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Super [Looper] Lights Are Gonna [Spoilers] Me
Atomika
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
So, Looper. That was something, right? Pretty amazing shit.
ITOP, You will get:
- A Spoiler-free review
- A Spoiler-full review
- Idle speculation upon points in the film, which are also full of spoilers
- Tips for mail fraud
Dungeon Master's Rules for Discussion:
- Spoilers exist in the open. If you don't want to read them after the OP, don't keep reading the thread. You're gonna have a bad time.
- Tacit agreement by all that the best time travel film is NOT Back to the Future, but instead a tie between Timecop and Peggy Sue Got Married.
- All classes get +2 HP on saving throws if they show everyone their boobs, unless they have ugly boobs, and then it's -5.
Atomic Ross' Big Damn Spoiler-Free Review:
Looper is great, and you should see it, because if nothing else you'll be showing your patronage to a film that dares to show a spark of originality in this market of crass commercialism and rampant studio callowness. It doesn't hurt that this brilliant premise is abutted by some solid performances by the Next Big Thing, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and a Bruce Willis who actually flips his rusted acting switch to "ON" for the first time in ages (probably thanks to Wes Anderson giving it a shot of WD-40 earlier this year).
The premise is simple: Seventy years in the future, time travel is possible, but highly illegal due to its inherent dangers, meaning only criminals are the ones who now use it. Thirty years into the future, these criminals have sent representatives back into the past (time travel is one-way only) and have established a system to dispose of crime evidence, including witnesses. This is where the titular Loopers come into play: they are the hitmen appointed to murder witnesses and dispose of the bodies thirty-odd years before the crime even occurs. The term "Looper" is rooted in they way that these hitmen agree to a final job in which they will kill their older selves, which once that's accomplished, the "loop" is closed and their contract is completed, giving them thirty years to live out in luxury and wealth until they pay their debt.
The trouble is, something in the future goes awry when a Looper named Joe decides that he can't pay his debt, and decides to change the past.
From there, it's a brilliantly-paced thriller that hops and jumps through several genres, never settling into the trappings of any particular one but comfortably wearing them all at the same time. It's an action romp, it's a sci-fi mindbender, it's a mob movie, it's a family drama, a romance picture, . . . hell, it's even a western at times. Rian Johnson, director of great little films like Brick (also starring JGL) and The Brothers Bloom (starring Mark Hulkalo), turns in his most even-handed, mainstream, and visceral film yet, but still manages to maintain an certain intellectualism while keeping the audience constantly guessing what comes next. Come for the jet-bikes and ornery Bruce Willis, stay for the mutilations and scruffy Jeff Daniels.
Atomic Ross' Big Damn Spoilerated Review:
So that was great, wasn't it?! Wow, what a fun time at the movies. I hope you've already seen the film if you're reading this, because if not, you're a tremendously lousy person who probably hates having a good time. I hope you catch crabs in your face.
Rather unabashedly, one of my favorite critics on the internet is Film Crit Hulk, who writes for Alamo Drafthouse's site and occasionally even respectable rags like The New Yorker. He has a piece any fan of screenwriting academia should take in (when they have the time, because it's lengthy) called The Myth of the Three Act Structure, which deconstructs the laziness and errancy of films that slavishly adhere to the ancient template of story-telling that says that all films must follow the "Introduction of Conflict ---> Rising Action ---> Climax ---> Resolution" pathway. The oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino should be proof enough in the fallacy of this template, but Johnson appears to be a pupil of this rebellion as well. As Hulk points out, good films aren't about being broken down into easy chunks and fitting into a predetermined mold; good films are about interesting characters motivated by actions and reactions, and each shift in the paradigm is essentially a new act. Three Acts, viewed through this new lens, can be Ten Acts or Twenty Acts or One Hundred Acts; films can't be quantified or taught through such a sophomoric set of terminology as just three acts. A competent story is a series of decisions and exchanges based upon actions and reactions, and every turn adds that much more dramatic weight to the narrative. The point of a story isn't to get to the end and watch the fireworks, it's all about the investment in the journey, the lighting of the fuse.
Rian Johnson gets this. There is more story packed into the first thirty minutes of this film that most films get done in three sequels. And it's not crazy shit bursting at the seams with no real point, a la Richard Kelly (and seriously, fuck that guy), it's depth and texture and motivation and world building. A good director can tell more story in one frame than Paul W. S. Anderson can get done in his whole career, and Rian Johnson has become that good director. Opting for a grainy naturalism in such a bold and blatant sci-fi setting grounds the film in not only a dusty realism, but focuses the visual narrative on the actual characters and surroundings, building the world organically instead of wielding the camera like a hyperactive neon fetishist (and yes, I'm talking about Michael Bay and James Cameron). Places are not characters on their own, and Johnson understands that if your shot isn't telling a story then you're just jerking off and wasting the audience's time. He's not quite the painterly composing genius of Paul Thomas Anderson or Roger Deakins just yet, but you can tell in this film that the same blood runs in his veins, and he understands that the notion of film being a visual medium doesn't mean films are limited to just focusing on actors performing actions, and "show, don't tell" means more than turning on the rig and pointing it at marks.
