Ten Mysteries in ‘Looper’ Explained by Director Rian Johnson
No one goes into a time travel movie expecting all the answers. Time travel films are often filled with unanswerable mysteries, because the idea of moving characters against the normal flow of time creates problems and paradoxes. Bending your mind around the layers and repetition of time travel is part of the fun, even in a bad time travel movie. Writer/director Rian Johnson loves time travel movies too, even the bad ones. Thankfully, he made a great one in Looper, now in theaters.
Even after you walk out of Looper, though, you’re bound to have questions that need answering. In a recent 15 minute interview with Johnson, that’s all we focused on. Spoilers, spoilers and more spoilers. Questions that the movie doesn’t answer, ideas the movie hints at, character motivations, all of it. On Monday, we’ll run the full video interview but, for now, we provide answers to ten unexplained mysteries from the film with the help of Johnson himself.
Beware, MASSIVE SPOILERS for Looper.
Here are ten unexplained mysteries in Looper and Rian Johnson’s explanations to them.
1. The first time Old Joe pops back to the present, he escapes. Later we see him die in the same place. Which happens first and why the deception?
The first time we see Old Joe and he escapes is actually the second time he appears in the straight story. According to Johnson, and evident upon a second viewing of the film, the straight line of narrative is that Joe becomes a looper, closes his loop by killing Old Joe (this is the second time we see the scene in the field), goes to China, meets his wife, then gets sent back without the hood and escapes, setting off the rest of the movie, which is the first and third time we see him.
“The reason I made the break and decided to invert it was the problem, narratively, is our main character is now – for all intents and purposes – Old Joe. Because now we’re following him and I wanted the protagonist to be young Joe,” Johnson said.
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Even after you walk out of Looper, though, you’re bound to have questions that need answering. In a recent 15 minute interview with Johnson, that’s all we focused on. Spoilers, spoilers and more spoilers. Questions that the movie doesn’t answer, ideas the movie hints at, character motivations, all of it. On Monday, we’ll run the full video interview but, for now, we provide answers to ten unexplained mysteries from the film with the help of Johnson himself.
Beware, MASSIVE SPOILERS for Looper.
Here are ten unexplained mysteries in Looper and Rian Johnson’s explanations to them.
1. The first time Old Joe pops back to the present, he escapes. Later we see him die in the same place. Which happens first and why the deception?
The first time we see Old Joe and he escapes is actually the second time he appears in the straight story. According to Johnson, and evident upon a second viewing of the film, the straight line of narrative is that Joe becomes a looper, closes his loop by killing Old Joe (this is the second time we see the scene in the field), goes to China, meets his wife, then gets sent back without the hood and escapes, setting off the rest of the movie, which is the first and third time we see him.
“The reason I made the break and decided to invert it was the problem, narratively, is our main character is now – for all intents and purposes – Old Joe. Because now we’re following him and I wanted the protagonist to be young Joe,” Johnson said.
Visit SlashFilm.com for the full story
Author:
Germain Lussier
Date:
on
movie: Looper 2012
Source URL: http://www.slashfilm.com/