Star Wars Episode VIII has a title

holy quote wall, Batman

This is a human skull from 50,000 years ago. They really can't easily tell the difference.

And we're still talking about one change. What about if the body is, as Byshop pointed out, dropped in lava instead?

Killing them in the future would trigger the tracking system. I'm assuming the time traveling system have a default safety component hardwired to prevent it in killing the traveler out right by placing them in space or in other objects. Anyways that's the universe the fiction established. And technically the point isn't disposal of dead bodies, but to actually kill the target AND dispose the body in the past where the tracking system doesn't exist. Again not sure why time travelling is acceptable but subatomic nanotechnology isn't; I'd think we are a lot closer to the latter than former.

Really? That's your expert opinion as an anthropologist? Also here's the real picture: http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/ancient-human-skulls.jpg If "they" can't easily tell the difference, they should have their license to practice science revoke (they have those right? science licenses?)

I addressed the whole lava thing presuming you are talking about dropping into lava in the recent past.

I find it hilarious that discussing holes inside plot holes, how deep will we go... But honestly they're not so much plot holes as they are things you find unbelievable but can easily be explained since we are talking about a fictional universe where time travel is reality.

They never said anything about a tracking system that's triggered at the time of death. Why would you assume the time travel machine has safety features to ensure the traveler arrives safely when the only use it appears to have is for mobsters to dispose of people (it's illegal, remember).

The whole explanation is:

"It’s nearly impossible to dispose of a body in the future. I’m told. Tagging techniques, whatnot. So when these future criminal organizations in the future need someone gone, they use specialized assassins in our present, called loopers."

Even the character explaining it through VO doesn't even know. There's nothing to explain why they get sent back alive, or why they can't just dump them somewhere the body would be destroyed without a trace, or even why (in any logical detail) it's "impossible" to dispose of a body in the future. This is all something we're expected to take on faith. The assumptions you are making to fill in the gaps don't prove your point.

-Byshop

Are you forgetting that any skeleton they find would have been trapped under the ice for thousands of years? Most tests we have for dating skeletons are going to show it being around fifteen to twenty thousand years old because it actually is around fifteen to twenty thousand years old. Scientists are not going to be looking for time travel when doing anthropology, so their natural inclination is going to be trying to explain away any oddities or accepting that ancient humans were slightly different than we thought. Because that's what science does.

And, no, I was talking about lava around four billion years ago.

I know, it kinda is hilarious. But, there really is a simple way to explain away the logical inconsistencies or bad decisions: The criminals using the time travel for body disposal were simply not smart. Suddenly, any logical inconsistencies make sense and don't require any further explanation.

Why would you assume the time travel machine doesn't have one? Also not saying anything about it isn't proof that it isn't that way. The fact that criminals use that method to get rid of people inside the universe seems to support everything I'm saying because what I say results in them using time travel to rid of people. Point is I don't know how you can apply real world logic and science to a fictional story about time travel. Like you already stated the actual process and detail of the technology are kept vague so to provide sufficient wiggle space. For the third time, you've taken the lap of faith in believe time travelling is possible but refused to believe it's necessary for mobs to use it to hide a killing?

Again the further back you go the more difficult it is to predict the cascading effect in the future. You don't know that cooling a square inch of lava by a few degrees 4 billion years ago isn't going to wipe out the human race or just erase from existence all the mobsters in the future.

There's no inconsistencies inside the universe, UNLESS the film explicitly tells you that the technology is capable of getting rid of individual from the future via dropping them into lava 4b years in the past but mobs have inexplicably decided to do it using loopers, but it didn't. What you doing is assuming things work the way you imagine they do, but none of that is explicit, so it's not the fault of the movie but your own limited imagination. That's like some one saying star wars is full of "plot holes" because the technology isn't possible based on our current knowledge of science.

Simple. Because in order for a story to be grounded there has to be some degree of internal logic that makes some sort of sense. In order for a story to be sci-fi, of course there has to be at least a few ideas that stretch reality or else it's just a drama, but you also have to define the rules of the universe and stick with those in some logical way or else your story just becomes "magical realism". Otherwise you may as well have everyone saved by the last minute by a unicorn and just say "scifi/time travel" as the explanation for why.

