Cocktails And The Film Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My favorite quote on old fashions from Ghostbreakers with uh Bob Hope, where he says, Let's start with an old fashioned and bring it up to date. That's how hard we're gonna drink.

SPEAKER_05 0:10

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Greetings andor salutations, and welcome to Imbibe Cinema. The Imbibe Cinema Podcast is brought to you by the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival, otherwise known as Bwiff. I am Jonathan C. Leggett, along with my co-host, Trisha Leggett, as well as our producer, Michael Noens. And we are pleased to welcome back our special guest, Pete Geither.

unknown 0:53

Woo! Yay!

SPEAKER_02 0:55

In this episode, we're going to be discussing the 2014 Time Thriller Predestination. The cocktail we are imbibing is called the Old Underwear, Old Fashioned, which consists of a rye bourbon, simple syrup, and bitters. And if you're uh lucky enough, a good cherry or orange peel.

SPEAKER_04 1:14

As far as the drink, I'm using uh old overholt, which is uh often many people think is sort of the equivalent to old underwear if there was such a thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

Because it's your basic bar rye, cheap under 20 bucks, and has been around since the 1800s. Terry Pratchett uh calls it uh old overcoat. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Nice. Which uh piece of fiction did he put that in?

SPEAKER_04 1:38

It's one of the drinks in one of the bars in probably in Discworld. So okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

All right, look for the episode recap link in our show notes where you'll find a written summary of our discussion, along with a picture and the ingredients that will uh allow you to help make your own old underwear old fashioned at home.

Time Travel Subgenres And Bootstrap Rules

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Alright, so uh this film is uh um uh to put it lightly a uh time travel mindfuck. Yes. There's a number of beautiful um circle patterns that continue to reveal themselves throughout this. Pete, that this is this is your genre. Time travel is the thing that that that you love most. Uh please uh indulge us into what makes this film um so interesting from a time travel perspective.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

Yeah, I think that, well, first of all, yeah, I'm a huge time travel fan, whether it's in books or movies, you know, I have an entire folder of DVDs. It's just marked time travel. Um and I I have a collection of all the time travel episodes from Star Trek, and I get into the various uh subgenres of time travel, whether it's time loops or alternate uh diverging timelines. And this this falls into the uh category of uh bootstrap paradox or often known as a predestination paradox, hence the title of the film, uh, which basically is dealing with the concept of uh things happening only because somebody went back in time for them to happen, and they wouldn't have been able to go back in time if they hadn't gone back in time to make those things happen. And there are a whole bunch of movies and TV shows, everything from the silly, like Bill and Ted, you know, where you know, it's like, why don't we go back in time and put the keys uh here so we'll be able to find them. We'll just have to remind ourselves to go back in time. Where should we put them? How about behind the sign? Oh, there they are. Great. Okay, so very simple ones like that to um the uh the Harry Potter one when uh Hermione has the uh uh the little uh twirl thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Uh prisoner of Azkaban. Yes. Also uh predestination. There's only one timeline in that.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Right. And because in that it has the bootstrap because Harry saves himself from the Dementors.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

He sees his father, or at least he thinks he sees his father.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

And it turns out that was him, and he wouldn't have been able to travel forward to go back to do that if it hadn't been for him going back to save him. So that's that's the whole thing there. You've got, of course, Terminator. Uh you know, going going back to uh sending him back to be um his father.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

So interestingly enough, and and uh Trisha was doing her uh plenty of research before this, but uh the one says that only the first two films of uh Terminator adhere to that.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Because James Cameron wrote those, and then they start to break the rules of the universe.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Yeah, then it it's not pure anymore. It's in the bootstrap book. Right, it's right.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Well, and the it in the part of that is uh when you set up the rules of a universe, it's it's fair game to trick people as long as you obey the rules. Right. But if you decide halfway through, well, you're gonna change the rules, but we're not gonna tell you because we want this, then then we lose trust. And then it's like, well, no, you just that's that's um that's the god in the machine. That's you broke the rules.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

The the big thing about bootstrap paradox compared to other timeline change of time travel, if you if you go to um, you know, Avengers, and when they go back to get the the the time thing, and she says, No, you can't take that because if there is a divergent, then this line and you see the lines splitting off from any change that happens. And they go, No, we're gonna bring it back and put it all back to the original position. So, in that, in that universe, there is no such thing as bootstrap paradox because a change would, you know, create a new timeline.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

