Looper - Grade, Review, Discuss, ect.

[Robert Maxwell]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

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considering how necessary this stupid ugly vehicle was to the resolution of the convoluted plot, they might as well have made him turn to Superman instead of Batman so he could fly. The story would have been the same in every way if they did

Dude, we get it. You didn't like Looper, you didn't like The Dark Knight Rises. Fine. Do you have anything else to add?

[Guy Gardener]

The Rainmaker existed before Joe failed to complete his loop the first time. Old Seth was bitching about it when he skipped out on his younger self. Joe had nothing/little to do completely with the Rainmakers rise to the control of the mob in the first few possible futures we glanced upon.

[hyzmarca]

Mister Fandango wrote:

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Well yes, but the only thing they'd be able to prove is that illegal time travel took place. In order to convict anyone of the murder they'd need to send an agent back into the past to investigate, collect evidence, find witnesses, and then spend 30 years sitting on it, which is impractical.

Guy Gardener wrote:

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The Rainmaker existed before Joe failed to complete his loop the first time. Old Seth was bitching about it when he skipped out on his younger self. Joe had nothing/little to do completely with the Rainmakers rise to the control of the mob in the first few possible futures we glanced upon.

While this is true, the Rainmaker isn't the bad guy. His gave crime is closing down the time travel assassination business. In other words, he's forcing the mafia to stop murdering people.

[Locutus of Bored]

I enjoyed the film a great deal and rated it above-average in the poll. It's easy to get caught up in time travel mechanics and plot holes, but I appreciated the thought-provoking concepts of the movie (nature vs nurture, the importance of proper parenting, self-sacrifice), the acting (Levitt did a good job capturing Willis' vocal mannerisms), and the dramatic scenarios the movie creates.

As an aside, did anyone else think that Kid Blue (the guy who shot off part of his foot) was the younger version of Jeff Daniel's Abe? There was an extreme eagerness to prove himself to Abe on Blue's part and an extreme disdain and judgmentalism for Blue on Abe's part coupled with forgiveness he rarely extended to others and occasional pride in his actions (like when he captured Old Joe). They never showed Abe moving around that much to see if he had a serious limp, but even if he didn't, as he rose up the ranks of the mob he could have gotten a good prosthesis. Notice also that in punishment Abe just broke Kid Blue's hand instead of doing anything permanent like the amputations on the errant looper. It fits the film's overall theme about different types of parenting or the lack thereof. In this case Abe would be serving as a cruel father figure to himself, creating the even more evil but also more thoughtful and less impulsive man he becomes. It's an interesting idea, at least.

[Trekker4747]

Hmmmm. That's interesting and possible. I thought it was a "prove myself to my father" sort of thing but "proving myself to myself" is far more interesting.

More over he reminded me of Percy from "The Green Mile."

Jeff Daniels was great in the role too, really enjoyed him.

[JD]

That is an interesting idea, and it could explain some of the ways Abe treated him.

[The Wormhole]

The Mediocre Pumpkin wrote:

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I enjoyed the film a great deal and rated it above-average in the poll. It's easy to get caught up in time travel mechanics and plot holes, but I appreciated the thought-provoking concepts of the movie (nature vs nurture, the importance of proper parenting, self-sacrifice), the acting (Levitt did a good job capturing Willis' vocal mannerisms), and the dramatic scenarios the movie creates.

As an aside, did anyone else think that Kid Blue (the guy who shot off part of his foot) was the younger version of Jeff Daniel's Abe? There was an extreme eagerness to prove himself to Abe on Blue's part and an extreme disdain and judgmentalism for Blue on Abe's part coupled with forgiveness he rarely extended to others and occasional pride in his actions (like when he captured Old Joe). They never showed Abe moving around that much to see if he had a serious limp, but even if he didn't, as he rose up the ranks of the mob he could have gotten a good prosthesis. Notice also that in punishment Abe just broke Kid Blue's hand instead of doing anything permanent like the amputations on the errant looper. It fits the film's overall theme about different types of parenting or the lack thereof. In this case Abe would be serving as a cruel father figure to himself, creating the even more evil but also more thoughtful and less impulsive man he becomes. It's an interesting idea, at least.

