even hear talk of his mass slaughters.

The Rain Maker decides he wants to "close the loops" of all the loopers in the past by hunting them down in the future and sending them back in time to be killed. Here's where it falls apart. In the future it's supposed to be really hard to kill people, hence this whole send them back in time plot. But not only do we hear that the Rain Maker is killing a bunch of people in the future, we see it. Hell, even Old Joe has been killing people. And when the Rain Maker's goons show up to snatch Old Joe, they shoot and kill his wife. Despite the present-moment murder, they still for some reason want to send Old Joe back in time to be killed. THE ****? They have no problem killing anyone else AT THIS POINT in the future, so why are they going through this whole charade of rounding up Old Joe alive to send him back in time? Just shoot him. You just shot his wife, so shoot him too.

In summary:
1. Before the Rain Maker came to power, the looper program made sense. They needed a way to dispose of bodies, so they sent them in the past.
2. The Rain Maker comes to power and kills whoever he wants, rendering the time travel body-dispenser completely insignificant, yet for some reason they still want to send Old Joe back in time.

I've run this by everyone else who has seen the film, and it's usually met with a blank stare as they think it through before eventually admitting it makes absolutely no sense. What did they do with they wife's body they just killed? What about all the people they show getting killed on TV?

Easy:

They have to send old Joe back to be killed or the timeline where he retired and ended up living with his wife would never have existed, i.e. the timeline they're living in. In their timeline all the loops are already closed, but for that to come about they have to send all the Loopers back otherwise it messes up the whole timeline.

Besides just about every time travel movie there is has paradoxes that don't make sense if you over think them, the key is not to over think them and just enjoy the film.

Banjaxed82

Theta wrote: »

One thing i thought at the end was ,

Why didnt he just shoot off his own hand? Then the gun would have fallen to the ground. Then the could have killed old Joe and everyone wins?

Actually, he didn't even have to go that far.

Blow off his trigger finger. Maybe the one next to that, just to be safe. Happy Days. None of this suicide business.

phil1nj

Went to see this on Saturday night. Thought it was above average (TBH I was expecting a lot more from it mainly due to the reviews I'd read - still think that certain movie magazines were a tad overly generous with their 5 star reviews IMO). Anyway, I knew once it was over that any analysis of the time travel events in it would be pointless and lead to more questions than answers, I'm not calling them plotholes as such but there are more than a few things that don't add up

Old Joes reference to the Rainmaker having a mechanical jaw from his future being a big one.

It would have been nice for some sort of explantion as to why the world was as messed up as it was depicted (apart from the offhand mention of vagrant outbreaks and depication of casual street level murders/gun carrying). Also, the hover bike sequences came across as being really cheap and nasty and took away from the overall look of the film. I'd give it a 7/10 all in all.

Mickeroo

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Actually, he didn't even have to go that far.

Blow off his trigger finger. Maybe the one next to that, just to be safe. Happy Days. None of this suicide business.

I thought

he wouldn't have to dismember himself at all, Old Joe should have remembered himself coming to the revalation that he's the reason the kid goes bad so he should have just decided not to shoot him.

krudler

Mickeroo wrote: »

I thought

he wouldn't have to dismember himself at all, Old Joe should have remembered himself coming to the revalation that he's the reason the kid goes bad so he should have just decided not to shoot him.

thats a good point, since he's struggling to

keep his memories of the Asian wife and not Blunts character earlier

oxygen

I really liked this movie, but the time travel mechanics just didnt sit right with me. I understand that its as if time is always trying to heal itself and memories are changed for a person on the spot but some things just dont work with it, for example

When the doctor was operating on the person who came back from the future and escaped. He was removing fingers etc, as it was happening in the present the future guys fingers were disappearing. But in one scene he was driving a car when his foot disappears, why would he ever have been driving a car if he only had one foot.

When the younger version of the looper shoots himself, Emily Blunt still has the cut and blood on her forehead she received as a result of the older looper. What about the kid the older looper killed, does that get undone as well

Its a bit along the lines of Back to the Future, where Marty and his family are disappearing from a photo. If they all disappeared you would ask why would anyone take a photo of a blank wall.

Also, the basic premise, sending people back from the future to be assassinated. I initially thought the premise was that the looper kills the victim in the past, before they commit the crime or whatever, removing the criminals actions from the time line completly and undoing any repercussions that came from it. Would have made more sense if you ask me :P

don ramo

tok9 wrote: »

Looking at that my question has been answered with a no definite answer.

