Twelve Monkeys plot queries *MAJOR SPOILERS*
Mathew Englander
have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
she really in insurance? I suppose it's possible that post-apocalypse she
could get a new career as a scientist. It seemed to me that the vial that
David Morse opened for the x-ray security guard at the airport contained
some sort of inhalable vaccine for the virus. That would explain why Bruce
Willis -- as well as the woman scientist -- survived the Holocaust. But
why would David Morse have carried the vaccine along with him, as opposed
to just vaccinating himself at the lab before he left on his world trip.
2. Was Christopher Plummer involved in the conspiracy, or was David Morse
acting alone? When Madeleine Stowe calls Christopher Plummer at the lab,
my impression, from the comments he made to David Morse after hanging up
the phone, was that he was involved in the planning of the scheme; didn't
he say something like "How did she find out about this; there must be
some leak"? But then, when the Army of the 12 Monkeys kidnapped him,
Christopher Plummer told his son what Madeleine Stowe had told him, and
added that the scheme would not work because he, Christopher Plummer,
had taken himself "out of the loop". This exchange makes sense only
if Christopher Plummer had no knowledge at all of the plan.
3. What was the motive for releasing the virus around the world in
such a deliberate manner? Did David Morse think that he would become
world ruler after everyone else was dead, or something like that? Or
was he just a psychopath?
4. When Madeleine Stowe meets Bruce Willis in the police holding cell
in 1990, she says "you look familiar; have we met somewhere before". She
repeats this sentiment later. What is this referring to? For her, that scene
took place before the meeting in the airport. I think that Twelve Monkeys
handled the usual time-travel conundrums much better than most
works of science fiction do, but this is, I think, one flaw. The only
explanation I can think of is that she recognized him from the photo
taken during World War I. But in 1990, she hadn't begun researching her
book, had she?
Mathew Englander
George Swan
>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>
>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
>next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
>she really in insurance?
No, I don't think so. I think she was supposed to kill the red haired
scientistif our hero failed. I think that is the sense in which
she was in "insurance".
Jae K. Kim
: I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
: have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
: If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
: 1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
: next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
: future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
: she really in insurance? I suppose it's possible that post-apocalypse she
: could get a new career as a scientist. It seemed to me that the vial that
: David Morse opened for the x-ray security guard at the airport contained
: some sort of inhalable vaccine for the virus. That would explain why Bruce
: Willis -- as well as the woman scientist -- survived the Holocaust. But
: why would David Morse have carried the vaccine along with him, as opposed
: to just vaccinating himself at the lab before he left on his world trip.
The following is my interpretation of the film based on one viewing (so
it may not be all there). The key is to remember that time travel loops,
particularly in a film that follows La Jetee, should have complete closure.
The scientist was supposed to have travelled back to meet him. You recall
that the people in the future realized that they could not change anything
that had already happened. This is mentioned several times in the film.
They just wanted to have Bruce Willis's character locate the source of the
virus so that one of their scientists could get a sample of the virus in
order to work on a cure/vaccine. So the seating of the woman scientist
next to David Morse's character is the final conclusion to the plan. Note
that they did not know from BW's message on the tape who the person was
(all that BW said was that it was not who they thought it was). The
commotion at the airport where DM's character is finally pointed out
tells the people from the future (perhaps via BW's character's prison
friend from the future) who the person who spread the virus is. They then
can send the scientist to meet him.
The epidemic, you recall, started in Philadelphia, then San Francisco,
and so on. In order for it to have started in Philadelphia, it had to
be released at some point before DM's character got on the plane. In
this sense, the opening of the vial at airport security had to happen,
because it had not happened before then.
Now what is interesting is that there had to be two messages on the tape
at the dry cleaners. One was from Madeleine Stowe's character making a
"prank" call to the cleaners mentioning the name of the 12 Monkeys. The
other was from Bruce Willis' character saying that it wasn't.
I try to understand everything from the point of view of the people in
the future. The questions are...what do they know, and when did they
know it. The people in the future, upon hearing the tape the first time
around, knew that:
1. The 12 Monkeys were considered a starting point by someone.
2. Someone now says that it was not the 12 Monkeys (but not who it was).
They start sending people back into the past to find out about the 12
Monkeys because that is really the only clue that they have. It is not
clear whether they tell all the people they send back, or just BW's
character, to leave a message at the dry cleaners but they do because they
know that it has to happen.
3. BW's character's voice had to be recognized as the voice on the tape
at some point by the people in the future. We are not told when that
would have occurred, but we know that this is true because BW's
character's inmate friend is sent back in time to greet him at the
airport knowing that it was BW's character's voice on the tape. It is
possible that they knew from the beginning once they decided to send him.
But they sent others so it is unlikely that they knew straight from the
beginning (I'm being parsimonious).
4a. If they did not know at what point in space-time that the message was made,
they had to wait until after they send BW's character the last time around.
This also means that the inmate friend could not have died in WWI
(actually I'm not sure that he did) because he has to be alive at the
time they send BW's character back the last time around.
4b. If they do know, then they play out the rest of the time when they keep
sending BW's character to the past knowing full well that they have to
send him. This also means that it is possible that they sent the inmate
friend to the airport before sending BW's character to WWI by accident,
in which case, it is possible that the inmate friend died in WWI because
he would have returned from the airport by that point.
: 2. Was Christopher Plummer involved in the conspiracy, or was David Morse
: acting alone? When Madeleine Stowe calls Christopher Plummer at the lab,
: my impression, from the comments he made to David Morse after hanging up
: the phone, was that he was involved in the planning of the scheme; didn't
: he say something like "How did she find out about this; there must be
: some leak"? But then, when the Army of the 12 Monkeys kidnapped him,
: Christopher Plummer told his son what Madeleine Stowe had told him, and
: added that the scheme would not work because he, Christopher Plummer,
: had taken himself "out of the loop". This exchange makes sense only
: if Christopher Plummer had no knowledge at all of the plan.
DM's character was acting alone. CP's character was a smart man (he was
after all a Nobel Laurelate (it counts for some smarts)); he knew that
his son was wacko. So he made sure that he would not know any of the
access codes. I think that it is as simple as that. Of course, he did not
count on DM's character.
: 3. What was the motive for releasing the virus around the world in
: such a deliberate manner? Did David Morse think that he would become
: world ruler after everyone else was dead, or something like that? Or
: was he just a psychopath?
He was just a psychopath. Recall what he told MS's character at the book
signing. He wanted to leave the world to the animals.
: 4. When Madeleine Stowe meets Bruce Willis in the police holding cell
: in 1990, she says "you look familiar; have we met somewhere before". She
: repeats this sentiment later. What is this referring to? For her, that scene
: took place before the meeting in the airport. I think that Twelve Monkeys
: handled the usual time-travel conundrums much better than most
: works of science fiction do, but this is, I think, one flaw. The only
: explanation I can think of is that she recognized him from the photo
: taken during World War I. But in 1990, she hadn't begun researching her
: book, had she?
That is also the only answer that I can think of. She may have seen the
photo but not started doing her research. I don't think that this is a
flaw, but intentionally placed (she mentions it twice), with intentionally
no answer given (but there is a reasonable answer once you think about it..the
one that we are discussing).
: Mathew Englander
--
************************************************************************
Jae K. Kim
j...@socrates.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca
************************************************************************
Jae K. Kim
: Mathew Englander (mat...@io.org) wrote:
: : I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
: : have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
: : If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
: I, too, was bothered by the woman from the future being on the plane.
: The explanation on this thread helps me to rationalize it.
:
: But another plot problem nags at me. Why was the guy sent from the
: future to give BW the gun? After all, the new guy knew what was up; and
: he had the gun. Why not just give *him* the mission to assassinate the
: psychopath. From the point of view of the future that makes a lot more
: sense and eliminates an unnecessarily chancy hand-off of the gun.
:
: The film was a lot of fun; but the plot had more holes than a piece of swiss
: cheese.
:
: --Ken Rudolph (ke...@netcom.com)
The new guy (BW's inmate friend) did not know who to kill. The people from
the present could only send him back to the point in space-time where they knew
BW's character was located for sure (at the airport right after he makes the
phone call). Recall that BW's character makes no mention in his message
as to who the real culprit is. Why the inmate friend gives him a gun is
explained partially by the fact that BW's character supposedly should know
who to kill. Of course he doesn't know at that point, but luckily MS's
character bursts in with the information. And away they go after the guy.
Another reason that he is given the gun is because he has to be shot
eventually with the gun (this is circular, I know).
There is something confusing about this whole business about the gun and
it is because philosophically it represents a divergence away from the
idea that nothing about the past could be changed. And then again, not.
Let me explain. The introduction of the gun suggests momentarily that
the people of the present believe that they can get rid of DM's character,
the man who spread the virus. BW's character goes after said sinister
character with the idea of shooting him down and killing him, thereby
changing the course of history. But this, of course, is not to be. The
virus is already released by the time that BW's character gets a gun.
Of greater importance is that nothing in the past can be changed, even
by a belief that one CAN change the past. There will be none of the
concessions to optimism and the many worlds approach that we have seen
in previous films; I'm thinking in particular of the Back to the Future
and the Terminator series. It is entirely possible that the people of
the present find this out the hard way via their agent's description of
what happened. Thus, they know that they cannot do anything to stop the
epidemic from starting not by theory but by experience.
Of course, the change in philosophic stance from immoveable past to
changeable past back to immoveable past is good theatrics. It increases
the interest of the audience in the final moments of the film to realize
that perhaps the future could be changed, whereas for most of the film,
they have been told that you cannot. People are caught off guard
and cheer BW's character on in a tension filled two minutes (or however
long it took). In the end, we learn that nothing has changed or can be
changed, but there is now hope because the scientist has now seated
herself next to the culprit in order to get a sample.
But one result of this calculated changeup in time travel philosophy
is that people walk away from the film feeling good emotionally because
there was an exciting ending, but are, from a logical point of view, a
bit confused because paradigms as to time travel had been played with.
The key to understanding this film is to realize that, as in the film La
Jetee, upon which this film is based, the lesson is always that you cannot
escape or change the loops of time created by time travel; they are as
fixed as the rest of main time line.
Ken Rudolph
Cheng-Jih Chen
>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>
>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
Saw it once on Friday. Liked it very much.
>
>
>1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
>next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
>she really in insurance? I suppose it's possible that post-apocalypse she
>could get a new career as a scientist. It seemed to me that the vial that
>David Morse opened for the x-ray security guard at the airport contained
>some sort of inhalable vaccine for the virus. That would explain why Bruce
>Willis -- as well as the woman scientist -- survived the Holocaust. But
>why would David Morse have carried the vaccine along with him, as opposed
>to just vaccinating himself at the lab before he left on his world trip.
>
I believe she's from the future, and that there is no vaccine
available in 1996.
One thing about how time travel is set up in the film is that there is
no way to bring external objects from the past into the present. She
is perhaps sitting there to become infected with the virus.
Scientists in the present would then have a live sample of the pure
virus. Recall that David Morse is already infected. I assume that
the incubation period is sufficient for him to finish his trip (the
period is mentioned in the film, about how it must have started in
Philly on such and such date). The security guard is patient zero.
David Morse's character plans to die.
Bruce Willis as child survives because he does. Natural immunity,
perhaps? Luck?
Oh, it was perhaps Madeline Stowe's phone call that make Plummer give
the access codes to David Morse, to protect them from the Army of the
12 Monkeys.
>4. When Madeleine Stowe meets Bruce Willis in the police holding cell
>in 1990, she says "you look familiar; have we met somewhere before". She
>repeats this sentiment later. What is this referring to? For her, that scene
>took place before the meeting in the airport. I think that Twelve Monkeys
>handled the usual time-travel conundrums much better than most
>works of science fiction do, but this is, I think, one flaw. The only
>explanation I can think of is that she recognized him from the photo
>taken during World War I. But in 1990, she hadn't begun researching her
>book, had she?
>
No flaw -- I don't believe the film had any time travel flaws that
can't be argued in terms of "the past cannot be changed" and "the
scientists want a pure sample". I think she recognized him from the
WWI photo, which is how she quickly made the connection to the photo
after the police ballistics test. I don't believe the film said when
she started researching her book. <Time for a second viewing>.