Yeah, I mention in my review post earlier in the thread that I kept expecting them to make that revelation. Kind of disappointed they didn't.

[Guy Gardener]

hyzmarca wrote:

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Well yes, but the only thing they'd be able to prove is that illegal time travel took place. In order to convict anyone of the murder they'd need to send an agent back into the past to investigate, collect evidence, find witnesses, and then spend 30 years sitting on it, which is impractical.

While this is true, the Rainmaker isn't the bad guy. His gave crime is closing down the time travel assassination business. In other words, he's forcing the mafia to stop murdering people.

It's for unlikely happening for benevolent reasons.

1. Everytime they send some one back, the future is turned into a phantom and adjusted just slightly. The mob was too stupid to see that they were killing themselves. The Rainmaker wasn't. Change in leadership, change in business model.

2. They're only closing Jeff Daniel's loopers. Jeff might not be the only operation working for the only mob... The Rainmaker was probably going to send his own guy back to set up his own new loops. You can't trust the last guy in charges people. Questions of loyalty.

3. The Rainmaker can dispose of bodies with telekinesis. Pull them apart or toss them into orbit. It's cheaper and less messy.

4. It was a set up. The laughably just imprecise enough to create a comedy of errors rain makers birth records? How is that easier to uncover than the Rainmaker's name? The Rainmaker needed Joe? After Joe didn't complete his loop the first time and had no idea, they sent back a fake completed loop so that Joe would be able to live happily ever after for some unknown reason. Someone in the future was controlling/helping Joe the first time around who wasn't the next time or the time after that... Which might have been old Joe who shadowed young Joe for 30 years without a hitch?

Seriously? It's like they didn't even read their own script.

[Dimesdan]

Me and the other half watched it with a couple of her friends and all four of us really liked it before going out last night.

The way the time travel element were used, the cutting of pieces of the younger first-escaped Looper affecting the older version was disturbing, but cool. It makes sense that something like that would happen. Plus the fogginess of memories described, it was almost like what happens to Gambon's character in the 2010 Who Christmas Special. To coin a phrase from Who, it was very timey whimy.

I rather enjoyed the universe created. The city, I'm guessing Kansas City was as if a Libertarian ruled America. I was also happy that nothing was really explained: the emergence of TK, the invention of time travel, those hoses coming out of the cars and the sheer shitiness of the city and the vagrant problem.

Joe, both old and young were superb characters. At points I didn't like them, but then at other points, I seriously felt for them. Although I was expecting young Joe to do something to stop himself, I didn't expect the option he choice. As for the rainmaker, with the existence of TK and the fact he wiped out whole armies on his own, I thought that maybe Cid would turn into him and it was a case of the ages old question, would you kill Hitler if you had the chance.

On the whole though, it was a character piece and Joe's story, the rest was just dressing.

[Mr Light]

I'm afraid I was disappointed with this movie. It was definitely well-written with a good premise, but I really didn't expect the main character to sit around in a farm house for 2/3 of the movie doing nothing... I was expecting more action and time travel complications, not a straightforward character drama.

[Saul]

It's not a bad movie but it has some flaws and it's certainly not this year's Matrix.

Question. In the original timeline of Bruce Willis's character he has no interaction with the kid yet the kid still becomes the Rain maker so in the end this is what will happen again. Right?

[Locutus of Bored]

Saul wrote:

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Question. In the original timeline of Bruce Willis's character he has no interaction with the kid yet the kid still becomes the Rain maker so in the end this is what will happen again. Right?

That's one possible interpretation; that he's destined to become the Rainmaker no matter what and Young Joe's sacrifice was ultimately for nothing (though as a side effect it did presumably save Old Joe's wife unless she died some other way), or that seeing that was in fact what made him become the Rainmaker a second time.

