OT: 12 Monkeys

[SevenStar]

Has anyone seen this movie? wtf happened at the end? since the child version of himself watched that adult version die, is the child going to do it all again in 30 years?

[NeedsPractice]

yes, thats what i got from seeing it, one big time loop. which bruce willis character could only half remember.

[CanadianBadAss]

that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again. that was such a good movie. I think i'll watch it again right now. And then again. and again . and again. and again.

[TaoBoy]

Don't try to think about it too hard - you're brain might explode.

Like loops? Check out Lost Highway by David Lynch. Whao!

[ATENG]

that's what i thought at first...it'll be a big time loop and bruce willis' character would be trapped doing the same thing over and over again. however, watching it again, i noticed at the end of the movie when the long haired bad dude sat down in the plane, the old lady sitting next to him was the old lady from the future. so i think she would have stopped him from unleashing the virus and thus prevent it all from happening again. make sense?

[SevenStar]

could be... They did tell him that since he had succeeded in the first part of his mission that they would send someone else

[TjD]

i dont think bruce willis was stuck in a loop - cuz he died:)

however, he did cause his own death in a sense, because of himself seeing himself as a child and all of that

[SevenStar]

right...and the child will grow up....he will become the bruce that he saw die.

[SifuAbel]

Well, actually, according to einstein only those oberserving from a seperate point in space-time would percieve any kind of loop. All the players in this film were part of a particular time line. In willis' time line it was only once that he died. He didn't die over and over again. He died in a relative time that a former self saw. This is exactly why he was chosen. He was there at the correct moment in time to be a focal point for the scenario to work in the favor of the scientists. The reason in the plot you see the other scientist in the past along with willis is to pick up a unmutated strain of the virus that killed off all of humanity. They were not able to prevent anything because they were following a particular timeline along with willis. They also knew if they tried to tinker with the past too much they would set up an alternate, thereby, uncontrollable set of future events that would set up a failing scenario and set up a true time paradox ala the going back and killing your grandpa exercise. Which would set up a truely inescapable loop. No virus no time machine, no time machine no virus, and so on.

These are concepts based on linieal time. However quantum time suggests that if we go back and killed our grandpa we might not altogether disappear but exist on a realtive timeline, coexisting yet outside of the current one where your family does no exist. So not really a time loop but a time deviation. Which is the basis for the movie Minority report. In which alternate futures are possible due to events that have not happened yet that may change an outcome. so the future you see ahead might be one a number of relative yet separate possibilities.

Mind numbing isn't it.

[Unstoppable]

NO It is an Endless loop!!!

The laydy on the Plane was NOT trying to stop Teh virus (they Couldnt and said toso) she was trying to Get A pure sameple so they Could make a antidoate

Burce willis did His job by ponting out the Airpot

It is an endels loop (Kinda!!!)

[Repulsive Monkey]

Those of you who thought that the film was a loop didn't watch the film very well. There is no loop just the fact that he goes back in time to his childhood to prevent the scientist from spreading the virus. Once he does that he dies and alloows himself as a child to grow up in the world without having to go through life in the posy apocalyptic phase and die a natural death.

[Suntzu]

the virus already escaped when he opened the vial…

[black and blue]

When asked what job she has...

The old lady on the plane says: "I'm in insurance."

That sentence sums up the whole movie.

Best film of the year, and if I remember correctly, was released in the UK a few months before Se7en... another great film.

:)

[SevenStar]

yeah Sun, I thought about that too... he opened it at the airport Iwas also under the impression that the strand was not mature though...

on a sidenote, I started the 12 monkeys thread and I got the 12th post....

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by SifuAbel
Well, actually, according to einstein only those oberserving from a seperate point in space-time would percieve any kind of loop. All the players in this film were part of a particular time line. In willis' time line it was only once that he died. He didn't die over and over again. He died in a relative time that a former self saw. This is exactly why he was chosen. He was there at the correct moment in time to be a focal point for the scenario to work in the favor of the scientists. The reason in the plot you see the other scientist in the past along with willis is to pick up a unmutated strain of the virus that killed off all of humanity. They were not able to prevent anything because they were following a particular timeline along with willis. They also knew if they tried to tinker with the past too much they would set up an alternate, thereby, uncontrollable set of future events that would set up a failing scenario and set up a true time paradox ala the going back and killing your grandpa exercise. Which would set up a truely inescapable loop. No virus no time machine, no time machine no virus, and so on.

