While our readers are already sharing their thoughts over in our Looper review, this is the place where you can discuss Looper spoilers without concerns about ruining the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet. If you’re confused about the film, or have some lingering questions, then our Looper Explanation Post is where you want to go for answers.
We would HIGHLY RECOMMEND you avoid reading the comments here until after you have seen the film. If you’re a bit confused by the time travel in the film, head on over to that Looper explanation article or for an in-depth discussion of the film by the Screen Rant team check out the Looper episode of the SR Underground podcast.
If you’re posting comments here, assume that anyone in the conversation has seen the movie – if you haven’t seen the movie, we would recommend you don’t read the comments here until you have. Given the amount of time travel paradoxes and food for thought to chew on, there should be a LOT to discuss in regards to this film.
We’ve set up a poll below where you can rate Looper for yourself. Other than that, discuss away!
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Read some comments and laughed at a few of them. For starters, how can Cid be Joe, young or old? Either Joe has no powers, where the little Cid has the ‘freak’ powers. Secondly, the young Joe talks about his experience about his parents getting killed and jumped on the train to ‘the road to the bad path’. Young Joe can see the how someone can take this path because their parents were killed; for example Sara being killed by old Joe. It doesn’t may it’s the same character; he can relate to Cid. This is the confusion where people have made based on the train story for young Joe and future of Cid.
The scene where Young Joe and Sara get together in the bedroom, it was only lust, not love… She’s been single ever since her sister were killed and she needed to fill full her animal urges.
At the end when Cid asked where Joe was I felt she should have said “He killed himself to save you” and explained the whole scenario.
Two reasons: One, when she said “he had to go away” he was talking to the kid in a completely inappropriate way given who the kid actually is, the level of intelligence he has. And Two, I wanted Joe’s sacrifice to be the thing that ensured that Cid would love the world and become a good person, not a bad one.
I really enjoyed this movie. Especially how they managed to make it believable that Joseph Gordon-Levitt could have been a young Bruce Willis.
I took a while thinking at the end of the film and came up with a 3 cycle loop that makes the story work (of course there are millions of other ways it could work too with untold added stories but this was the simplest one I could come up with):
Cycle 1) An old lonely wifeless Joe, is sent back by the Rainmaker and young Joe kills him – closing his loop. So Young Joe retires.(i.e. Bruce Willis storyline)
Old Joe never meets young Sid – so the relationship with his mother never improves and he grows up into the rainmaker.
Retired Young Joe learns about the new crime boss “the rainmaker” while he is in China, where he has met his wife. The murder of his wife makes Retired Joe angry and desperate enough to fight back and seek revenge against the rainmaker.
Cycle 2) An Old Widower Joe with a vendetta is sent back with a plan to kill the Rainmaker. Young Joe fails to close the loop immediately – main film plot ensues.
Young Joe’s suicide has 2 effects:
- the new future has no Old Joe to be sent back for the next looper to close his loop.
- the young Sid’s relationship with his mother is improved and he never becomes the rainmaker so when he appears again in the next cycle it is a surprise change in the future and everyone talks about the scary “new” crime-boss.
Cycle 3) No Old Joe exists to be sent back from the future.
There is no interaction between future Joe and young Sid. His relationship with his mother never improves and he grows up into the Rainmaker.
Young Joe never closes his loop and so does not retire to China and never meets his Chinese wife. Later in life he is captured by the Rainmaker’s men but doesn’t have enough of a vendetta to particularly care so just accepts his inevitable assasination… return to cycle 1.
Even this simple 3 loop story can have holes poked in it, but nothing that a few extra loops and/or alternative unwritten side-stories involving other characters couldn’t fix.
I loved this movie. At the end I too thought that the “hair stroking device” of both CID and young Joe, might mean that they might be the same person on someother timeline, it certainly suggests that they are connected in someway.
However, on reading comments and of course the many clear reasons why joe and Cid can’t be one and the same (tk power – time machine not exisiing etc) I got to thinking “why did the writer include the hair stroking end” connecting joe and Cid and hinting they were the same person. So I believe it’s is a symbolic gesture to say that ALL men both good and bad start off as young boys who just need to be and feel loved.
Joe wasn’t loved and craved love, he didn’t know what real love was untill old joe found it in later life. Young joe (in the new timeline) experiences love for the first time earlier on then the old joe, the scene where you see old joe looking at his photo of the wife saying “the first time I saw her face” cut to young joe looking at Sara as he is laid out on the porch. (Cloudiness) But the love young Joe gets to see, is the love between a mother and son. Nothing stronger or greater. There are hints earlier in the film that he craves this e.g (his relationship for the prostitue and how her son is doing)
So to recap in my opinion the stroke of the hair, is purely to symbolise that all men are boys once and need a good mum to love them.
