Thirith on 12/10/2012 at 13:48
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
So yeah ...
Cid is Young Joe is Old Joe ad infinitum. Cool!
I don't think so, although I definitely see how you'd come to that conclusion. There are hints to that effect, but I think they're red herrings - or rather, they're supposed to establish a thematic connection, rather than meaning literally what you've just written. If they did, the plot would make little sense.
Scots Taffer on 12/10/2012 at 13:52
I think the moment where he sees Old Joe kill Sarah then Young Joe "experiences" the train ride that Cid takes shows us that they are the one person. Also, I don't think Rian is above throwing not just the Hitler time travel question but also the you fucked your mum joke in for good measure too!
At first I saw it as a thematic metaphor, but I think it might be also be the case as I've outlined above.
Thirith on 12/10/2012 at 14:04
Thing is, for that to be the case [spoiler]Old Joe would also have to remember it[/spoiler] - and it requires us to think that [spoiler]Cid grows up to become Joe, travel back in time... and forget all about that until that moment in the field. Why would Joe forget all of that? We're not talking about an instance of time travel changing the past - we're talking about a character first forgetting his past for no apparent reason, and then remembering it for no apparent reason.[/spoiler]
Also, that would leave open the mystery of the Rainmaker: [spoiler]Wouldn't Old Joe have to be the Rainmaker then, since he'd be old Cid? How would that work?[/spoiler]
I absolutely think that the film is too cavalier in letting us think what you wrote, but I don't think that's what it actually means to say, because it would raise many more questions than it would answer, and not in a particularly interesting way.
N'Al on 12/10/2012 at 14:19
Quote:
I don't want to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it then we're going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws.
;)
Personally, I will admit my first thought when I came out of the cinema was
Motherfucker! too, but I now don't think it's meant to be taken that literally either.
Al_B on 12/10/2012 at 14:56
I'm also not sold on that theory because it would require Cid to deliberately lose or forget his telekinetic powers when coming back in time as Joe. Although it's obviously possible that he still has them and is keeping them under wraps given some of the situations in the film it would be a strange choice. I'm not against the theory that Joe did come back from the future in the first place, however, and it's possible that his knowledge came from being present alongside older Cid.
Thirith on 12/10/2012 at 15:06
I think Joe's knowledge [spoiler]of how Cid would grow up is more of an intuition based on seeing himself in the kid (minus the scary powers). Ignoring the visuals of that scene, which do look like old Joe's new memories, what young Joe says is very similar to what Abe (Jeff Daniels) says about his first encounter with Joe: that he could see where the kid was going, and that he decided to take him off that path and put him onto a different, better path.[/spoiler]
Scots Taffer on 13/10/2012 at 01:08
Online comics don't even try any more, do they?
Thirith, I see what you're saying re: Cid. The line that Young Joe said to Cid and that Abe says to Joe about seeing someone and all the possible paths they could take - the good, the bad, etc - makes it seem obvious that it's more metaphorical than literal. It wouldn't be surprising if Johnson did decide to go totally loopy (forgive the pun) with all three generations of the one character, but of course the TK is the most obvious discrepancy - you could probably try to convince yourself that either he got it under control or that the drugs dulled it etc, but that doesn't really make sense. Seems more logical that it's about the contradictory theme of recurrent events yet multiple pathways in life/time.
Thirith on 13/10/2012 at 08:57
By the way: how do Johnson's other films compare to this one? I know they're not sci-fi, but are they similarly clever, accomplished and interesting? I only know the episode he did on Breaking Bad, "The Fly", which I liked.
Scots Taffer on 13/10/2012 at 10:22
Brick is maybe too clever and The Brothers Bloom is maybe too quirky. Both are worth the watch.