I'm not making a "lap" of faith that time travel exists but that mobs can't dispose of bodies in the future, I'm pointing out that they didn't bother to explain why that's the case in any meaningful way that doesn't quickly fall apart under even the smallest amount of scrutiny.

-Byshop

Except to me, all your plot holes (e.g. why loopers have to end their own loop) have perfectly logical (as far as the fictional universe goes) explanations. As for the whole lava scenario, that the time travel technology would have inherent safety protocol to NOT kill the person traveling built in make sense as well. As do the assumptions that time traveling technology wasn't developed to kill and that mob is incapable understanding the technology enough to remove that safety feature without breaking the system.

The story is primarily from the perceptive of the younger looper, detailed explanation of a future technology and all its limitations would be more of a plot hole than failure to provide that information.

You also don't know that sending a guy back thirty years in time won't cause him to take actions that effectively erase you from existence.

Which is exactly what happened within Looper.

If you're that worried about paradoxes, you're not going to kill someone by sending them to the past in the first place. In order for their time travel looping to work effectively, they had to accept a certain degree of paradox risk. A degree that was ultimately catastrophic.

And, yes, I'm assuming. As are you. Because we have no information on how the time travel actually works or what the limitations are.

The risk is a lot less the closer you get to the future.

"Which is exactly what happened", so you expect the fictional characters in the movie to anticipate the events unfolding in the movie? lolwat?

I'm assuming as well, except my assumptions are collaborated by the events in the movie so my assumptions are more substantiated than yours.

@bmanva

Considering that as close as they were to the future still resulted in a massive paradox, I think it's safe to say that they still went too far back.

And, yes, they should have anticipated a paradox of that level. In fact, given the man they tortured at the beginning to recapture and terminate his future self, it's apparent they did. The problem is, they didn't anticipate it well enough.

So far, the only things substantiated by the movie is they have to send people through time to kill them, it can result in paradoxes, and it did result in a paradox that erased a future crime boss from existence. How far back could they send people? We don't know. Would sending them far enough back have prevented the ultimate paradox? We don't know. All we know is what they chose to do and that a loop can be disrupted. Nothing else is established by the movie as far as the limits of time travel.

TBH I liked Brick substantially more than Looper (though Looper wasn't bad).

But take note, this is what these big budget FRANCHISE movies are like when it comes to directors. Nowadays, this is the new norm and has been for quite a while. Colin Trevorrow got hired for Jurassic World after only making one major movie. The Russo Brothers (who directed the last two Captain America movies) got hired to direct Captain America 2 after previously doing almost nothing but TV work. Josh Trank had only done one movie before getting hired to direct the last Fantastic Four movie. Gareth Edwards got hired to direct a major big budget Godzilla film after doing exactly one low budget monster movie. Hell, even JJ Abrams could largely considered to be a workhorse instead of an "auteur". Look at his director credits and the only film he made prior to Episode VII that wasn't part of a franchise was Super 8. Aside from that, he directed Mission Impossible 3 and the first 2 "New Trek" Star Trek movies.

This is normal these days. These studios are cranking out a PRODUCT. They don't want an "established artist" who is going to start making demands about artistic vision and what-not. They want someone competent, and relatively green, who they think can follow orders. Case in point, why Disney wants nothing to do with George Lucas. Aside from the whole "George Lucas' ideas suck" element, there's also the fact that George Lucas does what George Lucas wants, and Disney doesn't want anyone like that f***ing with the product.

Jurassic Park was directed by Steven Freaking Spielberg, but there is no way that anyone on the level of Spielberg is going to come close to another "Jurassic" movie (except by accident). An established and high profile "artist" of that level is going to start making demands and requiring things that the studio wants nothing to do with. When making these kinds of movies, you don't want someone like that. You take a relative underdog who you think is capable of doing competent work and is willing to follow orders and do things on time and on budget. These kind of franchise movies don't NEED a director with a long and established track record, they're better off without that kind of person.

