Newsgroup: it.cultura.fantascienza
Titolo: Time Loops (in 12 Monkeys)

point of view, end of story: he's dead. 
For Cole to be able to get back fully-grown at the airport, IMHO, (as for Martin
McFly to get back and meet himself younger in the '50s)  his youger self has to
live on.
This from a rational point of view (pov).
Now, if you follow the course of the child's life (instead than viwing the whole
thing from above like in the Gospel), there will come a point in which he'll
return back fully-grown.
The trait d'union that gives birth to the concept of a loop (which actually is
what seems to  happen in the film) is the simultaneous presence of a young and
an old Cole in the same airport. i.e.: at the end of the film we see him adult
and then we turn and can see him young. So can he. So the result of looking both
from inside and from outside seems the same.
Curious is that, from an identically  rational pov,  we might consider that the
movie shows us a dimension (a parallel universe,[ where p.u. are concepts
necessary to the scheme of time-travels, since every voyage back can modify the
known past])  where Cole gets back to the airport   just-this-once. I mean there
is no proof, from our pov , that Cole is to re-live the loop  endlessly. Not
even more than once. His youger self, once he has seen himself as an adult get
shot, might recognize himself, change his flight booking and die in a following
airplane crash, for all we know, and never get adult.
That would  be a just-once  trip for Cole.
But also the loop possibility is convincing, because "possible"; but only for an
outsider.
All in all, if I'm right, the young Cole just sees the shooting once, growns up
and comes back, to die.
The charachter cannot imagine himself to be trapped in a loop. The viewer can do
it just as not. It' s up to him, whether he only looks at the adult or at the
child, after the shooting. But in no case the viewer has got irrefutable proof.
Complicate, huh?
Ciao.
Guglielmo Pizzinelli
Milan, Italy - 
o...@mv.itline.it
 - 
"Discipline, 007, discipline..." (S. Connery, GF)

 wrote:




At last!! I was beginning to think that while some may be merely following
along, reading these posts, I was arguing this point all by my lonesome! :)
: Curious is that, from an identically  rational pov,  we might consider that the
: movie shows us a dimension (a parallel universe,[ where p.u. are concepts
: necessary to the scheme of time-travels, since every voyage back can modify the
: known past])  where Cole gets back to the airport   just-this-once. I mean there
: is no proof, from our pov , that Cole is to re-live the loop  endlessly. Not
: even more than once. His youger self, once he has seen himself as an adult get
: shot, might recognize himself, change his flight booking and die in a following
: airplane crash, for all we know, and never get adult.
But that would entail changing the past. And that is also why I've insisted
that what we see in the film is not the sudden presentation of 1996 as
the present and Cole's belief that 2027 is his present as merely an illusion.
What we witness in the film is 1996 as the past. As such, those events cannot
change. Therefore any sudden realization that you think young Cole may have,
if he did not have it before, he is not likely to have it this time. Cole
in fact turns the memory he has from his childhood of the shooting into a
dream. A very reasonable thing for him to do from a psychological POV given
his age at the time when he was a child. Therefore he's not likely to have
any sort of reaction to the event other than as a bad dream that he's had
since childhood.
So, as I have often stated before, there is every indication, given that
the past cannot be altered, that young Cole will grow up to live the very
same life and death that old Cole has just completed.
: That would  be a just-once  trip for Cole.
But therein lies the paradox. Cole is existing in two planes during the
same dimension, if you will. By coexisting with himself in 1996 and by
dying while his younger self is still alive, he doesn't really die, does
he?
: But also the loop possibility is convincing, because "possible"; but only for an
: outsider.
Outsider? Well, for the ability to recognize the pattern, yes. But even
Railly has this feeling of deja-vu which she mentions several times.
But the "possibility" as you put it, of a loop would definitely involve
directly both young and old Coles and all they came in contact with during
that period of time.
: All in all, if I'm right, the young Cole just sees the shooting once, growns up
: and comes back, to die.
But when he does come back and dies, there is yet another instance of a
child there to witness it, isn't there?? Or are you proposing that Cole's
"dream" which we, the viewers, saw happen again in the film, now somehow
fails to repeat itself when the child grows up to die as Cole did in the
film? If the past cannot, does not change, that is a constant. It cannot
change because the perspective has. The events themselves do not change.
So the child must live out the very same events the adult did and when
he dies there must be the child there again to witness his death. There's
the loop, folks! How can anyone fail to recognize that as such?
: The charachter cannot imagine himself to be trapped in a loop. The viewer can do
: it just as not. It' s up to him, whether he only looks at the adult or at the
: child, after the shooting. But in no case the viewer has got irrefutable proof.
But who's talking about the character's recognition of the loop itself?
I keep getting hammered that a loop exists at all when it quite clearly
does. Anyway, try explaining the phenomenon of deja-vu sometime. I think
this film does a pretty good job of offering a possible explanation. If
certain events can trigger a loop in time then that would explain why
we inexplicably cannot understand why certain events or surroundings
seem so familiar to us. If they had happened to us at some undetermined
other point in time then that would explain their familiarity, wouldn't
it?
Take 12M, for example. Cole has this "dream" from his childhood. Some
of the exact pieces are a bit clouded. He can't recognize all of the
faces. He mistakenly substituted some in place of others but the events
themselves are clearly recognizable to the viewers by the end of the
film. Railly definitely feels that she "knows" Cole, that she's met
him before. How to explain that unless this period of time exists in
a time loop? She feels like she's met him before because she has.
Cole has this memory from his childhood not merely because he did
see a man get killed in front of him at the airport but because he
was there as an adult in 1996 for the child to have even seen him
and for Railly to have met him before.
: Complicate, huh?
Very and I think it is this very circular kind of thinking that may
have lost a few people along the way but I've only stayed with this
discussion this long because of the implication made that I was
viewing this in a linear manner. It is precisely the opposite that
I've been stipulating for these many posts. And the very nature of
the time loop itself and Cole's death within his own past timeline.
Sorry to beat a dead horse about it but it was getting to me already.
mlv
--
                      ...     ...                       ...
          :::         :::     :::                       :::
  ......  ...  ...... :::...  :::.     .....  ...   ... :::
  ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::     ::: ::: :::   ::: :::
  ::: ::: ::: `::.::: ::: ::: `::.::' `::.::' `::.:.::' `::.
              ... ::: 
              `::.::'          E-mail: 
nigh...@walrus.com

and for Railly to have met him before.
This is acceptable to me, but I'm starting to forget why I'd said you had no
evidence of a loop. let me go and read again the previous posts [....time
out.......].
Ah, okay: again the key lies in how you think of time-travel. Meaning: I take
for granted that every time you go back in a moment in time  which you have
never been in, you create a different dimension just for the mere fact of being
there. You occupy a space, and someone who wants to go from A to B in that place
might have to make a diversion just to get 'round you. That's already modifying
the past. If Peter loses a couple of second to walk around you , his life
accumulates two seconds of delay which might turn out to be decisive in
comparison to what his life would have been if you had never appeared on his
way.
That's why I'm convinced that Cole's creating a different dimension the first
time he "lands" in '96, he sort of generates a "railway shunt" in time the very
moment he lands there. From that moment on everything that  happens will take
place in the NEW dimension. You may say that the younger Cole sees the older one
in the NEW dimension already.
This is , curiously, explained very effectively though briefly, by the Doc, in
BTF, to McFly. 
This theory excludes any liability of time-loops, at least I think.