Oh, the gun was given to Bruce Willis not because there was a chance
to change the past, but because he was fated to die there. (If they
really thought they could stop the guy, they would have done so before
everyone got to the airport -- they knew enough about who it was to
reserve a seat next to him on the airplane, after all.) Bruce Willis
dying and Madeline Stowe looking and smiling (what a wonderful smile,
though she looked better as a brunnette) would imprint on the mind of
Bruce-as-child, and set the cycle in motion (how else would have
connected as well to Madeline Stowe?)
[Waiting for the 12 Monkeys FAQ, to go up there next to the Blade
Runner FAQ]
--
HEAT -- Incredibly cool characters pull off violent yet debonair crimes
in the heart of a supermodern American city: yes, it's a
Michael Mann film. -- The New Yorker
J Evans
>>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>>
>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>>1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
>>next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
>>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
>>she really in insurance? I suppose it's possible that post-apocalypse she
>>could get a new career as a scientist.
>As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
>though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
>from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
>vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
>future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
>the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
>since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
She wasn't coming from the future to prevent the virus from being released;
they'd already established (by authorial fiat) that they couldn't do that.
She was coming to get a sample of the virus before it mutated. Which,
arguably, her handshake did, as the madman had already exposed the virus in
the airplane. And I certainly didn't think that she looked thirty years
younger in this shot. (I also didn't think "I'm in insurance" was
especially ironic, but maybe I'm just slow.) I can't think of any reason
for including this shot *unless* she's from the future - what, "in addition
to all of the other really contrived plot elements, the future scientist
happened to meet the madman just before the virus got released, without
realizing it! Yeah, let's see if the audience will swallow that!"
I quite liked the movie, but it was proof that good acting and brilliant
direction cannot turn a mediocre screenplay into a great movie. Which is a
shame, as Gilliam is one of the few directors out there who has shown he has
the stuff to put out masterpieces a la BRAZIL.
Jon
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J Evans
Walter OGrady
>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>
>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>
>
>1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
>next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
>she really in insurance? I suppose it's possible that post-apocalypse she
>could get a new career as a scientist.
I got the impression that Gilliam was using the term "scientist"
ironically, i.e. that the controlling powers of the future took the
name as a symbol of authority. They are scientists in the sense that
they have knowledge, not that they seek it. I thought it was a nice
touch, playing on our society's ever-increasing dependence on science
to tell us how to act.
As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
>3. What was the motive for releasing the virus around the world in
>such a deliberate manner? Did David Morse think that he would become
>world ruler after everyone else was dead, or something like that? Or
>was he just a psychopath?
That was my main problem with the movie. He seemed sane enough; did
he really, like Brad Pitt's character, think humanity "needed" to be
wiped out?
Terrific movie, though. I thought Brad Pitt and Madeleine Stowe were
excellent.
- Carrie
<wog...@epas.utoronto.ca>
Jae K. Kim
: In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org> wrote:
: >I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
: >have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
: >
: >If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
: As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
: though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
: from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
: vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
: future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
: the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
: since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
Why do you say that she didn't recognize Morse at all? The scientists
could know who Morse was due to the commotion at the airport that pointed
him out. Also, her *obvious* ironic tone in saying that she was "in
insurance" was in fact an indication that she did know where she
was, and what she was doing, contrary to your comment above. Irony would
be present *particularly* if she came from the future; the element of
awareness that is part of an ironic posture would not be present if
she just happened to be on the plane as a younger person who *literally*
was in insurance. Moreover, this literal interpretation of her statement
lacks congruency with the stated desire by the scientists to locate the
person(s) who spread the virus so that they could get a sample; it makes
more sense to assume that she came from the future. As well, I doubt that
she intended to prevent the release of the virus, just to get a sample
somehow from him. I've described why I feel that this is the case in
earlier posts, ie. the unchangeable past argument.
George W. Harris
thusly:
<spoilers>
=But another plot problem nags at me. Why was the guy sent from the
=future to give BW the gun? After all, the new guy knew what was up; and
=he had the gun. Why not just give *him* the mission to assassinate the
=psychopath. From the point of view of the future that makes a lot more
=sense and eliminates an unnecessarily chancy hand-off of the gun.
Remember what Cole said: "This is about doing what you're told."
The future from which he comes is a totalitarian one. They couldn't let
him have his freedom.
=The film was a lot of fun; but the plot had more holes than a piece of swiss
=cheese.
Disagree. I felt it held together really well.
=--Ken Rudolph (ke...@netcom.com)
--
1. Keep your hand moving. 2. Lose control. 3. Be specific. 4. Don't think.
George W. Harris gha...@tiac.net
George W. Harris
(Jae K. Kim) wrote thusly:
<spoilers>
=Now what is interesting is that there had to be two messages on the tape
=at the dry cleaners. One was from Madeleine Stowe's character making a
="prank" call to the cleaners mentioning the name of the 12 Monkeys. The
=other was from Bruce Willis' character saying that it wasn't.
=I try to understand everything from the point of view of the people in
=the future. The questions are...what do they know, and when did they
=know it. The people in the future, upon hearing the tape the first time
=around, knew that:
=1. The 12 Monkeys were considered a starting point by someone.
No, no. The people in the future already thought that the
Twelve Monkeys had something to do with it. When Cole first went
out to the surface (when he saw the bear & lion), he found a piece of
cardboard with the Twelve Monkeys logo stenciled on it, with "We
Did It!" spraypainted underneath. That is what made the scientists
think that the Twelve Monkeys released the virus.
=: 4. When Madeleine Stowe meets Bruce Willis in the police holding cell
=: in 1990, she says "you look familiar; have we met somewhere before". She
=: repeats this sentiment later. What is this referring to? For her, that
scene
=: took place before the meeting in the airport. I think that Twelve Monkeys
=: handled the usual time-travel conundrums much better than most
=: works of science fiction do, but this is, I think, one flaw. The only
=: explanation I can think of is that she recognized him from the photo
=: taken during World War I. But in 1990, she hadn't begun researching her
=: book, had she?
=That is also the only answer that I can think of. She may have seen the
=photo but not started doing her research. I don't think that this is a
=flaw, but intentionally placed (she mentions it twice), with intentionally
=no answer given (but there is a reasonable answer once you think about
it..the
=one that we are discussing).
Agreed. Sometimes you meet someone that looks really familiar, but you've
never met them before. I just met a friend's wife over the holidays, and she
thought she'd seen me somewhere before, but there was no way. Same thing
here.
Also, it was another riff on "Veritgo."
=: Mathew Englander
=Jae K. Kim
=j...@socrates.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca
George W. Harris
(Jae K. Kim) wrote thusly:
<spoilers>
=Ken Rudolph (ke...@netcom.com) wrote:
=: But another plot problem nags at me. Why was the guy sent from the
=: future to give BW the gun? After all, the new guy knew what was up; and
=: --Ken Rudolph (ke...@netcom.com)
=Another reason that he is given the gun is because he has to be shot
=eventually with the gun (this is circular, I know).
No, Cole was shot by a policeman's gun.
Zach Douglas
><spoilers>
>
>=But another plot problem nags at me. Why was the guy sent from the
>=future to give BW the gun? After all, the new guy knew what was up;
>
> Remember what Cole said: "This is about doing what you're told."
> The future from which he comes is a totalitarian one. They couldn't
> let him have his freedom.
>
Pretty much. He was dead from the beggining I would think, and finally
realized it. He had his 'pardon' and he wasn't coming back.
Also, had they felt bad for Cole, they could have warped him back couldn't
they? Sure, why not. Jose's (Scarface) words to convince Cole to do the
shooting seem to add credence to the theory as "you're a hero, you've got
your pardon" were just b.s. to get him to do the job. WHAT JOB?!
Darn it. How confusing. I've lost track of why the needed Cole at all from
this point? They didn't need to shoot him (virus guy) did they, from the
start that wasn't the plan. It's apparent I'm missing a lot, but hopefully
I'm not alone.
I THINK!
Gerald Olchowy
>In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org> wrote:
>>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>>
>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
>though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
>from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
>vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
>future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
>the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
>since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
She was insurance for Cole...the mission was to bring back a
non-mutated form of the virus to the future. Cole failed to
accomplish the task...but by being one of the first few individuals
infected by interacting with "Morse's" character, the "scientist"
will take back the unmutated form of the virus into the future.
Gerald
vot...@vms.cis.pitt.edu
> sent Willis back hadn't heard the second message at the same time they
> picked up the first one. This second point is the only one that really
It's probably among those many assumptions we usually accept with
time-travel plots: whatever is happening in the past (1996) as executed
by travelers from the future (2025) is only reaching the future as if on
a linked 1996-2025 clock. This applies to 12 Monkeys as well as to all
other time-travel plots, and to all identical inconsistencies in this
one: otherwise, e.g., they would not have to 'wait' in 2025 for the
Willis character to do anything in 1996 -- all his actions would have
been past and therefore their results readily avaliable to them in 2025.
Zach Douglas
>
>mildly disappointed by it. I had expected to be in a state of confusio
>n
>through most of the film. Gilliam's ability to assault the viewer with
I understand what you mean. But, I think you have to remember that this
movie probably went over the head of 90% of the population who went to
see Brad Pitt and friends.
I was surprised myself to be putting so much of the movie together, and
by the end, there was only a few small things that I had to continue to
think about. BUT, although the cards may have been on the table, they
were flipped over one by one as the movie went on - and not in a totally
sequential fashion. I thought everything was revealed in masterfull
fashion.
Although Gilliam can make a confusing movie no doubt, I don't think you
should have expected him to! Maybe that just wasn't his intention this
time.
Zach Douglas
says...
>Willis character to do anything in 1996 -- all his actions would have
>been past and therefore their results readily avaliable to them in 202
>5.
By that token - would not have the scenery changed each time Willis returned
to the future? Or is that just the Back to the Future III theory talking.
>
EYL...@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu
In a former article we saw...
---begin former article---
From: wog...@epas.utoronto.ca (Walter OGrady)
Subject: Re: Twelve Monkeys plot queries *MAJOR SPOILERS*
Date: 4 Jan 1996 13:34:08 -0500
In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org> wrote:
>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>
>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>
>
>1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
>next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
>she really in insurance? I suppose it's possible that post-apocalypse she
>could get a new career as a scientist.
I got the impression that Gilliam was using the term "scientist"
ironically, i.e. that the controlling powers of the future took the
name as a symbol of authority. They are scientists in the sense that
they have knowledge, not that they seek it. I thought it was a nice
touch, playing on our society's ever-increasing dependence on science
to tell us how to act.
As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
>3. What was the motive for releasing the virus around the world in
>such a deliberate manner? Did David Morse think that he would become
>world ruler after everyone else was dead, or something like that? Or
>was he just a psychopath?
That was my main problem with the movie. He seemed sane enough; did
he really, like Brad Pitt's character, think humanity "needed" to be
wiped out?
Terrific movie, though. I thought Brad Pitt and Madeleine Stowe were
excellent.
- Carrie
<wog...@epas.utoronto.ca>
---end former article---
It seemed clear to me that the 'scientist' came back to complete the
mission i.e. get a sample of the virus at the beginning. She obviously
wasn't there to prevent its spread since it had already been released
at the airport. She clearly knew who DM was hence her remark about
the end of the world or killing everyone off to which DM replied
You've hit the nail on the head. 'Insurance' was her business. By
collecting the sample, she was to enable the future to develop a
vacine or whatever so they could live on the surface.
On the other hand -- why couldn't they just develop vaccines from
the viruses they had? If they are the 1% who are immune why couldn't
they live on the surface anyway. The Willis character had to have
been immune since he was standing at the airport near where the original
vial was released.
The ability to change/not change the past/future was also inconsistent.
Clearly the travelers were changing things e.g. Railly's life, if
nothing else. How does it make sense to be able to change some things -
but not the development of the future?
Loved the movie -- but you can't think too much about it.
James Rowan
From my single watching of the movie so far I interpreted the ending
of the moview as...
They ( the scientitst of the future ) had worked out that the 12 monkeys
weren't the cause of the virus release through James' phone call to the
answering service. Another point was the Hispanic character saying to
James "You're a f**king hero man", perhaps stating that Bruce had provided
enough clues to the cause of the virus ? or it could have been just about
James getting a pardon but I think there was more to the statement than
that.
