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Looper is a movie that makes little to no sense logically, but makes perfect sense thematically.

I'm just surprised how he kept his miata stock factory fresh with no mods for 60 years

Also if murder is so difficult to get away with to the point that they have to send joe back in time to be killed, why does the mob not even hesitate to kill his wife?

There's 1 error in your evaluation: Old Joe vanished, but did he disappear because young Joe died or because the rainmaker never exists, so old Joe never goes back in time?

Damn this movie is better if u think less and enjoy more

thats the problem with time travel in everything, it is too complicated

I always interpreted that Sid became the Rainmaker without interference, as he was prone to incidents anyway, like when he killed his aunt. However, the main character saw that his older selfs attempt to kill Sid didn't stop the Rainmaker from being born, which meant his future wouldn't change, meaning that this would be a time loop of suffering that would never end. There were two different causes of the Rainmaker, the second was the time loop. I believe films cannot break their rules and still make sense. However, the the rule break is small sometimes an audience will just move on. I still think it's a bad idea though.

All of you missed it... It's even deeper than that... This is the best written movie ever. Here it is: The little boy Sid is Joe... When Joe mentions to Suzie he can't remember his mother, he said she would rub her fingers through his hair, at very last few seconds of the film you see Sara do just that with her fingers through Joe's hair then it immediately flashes to little Sid sleeping. After the credits you see the same scene, or loop, of Joe waiting and looking at his watch to finally see old Joe finally appear again. Thus why we saw that scene play out TWICE earlier in the film. Exactly why old Joe died, but the little Joe is still alive to continue the other outcome in this loop. Seth and Old Joe mentions their is a rainmaker, but no one has seem him and no one knows his name, but heard he saw his mother shot(which was Sara at the end) and he would need an army(the gat men) to take down everyone. This would be one of the never ending alternate lives. At one point Joe tells the little boy Sid that he remembers his mother abandoned him and he fantasized about killing everyone over and over who had anything to do with. He said that's all he hunted and grew up wanting to do. Which would be the alternate life. Remember Joe learning French? Their is a French flag in Sid's room. The same refinery Joe disposes of bodies at is the same place the time machine is in. Abe says when he found Joe he was angry, young, and had hair covering one eye. Later in the film you see Joe with that same imagine. Also towards the end of the film you see Sid on the train being angry with hair slightly covering one eye in that general sense. Another interesting coincidence is when at one point young Joe tells Seth "hop a train get out of town." Old Joe leaves a note on young Joe after knocking him out saying that exact quote. Then at the end you see the little boy (or very young Joe) doing exactly that. Some little stuff they intentionally put in for similarities. He is connecting and finding stuff he loves that his mom did. Like you see Sara run her hand over Sid's foot while he's sleeping the same way Joe's wife does later on. You also see both Joe's order at the diner scrambled eggs, and in the next scene Sara is cooking Sid scrambled eggs. Basically Sara raises Sid/Joe right as she says he grows up and closes all loops. Mean while their is already the alternate life for this to happen where Joe is going through his encounter with old Joe. Exactly why we saw it TWICE in the film. Once it started the loop it won't end. It has to have one to have the other outcomes. Ignore his wife that is throwing you off Because this all is a endless loop. Movie is exactly that, an infinite loop.

Something I love about this movie that I only realized watching the diner scene back in this video - Rian does a good job playing with the idea that time travel would make you go crazy if your memories weren't actually memories and just eventualities. I think time travel in fiction is best if it has confusing paradoxes because you then have the opportunity to show how that would affect the mind of a time traveller. In 12 Monkeys Bruce Willis played a character living between two times who that happens to exactly. It's a brilliant movie and I bet this is Rian's nod to it

Haven't seen this film in years, but re-visiting after Knives Out to see some of Rian's early work. The way I initially read it was that when Old Joe escapes, that creates a new, separate timeline. And it is this new timeline, one of an infinite number of possible futures, that happen. We as viewers just happen to be seeing this one. The reason Old Joe vanishes when Young Joe kills himself is because this is a NEW timeline. The moment Old Joe made his choice to fight back and escape, a new timeline or universe was created. Young Joe is part of that new timeline, as is everyone else- they aren't connected to the past anymore. So, when Young Joe kills himself, it makes sense for Old Joe to die- they are both in this timeline together, in the new possibility that was made. Basically- every decision you make creates a new universe. I turned left on the street today, but there are an infinite number of other timelines that exist where I turned right, or kept going straight, or turned around, or stopped to tie my shoe... And on and on.

