MovieChat Forums > Predestination (2015) Discussion > How did Robertson influenced it?

How did Robertson influenced it?

posted 9 years ago by registers-944-48791
5 replies | jump to latest

I see Robertson's interest in John Jane existing and remaining inside the loop, and talking him into remaining on it.

But how exactly he influenced it?

As I see, we have here a looping paradox. John Jane is his own both father and mother, and also he steals himself from maternity hospital and takes to orphanage.

It was always John Jane's actions and he was always free to make choices. Robertson just provided the time machine and talked him into doing it, but never forced him to do anything or stopped him from taking some action.

Also, I know this question is dumb, but how did it started? John Jane is in loop, but doesn't have a begining. How can somebody that starts not existing be his own father/mother?

Yes, I know this movie is a joke, exacerbating this idea. It's possible for a guy to have a dauther with some random girl, then date his dauther and have a son. He'll be both his father and grandfather, and she will be both his mother and sister.

Then take this idea, take the bastard son and send him back in time, and make him be the first guy that has the dauther. He'll be the father and grandfather of himself.

The movie takes this idea and makes the same person be his father, mother, lover, and also the person that takes the actions of making that all possible.

The question is, where's Robertson is all this??

[–] carl_johnson-1 9 years ago

An object that has no apparent origins, in part or entirely, causing itself to exist, is called an example of a "Bootstrap Paradox". An events that, in part or entirely, causes itself to occur is an example of a "Predestination Paradox". These are artifacts purely of fixed timelines.

Robertson, and every other character, plays his role in the series of events. Certainly, he appears to preserve Jane's existence "as-is", but it's not really like he has a choice. :)

[–] registers-944-48791 9 years ago

Indeed, he expresses admiration for John Jane and seems to have interest in him keeping the "schedule" or the predestination.

But, is it really inevitable that John Jane does everything as he does (as I said in another post, indeed, if he had done that in "earlier" timelines, somehow he'll keep making the same choices), or could something change, specially after his baby self being sent back in time?

Maybe Robertson doesn't have to and never had done anything at all, maybe he just watched what was happening, admired of how things went.

The story is a paradox and couldn't happen anyway, John Jane could never exist as a child of himself with himself, and we can't have an explanation for how he was created and how things ended like that.

Maybe Robertson isn't at all the creator of that paradox. Maybe they just found in astonishment that John Jane was what he is.

But, also, Robertson seems to know most of what would still happen with John Jane, so somehow he had information of what was to come. Could he have gathered that from time travel, watching John Jane, or could it have come from the record John Jane provided to himself?

Robertson seems to already know that John Jane was Fizzle, while John Jane only finds out later when he meets his older self, way after he meets himself twice and fails to stop him. How could Robertson know that? And, if he knows things from John Jane's future that he didn't know yet, that would add to the possibility of Robertson influencing somehow. Or maybe, again, he was just watching, and not saying anything?

[–] carl_johnson-1 9 years ago

My theory is that every retiring Agent, records what happened in their time at the Bureau, so that when they join the Bureau, they listen to the recording and know what's going to happen in the future. We see Barkeep do this for new Agent John. (We also see Fizzle Bomber leave some future knowledge for Barkeep to go on.)

Robertson would be no exception. He likely got the run-down on all the "Jane -> John -> Barkeep -> Fizzle Bomber" soap opera from his future self. And his role in it, where to go and when, and what to do.

[–] registers-944-48791 9 years ago

lol that's interesting! Auto-feeding information, into a spiral.

I've never seen jokes with time travel and paradoxes as in this movie.

[–] pag-17 9 years ago

I thought the movie would go one level deeper and that Robertson would also be John Jane (we never learn his last name after all). The actors kinda look similar, so it wouldn't have been that far-fetched. Maybe Robertson would have created a loop with him as the fizzle bomber so that there's a reason for the office to improve, then exited that loop to create the office itself. It would have been a mess of paradoxes, but it would have tied everything together sorta neatly.