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  I just yesterday saw Predestination, a Australian-made time-travel thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook, and thought it deserved a thread. I overall greatly enjoyed the film. The acting was probably the most exceptional part - most notably, the highly positive response that Sarah Snook's performance has been getting is fully warranted, and I truly hope that this film is enough of a success that she's catapulted to stardom. Ethan Hawke is also good, especially in some later emotionally-heavy scenes that are spoilery to describe. The story was involving but not perfect - a lot of it depends on how much leeway you'll give a serious time-travel film. I also saw some of the reveals coming, though others I did not, and even my 'correct' guesses were off in a certain, very important fashion. I also found the cinematography lovely, and very effective in terms of evoking the time periods it was set in (the film is, however, always a period piece). Has anyone else here seen Predestination yet? What were your thoughts? Did you appreciate the acting? Did you find the film predictable? Would you want to see more stories in this setting? edit: Thought I should put the trailer here too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVOpfpYijHA Spoilery: It amuses me just how misleading this trailer actually is. When I first saw it I got a remarkably inaccurate idea of what the film was really about, much of that due to the way and the order in which it presents the events shown. BreakAtmo fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Aug 29, 2014 05:10
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Never heard of this at all. I'll be sure to check it out.
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Aug 31, 2014 18:15
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PaganGoatPants posted:Never heard of this at all. I'll be sure to check it out. Don't be shocked. I barely heard of it and I live where the damned thing was shot. Hope you enjoy it.
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Sep 1, 2014 02:23
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Just got back from watching it. I hadn't read the story, and had only seen the trailer. I thought I was in for a mix of Looper and The Adjustment Bureau, and while that wasn't totally incorrect, there was SO MUCH I didn't expect going in. Once the first major realisation comes about I pretty much had the rest of the story figured out, but it was still a bit of a mindfuck overall. All the way through I was thinking "Oh, well if that's the case, then surely not...", but then it WAS. Like all time-travel movies, it has the potential to get very messy (looking at you, Looper), but it's all handled superbly and nothing stuck out to me as a loose end. Heartily recommended! Actually the more I think about it, the more this movie stands out to me as the movie Looper SHOULD have been.
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Sep 19, 2014 11:33
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victorious posted:Just got back from watching it. I hadn't read the story, and had only seen the trailer. I thought I was in for a mix of Looper and The Adjustment Bureau, and while that wasn't totally incorrect, there was SO MUCH I didn't expect going in. Once the first major realisation comes about I pretty much had the rest of the story figured out, but it was still a bit of a mindfuck overall. All the way through I was thinking "Oh, well if that's the case, then surely not...", but then it WAS. Like all time-travel movies, it has the potential to get very messy (looking at you, Looper), but it's all handled superbly and nothing stuck out to me as a loose end. Heartily recommended! Largely agree. There was a lot of stuff I THOUGHT I had figured out, but only partially. For example, when the thing about the baby being taken from the hospital was mentioned, I was like "her future self took it" - correct, but that was maybe half the story at most. That said, are you sure some of your post shouldn't be spoiler-tagged? Comparing it heavily to Looper, while accurate IMO, feels like it comes close to spoiling the twist, although maybe someone who hasn't actually seen it wouldn't think of that. Edit: By the way... do you remember the line Ethan Hawke's character said at the start of the film, upon seeing the results of the reconstructive surgery? It's rather amusing once you've seen the rest of the film. BreakAtmo fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 11:46
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This looks like a hell of a thing. I look forward to it being released to the rest of the world!