It is my opinion that kid blue (guy with the big revolver) is the younger “Abe”. Think about it. Abe was sent back, from the future. His younger self has to be living at this time. He has to get involved with them in the future somehow, so the relationship with the organization had to be when he’s younger (had to be with them awhile to be trusted, to be partly in management. But also somewhat of a screwup, hence the crappy job they gave him. In my mind, it’s really obvious! Especially the attention he gives him, & also the way he’s sorta mean with him, because it’s him, doesn’t want him to be a screwup, cause being a screwup is why he ended up with such a crappy placement in management. I’ll repeat this part again, to expound on it = in order for him to be placed in a management/boss position, he would’ve had to be trusted, had to be there from the beginning, also when he started in the beginning of this type of career, he would’ve been sorta in charge in some small way, then grew into the boss he became in the future (to then be sent back in the past by the main boss. Kid blue is sort of a leader of the fighting crew. But...... I get the feeling the director did not think of this, I think it’s just a coincidence that it all lines up. Reason why I don’t think the director thought of this is because when they (in the movie) smash kid blues hand with a hammer, Abe’s hand doesn’t change. They should’ve had Abe look at his own hand after, maybe open it and close it like it hurts from arthritis. They could’ve even had him do that periodically throughout the movie, like a tick, (even befor they smashed kid blue’s hand)

Personally, I could not get into the story because of its inconsistencies. As Mark Twain said: "The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense."

Nice editing, i like how you use music, it's not invading. That's really good, it's both clear and convincing, I enjoyed your style too. I wish youtubers would focus more on getting their message clearer than rather exposing blurry facts drowned in post-college gibberish. Hope you'll continue your work. Good luck!

the "easy" argument for why old Joe disappears is that he IS part of young Joes timeline, thus suffering the same consequences as young Joe. That's why his memories are in fluctuation. He is inherently linked to young Joe by being the same person(genetically) in the same timeline(physically).

Okay, I just now saw this. I had seen the thumbnail, but for some reason I thought it was some big essayist's video and that I'd get to it later. I really liked this one. It really comes down to the small story and whether that's enough to keep the audience engaged. Great stuff!

fun video, i think rian johnson has stated that he views it as there being multiple timelines and we are simply watching 1 iteration of those. that explains old joe's disappearance as well.

You're literally explaining why I love time travel movies. Because time travel is never really the focus of any story; it's a plot device. Take _Back to the Future_ for example. While that is a time travel movie, the time travel aspect of it is just a means to an end. The end being that BTTF is a movie about self-confidence and standing up for what's right. While Marty has to fix the mess he created when he interacted with his parents, his interactions with them also gave them the self-confidence they never had in the original time stream, as George originally became a nervous pushover and Lorraine originally became a resentful drunk. But by the end, in the pseudo restored timeline, George became a successful author who doesn't take shit from Biff and Lorraine approves of Marty's relationship with Jennifer.

the movie actually makes sense. In every programming software when it encountered an infinite loop the software itself gives an error or it shuts down entirely. the old joe is the real timeline which forever in a loop until that last iteration (young joe in the movie), somehow different from his other self stops the loop. the only loophole I find is the rainmaker. how did he became the rainmaker? is it after the old joe failed to kill kid joe and he transform? rainmaker exist already in old joe's timeline unless he did go back to his timeline. the plausible scenario would be the rainmaker is just a myth or a different person.

This was one of the few video essays I could actually get into. It was detailed and didn't sound pretentious. Nice job man.

