Primer
Yesterday I watched the the movie Primer. Twice. And I still didn’t fully understand what was going on. To be fair, the first time I was playing Warcraft as I watched, so I wasn’t giving it my full attention. As the movie started to get really confusing, I had to stop it, because I couldn’t follow what was happening. Even when I watched with no distractions, I wasn’t sure of all the events as they unfolded. Apparently some people don’t like the idea of trying to puzzle out the plot of a movie, because it only has a 6.8 rating on IMDB. I loved it, I give it at least 9/10.
The movie revolves around two guys who invent a time machine on accident. The writer makes no attempt to hold back on the tech speak, and no attempt to make sure you understand what is happening. Instead, we are taken on a ride following these two guys who are scheming to make money playing the stock market. At one point in the movie, a guy accidentally (or is it an accident?) brings his cell phone back in time with him. It rings, and at that moment, you realize something is terribly wrong. What happens when two exact copies of a cell phone exist at a given moment in time? Will they both ring? If he answers, and the other guy misses the call, what will that change? Or is his phone even ringing at all, now that phone #2 is ringing?
The paradox of going back in time to change something became very real at that moment, and then the movie takes a real turn, as many of events you have already seen are told in flashback. You see a lot of what we had already seen take place again from a different perspective (from the perspective of the guy who went back in time). The question becomes, did they happen that way the first time through, or is it actually different this time. Is there only 1 timeline, or, by going back in time, are we actually creating a completely different timeline.
Today I had to go read on Wikipedia several theories on what actually happened in the movie, and I am enthralled. When I get home I’m watching the whole thing over again. Watching the same movie 3 times in 2 days? That’s a record for me.