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Just watched this movie the roomie told me about that he got on DVD called Primer. Its a really interesting and mind blowing movie concerning a certain popular sci-fi concept, which I won't mention because I realize they don't even mention it is about that until well into the movie. They try to be a little more science-y about it, which is kinda cool, but they don't dumb it down, which can lead to confusion. If the roomie hadn't told me about the movie over dinner one night, I might have had trouble grasping the concepts. Because the characters talk about the science of it as if its ojv('Man, its obvious!') Heck, there were a couple of times where they'll go along a line of thinking, not even finishing the sentence and expecting the audience to infer what they were gonna say.
The guy who made the movie is all, he doesn't expect people to get it the first time through, and anyone who says they do is an effin' liar. Which is a little pretentious thing to say. But its true. Hell, I've just watched it a second time and had the roomie talk about the movie before I even saw it and there are still points of confusion. I don't care how smart you are, there are things you just won't see because you're not looking for them, even if you know what the plot of the movie is. I mean, when I saw Sixth Sense, I had heard there was a twist (didn't know what it was though), but just knowing there was a twist I was able to figure it out what it was when Bruce Willis goes to meet his wife at the restaurant and you think she's pissed because he's late. I figured it out, and the rest of the movie, I was thinking "brilliant!" how they cleverly disguised things. This movie, I knew some of the plot elements going in, and while there was a clue or two to one of the twists, there's a lack of context to use that info to figure things out.
Speaking of being aware, people have prolly seen this awareness test already, but I thought it was neat, and slightly creepy.
So the movie is about time travel. The way it works is this. They have a box that can fit a person. They turn it on and leave it running for six hours. At this point, they enter the box and after spending six hours in it, they come out at the point the machine was turned on. Make sense? Like they turn it on at 830, head off to a hotel room to hide from the world (so as to prevent paradoxes by keeping themselves out of the equation "the first time through") then head go into the box at 230 in the afternoon. They spend six hours in the box, coming out at 830 again? Thus, they'd be 12 hours older, but basically get to redo the day from that point. All they did was check the stocks the first time through, and since the first version of themselves were hiding, they can interact with people without worrying about affecting things for the first version of themselves.
The first 2/3 of the movie made sense, its the last third where it really starts getting confusing. It all starts with two of their friends (no one knows about the time travel except for the two main characters) mentioning to one, Abe, that the other Aaron, saved some girl he know's, Rachel, life at a party. Then there's weird thing with Abe being woken up by punks setting off all the car alarms in the neighborhood and waking him up early, so Abe wants to go back and stop the kids from doing that that way the alarms won't be set off and his double won't be woken up early. They're intentionally trying to cause a paradox to see what would happen.
But then on their way to do that, their followed by the girl's father (who appears to have time travelled himself?) and they confront him and the guy passes out whenever Aaron gets near him. Unbenknownst to Aaron, Abe has another machine that can go back a few days, not just the few hours their normal machines can. So he tries to change the past by traveling back in time to the day he was about to tell Aaron about the time travel, drugs his double, and takes his place. But he passes out from the strain.
But apparently the Aaron he was about to talk to was from the future (or the future Aaron told him everything, I'm not too clear on that) because future Aaron found out about the failsafe time machine, but figured he could put Abe's machine inside his and reuse them in order to travel back that far as well. And apparently the whole thing at the party was engineered so he'd look like a hero? I'm confused at the end if they still fulfilled the whole saving the girl thing, or if they tried to make the crazy boyfriend shoot the girl. In any case, at the end they jump back to before the time when they even knew about time travel and purposely sabotage the machines so their doubles don't think time travel is possible and then just live out the rest of their lives? Its very confusing.
The second time through, I think I get what's happening better. I said it seemed like they were purposely engineering the crazy bf with the shotgun incident so Aaron could save her? But it seems like the first time he saved the girl, he just did it because of the whole mind blowing reveal of the time travel not caring if the shotgun was loaded or not.
But I'm confused about the whole drugging their past selves and taking over to change how events took place. Like future Aaron got past Aaron to record all his conversations of the day so he'd know how all the conversations he had would go (though things did change, particularly since the time travel was messing up their hand coordination?) But then Aaron (who we find out is the narrator) mentions something about the second time through he was too tired to knock himself out, so he instead just told his past self what to do?
Like I said, I understand how the time travel works, as well as their scheme to get rich, its just that last third with them going back farther into the past and changing things that I'm not sure I'm exactly getting. I guess this is a movie that merits discussion with other viewers. I guess I could also look up things on the internet to see if there's answers to the questions I have. Like here. Interesting, so according to the chart, a new time line is created every time they enter the box. So in the timeline they enter the box, they're gone from it once they enter and are instead shunted into the new timeline?
Edit: Okay, after reading the timelines in the above link, apparently the Aaron we see the whole time was a future Aaron? He apparently learned about the failsafe and went back in the past so he'd have more control? And the whole thing with the Aaron fighting himself the second time? So there's two future Aarons? The earlier future Aaron from where he used the failsafe the first time, and a later future one that goes back to have the upper hand since Abe finally uses the failsafe to reset things after the thing with Rachel's father?
So the thing with Aaron being too tired to knock himself out that was the future future Aaron trying to knockout the earlier future Aaron who had just knocked out normal Aaron? But since future future Aaron already had all the conversations recorded (as earlier future Aaron had started doing) he takes over and earlier future Aaron goes off to start work on the big time travel box we see at the end?
And the whole thing with the party, future future Aaron was trying to manipulate things and he and Abe kept repeating it until they got it right? Like the original time, he just disarmed the guy (and it wasn't a setup, he really played the hero) and this new time he was trying to do things so the guy got arrested and put away so he couldn't hurt Rachel. (wait, was there an implication that he had a thing for Rachel and was sick and tired of his wife and kid?) And then that Aaron went off for parts unknown while that Abe traveled back in time to prevent them from building the boxes?