2. The film surmises Old Joe killing Sarah eventually made Cid become the Rainmaker. But Old Joe can’t become Old Joe without first being killed and letting Young Joe grow up to meet his wife. In that timeline though, Cid would grow up normal because Sarah wasn’t killed by Joe. How does that all work? How does the Rainmaker exist in a timeline where Old Joe didn’t kill his mom?

Unfortunately, this is the chicken and the egg explanation. There is no answer. One thing is dependent on the other but couldn’t have happened if the other didn’t. I’ll let Johnson take the lead here.

“That’s the Terminator question. If it’s important to you to really justify that beyond ‘It makes sense in a story type way,’ you’ll have to get into multiple time lines existing in neverending loops of logic. You can shoehorn it into making sense,” he said. “For me it’s a trope of time travel movies and there’s a slight amount of magic logic that you have to apply in order for a story like this to make sense.”

He does, however, point to the mention of the Rainmaker having a fake jaw in the future, then being shot in the present, as one particular connection. “That specific thing must have already happened, but he’s still in the timeline where that has yet to happen. Although, in my mind, what happens is cause his memory is shifting to accommodate, that’s one of the things that’s changed in his memory.” I guess we’ll never know for sure but my guess is that this loop has happened lots and times, we’re just seeing the final one.

my opionin is that,

in the original time line, joe retires, in that timeline, he never interacted in anyway with the kid, so the kid believes that his actual mother killed who he believed to be his mother, so he hates her and resents her for killing his mother and probably freaks one day and kills her at some point, and it leads down the dark path that made him the rainmaker in the first place,

then joe is so pissed his wife get killed he comes back and says hes gonna kill the rainmaker when hes a kid as revenge, and in doing that it leads to the kids mother doing all that she can to save her child from joe, that then helps the kid finally realizes that she is in fact his mother, and shes trying to protect him,

and joe sees that the cycle is only gonna continue, and at this stage has taken a liking to the kid so he makes the ultimate sacrifice and kills himself to save the kid,

maybe the kid turns out bad, or maybe seeing as hes now in a stable home and realizes his mother is his mother, he might turn out good,

also, any chance a MOD include spoilers in the thread title, it getting very annoying reading all the spoilered stuff

johnny_ultimate

don ramo wrote: »

also, any chance a MOD include spoilers in the thread title, it getting very annoying reading all the spoilered stuff

No need to shout, we can hear you :pac:

There was no point adding a spoiler warning until people had seen the film, but since opening weekend has come and gone, no need for spoiler tags from here onwards.

tunguska

Saw it last night and I was impressed. Started off being exactly how I thought it would be but then took a turn(a good turn)and became something else. Very intelligent film, with solid acting by everybody, that little kid was brilliant. Just hope they leave it at that and do start ruining a good thing with ridiculous sequels.

e_e

Have to say that I enjoyed it a whole lot more the second time (chalk it up to not being tired and having my judgement clouded by 5 prior screenings at Moviefest) and Johnny's right about the print playing at IMC Dun Laoghaire. The film looked incredible in screen 1 there!

I feckin' love that montage that spans 30 years, one of my thoughts this time was that this sequence could have been a film within a film itself, making it a 3 hour epic that feels even more thorough and ambitious. Though granted that's just wishful thinking and I doubt they would have had the budget for that. :pac:

CMpunked

Did anyone else think that 30 year montage was going to be like a "alternate universe" deal that would run alongside the original timeline of the movie?

krudler

CMpunked wrote: »

Did anyone else think that 30 year montage was going to be like a "alternate universe" deal that would run alongside the original timeline of the movie?

yeah, does anyone remember if the old Joe who arrives first is the one who's shot or the other one? who turns and gets away after punching young Joe?

pixelburp

krudler wrote: »

yeah, does anyone remember if the old Joe who arrives first is the one who's shot or the other one? who turns and gets away after punching young Joe?

The Old Joe we follow through the movie is the one who gets away. After JGL falls from the building, the film cuts to see how things panned out for Old Joe as a young man himself. Turns out he shot his older self in his timeline, grew older, married etc. etc. and so goes back in time and disrupts JGLs timeline. Simple

ronano

On the reddit ama johnson said he would do a podcast to accompany watching of the film, similar to something he did for brothers bloom. Anyone know where to find the brothers bloom one? or if he does the looper one post up a link?