These are concepts based on linieal time. However quantum time suggests that if we go back and killed our grandpa we might not altogether disappear but exist on a realtive timeline, coexisting yet outside of the current one where your family does no exist. So not really a time loop but a time deviation. Which is the basis for the movie Minority report. In which alternate futures are possible due to events that have not happened yet that may change an outcome. so the future you see ahead might be one a number of relative yet separate possibilities.

Mind numbing isn't it.

Dayum...

[Ford Prefect]

Sifu Abel,

I beleive Doc explained it better in Back to the Future 2. ;)

[dezhen2001]

:D

good movie though

david

[black and blue]

"Make like a tree and get the H*ll out of here!"

Ah, that still cracks me up. We ought to have a 'best movie line' thread!

:)

[Hau Tien]

I've watched this movie a bajillion times... it's one of my favorites.

There is no loop. Bruce's young self viewing him die doesn't constitute a loop. The young Bruce doesn't realize he is watching his own demise in the future.

As for the virus... it's already been said on here... she wasn't trying to prevent it from happening (Which would, in theory, destroy the future from which she came... and if it didn't exist, how could she come back and stop the virus? Ohhhh.... paradix! ;) ). She came back to obtain a sample of the pure virus so they could create an antidote in the future and re-take the surface of the world.

Heheh... good flick, in any case ;)

[black and blue]

Hence, INSURANCE.

So we all agree... a GREAT movie!:)

[KC Elbows]

I need to watch 12 monkeys again.

Here's my take.

The lady at the end is the key. She is exposed to the virus, just like everyone else there. So either:

-She knows the she is exposed and is talking to the guy that poisoned everyone in order to get the strain. I find this unlikely, as she is one of the people from the future who is basically in charge, and has prisoners do all their work.

-She doesn't know, and is actually living the posh life, travelling about while she and her ilk make willis and his ilk do all sorts of heinous tasks.

-She is immune to the virus, and thus is one of those that survived into the future, in which case the whole willis plot is just fulfilling the past, basically continuing the predermination set forth throughout the movie.

I have to watch the movie again. I have no idea. Does anyone know if the movie was based off of a book?

[dezhen2001]

good movie thread...dunno if it comes form a book or not? Been a long time since i watched it.

KC: will this rival the Jet li thread: no way :p:D

david

[KC Elbows]

Dezhen,
I've looked all over this forum, and yet I see no Jet Li thread, therefore I must assume you're making it up.;) :p

[dwid]

I don't believe either film is based on a book.

[SifuAbel]

One flaw in KC's theory. If the scientist would have been the original from the past, she would be 30 years younger. The scientist at the end was as old as she was in the future. I think they did this because they had a cure for the basic disease but needed the basic strain to identify its original protein chain.

[Richie]

Sifu Abel is correct. There is no loop.

[SevenStar]

yeah, I'm now thinking that there was no loop.

[SifuAbel]

scientists don't really have a theory on what a true loop would do to space time. It could be isolated or it could rip space time apart.

A loop would have been if the old bruce willis would have killed his younger self.Then you would get a constant and endless repeating of an event. It would be like a run in a stocking, a constant folding of space time.

This is why quantum time is treated differently. Where he killing his younger self would not create a loop but a convergance of alternate futures. Where both he and the future without him exist at the same time, perhaps through relative dimensions. So in this thought time would not be endlessly reversed and folded but just steamrolled into another shape altogether.

[IronFist]

Originally posted by SifuAbel
They also knew if they tried to tinker with the past too much they would set up an alternate, thereby, uncontrollable set of future events that would set up a failing scenario and set up a true time paradox ala the going back and killing your grandpa exercise.