An alternate point to consider though is that Cid and Sara's interaction with Young and Old Joe (particularly the final confrontation) also inspired Cid to finally accept Sara as his real mother. Previously he expressed a great deal of anger and resentment toward her and considered her a liar, which might have kept their relationship more distant as time went on and still prompted him to grow up to become the Rainmaker. Without Joe's sacrifice that bonding moment might never have happened.

[Bob The Skutter]

I enjoyed it. Sure there are plot holes big enough to drive a truck through but it doesn't matter because it pulls you along for the ride. Enjoyable film, disturbing in places, interesting ideas, so it gets a good from me.

[Robert Maxwell]

The Mediocre Pumpkin wrote:

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That's one possible interpretation; that he's destined to become the Rainmaker no matter what and Young Joe's sacrifice was ultimately for nothing (though as a side effect it did presumably save Old Joe's wife unless she died some other way), or that seeing that was in fact what made him become the Rainmaker a second time.

An alternate point to consider though is that Cid and Sara's interaction with Young and Old Joe (particularly the final confrontation) also inspired Cid to finally accept Sara as his real mother. Previously he expressed a great deal of anger and resentment toward her and considered her a liar, which might have kept their relationship more distant as time went on and still prompted him to grow up to become the Rainmaker. Without Joe's sacrifice that bonding moment might never have happened.

Yeah, that would make a good bit of sense, I think.

Timeline 1: Cid never quite accepts Sara as his mother. He has a tumultuous upbringing. Maybe she abandons him at some point. He becomes the Rainmaker. In this timeline, Young Joe killed Old Joe immediately upon being sent back. Old Joe sees his wife die and resolves to go back and stop it by stopping the Rainmaker.

Timeline 2: Originates when Old Joe is sent back for the second loop (from our perspective). Old Joe knocks out young Joe, escapes, eventually tracks down Cid and kills Sara in front of him. Cid again grows up bitter and becomes the Rainmaker.

Timeline 2 could have repeated any number of times as a self-contained causality loop in which Old Joe keeps perpetuating the loop by going back to kill the Rainmaker and ends up killing Sara instead. We must assume Young Joe manages to kill Old Joe shortly after this each time, otherwise Old Joe would continue to hunt Cid (and almost certainly kill him.)

The cycle is broken in timeline n, in which Young Joe makes the decision to sacrifice himself so that Sara doesn't die. Because he's bonded with Cid, and Cid has accepted Sara as his mother, Cid does not grow up to become the Rainmaker. There is also no Old Joe to go back in time and repeat the cycle.

One part of this you just have to accept is that paradoxes do not propagate backward into the current timeline. What I mean by this is that because Old Joe triggered this whole situation culminating in Young Joe's suicide, that should have unraveled the timeline so that Old Joe never went into the past, which means Young Joe never had to make that choice, which means Young Joe should be alive and have never met Cid, resulting in Timeline 1 again. Instead, it appears that time in this universe flows only one-way, so changes in the past immediately propagate to the future, but only in a limited way, and if an agent from the future causes events in the past, those events are not immediately undone should anything causally eliminate the future-originated agent (such as his younger self committing suicide 30 years earlier.) It affects him directly by removing him from the timeline, but it does not seem to affect anything else.

Obviously, this doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but that's how it apparently works. Either the paradox resets everything to Timeline 1, or Young Joe broke it for good. There is no way to be sure based on how the film ended, but from a narrative standpoint, we should assume the final timeline worked out "for the best" and Cid didn't become evil.

[Unicron]

Aren't temporal mechanics fun? Personally, I try to avoid a sense of fixed causality when possible, to avoid headaches and because I think the circumstances flow better that way. History is the interaction of dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of unique circumstances, and they can interact in any conceivable variety of ways. So I don't tend to buy the argument that it's generally "impossible" to alter the future by modifying the past and that any attempts will ultimately bring about the same future (or a similar one to the traveler's recollection).