MovieChat Forums > Looper (2012) Discussion > Sudden dismemberment

Sudden dismemberment


Poor young Seth! Couldn't even imagine what gore and pain did he experience.

Born2Burn

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[deleted]

Lucky for him, they induced coma. Without the coma, knowledge of The Mutilation Contingency would be pushed to OLD SETH before the first cut is made.

And YOUNG SETH never wakes back up... so he doesn't suffer as much as OLD SETH does.



Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

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Still disturbing. It's like voodoo - distant torture.

Born2Burn

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Agreed. Although my mind was quickly racing to formulate theories on how Temporal-Doubles in a PAST-CAN-BE-CHANGED / MANY WORLDS model can still be tethered to outcome-flux in this new NOW().

This "tethering" has limitations relative to the Running/Open Loop, and only affects organic/sentient material (i.g. shoes and jewelry remain, untethered during flux. With an exception that the Director has already confirmed to be an error (Young Joe's clothing should NOT have vanished as it was untethered, it should have fallen to the ground like the shoes/jewelry)).






Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

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OLD Joe's clothing, right? At the end, you mean, when Willis vanishes?

And, back to Seth's death: did mobsters want to kill both versions of Seth? They had young one, so why not just kill him, the older one would vanish! Why all the mess with scarification the address and slow dismemberment?

Born2Burn

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OLD Joe's clothing, right? At the end, you mean, when Willis vanishes?


Yes, until that scene, all inorganic relics from the FUTURE or modified/worn by a FUTURE OLD fell to the ground (shoes, jewelry(deleted scene)). It had made the trip back and it was here to stay.

Rian Johnson said on twitter that the inconsistency of "vanished clothing (OLD JOE)" was due to post-production special FX. Basically, it was cheaper to vanish than to go back and refilm some clothing falling to the ground.


And, back to Seth's death: did mobsters want to kill both versions of Seth? They had young one, so why not just kill him, the older one would vanish! Why all the mess with scarification the address and slow dismemberment?


It's tricky. And requires some Theorycraft, but bare with me. The Mafia has a three-step agenda in this paradigm:

1) ERASE undesirables from TheFuture.
2) KILL all prescients (time travelers) not named ABE() in ThePast.
3) CLOSE ALL LOOPS in TheNow.

You're correct in that killing YOUNG would simply vanish OLD... But via the Mutilation Contingency, we learn two things:

a) ABE() needs to confirm the prescient has been killed, the time for assumption is over. And it's easy to confirm the MARK if it's missing the appropriate limbs

b) there is no way they are keeping YOUNG mutilated alive for another 30 years. Essentially, the loop is closed when OLD is killed. And then it is annihilated when YOUNG is never brought back out of that coma.

b2) moving forward in TheNow, ABE() has closed MutilatedOldSeth's Loop and is free to kill MutilatedYoungSeth without paradox simply because a NewYoungAbe can always return back to a time before they even had to cut up YoungSeth and simply reboot Seth's loop.

b3) what if, since OLD JOE's loop wasn't closed before YOUNG JOE dies, there is no longer any JOE() on the backside of NewYoungAbe's new loop? Imagine if JOE didn't only vanish in TheNow, but vanished in NewPast(s) as well. This would be one reason not to vanish people willy nilly. And in ABE's defense, it was YoungJoe who has messed up TheNow.

b4) what if, then, none of the names actually matter and NewYoungAbe could simply (re)recruit all new Loopers with all new names?








Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

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I don't think clothes should be untethered, I mean those clothes came in "Boat Joe" if "Boat Joe" sinks, then there's no boat to carry clothes to the past in the first place.

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I don't think clothes should be untethered, I mean those clothes came in "Boat Joe" if "Boat Joe" sinks, then there's no boat to carry clothes to the past in the first place.


But causality is out the window early into Looper. The past is indeed changing, and the real-time updates to Old Seth prove that the limbs are tethered to Young Seth and only become untethered to Old Seth after they're removed from Young Seth.

The clothing is different. It made the trip back regardless of Young Joe killing himself. It has no connection/tethered_destiny to Young Joe.




Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

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Poor Seth indeed. He actually dies three times:
http://entertainment-evolution.blogspot.fi/2012/11/looper-remaining-question-answered.html#

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The first kid killed by Old Joe is Seth? o_O

Born2Burn

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The first kid killed by Old Joe is Seth? o_O


Yep! :)

Blogs:

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Great Scott!

Born2Burn

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WHAT?

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What happened to older Seth is one of the creepiest things I ever saw in a movie, it was JUST EFFING CREEPY.

And the sudden retroactively applied changes. Imagine if loving caring people got ahold of someone's younger self and forced that person to exercise and eat better and some older version goes to bed a fat slob then the next morning they look in the mirror and see a handsome person with perfect abs staring back at them, even something good would be freaky.

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Boy, that scene *beep* me up.
Compared to this, all the other violence was basically comedy.

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What happened to older Seth is one of the creepiest things I ever saw in a movie, it was JUST EFFING CREEPY.


Agreed.


And the sudden retroactively applied changes. Imagine if loving caring people got ahold of someone's younger self and forced that person to exercise and eat better and some older version goes to bed a fat slob then the next morning they look in the mirror and see a handsome person with perfect abs staring back at them, even something good would be freaky.


Lots of floating variables at play tho. Simply working out your 30 year younger self doesn't guarantee you hold the weight off for another 30 years.

Which leads to an interesting point to be made about "Vanished Limbs:"

If these "updates" are truly retroactive, wouldn't the victim have 30 years to get prosthetics and exit the time-machine all pegged legged and pirate'y?

Thinking about this avenue made me realize the "change/flux" isn't retroactive but presentactive [sic] and very much new. This is the Universe shaving the corners off a "square peg" so that it can now fit through a "round hole."

No further "magic" is required to vanish the limbs since they magically arrived in the first place. Magic all the way down.

Another point is the Marker/ID needed to catalog the Double(s) beyond our 3 observable dimensions. How does the Universe know whom to shave the corners off? Could this Marker/ID be akin to "soul?"




Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

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