Rian Johnson created quite the sci-fi story with Looper (read our review) , and like a lot of good sci-fi stories, there s plenty left to chew on after the end credits roll. Some people may be confused about the ending of Looper , others about the general premise of the story while more hardcore sci-fi fans are undoubtedly deep into discussing, charting or perhaps even working on infographics that explain the many time travel logistics (and paradoxes) that must be untangled.
To aid in comprehension new hotels in las vegas and discussion, we ve created a quick easy-to-read breakdown of what Looper is all about. It s only our analysis, and film is always new hotels in las vegas open to wide interpretation, but we have a feeling Looper will keep people thinking for a while (like good cinema should). Read on for our explanation of Looper s premise, story and yes, those bothersome time travel paradoxes.
In Kansas of 2074, a mob syndicate utilizes a kill system whereby they send victims back in time to Kansas 2044 to be eliminated by hitmen called loopers, who are trained and instructed by a future mobster (Jeff Daniels). The anonymous victims pop back in time hooded and gagged, and are promptly shot by the waiting hitman, who then disposes new hotels in las vegas of the body and collects bars of silver strapped to the victim s back as payment. This goes on until the day a looper finds gold strapped to his victim s back instead of silver, new hotels in las vegas signifying that the anonymous victim is actually the looper himself or at least who he will be in 30 years. This is known as closing a loop ; the looper promptly retires after collecting his gold, and is free to live a life of luxury for those 30 years until he will be captured and sent back to the predetermined moment when his younger self kills him.
The looper, whose only kernel of knowledge is that he briefly killed strangers for a future mob, ultimately offs the only person in 2074 to witness these killings (himself), leaving NO ONE who can tie the future mob to a crime (no body, no killer, no crime).
Young Joe is a Looper. He s had a messed up past, no real parents, and had his lessons on life given to him by a man from the future who handed him a gun and taught him to kill. Needless to say, Joe has issues. He drops designer drugs in his eyes all day, frequents prostitutes, etc. But Young Joe also has heart, studies French, dreams of traveling to better, more sophisticated places than Kansas, and gets all vulnerable about childhood and parenting with his prostitute lady friend new hotels in las vegas (Piper Perabo) Somewhere in that stoic hitman there s a heart though often it gets buried beneath the selfish ambition to get his in life, no matter what the cost.
When Old Joe (Bruce Willis) arrives, Young Joe is confronted by a possible new hotels in las vegas version of himself new hotels in las vegas that understands the world much differently; Old Joe (as seen in montage) has been down the path Young Joe is fighting so fiercely to travel Old Joe knows how empty it ultimately is until you find love. Real love. Old Joe had it for a brief stint of time until his past came back to haunt him (Loopers deaths are predetermined, remember?) and cost him the love of his life, as well. Old Joe is fighting for love and he too wants to get his, no matter what the cost.
To Old Joe, the person responsible for taking what was his is someone named the Rainmaker, who is basically the all-powerful telekinetic Hitler of 2074, controlling everything in society from the government to the citizenry to the mobs and their operations. Old Joe s intel (flimsy as it is) states that it was the Rainmaker who called for the retired loopers to start having their loops closed wholesale and therefore was responsible for shattering Old Joe s happiness. Old Joe s plan, then, is to infiltrate the past, locate the Rainmaker (based on hospital records) when he is a young boy, kill him, spare himself (and, you know, maybe the world) a lot of darkness and heartache. Only, Old Joe has three names on a list (flimsy intel) three children who could be telekinetic Hitler, and therefore he must kill all three. Old Joe s ambition for personal new hotels in las vegas satisfaction is exponentially worse than Young Joe s as Young Joe eventually comes to see.
Young Joe lands on a farm owned by Sara (Emily Blunt), a low-level telekinetic who is mother to a genius-level (and frighteningly powerful) telekinetic new hotels in las vegas child named Cid (Pierce Gagnon), who will CLEARLY one day be the Rainmaker. Young Joe has that vulnerable side and heart opened up by the hard-luck new hotels in las vegas story of Cid and Sara especially Cid, whose story of violence and loss at a young age is so much like Young Joe s own story. Even when Cid inadvertently blows up a gatman (Garrett Dillahunt), and Young Joe knows this kid is telekinetic Hitler, the compassion he sees Sara showing her son, and the effect it has, marks for Young Joe the difference new hotels in las vegas between becoming men like him (and baby-killing future him), and possibly becoming what Young Joe secretly always wanted to be: a better kind of man.