One could argue that "old Joe" did not infact exist untill he showed up in the past. We saw in the original timeline that "Old Joe" remembered, his older self showed up bound and gagged, like eveyrone else had. I mean the movie shows us another looper who comes back and is not killed by his younger self and later is seen loosing fingers, limbs, tounge etc because the others are torturing the younger version but say that that did not kill him in order to not "mess things up". If they tortured him to the point where he can barley walk, how would he have been able to show up back in time and be able to run away? I think the "future" versions are just just temperal dublicates from a "what if" future that are, on a fundamental level, connected to what happens to the younger version Short version: It doesn't make any sense. But it's still a cool movie!

I think Rian Johnson himself said in the lines of that he wanted to tell a story of characters facing conflicts derived from time travel, but not neccesarily based on it. When old Joe expressed disinterest in telling its mechanism or "the rules", it's like a telling to not place much mind in it.

This video is incredibly good. You did really a great job!

I feel like the reason he disappeared is because his future where he exists was still a possibility up until that moment when he kills himself now making it entirely impossible for him to have the future he did being that he killed himself and the old self never got a chance to live

Joe never makes a case for multiple timelines. He is always making the case for one time stream that is altered constantly, thus the “cloudy” memories.

Your way of thinking has made me enjoy this movie even more

Wow I've been binge watching your analysis videos. I love your channel and thorough analysis of great films. Also i love your voice :)

Wow! I watched the movie purely because of the thumbnail of this video and adding to your essay i found to be really amazing. Keep it up man!

Excellent short summary, well done video.

It's always fun to explain time travel paradoxes. Usually they're pretty simple, right? Good video.

This video is brilliant! I've been trying for a while to put my finger on why l still enjoy this story so much, despite the movie's convoluted time travel element

great breakdown wow. subbed!!

Good video man. Please do more.

The ending was confusing however the movie was so enjoyable.

Interesting take on seeing this movie not as time travel movie but about the characters themselves. In that context this movie is really good at sending that message but I think most people including me saw this as a time movie.

It was fantastic to watch, n your explanation at the last seems legit. Thank you

Excellent analysis, thanks for the video.

Your summation was brilliant and spot on. I just rewatched this last night and it became more enjoyable on this repeat viewing in spite of its contradictions for the very reasons you state about becoming invested in the character arc of Joe. Thank you for this post.

It sounds like The Rainmaker was destined to exist anyways, in the first timeline at least. In timeline of Old Joe, there had to have been somebody else that caused The Rainmaker. When Old Joe came back, a sequence of events changed that made Old Joe the cause of The Rainmaker. In any other timeline sequence, Joe probably attempted to shoot Old Joe, only to killed the mother himself, or failed to shoot in the first place, leaving Old Joe to shoot. For the movie's events, what we saw was a last minute ultimate change, where Young Joe killed himself to prevent Old Joe being the killer. But you know what. Let's leave out all of that, because the biggest plot hole of all time is, Is that somehow, these people are bringing back future gold to past selves, and basically recreating new money. How is that not bad for the economy? Where is that gold from anyways? Do both Bars exist in two places at once? What gives? I'm willing to forgive the initial plot setup of "not being able to hide a body". You have no movie otherwise. (ok, whatever, "you're in this room now"), but the gold and silver that comes in, just doesn't add up. Lol. (Still like the movie though. Pretty good.)

I've had to struggle with that question for years,how loose can any story be in its consistency before it hinders the enjoyment and investment from your audience(?) Your answer in this video is great! Thank you

This was a fantastic analysis! I’m writing about looper for my sci-fi seminar paper. I’ll definitely cite your work if I use this!

This why Dragon Ball Z is smart to choose the multiverse type of time travel theory. Much less headache to endure, you can easily focus on the story, characters, and action scenes.

There are multiple eventualities that coalesce when you make different decisions in the different time lines

What he's referring to is called the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle. I recommend looking it up sometime, it's a fascinating bit of theory!

Really good analysis unlike any other videos.

Wait a minute... did the movie explicitly state that the Rainmaker came to be because old Joe tried to kill him? If it did, I missed it. If it didn't, then there isn't a problem. The Rainmaker comes to be regardless of Joe's actions. Thus, had his old self killed his mom it would have simply made a worse version of him. That's at least how I interpreted it.

