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I think the point was that the future person couldn't have gotten to the same exact point as they had in their previous life with a change as radical as a missing hand.
Deaf dumb and blind boy
My friend made a funny point. Why not kill people in the future, then just send back their bodies straight to an incinerator in the past? Why need assassins?
I couldn't answer that.
I thought the film was consistent with its time travel though. Not that I think it makes any sense.
If, tomorrow, you have a hand and you travel back to today and ask me to cut off your hand, I may or may not cut off your hand. It's not fated, it's my decision. As soon as I make the decision to cut off your hand today, tomorrow you don't have a hand. So the person that just asked me to cut off his hand now has no hand, and now has memories of a life both with a hand that will never happen and of a life without a hand that did happen. This person is an paradox and mind and body are a mesh of two inconsistencies.
Now that you don't have a hand, you have no reason to travel back in time to ask me to cut off your hand. But since you are already here in the present I can't undo that. It's already happened. I can't undo anything from my past. I can undo things from your past, but they won't take effect on you until I do them in my present.
I think the point was that the future person couldn't have gotten to the same exact point as they had in their previous life with a change as radical as a missing hand.
Deaf dumb and blind boy
Agreed. Which is why I don't think the "rules" make sense. I just think they were consistent.
formerly The Gas, LordPerrin
Screw whether Young Joe's epiphany should stop Old Joe without Young Joe needing to go through with killing himself, the real paradox problem is that the Rainmaker shouldn't even exist in the timeline Old Joe originally comes from. Remember, when he was young he closed his loop successfully.
Last edited by Space Pirate Roberts; 14 Nov 2012 at 04:26 AM.
Originally Posted by Gohron
Drive By
What? That's the original timeline for the Rainmaker to grow up and become Rainmaker. Joe never meets him and events (that we don't know of) happen that lead him to become Rainmaker. The part we see has his mother begging Old Joe to let her raise her son, to teach him to control it. We then see a vision from Young Joe where his mother is killed and he still gets away, now angrier than ever and with no moral compass to guide him. Young Joe decides to stop himself to keep that possibility from happening, giving the mother the chance to raise him and alter the future.
formerly The Gas, LordPerrin
No man, it's pretty clear he becomes the Rainmaker BECAUSE Old Joe tries to kill him to prevent the Rainmaker from existing. Why else would he be out to kill all Loopers?
Drive By
We don't really know why (my guess is his mother failed, either in teaching him or maybe she was killed somehow when he's still young. Her premature death may be unavoidable, it's likely RM kills her by accident). Joe completing the loop is the original time line. Joe is finished being a Looper and leaves the country when the RM is a boy. Right there, RM never meets Joe. The boy grows up to become Rainmaker with no influence from Joe, it's something (or someone) else. When we first hear about the Rainmaker, he's talked about like he's a myth, very few people know who he is. It's the Rainmaker as an adult, putting kill orders through quickly (and his wife which was more or less collateral damage) that makes Old Joe buck the system and fight back.
That brings into play what I wrote previously. Old Joe tries to kill RM as a boy, Young Joe sees that that as a failure, it will change nothing. Remember the diner scene between Young and Old? Young Joe kept telling Old Joe to fuck off, it wasn't his decision to mess with history. He lived his life already, made all the choices for his life already.
Last edited by Rumpy; 15 Nov 2012 at 08:42 PM.
Can you dig it?
Perhaps with all of these alternate timelines going around, there was one where Rainmaker's mom WAS killed by Old Joe, and he grows up determined to prevent that from happening. So, he uses his powers to take over the business and, upon doing so, starts snuffing out Loopers left and right, knowing one of them will be Old Joe (who ends up overpowering his killers, going back in time, killing RM's mom, and setting the whole chain of events in motion all over again).
BTW, Rainmaker is a pretty stupid name for a criminal overlord.
This is what bothered me. We are left to assume that in Old Joe's timeline, the RM was just offing Looper's for some reason we don't know about. Not because his mother was killed by Old Joe. We are also left with no answer, or are just forced to assume, that Young Joe's presence and sacrifice makes an impression on the boy and he does not become the RM.
Good movie, but I am not sure if I believe the time travel in it. Still can't decide if there are too many holes or I am just over thinking it.
Deaf dumb and blind boy
Correct.
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