 
Only as complicated as you have made it.  You are the one lost 
in space-time here.  I'm getting tired of watching this discussion 
NOT die in the face of very carefully detailed logic.
Yes, there are time loops in 12M.  You have not discussed one of 
them (yet).
Yes, you are viewing this specific event in a linear fashion.
If you have to, draw it all out on large pieces of paper with non-
sharp objects for a few days and think alll the above through very 
carefully and step by step.  Maybe you'll get it, eventually.
Just a couple more whacks at that poor, beaten equine.
-- 
       LSD is demonic possession  .... I think
                            (I just can't remember for sure).
                      --=-==-+-==-=--

in the asylum ...
This might be interesting.  Explain how these are loops.  (I can see
the last one, even though I disagree, but I'd like to hear your
explanations.)
	-- Fleury.
/--------------------------------------------------------------------\
| Bored?  Restless?  Sorry, can't help ya.  But go read my web page! |
|                                                                    |
|  Writing for Comics!  
http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~lmize1/writing.html
  |
\--------------------------------------------------------------------/

 
===============
The last one's the easiest :  Cole tells Brad Pitt that he's 
looking for signs of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, and 
Pitts' eyes light up w/ demonic delight.  Cole was sent back 
in time to look for tAot12M, but suggests the actual name to 
the person who later organizes it before tAot12M ever existed, 
thereby causing such a thing to exist for the future 
scientists to send him back looking for.
Now, THAT's a time loop.  The effect of traveling back in time 
causes an event that is a key cause of traveling back in time 
(to find tAot12M).  All subsequent actions/effects of tAot12M 
are a result of the event of Cole talking about tAot12M to an 
asylum inmate.
Now, consider Cole's (the second) phone call (while he's at 
the airport) :  his phone call allows the future scientists 
to know exactly where he is and what he's learned, thereby 
causing them to send their people back to the precise instant 
required to initiate Cole's death.  It can be argued that Cole 
causes his own death by making that phone call.
Upon more careful consideration, this may not precisely be a 
time loop since the events set in motion do not necessarily 
have a circular closure.  Some of my own arguements can be 
used against me from my previous post :  could someone else 
have made the call ?  Yes ... Coles presence was not required, 
it was incidential.  However, it can be argued (and I am) 
because the exchange of information between Cole & Railly was 
able to eliminate tAot12M, an event that caused him to place 
the call, and that couldn't have happened without Cole's & 
Railly's interactions.
More subtle, but I would still call this a time loop.
Railly's call to the future probably doesn't qualify by my 
own criteria, but in a sense it still may because Cole gave 
her the phone number from future information by which she 
was able to leave a message that he heard "before" she left 
it.  Maybe this is more of a "time spiral," where an event 
almost reaches closure of cause & event and intertwines in 
several out-of-sequence time segments.
The last one to address seems pretty straight forward :  
How could Railly have spray painted the message she did, 
with accurate numbers of dead and who she beleived was 
responsible, if Cole hadn't provided her the information 
from after the event ?  She would not have had such knowledge, 
and that knowledge then gave her the accurate "prescient" 
information to create one of the images that the future 
scientists sent Cole back looking for.  Her spray painting the 
message didn't cause the plague, but the image generated gave 
the scientists the location of tAot12M to send Cole searching 
for "before" the image existed.
And, now for extra credit, another one that comes to mind that 
has been the subject of much discussion so far :
The existance of the photo of Cole from WWI subliminally 
causes Railly to think of Cole as someone familiar to her.  
Cole's presence in WWI is a time travel event that causes 
several effects that would not have otherwise existed when 
Cole appears in Railly's time.  The existance of the photo 
has two effects :  one it gives Railly a "familiarity" of 
Cole that helps predispose her toward listening more closely 
to him to begin with, and her later recognition of Cole in 
the photo gives her proof that Cole's story is true (in 
conjunction with the bullet removed from his theigh) ... 
otherwise she would never have beleived him to go paint messages 
and get him to the airport in time for his own death.
How's that ?     :)   ;)
I need to get the video of 12M to study it for more examples 
... I think there are others but my recollection isn't clear 
enough to detail them from having only seen the movie once.
--
                      --=-==-+-==-=--
What you do with the earth beneath your feet, that is a prayer.
              ---  Human Kerro  (aka Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom)


