@TheVorlon said:

Movie about murdering people with ideas you don't agree with.

Well it wasn't that they just didn't agree with them, they were a far right group which would cause thousands of deaths. The time travel was to kill the key members who sparked a new civil war.

Uses a tired time travel element with a weak plot.

I liked this, was something different. Was expecting a standard serial killer film. I guess it's the time travel which ends up making no sense, because if the movement was stopped and there was nl war, then the granddaughter would never have had to go back in time to change the future...

@cpheonix said: Well it wasn't that they just didn't agree with them, they were a far right group which would cause thousands of deaths. The time travel was to kill the key members who sparked a new civil war.

You really didn't understand the movie did you....

Lets say you join a Reddit discussion with other people discussing a topic.

50 years later, people decided that your discussion caused harm and decided to travel back in time and kill all of you who participated in the discussion.

@TheVorlon said:

Lets say you join a Reddit discussion with other people discussing a topic.

50 years later, people decided that your discussion caused harm and decided to travel back in time and kill all of you who participated in the discussion.

That's the thing, people didn't decide. They knew it was them. She was taking out key members of the group. I could be wrong (which you think I am) but why do you think only 3 or 4 people were killed every 9 years?

SPOILERS:

It was a pretty decent movie all around and I'd give it a 7 out of 10, but personally I wasn't a huge fan of the reason of why she was doing the killings either.

Speaking of which, apart from using it as a plot device, was there really any reason to do more than one murder, or at tops two (the girlfriend of the writer)? I mean if she just took out the writer of the manifesto before he finished his work then she wouldn't have to worry about the people on his mailing list.

The physicists justification was pretty weak as well and he talked about stopping the civil war as an example, but surely a man of his education would realize that stopping an event like that would change the world in a radical way, and might lead to something even worse down the line.

As cpheonix said, not sure what was with the melodrama in the end when he realizes he kills a member of his own family in the past. Surely he or she must realize that if they prevent the event she would have no need to go back in time, and he would have no reason to kill her.

Quite enjoyed it myself. One niggle though: the move relies on a massive temporal paradox (most of these time travel movies do). Because its a causal loop changing the future changes the past and vice versa (i.e. since it's a loop the past can change a future that's already been experienced, and an individual's future can be the past relative to everyone else). By preventing the catastrophic events that lead to Rya going to the past, Rya would then never go to the past. So why does she ever show up at all? If she doesn't go to the past the war happens. Then she goes to the past, prevents the war. Then she doesn't go to the past and devastation ensues. It's paradoxical, requiring some sci-fi vudu magic physics to explain. It's also a perpetual, never-ending loop of two alternating timeline segments.

To accommodate this we have to invent a mutable timeline concept unique to time travel movies where there's only one universe (no multiverse--I won't get into the weeds as to why that is here), but where timelines can fracture off for short segments when a time loop is created (i.e. there's only two or more parallel timeline segments as a result of altering events in the relative past or future that cause a change that impacts the very reason the loop exists to begin with). If we pretend that's how physics works within a science fiction context, we can accept it. Off the top of my head, only Predestination (where a bootstrap paradox, something predicted and allowable by known physics) occurs, 12 Monkeys, Time Lapse and Primer truly get it right. Most flicks based on time travel don't.

Still an interesting movie, just one that could have been executed a bit better. I'd give it a 6.5 for me personally because I'm very fond of time loop stories, but this is one of those films that suffers from its contrived nature, where plot forces us to awkwardly ignore what should have been more organic actions, interactions and logic. In other words, the story at times gets in the way of character. That's actually the norm in cinema, not the exception, unfortunately, and is why most movies feel more artificial than natural. It's a bit of a balance, and I would have rated this one a little higher if that had been handled better.

As a side note, i disagree that there's a message here (or in most movies, for that matter) like some are saying. The movie doesn't really take sides. It just shows events that unfolded and their eventual outcome. Did the characters go too far? That's debatable depending on viewpoints, but I'd agree that they did. There were other options that may have been just as effective. On the other hand, perhaps they considered all of those other options and ruled them out for various reasons. Or, maybe they even already tried them. We must keep in mind that humanity has gone to such extremes many times throughout history. But I'd disagree that the filmmakers are condoning those actions, merely portraying the lengths some will go to. It's up to the viewer to decide if they were right or not.

Thanks for your post Warrior-Poet. I agree with what you've written, and am grateful to you for name checking Time Lapse (which I've not yet seen!) I'd add though that I think the time travel in this film is really just a plot device, it's not meant to be scientifically sound, and once you take that in hand, you realise the bigger flaws in the film (as so often) are the lack of communication between characters and the lack of depth in the relationships (perhaps inevitable given we only see them for a fleeting moment every 9 years). For example, if the first time they were alone she didn't say something mystical and tantalising like 'Hello Thomas, congratulations on your daughter' but instead explained herself, or even left him a letter explaining herself, it'd make a hell of a lot more sense (but undermine the whole movie). I also agree with one of the earlier posters who argues they could have stopped the original manifesto writers rather than bothering with susceptible people on the mailing list. Pretty entertaining though, and I like this kind of film. I wish people would do them a little better though (like Predestination!)

hot garbage agreed

@cpheonix said:

@TheVorlon said:

Lets say you join a Reddit discussion with other people discussing a topic.

50 years later, people decided that your discussion caused harm and decided to travel back in time and kill all of you who participated in the discussion.

That's the thing, people didn't decide. They knew it was them. She was taking out key members of the group. I could be wrong (which you think I am) but why do you think only 3 or 4 people were killed every 9 years?

You... do realize this works both ways, right? The communist revolution has led to far more deaths than any right-wing organization I can think of, so if the movie had been about time travelers killing a bunch of left wing or socialist influencers like AOC and Bernie Sanders because it would lead to mass starvation and genocides this movie never would have been made.

However in this movie the main scientist guy uses the American Revolution as an example of an event that should have been stopped because of the deaths that resulted from it, completely ignoring the fact that the American Revolution started the destruction of the British Empire and inspired the French Revolution, things that would lead to deaths but also lead to future generations being free from monarchies.

The message of this movie is that it's okay to kill people to squash descent amongst people who clearly weren't happy with their government... just like the American colonists weren't happy being under British rule and rebelled. The only real solution to change bad government is revolution, and revolutions rarely begin or end without someone dying.

I was really enjoying the movie up until that reveal because the original poster is right, it's advocating for thought policing. It's not about killing Hitler, it's about killing the people Hitler read about or talked to who had no real blood on their hands. You can't justify killing J. D. Salinger because some people read his book and chose to shoot people.

Talking about Hitler - wouldn't you need to "eliminate" those members of the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna who rejected him, so he'd become a harmless painter? Or kill whom exactly? And why is it always killing, and not just talking to people?! This "killing the source" trope doesn't work in existing multi-causal reality.

@jw said:

And why is it always killing, and not just talking to people?!

Because the people who made this movie or believe in its message aren't interested in talking because when their beliefs are challenged they can't back them up with facts or logical reasoning, which is why they often resort to censoring (ie the CCP and social media that are controlled by left leaning ideologues) and have ended with killing in the past. This is why colleges ban speakers they don't align with politically because they know the power of words and how dangerous open dialog is to their message because they're terrified of having their beliefs publicly challenged.