Sulphur on 11/11/2019 at 05:52
Yup. In a sense it actually breaks its own rules, because one of the acceptable physical concepts that avoids a grandfather paradox in time travel is that whatever events a traveller begins split the timeline into separate branches, away from the original timeline the traveller is from; that is to say - multiverses, and the reason why Dark might yet redeem its logic. Looper hinges on this for its last act, but its scenes with Seth, for example, that have the effects of torture retroactively appear on him, contradict that logic. It's okay though, because it's not a ride that asks you to think too hard about it (literally, even), and you can enjoy the movie for its shenanigans and sheer momentum.
Pyrian on 11/11/2019 at 06:42
My best interpretation of Looper is that there is no multiverse, no splitting timelines. Instead, it's running with a sort of layman's quantum mechanics; combining the ideas that (A) time travel paradox results in a superposition of possibilities that exist simultaneously and (B) quantum collapse thereof is a result of conscious observation (minds are a "privileged" viewpoint). Thus, the "looping" is presumably a way of closing superpositions, perhaps for stability, but I think more likely it's to prevent detection? The time traveler is consciously aware of his own actions changing his own memories, and even of his own memories being superposited, which basically rules out standard multiverse scenarios.
Sulphur on 11/11/2019 at 06:49
Good point. It's even referred to with Old Joe describing it as a 'fuzzy' reality. That still brings in causal problems (much of the waveform collapse then should have happened when Joe realises who Old Joe is and where things are headed), but we're also still dealing with those in the subatomic particle world. At any rate, its central paradoxes make the movie more fun instead of less because of snappy writing.
SubJeff on 11/11/2019 at 07:26
I enjoyed Looper.
Don't ever forget Primer though. Imagine it with a big budget, Pitt, Norton, Deniro, Theron. People would go in thinking one thing and come out thinking nothing at all. Also, Cronenberg directs. Oh man. I also wished Cronenberg had taken on Transformers. Can you imagine?
Gray on 11/11/2019 at 12:21
Weirdly, I can. That would be interesting.
SubJeff on 11/11/2019 at 14:41
Transformers 1 started off great. Blackout toasting the base was such a dark opener, I was amazed and then disappointed by the rest of it. The RoboCop reboot reminded me of that - it also started really well and then that grenade goes off in the warehouse and after that... ugh.
SubJeff on 11/11/2019 at 16:19
I started watching it but, errr, it seemed a bit naff. Maybe I'll try again.
I hated Predestination btw.
Sulphur on 11/11/2019 at 18:17
There was definitely something wrong with Predestination. I can't be fussed to suss out the problems, but a lot of things about it felt off in the moment. I suspect at least some of the issues are inherited from the original Heinlein story, which perhaps makes use of writerly abstraction that doesn't translate to film very well, but I never did get around to reading that either. Maybe someday. First though, I need to track down a copy of A Canticle for Liebowitz, which this conversation has belatedly reminded me that I've never read - because it was ridiculously difficult to find in print when I was a kid, but is probably now an e-tailer away.
demagogue on 12/11/2019 at 12:11
I haven't been too into recentish time travel or multiverse kind of movies save Primer, Coherence, Edge of Tomorrow (as much for the action as the mindbend), and Source Code. It's an easy genre to lose the plot for the gimmick. I can't write it all out now though.
Last night I saw End of the World, the Simon Pegg / Nick Frost movie about bar hopping etc. Not the worst, but it doesn't stand alongside their other movies. If you've seen it, you know the hook, and it leads me to wonder, after two other movies with basically the same hook in a different costume ... is village life and typical yokel villagers in England really that soulless and braindead lol? It seems the same kind of message, along with the necessity of drinking at the local pub to survive the horror of it all, in everything they make.
Pyrian on 12/11/2019 at 14:14
Oh yeah, Source Code, that was good. I always love it when the new technology isn't actually doing what they think it's doing.