Discuss Déjà Vu
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There are more than 2 loops happening, but also a plot hole
posted by HikariWSSTAFFMOD on February 21, 2021 at 2:42 AM
Think about it. Until they leave her house, everything was happening as it had happened before. Doug had visited her house, messed with it, cleaned up the blood, put the message to himself, she phoned police asking about him, told Beth she was with him. Since he saw all that on her house, then he had traveled in time before and did it all. He hints that when he's about to travel and say he might have already done it.
There's the discussion by the scientists if it's possible to travel back in time and change things, and one hypothesis is that they don't have enough energy to make that happen. In the loop we watch, he makes just a small change, but one that makes her survive and the bomber go back to the boat and die there.
Another point to consider. If when he first went to her house he heard she talking to Beth and said that somebody - he from the prior loop - was there, and then after the explosion he never meets himself, then his prior self probably died on the explosion. There's the chance he hid to not create new changes, but it's very unprobeable he'd do that while the bomber was still free.
One possibility is that there were N loops before the one we watch, each one changing some little bit, until this one when he finally avoids the explosion, saves her, and then leaves the loop as he doesn't travel back anymore.
But if that's what happened, then we have a plot hole. On the prior loop, the bomber kills and throws her on the river 2h before the explosion. But on that loop Doug still reaches his dock with the ambulance and the bomber explodes it. That's too early for him to have killed her before Doug arrives, and the phone calls show that she was still alive when they went to her house. So, when would the bomber cut her fingers, burn her and throw her on the river?
To throw her on the river, he'd have to stay safe on the dock until 2h before the explosion, kill her and then leave to the boat. If Doug got there and fought him and the place exploded and the bomber left, then he'd not be able to kill her there. Only if he did it at that timeframe, and took her burned body with him and threw it when he got to the boat. But then, why didn't he do the same with the agent?
Reply by Jacinto Cupboard
on September 9, 2021 at 3:15 AM
It goes without saying that time travel movies always involve some kind of paradox and you could go mad trying to plot it all out.
I think in the scheme of this story there are 3 time lines. The first is the one where the ferry blows up and Doug travels back in time. The assumption is that this time line ceases to exist, or is otherwise immaterial by the end of the story. The second is the one in which the ferry doesn't blow up: a sort of 'corrected' time line. And I think you are right in that there has to be a third time line where the other two time lines are 'interacting' and causally interdependent. That timeline has a fixed beginning and end. I don't think it's a plot hole tho. That intermediate timeline that contains elements of the other two lines, or loops, has to exist in a sort of flux to keep the other two lines causally rational in their own right.
I've seen a lot of time travel movies in my time and this is the only one I can think of that keeps it all tidy.
While I'm here, it's a damn fine movie and criminally under rated.
Reply by HikariWS
on June 8, 2022 at 12:04 PM
Yes, it's a great fun movie to watch, how things unfold and how the evidences he sees later is discovered to have been done by himself. I don't see how it could have been told without the plot hole.
But I don't see it as a paradox. Paradox is when B happens after A when A denies the existence of B. As when some event leads somebody to travel back in time then he stops the event from happening, because if the event doesn't happen then he won't be led into traveling, but then if he doesn't travel then it happens.
I see that what happens here is a plot hole, because they start telling the loop in a way then later it would have happened other way. If he reached the dock and it was exploded, then he'd have time to at least stop the bomber from burning and throwing her on the river, so he'd not had found her that way. Second, if she died he'd not go to her apartment and be treated by her. Third, if he went to her apartment, then where did he go after that, if the bomber freely did his job and was arrested later? It's as if after being on her apartment he just vanished from the story. He's on the dock with the ambulance, but then he never tries to stop the bomber anymore.
Anyway, it was a great movie to watch.
Reply by Fergoose
on August 21, 2022 at 4:31 PM
Its entertaining but a bit lazy. It's far more of a challenge to produce the same levels of entertainment within the framework of a setting/storyline that isn't completely absurd. I'd have respected the film more if it'd made more of an effort. Great effort by Denzel to almost pull it off.
6/10
Reply by HikariWS
on August 22, 2022 at 8:28 AM
Agreed. Of course every fiction story has something unreal, but its events must be coherent and plausible inside the created fiction.
In this movie, maybe they could have added some element saying that instead of time travel they were working with multiple dimensions, and then events unfold differently on each one, and still by looking on another dimension that's in our past they can unfold knowledge we can't have anymore, even if events on that dimension are slightly different. But it'd make the story telling worse and harder for public to understand and still wouldn't explain how could somebody on their dimension know about the dock and throw the ambulance there while still letting her die and the bomber to work freely.
A few weeks ago I finished playing Nier Automata, I tried to spend some effort to understand the plot and some mysteries I wasn't understanding. It's very frustrating to learn the plot was made with some elements that don't couple together and don't make sense at all. In example without exploiting, it's never explained why YoHRa Project was created, who ffs created it, and why androids needed it. It was reasonably fun to watch the twist, but it was written with no background to justify it happening.
Reply by Fergoose
on August 22, 2022 at 10:30 AM
If they could have kept it to messages being sent into the past via lights etc, they could have done something a little less obviously ludicrous. It was just a pity as the first 45mins were really good before it went a bit silly.
spoilers
I also found it funny that the film ends with Denzel's character in good humour and loving life, whilst we know that his work partner has just been murdered (unbeknownst to Denzel) and that the director just can't be bothered to tie up that loose end or make any reference to it in the final minutes.
Reply by HikariWS
on August 22, 2022 at 3:14 PM
Indeed I forgot that :-x he was killed before main char traveled back and enough time had passed for him to be discovered dead
he was never talked about again, so we might consider he wasn't discovered yet, but even so he'd be missing
Reply by DRDMovieMusings
on August 25, 2022 at 5:09 PM
No greater truth has e'er been spoken.
Hear, hear!