I remember being so confused with this movie....and I am still confused

nice video! enjoying the content you're putting out

This makes me feel better about my time travel feature script I finished a few days ago. Once I started thinking about what all the cool and interesting scenes actually implied I noticed that it had quite a few plot holes in it. Like decisions that didn't make sense character wise as there would be better and easier decisions to make for these characters. But on the other hand I needed the plot to be a certain way to work and be interesting. At the end I tried to explain away every single plot hole because I know that some people just lash on to any small plot hole and refuse to accept the rest of the movie/script after that. But my main goal is to entertain. I can't just remove the time travel just because it makes little sense. I just have to make the best of it and hope that both sides are satisfied. But there will for sure be someone who hates it for spending too much time explaining away plot holes or hates it for having too many small plot holes. It's about finding a good way to convey the story in a believable way.

Wow you broke that down perfectly!

I just wrote a whole paper about this, and what you guys said is exactly what i talked about

One thing i understood about time travel in this film is that in the moment you've travelled in the past from the future, this action of travelling is now in the past of the present and the current you from the future gets for example the wounds of his younger behalf simultanously as they're made, even if these wounds, or actions, could've changed the past of the future guy. It's a little tricky and unlogic but they set this rule and they followed it, so i'm okay with that. But yeah i enjoyed the film even if there's lack of explanation about multiple time-lines and lack of consistency in the delevopment of the future Joe that seem's having is own memories after all, even though the past is changing. Another thing that make few sense is the fact that editor of the film choosed to show us in first place the scene of Joe escaping from his younger self and after the scene in wich the youger Joes closes the loop. It's maybe good for narrating the story but it's chronologically wrong.

This may be a bit late, but I might be able to explain this plot hole. The timeline seen in the movie, with Old Joe trying to kill the rain maker is not the correct time line, but a a loop within a loop that gets broken with Young Joe's death. This irregular timeline mess up begins because of Old Seth at the beginning of the movie. In this new timeline, Old Seth escapes, young Seth is captured and dismembered and is kept alive artificially. This events not only changes Joe's perspective about his existence and the loopers, but also the entire timeline, making it a compromised timeline. They can't merely kill Seth without undoing everything he had done for the organization in the future potentially leading to catastrophic results: Everyone he had killed in his Looper carrier would have escaped retroactively messing up the future exponentially. They therefore keep him alive until the time where he would have been sent back to close his loop and at that point his younger, healthy self, would finish him off bringing back the timeline to it's ''normal'' state: Joe wouldn't feel the need to abandon the life style, would have went to France and would have his loop closed as he should. The fact Joe shoots himself at the end throws a monkey wrench in the entire thing though leaving its impact on the future, and the rise of Rainmaker uncertain.

I was expecting this video to be longer. I feel this movie didn’t get enough coverage. I enjoyed it very much.

Great video! Thanks

There is much theories about time , when we watch time travel movies or animes each one of them depends on one of these theories , this movies was actually believing that each person keep being connected to its past self and can have his memories or path changed if his past self changes ( similar theory in back to the futur ) , but we can see some other ones who believe that each point of time holds a distinct person , ( for example even if Jo killed himself his futur self wont be affected because he already had his path ( he is a distinct point )) , there is also another theory that we see ( like on attack on titan manga ) which says that each point of time holds a distinct person , but the causal loop will be never be broken ( for example Jo will kill his futur self everytime and this thing will never be changed and keep happening in a loop )

My head's all tied up like a pretzel, I got a pretzel in my head!

Old Joe's mission doesn't create the Rainmaker. The kid will grow to become the Rainmaker anyway.

It doesn't necessarily break its own rules, because Joe's "Then I saw it... so I changed it." is not the first "what if" alternate future. The first "then I saw it... so I changed it" in the movie was Abe, about Joe's adulthood. And Abe is from the future. I contend there are THREE major alternate timelines. If the Rainmaker is not made, then Abe is not made and Joe is not made. At least not the assassin version of Joe. It's like a quantum particle with "3 spin" -- the timeline has to loop back around 3 times for the symmetry to be neatly closed.

Wow thanks for the good explanation!

