I have a problem with the ending

I think he becomes the Fizzle Bomber because he doesn't know who else to be. This guy has SERIOUS identity issues, and with the death of the fizzle bomber his identity as an time agent is done. So he then tries on "normal guy with a normal girlfriend." as his identity, but that falls through. So, being a bit psychotic, he takes on the one remaining identity available to him, a very very strong one, which he needs, that of the fizzle bomber.

Here is an example of what might actually have happened to make him reach that point:

After killing the Fizzle Bomber the Bartender takes the book of clippings and locks it away in a safe in his home. The 1975 bombing is averted, but a new timeline is created. Then he goes and starts dating the book store girl. He lives a somewhat normal life with her for a while. Then suddenly the first disaster from the book of clippings happens (because of the new timeline) and he finally accepts that all the disasters in it will eventually happen and only he can stop them. Still he resists temptation and so the day before the next one is due to happen he is staring morosely at the clipping when book-store girl comes home unexpectedly and sees it. She asks him about it and he tries to hide it and acts weird. Then the next day the disaster actually happens and she freaks out. He eventually tells her the truth and she doesn't believe him, so he proves it by taking her on a short jump, thus screwing his own head up more.

She wants to use the machine to become rich and he explains why that is a bad idea and refuses. She steals the machine and tries to use it but it doesn't work. It turns out the Bartender broke it before she could steal it. She recalls that during an earlier conversation about the device the bartender mentioned the scientist who invented time travel. She takes the device to that scientist, and after a year or two of work with her device he figures out time travel (and he has a hot new girlfriend planning to ride his coat tails to fame and fortune).

In the meantime the Bartender has been continuing with his life, still ignoring the looming disasters, but also missing out on the excitement of saving the world, and battling depression regarding the book store girl and Jane and John, neither of whom he entirely feels like anymore since he looks so different. He is developing serious identity issues.

He is almost back on his feet when time travel is invented (it is now 1981). He sees a newspaper article about it with the book store girl standing near the scientist that "invented" time travel. He gets very upset over this and decides to try to stop it by going back in time to keep her from ever stealing the time machine, (remember, he has a spare time machine that the book store girl didn't know about), but he fails to stop her and gets arrested for felony assault and battery or something similar. He is upset and says some crazy things about time travel so he is deemed a mental health risk and doesn't get bail so he can't escape using the time machine. He ends up sentenced to prison for a couple years, but spends the time in a mental facility.

He eventually escapes, but by that time his head is really messed when he uses the time machine again to evade recapture he is even more messed up. He now has no love and no identity, and is severely depressed. He looks a the book of clippings and (sub-consciously) realizes that there is one strong identity left to him, the Fizzle Bomber. So that is who he becomes.

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the bomber said if he shoots him, he would become him. why?

I guess what you were asking about has to do with the predestination paradox, not the hole in the plot.
Travelers stuck in time loops has neither choice nor outside-loop existence, technically. Future can be changed for people living through linear time, not for the ones inside the closed loop. The travelers alter the evens, but "time catches up with us all", - the Barkeep to John. The snake eats his tail.. own grandpa.. Lots of symbols of that in the movie.
Back in the past all of them only trigger events that will allow them to travel back... Totally loopy, but no Bomber => nobody can save 10 blocks of New York from the guy.
Somebody simply has to be the Bomber. For the city sake..

knowing he will become the bomber if he continue using the time machine, he could have chosen not to use it anymore

I doubt he can chose anything.

1) How long (or relevant) is "anymore" here?
The Pop's Barkeep retires in Jan 1975, not 3 month till the Bomber's grand hit.
Meanwhile, so to speak, the Bomber (aka the Barkeep in the past) had already been bombing people since 1960 (paper clips), presumably using the machine quite intense to get insane too. By 1974, according to the purchase order, the machine timer display and other parts got so used he had to replace them. The very laundromat was the Bomber's only tracked activity in the whole list of "no known routine" - the days when he probably was not even there because of time-jumping.
Thus who can stop using the machine "anymore" in future is the Bomber, posthumously. For the Barkeep, using the damn machine would be the only way to fix his corrupted past and stop his earlier self from using the time machine, wouldn't it?