Consider this. Cole is not the young boy at the airport. Cole is 
not from the future. Cole is crazy but he also has a unique pyschic 
ability. His ability to predict certain things in the futre has 
made him crazy.  The parts in the future are actually figments of his 
imagination but they ae created when his pyschic ability kicks in
This theory is most likey wrong but it might explain the old bum
that keeps calling him "bob" why does he call him "bob" is this man
part of coles real identity triing to break through? how does this old
dude travel from the future to the present without the help of the
scientists? he has taken out his teeth so the scientists can't find him
but yet he is still able to follow cole around. Are the scientists maybe
using this old dude to spy on cole? At the start, on eof the scientists
says that they've been having some trouble makers when they send back 
volenteers, is this old dude one of the 'trouble makers" This movie has
left with me with so many questions after seeing 6 times.

This was a fascinating discussion.  However, can we now consider what
Stephen King proposed in the Langoliers.  That is, if we could travel
back in time (or indeed, forward in time), we could not interact with
the surroundings in that time, and therefore not enter any time loops.
This seems like a plausable model if time travel is achievable.
Obvioulsy, if we assume a time-travel model as in 12M, BTF etc, and
interaction is possible, then parallel dimensions appears to be a
logical consequence.
If you have any comments on this, then pls mail my personal address.
Yours etc
Steve
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*\
 
Stephen...@jcu.edu.au
                             .
                                                     __--_|\
   Bachelor of Information Technology               /       \
   James Cook University, Townsville,              |  ___   /
   Queensland, Australia.                           \/   \_/
                                                          o
		Bedemir:  "What makes you think she is a witch?"
		Villager: "Well, she turned me into a newt."
		Bedemir:  "A newt?"
		Villager: (looking around) "Well, I got better."
						- Holy Grail
\*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

Steve
"Back to the Future" fairly specifically stated that there were no
other dimensions.  Witness the changing photograph Marty carries.  That
implies that his actions in the past directly affected his personal
present and not the present of some alternate-dimension Marty.  (The
subsequent BTF films violated this internal consistency, which clouds
the issue.)
The same goes for "12 Monkeys."  All of the actions taken in the past
led to the future, unalterably, which also implies a single dimension. 
(Not to mention predetermined fate.)
Offhand, I can't think of a film which deals in alternate universes,
but the TV show "Sliders" (I don't know if it's shown outside of
America) is centered around this idea..
Doug

 logical consequence.
It is my firm belief that time travel is impossible.  I believe that time
does not exist.  It is a completel illusion that our minds fill in, since
we retain stimulous in storage centers of the brain, which we call memories of
"the past"
Wow, that sounded deep.
---------------------------------------
 
and...@grantham.com
 | Andrew Grantham  
---------------------------------------
 
http://www.dragonfire.net/~klaatu

I always feel compelled to say this whenever I come across a discussion of
time travel as it pertains to _Twelve Monkeys_.
The one thing that we, the viewers, believe we can consider as gospel in
the film is the fact that Cole, as a child, had this horrific experience
where he saw someone -- himself, as it turns out -- die, and this
childhood memory is the source of a lot of angst for him.
This seems to be a given up until the point where we see Cole in the
throes of his nightmare, again, but instead of transpiring as usual, we
see the Brad Pitt character in place of the red-headed genocidal viral
engineer sociopath whatever, who has appeared in every previous
incarnation of the dream. By doing this, Gilliam is saying that Cole's
everyday life influences this nightmare, that it's not an
engraved-in-stone recollection but a hazy hodgepodge of past experiences.
The gist of which is: by throwing in the "teaser" shot of Pitt in the
dream, Gilliam betrays what is supposedly the single, inviolable element,
the one thing that time travel cannot destroy: Cole's childhood
remembrances. Without the dream, there's no solid footing from which to
approach what we see in the movie. I can't say I know what Gilliam
intended by doing so, but for me, I thought this undermined the
already-tenuous time travel elements at work in the film.
Sean
swei...@students.wisc.edu

Jason Kenneth Heiser (
jkhe...@students.wisc.edu
) wrote:
: I always feel compelled to say this whenever I come across a discussion of