I loved this movie. At the end I too thought that the “hair stroking device” of both CID and young Joe, might mean that they might be the same person on someother timeline, it certainly suggests that they are connected in someway. However, on reading comments and of course the many clear reasons why joe and Cid can’t be one and the same (tk power – time machine not exisiing etc) I got to thinking “why did the writer include the hair stroking end” connecting joe and Cid and hinting they were the same person. So I believe it’s is a symbolic gesture to say that ALL men both good and bad start off as young boys who just need to be and feel loved. Joe wasn’t loved and craved love, he didn’t know what real love was untill old joe found it in later life. Young joe (in the new timeline) experiences love for the first time earlier on then the old joe, the scene where you see old joe looking at his photo of the wife saying “the first time I saw her face” cut to young joe looking at Sara as he is laid out on the porch. (Cloudiness) But the love young Joe gets to see, is the love between a mother and son. Nothing stronger or greater. There are hints earlier in the film that he craves this e.g (his relationship for the prostitue and how her son is doing) So to recap in my opinion the stroke of the hair, is purely to symbolise that all men are boys once and need a goI loved this movie. At the end I too thought that the “hair stroking device” of both CID and young Joe, might mean that they might be the same person on someother timeline, it certainly suggests that they are connected in someway.
However, on reading comments and of course the many clear reasons why joe and Cid can’t be one and the same (tk power – time machine not exisiing etc) I got to thinking “why did the writer include the hair stroking end” connecting joe and Cid and hinting they were the same person. So I believe it’s is a symbolic gesture to say that ALL men both good and bad start off as young boys who just need to be and feel loved.
Joe wasn’t loved and craved love, he didn’t know what real love was untill old joe found it in later life. Young joe (in the new timeline) experiences love for the first time earlier on then the old joe, the scene where you see old joe looking at his photo of the wife saying “the first time I saw her face” cut to young joe looking at Sara as he is laid out on the porch. (Cloudiness) But the love young Joe gets to see, is the love between a mother and son. Nothing stronger or greater. There are hints earlier in the film that he craves this e.g (his relationship for the prostitue and how her son is doing) So to recap in my opinion the stroke of the hair, is purely to symbolise that all men are boys once and need a good mum to love them.
At the end I too thought that the “hair stroking device” of both CID and young Joe, might mean that they might be the same person on someother timeline, it certainly suggests that they are connected in someway. However, on reading comments and of course the many clear reasons why joe and Cid can’t be one and the same (tk power – time machine not exisiing etc) I got to thinking “why did the writer include the hair stroking end” connecting joe and Cid and hinting they were the same person. So I believe it’s is a symbolic gesture to say that ALL men both good and bad start off as young boys who just need to be and feel loved. Joe wasn’t loved and craved love, he didn’t know what real love was untill old joe found it in later life. Young joe (in the new timeline) experiences love for the first time earlier on then the old joe, the scene where you see old joe looking at his photo of the wife saying “the first time I saw her face” cut to young joe looking at Sara as he is laid out on the porch. (Cloudiness) But the love young Joe gets to see, is the love between a mother and son. Nothing stronger or greater. There are hints earlier in the film that he craves this e.g (his relationship for the prostitue and how her son is doing) So to recap in my opinion the stroke of the hair, is purely to symbolise that all men are boys once and need a goI loved this movie. At the end I too thought that the “hair stroking device” of both CID and young Joe, might mean that they might be the same person on someother timeline, it certainly suggests that they are connected in someway. However, on reading comments and of course the many clear reasons why joe and Cid can’t be one and the same (tk power – time machine not exisiing etc) I got to thinking “why did the writer include the hair stroking end” connecting joe and Cid and hinting they were the same person. So I believe it’s is a symbolic gesture to say that ALL men both good and bad start off as young boys who just need to be and feel loved.
Joe wasn’t loved and craved love, he didn’t know what real love was untill old joe found it in later life. Young joe (in the new timeline) experiences love for the first time earlier on then the old joe, the scene where you see old joe looking at his photo of the wife saying “the first time I saw her face” cut to young joe looking at Sara as he is laid out on the porch. (Cloudiness) But the love young Joe gets to see, is the love between a mother and son. Nothing stronger or greater. There are hints earlier in the film that he craves this e.g (his relationship for the prostitue and how her son is doing) So to recap in my opinion the stroke of the hair, is purely to symbolise that all men are boys once and need a good mum to love them.