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Sep 19, 2014 15:36
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Squidster posted:This looks like a hell of a thing. I look forward to it being released to the rest of the world! When does it get released in other countries anyway? I can't really seem to find anything - attempting to look up the US release date just gives me 8 March 2014, the day it premièred at the SXSW Film Festival.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:20
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If anyone's in or near Toronto it'll play at Toronto After Dark in October.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:10
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Just got back from seeing this at the Helsinki Film Festival - it's entirely possible that was the only screening it'll ever get over here. I'd read the short story (I actually read it a few months ago after seeing the first trailer and because "there's just no way it'll be screened in Finland") but I don't think it really detracted from the experience. It's the kind of movie you want to see twice, but if you read the story beforehand, you don't need that rewatch to catch everything, like "Am I the Fizzle bomber? Maybe you are the Fizzle bomber". I liked it a lot. I like how it didn't hesitate with the source material and used it fully, even down to the years, so you get this weird alternate timeline where you have regular space travel in the 60s and there's a huge terror incident in New York in 1975 (this is evident from the first few minutes of the film, so don't worry). Not gonna get into the plot because I give time travel movies a pass and they tend to fall apart if you look at them too hard. The transgender/gender business is a low fruit to pick and I don't really care to analyze it that much. I felt it was well handled, simply, and it made me think how this kind of movie could only be pulled off with some kind of respect within the last two decades or so. I shudder to think what a contemporary adaptation of the story would've been like but then that's probably why it wasn't adapted before. Jane's upbringing and then devastation and the slow adaptation into the male gender/sex was probably my favourite part of the film for the heft it lent to the storyline and the way it built the character. It made it believable for the character when later on she falls in love with himself/he falls in love with herself; he/she's only ever had herself/himself. So yeah that Sarah Snook is pretty good act this whole acting thing. Probably my only thing that kind of struck me as strange and maybe off-kilter was they directly took the "comfort women for astronauts" stuff from the short story and it made me uncomfortable reading it and it made me uncomfortable watching it. I mean yeah the women are getting into it voluntarily and all. It's a very twisted mirror of a space program that went down a very different path somewhere instead of our modern conception of astronauts as noble heroes, and so it made me uncomfortable. It doesn't really damage the movie. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Sep 20, 2014 |
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Sep 20, 2014 19:06
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BreakAtmo posted:
I was more referring to the Looper vibe of the trailer. It might hint at the twist but I don't think it's a spoiler by any means. Yeah, I was thinking of that scene all the way through, its so well done.
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Sep 21, 2014 23:04
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I can't wait to see this. I love Ethan Hawke, doubly so if he shows up in a good sci-fi movie.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:51
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How do I go about seeing this movie. It's not even listed on Fandango from what I can tell.
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Sep 23, 2014 04:34
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I hate hearing about awesome sounding movies like this when there's no feasible way I could watch it until maybe 3 years from now.
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Sep 23, 2014 12:45
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I'm seeing this on Sunday. I enjoyed Daybreakers a lot more than I think most did so hopes are high.
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Sep 23, 2014 13:03
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thedaian posted:I hate hearing about awesome sounding movies like this when there's no feasible way I could watch it until maybe 3 years from now. My trap has been sprung.
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Sep 23, 2014 14:50
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There's also a lot of smoking in this movie. I mean it's not gratuitous or anything, and it fits the time period perfectly, and Jane even smokes to lower her voice so it's relevant to the story!, but by now I've gotten used to people on the screen not smoking.
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Sep 23, 2014 17:22
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Can someone spoilery tell me if this follows the short story closely? I read that for the first time about 15 years ago and it's always stuck with me, so I'd like to see something do it justice, even if it includes Heinlein's weird fascination with loving his own mother he seems to put in every book with his self insert character, who is not in the short story.
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Sep 24, 2014 11:11
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Kruller posted:Can someone spoilery tell me if this follows the short story closely? I read that for the first time about 15 years ago and it's always stuck with me, so I'd like to see something do it justice, even if it includes Heinlein's weird fascination with loving his own mother he seems to put in every book with his self insert character, who is not in the short story. I haven't read the short story in a while and don't have the time to do so right now but I'd say at least 90 percent of it is there, including the weird astronaut wife training stuff. They didn't even fiddle with the dates, the frame story in the bar takes place in 1970, Jane is left to the orphanage in 1945 and time travel was invented in the far future of 1985.
