Looper SPOILERS FROM POST 137

johnny_ultimate · 29-09-2012 12:24am

krudler wrote: »

Also why do we see
Bruce Willis going back twice? the first time he appears, turns gets blasted in the back and then lobs the gold at JGL and knocks him out, pov shot, we later see that exact same scene from a different wide cut, but then there's the short scene where Willis appears and he shoots him, I didnt really get it

It's confusing to explain but...

When Old Joe is killed by young Joe that sets off one timeline, in which he moves to China and gets married (the montage). But when it reaches the point in that timeline where he has to go back and have his loop closed, he 'escapes'. Then he travels back to the past and knocks out Young Joe, which instigates the film's primary timeline / paradox thing, which continues on for the rest of the film.

So to put it not simply at all: the Old Joe that travels back the second time is the one that shot and killed his older self as his younger self the first time around

Fact: the film is still only about one-tenth as complicated as Primer though :P

krudler · 29-09-2012 12:42am

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

It's confusing to explain but...
When Old Joe is killed by young Joe that sets off one timeline, in which he moves to China and gets married (the montage). But when it reaches the point in that timeline where he has to go back and have his loop closed, he 'escapes'. Then he travels back to the past and knocks out Young Joe, which instigates the film's primary timeline / paradox thing, which continues on for the rest of the film.

So to put it not simply at all: the Old Joe that travels back the second time is the one that shot and killed his older self as his younger self the first time around

Fact: the film is still only about one-tenth as complicated as Primer though :P

Ah ok, that makes more sense. I wonder does the time travel mechanics in this work within a window or something, because

if Old Joe was "late" getting into the machine himself because he takes out the guys, which is why we see young Joe checking the watch, technically it wouldnt matter. If he's being sent to a specific time in the past say 12.01pm then it woulndt matter how long he takes to climb into the machine in the future he'd always arrive there at that exact time in the past if the arrival time is set. Unless its exactly 30 years from the time the machine is activated and its just a set window they travel back to , which is why the loopers have to be there waiting

Definitely want to see it again though, and yeah Primer is mind boggling compared to this, time travel movies always get hairy when you have closed loops ala The Terminator and then alternate ones like BTTF.

wonder will they leave it as a standalone piece or make sequels.

Mickeroo · 29-09-2012 1:34am

I'm dying to see this. Like Avengers, Prometheus and TDKR before it all I want to do is highlight all the spoiler text and see what you're all talking about.

Hopefully get to see it tomorrow.

Corholio · 29-09-2012 1:38am

Enjoyed the film, it's very decent sci-fi with some good performances. The story holds quite ok considering the possibilities. The kid is excellent and a real standout.

However there's a few things that bugged me a little.

When they say that disposing of the dead is almost impossible in the future, hence the whole premise of the film, they only mention that it's because of 'tagging' and then abolsutely nothing else. Quite lazy I thought considering it's the whole fact that the film revolves around.

I thought the film moved too fast between segments, the bit in China with the time machine and the years spent abroad before that. It gave a very poor sense of time passed I thought.

Enjoyable film overall though.

krudler · 29-09-2012 8:13am

JGL should have just

blew off his own hand at the end, would have stopped old Joe from firing the gun

Gauss · 29-09-2012 9:08am

Is it better than Lawless, can't choose which to see tonight.

johnny_ultimate · 29-09-2012 9:23am

Gauss wrote: »

Is it better than Lawless, can't choose which to see tonight.

**** yeah its better. By a very considerable margin.

krudler · 29-09-2012 9:35am

Gauss wrote: »

Is it better than Lawless, can't choose which to see tonight.

the lack of Shia LeBoeuf is enough to warrant it being better than Lawless :pac:

Savman · 29-09-2012 12:45pm

Was pleasantly surprised by this, much more than a no-brainer Sci-fi tbh. It's a very good story very well delivered IMHO.

You can't talk about time travel without getting into mind melting paradoxes and 'what-if's" - but they do a good job of covering all the angles here, well as much as can be done within the confines of a movie script.