I can't remember the exact number, but in Stephen Hawking's new book he says that the chances of someone being able to go back in time and kill their grandpa are 1 in 10^50^60 or something. I have no idea how they arrived at this number, which by the way is something like a 1 with a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion zero's after it. (Someone with the book please post the actual figure if you feel like it).

Now, as for alternate futures, The most plausible theory to me seems to be the one where going back in time and killing your grandfather just causes another reality to branch off from that one. Or something. I'm really tired and I can't think now. For example, in Terminator 2 when he went back in time to stop the Terminators, all he really did was create a new reality in which the Terminators were stopped. There is still the other reality in which the robots have wasted all the humans. I don't know if one is considered the "original," but some theories state that both would exist at the same time, in different universes or dimensions or space time continuums or whatever they are.

A similar theory was illustrated in an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation once where Data said something like "...some theory states that any possible decision that can happen actually does in it's own reality." Now if you think about this for a second, your brain will start to hurt as the millions of realities that could be created in a few seconds become aparent.

You must also consider another possible factor. I can't remember the name of this one, either, but it is a hypothesis that something would always prevent you from going back and killing your own grandfather. Say John goes back in time and tries to shoot his grandpa when he's only 20 years old. Perhaps John would slip on a banana peel right as he was about to pull the trigger, and miss the shot. Perhaps the gun would jam. But this theory whose name I cannot remember states that something would always prevent John from being able to kill his own grandfather.

Now, finally consider the fact that time may not infact be linear. What if time existed as a point as opposed to a line? Everything may happen at once, but the limitations of the human brain cause us to perceive it as happening in a linear fashion. I suppose this would eliminate most time travel theories.

Again, I'm really tired and I have no idea what I'm talking about, but this stuff is interesting as hell to me, so have fun with it.

IronFist

[KC Elbows]

I misworded the last part of my post. She is obviously the same person from the future, the future version, so to speak. My question was, did she know that guy was the one who caused the virus? Was she immune?

I'm confused.:confused:

[anton]

The idea of multiple universes - particularly as proposed in 1957 by Hugh Everett has always appealed to me as a solution to the old time-travel paradox. It provides an explanation to both the uncertainty principle and the "anthropic principle" (not to mention helping out Schrodinger's poor cat). Everett proposed that the universe actually did behave in the deterministic way that 19th century physicists thought it did; it just looks uncertainly probabilistic. This works because each event that happens spawns an infinite number of parallel universes, and, taken together, the various versions of the event in question happen with the probability dictated by the uncertainty principle.
*NOTE:the following is slightly OT*
And I'm not alone: Although previously people found Everett's explanation as being far harder to swallow than the Coppenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, it is now being taken up by one David Deutsch, a researcher at Oxford. Not only does Dr Deutsch believe in Everett's parallel universes but he thinks it may be possible (in a manner of speaking) to collaborate with them.
The Universe-straddling machines he has in mind are quantum computers. Primitive versions have been built and enthusiasts (Deutsch included) believe that in decades to come this will become mainstream technology.
Normal computers work by manipulating data in the form of binary digits (bits). A quantum computer manipulates "qubits". In the Copenhagen interpretation, their values are indeterminate until an observer attempts to examine them (if he does the 'uncertainty' collapses and he is left with an ordinary, non-quantum 'bit').
The result is that many calculations can be performed in parallel so long as their intermediate steps remain unexamined - ie a quantum computer with a certain number of qubits can perform more calculations than a normal computer with the same number of bits. The number of possible calculations actually goes up exponentially with the number of qubits. In fact it would not take a particularly large quantum computer to perform more calculations than there are particles in the known universe, let alone the computer itself. Hence Dr Deutsch argues that the computation can not be occurring in a single universe.Computing is not an abstract process and the information being manipulated must be associated with something physical. The explanation Deutsch provides is that the calculations are being performed in parallel universes. In other words the different parallel machines in the different parallel universes are collaborating !! - how's that for trippy?

[Ford Prefect]

Well, they always said they didn't want to change the past. They just wanted a cure for the future. That would mean, that young Bruce Willis will still grow up to do the same thing in front of himself at the airport again.

[IronFist]

ttt for more fun conversation.