That's one of those where, yeah, it creates a new timeline and and more of a multiverse situation. One of the things that I love about the the endgame movie and their time travel system is the fact that they have that brief moment where they're like, let's talk about time travel and everything we know from the movies, and they list off all the movies, everything from Hot Tub Time Machine to Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeves, which is a beautiful film.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

Yeah. Um that's a great film. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

At Quantum Leap, they reference it all, and it's nice. It's like, oh, know that one, know that one, know that one. And then they're like, Back to the future lied to us. And it's awesome because they're like, here are all the rules we feel the the audience takes for granted when it comes to time travel, and we have to set them straight with what our rules are. And it's summarized really well in a very confusing statement by uh Holt. Smart Hulk. Where he says, travel to the past that becomes your future, and your former present becomes the past, which cannot be changed by your new future. And you're like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_02 6:59

What makes what makes that whole scene even funnier is the fact that they reference Hot Tub Time Machine, where Sebastian Stan is the ski patrol dick bad guy.

SPEAKER_04 7:13

And and other genres, of course, you got the the standard time loop, which is an entirely different category that I'm a huge fan of. Um it's the Groundhog Day, yes, it's the do-over timeline for it to work. There's at least one person who's aware.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yes, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 7:29

I've read that time travel stories go back to 400 BCE. Oh, yes. So it's something that has been in the history of humanity in terms of considering it.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Do you remember your first uh your first introduction to time travel?

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Uh I imagine it may have been predestination, although it wasn't called predestination.

Heinlein’s All You Zombies Roots

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Because um the the original story, All You Zombies, was written by uh Heinlein in 1958. And when I was a kid, I read every bit of Heinlein that I could get my hands on. Heinlein, Asimov, there were there were several science fiction authors that I was uh a huge fan of. And this was this was a short story that was written in 1958. Um I would tell you how long it is, but now everything is digital, so I can tell you it's a seven-minute read. I can't tell you how many pages it is, but it's a very short short, short story. And he wrote it in one day. And in fact, it's the same characters, it's the same bottle of alcohol, it is all the same details, and in many times the same dialogue that's in the bar. But since it's a short story, it doesn't have the extended scenes of Jane and so forth. It has the the time as John is talking about being Jane in the bar, you know, and about what she did and so forth. All of that is all there. It the jukebox plays, I'm my own grandpa in the short story. Um, he is the bartender, it is old underwear. Uh, there is a fizzle bomber, but they don't go into beyond that. So we don't know anything beyond the we we we sort of end with the close to ending with the uh and now um you know who the baby is and you may have an idea of who I am. Okay, so they don't establish that the fizzle bomber that the fizzle bomber is part of this, and they just mentioned the fizzle bomber is mentioned in the short story that the the bureau has been dealing with, okay, but it doesn't go further into that. So the movie takes you that next step. But in a very short story, it covers much of this, and I think it's also very fascinating because you consider that this was written in 1958, which is why the time periods in this movie are as they are. Yeah, that Jane was was brought to the orphanage in 45, that uh that Jane and John met, and then she has the baby, you know, and and in 64 uh she gets the hysterectomy, and the baby is stolen from the crib, and then uh 70 is at the bar, yeah, and 85 is the far future, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Because time travel is invented in 1981.

SPEAKER_04 10:44

Yeah, I love that. Yes, so far. So this is this is the far future.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

So so if you consider the fact that the filmmakers took so much that shows a real respect for the source material, yeah, and like they could have gone ahead and changed that to something NASA related or whatever, and uh, and and made it something that we could relate to if we weren't familiar with the source material, but they stuck with that source material.

SPEAKER_05 11:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

So that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

They had to have really, really loved that material and it wanted to do it justice.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Is is Mr. Robertson referenced in the in All You Zombies?

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Yes. Oh, yes, because he's the one who runs the Time Bureau. And we're gonna need to have a discussion about Mr. Robertson.

SPEAKER_05 11:30

I I have lots of questions about Mr. Robertson.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Very much so.

