This also begs the question of who killed Sara in Old Joe's timeline. So even though the odds are likelier that Cid won't become the Rainmaker since Sara is still taking care of him, it's not guaranteed. In another timeline that never came to pass, Old Joe is directly responsible for Cid becoming evil. In one timeline, Joe had nothing to do with the Rainmaker, meaning that someone else murdered Sara and hurt Cid's jaw. In case you missed it, we now have two separate realities where the end result is the Rainmaker's creation. Don't forget, Cid's jaw was injured near the end of the story, and the Rainmaker having a prosthetic jaw was another rumor that Old Joe heard back in his era. Let's now fast-forward to near the end of the movie, where Joe realized that if Old Joe killed Sara, the Rainmaker would be created. It was only after she died that he went back in time to try to change the past. He killed his older self and lived the next decades of his life as a criminal and junkie until he met his wife and cleaned up. In Old Joe's timeline, he never went back in time. This is to spare us from getting a headache, or as Abe put it, "fry your brain like an egg." However, there's a distinct possibility that even with all of Young Joe's efforts, Cid will still become the Rainmaker. The problem with understanding Looper's time travel is that the movie doesn't delve deeply into the rules.
It's the telekinesis control that's the priority, though.
Oh, and he'll also keep learning about math, literature, science and all the skills that a well-functioning adult should have at least a basic grasp on. Fortunately, Sara is determined to make sure he has a better childhood than she did, and now she has extra incentive to keep this up since she knows what will happen 30 years from now if he doesn't have the proper guidance. Cid will probably still have the occasional tantrum, requiring Sara to hide in her closet vault until he calms down. Sara can continue taking care of Cid, making sure he keeps his telekinetic powers under control. Without her love and education giving him stability, he would have nothing reining him in, and he would become that feared criminal in the future.įortunately, Young Joe made the ultimate sacrifice, which, as he put it, broke the cycle, That, along with Old Joe gunning down Abe's gang, means ideally, Sara and Cid will live out their lives in peace. Remember, even with Sara's parenting, there were times when Cid lost control of his power. This was presumably the inciting event that led him to the dark side. When Old Joe and Young Joe were chatting at the diner, the former spouts off some rumors he's heard about the Rainmaker, one of them being that the criminal powerhouse watched his mother get shot. The key to Young Joe's success is keeping Sara alive. To start, let's recap what happened in the movie. So what's the deal with Looper? Is the future brighter because the Rainmaker will never be "born," or will the young boy (played by Pierce Gagnon) still grow up to be a telekinetic monster? That's what this features aims to determine. In other cases, changing the past doesn't always mean that the future is significantly altered. In some tales, going back in time and changing certain events is an easy feat. However, time travel is a complicated subject.
This mission, unsurprisingly, complicates his younger self's (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) life, leading to a lot of shooting, cursing and explosions.īy the time Looper ended, it looked like Young Joe was successful in preventing the Rainmaker's rise to power. Feel free to substitute any other tyrant and atrocities, but the point is that if you were able to travel back in time, would you do whatever necessary to prevent said tyrant from ever committing those atrocities? In 2012, the Rian Johnson-helmed Looper set up that situation when a retired assassin named Joe (played by Bruce Willis) traveled back 30 years to kill a child who would eventually grow up to be a ruthless criminal boss known only as the Rainmaker. Many time travel conversations have posed a particular scenario to those involved: going back in time to kill Adolph Hitler so World War II and the Holocaust never happen.