A TREATISE ON TIME TRAVEL IN MOVIES

(or – Where Looper Went Wrong)

I recently saw the movie ‘Looper’ and, while it was a very enjoyable movie, the more I think about it, the more I am beginning to loathe it. The fascination with time travel in cinema is no new thing. Each time it’s done, there’s always a special twist put on it that hopefully sets the movie apart from every other movie in the genre. Before I get to what’s wrong with Looper, though, I’m going to touch on a couple of other time travel movies. It’s important to understand that these movies lay out certain laws for the universes in which they exist. In order to pick apart the movies, you have to take these laws into account and accept them for fact. In other words, forget what’s theoretically possible in our own world. These are movies and reality does not really enter into the equation. To begin, let’s take a look at a movie that, in my opinion, got time travel right: 12 Monkeys.

In 12 Monkeys, Bruce Willis plays an inmate that is sent backwards in time to discover the origins of the Army of the 12 Monkeys (a rebel group that is believed to have released a plague onto the world that wiped out most of the human population) and to put a stop to the tragedy that they caused to befall mankind. As it turns out, the Army of the 12 Monkeys were nothing but a group of young kids led by an insane Brad Pitt who set a bunch of animals loose from the zoo. The plague was really caused by a scientist who, for reasons unknown, stole a few vials of the plague and started opening them around the world in densely populated population centers. This scientist worked for Brad Pitt’s character’s father. Throughout the course of the film, Bruce Willis keeps having these flashbacks of a man being gunned down inside of an airport right in front of him when he was a child. Bruce Willis tracks this scientist to the airport and attempts to stop him. He tries to get past security to gun the man down, but he is gunned down himself instead. The man he saw getting gunned down in the airport as a child was actually his future self.

In this movie, time travel solves nothing. There is only one time line and current events that spawn future events cannot be undone. The events that conspired to send Bruce Willis back in time in the first place HAVE to happen or else he never would have gone back to begin with. Get it? If you buy that there is only a single time line, then this movie sticks to the laws that is has laid out and it does not violate these laws. But, there doesn’t just have to be just one single time line. What if every action… every decision you ever made created a parallel universe and you were somehow able to travel from one to the other? Well, that’s the premise in the Back to the Future movies.

These movies begin in 1985. Marty McFly is called to the parking lot of the local shopping mall to check out the latest invention that his friend Doc Brown has invented. Of course, it’s a time machine. Hijinks happen that conspire to send Marty McFly BACK to 1955 where his parents first kissed at the Fish Under the Sea dance at their high school. The plutonium needed to fuel the time machine was used up in the initial jump so Marty McFly is stuck in 1955 unless he can find a way to power the machine to return him to his own time. He hooks up with the 1955 version of Doc Brown, convinces him that he’s from the future, and the two of them begin planning on a way to use an upcoming lightning strike during a thunderstorm to power the machine and get Marty back home.

But, that would be too easy and wouldn’t make for a good movie. Marty saves his father from falling out a tree and getting hit by a car and winds up getting himself hit by a car in the process. He wakes up in his teenage mother’s bedroom with her swooning over him. Unbeknownst to Marty, he has unintentionally prevented the accident that led to his father and mother meeting for the first time. Realizing that his mother now has a crush on him, he has to set things right before the arrival of the lightning strike or else he’ll cease to exist because his mother and father will never kiss, never marry, never have babies, and his time stream will cease to have ever existed. He cuts it close to the wire, but things work out when his dad saves his mother from the hands of the local bully, Biff, by punching Biff out in the parking lot. Mom and dad fall in in love, kiss, and the timeline is restored with a few changes. Marty makes it home to his own time. However, instead of his father being a sniveling coward, he’s now a triumphant science fiction writer and Biff is now bowing and scraping to his father. Marty, who remembers the way things were before in the older time stream, decides he likes the changes and all is well. And here is where everything falls apart for me. Marty McFly should NOT have recalled ANY of his older childhood memories. The Marty McFly that existed in 1985a ceased to exist the moment that the circumstances under which his parents met changed. The Marty McFly which was born to them grew up in a different time stream with a different family background. When Marty McFly finally returned home, he actually returned to 1985b. This begs the question, where was the Marty McFly from 1985b when the Marty McFly from 1985a showed up? It is implied that his parents had sent him to boarding school, however, it is also explained that his parents KNEW that he was planning a weekend camping trip with his girlfriend, Jennifer. Okay, so if we assume that Marty McFly from 1985b (aka Marty McFlyB) wasn’t expected home until the weekend, then the arrival of Marty McFlyA was a shock to his parents but not entirely unexpected. Fortunately, we never have to see the awkward meeting between Marty McFlyA and Marty McFlyB because, soon thereafter, Doc Brown arrives and whisks Jennifer and Marty away to the year 2015 where Marty’s children are in grave danger of some sort.