Plus the scientist sitting next to Morse on the plane didn't appear 30yrs
younger than her appearance in the future time. I mean the woman on the
plane was already in here late 50's. Thirty years later she'd look a LOT
older. Also she paused when saying "I'm in insurance" which gave the clue
she was looking for some innocent sounding profession not to arouse
suspicion.
As to why they didn't attempt to stop Morse, after all there were at least
3 people from the future in the airport ( the guard from the prison on the
escalator ) so the ability of at least one of them to kill Morse was
there, was the fact they didn't want to change the past they only wanted a
non-mutated version of the virus to change their present.
As to the movie overall I was just totally impressed, a true work of
Gilliam it could have been written by him. The views of mutated technology
was so Brazil. After watching this 'epic' I had to go home and watch Time
Bandits. Gilliam is a god amongst directors of straw.
l8r
James
Khaled Yosef Shariff
--
\ Khal Shariff / Lt. Commander __,--=====-.__ \ Doc Zimmerman: /
/ 1002 Grant Ave. \ _________,-'_,--'/_-__-___`--._ / "I'm a doctor, \
\Winnipeg, Manitoba/ {====>=_________,._____.--------' \ Mr. Neelix, not /
/ CANADA R3M2A1 \ ``---._____/ USS Voyager / a decorator." \
Ed Schauer
would have been just your ordinary, hero falls in love with bimbo no-
brainer flick.It's better to have them at a closer age, so that it makes
the movie more adult and more real.It was a great film, and I wouldn't
change it a bit!
response courteousy of,
15/f erin
schauer
Mathew Mills
>...
>Now what is interesting is that there had to be two messages on the tape
>at the dry cleaners. One was from Madeleine Stowe's character making a
>"prank" call to the cleaners mentioning the name of the 12 Monkeys. The
>other was from Bruce Willis' character saying that it wasn't.
I seem to recall that there were two messages on the machine, but that
they were both badly scrambled... when they first released BW back
into time, they hadn't decoded the second message... when they finally
did peice it together, they sent the cell-mate.
Chris.Hilker
>Also, had they felt bad for Cole, they could have warped him back couldn't
>they?
Not after his homebrew tooth extraction, they couldn't.
C.
--
cs...@netcom.com (Chris.Hilker) "I feel like I'm being electrocuted."
The alt.rave mini-FAQ: "Q: ?" "A: hyperreal.com (http://hyperreal.com)"
J Lanier
Subject: Re: Twelve Monkeys plot queries *MAJOR SPOILERS*
References: <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org> <4cc2af$p...@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu>
In rec.arts.movies.current-films you write:
>In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org> wrote:
>>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>>
>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>Saw it once on Friday. Liked it very much.
>One thing about how time travel is set up in the film is that there is
>no way to bring external objects from the past into the present. She
>is perhaps sitting there to become infected with the virus.
I don't know if that is strictly true. I think the scene in which he is
shown being sent back in time contributes to this confusion. He's got all
those electrodes hooked up to him and he's naked, and lands smack dab in
the middle of WWI, naked! It was probably done more for dramatics then
anything else, but does create an inconsistency, with the following
scenes:
1) When we first see BW's character in the jail he's got on one of those
plastic garments that they seem to wear in his present. He must have
traveled back to 1990 with it.
2) On the two occasions when he "disappears" from the psychiatric hospital
and the woods, he is wearing clothes, and they aren't left behind...unless
they somehow get lost in transit???
Chris.Hilker
>and why the scientists who
>sent Willis back hadn't heard the second message at the same time they
>picked up the first one. This second point is the only one that really
>bothers me.
It shouldn't - they said at the time they played the first message that
the tapes were ruined, and they had to reconstruct them word by word.
First they decoded the message from Railly, then the one JC left at the
airport.
Rex Jackson
Barbagallo) writes:
> Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
>Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
>it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
>events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it
>did in the first loop.
Yeah, but that flashback was just a memory of Willis'. Brad Pitt's
character had just been burned into Willis' memory. I am under the
impression that it was just a case of recent events being overlaid on
memories in Willis' dream.
--
J Lanier
> Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
>Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
>it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
>events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it did
>in the first loop.
I don't remember that we ever see the face of the suitcase guy until the
final airport scene. In the flashbacks he is either shown only from
behind or from the waist down. Neither do we see who is shot until that
last scene as well.
What might contribute to the idea that events had changed was the fact
that by the end of the movie both Morse and Pitt had grown out their hair
and were wearing it similarly, and so looked similar from behind, thus
causing you to "remember" Pitt in the earlier scenes. Also the belief by
the people from the future that the Army of the 12 Monkeys, of which Pitt
was the ringleader, had someting to do with unleasing the virus, might
reinforce this impression.
Zach Douglas
>
>In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org
>> wrote:
>>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>>
>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>e>>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger.
>Ws >>she really in insurance?
>
>As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
>though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
>from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
>vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
True I think. It's late, I just saw the movie I'm VERY confused of course.
Of course, the lady just coincedently showing up would be far-fetched, yet
many other meetings might also be, although many were set up to be as such
(by the future scientists - right?). But, there is a lot of irony that
would be spoiled if she wasn't. I got the impression that she was one of
those paranoid bomb-shelter types. Prepared for disaster even.
I like the anti-virus theory, but better yet, remember the virus MUTATED.
So perhaps the people who got the airport wiff lived - young Cole, the
scientist lady..etc. Although, if she was NOT from the future, how did she
go from being an insurance salesperson to scientist. AGAIN though, in the
context of this movie, ANYTHING could happen or could be explained with one
theory or another. I think that was the beauty of it.
>
>That was my main problem with the movie. He seemed sane enough; did
>he really, like Brad Pitt's character, think humanity "needed" to be
>wiped out?
I think a lot of people both sane and not share that sentiment - why
WOULDN'T the world be better off dead? Think about it.
Chris.Hilker
>: If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>Now what is interesting is that there had to be two messages on the tape
>at the dry cleaners. One was from Madeleine Stowe's character making a
>"prank" call to the cleaners mentioning the name of the 12 Monkeys. The
>other was from Bruce Willis' character saying that it wasn't.
>I try to understand everything from the point of view of the people in
>the future. The questions are...what do they know, and when did they
>know it. The people in the future, upon hearing the tape the first time
>around, knew that:
>1. The 12 Monkeys were considered a starting point by someone.
>2. Someone now says that it was not the 12 Monkeys (but not who it was).
> They start sending people back into the past to find out about the 12
> Monkeys because that is really the only clue that they have. It is not
> clear whether they tell all the people they send back, or just BW's
> character, to leave a message at the dry cleaners but they do because they
> know that it has to happen.
I think the idea that the 12 Monkeys were the starting point came from
the grafitti in Philadelphia that seemed to take credit, not from the
voice mail. They hadn't decoded the first message before they sent
Willis back for the first time, remember.
>4a. If they did not know at what point in space-time that the message was made,
> they had to wait until after they send BW's character the last time around.
> This also means that the inmate friend could not have died in WWI
> (actually I'm not sure that he did) because he has to be alive at the
> time they send BW's character back the last time around.
The other character's having been sent to WWI on a trip "later" than the
one in which he gives JC the gun is a possibility - after all, he doesn't
mention having seen JC there.
>: 4. When Madeleine Stowe meets Bruce Willis in the police holding cell
>: in 1990, she says "you look familiar; have we met somewhere before". She
>: repeats this sentiment later. What is this referring to? For her, that scene
>: took place before the meeting in the airport. I think that Twelve Monkeys
>: handled the usual time-travel conundrums much better than most
>: works of science fiction do, but this is, I think, one flaw. The only
>: explanation I can think of is that she recognized him from the photo
>: taken during World War I. But in 1990, she hadn't begun researching her
>: book, had she?
>That is also the only answer that I can think of. She may have seen the
>photo but not started doing her research. I don't think that this is a
>flaw, but intentionally placed (she mentions it twice), with intentionally
>no answer given (but there is a reasonable answer once you think about it..the
>one that we are discussing).
There's no need for elaborate explanations of her comments. Deja vu explains
them simply, without need for speculation about when she started her research.
IMHO, she just "had a feeling" about JC.
Kanga
Harris) wrote:
::In Mon, 1 Jan 1996 00:22:22 GMT of yore, j...@sparky.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca
::(Jae K. Kim) wrote thusly:
::
:: <spoilers>
::
::
::
::
::
::
::
::
::
::
::
::
::=: 4. When Madeleine Stowe meets Bruce Willis in the police holding cell
::=: in 1990, she says "you look familiar; have we met somewhere before". She
::=: repeats this sentiment later. What is this referring to? For her, that
::scene
::=: took place before the meeting in the airport. I think that Twelve Monkeys
::=: handled the usual time-travel conundrums much better than most
::=: works of science fiction do, but this is, I think, one flaw. The only
::=: explanation I can think of is that she recognized him from the photo
::=: taken during World War I. But in 1990, she hadn't begun researching her
::=: book, had she?
::
::=That is also the only answer that I can think of. She may have seen the
::=photo but not started doing her research. I don't think that this is a
::=flaw, but intentionally placed (she mentions it twice), with intentionally
::=no answer given (but there is a reasonable answer once you think about
::it..the
::=one that we are discussing).
::
:: Agreed. Sometimes you meet someone that looks really familiar,
but you've
::never met them before.
Madeline Stowe recognized Willis from the World War I picture. How else
could she have put Cole with that picture so quickly, and he was only in
the background, at that.
:: I just met a friend's wife over the holidays, and she
::thought she'd seen me somewhere before, but there was no way. Same thing
::here.
Maybe she met you before in the Korean War. You never know... ;-)
Cheers,
Kanga
-------
~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~
"Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. The quarrels
of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page;
the men so good for nothing,and hardly any women at all."
-= Jane Austen =-
-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-^-~-
Favorite Celebrity To Pick On This Week: Pierce Brosnan
Why? He fights tooth and nail for 13 years to become the next James Bond, then complains of fans who ask him to say, "Bond. James Bond."
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
Kanga
(Ed Schauer) wrote:
::No, I thought that the lady was at a great age. If she was any younger,it
::would have been just your ordinary, hero falls in love with bimbo no-
::brainer flick.It's better to have them at a closer age, so that it makes
::the movie more adult and more real.It was a great film, and I wouldn't
::change it a bit!
I believe the original poster(s) were referring to the woman scientist in
the airplane at the end of the film, not Madeline Stowe's character.
J Lanier
>In article <4cmeqb$n...@news.vanderbilt.edu> EYL...@ctrvx1.Vanderbilt.Edu ( ) writes:
>>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>- Carrie
>><wog...@epas.utoronto.ca>
>>It seemed clear to me that the 'scientist' came back to complete the
>>mission i.e. get a sample of the virus at the beginning. She obviously
>>wasn't there to prevent its spread since it had already been released
>>at the airport. She clearly knew who DM was hence her remark about
>>the end of the world or killing everyone off to which DM replied
>>You've hit the nail on the head. 'Insurance' was her business. By
>>collecting the sample, she was to enable the future to develop a
>>vacine or whatever so they could live on the surface.
>Yes! This makes sense that the scientist came from the future since
>otherwise (if this were her in 1996) she would have probably contracted
>the virus and not made it to the future.
This is not necessarily the case. Since 1% of the population managed to
survive, so perhaps she like Willis had a natural immunity to it.
>So it looks like there is
>some hope for the future afterall!! It seems the scientists were able
>to figure out who the lab assistant was from Cole's info or maybe
>having some observers around at the finale!
>>On the other hand -- why couldn't they just develop vaccines from
>>the viruses they had? If they are the 1% who are immune why couldn't
>>they live on the surface anyway. The Willis character had to have
>>been immune since he was standing at the airport near where the original
>>vial was released.
>I think they said something about the virus mutating and they
>wanted a sample of the initial virus to help them figure things out.
>This might explain some of the above.
Now I have a problem with this theory of infecting someone to bring back
an unmutated source of the virus. If it was done in this way, rather than
perhaps somehow getting it in one of the vials, what was to stop this
person from infecting the others, since they were going to have to study
this sample to find a cure. And it seemed from the opening scenes that
the survivors, at least those in prison, lived very densely packed and
anything contagious would have spread like wild fire.
Rex Jackson
writes:
>In article <4clvl1$m...@cloner3.netcom.com>, re...@ix.netcom.co says...
>>
>>mildly disappointed by it. I had expected to be in a state of
>>viewer with
>
>
>I understand what you mean. But, I think you have to remember that
>this movie probably went over the head of 90% of the population who
>went to see Brad Pitt and friends.