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Sep 24, 2014 11:15
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This is really close to the short story to the extent that I'd actually suggest reading it AFTER the film rather than before so as to not give it away, as so much of the movie rests on the twists - it wasn't AS fun knowing what was going to happen, even though the performances were great. That said, this is a really enjoyable movie and I just wish we'd get more solid, self-contained sci-fi films. A lot of this was shot at my university (University of Melbourne) and in and around other Melbourne landmarks. There was a few times this was a little disorienting, because I know what's on the other sides of the frame in a lot of those shots, and the way the space is oriented doesn't make sense in terms of how the characters move. It isn't a complaint - that's the illusion of filmmaking! But it's just a funny experience watching when you're aware of what the place looks like in real life.
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Sep 29, 2014 06:21
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I saw this last night and loved it. Sarah Snook does almost all the heavy lifting here and is more than up to the challenge, playing several completely different characters in almost a mini-Cloud Atlas way. Without getting into spoilers, her character explores a ton of issues that most time travel/sci-fi movies would never touch. Some of the set design is positively breathtaking, and this just pops on an actual movie screen, so if you can catch it in a theatre I'd highly recommend that. This is one solid-as-hell time travel movie, and imo, eats Looper's lunch completely. It never feels bogged down with the technical aspects of the time travel and instead uses it to tell a really twisted, human story. e: whoops, mispelled Snooks' name. flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 14:03
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Just finished watching this. My biggest criticism is I'm confused how anyone can mistake Sarah Snook with short hair for a man.
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Nov 23, 2014 03:42
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Just finished watching this. My biggest criticism is I'm confused how anyone can mistake Sarah Snook with short hair for a man. Yeah, but other than that I thought the movie was fantastic. I had no idea how Sarah Snook focused the movie was going to be based on the trailer. It was a great change from what I expected.
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Nov 23, 2014 10:22
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This was excellent. Not what I expected at all, but a delightful mindfuck.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:10
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flashy_mcflash posted:This is one solid-as-hell time travel movie, and imo, eats Looper's lunch completely. It never feels bogged down with the technical aspects of the time travel and instead uses it to tell a really twisted, human story. It was a pretty fun movie. Though I'm always annoyed when movies treat twists like a dramatic revelation for the audience, as opposed to for a character. If you already figured it out they have no point, and just serve to remind you that you are watching a movie made with the intention to surprise you.
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Nov 25, 2014 04:33
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Mercrom posted:This movie was well made but at least Looper had a point. This movie seems to be mostly about the technical aspects of time travel, and how ~weird~ they are. Am I missing something? I think you are completely right, it reminded me a bit of Oculus - a sci-fi/magical conceit which is posited rather than explained, and relatively tightly written from there. I don't think it is about how weird time travel is, but how it introduces paradoxes and whether it is possible to change events within nested time loops. I really enjoyed it.
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Nov 25, 2014 08:22
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Mercrom posted:This movie was well made but at least Looper had a point. This movie seems to be mostly about the technical aspects of time travel, and how ~weird~ they are. Am I missing something? Primer seemed like a movie that only cared about the technical aspects of time travel, this seemed like a more human story. Not really seeing the drama just for the audiences' sake much either, when it was revealed that they were loving themselves both the audience and the character were pretty put off. It also seeded or expanded(been a while since I saw this movie) the idea of fatalism we see in the ending and that their life of hardship is somehow necessary. The second apparent big reveal was that they were also the bomber. The ending though was still pretty ambiguous at face value, like was he crazy from too many time travel hops or was he really killing some people to save others? The movie foreshadows a poo poo load so I'm pretty sure that he was also his own boss for the reasons that not only does his boss says that the bomber is doing good work, but him being the only semi developed character that wasn't the protagonist doesn't really fit the rest of the movie either. So baby > unmarried mother > Ethan Hawke > Mr. Robertson/bomber. Anyhoo that's how I remember it but probably forgot some things that gently caress up my read on things.
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Nov 25, 2014 14:42
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The part where he wears her glasses [presumably prescription] mid-movie and they dont even touch on that is the best foreshadowing of the reveal in the film, IMO. It's subtle but thinking back it's like "OHHHHHHH" The visuals are also REALLY good, especially the opening scene. Whoever did lighting design on set did a stellar job.
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Nov 25, 2014 16:03
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One thing I must have missed: How did he end up working for the agency or whatever? He went back and got denied. Then he ends up recruiting himself in. How did he get back in to begin with?