At this point in the series, the laws have been laid out. Every action and every choice you make creates an alternate time stream and it is possible to travel back and forth between these time streams with the right equipment. No Laws have been violated just yet with the exception of MartyA retaining memories he should not have. However, it got awfully close there for a moment. The alternate time streams theory is explained to great effect by Doc Brown in BTTF2. At the beginning of BTTF2 Doc, Marty, and Jen arrive in 2015. When Jen starts getting over anxious about the experience, Doc knocks her out with a tranquilizer and he and Marty go off to save Marty’s son. As it turns out, Biff from 1985b (BiffB from now on), has grown up to be a miserable angry old man and his grandson is a troublemaker just like he used to be in his youth. Marty’s son, Martin, has gotten mixed up with these hooligans and is about to get himself arrested which sets into a motion an entire unfortunate chain of events which leads to the ruin of the entire McFly family. It is this outcome that Doc has brought Marty to prevent. Marty gets the jump on his own son, knocks him unconscious, and poses as his own son. BiffB’s grandson arrives and tries to get who he believes to be Martin to join in on whatever they’re about to get up to. Marty refuses and BiffB’s grandson gets angry and vows revenge. A chase ensues and Marty is able to escape and BiffB’s grandson winds up getting arrested. The calamity has been avoided and all is well…. Or so Marty and Doc believe.

When they return to the car, they discover that Jennifer has been discovered by some local traffic cops who, after performing a retinal scan on her, return her to her current 2015 address. Now, Doc and Marty are forced to go rescue her. As they are climbing into the car (the tie machine), Doc Brown discovers that Marty has purchased a sports almanac which he plans to use in 1985 to place bets on the outcomes of sporting events. Doc chastises him for his idea and says that is abusing the power of time travel and throws the sports almanac into the trash. Unbeknownst to them, BiffB is hiding inside of a nearby doorway and overhears their conversation about time travel and the sports almanac and he realizes that Doc has built a time machine. He follows Doc and Marty to where Jennifer has been returned to and climbs into and uses the time machine while Doc and Marty are making good Jennifer’s rescue. During the course of this rescue mission, Jennifer awakens and discovers that Marty2015 is a failure of a man all because he got into an automobile accident back in 1985 shortly after he arrived home. The automobile accident cost him the full use of his hand which forever killed his music career. Marty2015 has been a mess of a man ever since. Jennifer is trying to leave the house when she bumps into her future self and the shock of seeing herself so much older makes her pass out. She is rescued by Doc and Marty and taken back to the car. They travel back to 1985 and leave her on her front porch on a swing.