I haven't seen Primer but might have to check it out.

krudler · 29-09-2012 12:48pm

Savman wrote: »

Was pleasantly surprised by this, much more than a no-brainer Sci-fi tbh. It's a very good story very well delivered IMHO.

You can't talk about time travel without getting into mind melting paradoxes and 'what-if's" - but they do a good job of covering all the angles here, well as much as can be done within the confines of a movie script.

I haven't seen Primer but might have to check it out.

Do, its on netflix afaik, well worth a watch. Be prepared for some brain meltage though, the wikipedia article is worth a read afterwards as it explains the timelines.

Antar Bolaeisk · 29-09-2012 1:00pm

Savman wrote: »

I haven't seen Primer but might have to check it out.

You need to watch it once to get a feel for it, a second time with pen and paper and then a third time to start to get a grasp of what the hell is going on

I found Looper to be a good show but hilariously predictable once you get to the

TK Kid

.

I also didn't like the way the temporal mechanics worked and the resolution, while poignant, doesn't work at all when you actually follow the thread through.

Overall I liked it, interesting and entertaining enough but never quite reaches the levels of brilliance promised.

Ciaran_B · 29-09-2012 2:05pm

krudler wrote: »

JGL should have just
blew off his own hand at the end, would have stopped old Joe from firing the gun

But

then his hand would just disappear, causing him no pain. He'd just pick up the gun with his remaining hand and kill the annoying kid anyway.

krudler · 29-09-2012 2:26pm

Ciaran_B wrote: »

But
then his hand would just disappear, causing him no pain. He'd just pick up the gun with his remaining hand and kill the annoying kid anyway.

I was joking :pac: unless he

blew off both hands, but that would have seemed stupid, the scene earlier where the guy starts falling apart as the doctor is slicing up his younger self was brilliant

ricero · 29-09-2012 2:39pm

I want to see this during the week I love sci fi. Does the willis give a good performance ?

krudler · 29-09-2012 3:02pm

ricero wrote: »

I want to see this during the week I love sci fi. Does the willis give a good performance ?

He's just Willis tbh, Levitt does a good job of impersonating his mannerisms, the makeup varies from pretty good to a bit odd looking depending on angles and lighting etc. Emily Blunt is good too, but the real standout performance isn't any of them tbh, someone else steals the entire film.

lc180 · 29-09-2012 4:07pm

Just back from seeing Looper, saw the trailer a couple months ago and have purposely tried to avoid any ads or clips on tv since just so I wouldn't know what to expect. Glad I did, thought the film was really impressive.

My head was about to explode at one stage there was so much going on! Glad to see BW in a decent film, JGL was impressive once again. loved the supporting cast also, some great actors in this.

Antar Bolaeisk · 29-09-2012 6:17pm

Anyone else feel like they got a different film than they were expecting from the trailer? Trailer made it seem like a non-stop action film which clearly wasn't the case. It was also nice that they kept the other story line out of the trailers altogether. I can't remember the last time I was genuinely surprised by a film simply because I didn't know what to expect.

krudler · 29-09-2012 6:41pm

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

Anyone else feel like they got a different film than they were expecting from the trailer? Trailer made it seem like a non-stop action film which clearly wasn't the case. It was also nice that they kept the other story line out of the trailers altogether. I can't remember the last time I was genuinely surprised by a film simply because I didn't know what to expect.

Me either, I saw one trailer a few months back and hadn't really kept up with the production at all, I knew the basics and it was about time travel but that was it, and yeah its not an out and out action film, there's a lull in the second act that goes on a bit too long, seems to be the only complaint I've heard from people thats its 10-15 mins too long. But it does have some excellent scenes, the whole cinema tensed up when

the kid slipped on the stairs and everything went into slow motion, that was a fantastic scene.

Ghost Train · 29-09-2012 9:02pm

krudler wrote: »

I was joking :pac: unless he
blew off both hands, but that would have seemed stupid, the scene earlier where the guy starts falling apart as the doctor is slicing up his younger self was brilliant

did find

that early scene hard to watch, did a good job setting up the movie though, what the consequences are if caught etc

The old and young look was convincing although looked like too much makeup at times

SnakePlissken · 29-09-2012 9:15pm

Watched it last night and to be honest it left me underwhelmed. Some intriguing ideas, if none particularly unparalleled, were all mired by absolutely ponderous pacing.

