Question: How does the "timeline loop" with the kid becoming the mob boss (and looking to kill Bruce Willis 30 years later) start? If it gets started by "old" Bruce Willis killing the kid's (future mob boss) mother, and getting him very angry and revengeful, because Willis wants to revenge the death of its wife by the future mob boss... Then it is a chicken and egg problem.
Chosen answer: The first time the time-loop occurred it is not necessarily due to Bruce Willis' character killing her. She could have died in another way, instigating the timeline in which Bruce Willis is taken to close his loop. He knows who the rainmaker is and therefore attempts to kill him in order to preserve his happy future. This in turn creates a brand new timeline in which Joe kills himself to save Sara, who in turn prevents the rainmaker from becoming a crime lord.
Question: If people can be sent back to a precise time and location, why not send them to ground zero of Hiroshima or Pompeii or 20,000 feet in the air over the middle of the Pacific?
Answer: The current method works better because an assassin being present confirms the kill and the disposal of the body. If you sent someone back to Hiroshima or some other place you could never be sure the body wouldn't be found.
Question: So what happens to the past you when you're sent back from the future? If 30 years ago you were sitting at the dinner table with your family would you just poof away and disappear? I'm stuck on these two dimensions and being alive in both scenarios. Another example it's 2000 and I'm 10 it's 2030 and I'm 30 if I was sent back to be killed when 30 what happens to 10 year old me at that point in life?
Answer: Nothing will happen to your 10 year old self or past you. He/she would live their life as your grown self would remember it. They would do whatever you did that instigated your trip to the past, provided you do not interfere with your younger self. Going to the past does not inherently alter the timeline.
Question: SPOILERS: After young Joe shot himself, shouldn't he have disappeared? Seeming as the whole reason he's at the farm is because of old Joe, but if old Joe never existed to set certain events in motion in the first place, I don't see why young Joe's body would have just stayed there after he shot himself.
Chosen answer: Because he still went to the farm. His body was there. He killed himself there. Plus since we don't know how the events would occur with real time travel (if possible), speculation about this can't be made.
Question: How old is the boy in this movie? The mom tells the guy that he is 10, but I assumed she was lying, because the little boy appears no older than 5 or 6.
Chosen answer: When Sara explains to Joe the code from the map she says that 071539 refers to her sons DOB. so 07/15/39 gives out that he's 5 years old since the movie is set in autumn of 2044. she may have lied about the age, as a father taking his 5 year old son to the city sounds a bit odd as opposed to 10, considering the futuristic city was not safe even for adults.
Question: Is there any particular reason why loopers must kill themselves to close their loop? Would it not make sense to send the future loopers back to some random looper in the past? Old Seth got away because he was singing a tune he knew his younger self would recognize, had he been sent to another looper instead, that wouldn't have worked. They can still collect a gold payday, just by closing other loopers' loops instead of their own, right?
Chosen answer: They are sent to themselves for symbolic reasons also. As you can see, once their loop is closed, they cease to be Loopers. It's the show their work is over, kinda like a forced quit to the job. Not only this, but Loopers killing other Loopers' future selves, even when unknown at the time of the shooting, can cause feuds between Loopers. Like one getting mad at another for the death of his future self.
Question: SPOILERS: If Seth was mutilated, wouldn't he have been unable to operate his Blunderbuss, thus never having eliminated the people he shot in his original timeline?
Chosen answer: I came to realize the answer a week later, that once future Seth was sent back, his contract was terminated.
Question: How does the mob (from the past), know exactly when a Looper has let his target run? A Looper wouldn't turn himself in, so how does the mob know almost instantly when a target hasn't been killed?
Answer: If you watch the movie he only saves half the bars. you see there are 4 bars on the body, but he only turns in 2.
Answer: But Joe doesn't cash in, he stacks up all his money.
Question: When Young Joe is waiting in the field for Old Joe's arrival from the future, the sky is perfectly clear blue, except for a single, strange and very prominent zig-zag cloud that almost looks like a contrail of some sort. What is the significance of or explanation for that weird cloud?
Chosen answer: Clouds are a strong visual motif in this film, present in different forms throughout the film. Look also for the "cloud" of cream in Joe's coffee and the "cloud" of blood when the gat-man is killed in the house.
Question: When present-day Seth is being tortured, it ends up affecting future Seth (which I get). They carve the address, and it appears. They cut off fingers, and then his fingers disappear. My question is why wouldn't all these scars and missing body parts appear all at once for future Seth? Especially since the injuries aren't appearing in real time for future Seth, they've already healed into scars. It seems like a plot hole unless I missed an in-film explanation or Rian Johnson explained this.
Answer: It's been a while since I've seen the film, so take this with a grain of salt. This is hard to explain, but the way I always took it was that when Seth failed to kill his future self, it began to continually alter time/the timeline. Thus, time has to sort-of "catch up" to the older Seth. Which would explain why his wounds appear in "real time" based on what's happening in the present... time is "catching up" to him as the timeline is further altered. If I recall correctly, something similar begins to happen with OId Joe where he begins to remember Young Joe's actions as he performs them.
Chosen answer: Writer/director Rian Johnson has stated that he didn't write the script with the intention of having Abe and Kid Blue be the older and younger versions of the same character, but that he likes the widespread fan theory that they are, acknowledging that the dynamic he wrote for the two characters very much lends itself to that interpretation. So that's an official "No, but it's a cool idea".
Tailkinker ★