It doesn’t take them long to realize that things are awfully strange now. Marty tries to sneak into his house through his bedroom window only to find out that the house is no longer his house. He is chased out of the house by the father of the house and runs off down the street. As he wanders about aimlessly, he beings to notice that the neighborhood he once knew and loved is all run down and dilapidated and incredibly violent. Thinking that he must be in some year other than 1985, he walks up onto the nearest porch and grabs the newspaper lying there. He’s shocked to discover that the date is correct. However, he is even more taken by surprise when his high school principal steps out onto the front porch with a shotgun leveled at him. Marty cringes believing he is about to die when a car drives by and opens fire on the house. The principal begins shooting back and Marty uses that as a chance to escape. A lot of stuff happens and it is revealed to Marty by BiffC (this is yet ANOTHER time stream)that, while Marty and Doc were rescuing Jen, BiffB stole the time machine and traveled back to 1955 and gave the sports almanac to his younger self. He also gave BiffC a warning that a kid would come around one day asking a lot of questions and that this kid should be killed. A fight ensues and Marty barely manages to escape. He quickly explains to Doc what has happened and off they go to 1955B (the 1955 in which his father was saved from falling out of the tree and getting hit by a car). They follow young Biff around and manage to get the almanac from him. Recall, it is the night of the terrible thunderstorm and, while Marty burns the almanac in a trash can, the time machine gets hit by a bolt of lightning and vanishes. Marty is left standing there, stranded in 1955 staring at the spot where a time machine used to be when a car pulls up. It is a mailman with a very old letter that is addressed to Marty McFly at this exact location on this exact date and time. Marty accepts the letter and reading it, he discovers that Doc has been sent back in time to 1885 and he is doing well. Realizing that Marty was going to be stranded, he hid the time machine away in a cave and suggest Marty go find Doc from 1955 and explain to him what happened so that they can get Marty home to 1985 yet again. He admonishes Marty to not come and save him under any circumstances but, of course, Marty doesn’t listen. He heads straight for 1885 and that’s where BTTF2 ends. The story is picked up in BTTF3 in the wild west and, to make a long story short, Marty is FINALLY able to return to 1985 and pick up from where he left off. The first thing he does is head straight to Jennifer’s house where he finds her still on the swing on her front porch. He wakes her up and goes for a drive. During the drive, he is challenged to a race, but using wisdom gathered during the course of BTTF3, he avoids the race and the ensuing automobile accident which would have led to the eventual ruin of his future. This is where the entire franchise screwed up. Jennifer was placed on the front porch of 1985C. The capturing and burning of the sports almanac caused that time stream to be wiped from existence. In so doing, anything trapped within that time stream should also have been wiped from existence including the Jennifer that was snoozing away on the front porch. Furthermore, by avoiding the automobile accident, Marty changed the future of 2015. The 2015 he visited never would have existed and all of the events that transpired to lead him to the 1985 he found himself in never would have happened and, therefore, he never would have arrived in the 1985 he found himself in. And this is where ‘Looper’ went wrong.

Early on in the movie, Joe’s friend, Seth doesn’t close his loop like he is supposed to and his future self escapes. Joe is quickly captured and they begin removing body parts. Each time a body part is removed, his future self is shocked to discover that one of his body parts has disappeared. This right here is the most crucial aspect of the entire movie. This implies that there is only ONE time line and that anything that happens in the present necessarily affects the future. Any body part that is removed in the present changes the future so that your future self is now without that body part. It is vital that the viewer understands this because it directly affects how the end of the movie played out.

In the future, there is a man known as the Rainmaker who is going around taking over the crime families and closing loops. This man, as it turns out, is Cid after he has grown up a bit. His motivations are unknown, but it would seem from the actions that play out at the end of the movie in the cane field, that the Joe from the future killed Cid’s mother in an effort to get to Cid and that Cid struck out in a violent fit of anger with his TK and killed future Joe. This sets Cid down a dark path and he eventually becomes the man that inspired future Joe to come back to try to stop him in the first place. Seeing how this is all going to play out, present Joe does the only thing he can do to prevent this tragedy from coming to pass. He places his blunderbuss to his chest and takes his own life. Future Joe ceases to exist and the dark happenings of that fateful day never come to pass. Sara discovers Joe’s treasure hoard and it is assumed that she raises Cid to be a good person and they never want for anything because they have the money that young Joe left behind.

My problem is this: there is only one time line. Anything that happens in the past directly affects the future. By killing himself in the cane field, he causes future Joe to never have existed. This means that young Joe would never have ever met future Joe and that he never would have let his loop go unclosed because he never would have been put in that position. It was this effort to close his own loop that led him to the farm where he discovered Sara and Cid in the first place. Since he never would have been chasing his future self (since his future self never would have existed), he never would have met them. Maybe Cid would have still grown up to be the Rainmaker. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. There’d be no telling at this point because Cid would be a character that would hold no importance of any kind at all. The way the movie should have ended would have been to snap back to young Joe on the day he was supposed to have closed his loop. He stands there looking at his watch wondering what the hell is going on, shrugs his shoulders, gets into his truck and leaves the scene. Fade to black. The ending we saw can only be explained if we allow for multiple time streams. However, the laws laid out in the movie specifically prohibit this from being a thing. If the director ever wants to recut the film into a film that works unquestionably, he needs to remove the scenes of future Seth getting lured to his own death, the message that young Joe leaves for his future self in his own flesh., and the rewriting of future Joe’s memories. It is these little bits of nonsense that have ruined the entire movie for me.