The joys of sci-fi - plus my thoughts and problems with Looper.

Looper is a film I’ve been looking forward to for a couple of months or so. It started playing on film circuits and getting amazing feedback.  My beloved Empire Online then gave it 5/5. Total Film gave it 5/5. Ain’t It Cool News…. Well they don’t give scores, but suffice to say it was a very good write up. The expectancy of Looper was reinvigorating my hunger for sci-fi in a way that I hadn’t experienced in many a time.

“Finally a sci-fi film that is a sci-fi film!”

“Hhhmmmmm”, I can hear you ponder. Then after a very short amount of deliberation you would utter, “Christopher, darling, Prometheus came out but a few months ago, and that was sci-fi”.

And you’d be right. Kinda.

You don’t get many science fiction films these days that ask you to think about what is actually possible. Or what could be possible in the future and what conundrums that could lead too - films that get you thinking “what would happen if xyz happened?” Not just, “you know what makes a sci-fi film? Aliens! And space! And Aliens and Space together!”

Don’t get me wrong I love films with Aliens and Space, but I want my grey matter to be tickled and coerced into ponderings that might not be possible through films other than science fiction.

“What would I do if I had a time machine?

"If I had a time machine could I actually change anything?”

“How can I be sure this world is real and that I’m not just a brain in a vat while Keanu Reeves runs around dodging bullets and speaking shit?”

There’s a difference between sci-fi and space opera. Space opera just takes a story about farm boy who wants to go to war, to take on a fascist dictator, and puts it a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. The story could still happen on this planet it’s just got an out of this world setting.

Prometheus, while not out and out space opera was more of a theological study then anything. It was asking us to look at our beginnings and ponder where we had come from. It just used a story in space about xenomorphs who have acid for blood as a means of getting us to deliberate those questions.

 True sci-fi is different. Looper is true sci-fi. Looper is different.

Poor deduction aside, I was excited. I went to the cinema with a lot of my friends (I have loads of friends, loads), more than I had ever been to a film with before. Clearly they were excited too, and I’ll be looking into this phenomena in a bit more detail in the exciting and mysterious future (tomorrow).

After all this build up you’re probably expecting me to go the film was rubbish, and it was massive let down, death to Bruce Willis etc But no. It was good. But in a delicious piece of irony the reason why the film was tainted somewhat was because I couldn’t get my head around the time travel. The science didn’t make sense to me, and as such I couldn’t get my mind off it the whole way through out.

Fuck.

Believe me I tried to let it go. My friend Daniel gets annoyed when I look into films too much. They are films after all, not gospel (arguably just as much fiction for some), so just chill out and watch it. Throughout the whole film if my mind drifted off to the science I imagined Daniel slapping me across the face and going “Nein!” (He’s not German, but it certainly helped focus me more – we have a weird friendship). I should be concentrating on the film and not the science. I couldn’t help it though.

"Don't think about it, Chris"

 

But in all fairness (and I say this in my most infantile and whiny voice) “but that’s why I love sci-fiiiiiiiiii.”

So at this point, you’re probably wondering what bothered me, well I shall tell you. As a disclaimer, feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you just want to know what I thought of the film. If you like your films simply entertaining and your women busty there’s no shame in not being bothered about the ins and outs of complex matters as long as the film entertains you. After this account of inner turmoil I’ll talk about the things I liked. It’s just, like my opening article described, I’m a cunt. And if I’m not analysing too much then I’m not breathing.  Don’t worry I’ll let you know when to start reading again, there will be a sure sign when to come back. Ok? See you in a bit.

Right my problem – And (as one last disclaimer) I also accept here that I might not have understood the film, or there is another explanation. Like entering a maze and choosing the wrong route, I may have just found a dead end and I need a kind, non-threatening hand to guide me to freedom.

Ok, before you all stop reading, my actual problem. Now. In full. Ladies and gentlemen the problem…

In the film, two Old Joes come back, one with a hood and one without a hood. What happened to make two different versions come back? Was there an outside influence I am not aware of? I have just deleted 3 paragraphs about alternate time lines, paradoxes, causality as there is a much simpler way of putting it.  In the film Minority Report Tom Cruise explains future crime to Colin Farrell. He says that they are made aware of future crimes by these 3 people with psychic abilities. They then interfere to stop these crimes from happening. To show an example of this he rolls a ball along an edge which will fall off the side until Collin catches it. Collin does this because he knows what will happen (the ball will fall off). Without Collin’s (or anyone’s) interference the ball would fall off. No matter how many times you repeated the exact same thing. Why should Joe be any different? Why would one Joe decide to fight back, and the other did not? Was it because of the premonition he had? Why didn’t the other Old Joe act of premonition? How many questions can I legitimately string together before this starts to get old real fast?

I really need a job

And that’s my problem; I could not work it out. If someone can please explain it to me, I will happily watch the film again. I know some films with have more outlandish set ups, so if I have a problem with this film why do I enjoy Armageddon etc. Perhaps I shouldn’t have a problem… But this just seems like a film that wants to present itself as a “what if?” as opposed to an “imagine”.