However, murder-spree Old Joe is too far gone to turn back. When he finally tracks Young Joe to Sara s farm, it becomes clear that Old Joe s selfish ambition is the exact incident that ironically enough creates The Rainmaker; in Old Joe s timeline (more on that later), rumor has it that as a boy, the Rainmaker saw his mother new hotels in las vegas murdered by a looper and had part of his jaw shot off: horrific acts Old Joe nearly commits.
But Old Joe s alteration of time means that there s a possibility for more than one path so when Young Joe finds himself in a moment where his violent ways can t save the day, he makes a choice to not be like Old Joe and actually give up his all-important ambition new hotels in las vegas to hold on to what s his. He removes himself (and all the bad Old Joe s done) from the equation by killing himself, thereby possibly sparing a lot more people times of pain and darkness under the Rainmaker s reign (presuming Cid grows up to be a healthier, nicer, all-powerful guy).
The biggest issue, as always, is the multiverse factor: if a guy from the future comes to the past and starts mucking with history, it either A) creates a separate timeline that runs parallel to the original one (allowing for two versions of history), or B) The actions in the past forever alter the flow of a single timeline, allowing for just one version of events. Looper plays fast and loose with this time travel mechanic, at times relying on both single timeline and multiverse timeline approaches to push the story forward.
For example: Old Joe still existing after he meets and affects Young Joe shows that multiple timelines are possible but tricks like Young Joe carving messages in his arm that show up on Old Joe as scars would have us assume that there is one timeline wherein the fate of one Joe is directly tied to the other. Johnson gets by the issue via vague expositional throwaways such as Old Joe s memory is it being revised by his actions new hotels in las vegas in the past? Or is he open to remember several versions of history? (Sorry, no clear answers it s too cloudy to say for sure!)
The biggest thing to address is the paradox involving Old Joe s mission to stop the Rainmaker (Cid). Looper shows us a montage of Joe s life in which Young Joe in fact unwittingly kills Old Joe out in the cornfields, new hotels in las vegas and goes on to live what he thinks will be his happy, post-looper life only to become the drug addict gun-for-hire (and eventual lover) that is Old Joe. Old Joe then jumps back to the past to change this course of events, and the movie we witness is therefore the alternate timeline where Old Joe escapes his execution.
However, the movie hints (in the diner scene with young and old Joe) that Old Joe s heinous actions in the past are what push young Cid to become the fearsome Rainmaker. new hotels in las vegas As we see in the climax of the film, Old Joe s crazed mission forces Young Joe to kill himself to save Cid but this is a paradox.
If The Rainmaker exists in Old Joe s future timeline, it suggests that Old Joe s baby-killing mission in the past was predetermined new hotels in las vegas to happen. So then how could there ever be a version of events where Old Joe was executed by Young Joe, and Young Joe goes on to become Old Joe?
Even if Old Joe had fulfilled his destiny (killing new hotels in las vegas Sara, disfiguring Cid), Young Joe would have been aware of his older self s actions new hotels in las vegas and been changed by them he wouldn t become the Old Joe we saw in the montage, because the exact thing that would ve made Cid the Rainmaker would also change Young Joe forever (the presence of Old Joe).
Bottom new hotels in las vegas line: Old Joe s timeline where both he and the Rainmaker co-exist is a paradox. new hotels in las vegas A version of history wherein Old Joe kills Sara and creates the Rainmaker is also a paradox. Old Joe cannot be the origin of the Rainmaker as we are told he is.
In a climactic moment, Young Joe (via voiceover) describes seeing an unending cycle of time travel violence that creates monsters like the Rainmaker and Old Joe and the only way to break it is suicide. A noble speech, noble idea, good plot twist and intriguing thematic new hotels in las vegas arc but it doesn t hide the fact that there is a big gaping paradox at the center of the movie.
This tangential subplot to the film actually raises quite a few paradoxal issues. Similar to Young Joe, Young Seth (Paul Dano) fails to kill his older self. Old Seth goes on the run until Kid Blue (Noah Segan) and the gatmen capture Young Seth and surgically amputate him as a means of incapacitating Old Seth.
Here again, we get a muddled version of timeline mechanics: If history new hotels in las vegas is one timeline, then Old Seth should have instantly seen the amputated changes to his body the moment new hotels in las vegas he escaped from Young Seth; the fact that limbs disappeared one at a time suggests multiverse possibility (Young Seth loses one finger, but there s still alternate possibilities new hotels in las vegas wherein he keeps the other nine, etc.). But if we re talking multiverse theory, the Old Seth we see shouldn t be affected by the amputations it should be some alternate Old Seth of an alternate timeline who suffers that fate.
That s not to mention
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