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Time Travel for Confusion and Profit!
Monday, October 1st, 2012 01:08 pmIt seems that in every time-travel related movie/tv show/short story/etc. these days, there's a part where the characters complain about how time travel is a fundamentally headache inducing plot device. Invariably, these discussions are cut short, either by literal violence or by a sort of conversational misdirect, like silly words ("wibbley wobbley timey wimey... stuff") or a put down from one of the speakers that amounts to a bit of linguistic violence ("stop asking questions, stupid!"). I'm not sure what these conversations ultimately do for the script itself, other than add little moments of levity between action sequences, or provide an opportunity for the writers to appear metaphysical. Most of the time, I do love these moments because watching the characters do the mental gymnastics required to facilitate the plot without giving the viewer/reader a headache is funny.
First up on the headachy time travel front is "Looper", which is the movie that "Inception" wanted to be--exciting and intelligent, with great acting and a very tightly constructed script. Most of the time in movies today, I think to myself that the writers could have cut twenty minutes out of middle and nothing would be missed; in the case of "Looper", those middle twenty minutes were important and well-used. ( Spoilers ahead, but I'll try to keep the ending out of them. )
In a semi-related genre, spoilers have been unavoidable for the mid-season finale of "Doctor Who". I made it there fairly unscathed, but in the interests of not ruining it for others: ( Spoilers for everything, especially the ending. )
Side note, from the trailers: The Lioness Mother, who defends her child against almost all evil (even from BEYOND THE GRAVE), appeared in several trailers. There was the monster!Mother in Guillermo del Toro's "Mama", who appears to be Sadako's cousin, given her fondness for grotesquely bent limbs and stringy hair; contrasted with Judi Dench's mastermind!Mother/M in "Skyfall", where the strong intimation is that Mother loves you enough to kill you dead for plot purposes. I'm not sure what this heralds about feelings towards mothers right now, but it's a slightly nicer trend than zombies, so I guess I can get behind it.
First up on the headachy time travel front is "Looper", which is the movie that "Inception" wanted to be--exciting and intelligent, with great acting and a very tightly constructed script. Most of the time in movies today, I think to myself that the writers could have cut twenty minutes out of middle and nothing would be missed; in the case of "Looper", those middle twenty minutes were important and well-used. ( Spoilers ahead, but I'll try to keep the ending out of them. )
In a semi-related genre, spoilers have been unavoidable for the mid-season finale of "Doctor Who". I made it there fairly unscathed, but in the interests of not ruining it for others: ( Spoilers for everything, especially the ending. )
Side note, from the trailers: The Lioness Mother, who defends her child against almost all evil (even from BEYOND THE GRAVE), appeared in several trailers. There was the monster!Mother in Guillermo del Toro's "Mama", who appears to be Sadako's cousin, given her fondness for grotesquely bent limbs and stringy hair; contrasted with Judi Dench's mastermind!Mother/M in "Skyfall", where the strong intimation is that Mother loves you enough to kill you dead for plot purposes. I'm not sure what this heralds about feelings towards mothers right now, but it's a slightly nicer trend than zombies, so I guess I can get behind it.
