Looper

[Rumpy]

The whole thing was ruined by the conceit of "I remember things after you do them."
So right after JGL had his huge insight at the end, that should have been the end of it. Bruce Willis would remember that insight and stop doing what he was doing.

No he wouldn't. Willis never remembered thoughts, only actions. You quoted it yourself. "I remember things after you DO them." Just coming up with an idea doesn't change anything, physically going through with it does. If JGL "makes the realization" there would be no "POOF" in that timeline. If he just walked away, the event would have still gone through there. It's an assumption he'd wait 30 years to get back to that point. Would he even be able to get back to that point? Events would have changed.

I agree the way the movie ends is a problem, but what you suggest doesn't make sense either. Time travel is a nightmare.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Fine, if JGL went ahead and did what he did, he never would have been out in a cornfield with those people in the first place because Bruce Willis would have never been chasing them because the thing that made the kid do what he was doing as an adult would have never happened.

[Rumpy]

I'm with ya. So the whole movie wouldn't happen and the audience would be shown...who knows. Messy scenario to get a satisfying ending out of.

[Dolemite]

Terminator did it better.

[bbobb]

fun fact: if you try to figure out the linear progression of "primer" you start rubbing your finger up and down your lips making cartoon insane noises, then fall onto your side and run in an endless circle

It's true. Primer is pretty much the only time travel movie that adheres to rules and doesn't have a million paradoxes and thanks to that just trying to understand it makes your head explode

[Compass]

This movie was kinda boring and nonsensical.

[Nash]

I caught this at the $3 theater and was pretty disappointed. I wasn't expecting too much, but I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised. I left with a bitter taste in my mouth. One problem I had with the movie was that the pacing was really uneven. It starts off working itself into a lather, then it really gets going, and then it screeches to a halt. That's something I can overlook, but the other problem I had with the movie was the story. It really was nonsensical.

I don't mind when a movie has time-traveling rules that do not coincide with how I think time-traveling works. What I do want, though, is for it to be consistent with its own rules. In this movie, it's not. First off, although the movie never states it explicitly, it appears the entire premise of "closing the loops" is to not to mess up the timeline. Otherwise, why not just get rid of the future assassin by killing his present self? This was implied in the scenes where the mob wanted to kill Old Seth after he escaped from Young Seth. I believe Abe mentioned something about time-traveling messing things up. Also, Future Joe wants to change the past to save his wife by killing the Rainmaker before he can rise to power.

However, the ending completely contradicts all of that when Young Joe kills himself to erase Old Joe. All acts committed by Old Joe did not get undone and still remained. Rian Johnson stated in a tweet that when Young Joe killed himself, he did not cause Old Joe to never exist, he only caused him to not exist anymore. If that is the case, then time can never be changed in the movie's universe. That means Old Joe going back to kill the Rainmaker wouldn't do anything for the future other than causing the Rainmaker to disappear in the future; all actions he was involved in would remain, including the death of Old Joe's wife. That also means that "closing the loop" is meaningless since you can just get rid of the old assassins by killing their younger selves and nothing would happen to the timeline. It just undoes the entire movie.

I did enjoy the performances and the set pieces, though.

[Dolemite]

Like I said in my take on it, yeah, the pacing was off - when he hits the farm it just slows down too much. And yes, the time travel aspect of Looper is all kinds of fucked up, and gets even worse the more you think on it. For example, they pretty much established that different actions create alternate timelines all over the place. That being the case, when young Joe offs himself, it might not have stopped old Joe, and if it did, it maybe should have undone everything old Joe did up until that point? Or not? Or when they were dismembering young Seth, how could he have gone on to live the kind of life that would have ended up with him getting hit by the mob if he had no arms, legs, or face? The dude's going to be sitting on life support for the next 30 years, not out committing crimes.

I do agree that films like this need to establish rules for time travel and then abide by them. It's like in The Terminator when they say only living flesh can go through time, yet the liquid metal T-1000 can go though in T2.

But whatever. The illogic and inconsistencies aside, Looper was an otherwise really good movie.

[Diff-chan]

I do agree that films like this need to establish rules for time travel and then abide by them. It's like in The Terminator when they say only living flesh can go through time, yet the liquid metal T-1000 can go though in T2.

DAMN YOU CAMERON!

[Dolemite]

I know! That motherfucker ruined THE ENTIRE MOVIE.