2) By the time the Barkeep retires we have enough information to think he knows they are inside the the loop. He has already experienced inevitable: while trying to keep John from burning he finds out it was his own shooting that kept John from covering the bomb properly. Right after in a safe-house he finds a coat he'd just advised his future self to buy for cold 1964. and so on.
Apparently in the laundromat he understands all right that killing and hence becoming the Bomber is his only sane option. Otherwise he'd never even stand a chance to see neither Jane nor John again. But we know he misses them-selves dreadfully...
Actually the final line is the only explanation that the movie gives us to understand why he choses what he choses. The line that also makes the whole predestination loop thing so heartbreakingly dramatic.

Trying to get the time jumping logic is one way to watch this movie. May be we should as well remember it's a complex story about a person traveling from his being a child to a man grown, struggling with inevitable loneliness whatever much of his life he gives to people, trying to understand, forgive and love himself again?
"Cant love be a purpose?"
We all know one of the initial title to the original story was The Egoist. Not much to do with time traveling, isn't it? To my taste it's amazing how the movie captured the idea of the original so well.

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It's curious how the hate towards himself ultimately creates the paradox that makes him hate himself in the first place.

It's an esoteric idea that what keeps people in the wheel of karma is exactly 'hate' and since even in the movie it's shown that you meet yourself everywhere - I guess it's actually the same idea. An act of hate is ultimately directed towards yourself and creates this closed loop of tragedy, until it is resolved.

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There have been some great replies, but the "motivational" answer is essentially simple:

Why does he become the Fizzle Bomber?

The film poses the question which is more important, Love or Purpose?


Love: The Fizzle Bomber knows something which the younger John doesn't...that it is impossible for them to experience love with anyone but themselves.

Purpose: The Younger John has a purpose...to catch the Fizzle Bomber.

When he kills the Fizzle Bomber, he removes the possibility of Love from his life forever and he ends his only purpose in life.

What is the only way he can get them back? By becoming the Bomber and starting the chain of events over again. He gets to experience Love and Purpose for Eternity. A never ending cycle.

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He became psychotic.

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Why does hardly anybody notice that Robertson is John himself? You can see it by how similar they look like as well as the dialogues between them two.

But sadly I still couldn't figure out the whole timeline yet.

So there are at least two versions of John, one who became the Fizzle Bomber and one who became Robertson.

How he became the Fizzle Bomber is explained (probably correctly) in this discussion.

But more interestingly: How did he became Robertson?

Robertson stopped traveling time at some point (John once says "I thought you (Robertson) wouldn't travel time anymore").
So I guess Robertson is either a future version of John who stopped time travelling and didn't go insane.
Or Robertson is somehow a very early version of John who maybe started all of this.

As you see I didn't figure it all out yet, but you sure can't understand the whole story by ingnoring that John is Robertson.

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By shooting himself he just ended his life in the future at a certain point. However, that did not preclude him from becoming the fizzle bomber which he would. Remember he traveled (jumped) way too many times which supposedly leads to psychosis/dimentia etc. He eventually goes nuts and becomes the fizzle bomber. His first step along the way was killing himself.

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>"the younger john, was that adamant that he would NEVER become him. But the bomber said if he shoots him, he would become him. why?"

The Fizzle Bomber had already lived that moment. As John, he walked into the laundromat and shot the older version of himself. So when John walks in, the Fizzle Bomber knew that John was going to shoot him -- because, when he was John, he had already done so.

As for what causes John to go down that path, to become the Fizzle Bomber. Presumably it's partly for the same reasons that the Fizzle Bomber gave for why he does what he does. He's saving lives. He prevents an oil tanker explosion in the future, by finding the man responsible for it and killing him (via his "fizzle bombs.")

As for why he used bombs that would kill innocent civilians instead of just finding the person responsible for the oil tanker explosion and shooting him in the head, I imagine that's where the mental deterioration comes in. The movie explains that too many time jumps can lead to mental and psychological problems. The more John time jumps, the more mentally unstable he becomes.

One final thought: since John always kills the Fizzle Bomber in the laundromat, it seems likely that the Fizzle Bomber is actually not responsible for the bombing that kills 10,000 people. John was hunting the wrong guy all along.

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