I adore this movie, I really do, even with the holes. I believe the writers said they didn't follow the scientific model for time travel (obviously) not that there is one, other than speeding up. But you're right time travel in this movie is not even close to the main point. It's a self sacrifice story.

relaxing music for stress relief

Holy crap. Knowing that the rainmaker shouldn't have existed in the first place kinda just ruined the movie for me. Can't believe I didn't think of that.

great video man

The rainmaker being the mobster doesn’t make sense, In the movie it said that time travel was invented, then immediately outlawed. And the rain maker was a powerful entity in which during the movie taking control of different areas of looper activity, and after doing so closed the loops of those areas. I only saw this movie once a while ago so forgive me if my memory doesn’t serve me right. But the looper activity is assumed to have taken place in a short time span, either 4-8 months after time travel was outlawed, and the rainmaker also takes control in this time. In the movie the tk(telekinetic) kid was smart/powerful, and after witnessing the death of his mother devotes his time to invent time travel to prevent it, in which it immediately becomes outlawed and stolen by the mafia. To which the kid using his extraordinarily powerful tk starts to take over and stop what he has created which are the loopers, the same loopers that eventually create him. That’s my theory as to what happens in terms of the rainmakers storyarc, as I feel the name fits the kids description from his tk abilities and his high inteligencias to invent time travel. This is also why the people involved with looper activity also identified the kid as the rainmaker and why the mother already knew about the people trying to kill her son as she said in the film multiple have tried. It’s pretty much impossible to say that the kid was not the rainmaker but it makes more sense to stack on the fact that he himself invented time travel. Which gives his motive to take control and close the loops during the movie.

wow, just, wow! Subscribed!

Star Wars being the first topic in this video was fucking fateful.

The whole memory shit actually makes sense. The only part that didn’t is how the rainmaker is made. I’d assume the rainmaker is inevitable is someway, don’t forget he’s already tapped in the head cuz of “killing” his “mother”

With Time Travel, I’ve just come to accept that the rules are constantly in flux. It’s people using what is essentially a force of nature without truly understanding it (we’re still not 100% sure how light operates, whether it’s a wave or a particle, but we still use it in our everyday lives). There will never be a simple explanation for time travel that encompasses all the rules

Wow. Please do this more often.

I love this movie despite all it's flaws.

Is it ever confirmed in the movie that Old Joe actually creates the rain maker. I took it that it's left ambiguous so that it could either way.

Does make sense when the together their memories sync when they’re not together is a different story because there’s not that kind of togetherness a separate timeframe even though it’s a different time you know - Enjoyable movie, must watch!

Great video!

The ending of this movie made me shed a tear

keep it coming dude!! 🤘🤘

To me, the thing that makes the less sense is Joe's old friend in the future hunted by the Rainmaker which somehow got the numbers for Sid hospital register birth, decided to trust this important information to a retired looper who wasn't even fighting the Rainmaker before dying. And Joe somehow kept these numbers written in his hand even if he haven't lost his wife yet(sure he knew he was gonna get his loop ended and be returned to the past, but he certainly didn't expect his wife get killed which was his sole reason of going back). I mean you could said that Joe's friend probably had no one else to give that information as the Rainmaker probably had taken down the team and superior of that guy, but even so, is common knowledge that every looper returns to the past tied and ready to be killed, so that guy had to take a extremely lucky guess that Joe would survive being killed by his younger self and go after the Rainmaker.

“That time travel shit will fry your brain, kid”

I really think this movie should have been a two parter story. The first movie would revolve around young Joe after he closes his loop, we see his 30 years in Shanghai, about 3/4 of the way through the movie we get introduced to old Joe, movie ends with him getting zapped into the past, old Joe and young Joe have the stare down, roll credits. Then the second movie would be what we have, just with less flashbacks and flesh everything out a little more. Then if they wanted to do a trilogy, the third movie could be the new timeline and we see what happens to the kid and if Joe managed to change the overall outcome.

need to watch looper after seeing this !

Time travel gives a hard time to most people. There are two models of time travel in movies: Linear (Back to the future), and circular (Twelve Monkeys). In the first, the rules are pretty much as Tyler expects them to be in this video. In the second, fate cannot be changed, and even if you think you are changing anything, it will find its way to happen despite your efforts. I think Looper has some of both.