Very true, but Gilliam has seldom been known to coddle his audience.
Still, I was suprised to see many people walking out and talking about
how confused they were.
>I thought everything was revealed in masterfull fashion.
I felt that I was being allowed to figure things out a little sooner
than I should have been, but it was still a great film.
>Although Gilliam can make a confusing movie no doubt, I don't think
>you should have expected him to! Maybe that just wasn't his intention
>this time.
True also. Gilliam is one of the few directors who can keep you on your
toes and thinking through an entire film, though. Often, lesser
directors will keep key elements from you to create suspense, but it
leaves me with the feeling that I'm sitting through a lot of garbage
waiting for an uninteresting bit of information that will tie a load of
boring characters together. In the past Gilliam has provided films that
were truly confusing at first blush and required several viewings to
piece together all of the subplots while never plodding.
12 Monkeys was a great film, but I hope we haven't seen the last of
Gilliam's "tunnel of confusion" style. This film seemed a little linear
for him.
--
Ralph Barbagallo
Zach Douglas <za...@hub.ofthe.net> wrote:
>In article <DKp16...@phoebus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca>,
>j...@zeus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca says...
>Ok, I'm of course confused and it's late, so if I say something totally
>ridiculous, I apologize ahead of time.
>So it's very possible that the future scientists already knew that the
>airport scene was going to happen, as they had SEEN it happen once before
>(we don't see this, but imagine with me for a moment) so they sent a few
>agents as this was the FINAL chapter of going back perhaps - the last
>succesfull mission. In this mission they actually send a scientist to do
>the work (but why?) as they know everything will go as planned. Cole will
>be a meaningless sacrifice, although he WILL be granted a pardon in the
>future and perhaps live on earth again some day. WRONG, he died so he can't
>get a pardon, even though his younger self still lives. But, his younger
>self will be destined to repeat things over and over again indefinately...
>correct or no?
Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it did
in the first loop.
--
Ralph A. Barbagallo III --- rbar...@cs.uml.edu --- Only AMIGA makes it
***********"Your favorite game sucks."*************** Possible... *
R.I.P. Jay Miner: June 20th 1994 Father of the 2600, Atari 8bit, Amiga
*Home of the TRON and Starcade shrines*http://www.cs.uml.edu/~rbarbaga*
Jonathan Pakianathan
>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>
>- Carrie
><wog...@epas.utoronto.ca>
>It seemed clear to me that the 'scientist' came back to complete the
>mission i.e. get a sample of the virus at the beginning. She obviously
>wasn't there to prevent its spread since it had already been released
>at the airport. She clearly knew who DM was hence her remark about
>the end of the world or killing everyone off to which DM replied
>You've hit the nail on the head. 'Insurance' was her business. By
>collecting the sample, she was to enable the future to develop a
>vacine or whatever so they could live on the surface.
Yes! This makes sense that the scientist came from the future since
otherwise (if this were her in 1996) she would have probably contracted
the virus and not made it to the future. So it looks like there is
some hope for the future afterall!! It seems the scientists were able
to figure out who the lab assistant was from Cole's info or maybe
having some observers around at the finale!
>On the other hand -- why couldn't they just develop vaccines from
>the viruses they had? If they are the 1% who are immune why couldn't
>they live on the surface anyway. The Willis character had to have
>been immune since he was standing at the airport near where the original
>vial was released.
I think they said something about the virus mutating and they
wanted a sample of the initial virus to help them figure things out.
This might explain some of the above.
>The ability to change/not change the past/future was also inconsistent.
>Clearly the travelers were changing things e.g. Railly's life, if
>nothing else. How does it make sense to be able to change some things -
>but not the development of the future?
>
I think the idea was that the future has happened, and nothing will
change that. Changing things in Railly's life isn't quite the same
since it does not contradict any 'known' thing in the future. Whereas
stopping the virus would lead to a different future - nothing in the
movie definately changed anything in the future, it is more like
we are allowed to see what happened but since it has happened cannot do
anything about it.
Excellent movie but it has given me a headache. :)
-Jonpak
Russman
>Of course, the change in philosophic stance from immoveable past to
>changeable past back to immoveable past is good theatrics. It increases
>the interest of the audience in the final moments of the film to realize
>that perhaps the future could be changed, whereas for most of the film,
>they have been told that you cannot. People are caught off guard
>and cheer BW's character on in a tension filled two minutes (or however
>long it took). In the end, we learn that nothing has changed or can be
>changed, but there is now hope because the scientist has now seated
>herself next to the culprit in order to get a sample.
>
>But one result of this calculated changeup in time travel philosophy
>is that people walk away from the film feeling good emotionally because
>there was an exciting ending, but are, from a logical point of view, a
>bit confused because paradigms as to time travel had been played with.
YOu make very good points in your argument. At first I was very unhappy
with the ending. I thought that she was there as a coincidence. But then I
remembered that the plan was for a scientist to go back and get a sample and
bring it back. Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!
--- then I liked the ending.
But you must admit- they could have had her start a short conversation about
the future and had her say something about underground. But that wouldn't
have been subtle, like many screenwriters like.
But think of this, they could have had Willis shoot the guy, get shot and
then after a tearful good-bye erase infront of the crowd -- erase.
ANYWAY
AWESOME MOVIE - TOTALLY COOL
Russman
arandia
: In Mon, 1 Jan 1996 09:30:54 GMT of yore, ke...@netcom.com (Ken Rudolph) wrote
: thusly:
: <spoilers>
: =But another plot problem nags at me. Why was the guy sent from the
: =future to give BW the gun? After all, the new guy knew what was up; and
: =he had the gun. Why not just give *him* the mission to assassinate the
: =psychopath. From the point of view of the future that makes a lot more
: =sense and eliminates an unnecessarily chancy hand-off of the gun.
: Remember what Cole said: "This is about doing what you're told."
: The future from which he comes is a totalitarian one. They couldn't let
: him have his freedom.
: =The film was a lot of fun; but the plot had more holes than a piece of swiss
: =cheese.
: Disagree. I felt it held together really well.
I agree with your disagreement. By the end of the film, I think it was
confirmed that any attempt to change history will fail and has failed
in the "past." So, there really weren't any drastic changes in the
timeline. And so the movie ends exactly as it was foretold right at
the beginning of the film. As Bruce's character mentioned, like
watching the same movie again, but from a different point of view.
joel
Rex Jackson
overheard several people talking about how confused they were by the
film. 12 Monkeys seems like a pretty straightforward film to me. The
only real questions about plotting that I can see would be why the
Stowe character thinks she knows Willis (and it has been mentioned that
she had probably seen him in the WWI photo) and why the scientists who
sent Willis back hadn't heard the second message at the same time they
picked up the first one. This second point is the only one that really
address this.
I hope I don't get flamed too bad for this, but I have to come out and
say it: While I did enjoy 12 Monkeys (and truthfully found it to be a
much better film than almost any other film of this genre), I was
mildly disappointed by it. I had expected to be in a state of confusion
through most of the film. Gilliam's ability to assault the viewer with
seemingly disconnected images that eventually tie together is often
nothing short of amazing. I had high hopes that this film would be
nothing short of a masterpiece of confusion. For months I have been
waiting in hopes that it would require several viewings to sort out all
of the interesting and obscure details. Instead, all of the cards were
on the table throughout the film.
--
Brian Eirik Coe
Zach Douglas <za...@hub.ofthe.net> wrote:
>Also, it seems peculiar that the intentions of the scientists were to get
>the virus and not stop it. Stopping it would have been easy had they wanted
>to do so. But instead they want to do it the hard way....
>
>Is this because 'go back in the past, instantly change the future' is only
>valid in Back to the Future? or no?
It could be one of several reasons. The big one is that they could just
assume that they can't change the past. After all, it creates an instant
paradox if they manage to stop the release of the virus. It means that
life goes on as normal, and no one is ever sent back in time. In a way,
I like this way because it is all too often the ending of these movies to
alter the course of history for the better, with no appreciable effects
in the present. The only time travel film that I can think of that
avoided this trap was Terminator, although the sequal fell right in.
--
Brian Eirik Coe * "Not even God himself could sink this ship!"
Optometrist-in-Training * --White Star Line employee at launch of Titanic
"Everything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattining."-M.'s Law
"That's not fair at all. There was time now. Time enough at last..." -TTZ
Detour Filmproduction
It is critical to note that the woman on the plane next to David Morse's
character is also the "scientist" who made a comment on Willis'
spider-eating episode. (The idea of transporting a sample from the past
internally) From that concept she was able to form the plan of infecting
herself by contact with patient zero and then time-traveling back to
the 2035 with a non-mutated version of the virus for a vaccine to be
developed from.
As for the question of her age, donÕt forget this is the actress who had
one too many face-lifts in Brazil.... (actually it was her friend, but
what I'm saying is that her complexion changing is a partially a visual
pun/ tip-of-the-hat to Brazil.)
I agree that the key is looking at the film from the POV of the
*scientists* and working back from what they know and when they know it.
The timing on the deciphering of the carpet cleaners voice-mail is
crucial.
I'm starting a list of questions for myself to keep in mind when I view
the film a second time. One that seems to come up is, "are there any
clues as to when Madeline Stowe started researching her Casandra Syndrome
book?" Certainly the fact that BW's case in 1990 interested her is the
basis for one affirmative argument.
Second question, is where does the tooth extraction thread begin?
Doesn't Brad Pitt say something along similar lines in 1990? If BW's
*voices* he hears are all 100 percent delusional, is he alone when he
encounters the bum who shows him his missing teeth? (I seem to remember
MS being there) Teeth are important to his final fate... As is the
Vertigo clip... a brilliant touch.
Third, does MS start it all in motion by the prank call? This is a
humorous, albeit blackly humorous way of looking at our apocolypse. The
Jerky Boys would be proud. First mentioned here, (by who I wish I could
remember, perhaps Jae Kim?) I look forward to tracing this line of thought.
(David Morse,
crazy lab guy inherits the security code to deadly virus storage from
rich daddy Nobel Laureate Christopher Plummer after the prank call.)
Anybody else got any second viewing questions?
(what a great film. So clearly blows Usual Suspects and Seven out of the
water I hate to even mention them in the same thread. David Webb Peoples
in addition to working on Blade Runner also wrote Unforgiven, a film that
is in many ways as clever as the other two. Next time you see Unforgiven
think about the meaning of the spectacles...)
clark walker
Zach Douglas
>
>In article <4cl9fa$6...@alterdial.UU.NET>,
>Zach Douglas <za...@hub.ofthe.net> wrote:
>>In article <DKp16...@phoebus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca>,
>>j...@zeus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca says...
>Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
>it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
>events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it di
>d in the first loop.
Hmm. Forgot about that! I remember Pitt saying "Watch Out" in the dream
sequence. So maybe he wasn't really part of the scene, or maybe he was.
Man, that seems to throw a wrench into the gears. I would have seen it
again to today, but couldn't get anyone to go.
FourFinger
Please post it or e-mail it to me. Thanks.
FourFinger
there is so much discussion is rare for a "sci-fi" movie. I saw one
review of 12M which called it "too complex." All I can say is - it's rare
we ever get a movie that makes you think, thank god for Gilliam. I hope
he does some of his own screenplays again next.
Ralph Barbagallo
Jay O'Rear <jor...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>>Yeah, but that flashback was just a memory of Willis'. Brad Pitt's
>>character had just been burned into Willis' memory. I am under the
>>impression that it was just a case of recent events being overlaid on
>>memories in Willis' dream.
>
>theory: first, every other detail in this dream remains identical to
>the details of the other dreams. It seems strange that the identity of
>the suitcase holder would be the only altered detail. Also, if I
>remember correctly, doesn't Brad Pitt mouth something to young James
>when he turns around and looks at him? I haven't worked out anything
>more satisfying, but is there an *alternate* past implied here?
I'm pretty sure Pitt said something like 'Watch it!" to the
kid, which is exactly what the scientist says as he brushes past him.
Every other detail is the same....so it's my theory that the flow
of events was changed. Somehow through Willis' trip to 1990, he
influenced Pitt in a way that ended up changing what the Army of
the 12 Monkeys did...or something. I dunno...but hey...
J Lanier
>In article <4cmgj6$s...@ulowell.uml.edu>, rbar...@jupiter.cs.uml.edu says...