Again you're using the event in the movie as evidence why the characters in the movies shouldn't have done what they did. That's like going back to before 911 and using 911 as proof they shouldn't let people carry box cutters onto planes.

You do something in the past, future is affected, it's not really a paradox because there's no contradiction, so not sure I understand your point in the last paragraph.

Within the universe, there's 2 possible explanations why they decided on this particular method of disposing people:

a) they are stupid as you stated

or

b) limitation of the time travel technology and to minimize risk of undesired future effects

Which do you think make the most sense?

If I remember correctly, there actually was an argument before 9/11 that people shouldn't be allowed things like box cutters on planes because they might hijack the planes. So if time travel exists, it's entirely possible someone actually did that.

The problem in this case is the past is affected as well. Why did the main character shoot himself? To stop his future self from taking actions that would cause the kid to become a future crime boss. Ironically, by shooting himself, he erased his future self from ever having existed... including having ever existed in his own past. And they established in the movie that even if actions you take alter your own past, you remember the alterations you caused as your own past.

The main character shot himself in response to events that never happened in response to those events having happened. That's a paradox.

I think a) makes the most sense. Even with limitations of time travel technology, they still could have found ways around using assassins that kill themselves. Ways that are more guaranteed. Ways that wouldn't result in the whole sequence of events leading up to sending people back to close loops not happening.

I think what you have to remember here is that "writing and directing" almost certainly doesn't mean that the guy has full control. Seeing as how the current Star Wars trilogy has almost certainly been mapped out in advance (it would be stupid as hell not to do that), he's obviously only going to be "writing" the story within some VERY tightly controlled parameters. Keep in mind that Disney spend a SHITLOAD of money for Star Wars. There is ZERO chance that they're going to let any one director or writer f*** it up. This is precisely why regardless of who ends up writing or directing the next movie in the Marvel Cinematic universe, you can be pretty damn sure that it's going to look and feel like a Marvel movie.

Rian Johnson will do fine. He's competent, that's all that Disney needs. And in the unlikely event that he can't handle the pressure and ends up spending his time snorting coke and fighting on the set, they'll replace his ass. This kind of director for this kind of movie is replaceable. All they need is someone competent, that's precisely why so many of these huge blockbusters are now being helmed by relatively new blood instead of established "artists".

For the most profitable Disney franchise ever, I figured they would want someone better than "competent".

How is that a paradox? The present looper shooting himself only erases his future self from that point on, it doesn't erase present loopers past. I think you are confusing yourself. http://thumbnails.visually.netdna-cdn.com/looper-explained-in-an-infographic_506d89e145b26.jpg it's not exactly rocket science.

Then you have to answer the bigger plot hole of how a bunch of stupid mobsters came to lead such an large and expansive criminal enterprise.

Honestly the best thing about Jurassic Park as a kid was the CGI dinosaurs (maybe the William soundtrack), not necessarily Spielberg's directing. So yeah there's not going to be another movie like Jurassic Park because that wow factor of seeing that kinda of CGI realism kinda dissipated. Unless of course new technologies like hologram or VR renders a future Jurassic Park movie even more life like.

Well, you'd be wrong. Again, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has also been profitable as hell, and this is largely the same formula that Disney used there. Why the heck would they do anything differently once they acquired Star Wars and promised to release a new Star Wars movie every year? At this point, they're just making product. And the thing about arts is that a lot of times you don't WANT your work-for-hire to be too good. Because then you've got problematic "artists" making unreasonable demands based on their "brilliance". And even if what they want to do is a good idea in principle as a self-contained movie, the problem is that it also has to seamlessly mesh with the NEXT movie once that artist leaves and the next dude takes up the reigns.

The property is a hell of a lot bigger than the artist, is what I'm saying. And it can actually be a bad idea to let artistry take priority over product.