While others have commented that the movie could have been shortened by a good quarter of-an-hour, I feel the running time was fine but could have been much better utilised; for instance, a good percentage of the farm scenes,

in particular the spectacularly buffoonish incident with the mute vagrant

could have all been excised and the time used to flesh out "Old" Joe's back-story... or should that be fore-story.

Primarily, as the woman he's willing to kill three children for was not given even a single word of dialogue, we're not really given the chance to empathise with the character, to judge for ourselves if his reprehensible actions can in anyway be understood

I did rather enjoy the futurist vehicles built primarily from relics of the nineties, ie battered Daewoos and Hyundais strapped with cheap hosing and cabling. I'll give the production team the benefit of the doubt that these were homages to the future-set movies of the seventies and eighties and were not simply slipshod constructions.

So in summation, and as "Looper" has a certain amount of innuendo to Irish viewers, my one word review for the movie would be; Daycent.

Just one of the handful of things I didn't quite grasp however was, why was Paul Dano's younger self tortured and mutilated to coerce his older self to the lair of the bad guys, why not just kill the already captured younger version and eliminate both versions?

krudler · 29-09-2012 9:18pm

SnakePlissken wrote: »

Watched it last night and to be honest it left me underwhelmed. Some intriguing ideas, if none particularly unparalleled, were all mired by absolutely ponderous pacing.

While others have commented that the movie could have been shortened by a good quarter of-an-hour, I feel the running time was fine but could have been much better utilised; for instance, a good percentage of the farm scenes,
in particular the spectacularly buffoonish incident with the mute vagrant
could have all been excised and the time used to flesh out "Old" Joe's back-story... or should that be fore-story.
Primarily, as the woman he's willing to kill three children for was not given even a single word of dialogue, we're not really given the chance to empathise with the character, to judge for ourselves if his reprehensible actions can in anyway be understood

I did rather enjoy the futurist vehicles built primarily from relics of the nineties, ie battered Daewoos and Hyundais strapped with cheap hosing and cabling. I'll give the production team the benefit of the doubt that these were homages to the future-set movies of the seventies and eighties and were not simply slipshod constructions.

So in summation, and as "Looper" has a certain amount of innuendo to Irish viewers, my one word review for the movie would be; Daycent.
Just one of the handful of things I didn't quite grasp however was, why was Paul Dano's younger self tortured and mutilated to coerce his older self to the lair of the bad guys, why not just kill the already captured younger version and eliminate both versions?

I think the thing with Paul Dano's character was basically

to set up how inflicting damage to the current self could affect the older/future body, they could have explained it with a line of dialogue but hey, that was a cool sequence. I did like the "other waitress" joke after Levitt carves Beatrixes name into his arm

CMpunked · 29-09-2012 10:13pm

krudler wrote: »

I think the thing with Paul Dano's character was basically
to set up how inflicting damage to the current self could affect the older/future body, they could have explained it with a line of dialogue but hey, that was a cool sequence. I did like the "other waitress" joke after Levitt carves Beatrixes name into his arm

Maybe also it was

That they straight up didnt want him dead. Abe said to young joe that he wasnt going to kill him "if we can help it". So maybe this is the consequence for those who let the loop run in that they aren't told exactly what is happened but they are left mutilated for the rest of their life because death for them would be too easy.

krudler · 29-09-2012 10:46pm

CMpunked wrote: »

Maybe also it was
That they straight up didnt want him dead. Abe said to young joe that he wasnt going to kill him "if we can help it". So maybe this is the consequence for those who let the loop run in that they aren't told exactly what is happened but they are left mutilated for the rest of their life because death for them would be too easy.

That too, I thought

we could have seen more of Jeff Daniels, you don't see how he died, or how Willis walked into a room with 4 guys and beat them all without taking a scratch

SmokeyEyes · 29-09-2012 11:16pm

I love movies like this so knew I was in for a treat. I really liked it although I felt the middle was a little heavy and could have been a little more exciting. Overall a really enjoyable movie, I think I just got my expectations a little too high...