At the end I too thought that the “hair stroking device” of both CID and young Joe, might mean that they might be the same person on someother timeline, it certainly suggests that they are connected in someway. However, on reading comments and of course the many clear reasons why joe and Cid can’t be one and the same (tk power – time machine not exisiing etc) I got to thinking “why did the writer include the hair stroking end” connecting joe and Cid and hinting they were the same person. So I believe it’s is a symbolic gesture to say that ALL men both good and bad start off as young boys who just need to be and feel loved. Joe wasn’t loved and craved love, he didn’t know what real love was untill old joe found it in later life. Young joe (in the new timeline) experiences love for the first time earlier on then the old joe, the scene where you see old joe looking at his photo of the wife saying “the first time I saw her face” cut to young joe looking at Sara as he is laid out on the porch. (Cloudiness) But the love young Joe gets to see, is the love between a mother and son. Nothing stronger or greater. There are hints earlier in the film that he craves this e.g (his relationship for the prostitue and how her son is doing) So to recap in my opinion the stroke of the hair, is purely to symbolise that all men are boys once and need a goI loved this movie. At the end I too thought that the “hair stroking device” of both CID and young Joe, might mean that they might be the same person on someother timeline, it certainly suggests that they are connected in someway. However, on reading comments and of course the many clear reasons why joe and Cid can’t be one and the same (tk power – time machine not exisiing etc) I got to thinking “why did the writer include the hair stroking end” connecting joe and Cid and hinting they were the same person. CONT
Testing
Film, was good. Loved it. But the ending, where Joe kills himself to stop the loop. why didn’t he just shoot his hand off.? Then Future Joe wouldn’t have the weapon in his hand. Sara wouldn’t be killed, Sid wouldn’t become the rainmaker, and Joe would live.
This is so clever.
TOTALLY AGREE!
also, now joe will never ever meet his wife?
he already did
Actually, he will never meet her. When he killed himself he also erased everything his future-self did.
Bc that is how frequency ended and we need a little more variety than that.
What if Cid is Joe & Sarah’s kid. He has so many powers because he is TK & can loop (maybe loopers have to have a genetic component as well) they all went back in time to stop him from turning into the rainmaker. Sarah had a druggie past also so they were bound to run into each other!
Why does it matter whether or not The Rainmaker comes into existence? Seems like he ended up cleaning shop, and getting rid of all this nasty “Looper” nonsense with it’s sending people back in time to be murdered…so why was it worth intervening on the part of Young Joe?
I’ve enjoyed reading all these comments after watching the movie, but I’m reminded of the scene in the diner when Old Joe yells IT DOESN’T MATTER.
I’m quite sure that line is directed squarely at us, the types of viewers who were predicted to be commenting about the movie some years after it was made.
I really enjoyed that scene
I just think it is obvious that the Rainmaker (cid) is actually young Joe.
Joe is Cid!
great so he screwed his mother!!
Old joe is the rain maker
Cid is not Joe. Cid grows up to be “the rainmaker” and doesn’t want to be because of the love his “mother” gave him when he was a kid (basically he knows that he can change the past. He knows about loopers because he experienced it when he was a kid…He sends loopers back to close their own loop hoping that one of them will eventually fail and try to stop their loop from being closed (he knows it will eventually happen because it already did). Old Joe is the first one who does this. Old Joe stops his younger self from closing the loop, attempts to find Cid (which he does cause he already did) and Young Joe realizes that to stop the loop he needs to kill himself so he (young joe) never kills Cids mom.
LAWYERED!
So I will make an attempt to explain. See everyone assumes that the reason Cid becomes the Rainmaker is because Sara dies by the hands of Older Joe, but when Older Joe explained the story of the Rainmaker all he says is that the Rainmaker saw his mother die, and that he (Older Joe) assumed she was killed by a looper. Think about it if Younger Joe had killed his older self he would have never met Cid when he was young, where he had the conversation with Cid about his mom. Before the events with Younger Joe, Cid believed that Sara was not his mother. Sara was trying to live on her own with him and would have never gotten all the money from Joe. Cid could have just grown up with resentment, gone crazy, messed his jaw up some other way, became the Rainmaker, and decided the close all the loops for no reason. That leads to the timeline where Older Joe comes back and tries to kill Cid. The scene where Older Joe is about to kill Sara, Younger Joe just believes that this is the reason Cid becomes the Rainmaker. If you assume my theory you close the paradox of how Cid becomes the Rainmaker based on older Joe’s actions, can still have a storyline where it makes sense that the Rainmaker is closing the loops, and make sense of Joe killing himself to save Cid. I think that everyone just assumes that Older Joe is the reason Cid originally became the Rainmaker.
I loved the movie. The kid who played Cid was awesome, very good acting in his part.