Mickeroo

krudler wrote: »

yeah, does anyone remember if the old Joe who arrives first is the one who's shot or the other one? who turns and gets away after punching young Joe?

First time we see it he gets away, it goes back to show him getting shot after young Joe falls from the fire escape then goes into the montage iirc.

On a side note, watching Star Trek IV on Film Four+1 now, surely the best time travel movie ever made

CMpunked

I wonder what happened in older joes timeline that the older joe that he shot (who had the bag over his head and obviously didnt put up a fight to be sent back in time)?
There mustn't have been any reignmaker.

My head is starting to hurt.

krudler

CMpunked wrote: »

I wonder what happened in older joes timeline that the older joe that he shot (who had the bag over his head and obviously didnt put up a fight to be sent back in time)?
There mustn't have been any reignmaker.

My head is starting to hurt.

thats the paradox really, its the Terminator timeloop effect.

ThatGuyHughesy

Theta wrote: »

One thing i thought at the end was ,

Why didnt he just shoot off his own hand? Then the gun would have fallen to the ground. Then the could have killed old Joe and everyone wins?

I thought the exact same thing after watching it! Drove me mad! Having thought about it this is my conclusion.....

Maybe knowing that the woman who died wasn't his real mother and his real mother surrounding him with love wasn't enough to stop the boy becoming the rainmaker but that Joe killing himself was as it introduces the boy to compassion?!

ThatGuyHughesy

Mickeroo wrote: »

I thought

he wouldn't have to dismember himself at all, Old Joe should have remembered himself coming to the revalation that he's the reason the kid goes bad so he should have just decided not to shoot him.

Never thought of that but didn't Bruce Willis say that

His memories were becoming misty and unclear so maybe the new memories hadn't become finite yet? Also maybe Old Joe was too preoccupied with revenging his wife's death to even have a second to think about these newly created memories so Joe killing himself was the only option."

Mickeroo

ThatGuyHughesy wrote: »

Never thought of that but didn't Bruce Willis say that

His memories were becoming misty and unclear so maybe the new memories hadn't become finite yet? Also maybe Old Joe was too preoccupied with revenging his wife's death to even have a second to think about these newly created memories so Joe killing himself was the only option."

Yea but earlier in the film when they witness Sid explode and kill the guy old Joe instantly knew Sid was the reignmaker.

johnny_ultimate

Joe isn't the reason the kid goes bad, it's a possible reason in the new timeline established by Old Joe's escape. You have to remember that in the timeline where the Rainmaker definitely emerges, it wasn't Joe who killed the mother. It was some unseen, unexplained event (or series of events) that acted as the potential catalyst. Given the lengths we've seen Old Joe go to, I had no reason to doubt JGL's response was the only way to ensure the kid's temporary safety. A memory of potential insight means little to nothing for the determinedly selfish Old Joe.

It's wrong to think of the ending as definitive, though - no reason the Rainmaker still won't emerge in the future. What it is is Young Joe self-sacrificing himself in order to increase the chances that Cid will turn out OK. It's a definitive conclusion to Joe's story, but is relatively open-ended and uncertain in other respects. Both Joe's actions have increased the chances of a happy ending for everyone else, but that's all.

krudler

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Joe isn't the reason the kid goes bad, it's a possible reason in the new timeline established by Old Joe's escape. You have to remember that in the timeline where the Rainmaker definitely emerges, it wasn't Joe who killed the mother. It was some unseen, unexplained event (or series of events) that acted as the potential catalyst. Given the lengths we've seen Old Joe go to, I had no reason to doubt JGL's response was the only way to ensure the kid's temporary safety. A memory of potential insight means little to nothing for the determinedly selfish Old Joe.

It's wrong to think of the ending as definitive, though - no reason the Rainmaker still won't emerge in the future. What it is is Young Joe self-sacrificing himself in order to increase the chances that Cid will turn out OK. It's a definitive conclusion to Joe's story, but is relatively open-ended and uncertain in other respects. Both Joe's actions have increased the chances of a happy ending for everyone else, but that's all.

If young Joe has indeed stopped the kid from becoming the Rainmaker, then it would be a paradox, as old Joe has to be sent back because of the Rainmakers actions, so if the kid doesnt become who young Joe assumes he will, old Joe would never be sent back so young Joe would never have to kill himself to stop it.

my brain! I wonder will they do a sequel, there's more to the universe established than what we see in the film, but it might be better to leave it alone, theyd have to do a BTTF2 and revisit the first movies events in some way or just go with different looper characters altogether.