CMpunked · 29-09-2012 11:27pm

krudler wrote: »

That too, I thought
we could have seen more of Jeff Daniels, you don't see how he died, or how Willis walked into a room with 4 guys and beat them all without taking a scratch

I was a little disappointed that neither he or kid blue had any meaning in the big picture.
JGL said Abe was someone sent back from the future into the past to oversee something but couldnt be bothered using firepower himself so he formed the loopers. (or something to that affect).
I thought that would hint at something about his background, for example when he smacked kid blue on the hand and bust his fingers that later on we would see that abes fingers were messed up and the two were the same person.

Little far fetched i know, but was thought there would be something more.

Antar Bolaeisk · 30-09-2012 12:14am

SnakePlissken wrote: »

Just one of the handful of things I didn't quite grasp however was, why was Paul Dano's younger self tortured and mutilated to coerce his older self to the lair of the bad guys, why not just kill the already captured younger version and eliminate both versions?

Unforeseen consequences to the timeline was the weak excuse, particularly since they reduced any impact he could have had in the future anyway.

Mickeroo · 30-09-2012 1:12am

Saw this and Killing Them Softly together this evening. Thought Looper was by far the better movie. It was a lot less action packed than I expected but that didn't really turn out to be a bad thing at all. There was a lot of character building in it, some pretty emotional parts too. Was

quite surprised they had old Joe go through with killing one of the kids, expected to see the kid alive at a later point in the film. Also kudos for them not going down the more predictable route of having the two Joes full on team up and take down the system, did not see the TK kid(who was brilliant) coming at all.

One thing that surprised me for a time travel movie like this was how straight forward the whole thing was, there was practically no ambiguity with how the plot played out really.

I was left wondering about a few things though:

Why didn't old Joe just put down his gun at the end? Surely he should have remembered coming to the realisation that he was the reason the kid goes bad? I guess maybe the memories don't come around quick enough or something(it seemed pretty quick when the kid killed Jesse though), but that would have fit better for me rather than having young Joe shoot himself. Or maybe I'm just a wuss for wanting Joe to come of it alive

I was also convinced that Abe and kid Blue were the same person, couldn't think of any other reason for kid blue to act the way he did rather than them being father and son, but that would make no sense. I'm wondering was there anything cut explaining their relationship more.

I was also thinking was it implied that the kid was actually the one who went on to invent time travel since he seemed to be super intelligent on top of his powers. Doesn't really have any impact on the story that one, just thinking out loud.

If I really wanted to nitpick I could also say that willis should have disappeared earlier in the movie since the timeline was so ****ed up from his shenanigans anyway but that kind of logic has no place within a time travel movie :P

Anyhoo, I thought this was a top notch sci-fi, more of this please hollywood!

fluke · 30-09-2012 1:13am

Back from seeing this earlier. Have to say I loved it. Had little or no expectations and I knew about the time travel concept

but not of the mutant angle

, so that was a nice surprise. Coyote Ugly had her moment too.

That scene

where the enforcer is slowly split open by the child had the whole cinema gasping

I might be going out on a limb but did anyone think the movie had this subtle anti-drug message going on in it?

Lots to like about this film.

Mickeroo · 30-09-2012 1:16am

fluke wrote: »

I might be going out on a limb but did anyone think the movie had this subtle anti-drug message going on in it?

Not really, I just thought that was part of Joe's character arch where

he learns a bit of cop on and cleans up his act a bit.

fluke · 30-09-2012 1:31am

Mickeroo wrote: »

Not really, I just thought that was part of Joe's character arch where
he learns a bit of cop on and cleans up his act a bit.

Hmm,

it just seemed like young Joe was up to his eyes in ..eyedrops, his older self eventually was weened off of drugs but in the in-between he had done some terrible shit just to keep getting his hands on drugs. Emily Blunt's character (when she pretty much abandoned her son) was living it up in the city getting wasted and whatnot.

Looper *SPOILERS FROM POST 137*

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Looper SPOILERS FROM POST 137