>>
>>In article <4cl9fa$6...@alterdial.UU.NET>,
>>Zach Douglas <za...@hub.ofthe.net> wrote:
>>>In article <DKp16...@phoebus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca>,
>>>j...@zeus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca says...
> Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
>>Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
>>it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
>>events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it di
>>d in the first loop.
>Hmm. Forgot about that! I remember Pitt saying "Watch Out" in the dream
>sequence. So maybe he wasn't really part of the scene, or maybe he was.
>Man, that seems to throw a wrench into the gears. I would have seen it
>again to today, but couldn't get anyone to go.
Hmmmmm...I don't remember that. I hope to see the movie a second time though
Anastassios Tzingounis
On 6 Jan 1996, Gerald Olchowy wrote:
> wog...@epas.utoronto.ca (Walter OGrady) writes:
>
> >In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org> wrote:
> >>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
> >>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
> >>
> >>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
> >though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
> >from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
> >vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
> >future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
> >the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
> >since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
>
> She was insurance for Cole...the mission was to bring back a
> non-mutated form of the virus to the future. Cole failed to
> accomplish the task...but by being one of the first few individuals
> infected by interacting with "Morse's" character, the "scientist"
> will take back the unmutated form of the virus into the future.
>
>
> Gerald
>
>
Why not kill him, thus, no spread of the virus in such a huge scale.
Ed Uthman
za...@hub.ofthe.net writes:
>Also, it seems peculiar that the intentions of the scientists were to get
>the virus and not stop it. Stopping it would have been easy had they wanted
>to do so. But instead they want to do it the hard way....
Others have already made the point that the scientists acknowleged that
the past could not be changed, and all they wanted to do was get a sample
of the original unmutated virus so as to concoct a vaccine.
However, I have a darker suggestion. There may have been a large measure
of self-interest in what the scientists were doing. Before the plague,
they may have been failures, also-rans, and wannabes relegated to working
as scutpuppies for more talented and influential scientists. With 99% of
the world's population exterminated, our "scientists" are now the top
dogs in their little underground society. To reverse the events, no
matter how humanitarian, would leave then back in a much larger society
toiling away as apparatchik nebbishes. In a reconstructed society with a
vaccine, they would be the venerated founding fathers of a new world. It
seems ot me that this motivation would also fit in well with Gilliam's
trademark cynicism.
Ed
Ryan McGinnis
>picked up the first one. This second point is the only one that really
>bothers me. Perhaps someone involved with the film will eventually
>address this.
>
I like how this movie thinks of everything. It took time to
"reconstruct" the messages, and that message was reconstructed after
the first.
+-+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-+
Ryan McGinnis ()_()
mcg...@pionet.net (_) ch...@gnn.com
Page Plug! Setting up a TLK shrine at:
http://www.pionet.net/~mcginnr
Sioux City IA, USA
"Ninga phelelwa nga mandla"
+-+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-+
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Louis Novak
Rex Jackson (re...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: I just saw 12 Monkeys last night. As I was walking out of the theatre I
: overheard several people talking about how confused they were by the
: film. 12 Monkeys seems like a pretty straightforward film to me. The
: only real questions about plotting that I can see would be why the
: Stowe character thinks she knows Willis (and it has been mentioned that
: she had probably seen him in the WWI photo) and why the scientists who
: sent Willis back hadn't heard the second message at the same time they
: bothers me. Perhaps someone involved with the film will eventually
: address this.
I didn't even see this second point until you mentioned it but it is
exlainable. Of course, the scientists have heard all the messages left by
Cole and others on the voice mail. They also understand that they still must
carry out all the actions that history says took place. It bring up an
interesting point about time travel. It is often mentioned that those in the
past may be bound to act in order to produce the future. If this sort
of determinism holds true, it must also be true for those in the future. They
also may be bound to act in certain ways in order to produce their future.
At it's simplest, Cole had to go back just so he could make that phone call.
A most excellent film. Anyone aware of the availability of the film said
to have inspired 12 Monkeys?
Sangreal42
director of the same caliber as a Kubrick. A good director has done his
job well when moviegoers have to actually sit down and analyze his craft
after seeing the film.
One view that I would like to share is this:
Could it be that the 'scientists' of the future actually could change the
past, but have no desire to do so? Applying Gilliam's views of
authoritarians (based on his previous films), maybe these people don't
give a damn about humanity, and are only concerned with their own little
empires.
Consider this. These people are living in a future that is absolutely
hellish, BUT ... they are the ones in power. If they send someone to the
past to prevent the plague, their timeline disappears. Yet, if they are
only concerned with their own survival, they can send their own little
army of test monkeys back to the past to obtain virus samples, find a
cure, and reclaim the planet.
To these people, BW is no different than the monkey with the videocamera
on his head that was sent into the well, or the rabbits in the stocks
getting chemicals put into their eyes. He is nothing more than a 'lab
rat' that they are using to solve the problems of their world.
Tell EVERYONE to see this film. I would like to see Terry Gilliam make
obscene amounts of money, just so he can continue to make films of this
caliber.
D Lewis
thread. Reading the different interpretations of the action in the airport
has caused me to rethink my impression of the movie, but I still lean toward
the interpretations I had while watching the movie:
1) Bruce Willis' character "saw" Brad Pitt's face on the man at the airport
in his dream because it *was* a dream. Willis had just met Pitt in the ward,
and Pitt's facial expressions had ingrained themselves into his subconcious
mind. Then, when his mind dredged up recollections of the airport shooting
during his dream state that night, Willis just inserted Brad's face on the
running man because Pitt had left such a strong presence on his conscious mind.
(I'm sure Terry Gilliam is familiar with Carl Jung.)
2) Regarding the lady scientist showing up in the seat next to the sabatoeur
on the plane, I guess while watching the movie I was thinking more along the
lines of, "Hey, that's the woman who played Garry Shandling's mom on his TV
series on Fox!" I'm pretty sure it's the same actress. And Shandling's series
aired, what, 10 years ago? She hasn't changed that much. She has the type of
facial structure that appears more "constant," if you knew her personally and
saw her after an absence of 10 or more years, you wouldn't immediately think,
"God, what happened to her? She's changed so much." So it was entirely plausible
to me that she was "living in the present" when she was sitting on the airplane.
So how did she go from being an insurance agent to being a scientist? Hey, maybe
DeVry opened up a school in one of those underground caves. Or maybe her degree
actually *was* in science, but with the current economy the way it is, she
couldn't get a job in a lab and had to start peddling insurance policies. (A
commentary on the 1990s economy by Gilliam?????)
We had already established that this time-travel thing had to be done in the
nude (with the exception of a little black loincloth thingee that's big enough
to cover Bruce Willis' private parts). Did that woman really look like the type
of person who would strip naked and go back in time to risk exposure to a virus?
Also, assuming she "landed" somewhere in the vicinity of the airport, how would
she get dressed in order to catch the flight? However, this theory does open
an interesting prospect ... if she *did* know that the man who released the
virus was on the flight, what did she do after the plane got to its destination?
How did she get a sample? Or maybe the virus accidentally "got out" while the
plane was in the air, and the flight crew died before they could land ...
Personally, the biggest problem I have with the congruency of the movie is
this: the scientific community can't develop an antidote for the virus, but
thjey *have* made considerable progress in travelling through time.
--Dennis
http://www.webcom.com/dsl
Zach Douglas
>
>za...@hub.ofthe.net (Zach Douglas) writes:
>
>>Also, had they felt bad for Cole, they could have warped him back cou
>ldn't
>>they?
>
>Not after his homebrew tooth extraction, they couldn't.
I thought that was just to track him? And they could obviously still track
him right?
One line of useless text
two lines
Kanga
::>So it's very possible that the future scientists already knew that the
::>airport scene was going to happen, as they had SEEN it happen once before
::>(we don't see this, but imagine with me for a moment) so they sent a few
::>agents as this was the FINAL chapter of going back perhaps - the last
::>succesfull mission. In this mission they actually send a scientist to do
::>the work (but why?) as they know everything will go as planned. Cole will
::>be a meaningless sacrifice, although he WILL be granted a pardon in the
::>future and perhaps live on earth again some day. WRONG, he died so he can't
::>get a pardon, even though his younger self still lives. But, his younger
::>self will be destined to repeat things over and over again indefinately...
::>correct or no?
::
:: Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
::Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
::it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
::events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it did
::in the first loop.
No, Cole had all along _assumed_ that Pitt's character was behind the
viral holocaust because he and everyone else in the future thought The
Army of the Twelve Monkeys was behind it all. By believing this to be
true, his dreams of the airport always reflected what he perceived to be
as fact. He never knew that the person he saw dying was really the adult
Cole. Plus, the child Cole never got a good look at the man carrying the
suitcase. The predominant feature he had -- and that the child remembered
-- was long reddish-blonde hair, which could've been worn by a number of
people, but again, Jeffrey Goines fit into that in his dreams perfectly.
J Lanier
>jla...@panix.com (J Lanier) wrote:
>>2) On the two occasions when he "disappears" from the psychiatric hospital
>>and the woods, he is wearing clothes, and they aren't left behind...unless
>>they somehow get lost in transit???
> It appears they transport him TO the past naked, but when they
>retrieve him, they retrieve him and his clothes.
I don't think this is true, since in the beginning of the movie when he is
in jail and MS "first" ;) meets him, he is wearing one of those plastic
garments that many of those in the future wear. Otherwise where did it
come from? I think they could send objects back or clothed people if
they wanted to.
Gerald Olchowy
>In <4cmkfr$g...@cnn.Princeton.EDU> jon...@math.princeton.edu (Jonathan Pakianathan) writes:
>>In article <4cmeqb$n...@news.vanderbilt.edu> EYL...@ctrvx1.Vanderbilt.Edu ( ) writes:
>>>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>This is not necessarily the case. Since 1% of the population managed to
>survive, so perhaps she like Willis had a natural immunity to it.
If they had a natural immunity, they wouldn't be hiding underground.
>>I think they said something about the virus mutating and they
>>wanted a sample of the initial virus to help them figure things out.
>>This might explain some of the above.
>Now I have a problem with this theory of infecting someone to bring back
>an unmutated source of the virus. If it was done in this way, rather than
>perhaps somehow getting it in one of the vials, what was to stop this
>person from infecting the others, since they were going to have to study
>this sample to find a cure. And it seemed from the opening scenes that
>the survivors, at least those in prison, lived very densely packed and
>anything contagious would have spread like wild fire.
The infected scientist had "volunteered" to be a guinea pig...she was
obviously never going to be out of quarentine(sp?) again, and doomed
to die.
Gerald
Ryan McGinnis
>2) On the two occasions when he "disappears" from the psychiatric hospital
>and the woods, he is wearing clothes, and they aren't left behind...unless
>they somehow get lost in transit???
It appears they transport him TO the past naked, but when they
retrieve him, they retrieve him and his clothes.
Kanga
Douglas) wrote:
::I understand what you mean. But, I think you have to remember that this
::movie probably went over the head of 90% of the population who went to
::see Brad Pitt and friends.
Really? I'm a fan of "Brad Pitt and friends" and understood the film quite
well. Thank you for being closed-minded about audiences. Even Gilliam has
learned to trust the audience.
::Although Gilliam can make a confusing movie no doubt, I don't think you
::should have expected him to! Maybe that just wasn't his intention this
::time.
I think that if Gilliam heard people say that they weren't confused at all
by his films, he would undoubtedly believe that he had failed.
Charlie C.
>
>In article <4ch6j0$l...@epas.utoronto.ca>, wog...@epas.utoronto.ca says...
>>
>>In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org
>>> wrote:
>>>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>>>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>>>
>>
>I like the anti-virus theory, but better yet, remember the virus MUTATED.
>So perhaps the people who got the airport wiff lived - young Cole, the
>scientist lady..etc. Although, if she was NOT from the future, how did she
>go from being an insurance salesperson to scientist. AGAIN though, in the
>context of this movie, ANYTHING could happen or could be explained with one
>theory or another. I think that was the beauty of it.
I think that the insurance line was an ironic joke. She was the scientist from the future and was
seated next to the guy as insurance in case Bruce Willis couldn't bring back a pure form of the
virus. Remember as soon as Bruce Willis leaves that message, his "cell-mate" shows up.
