In Time (Film 2011)

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Asbo Zaprudder didn't seem to have any difficulty understanding what I meant.

Yeah, I assume pretty much everyone knows when Harlan has (rightfully, it has to be said) blown the whistle on people he suspects are ripping off his work. As he is so famously litigious, I find it hard to believe that people plagiarise him consciously. His memes are pretty well embedded now throughout modern SF.

 

[JRoss]

I agree that he should legitimately protect himself, but this sounds so ridiculous. Repent was a rambling, uber-short and somewhat comic story. Where is the Harlequin, the Jellybeans or things like that in the film?

 

[nvek86]

I liked the movie for the most part. It was funnier than I expected (it's not a comedy, but there are funny parts), Murphy was very good and I liked that although Will (Timberlake) wanted to "change the world", it was Sylvia (Seyfried) who had the better ideas how to.
The weakest part was the ending.

Spoiler: ending

During the whole film, they show how Will can't change things, because if he distributes money, they will just raise the prices. Even a million years won't change that much; that the time keepers (or at least one of them) just called it a day was very convenient.
And as Sylvia's father said, Will may change things for the next generation or two, but he can't really achieve anything. Especially not by just continuing robbing banks. It was at least partly believable that he could rob the smaller ones, but the huge one in the end?

 

[Holdfast]

I haven't seen the movie, but I can't say the premise fills me with much interest, though I do find the cast interesting (and Timberlake a much better actor than people give him credit for). I guess I just don't really get what the film wants to say. I mean, we already have a "time is money" world, with what sound like very similar consequences for lack of money. It's not even particularly allegorical, really, more a direct transposition of the world we already have. So what do they want to say with the movie? Capitalism is bad? Yawn... heard it all before...

 

[RAMA]

Very surprised by this movie, it wasn't an action set piece movie and would probably turn action fans off, it has a "high concept" story, turning most women off. I thought it was an effective movie...it was really a parable about the current economic "crisis" and the predilection of the wealthy to acquire a disproportionate amount of the wealth, it works in that sense, though I'm not sure I bought the "milieu" the idea operates within all that much. Well worth seeing. Easily the best SF movie of the year.

Edit: ok one of the best...perhaps second or third.

RAMA

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I finally saw this - liked it more than I thought. Very cool depiction of a scary Orwellian future. The story may have been a bit shaggy and I'm sure there are any number of plot holes to poke at, but Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried made a good enough Bonnie & Clyde to hold my interest till the end. The way I can tell a really bad movie is when my mind starts wandering to plot hole poking before it's even over.

For instance, who was the rocket scientist who designed the arm doohickeys so that people could lose time unwillingly? Why not just design the system so that can't happen? Problem solved, movie averted! Musta been the same designer who later went on to design holodecks so that the safeties can be turned off...

The way Cillian Murphy died was a bit of a headscratcher. If he's prone to getting so caught up in his work that he forgets about his clock, how has he survived 50 years in the job?

And why don't the Timekeepers have the equivalent of overdraft protection? When one of those guys is running low, their account is automatically and wirelessly topped off. Problem solved, movie averted part 2!

And the way the movie ended, uh...you can knock over all the banks you like, but you'll never get anywhere. How about hitting some maternity wards and preventing babies from being implanted with self-destruct mechanisms?

I guess I just don't really get what the film wants to say.

I thought it was one of the most politically unsubtle movies I've seen in a long time (part of the reason I liked it; mainstream Hollywood usually eschews controversy). Vincent Kartheiser and the rest of the capitalists piggies in New Greenwich are the 1%, gaming the system to keep the masses oppressed!

What I want to know is, how did this system ever get started? Did everyone get all the time they wanted for free at the beginning? Cause nobody in their right mind would sign up for the possibility of being 25 forever, at the cost of being run ragged after your 25 birthday trying to keep from croaking long before your natural lifespan was up.

Which brings me around to yet another plot hole, or maybe just an open question: the bad guy who said that everyone can't be allowed to live forever because it would overpopulate the world (even worse than it's overpopulated now) was right, of course. Which is a good reason why Justin & Amanda need to start hitting the maternity wards and resetting human beings the way they're supposed to be - old and wrinkly!

 

[RoJoHen]

I guess I just don't really get what the film wants to say.

I thought it was one of the most politically unsubtle movies I've seen in a long time (part of the reason I liked it; mainstream Hollywood usually eschews controversy). Vincent Kartheiser and the rest of the capitalists piggies in New Greenwich are the 1%, gaming the system to keep the masses oppressed!

Yeah, the message of the movie was pretty obvious.

What I want to know is, how did this system ever get started? Did everyone get all the time they wanted for free at the beginning? Cause nobody in their right mind would sign up for the possibility of being 25 forever, at the cost of being run ragged after your 25 birthday trying to keep from croaking long before your natural lifespan was up.

I bet it started with companies deciding to make a switchover to time-based pay. Instead of paying their employees with money, they paid them in time (or maybe some combination of both). People took the jobs when the economy was good in the hopes that they could remain young forever. Then more companies started doing it, and eventually it became the new standard. And then the economy went to hell, and suddenly, instead of living forever, people were struggling just to make it to the next day.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I've been thinking of checking this out again. I saw it in the theater a few days after I got out of the hospital. ummm kind of serious topic for this forum... I was in a serious bicycle accident and almost died. Seeing a movie about short lives really depressed me. I am curious how it will feel now that time has past and I am doing much better.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sorry to hear your accident! Glad you're doing better. The movie will probably come off more as trivial fluff now. It won't depress you if you think about it, because what you'll mainly think about is how much sheer illogic is needed to make the story work. It's one of those movies where the less you think about it, the better it seems.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

the bad guy who said that everyone can't be allowed to live forever because it would overpopulate the world (even worse than it's overpopulated now) was right, of course.