As far as the meat of the film goes, my favorite bit is actually when Young Joe gets to the farm where Sarah and her young son, Sid, live. This film zigs here when you think it's going to zag, and at no part in the first hour of the film do you think the last hour is going to be spent in this setting with this conflict. It's not random, it just doesn't care about the traditional avenues other films would have taken to get here. It's organic, and it fits into the flow of the film's narrative; it's not another film that writes itself backwards by conceptualizing a finale and huge set pieces and then cobbles a story around those bits. Crucial characters don't even show up until halfway through the film, but again, it feels earned and natural, not like aimless wandering.
As well, I applaud the way that Young Joe and Old Joe at no point in this film are friendly with each other. I don't know if I would have had the restraint to resist pairing JGL and Willis at the end to give a reconciliatory tone and a shit-eatin' grin to a big finish action piece. Willis gets that action piece on his own, and then moves to JGL where the expected bombastic climax is subverted by something that gives resonance and fitting closure to the narrative. The Big Finish doesn't happen, the Fallen Hero (Old Joe) doesn't get his absolution or redemption, and the Champion loses everything. But it's okay: that's how this movie was supposed to end. It completes all the arcs, and ties up all the loose ends. Sure, the happy ending could have been shoehorned in; Young Joe could have killed Old Joe somehow, or Old Joe could have had a last-minute change of heart, but why? So we could have the happy ending? Sure, I guess, if you need that, but it wouldn't carry the same thematic resonance. Young Joe completes his arc when he commits suicide, he understands that he's just part of the same cycle of violence and greed and suffering that made him the monster he would become, a cycle that would be brought to its logical end when Sid grows up to be a monster of epic proportion. Old Joe, Young Joe, and the future Rainmaker all became what they were not because of monetary greed or personal gain or perversions of psychosis, they were just hurt and angry about being powerless when a cruel world took love from them.
All told, a really fantastic and original film. It was Blade Runner meets Shane. Who would have thought of that?
Rather unabashedly, one of my favorite critics on the internet is Film Crit Hulk, who writes for Alamo Drafthouse's site and occasionally even respectable rags like The New Yorker. He has a piece any fan of screenwriting academia should take in (when they have the time, because it's lengthy) called The Myth of the Three Act Structure, which deconstructs the laziness and errancy of films that slavishly adhere to the ancient template of story-telling that says that all films must follow the "Introduction of Conflict ---> Rising Action ---> Climax ---> Resolution" pathway. The oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino should be proof enough in the fallacy of this template, but Johnson appears to be a pupil of this rebellion as well. As Hulk points out, good films aren't about being broken down into easy chunks and fitting into a predetermined mold; good films are about interesting characters motivated by actions and reactions, and each shift in the paradigm is essentially a new act. Three Acts, viewed through this new lens, can be Ten Acts or Twenty Acts or One Hundred Acts; films can't be quantified or taught through such a sophomoric set of terminology as just three acts. A competent story is a series of decisions and exchanges based upon actions and reactions, and every turn adds that much more dramatic weight to the narrative. The point of a story isn't to get to the end and watch the fireworks, it's all about the investment in the journey, the lighting of the fuse.
Rian Johnson gets this. There is more story packed into the first thirty minutes of this film that most films get done in three sequels. And it's not crazy shit bursting at the seams with no real point, a la Richard Kelly (and seriously, fuck that guy), it's depth and texture and motivation and world building. A good director can tell more story in one frame than Paul W. S. Anderson can get done in his whole career, and Rian Johnson has become that good director. Opting for a grainy naturalism in such a bold and blatant sci-fi setting grounds the film in not only a dusty realism, but focuses the visual narrative on the actual characters and surroundings, building the world organically instead of wielding the camera like a hyperactive neon fetishist (and yes, I'm talking about Michael Bay and James Cameron). Places are not characters on their own, and Johnson understands that if your shot isn't telling a story then you're just jerking off and wasting the audience's time. He's not quite the painterly composing genius of Paul Thomas Anderson or Roger Deakins just yet, but you can tell in this film that the same blood runs in his veins, and he understands that the notion of film being a visual medium doesn't mean films are limited to just focusing on actors performing actions, and "show, don't tell" means more than turning on the rig and pointing it at marks.