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Nov 26, 2014 00:19
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As you said, he recruited himself? It seems like a weird thing to get hung up on after finding out he's his own mother and father.
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Nov 26, 2014 03:16
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Walked posted:The part where he wears her glasses [presumably prescription] mid-movie and they dont even touch on that is the best foreshadowing of the reveal in the film, IMO. It's subtle but thinking back it's like "OHHHHHHH" poo poo, I don't even remember that. I am so getting the Blu-ray. I really love the line Ethan Hawke makes following the surgery: "Even my own mother wouldn't recognise me". When you first hear it it sounds cheesy. When you know the twist, it's more like he's making a very dark joke to himself. SolidSnakesBandana posted:One thing I must have missed: How did he end up working for the agency or whatever? He went back and got denied. Then he ends up recruiting himself in. How did he get back in to begin with? He didn't. He got brought in by his older self, and later he brought his younger self in. It's a classic paradox, which the movie is full of. It's like the conundrum - a kid finds a toy in a field, then later in life he travels back in time and leaves the toy in the field for his younger self? Where did the toy 'originally' come from? Answer: It didn't. In short, 
BreakAtmo fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Nov 26, 2014 |
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Nov 26, 2014 08:10
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I read the original story some time back and didn't realize this was based off of it when I figured I'd give it a spin. Really solid film, and very well-crafted. Any confusing parts were very neatly (and unobtrusively) resolved and I think it did the original story justice in the extreme. Wonderful job, and I think the ending was perfect.
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Nov 26, 2014 08:26
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One thing that bothered me in the movie is that Hawke looks much taller than Snook, but I don't remember if they were side by side in any shots, just came off that way. So them being the same person reveal didn't sort of work for me. Otherwise thought the movie was better than average and looked nice. Both actors did a great job, especially Snook.
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Nov 26, 2014 15:53
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Emetic Hustler posted:One thing that bothered me in the movie is that Hawke looks much taller than Snook, but I don't remember if they were side by side in any shots, just came off that way. So them being the same person reveal didn't sort of work for me. Otherwise thought the movie was better than average and looked nice. Both actors did a great job, especially Snook. I think this is covered when they make their first jump together, from the bar. They stand facing each other with the violin case between them and they look to be the same height. Woden posted:Primer seemed like a movie that only cared about the technical aspects of time travel, this seemed like a more human story. I don't think this is the case, because Jane/John's timeline stops when they kill themselves in the laundromat. But by doing so, they also stop a future attack that will kill tens of thousands (or whatever the number is), continue the loop which will result in them living their lives, and provide the agency with their subject of study that results in all their advances. All in all I thought it was a very neat ending.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:22
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The jukebox playing I'm My Own Grandpa in one of the last bar scenes was a nice touch.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:56
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All you Zombies is better name than Predestination though, from a cool line in the short story.
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Nov 27, 2014 08:08
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Gesadt posted:All you Zombies is better name than Predestination though, from a cool line in the short story. Though maybe not from a mass-market point of view. When I asked my mother if she'd heard of it she said she wasn't interested in anything about zombies.
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Nov 27, 2014 09:34
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Snapchat A Titty posted:The jukebox playing I'm My Own Grandpa in one of the last bar scenes was a nice touch.
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Nov 28, 2014 02:15
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Less Fat Luke posted:I thought that was nice, but him singing the name of that earlier was kind of too obvious. I agree with this. I know the movie builds you up to expect a twist and then it pulls a double twist, but that really did give it away It really sucks that nobody seems to be reading this thread. This seems like exactly the kind of movie that CineD would love, especially after that million page Snowpiercer discussion. I think MechaGodzilla in particular would enjoy it.
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Nov 28, 2014 03:59
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Huh, I didn't notice the earlier instance of the song. I figured out every "twist" before they happened, but I didn't mind. The movie was fairly restrained about them and there were enough little details that it was a fun watch.
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Nov 28, 2014 04:49
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If you're planning on doing a little pre-watch wikipedia research, don't. The very first sentence in the book article tells you exactly every major plot point that's going to happen in this movie. Still a fun watch despite knowing everything going in.
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Nov 28, 2014 06:24
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