Robertson And The Loop’s Architect

SPEAKER_00 11:34

So many questions. This is one of those timelines where if you think about this the series of events, one of the tropes of time travel being uh when you try to fix something, you end up causing it. Like uh, we have to stop John Connor, so we will go kill his mother. Yeah oh wait, that creates John Connor. If we had just done nothing, he would never have been born.

SPEAKER_05 11:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Um, but in uh in this situation, they you have this terrible bomb that goes off in 1975, I think. And then in 1981, this uh time travel is invented. So they wanna they want to stop the fizzle bomber. And in doing so, they create the fizzle bomber. But then at that point, Robertson is self-aware enough, at least what we're seeing, that he knows that this is what funded his research, that like he's he's the god of this universe inadvertently, uh, and then it becomes something that he's consciously doing. Um but that's what I took away from it.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

Yeah, uh it's it's I think it's really interesting because there's so many things because there's also the references that Robertson makes about we are an agency that finds people like you.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, that's creepy.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Which says that there's more than one of these loop groups that Robertson is managing or creating or working with. And then you start getting into how does he manage them? How does he create them? From Robertson's timeline, what happened first?

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yes, and that's the the the they even play on that is what comes first, the chicken or the egg. And the answer is the rooster.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

And Robertson is the rooster.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

He he clearly is, but at the same time, that's the thing that keeps breaking my brain, is is that like I'm I'm I'm trying to determine because this is a which came first, the chicken or the egg. But but the the chicken is is yourself fucking yourself and having an egg that is you. So how do you how do you fuck yourself to have yourself? Like that's that's where my brain is going, but that's it's not a different chicken and a different egg. No, no, no, yeah, it's very obsessive.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, it's it's spontaneous, yeah. But what it says in uh how you change throughout your life, how you are different people in your life, and those people are based up uh based off of the sum of your experiences up into that point. Uh Jane is much different as a child than to an adult, there's a difference, and then when we're and then when we go to John, there's a difference, and then John 2.0, there's a difference, right? And yet they all are the same person. And I believe in everyone's life, you are many different people depending on where you are on the timeline.

SPEAKER_04 14:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

I think that that is definitely addressed in I'm not an avid time travel person, but my my my confusion for this particular script uh is the fact that you are your own mother and father. So where did you come from?

SPEAKER_04 15:11

That is the problem with a bootstrap paradox, that there's no way to figure out where it starts.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Uh okay, and mind you, I saw Looper I think once that if you're time traveling as a younger version of you, and time traveling as an older version of you, the younger version of you can do things out of sequence that can affect the older version of you, but then it's like it always happened. So you can lose a limb, but you had one before, and now you have a little fake lake. Yeah. And that concept was fascinating. But then the other one that I have not seen um that they reference is primer and how that is time travel within time travel, within time travel, within, and it's like, wow, it's like a Russian doll of uh time travel, nesting doll.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

That has that has bootstrap paradox in it as well, as does the uh Netflix series Dark.

unknown 16:05

Ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Okay, so one of the things I think I really love about the bootstrap paradox, the predestination single timeline version of time travel is how it is, it's like a puzzle where you have all the pieces and you don't realize until the end or the perfect moment where you just see everything from the right angle, and you're like, oh, this is how it all lines up. It was all right in front of me. I just didn't see it the right perspective. Exactly. And I think that's where the satisfaction from that kind of a film is. I mean, you could also say it with an unsolved mystery where you solve the mystery, but when you have all these pieces in the puzzle and all the pieces fit perfectly, then you're like, as a viewer, you're like, Yes, I am happy now.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

I I I saw uh predestination uh just a week and a half ago or so with uh a couple friends, and it was interesting. One of them got it like right away, practically, you know, at least the concept of it, still hadn't figured out fizzle bomb or things like that. That came later, of course. And the other one was like, I have no idea what's going on, and it was kind of fun to see the uh the the difference in that. Um, because because you know something's a little off with John from the moment he comes in the bar. I think that was just a really fine directing and acting choice, both by Sarah Snook and by the directors, rather than trying to make Sarah fully pull off fooling you into being a man. Which they could have done, I think, a little further, but that's not who that person was. That person was a person who had been female and against her will had been turned male, and and was dealing with all the psychological issues of that as they were being forced into a transition that was uncomfortable for them and took a little more time to get fully uh uh acclimated to. And I thought I again, it's just Sarah Snook just I think did uh such a phenomenal job.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Everybody does an excellent performance, and I love the little attention to detail where there are moments that are hints to something that will later make you go, oh they hinted at that. Or oh, this is important, but I don't know why. And then, oh, that's why.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

Yeah. Well, I mean they they they they do the whole fizzle bomber uh thing as the very first scene in the movie, and you're going, what's going on? I have no idea what I just saw. It was interesting, but I don't know why I saw it or what it is, and then suddenly you're in this long bar scene and you're going, Okay, what was that other thing?