Wait, so does that mean at the end there are two Abes running around, but 3 Aarons?
The guy who made the movie is all, he doesn't expect people to get it the first time through, and anyone who says they do is an effin' liar. Which is a little pretentious thing to say. But its true. Hell, I've just watched it a second time and had the roomie talk about the movie before I even saw it and there are still points of confusion. I don't care how smart you are, there are things you just won't see because you're not looking for them, even if you know what the plot of the movie is. I mean, when I saw Sixth Sense, I had heard there was a twist (didn't know what it was though), but just knowing there was a twist I was able to figure it out what it was when Bruce Willis goes to meet his wife at the restaurant and you think she's pissed because he's late. I figured it out, and the rest of the movie, I was thinking "brilliant!" how they cleverly disguised things. This movie, I knew some of the plot elements going in, and while there was a clue or two to one of the twists, there's a lack of context to use that info to figure things out.
Speaking of being aware, people have prolly seen this awareness test already, but I thought it was neat, and slightly creepy.
So the movie is about time travel. The way it works is this. They have a box that can fit a person. They turn it on and leave it running for six hours. At this point, they enter the box and after spending six hours in it, they come out at the point the machine was turned on. Make sense? Like they turn it on at 830, head off to a hotel room to hide from the world (so as to prevent paradoxes by keeping themselves out of the equation "the first time through") then head go into the box at 230 in the afternoon. They spend six hours in the box, coming out at 830 again? Thus, they'd be 12 hours older, but basically get to redo the day from that point. All they did was check the stocks the first time through, and since the first version of themselves were hiding, they can interact with people without worrying about affecting things for the first version of themselves.
The first 2/3 of the movie made sense, its the last third where it really starts getting confusing. It all starts with two of their friends (no one knows about the time travel except for the two main characters) mentioning to one, Abe, that the other Aaron, saved some girl he know's, Rachel, life at a party. Then there's weird thing with Abe being woken up by punks setting off all the car alarms in the neighborhood and waking him up early, so Abe wants to go back and stop the kids from doing that that way the alarms won't be set off and his double won't be woken up early. They're intentionally trying to cause a paradox to see what would happen.
But then on their way to do that, their followed by the girl's father (who appears to have time travelled himself?) and they confront him and the guy passes out whenever Aaron gets near him. Unbenknownst to Aaron, Abe has another machine that can go back a few days, not just the few hours their normal machines can. So he tries to change the past by traveling back in time to the day he was about to tell Aaron about the time travel, drugs his double, and takes his place. But he passes out from the strain.
But apparently the Aaron he was about to talk to was from the future (or the future Aaron told him everything, I'm not too clear on that) because future Aaron found out about the failsafe time machine, but figured he could put Abe's machine inside his and reuse them in order to travel back that far as well. And apparently the whole thing at the party was engineered so he'd look like a hero? I'm confused at the end if they still fulfilled the whole saving the girl thing, or if they tried to make the crazy boyfriend shoot the girl. In any case, at the end they jump back to before the time when they even knew about time travel and purposely sabotage the machines so their doubles don't think time travel is possible and then just live out the rest of their lives? Its very confusing.
The second time through, I think I get what's happening better. I said it seemed like they were purposely engineering the crazy bf with the shotgun incident so Aaron could save her? But it seems like the first time he saved the girl, he just did it because of the whole mind blowing reveal of the time travel not caring if the shotgun was loaded or not.
But I'm confused about the whole drugging their past selves and taking over to change how events took place. Like future Aaron got past Aaron to record all his conversations of the day so he'd know how all the conversations he had would go (though things did change, particularly since the time travel was messing up their hand coordination?) But then Aaron (who we find out is the narrator) mentions something about the second time through he was too tired to knock himself out, so he instead just told his past self what to do?
Like I said, I understand how the time travel works, as well as their scheme to get rich, its just that last third with them going back farther into the past and changing things that I'm not sure I'm exactly getting. I guess this is a movie that merits discussion with other viewers. I guess I could also look up things on the internet to see if there's answers to the questions I have. Like here. Interesting, so according to the chart, a new time line is created every time they enter the box. So in the timeline they enter the box, they're gone from it once they enter and are instead shunted into the new timeline?
Edit: Okay, after reading the timelines in the above link, apparently the Aaron we see the whole time was a future Aaron? He apparently learned about the failsafe and went back in the past so he'd have more control? And the whole thing with the Aaron fighting himself the second time? So there's two future Aarons? The earlier future Aaron from where he used the failsafe the first time, and a later future one that goes back to have the upper hand since Abe finally uses the failsafe to reset things after the thing with Rachel's father?
So the thing with Aaron being too tired to knock himself out that was the future future Aaron trying to knockout the earlier future Aaron who had just knocked out normal Aaron? But since future future Aaron already had all the conversations recorded (as earlier future Aaron had started doing) he takes over and earlier future Aaron goes off to start work on the big time travel box we see at the end?
And the whole thing with the party, future future Aaron was trying to manipulate things and he and Abe kept repeating it until they got it right? Like the original time, he just disarmed the guy (and it wasn't a setup, he really played the hero) and this new time he was trying to do things so the guy got arrested and put away so he couldn't hurt Rachel. (wait, was there an implication that he had a thing for Rachel and was sick and tired of his wife and kid?) And then that Aaron went off for parts unknown while that Abe traveled back in time to prevent them from building the boxes?
Wait, so does that mean at the end there are two Abes running around, but 3 Aarons?
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/joe
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/joe