Make no mistake, these are the "McDonalds hamburgers" of movies. Not in the sense that they suck (I actually like many of them) but in the sense that it's a carefully controlled product. Disney is not going to let any writer or director f*** up the overall plan by deviating too much from the formula/blueprint any more than McDonalds is going to let a restaurant manager f*** with their recipes. It's work for hire and they want people who KNOW that they're just doing work for hire.

Also, you said, "Actually plot holes is nearly impossible in time travel movies. If you accepted the fictional fact that time is nonlinear then pretty much anything is possible and can be explained in the context. Whether what you think are loopholes are addressed in the movie or not is frankly irrelevant."

I disagree with that. The thing is that since time travel IS NOT REAL, people who make stories about time travel essentially have to create the rules for how time travel works. This not makes it VERY easy to f*** things up. Not only are they now having to create a story, they also have to create the basic framework for how causality works, and make sure that their story is consistent with the rules all of the time.

Because the earlier torture scene in the movie directly contradicts that. It presents any change as having happened to the future self years prior, as as having been retroactively present. Mean that, retroactively, the main character's future self never went back in time. That's the paradox.

And, yeah, that's a question worth wondering. But, again, we don't know any real details. But given the way they kinda present future America, I get the feeling things really do get that bad in their timeline.

lol way to invoke your inner Trump there. And doesn't MCU actually support the case for hiring veteran directors and writers? With few exception most of the MCU films are directed and written by proven successful or at the very least well experienced individuals, especially after a particular series established itself as a money magnet. Iron man, Captain America, Guaradians, etc pretty much kept the teams that made the series successful in the first place.

In regards to time travel movies (or any sci fi really), there's no such requirement; they don't "have to create the basic framework" of how time/space/physics/technology work in their movies. In fact, the more explanation you give the more likely you are going to end up conflicting fictional facts. There's simply zero incentive to explicitly establish all the rules within the fictional universe unless you're going for absolute realism in the movie, which is almost never the point of any sci fi films.

What is that scene contradicting? What exactly did the present looper do to prevent future self from going back in time?

Might be wrong but pretty sure Looper isn't going for that whole Idiocracy message.

Can you guys stop derailing the shit out of this thread?

@bmanva

He killed himself in the present. Dies now, cannot exist in the future to go back in time. Keep in mind a paradox can still affect a timeline and still have consequences in a timeline despite it involving events that never happened. The video game Chrono Trigger, for example, involves a number of paradoxes.

And, after your reply, I'm going to honor the request we stop the derail. So, this is my last post on this subject.

I can't wait for "Star Wars: The Last Movie"

Remember how I called these kinds of franchise movies "the McDonalds of movies"?

Point being, you can promote a cook to manager, but he's still been working for you when he got promoted. His incentive is more pay for more work. What you DON'T do is hire someone who was ABOVE that kind of work before you hired them. You hire someone on their ability to create complex high-end dishes and then put them in a job where they are not ALLOWED to do anything more than cook fries, and you're gonna likely have a problem.

Anyway, as far as time travel goes, YES most time travel movies establish the rules of time travel. If for no other reason to eliminate such questions as "if the Terminator could travel back in time, then why didn't he just travel farther back in time and kill Sarah Connor's mom or something?" Back to the Future had to create the rule that the past could be changed in order to drive the story about Marty getting sexed up by his own mom, otherwise the events of the movie never would have had any urgency. Star Trek did time travel A LOT and then just sort of kept switching the time travel rules based on what the story required. If Marty McFly's actions in the past had zero repercussions then that wouldn't have made for much of a movie, would it? You can go with "the past can be changed" rules in order to drive the story or you can go with "The Terminator/12 Monkeys" rules and establish that what happened is going to happen, but the rules have to be set in order to give the story any weight. It's just simple cause and effect.

Stoked. Looper was good, and I heard nice things about Brick. His resume is not long, but it is solid.