As far as the meat of the film goes, my favorite bit is actually when Young Joe gets to the farm where Sarah and her young son, Sid, live. This film zigs here when you think it's going to zag, and at no part in the first hour of the film do you think the last hour is going to be spent in this setting with this conflict. It's not random, it just doesn't care about the traditional avenues other films would have taken to get here. It's organic, and it fits into the flow of the film's narrative; it's not another film that writes itself backwards by conceptualizing a finale and huge set pieces and then cobbles a story around those bits. Crucial characters don't even show up until halfway through the film, but again, it feels earned and natural, not like aimless wandering.
As well, I applaud the way that Young Joe and Old Joe at no point in this film are friendly with each other. I don't know if I would have had the restraint to resist pairing JGL and Willis at the end to give a reconciliatory tone and a shit-eatin' grin to a big finish action piece. Willis gets that action piece on his own, and then moves to JGL where the expected bombastic climax is subverted by something that gives resonance and fitting closure to the narrative. The Big Finish doesn't happen, the Fallen Hero (Old Joe) doesn't get his absolution or redemption, and the Champion loses everything. But it's okay: that's how this movie was supposed to end. It completes all the arcs, and ties up all the loose ends. Sure, the happy ending could have been shoehorned in; Young Joe could have killed Old Joe somehow, or Old Joe could have had a last-minute change of heart, but why? So we could have the happy ending? Sure, I guess, if you need that, but it wouldn't carry the same thematic resonance. Young Joe completes his arc when he commits suicide, he understands that he's just part of the same cycle of violence and greed and suffering that made him the monster he would become, a cycle that would be brought to its logical end when Sid grows up to be a monster of epic proportion. Old Joe, Young Joe, and the future Rainmaker all became what they were not because of monetary greed or personal gain or perversions of psychosis, they were just hurt and angry about being powerless when a cruel world took love from them.
All told, a really fantastic and original film. It was Blade Runner meets Shane. Who would have thought of that?
Idle Thoughts:
- There are probably always going to be paradoxes in a time travel story. I don't know if I've seen or read one yet that didn't, but I appreciated the way this film clearly and early on set the rules for this tale. Time-travel movies always have to have rules. Sometimes these don't make a lot of logical sense, but the best we can hope for is consistency within the narrative. This film, for the most part, nails it except possibly right at the end. I wondered, if Old Joe gained Young Joe's memories almost immediately, why would Old Joe continue to try to kill Sid after Young Joe committed himself to saving him? As the film wound down, I really thought this was where the end would take us, giving us the happy ending Hollywood has conditioned us to expect. Old Joe would have felt how Young Joe would feel about Sarah and Sid, reflected upon all the evil he did as a younger man, and decided that helping Young Joe become a better person would be worth losing his past live and loved ones over. I can't honestly say that I would have felt cheapened by that ending, considering that it would have given Old Joe more closure to his arc, but what we got works well enough. Young Joe could reached the same closure of his arc as long as suicide was attempted; it didn't have to be successful, and if it resulted in a situation where Old Joe gave his own life to save Young Joe's, double duty is served.
- There's not a lot humor in the film, but Jeff Daniels steals every scene he's in as the gruff time-traveling mob boss. "Why are you arguing with me? I'm from the future."
- Kid Blue was a nice bit of texture, but I thought he lingered a bit too long with diminishing returns. He should have died after Old Joe shot him in the big shoot-out, especially considering how unceremoniously he meets his end just a few minutes later.
- I loved all the dirty tech in the film, it made it feel more real. The shitty cars with tacked-on solar panels and the trucks that ran on their own exhaust seemed so lived-in and tangible.
- Best kid actor ever? Best kid actor ever.
- There's not a lot humor in the film, but Jeff Daniels steals every scene he's in as the gruff time-traveling mob boss. "Why are you arguing with me? I'm from the future."
- Kid Blue was a nice bit of texture, but I thought he lingered a bit too long with diminishing returns. He should have died after Old Joe shot him in the big shoot-out, especially considering how unceremoniously he meets his end just a few minutes later.
- I loved all the dirty tech in the film, it made it feel more real. The shitty cars with tacked-on solar panels and the trucks that ran on their own exhaust seemed so lived-in and tangible.
- Best kid actor ever? Best kid actor ever.
Mail Fraud:
I've always wondered, if you just put your mailing destination in the return address position and mailed the package without postage, how would that not get sent to where you wanted anyway? "Return to sender" and all that. For safety's sake, you could put your own address in the destination position, just in case it fails.
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Also, if they can control where to send the person back to... why don't they just send them to about four miles under the ocean? Then you don't need any hitmen.
Most poor people in the future seem to have really shitty lives. I bet ~40 years of living the high life sounds pretty good when you might get shot on the street for taking a guy's suitcase.
Sorry Ross, Time Crimes is my favorite time-travel movie.