Cool analysis. It could make sense if young Joe's assessment is wrong and the kid turns into the Rain Maker even when growing up with his mother. Making Joe's suicide for nothing. Still major questions about the cause and effect of time travel though.

Looper, the time paradox

Never thought about the inconsistent time travelling in Looper (and I do feel Telekenesis was just tacked on). Despite this, I still really like this movie.

Wise explaination

When old Joe's goes back in time, he shares the present time with young joe, therefore what young joe does becomes old Joe's memories. The future is a variable as long as they both exist in the present.

Can someone tell me what I need to know about this movie. I was supposed to watch this movie and now my client is asking if I liked it but still haven’t watched it

There is a solution that solves all contradictions/paradoxes. There are multi loops (effectively a multiverse). The young joes are all the identical up to the point just before the loop close. but the moment an Old joe transports back, the old Joe (can) jump to a different multiverse/time loop. We see this in the film in the loop Old Joe is from. But when he transports back, he in fact Doesn't travel back to his own past.. (that would be a paradox as he shot himself is in his pas... so he actually jumps to a parallel universe.. where the young Joe there is NOT himself as young Joe. What happens however, by him Jumping to that parallel universe he however DOES become temporally entangled in that universe's young Joe. Even though they are NOT from the original temporal universes, once old Joe "skips" into that universe they become locked together in a time loop. However what is fascinating.. is, it's very apparent in the movie, the REST of the universe they both share are NOT dependent on either of them! We see that when Joe kills himself it doesn't change the world. The boy was still shot, they still have memories of them. This means BOTH young and Old Joe's assumptions were BOTH wrong. Old Joe didn't create the rainmaker, and wouldn't have prevented his wife's death had he killed the child. You see the mother being killed in young Joe's imagination only and his theory was wrong. The rainmaker IS the boy but is not created by Joe but on his own in Original Old Joe's universe.

Really good video.

Looper was nice but can someone clarify why the old Joe that the current old Joe killed was tied up and the other Joe was not and was not ready to die I mean we saw in the scene his life transition and leading up to it but was the turning point the wife dying?

Joe just because someone's stumbles and falls doesn't mean there lost forever

I always considered it to be the grandfather paradox. Old joe was created, old joe went back in time to change the future, henceforth old joe couldn't have been created, henceforth old joe couldn't have gone back to change the future, henceforth old joe is created. And so on. After an what could have been endless loops the fabric of time said no more and needed to correct the paradox so it showed young joe what would happen so he could kill himself and end the loop. Hence why the movie is called Looper. Its a paradoxical time loop

I just watched it for the first time..Can't believe they let RJ direct Star Wars.

Answer: Rain Maker's mother's murder in the first Old Joe timeline was a random looper, the reason Old Joe disappears is because his source disappeared Timeline 1: Joe becomes a looper apart of a syndicate hit squad - Rain Maker starts making it rain from them kindenys (his mother is killed by a possible random looper) Old Joe goes back in time now he got to come on back Timeline 2: Enraged Old Joe gets away and almost makes a branch where he killed Sara Personally from the terminator like rebellion in that one scene where he got the numbers. Rainmaker and other TK users are probably being constantly targeted from the future timeline thanks to their infamy

My big issue with the movie is why use time travel only to kill loopers (thugs)? It's like they can't figure out anything else to use time travel for

"This movie doesn't make sense !" Ron Burgundy

I think Rian Johnson never made a rule so it doesn't feel like it's broken. Most of the plotholes which people point out is not plot holes, but the plot itself. In the whole movie, the mechanism of time travel or its rule was never explained. Not definite. So we are more interested in the story rather than a sci fi concept.

Dam, good review and summary of the movie. I thought it was awesome, despite parts of it being confusing

1. Question. Can the person who invented time machine travel back in time and just make another time machine? (because he obviously knows how to make one) 2. Is it possible to travel to future? (Talking about the movie of course )

Rule number one of Time Travel movies... If you use CAUSALITY, you can not have PARADOX!