Quite so. That drives a wedge through most of the ideas propounded by this film, which advocates that everyone has the right to live forever - which is of course not the case. Death is not only a natural part of life, but is vital for the well-being of the planet. Everyone dies. EveryTHING dies. Eventually. Trying to get around this would spell disaster. There's simply no room for everyone to be immortal, nor will there ever be.

 

[xortex]

The lack of Justin Timberlake in Harlan's definitive version on his own idea will be a big draw for me.

 

[Dick Whitman]

the bad guy who said that everyone can't be allowed to live forever because it would overpopulate the world (even worse than it's overpopulated now) was right, of course.

Quite so. That drives a wedge through most of the ideas propounded by this film, which advocates that everyone has the right to live forever - which is of course not the case. Death is not only a natural part of life, but is vital for the well-being of the planet. Everyone dies. EveryTHING dies. Eventually. Trying to get around this would spell disaster. There's simply no room for everyone to be immortal, nor will there ever be.

I just saw it again. I think that was the point of the movie.

If they are successful in continuing to steal time they will destroy the system and the economy of this world. Because if people are not desperate for time and its evened out it would have no value.

Things would eventually return to a more natural state.

 

[Holdfast]

I guess I just don't really get what the film wants to say. I mean, we already have a "time is money" world, with what sound like very similar consequences for lack of money. It's not even particularly allegorical, really, more a direct transposition of the world we already have. So what do they want to say with the movie? Capitalism is bad? Yawn... heard it all before...

I thought it was one of the most politically unsubtle movies I've seen in a long time....

Yeah, the message of the movie was pretty obvious.

If you read my post (requoted above) in context, that's exactly the problem I have with the movie's concept. It's obvious in such a pointlessly/unentertainingly obvious way. There's no purpose to the allegory, as it's so directly transposable. Usually when SF bothers to use allegory, it's to explore or stretch the concept, to force the viewer to think differently about it. But given that we already operate in an entirely time is money world, what was the point of the allegory here? Nothing. It won't make anyone think about anything any differently and so holds no prospect of changing any opinions, whichever way you lean on the issue. And if the movie is meant to just be entertainment, again, why bother with the allegory at all? Might as well have made the movie set in the present day (and actually, it would have been more compelling if done so). Very trite, and an example of a debasement of what SF use of allegory is potentially able to achieve.

 

[Deckerd]

I've just caught RAMA's comment that a 'high concept' movie would be a turn-off for women.

I'd just like to say that in the huge and varied spectrum of misogynistic comments made on this board oh look at those gorgeous red shoes!

 

[xortex]

I'll wait for the original version which will much more relevance obviously especially if he plays up the immortality for sale angle.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

If they are successful in continuing to steal time they will destroy the system and the economy of this world. Because if people are not desperate for time and its evened out it would have no value.

I didn't get that idea from the way the movie ended at all. If they give a million years to everyone, then the overpopulation will destroy the world and everyone will die anyway, so what's the point to that? You'll have a lot of people scrabbling to survive on a destroyed planet, but hey in theory they could live a million years. (Maybe that's the fate the human race deserves, a Twilight Zone ending. )

Or are they just going to give everyone 100 years and they aren't allowed to cry about it when their time is up? And what are the odds that everyone is going to be happy with that? Of course some people - at lot of people - aren't going to be happy about that when their 100th birthday rolls around, will try to beg, borrow or steal more time, and you're right back into the system of using time as money.

The only way to solve this problem is reverse the engineering that implanted people with clocks and set a time bomb inside them in the first place. Nobody even broached the topic of how that could be done. At the very least, they should stop the process from happening to newborns. Nobody talked about that, either.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Or are they just going to give everyone 100 years and they aren't allowed to cry about it when their time is up? And what are the odds that everyone is going to be happy with that?

If they're going to do that, why bother with immortality at all? Just have it so that people don't die of horrible diseases and all that, but otherwise age and die normally. They've got the technology to make that happen....

 

[xortex]

Immortality is the only way the story theoretically works as in more valuable members of society who make more money can buy more time to live ad infinitum if they're lucky enough I guess or well connected. I don't know the story. I'm only theorizing that their government assigns or designates time on Earth to those that most deserve it. Who knows who's immortal or telling the truth and who isn't anyway though. That's irrelovant anyway to governmental mind control and tyranny.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I didn't get that idea from the way the movie ended at all. If they give a million years to everyone, then the overpopulation will destroy the world and everyone will die anyway, so what's the point to that?

That was the point I was not clear on. Everyone will die eventually in reality. You and I, everyone. The premise of the film was that this genetic engineering of prolonged lives was controlled like currency. With the wealthy only safe if living protected, sheltered lives.

Stripped of that they could die at any moment from unnatural causes. They really never had immortality. Who knows if their genetic enhancements would really last under all circumstances. The oldest person was only a 100 plus, right? One Million years was more currency than guaranteed fact. It does not seem like this society and its ageless tech was old enough to test what its real longevity was.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I guess I just don't see how 'time' can be used as currency. Who produces 'new time', for example? Our system of money works because people produce things, adding value to the economy. Where do these units of time come from? If nobody is producing 'time', then there must be a finite amount of time units in the world of the film, and this will eventually run out...right?