One possible solution is that through a multitude of alternate dimensions and delayed causality is that the first hooded Joe got turned into a Looper when Jeff Daniels handed the original Joe we see in the film a gun…. Oh it doesn’t matter. We can debate it on the Facebook comments.

(To be fair to Looper it has one great scene where Joe meets Old Joe and Old Joe just nukes the talk about time travel all together, we don’t need to know the complexities of it. If you want to do that then go and watch Primer (but be prepared for confusion). But I was unable to get rid of my particular problems.)

But maybe this is exactly what a good sci-fi is meant to do. It’s meant to make me question and try and work it out. If the rest of the film is inconsequential to me but it’s got me pondering the film for days after then perhaps it’s a success! That’s certainly the main reason I look forward to sci-fi – the deliberation and pondering. So should I really be complaining about something that has puzzled me when I am hardly in the best position to deliberate the ins and outs of science, lacking any kind of qualification above a GSCE or a fully functioning brain? Thinking about time travel has a habit of getting you into a thought process that eventually has you staring blankly at a wall and blood coming out of your ears - so should I really be surpised that I am somewhat confused? And if you’re not into all that crap, there’s a bloody good film just to sit back and watch i.e. the thick people. Oh sci-fi works on so many levels! Talking of the Thickies I should probably be welcoming them back into the discussion now we’ve got all that intelligent stuff out the way, hold on I’ll just get their attention.

Welcome Back.

Hey there! Welcome back to the people who skipped the pseudo philosophical bull shit, and just wanted to know about my thoughts about the film.

I’m presuming everyone has watched the film – but if anyone needs a recap: Time travel has been invented. It is highly regulated, but the mafia have got hold of a time machine and use it to ‘dispose’ of people they want to dispose of. They have a crew of contract killers set up in the past to ‘dispose’ of the people called Looper’s. Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a Looper. Joe has to kill his future self when he is sent back. It all goes pear shaped.

Firstly the world that has been created is quite marvellous. It doesn’t quite reach the dystopian vision of Blade Runner, but it certainly draws inspiration from it. The city landscapes are impressive and the world that Joe inhabits is seedy and full of corruption. In fact, pretty much everywhere you look in this film you are looking at something that has been corrupted.

This is one of Looper’s best traits and is reflected best in the protagonists. The two main characters (Joe and Old Joe) are not out and out heroes - far from it. In any other film they would probably be the bad guys.  When we first meet Joe, he is a contract killer who goes to strip clubs and is addicted to drugs. When Joe becomes Old Joe he comes back and wants to kill kids. The film isn’t saying he is a bad guy; it just wants to get you thinking. If you had the opportunity to kill Hitler as a child would you? None of the characters in this film are black or white. Not even the kid. This film wants you to work things out for yourself.

As we have already discovered about this film, it has depth - depth to allow you to make of it what you will, but all the depth in the world doesn’t necessarily make a good movie. It has to compel you to want to keep on watching and to work problems out. The film has some very nice set pieces, when the guy is watching his body disappear as they mutilate his past self, the run through Joe’s future and ‘redemption’, when Cid (the kid) goes all Tetsuo and rips apart that Gat man in mid-air… It’s just the pacing in between such set pieces can lag sometimes, especially when Joe reaches the farmhouse.  The stringing together of the great moments in the film is what let it down for me, the film didn't always have my attention and it stopped it from getting top marks. Also I thought the ending was a bit predictable and a bit of a cop-out, I really liked it when I thought Cid was on his way to becoming the Rainmaker all over again. Eh, but again perhaps that’s just me.

Tetsuo from the film Akira - watch it.

Despite my gripes with some of the science, one of the main reasons I really like this film is that so much thought has been poured into everything you see. All the characters seem three dimensional, the cinematography is sexy and most loose ends have tried to be tied up. Apart from the one I’ve identified. But I could easily be wrong about it.

Moving on.

The film is also presented on a gloriously mature back drop, so we get nudity, violence and swearing – which, if Hollywood if anything to go by, the future will be full of so why pull any punches.

And to complete the review, I dunno, erm... I’ll give it 72/100.

There. As you’ve probably guessed the main reason I’ve wrote this article is to discuss why I like sci-fi and the problem I’ve got with Looper. And a long article at that, geez, 1,980 words it currently stands at. Both points of my argument are meant to culminate at the same point. I bloody love sci-fi and the thought process it inspires. No Looper wasn't perfect for me, but it was still a good sci-fi film, and it's still got me thinking about it now! Good sci-fi doesn't dumb down for audiences, it respects the audience's intelligence and presents the story accordingly. Just talking to Daniel earlier who loved the film loads and having just the briefest discussion about the film turned into a full on debate where we both working together to figure it out. That’s great sci-fi.

 

Perhaps I’ll stumble across the answer to my problem, and maybe after repeat viewings my problems with the film will disappear. I will then be able to enjoy it on a different level, but for now I’ll just keep on pondering. Cool.