As soon as the future new where and when BW was going to be they could find him (he
took out his teeth remember). Well as soon as someone from the future (the cell-mate?)
realized who started the virus then they could send someone back at the right time to get the
seat next to him.
Charlie Chow
Houston, TX
Jonathan Pakianathan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>
>>otherwise (if this were her in 1996) she would have probably contracted
>>the virus and not made it to the future.
>
>survive, so perhaps she like Willis had a natural immunity to it.
>
>>>the viruses they had? If they are the 1% who are immune why couldn't
>>>they live on the surface anyway. The Willis character had to have
>>>been immune since he was standing at the airport near where the original
>>>vial was released.
Well,
Cole might have gotten lucky and not gotten infected - might
need closer contact etc. Also I am not sure the 1% were immune,
I think they managed to go underground and secure themselves in time.
(This is hinted at in the website at www.mca.com where they
allow you to go around and explore the world of the 12 monkeys
-look at the posters in the room with the interogation chair!)
>Now I have a problem with this theory of infecting someone to bring back
>an unmutated source of the virus. If it was done in this way, rather than
>perhaps somehow getting it in one of the vials, what was to stop this
>person from infecting the others, since they were going to have to study
>this sample to find a cure. And it seemed from the opening scenes that
>the survivors, at least those in prison, lived very densely packed and
>anything contagious would have spread like wild fire.
I presume they would be careful when bringing her back.
-Jonpak
arandia
: In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org> wrote:
: >I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
: >have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
: >If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
: Saw it once on Friday. Liked it very much.
: >
: >
: One thing about how time travel is set up in the film is that there is
: no way to bring external objects from the past into the present. She
: is perhaps sitting there to become infected with the virus.
I see. Kind of like the same way that Bruce Willis brought that
World War I bullet to the 90's. You know. That totally explains
why Bruce swallowed the spider in the first part of the movie.
He wanted to bring it back to the future. In his drugged state,
it was perfectly logical.
joel
Chris.Hilker
No, he was located in the airport because of his telephone call.
C.
--
cs...@netcom.com (Chris.Hilker) "I feel like I'm being electrocuted."
The alt.rave mini-FAQ: "Q: ?" "A: hyperreal.com (http://hyperreal.com)"
Jay O'Rear
Mike Lewis
>In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander <mat...@io.org> wrote:
>>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>>
>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
>>next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
>>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger. Was
>>she really in insurance? I suppose it's possible that post-apocalypse she
>>could get a new career as a scientist.
>
>I got the impression that Gilliam was using the term "scientist"
>ironically, i.e. that the controlling powers of the future took the
>name as a symbol of authority. They are scientists in the sense that
>they have knowledge, not that they seek it. I thought it was a nice
>touch, playing on our society's ever-increasing dependence on science
>to tell us how to act.
>
>As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
>though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
>from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
>vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
>future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
>the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
>since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
>
>>3. What was the motive for releasing the virus around the world in
>>such a deliberate manner? Did David Morse think that he would become
>>world ruler after everyone else was dead, or something like that? Or
>>was he just a psychopath?
>
>That was my main problem with the movie. He seemed sane enough; did
>he really, like Brad Pitt's character, think humanity "needed" to be
>wiped out?
>
My opinion is when the leader was on the airplane next to Morse and
introduced herself as "in insurance", she was back from the past
following up on the 2nd message "to the cleaners".
The "insurance" ment one of two things.
either she was insuring that she got a pure sample of the virus to
take back to the future to develope a future antidote and allow them
to get back to the surface or
She was insuring it didn't spread further than Philadelphia.
Since Morse opened the vial in the airport, everyone there is dead,
maybe it only killed everyuone on the easter seaboard and the future
is changed creating a circle of time paradoxs that the movie won't
solve.
I also liked the movie. Morse explained himself as a fanatical
earth saver for animals in the scene at the speech about the book when
he gave a long rambling statement about how humanity was destroying
the world and must die to save the animals.
Mike Lewis
>Ken Rudolph (ke...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: Mathew Englander (mat...@io.org) wrote:
>: : I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
>: : have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
>
>: : If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>
>
>The new guy (BW's inmate friend) did not know who to kill. The people from
>the present could only send him back to the point in space-time where they knew
>BW's character was located for sure (at the airport right after he makes the
>phone call). Recall that BW's character makes no mention in his message
>as to who the real culprit is. Why the inmate friend gives him a gun is
>explained partially by the fact that BW's character supposedly should know
>who to kill. Of course he doesn't know at that point, but luckily MS's
>character bursts in with the information. And away they go after the guy.
>
This is wrong...BW didn't say who did it in the phone message because
he didn't know at that time. It was only when the psych saw Morse in
line and then told BW after he had the gun that he knew who he was
after. What I didn't understand is why the new people from the future
were there since BW's 2nd message was only the 12 Monkeys weren't the
virus spreaders.
>Another reason that he is given the gun is because he has to be shot
>eventually with the gun (this is circular, I know).
No...he was shot by the police because he was running through the
airport carrying the gun
>
But I liked it
D Lewis
>I don't know if that is strictly true. I think the scene in which he is
>shown being sent back in time contributes to this confusion. He's got all
>those electrodes hooked up to him and he's naked, and lands smack dab in
>the middle of WWI, naked! It was probably done more for dramatics then
Er, Willis isn't *quite* naked ... he does have a little black loincloth
thingee covering up his private parts as he's strapped down in the time-travel
pod. (This *is* a movie designed for the U.S. mass market.) That was the only
"inconsistency" in the movie that I found aggravating. The director had already
established that clothes couldn't go through the time-travel gizmo, and the
audience had already seen Willis' bare buns three times, so why put a tiny black
loincloth thingee over our hero's groin while he's in the time-travel pod? Why
not just leave it off or, if the director or studio was too afraid of the
ratings board, just leave the overhead shot of Willis' full body out of the
picture????
--Dennis
Rowan-Morrison
>In <4cmgj6$s...@ulowell.uml.edu> rbar...@jupiter.cs.uml.edu (Ralph Barbagallo) writes:
>I don't remember that we ever see the face of the suitcase guy until the
>final airport scene.
Nope - I saw the movie with a bunch of friends, and we all came out
asking the same question: "So why did BW see BP in his dream if
it was actually DM that did it?" We all sort of came up with two
theories. 1) BW's exposure to BP caused him to place his face on the
strange man in his dream (much like MS tries to convince BW when he
tells her that she's in his dream). Or 2) Perhaps in an earlier
chain of events, free of time traveling interventions, BP *would*
have been the man with the case. But that destiny was altered, and DM
took his place. I'm inclined to go with the first choice, especially
since it was alluded to in the story.
-Christine
Mel Tsai
>Now I have a problem with this theory of infecting someone to bring back
>an unmutated source of the virus. If it was done in this way, rather than
>perhaps somehow getting it in one of the vials, what was to stop this
>person from infecting the others, since they were going to have to study
>this sample to find a cure. And it seemed from the opening scenes that
>the survivors, at least those in prison, lived very densely packed and
>anything contagious would have spread like wild fire.
>
If the "scientists" from the future knew who released the virus (they
obviously did, because they reserved a plane ticket right next to
him!), why didn't they send some people back to the lab where it was
originally created, and stop it from ever happening? Or, if you think
the argument was that they couldn't change the past anyway, why didn't
they just have someone infiltrate the lab and see how the virus was
produced?
Also, I never got the impression that the people in the future
survived because they were immune. If they were immune (a) why did
they still have to live underground, and (b) why did they take such
big precautions (the blood tests and heavy quarintines they gave BW)
when people went topside?
I think this movie is kind of drab, since it seems as though Cole will
just continue in the cycle of seeing himself die in the airport, be
tortured (along with everyone else) in the holocaust, and then become
the scientists guinea pig again and die in the airport. I'm sure his
character didn't feel like a hero for saving the future!
Alternate plot interpretation:
When I first came out of the movie, I thought this: The "scientists"
were all psychopaths, and they *wanted* the virus to be released.
That is why they sent bruce willis back in time, because they knew he
was indirectly the cause of the holocaust. This is also why the lady
said that she was "in insurance." She and the others were there to
make *sure* the virus was released! That way they could stay the
leaders of the future.
Of course, this is far fetched, but possible.
J Lanier
>jla...@panix.com (J Lanier) writes:
>>In <4cmkfr$g...@cnn.Princeton.EDU> jon...@math.princeton.edu (Jonathan Pakianathan) writes:
>>>In article <4cmeqb$n...@news.vanderbilt.edu> EYL...@ctrvx1.Vanderbilt.Edu ( ) writes:
>>>>>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>This is not necessarily the case. Since 1% of the population managed to
>>survive, so perhaps she like Willis had a natural immunity to it.
>If they had a natural immunity, they wouldn't be hiding underground.
Okay....
>>>I think they said something about the virus mutating and they
>>>wanted a sample of the initial virus to help them figure things out.
>>>This might explain some of the above.
>>Now I have a problem with this theory of infecting someone to bring back
>>an unmutated source of the virus. If it was done in this way, rather than
>>perhaps somehow getting it in one of the vials, what was to stop this
>>person from infecting the others, since they were going to have to study
>>this sample to find a cure. And it seemed from the opening scenes that
>>the survivors, at least those in prison, lived very densely packed and
>>anything contagious would have spread like wild fire.
>The infected scientist had "volunteered" to be a guinea pig...she was
>obviously never going to be out of quarentine(sp?) again, and doomed
>to die.
Maybe....but this seems to be stretching things based on what was
presented in the movie.
>Gerald
J Lanier
>J Lanier <jla...@panix.com> writes:
>
>>I don't know if that is strictly true. I think the scene in which he is
>>shown being sent back in time contributes to this confusion. He's got all
>>those electrodes hooked up to him and he's naked, and lands smack dab in
>>the middle of WWI, naked! It was probably done more for dramatics then
>
>Er, Willis isn't *quite* naked ... he does have a little black loincloth
>thingee covering up his private parts as he's strapped down in the time-travel
>pod. (This *is* a movie designed for the U.S. mass market.) That was the only
>"inconsistency" in the movie that I found aggravating.
Oh that! I thought it was part of the time-travel apparatus. Perhaps it
was a concession to US sensibilities, but as you point out below editing
could have handled that.
>The director had already
>established that clothes couldn't go through the time-travel gizmo,
When and how was this established. In the scene in the jail when he's
talking to MS he's got one of those futuristic plastic jackets on. That
must have got sent back somehow.
J Lanier
>If the "scientists" from the future knew who released the virus (they
>obviously did, because they reserved a plane ticket right next to
>him!), why didn't they send some people back to the lab where it was
>originally created, and stop it from ever happening? Or, if you think
>the argument was that they couldn't change the past anyway, why didn't
>they just have someone infiltrate the lab and see how the virus was
>produced?
>Also, I never got the impression that the people in the future
>survived because they were immune. If they were immune (a) why did
>they still have to live underground, and (b) why did they take such
>big precautions (the blood tests and heavy quarintines they gave BW)
>when people went topside?
Well it is mentioned that in addition to killing everyone, it also
rendered the surface uninhabitable. Since at that point they did not
know what caused the virus, they had no way of knowing whether it was
still active so perhaps they were just being cautious and also why they had
not attempted to go back to the surface sooner.
Mathew Mills
The "scientists" send back someone to change the past. They never
come to power, hense they never send anyone back, hense they come to
power.... a visious cycle, totally unstable. In this films theory of
time (that of a static 4-dimensional world, rather than a changing
3-dimensional world) that only a stable (non-changing) model can
actually "exist"... I know this is a hrad concept to grasp, but one
that comes to make perfect reason after considering the
alternatives... I beleive this model is used by the movie 12 Monkeys
ivan balabuck
>To: cj...@ciao.cc.columbia.edu
>Subject: Re: Twelve Monkeys plot queries *MAJOR SPOILERS*
>Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies
>References: <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org> <4cc2af$p...@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu>
>
>>Saw it once on Friday. Liked it very much.
>
>>One thing about how time travel is set up in the film is that there is
>>no way to bring external objects from the past into the present. She
>>is perhaps sitting there to become infected with the virus.
>
>shown being sent back in time contributes to this confusion. He's got all
>those electrodes hooked up to him and he's naked, and lands smack dab in
>the middle of WWI, naked! It was probably done more for dramatics then
>scenes:
>
>1) When we first see BW's character in the jail he's got on one of those
>plastic garments that they seem to wear in his present. He must have
>traveled back to 1990 with it.