What do these quantum theorists do all day? Just sit around and think? Do they get paid for it? What a cool job :) Hehe.

IronFist

[SifuAbel]

Originally posted by Ford Prefect
... young Bruce Willis will still grow up to do the same thing in front of himself at the airport again.

Actually, not really. Einstein called his theory "relativity" because it was based on the notion that outcomes to phenomenon are subject to the eye of the beholder, his point of view.

Only we, observers in another plane of perspective (in this case the audience), would see this as a recurring theme. Young bruce willis only sees this happen once, old bruce only dies once. This is as far as HIS perspective is concerned. This is still only a convergence of time. A crossroads if you will.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if a true loop did exist that it would twist space/time so badly that it might cause a temporal black hole. A really big one. It might actually damage space/time.

[Ford Prefect]

Right, I'm familiar with the special and general relativity theories and the concept of independent reference frames, etc. I just think that old Bruce Willis remembers seeing that scene unfold in the airport. When it finally got to that in the movie, that was the same Bruce Willis watching the scene who will then grow up and go back in time, etc etc. If the scientists' goal wasn't to change the past (which would arguably be impossible since the past already happenned which would mean that you've already attempted to change it as can be seen in the fact that what Bruce remembers as a kid happens again) why would this Bruce Willis experience anything different leading up the events that started the movie?

[IronFist]

You know what's funny? I've never even heard of this movie.

IronFist

[Richie]

Wait a minute. Time Travel is impossible anyway. That being known, you guys can argue fantasy any way you want.

[respectmankind]

agree with richie. good ol fantasy though, eh? what would my life be without d&d?

[Serpent]

Why is time travel impossible?

[SevenStar]

you've never heard of it? you gotta check it out. Go get it. right now. stop reading this. I mean it, stop. turn off the monitor. Go get the movie.

[SevenStar]

Whoa... was that a double post, or am I stuck in a loop?

[Richie]

Well, it is because of one of good old doctor Einstein's theories.

M(finial) =M(intial)square root v(squared)-c(squared)

[anton]

Originally posted by Richie
Wait a minute. Time Travel is impossible anyway. That being known, you guys can argue fantasy any way you want.

According to Einstein time travel is quite possible. The past preset and future are actually occurring at the same time.
In fact when astronauts leave the earth and travel around it at extremely high speeds, they come back a few fractions of a second younger than they would have been, had they stayed on earth - They have effectively travelled a fraction of a second into the future.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Richie
M(finial) =M(intial)V v(squared)-c(squared)

What the hell does that mean!?

:confused: :(

[Serpent]

Hey! You editted it!

What does it mean in either form?

[Richie]

Sorry I can't make a square root sign. Einstein's relativity basically signs that nothing can move faster than light. At light speed, time is zero. However, if you try to go as fast as light, you you will become more massive and and your acceleration will slow. You would have to use more energy to continue to have a gain in acceleration, but you will then become more massive. You are kind of you own problem. You can never reach the speed where time stops so how can you go faster to go back in time?

[Richie]

That equation is kind of the opposite of e=mc(squared), or mc hammer:D

[IronFist]

Originally posted by anton


According to Einstein time travel is quite possible. The past preset and future are actually occurring at the same time.

Oh hell yeah, that's what I said!


Originally posted by me

Now, finally consider the fact that time may not infact be linear. What if time existed as a point as opposed to a line? Everything may happen at once, but the limitations of the human brain cause us to perceive it as happening in a linear fashion. I suppose this would eliminate most time travel theories.

Except for that last sentence, sounds like my theory agrees with something Einstein said. How's that for an ego booster? (Knock on wood).

IronFist

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Richie
Sorry I can't make a square root sign. Einstein's relativity basically signs that nothing can move faster than light. At light speed, time is zero. However, if you try to go as fast as light, you you will become more massive and and your acceleration will slow. You would have to use more energy to continue to have a gain in acceleration, but you will then become more massive. You are kind of you own problem. You can never reach the speed where time stops so how can you go faster to go back in time?

Ah, but that's using the assumption that you have to go faster than light to go back in time!