Looper (September 28, 2012)

[archibaldcrane]

No, the little boy was the rainmaker. He grew up into the rainmaker because his mother wasn't around to raise him proper (how or why she wasn't around is irrelevant).

What's stupid is they easily could've made it relevant. Say the first time JGL shows up at the farm, a vagrant is trying to break in or something and is about to murder her and JGL saves her life. Now, obviously, if he hadn't taken that course of action the rainmaker would've grown up "evil", which he prevented for the moment until Willis is about to kill her again in the cornfield, which he prevents by suiciding. As it is now, there's no stated reason why the Rainmaker grew up evil, why the mom wasn't able to help him use his talents for good. It happened but it doesn't appear that her being around was sufficient, which we're supposed to believe is the case at the end of the movie, that she keeps him from becoming the rainmaker for some reason.

If JGL had saved her, or stopped her from suiciding or something right off the bat this plot hole would be largely closed.

[Salodin]

The issue with that is it puts the entire timeline into a loop, which it isn't. The story we saw was an off shoot of an entire universe's timeline. Willis originally never saw the mom, or went to that farm; he killed himself in his timeline (meaning another looper or another tragedy all together kept the mom from raising the kid proper). When Willis saved himself from getting offed by JGL, he created an original timeline that never happened before and therefore can not be compared to any thing else, especially the events happening in JGL's timeline. It's why his story was so tragic, because he was trying to hold onto his memories and life with his wife when because of his very actions JGL became a different person and wanted nothing to do with her.

Two more comments on this that I feel are relevant. The mob boss said it best in his scene with JGL, it doesn't matter what happened or happens before, only what's happening now (paraphrasing obviously); and people try too hard to make both timelines (Willis and JGL) work as a loop so that what happened to Willis should happen to JGL, but that isn't true. You have to consider them separate in their entirety, the events in one don't necessarily have to happen in the other. It's one of the many theories about time travel, and probably one of the lesser used ones (also is now one of my favorites because of this movie).

[Dryr]

^^ I was more distracted by the ridiculous notion that the mob controlled time travel just to dispose of bodies, decided 30 yrs back was good enough and that the guys that killed for them needed to die right away. If they had all that gold and silver in the future, doesn't it make much more sense for them to just send it back to invest with or something and not even bother with crime in the future???

Yes, the loop version of time travel they used is debatable, but what I just mentioned kind of throws out any semblance of rationalizing any of the sci-fi part of this entire movie.

[Hex]

I firmly believe there is a Loop that goes on with the time travel. I had started to type out my theory but it's a bit hard to explain. But remember, there's two different events. One where Young Joe kills Old Joe. Then there's the one where he fails to kill Old Joe and Young Joe has to kill himself.

We are never given specifics as to how the Rainmaker goes all nutso. I don't think that's even an important event. The important events are how Joe ends up dying.

[Enygma55]

You have to remember that naturally the kid didn't believe she was his real mom. This was probably the main reason he ended up having a bad childhood and became the rainmaker originally. Only when Willis tried to kill the kid did the mom finally get thru to him. This defining moment will come to change his life and all future events itself.

JGL figured this out at the end and in order to prevent the kid from having a traumatic childhood again with the death of his mom, he decided to kill himself to prevent Willis from killing the mom.

--------------------------
There's like 3 timelines to consider in this entire movie.

Going in chronological order the first timeline would be unknown to us other than Old Joe gets sent back and gets blasted by his younger counterpart thus closing that loop and timeline.

Joe having just killed and closed his loop creates a 2nd timeline. This is the one that plays out his 30 years, where he moves to China, meets his wife and loses her when they come for her. Willis ends up killing the goons and sends himself back in time into the same 2nd timeline. This makes JGL and Willis the same person.

JGL fails to kill Willis and fails to close this loop thus creating a 3rd timeline. The movie plays out in this 3rd timeline.

[Saga]

I really felt like they could have done so much more with this movie than was done. The first 30 minutes or so were great, then it was just an hour and a half of JGL waiting at a farm while Bruce Willis went on a mini rampage, only one scene of which was worth watching (where he kills that entire hallway/complex of guards).

It fell pretty flat for me. Interesting premise, poor execution.

[Qalbert]

...

[Salodin]

What is this I don't even...

[Enygma55]

I really felt like they could have done so much more with this movie than was done. The first 30 minutes or so were great, then it was just an hour and a half of JGL waiting at a farm while Bruce Willis went on a mini rampage, only one scene of which was worth watching (where he kills that entire hallway/complex of guards).

It fell pretty flat for me. Interesting premise, poor execution.

Yea that middle part of the movie pretty much killed it for me. So slow.