 As has been mentioned before in 12 Monkeys threads, Pitt's appearance is 
explained by Stowe's character when she tells Cole why she (Stowe) is in 
the dream.  Remember, the dream is just that, a dream, based on a real 
life memory.  After Cole meets Pitt his subconscious mind places him in 
the dream for some reason, even though he wasn't present in reality.

 the dream for some reason, even though he wasn't present in reality.
It's not that I find the dynamics of why Cole is in the dream difficult to
understand; Stowe's character's explanation, as you have relayed it, gels
with what we know about dreams and dreaming. But if a meeting between Cole
and Goines puts Goines in the dream, what's to say a meeting Cole had some
ten years before the movie began hadn't also been incorporated into his
subconscious and thereby subverted his recollection of that day in the
airport?
The fact that Cole's dream has changed over time is more than just
believable; if Cole were a human being, it would be inconceivable that
events that affect him wouldn't also affect his dream life. _But_, since
Cole is just a character in a fictional narrative, it would have been an
acceptable conceit for Gilliam to have held that dream sacrosanct, because
in so doing, it would have allowed the audience to take that event to be
the one constant in the film from which it can compare other events. If
we're not allowed to take the dream as we see it to be unchanging -- and,
because of Goines' intrusion, we're not -- then there's no saying that any
of the dream can be relied upon, which undermines why we the audience find
the time loop so compelling: we see this dream that we've followed
throughout the film come to fruition as the events of the film unfold.
Which is a cool thing. But if we're not allowed to believe that the dream
that Cole has over and over and over again is exactly what the young Cole
saw, it's not quite as rewarding.

On 13 Dec 1996 11:12:42 GMT,
jam...@cybercomm.net
 (James G)
asseverated the following adage, precept, epigram and/or apothegm:
: As has been mentioned before in 12 Monkeys threads, Pitt's appearance is 
:explained by Stowe's character when she tells Cole why she (Stowe) is in 
:the dream.  Remember, the dream is just that, a dream, based on a real 
:life memory.  After Cole meets Pitt his subconscious mind places him in 
:the dream for some reason, even though he wasn't present in reality.
People are zeroing in on that one scene at the end of the film and
ignoring the whole big long middle portion of the movie where all
the drama is.  The point to focus on is that Cole has changed during
the film and he has changed in a way that implies "redemption".
Cole starts out as an classic antisocial personality.  He's a violent
man-child who cracks heads in sort of like a temper tantrum.
Cole's relationship with Kathyrn is the key to this movie.  Forget
the time machine.  Forget the plague.  Watch Cole interact with
Kathryn.  Cole "softens" and by the end of the film, he tries to
save the world.  That's the important thing.  His death is "noble".
Kathryn (Dr. Railly) is the most lethal femme fatale to hit the screen
in a decade.  If Kathryn had been smart, she would have told the
police that she herself decided to drive to Philadelphia after her
lecture and while she was there, she was present in the Save the Animals
store when some street person tryed to rob the place.
In other words, becuase Kathryn told the police the facts ("Just
the facts, Ma'am"), Cole was labeled a dangerous felon.  That's
why the police shot Cole at the airport.  If Kathryn hadn't made
the "prank" call to the answering machine and if she hadn't 
spray painted the A12M building, then Cole would not have been
sent in the first place.  If Kathryn hadn't tipped Dr. Goines off
with her phone call, then perhaps the virus would not have been
released in the first place.
Kathryn is the impetuous meddling woman who gets Cole killed.