Looper is great. Go see it!
Basically what Kal said: the future is like a shittier version of Detroit, a wide gulf between haves and have-nots, and the Looper program gives these poor kids a guaranteed good life. It's not like most of them would have lived past 50 anyway.
The time-travel device is mostly glossed over, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that location is controllable. All the contract targets appear in the same place.
I mean, they both have blonde hair and Blue has some stubble on his chin, implying his ability to grow a beard.
I'm sure I am looking into it too much.
Compare/contrast that with JGL as a good-for-nothing piece of shit who slowly becomes a better person, and Bruce Willis who goes from character you're supposed to empathize with to child murderer. And then, of course, the Rainmaker who's a precocious child but also incredibly creepy, and maybe a threat to all humanity!
All these characters, to me, seem like they're coming from the same place.
Liked the movie. Might have to see it again to see if I loved it. I did feel it start to drag a bit when we got to
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Plus: Kansas.
They can't. He just gets a bonus early on if he does.
I mean once he gets the bonus, then he cannot die of natural causes (or really, any causes) without a paradox.
Unless this movie uses the Novikov self-consistency principle in which everything is preordained to happen and there are no paradoxes.
Well Old Joe killed the older version of himself when he was young and at one point Young Joe says that he dose not have to have the same future his future self did.
Except I thought the child actor was pretty bad
If by that you mean
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Or were the two "Old Joe comes back" scenes identical? Or was one imagined.
Timeline Alpha has Young Joe killing Old Joe, getting rich, moving to China, blowing all his money on drugs and parties, turning into a bigger piece of shit, falling in love with the Asian girl, and watching her get murdered, resolving to change the past.
Timeline Beta has Young Joe failing to kill Old Joe, giving us the timeline for the rest of the movie.
The only problem here is that there is an implied Timeline Zero that has to happen that doesn't make a lot of sense in where Old Joe gets sent back and Young Joe kills him. We know that timeline exists because Young Joe kills Old Joe in Timeline Alpha, but that Old Joe isn't from that timeline, he's from Timeline Zero, which gives us the paradox of "What Happened to the Young Joe of Timeline Zero that was different from the timeline of Young Joe from Timeline A?"
One of the times we see Old Joe appear in the field is just a different POV shot of the events of Timeline Beta.
One bit I did really like was
That's the part that threw me as well.
There was quite a bit of stuff that was implied and referenced once that didn't come back.
I did like how Old Joe is
EDIT: Sorry, I'd hoped I was being vague enough at the time.
It's this difference that I'm hung up on, because without knowing any of the other mitigating circumstances, I don't know why Old Joe Zero would have any different life than Old Joe Alpha, meaning I don't know why Old Joe Zero goes to his death without a struggle when Old Joe Alpha doesn't.
Also, the way the time travel worked. Are we supposed to believe that Joe's life was exactly the same for having Beatrix carved into his arm, or Seth lived his next 30 years with no legs?
I enjoyed the movie, but those things were dumb.
As for Seth, it's all probably futures. The life Seth lived missing a finger was not the same life that had no legs, but a certain number of the 'no legs' timelines would have been impossible due to the fact that too much had happened in the previous parallel timelines. It's less a loop and more a gradual winnowing of potential timelines.
What else I wonder is if The Rainmaker always exists in Timeline Alpha, or if he doesn't exist until Old Joe Alpha kills his mother (prevented by Young Joe Beta). You could make the argument that The Rainmaker would have always existed until Young Joe Beta made a reason for him not to, but that argument falls apart if under the assumption that his mother's death was an eventuality. I'd argue that The Rainmaker doesn't exist in Timeline Alpha until Old Joe Alpha creates him, which is a whole other tangled mess. It implies that there's yet ANOTHER divergent timeline (Timeline Alpha-2?) that we never see, but that makes the entire Alpha-1 Timeline a huge paradox, since the motivating events that create Timeline Alpha-1 are dependent upon the success of Old Joe Alpha killing young Sid in Timeline Beta.
That would mean that Old Timeline Beta would eventually become Future Timeline Alpha except it doesn't because Young Joe Beta commits suicide, thus giving us a Future Timeline Beta where The Rainmaker probably doesn't exist.
It becomes apparent after some time of reflection that this film is kind of full of holes.
Not enough to break the film, mind you, but regardless, there it is.
TIME TRAVEL isnt a real thing.
False! I am traveling through time right now.
But yeah, the existence of a time machine in any movie removes any permanency of any event because time machine.
Im glad we got B.
True, but I think it's quite possible to offer a time-travel story that implements a set of rules regarding time travel and stays consistent within that framework, however implausible or complicated that framework may be.
Just off the top of my head, Source Code is a paradox-free time travel story.