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rbandrewsI've watched it one and a half times since I got it, yesterday. I think I understand the first half.
I'm going to invite people over this weekend to watch it, if anyone's interested. Maybe Saturday afternoon or something. It's like an hour long, so it's no big deal.
Premise: Two guys who work in their spare time in their garage make an invention that doesn't do quite what they expected.
The friends build a time machine. They're trying to build a field that blocks Earth's gravity, but what they actually build is a field that forms a closed loop in time. The box works like this: you turn it on, let it run for a while, then turn it off. As soon as you turn it off, there's a window where you can jump into the box. From that window onward, you're traveling backwards in time, until you exit the box shortly after it was turned on.
This is a variation of the wormhole time machine, and neatly fixes the causality problem (why we're not overrun by time tourists right now) by preventing you from ever traveling back farther than your time machine was activated.
So my synopsis of the first act. This will make no sense until you've watched the film, and will barely make sense then, so don't read further unless you're ready for spoilers. Confusing, twisted spoilers.
Abe finds the fungus on the weeble, and takes it to the labs. He figures out that the box is a time loop, and immediately sees what that implies. Abe builds a box, called "failsafe-1" here, and activates it. Note that Abe and Aaron never see their doubles leave the boxes, because that might violate causality. They're very careful in that regard, which is why Abe never sees Aaron leave failsafe-1.
As soon as Aaron leaves failsafe-1, he moves it (carefully, since it's still running) to another storage unit. He sets up the box he brought back with him, folded up, and turns it on in failsafe-1's place. This box is now failsafe-2.
Aaron then runs back to town, because he has some errands. First stop, his own house, where he drugs the milk and finds his double, stuffing him in the attic. Then he sets up the tapes and earpiece and runs to the park bench, where he has an appointment with Abe, to be told about the amazing miracle of the time cube.
During park bench scene one, in the beginning, Abe spends the day telling Aaron about the time machine. with visits to the lab. In these scenes you can see that Aaron is clearly wearing the earpiece, and even has a diagram of the big box on his clipboard! He's playing along; he came back to get here before Abe could, but Abe never went back. The whole thing with Granger hadn't happened yet, so Abe hadn't decided to go back in what he thought was failsafe-1.
Park bench scene two occurs after the Granger incident. Abe has gone back in "failsafe-1", which was actually failsafe-2 because Aaron switched them. He meets "original Aaron" at the park bench, with the intention of not telling him about the time machine because, well, the Granger incident can't happen that way. He has just spent four days in a failsafe box and drugged his double, stuffing him in a closet, so he can't interfere with the park bench conversation. He's exhausted, but it was all worth it because he's gone back to a box before he even told Aaron about the machine; Aaron can't possibly have followed him back here.
And then he sees Aaron, saying his half of the original conversation blindly, with an earpiece in his ear. Somehow he's beaten him. End of act 1.
What's the Granger incident? Why can't they write normally? What happens at the party, and why? That's all in the second half of the film, which I haven't pieced together yet.
I'm going to invite people over this weekend to watch it, if anyone's interested. Maybe Saturday afternoon or something. It's like an hour long, so it's no big deal.
Premise: Two guys who work in their spare time in their garage make an invention that doesn't do quite what they expected.
The friends build a time machine. They're trying to build a field that blocks Earth's gravity, but what they actually build is a field that forms a closed loop in time. The box works like this: you turn it on, let it run for a while, then turn it off. As soon as you turn it off, there's a window where you can jump into the box. From that window onward, you're traveling backwards in time, until you exit the box shortly after it was turned on.
This is a variation of the wormhole time machine, and neatly fixes the causality problem (why we're not overrun by time tourists right now) by preventing you from ever traveling back farther than your time machine was activated.
So my synopsis of the first act. This will make no sense until you've watched the film, and will barely make sense then, so don't read further unless you're ready for spoilers. Confusing, twisted spoilers.
Abe finds the fungus on the weeble, and takes it to the labs. He figures out that the box is a time loop, and immediately sees what that implies. Abe builds a box, called "failsafe-1" here, and activates it. Note that Abe and Aaron never see their doubles leave the boxes, because that might violate causality. They're very careful in that regard, which is why Abe never sees Aaron leave failsafe-1.
As soon as Aaron leaves failsafe-1, he moves it (carefully, since it's still running) to another storage unit. He sets up the box he brought back with him, folded up, and turns it on in failsafe-1's place. This box is now failsafe-2.
Aaron then runs back to town, because he has some errands. First stop, his own house, where he drugs the milk and finds his double, stuffing him in the attic. Then he sets up the tapes and earpiece and runs to the park bench, where he has an appointment with Abe, to be told about the amazing miracle of the time cube.
During park bench scene one, in the beginning, Abe spends the day telling Aaron about the time machine. with visits to the lab. In these scenes you can see that Aaron is clearly wearing the earpiece, and even has a diagram of the big box on his clipboard! He's playing along; he came back to get here before Abe could, but Abe never went back. The whole thing with Granger hadn't happened yet, so Abe hadn't decided to go back in what he thought was failsafe-1.
Park bench scene two occurs after the Granger incident. Abe has gone back in "failsafe-1", which was actually failsafe-2 because Aaron switched them. He meets "original Aaron" at the park bench, with the intention of not telling him about the time machine because, well, the Granger incident can't happen that way. He has just spent four days in a failsafe box and drugged his double, stuffing him in a closet, so he can't interfere with the park bench conversation. He's exhausted, but it was all worth it because he's gone back to a box before he even told Aaron about the machine; Aaron can't possibly have followed him back here.
And then he sees Aaron, saying his half of the original conversation blindly, with an earpiece in his ear. Somehow he's beaten him. End of act 1.
What's the Granger incident? Why can't they write normally? What happens at the party, and why? That's all in the second half of the film, which I haven't pieced together yet.
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Date: 2005-08-12 04:40 pm (UTC)