My question is this: why the red font? I wonder if it is going to be dark? Empire Strikes Back was obviously the darkest of the original films, maybe they want the middle movie of the new trio to also be dark as well?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and such, but for the sport of argument:

Respectfully, I disagree :D

The Force Awakens obviously had many themes similar to A New Hope, but to call it a remake is a bit of a disservice. It's more of a tribute film to the original, a reboot to bring an old franchise to a new audience, and a worthy addition to an established franchise. It takes place a good amount of years after the original films, so the establishment of old themes (dark side, light side, unstoppable odds, underdogs, etc) mixed with new themes (new characters, changes once-established lore, etc) was challenging; I imagine making things similar to A New Hope was their way of settling people in to the new trilogy.

With that said, if Episode 8 and 9 do not deviate from the other movies, I will be disappointed.

As for Rogue One, I actually enjoyed it better than The Force Awakens. I think it actually adds the overall experience of Star Wars. It makes A New Hope a better movie. Seriously. Go watch Rogue one, then immediately go home and watch A New Hope. It's like 6 hours of viewing time, but soooooooo worth it.

You realize that you've just supported my point, right? If a movie company thinks that all they need in order to get a billion dollars in box office sales is to throw in some CGI and some action scenes made possible by merely competent workers, then why the heck would they waste money on someone like Steven Spielberg?

Furthermore, someone on Spielberg's level is able to do whatever he wants better than some relative greenhorn. So why the heck would someone like Steven Spielberg WANT to waste his time on something like the fifth Jurassic Park movie when he knows that the franchise nature of the movie is overly restrictive and he'd be making better use of his time working on a movie that allows more artistic control?

You might want to re read my post if you think it supports your point, specifically this line: "because that wow factor of seeing that kinda of CGI realism kinda dissipated". It's not early 90s, I don't think CGI VFX can be the main attraction anymore.

Not like Spielberg didn't attempt to be involved in a sequel, he did and it was critically panned. That and that alone was probably enough for him to swear off doing anymore movie in the JP franchise.

I don't know that I would agree that Disney is building up SW franchise to be collection of cookie cutter McBlockbusters.

And my point is there are a lot more experience cooks out there who have demonstrated a willingness to work within a creative confine of an existing franchise. Experience and flexibility in creative control are not mutually exclusive.

Again I disagree. Those premise are hardly any specific and they don't so much as "established the rules of time travel" as they inject a sense of realism into the experience. For example, skynet not knowing any specifics about Sarah Connor wasn't a rule of time traveling in universe as much as it was a plot device to give Connors and Reese plausible fighting chance (would be pretty boring if terminator successfully kill the right Connor within hour of arriving in LA). Same with Back to the Future. They are all tied to the plot and serves to drive the story, not answer long list of "why did they do this instead..." questions that viewers inevitably have time travelling is involved. Those are not plot holes because by the genre, it's already established that limitations of real world don't applied inside the fictional universe unless it specifically states them. For example, time travelling is not a plot hole unless the movie explicitly makes a contradiction in its own rule like time travelling isn't possible in the universe.

When you mentioned this i decided to pull it up and watch it as i had not seen it. As i said before im shocked i never heard of this movie and that 80% is earned, its a good movie. He did a very good job on it and IMO just like Looper, there's this oozing potential with him where it may not be fully showing itself with that current movie, but its there. The positioning of cameras and the shots he picks in Brick is incredible and they fit so well with the score.

Id give Brick a 7.5 to 8.

Ill probably end up watching it again with my ex, she said she never heard of it either and its totally our type of movie. I could probably convince myself to give it a solid 8 after a second viewing, im leaning that way anyway.

LOVE the scene with the mirror.

Luke, the last Jedi ? Or that girl is the last Jedi ? Either way, i don't like the title because that means its coming to an end. How the heck is there going to be a last Jedi ? No way, i won't accept it. Star Wars must live forever ! Las Jedi my A** ! It should have been named something else. Like Star Wars masters of the universe, no wait, Star Wars the real american hero ! No wait, Star Wars ? .....%$&*)(_ ? Crap i don't know. Lol .. But just not the last of anything please.

@bmanva:

Rian Johnson has done some great work, I have faith in him.