>2) On the two occasions when he "disappears" from the psychiatric hospital
>and the woods, he is wearing clothes, and they aren't left behind...unless
>they somehow get lost in transit???
This is one of the aspects of time travel in 12 Monkeys that I really
enjoyed. "This science isn't an _exact_ science." Everything in
the future is unevenly cobbled together and barely functioning, and that
includes time travel. Hence, Cole arrives at the wrong times, sometimes
naked, sometimes clothed, fitting in with the jury-rigged feel of
Cole's time. The inconsistency, IMHO, is intentional and thematic.
Alec Usticke
mcg...@pionet.net (Ryan McGinnis) wrote:
> jla...@panix.com (J Lanier) wrote:
>
> >2) On the two occasions when he "disappears" from the psychiatric hospital
> >and the woods, he is wearing clothes, and they aren't left behind...unless
> >they somehow get lost in transit???
>
> It appears they transport him TO the past naked, but when they
> retrieve him, they retrieve him and his clothes.
What about the first time he's seen in the "past?" He's wearing the
condom suit, isn't he?
--
Alec Usticke - unc...@nai.net
uncl...@aol.com - 10324...@compuserve.com - uncl...@msn.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply
Andrew Grover
> enjoyed. "This science isn't an _exact_ science." Everything in
> the future is unevenly cobbled together and barely functioning, and that
> includes time travel. Hence, Cole arrives at the wrong times, sometimes
> naked, sometimes clothed, fitting in with the jury-rigged feel of
> Cole's time. The inconsistency, IMHO, is intentional and thematic.
...but why'd they SEND him back almost naked if it wasn't necessary?
Clothes, virii, bullets etc seem to make it fine through the, uh, time warp.
Just to make a cool-looking scene? Or did they run out of clothes in the
future?
Andy
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Grover | That which is never attempted never transpires.
agr...@emory.edu | - Jack Vance
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~agrover/index.html
J Lanier
>In article <4cl11q$1...@panix.com>, J Lanier <jla...@panix.com> wrote:
>>To: cj...@ciao.cc.columbia.edu
>>Subject: Re: Twelve Monkeys plot queries *MAJOR SPOILERS*
>>Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies
>>References: <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org> <4cc2af$p...@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu>
>>
>>>Saw it once on Friday. Liked it very much.
>>
>>>One thing about how time travel is set up in the film is that there is
>>>no way to bring external objects from the past into the present. She
>>>is perhaps sitting there to become infected with the virus.
>>
>>I don't know if that is strictly true. I think the scene in which he is
>>shown being sent back in time contributes to this confusion. He's got all
>>those electrodes hooked up to him and he's naked, and lands smack dab in
>>the middle of WWI, naked! It was probably done more for dramatics then
>>anything else, but does create an inconsistency, with the following
>>scenes:
>>
>>1) When we first see BW's character in the jail he's got on one of those
>>plastic garments that they seem to wear in his present. He must have
>>traveled back to 1990 with it.
>>
>>2) On the two occasions when he "disappears" from the psychiatric hospital
>>and the woods, he is wearing clothes, and they aren't left behind...unless
>>they somehow get lost in transit???
>This is one of the aspects of time travel in 12 Monkeys that I really
>enjoyed. "This science isn't an _exact_ science." Everything in
>the future is unevenly cobbled together and barely functioning, and that
>includes time travel. Hence, Cole arrives at the wrong times, sometimes
>naked, sometimes clothed, fitting in with the jury-rigged feel of
>Cole's time. The inconsistency, IMHO, is intentional and thematic.
I guess that's one way to look at it. I remember just before he landed
in WWI the scientists said they were sending him to the right time in
1996 and the right place and then he landed in the middle of a war. I
thought, "Oops! They goofed again!"
J Lanier
>> This is one of the aspects of time travel in 12 Monkeys that I really
>> enjoyed. "This science isn't an _exact_ science." Everything in
>> the future is unevenly cobbled together and barely functioning, and that
>> includes time travel. Hence, Cole arrives at the wrong times, sometimes
>> naked, sometimes clothed, fitting in with the jury-rigged feel of
>> Cole's time. The inconsistency, IMHO, is intentional and thematic.
>...but why'd they SEND him back almost naked if it wasn't necessary?
>Clothes, virii, bullets etc seem to make it fine through the, uh, time warp.
>Just to make a cool-looking scene? Or did they run out of clothes in the
>future?
While Ivan's interpretation is one way of looking at it, I tend to go
along with the idea that it was done more for dramatic purposes.
Kanga
(Ralph Barbagallo) wrote:
::In article <4co7lo$a...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,
::Jay O'Rear <jor...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
::>
::>>Yeah, but that flashback was just a memory of Willis'. Brad Pitt's
::
:: I'm pretty sure Pitt said something like 'Watch it!" to the
::kid, which is exactly what the scientist says as he brushes past him.
::Every other detail is the same....so it's my theory that the flow
::of events was changed. Somehow through Willis' trip to 1990, he
::influenced Pitt in a way that ended up changing what the Army of
::the 12 Monkeys did...or something. I dunno...but hey...
You are right about Pitt saying "Watch it!" as did Morse when he brushed
past the young Cole.
About Pitt being in Willis' dreams and being the only detail that changes,
it's called "memory substitution". Willis had convinced himself that Pitt
was behind it all and therefore his dreams would reflect that.
Kanga
Anastassios Tzingounis <atz...@emory.edu> wrote:
::On 6 Jan 1996, Gerald Olchowy wrote:
::
::> wog...@epas.utoronto.ca (Walter OGrady) writes:
::>
::> >In article <4c6mfr$p...@ionews.io.org>, Mathew Englander
<mat...@io.org> wrote:
::> >>I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
::> >>have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
::> >>
::> >>If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::>
::> >As for the woman, I thought she could have been 20-30 years younger,
::> >though it wasn't terribly convincing. If she had just come backward
::> >from the future, all the irony of her comment "I'm in insurance" would
::> >vanish, and that would be too bad. Also, if she was coming from the
::> >future to prevent the virus from being released, why bother sitting on
::> >the plane? She might as well go straight to Peru or wherever it was,
::> >since she obviously didn't recognize Morse.
::>
::> She was insurance for Cole...the mission was to bring back a
::> non-mutated form of the virus to the future. Cole failed to
::> accomplish the task...but by being one of the first few individuals
::> infected by interacting with "Morse's" character, the "scientist"
::> will take back the unmutated form of the virus into the future.
::>
::>
::> Gerald
::>
::>
::Why not kill him, thus, no spread of the virus in such a huge scale.
Because it is proven that they cannot change the past (Willis could not
prevent his own death, regardless of a "pardon""), so all they can do is
prepare for their future by finding an unmutated form of the virus and
finding a cure.
James Pavlovich
It's probably among those many assumptions we usually accept with
>time-travel plots: whatever is happening in the past (1996) as executed
>by travelers from the future (2025) is only reaching the future as if on
>a linked 1996-2025 clock. This applies to 12 Monkeys as well as to all
>other time-travel plots, and to all identical inconsistencies in this
>one: otherwise, e.g., they would not have to 'wait' in 2025 for the
>Willis character to do anything in 1996 -- all his actions would have
>been past and therefore their results readily avaliable to them in 2025.
>
NO! NO! NO! That is precisely the point of the film. Everything in the
past had already happened before Cole went back the first time. He did
not change an iota of history, he merely went back and played his role
as it had already unfolded. All the information was there in 2025 for
the scientists to find they just did not know where to look. Everyone
is assuming that they know everything about the past. That is hardly
likely. Until they sent Cole back they did not know where to look for
the information.
Railly's phone message could be decoded and reconstructed
and heard before Cole was sent to 1996, it was always there, but they
did not know to look for it until they had set it up as Cole's drop.
Cole's airport message was also there, but they did not reconstruct it
until Cole was sent back again. Cole's dream of his young self in
the airport was a memory. It had already happened before he went back.
Sure, all the info was there for the scientists' if they knew where
to look, but WHAT IF they had found the information before they sent
Cole back? Then they would not have sent Cole back and you would have
a paradox, because then they would not have the information. Therefore,
it had to happen the way it happened. That is the whole point. This
film was very successful in dealing with time travel and there are no
paradoxes. There is no linked clock, merely immutable history.
James Pavlovich
James Pavlovich
>I didn't even see this second point until you mentioned it but it is
>exlainable. Of course, the scientists have heard all the messages left by
>Cole and others on the voice mail. They also understand that they still must
>carry out all the actions that history says took place. It bring up an
>interesting point about time travel. It is often mentioned that those in the
>past may be bound to act in order to produce the future. If this sort
>of determinism holds true, it must also be true for those in the future. They
>also may be bound to act in certain ways in order to produce their future.
>At it's simplest, Cole had to go back just so he could make that phone call.
>
Excellent point, but I do not think the scientists were acting conciously
to produce the specific events anymore than than those of the past acted
conciously to produce this specific future. The film explained that it
took time to decode and reconstruct the voice mail messages. I find that
a perfectly logical explanation.
James Pavlovich
James Pavlovich
--
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
James G. Pavlovich, Ph.D.
Mass Spectrometry Facility Phone: 805-893-4252
Chemistry Department FAX: 805-893-4120
University of California Email: pavl...@sbmm1.ucsb.edu
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
Carolyn Ford
Well here's my take on the memory of Brad Pitt. We are told several
times through the movie that you can't change the future. So what if
in one time line (the first time, when Cole was a kid in the airport)
it *was* Jeffrey that he saw. Now remember that Stowe (can't remember
her character's name, sorry) TOLD Jeffrey's dad to cut Jeffrey off from
access to the virus, and he did. BUT you *can't change the future*, so
the virus had to be released somehow, and in the next time line, someone
else did it. Same result, just different person carrying out destiny.
So Cole and Stowe *thought* they had fingered the wrong guy as the
culprit, but in fact they had the right one, but it didn't matter, the
events were going to work themselves out the same way, no matter what
they did. Even if they shot the red-haired guy, someone else would have
done it. The reason I think that it was Jeffrey in the first time line
is that he (I think) told Cole at the dad's party about the plan that
Jeffrey thinks Cole thought up, and really acted like he was going to
carry it out. Just because releasing the animals was part of the
plan, too, doesn't mean they weren't also planning to release the
virus, but gave up that part of the plan after they found out dad
was out of the loop.
Now, once the other guy from the future who handed Cole the
gun saw who he was aiming at, he was yanked back to the future, told
the scientists who to look for, and they send the woman back to get the
sample. Remember, they told Cole many times that he was just a scout,
and once they had enough info, they would send a scientist back for
the sample. So it all fits in.
Any fatal errors with that theory?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carolyn Ford | "Go ahead. Skin that smokewagon
EE, CU Boulder | and see what happens!"
cf...@colorado.edu |
George W. Harris
thusly:
=The ability to change/not change the past/future was also inconsistent.
=Clearly the travelers were changing things e.g. Railly's life, if
=nothing else. How does it make sense to be able to change some things -
=but not the development of the future?
Nothing changed. Everything happened exactly once, and it
happened in exactly one way. Railly's life was *always* that way.
=Loved the movie -- but you can't think too much about it.
On the contrary, it's remarkably consistent.
--
1. Keep your hand moving. 2. Lose control. 3. Be specific. 4. Don't think.
George W. Harris gha...@tiac.net
Drew Feinberg
Zach Douglas <za...@hub.ofthe.net> wrote:
>In article <4cn7di$c...@panix.com>, jla...@panix.com says...
>>
>>In <4cmgj6$s...@ulowell.uml.edu> rbar...@jupiter.cs.uml.edu (Ralph Bar
>>bagallo) writes:
>
>On the flash-back scenes, or the disguised Cole:
>
>Did anyone think his disguise made him look like a Kevin Costner
>look-alike?! I thought it did. Very strange.
>
>
I was thinking he looked more like his character in "In Country".
Always,
Drew Feinberg
Drew's Scripts-O-Rama: The Definitive Guide To Free Film Scripts On The Web
http://pobox.com/~drew/scripts.htm
Jae K. Kim
: What a great thread! Nothing like a good film to get you thinking.
...
