Explaining Time Travel in Looper | 10 Years Later

Looper doesn’t break its own rules. Time is not a loop in Looper, nor are there multiple dimensions. Time travel in looper works like history that can be rewritten.

Bruce Willis kills his loop, lives 30 years, then goes back in time to resist getting killed. From this, we know that time is not a loop.

Multiple dimensions are soon ruled out because Bruce Willis starts forgetting his memories and remembering Joseph Gordon Levitt’s.

The 30 years he lived are no longer the canonical timestream, only possibilities. Given enough time, Bruce Willis would be only the 30 -year older version of failed-loop Joseph Gordon Levitt. So, until failed loop Joseph Gordon Levitt kills himself, he could still grow old into Bruce Willis and travel back in time to kill baby rainmaker. But he’s not bound to that future. Once J.G.L. blasts his chest open, the feasibility of that future ever happening vanishes.

Thickening Explanation:

Explaining Time Travel in Looper various ways:

Young Bruce Willis kills his loop, lives 30 years -- -- -- travels back in time and flips around, preventing Young Bruce Willis(J.G.L.) from killing his loop. Seems like a contradiction...

Later in the film, we see that old Bruce Willis’ memories are being rewritten, so as soon as he jumps into the past, the future that he lived no longer necessarily happened. He has fading memories of it, his physical person, and scars from it, but his 30-year line is no longer canon. There is only the present, which may lead to a similar series of events(wife dying, warehouse killing, time traveling, close-loop resisting.) Because there’s still the possibility that it will, this is how Bruce Willis still retains his old-canon motivation, but that’s only a possibility, and in time, it could fade.

Whatever young Joseph Gordon Levitt does at that point will eventually lead to what old Bruce Willis will remember and be. If you put Bruce Willis in a room for 30 years, he would have the same memories as Joseph Gordon Levitt. Willis would no longer have memories of going back in time. He would have memories of living on a farm with the best female action star since Jodie Foster. But he wouldn’t cease to exist because there’s still a possibility J.G.L. could go back in time later on in life.

Conversely, J.G.L. is able to kill himself at the end, making Bruce Willis disappear because, for the movie, he is the current canon-creator, but they are the same person. One just has motivations that are presently still a possibility for the other. That’s the way the film is proposing this works.

Time rewrites. Rather than being cyclical or having multiple dimensions, the future is bound to the past but not vice versa. That’s an immaculate system for time travel, but it goes against our more common understanding of time travel from popular media.

In case it’s unclear how Bruce Willis’s old loop works here- It's the same. Willis’ killed loop wasn’t his future. It was a possibility, but as soon as Willis went back in time, it was no longer canon, and neither were any of his memories from those 3 decades. He’s just a vessel displaced in time. All that matters now is what Joseph Gordon Levitt does for the next 30 years. Every time time travel is used, the old save file is deleted, and whatever was sent back is now bound to be just a possibility of the present.

Time Travel Summary:

Killing an old version of yourself would be like there’s a save file you made from later on in the game, and you delete it. Nothing changes. You’re still in the present, playing the game. Killing young J.G.L. is like deleting the game. J.G.L. is the past for Bruce Willis, but Bruce Willis is not necessarily J.G.L.’s future. Time is not cyclical in Looper. It rewrites.

Subterfuge:

So, the system in Looper is functioning correctly. Still, it was made somewhat unclear in places, I suspect intentionally, confrontationally. Done to make the audience discuss how it works. Like Nolan's Inception, it’s not complicated, but the movie layers it's mechanics. The Looper movie spreads out its info, leaving room for viewers to converse over the facts they observe. The real gift of this fun thought experiment is it distracts from the movie’s actual flaws. Looper is structured to where whole 30-minute chunks lack tension. The protagonist is passive and doesn’t struggle against an antagonist or against himself(his current self) for most of the film. The plot is structured to where he makes few to no choices and sacrifices nothing until the finale. As a result, it’s not believable that this man who gives up his friend has transformed into this man who sacrifices his life by the end. It’s not unjustified, they set up that he’s not good at forward-thinking, and he sees that the kid will end up like him. But we don’t see him thinking lowly of himself or his life. We don’t see him reflecting on the fact that he’s still a sad, selfish prick in 30 years. His character progression is not progression. It only occurs in one spot.

What is Looper about if not confusing time travel, Rian Johnson movie structure, and Joseph Gordon Levitt's weird face makeup? It's all part of the experience, and though flawed, it's an enjoyable one.

This article wasn't supposed to be so longwinded, as it was originally an unreleased Youtube Video Essay. We have cutting edge analysis articles on more timely topics so check out the blog for sure.

That is all, bye.