, 
jkhe...@students.wisc.edu
 says...
**  As has been mentioned before in 12 Monkeys threads, Pitt's appearance is 
** explained by Stowe's character when she tells Cole why she (Stowe) is in 
** the dream.  Remember, the dream is just that, a dream, based on a real 
** life memory.  After Cole meets Pitt his subconscious mind places him in 
** the dream for some reason, even though he wasn't present in reality.
(worthwhile explanation snipped; it's worth going back and reading the whole 
post) 
* The fact that Cole's dream has changed over time is more than just
* believable; if Cole were a human being, it would be inconceivable that
* events that affect him wouldn't also affect his dream life. _But_, since
* Cole is just a character in a fictional narrative, it would have been an
* acceptable conceit for Gilliam to have held that dream sacrosanct, because
* in so doing, it would have allowed the audience to take that event to be
* the one constant in the film from which it can compare other events. If
* we're not allowed to take the dream as we see it to be unchanging -- and,
* because of Goines' intrusion, we're not -- then there's no saying that any
* of the dream can be relied upon, which undermines why we the audience find
* the time loop so compelling: we see this dream that we've followed
* throughout the film come to fruition as the events of the film unfold.
* Which is a cool thing. But if we're not allowed to believe that the dream
* that Cole has over and over and over again is exactly what the young Cole
* saw, it's not quite as rewarding.
Well, most of Cole's dream is faithful to the events Cole witnessed as a child 
 - events which were so traumatic that they stayed with him even after the 
virus devastates humanity and drives the survivors underground (something I'm 
sure most of his fellow mole people were still having nightmares about).
But something a lot of people seem to be overlooking in this thread is that 
James Cole is a socially maladjusted, violent psychotic with uncontrollable 
obsessive tendencies. He's not a conventional hero, and that's why a lot of us 
find him fascinating, but it's also why his memory cannot be relied upon, 
either by the characters within the film or by the audience watching it. 
Jeffrey Goines' appearance in Cole's dream is both an attempt to throw the 
audience off and to undermine Cole's reliability. And since "Twelve Monkeys" is 
ultimately about Cole's desire to find peace in the past, Goines' appearance in 
the dream also subtly reminds us that Cole wants to find the easiest solution 
to the problem - therefore, his subconscious can tell him that someone he 
already knows will be responsible for the virus' release.
And if I could just cross-thread here, can we all finally agree that if Jones 
the scientist really had been working in insurance rather than making a mordant 
pun at the end of the picture, she would have been about 30 years younger than 
she is in the future?
Norm Wilner
Starweek Magazine

 she is in the future?
My theory was that as people are sent into the past, they forget about the
future.  Remember what Young James' parents told him: "Pretend it was just
a bad dream, Jimmy."  I figure that this forgetting happens in a virtually
involuntary fashion.  Anyone who tries to "live in two dimensions" as Cole
puts it, goes crazy.  So maybe the chief scientist went back in time on a
mission but she's been in the past long enough to forget about the nightmare
world of the future and in 1996, she's a real honest-to-goodness insurance
person.  It's the ultimate irony.

, 
Xiuhte...@worldnet.att.net
 
says...
* 
nwi...@the-wire.com
 (Norman Wilner) wrote:
** And if I could just cross-thread here, can we all finally agree that if 
** Jones the scientist really had been working in insurance rather than making 
** a mordant pun at the end of the picture, she would have been about 30 years 
** younger than she is in the future?
* My theory was that as people are sent into the past, they forget about the
* future.  Remember what Young James' parents told him: "Pretend it was just
* a bad dream, Jimmy."  I figure that this forgetting happens in a virtually
* involuntary fashion.  Anyone who tries to "live in two dimensions" as Cole
* puts it, goes crazy.  So maybe the chief scientist went back in time on a
* mission but she's been in the past long enough to forget about the nightmare
* world of the future and in 1996, she's a real honest-to-goodness insurance
* person.  It's the ultimate irony.
Or at least, it could be. That's a pretty extreme leap you're making there - 
and not just because the film's time-travel device doesn't render the traveller 
amnesiac. (Cole never forgets what his mission is, though he has trouble with a 
lot of other things.) No, Jones is the scientists' insurance policy, sent back 
to retrieve the virus in its pure form. The future is saved. It's a happy 
ending. Which, considering five billion people still have to die to achieve it, 
is fairly ironic in itself.
Norm Wilner
Starweek Magazine