He has won awards for Brick and Looper, including most promising director, and directed 3 outstanding episodes of Breaking Bad, including Ozymandias, considered among the best hour of TV ever. Granted, BB is TV, but excusing the pun, I have a good feeling about this.

Again I wasn't questioning his talent or skill but fact of the matter is he's a fairly inexperienced director especially coming to managing production as large and expensive as a numbered SW movie. I'm more curious why Disney would go with a risky choice like him versus someone "safer" for one of their biggest money maker.

Well, can't really be worse than rogue one

Right. And if CGI can't be the main attraction any more, and if (according to you) even a master of the big budget action movie wasn't able to bring anything to the first Jurassic Park other than CGI (something that I disagree with, but that's beside the point), then there would be no point whatsoever in hiring someone like Spielberg to do the next Jurassic movie. If back then the effects were the only special thing he was bringing to the table, then today he'd be bringing NOTHING special to the table. It would literally be the case of wasting money on a high-profile director when they could get a relatively inexperienced director to do the same job. That is precisely why they DID hire a relatively inexperienced director for their huge mega-budget revival of the Jurassic franchise.

That's exactly what Disney did with the Marvel movies and it was a HUGE success for them. Why would they treat Star Wars any differently? The formula works, dude (or at least it works right now). I know that people like to joke about movie executives stupidly making dumb decisions so that they can hurry back to snorting coke, but they're not stupid. These franchises first and foremost exist to make money, and they don't have to be that good in order to rake in insane amounts of cash. When done right, this "McBlockbuster" approach to these big franchises IS the safe approach.

True, but what you're neglecting here is that more experienced highly profile artists are usually going to require higher pay. There's no particular reason why someone like Steven Spielberg or James Cameron can't deliver "just a product" with limited creative control. The issue is that they generally have much better things to do than waste their time on the Nth installment of a long running franchise, so it's going to be a lot more expensive to get them to agree to that. Their high pay is utterly wasted on properties like that. Star Wars is gonna sell because it's Star Wars, it's a waste to put a top-tier high profile director on a job like that when they they'd be better off selling the hell out of a movie that doesn't have brand recognition going for it.

Skynet not knowing anything about Sarah Connor had nothing to do with time travel. The notion that The Terminator actually could kill Sarah Connor did have to do with time travel, since that is the central conflict. And when we get to the big revelation that Kyle Reese and The Terminator didn't change anything, that fundamentally changes the entire nature of the story. Yes, the rules serve the story and yes they had to be created by the writer to serve the story. If James Cameron had used the exact same rules but simply stated that the past can't be changed 40 minutes earlier rather than at the end of the movie, it would have ruined the movie by removing the stakes at hand. That's not just generally true of science fiction movies, it's generally true of science fiction. The fact that something (time travel, holodecks, whatever) isn't real doesn't negate the fact that its use has to be internally consistent. The "fictional thing" is only put into the movie in the first place in order to serve a purpose, and there has to be some indication of what that purpose actually is. Anything else that happens has to be consistent with that or else you have an internal inconsistency. Case in point, the "why they did this" in Back to the Future IS explained by the explanation of how time travel rules work in that universe and they have to explain how time travel works in that universe in order to drive the story.

All that's kind of beside the point though, the main topic of discussion is Rian Johnson getting hired to direct Star Wars VIII. And I don't see anything indicating that he's a "risky" choice. He's done a little bit of solid work, but he's not such a big shot that he's going to be exorbitantly expensive or start exercising too much control. That's actually the perfect kind of director for these kinds of McBlockbusters, and precisely why so many of these big budget blockbusters ARE being helmed by that kind of director these days. Again, this is not a new thing. Lots of companies are doing it now, Disney has already been doing it with their Marvel movies and the results have been highly successful. It works.

It's going to be a while.

I've been a fan of Rian Johnson for a long time now. Brick is one of my favourite movies, and I really liked The Brothers Bloom and Looper as well.

I just hope that Disney doesn't sabotage the production too much.

Woah, the first and second movie form a sentence.... The Force Awakens The Last Jedi.

Cool if intentional.