: Third, does MS start it all in motion by the prank call? This is a
: humorous, albeit blackly humorous way of looking at our apocolypse. The
: Jerky Boys would be proud. First mentioned here, (by who I wish I could
: remember, perhaps Jae Kim?) I look forward to tracing this line of thought.
: (David Morse,
: crazy lab guy inherits the security code to deadly virus storage from
: rich daddy Nobel Laureate Christopher Plummer after the prank call.)
I think that the damning aspect of loops in the time line is that
causality goes down the drain; at some basic level, one must say
that something happened because it had to happen. It's like some
Moebius strip...you keep looking for that other side but it's just
not there...it can be disturbing. Given that perspective, we cannot
ever say for aspects such MS's knowledge of the 12 Monkeys, that
are part of the time line loop, that there is any beginning point.
--
************************************************************************
Jae K. Kim
j...@socrates.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca
************************************************************************
Gerald Olchowy
>Personally, the biggest problem I have with the congruency of the movie is
>this: the scientific community can't develop an antidote for the virus, but
>thjey *have* made considerable progress in travelling through time.
>
The entire 20th century has passed with a man on the moon and the
computer chip, and we made hardly any progress it curing the common
cold.
Gerald
Jae K. Kim
: j...@socrates.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca (Jae K. Kim) wrote:
: >Ken Rudolph (ke...@netcom.com) wrote:
: >: Mathew Englander (mat...@io.org) wrote:
: >: : I loved Twelve Monkeys, and I thought I understood it, but I still
: >: : have a few nagging problems with plot elements.
: >
: >: : If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
: >
: >
: >The new guy (BW's inmate friend) did not know who to kill. The people from
: >the present could only send him back to the point in space-time where they knew
: >BW's character was located for sure (at the airport right after he makes the
: >phone call). Recall that BW's character makes no mention in his message
: >as to who the real culprit is. Why the inmate friend gives him a gun is
: >explained partially by the fact that BW's character supposedly should know
: >who to kill. Of course he doesn't know at that point, but luckily MS's
: >character bursts in with the information. And away they go after the guy.
: >
: This is wrong...BW didn't say who did it in the phone message because
: he didn't know at that time. It was only when the psych saw Morse in
: line and then told BW after he had the gun that he knew who he was
: after. What I didn't understand is why the new people from the future
: were there since BW's 2nd message was only the 12 Monkeys weren't the
: virus spreaders.
This is what I said. Please read what I wrote again. :-)
Zach Douglas
>
>J Lanier <jla...@panix.com> writes:
>audience had already seen Willis' bare buns three times, so why put a
>tiny black>loincloth thingee over our hero's groin while he's in the
time-travel
>pod? Why>not just leave it off or, if the director or studio was too afraid
of >the ratings board, just leave the overhead shot of Willis' full body out
o>f the
>picture????
>
>
Hmm. Maybe because we've seen Bruce Willis penis in 2 of his last couple
of films already!? (Pulp Fiction, Color of Knight). Although that would
perhaps support the theory that if they were going to show it, might
as well have been Bruce.
Someone else mentioned this: If he has to be naked, how does he get
BACK in time each time?
--Dennis
James Pavlovich
re...@ix.netcom.com(Rex Jackson) wrote:
>In <4cmgj6$s...@ulowell.uml.edu> rbar...@jupiter.cs.uml.edu (Ralph
>Barbagallo) writes:
>
>> Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
>>Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
>>it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
>>events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it
>>did in the first loop.
>
>Yeah, but that flashback was just a memory of Willis'. Brad Pitt's
>character had just been burned into Willis' memory. I am under the
>impression that it was just a case of recent events being overlaid on
>memories in Willis' dream.
>--
>
As I recall, when we see the dream at the beginning we don't the
character's face. It is only after Cole has met Pitt's character
and ties Railly to the dream that he superimposes Pitt's image on the
figure. The boy probably never got a good look at the real character
carrying the suitcase. What I want to know is why didn't Cole
remember seeing Railly looking at him and smiling? MY GOD, I would
have.
James Pavlovich
KIM
> In article <4ch6j0$l...@epas.utoronto.ca>, wog...@epas.utoronto.ca says...>>>>1. The woman scientist from the future, who at the end is on the plane
>>>next to David Morse -- was she supposed to have traveled back from the
>>>future to meet him, or was that the same woman thirty years younger.
>>>Ws she really in insurance?
No, i was not left with that impression. I thought she was referring to
"insurance" for the future human race. And i think she definitely came
back from the future.
>>That was my main problem with the movie. He seemed sane enough; did
>>he really, like Brad Pitt's character, think humanity "needed" to be
>>wiped out?
> I think a lot of people both sane and not share that sentiment - why
> WOULDN'T the world be better off dead? Think about it.
The motivation and story behind the guy who spread the virus could be a
whole 'nother movie!
-kim
Jae K. Kim
: =Another reason that he is given the gun is because he has to be shot
: =eventually with the gun (this is circular, I know).
: No, Cole was shot by a policeman's gun.
Hmmm....on reflection, it appears that I constructed a sentence
with two meanings. What I wanted to say was that he was given
the gun because he was eventually shot with the same gun in his
possession. Apologies for the confusion.
Jae K. Kim
: j...@sparky.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca (Jae K. Kim) writes:
: >: If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further.
: >4a. If they did not know at what point in space-time that the message was made,
: > they had to wait until after they send BW's character the last time around.
: > This also means that the inmate friend could not have died in WWI
: > (actually I'm not sure that he did) because he has to be alive at the
: > time they send BW's character back the last time around.
: The other character's having been sent to WWI on a trip "later" than the
: one in which he gives JC the gun is a possibility - after all, he doesn't
: mention having seen JC there.
Yes, look at possibility 4b that I wrote after this.
Jae K. Kim
: In article <DKp16...@phoebus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca>,
: j...@zeus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca says...
: >e >person(s) who spread the virus so that they could get a sample; it mak
: >es >more sense to assume that she came from the future. As well, I doubt t
: >hat>she intended to prevent the release of the virus, just to get a sample
: > >somehow from him. I've described why I feel that this is the case in
: >earlier posts, ie. the unchangeable past argument.
: >
: >
: Ok, I'm of course confused and it's late, so if I say something totally
: ridiculous, I apologize ahead of time.
: So it's very possible that the future scientists already knew that the
: airport scene was going to happen, as they had SEEN it happen once before
: (we don't see this, but imagine with me for a moment) so they sent a few
: agents as this was the FINAL chapter of going back perhaps - the last
: succesfull mission. In this mission they actually send a scientist to do
: the work (but why?) as they know everything will go as planned. Cole will
: be a meaningless sacrifice, although he WILL be granted a pardon in the
: future and perhaps live on earth again some day. WRONG, he died so he can't
: get a pardon, even though his younger self still lives. But, his younger
: self will be destined to repeat things over and over again indefinately...
: correct or no?
That's more or less it although I'm not sure that I would say that Cole
was a meaningless sacrifice....:-)
Jae K. Kim
: In article <4cl9fa$6...@alterdial.UU.NET>,
: Zach Douglas <za...@hub.ofthe.net> wrote:
: >In article <DKp16...@phoebus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca>,
: >j...@zeus.sunnybrook.utoronto.ca says...
: >Ok, I'm of course confused and it's late, so if I say something totally
: >ridiculous, I apologize ahead of time.
: >So it's very possible that the future scientists already knew that the
: >airport scene was going to happen, as they had SEEN it happen once before
: >(we don't see this, but imagine with me for a moment) so they sent a few
: >agents as this was the FINAL chapter of going back perhaps - the last
: >succesfull mission. In this mission they actually send a scientist to do
: >the work (but why?) as they know everything will go as planned. Cole will
: >be a meaningless sacrifice, although he WILL be granted a pardon in the
: >future and perhaps live on earth again some day. WRONG, he died so he can't
: >get a pardon, even though his younger self still lives. But, his younger
: >self will be destined to repeat things over and over again indefinately...
: >correct or no?
: Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
: Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
: it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
: events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it did
: in the first loop.
Not really, this can all be explained simply by Cole's evolving
memory of the event, rather than a changing of the event itself.
George W. Harris
Barbagallo) wrote thusly:
=>At first I thought this very thing, but two things disturb me about this
=>theory: first, every other detail in this dream remains identical to
=>the details of the other dreams. It seems strange that the identity of
=>the suitcase holder would be the only altered detail. Also, if I
=>remember correctly, doesn't Brad Pitt mouth something to young James
=>when he turns around and looks at him? I haven't worked out anything
=>more satisfying, but is there an *alternate* past implied here?
= I'm pretty sure Pitt said something like 'Watch it!" to the
=kid, which is exactly what the scientist says as he brushes past him.
=Every other detail is the same....so it's my theory that the flow
=of events was changed. Somehow through Willis' trip to 1990, he
=influenced Pitt in a way that ended up changing what the Army of
=the 12 Monkeys did...or something. I dunno...but hey...
Remember, Cole sees Goines in the dream after his second
return to his present, when he believes that Goines is responsible for
releasing the virus. It's my interpretation that this is just his recent
experiences getting confused with his memory. The past isn't
changed at all.
=Ralph A. Barbagallo III --- rbar...@cs.uml.edu --- Only AMIGA makes it
George W. Harris
thusly:
=One view that I would like to share is this:
=Could it be that the 'scientists' of the future actually could change the
=past, but have no desire to do so? Applying Gilliam's views of
=authoritarians (based on his previous films), maybe these people don't
=give a damn about humanity, and are only concerned with their own little
=empires.
=Consider this. These people are living in a future that is absolutely
=hellish, BUT ... they are the ones in power. If they send someone to the
=past to prevent the plague, their timeline disappears. Yet, if they are
=only concerned with their own survival, they can send their own little
=army of test monkeys back to the past to obtain virus samples, find a
=cure, and reclaim the planet.
I don't think so. Recall the final scene with the woman scientist "in
insurance." She has returned to the past to retrieve the pure form of the
virus from the man who spreads it. But he is possibly infected: so she is at
incredible risk herself. This act of self-sacrifice is not consistent with
the mind-set of tinhorn dictators with delusions of godhood.
George W. Harris
<atz...@emory.edu> wrote thusly:
=On 6 Jan 1996, Gerald Olchowy wrote:
=> wog...@epas.utoronto.ca (Walter OGrady) writes:
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=>
=> She was insurance for Cole...the mission was to bring back a
=> non-mutated form of the virus to the future. Cole failed to
=> accomplish the task...but by being one of the first few individuals
=> infected by interacting with "Morse's" character, the "scientist"
=> will take back the unmutated form of the virus into the future.
=>
=>
=> Gerald
=>
=>
=Why not kill him, thus, no spread of the virus in such a huge scale.
The virus was spread in the past. There was no way to
change that.
J Lanier
>A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...
>mcg...@pionet.net (Ryan McGinnis) wrote:
>> jla...@panix.com (J Lanier) wrote:
>>
>> >2) On the two occasions when he "disappears" from the psychiatric hospital
>> >and the woods, he is wearing clothes, and they aren't left behind...unless
>> >they somehow get lost in transit???
>>
>> It appears they transport him TO the past naked, but when they
>> retrieve him, they retrieve him and his clothes.
>What about the first time he's seen in the "past?" He's wearing the
>condom suit, isn't he?
That's right. That's what I keep saying.
-Petroit,R.G.
is a re-hash, but what did MS's character refer to when she told
JC "This is the way I remember you...". She said this in the lobby
of the theater after she and JC had put on their disguises.
Earlier in the film she stated that she felt she "knows" JC. Some
posters say this is based on the WWI picture, but the "remember"
line mentioned above seems to infer that there is more to her
knowledge of JC.
Any ideas? Did MS say something different in the theater lobby?
Thanks...
Scott D. Hamilton
: > Perhaps not. Because in the beginning of the movie, wasn't
: >Brad Pitt the guy with the suitcase? But by the time the movie ends,
: >it turns out to be the scientist guy with the case. So the flow of
: >events has changed, so who can say that the virus will spread as it did
: >in the first loop.
: I don't remember that we ever see the face of the suitcase guy until the
: final airport scene. In the flashbacks he is either shown only from
: behind or from the waist down. Neither do we see who is shot until that
: last scene as well.
Actually, Pitt is in the earlier airport scenes. However, Cole is
remembering the events differently each time. The movie sets up a
contrast between memory and history throughout the film, verbalized during
the movie thaeter scene.