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Yep. Well, and that long bar scene feels very uh very independent uh because a studio producer would say, There's no way in hell you can stay 30 minutes in a bar doing a story, and the fact that they did that um really benefited the movie um because you were like character-driven story. What's going on? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Quick Break And Listener Voicemails

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Whiff.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Uh we're gonna take a few moments to fill our glasses and get ready to imbibe more after this.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Hey Michael, I got some cool news. You got some cool news? I love cool news. What's the news? Our listeners can actually send us a voicemail now, and I'm thinking that maybe this will work better than text.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

You think you think that the reason was because they had to actually like type things where now they can actually speak to us.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Right. The cool thing is now they can actually leave us a voicemail and then we can play that voicemail on the show. And then answer that voicemail.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

In real time.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

In real time.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

So well, almost real time.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Yes, well. Subject. Sub real time. Subreal time. In our real time. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Not their real time. Not their real time.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

But yeah, so they can leave us a voicemail with their film suggestions or what they think that we should cover on the show that we haven't yet.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

I think that would be pretty cool. Or they could even like just say, hey, you know, you talked about this movie and you didn't talk about this, and I think you should be talking about this.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

That's more than fair.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

And but then we can address that. So yeah, they should totally do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

It's audience interaction. All right, so so uh, yeah, not only can you leave us a text, but you can also leave us uh uh a full voicemail, and we will be able to uh hear and respond to either your text or your voicemails.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Perfect.

Ending Reveals And Hidden Face Clues

SPEAKER_03 21:05

So we were talking about the ending. If I can pose a question.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Because one of the things at the end of this movie, um, you know, after I think my brain kind of recovered from hemorrhages a little bit, because I was, I will say, I watched this movie for the first time this evening. Oh my goodness. So I came fresh off the movie. Yes. So um but one of the things that entered my mind that I have to ask, because you know, Trisha tends to figure movies out. My one of the first questions was how did I write this down? When did Trisha see it coming? Um But now that I know that you've read it, that changes everything. Everything. But I didn't realize I didn't remember.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

I didn't remember that I had read it. It just seemed familiar. But there was a point where I was like, okay, I know. That she is he and he is and and they are the baby. But then I was like, but I think they're also the fizzle bomber just because they weren't showing because part of the hints, right, are the fact that we don't show the father, we don't show the man that she's in love with, and we don't show the fizzle bomber. And they're the only ones we don't show faces of. And so it's like, because they're versions of you that we have. So it was one of those, oh, if you break the code here, then it might apply there, and then it seems like a stretch, but I'll go with it. Maybe I'm wrong. And uh I was not.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

It was at least for me, and I'm not as adept as as Trisha is, but because of their very controlled obfuscation of faces, I was able to start putting the pieces together faster.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

You're asking questions as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Yeah, like, well, okay, there has to be a reason to do that.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Trisha didn't ruin it for you. She did not this time.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

She did not go. Oh, they're all the same person.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

I didn't, but I I but he did at one point go, Did you figure it out? And I'm like, I think so.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

For me, I'm pretty sure that it was the second time at the bomb. And you start seeing the multiplicity of it that you that you've got the sense of it there. And it's just it's just so cool that in that first scene, there's this very kindly stranger that hands him the time thing so that he can, you know, after he's burned his face, so he can go back. And then later you realize, of course, because then he realized that's himself younger, and he has to give it to him to give it that. But at that same, in that same sequence, that's when you get the idea that everybody is connected in that sense, including the fizzle bomber. But I because it that then it leads to so many other things, because obviously, then you get into Robertson's uh involvement there by intentionally sabotaging the case so that it wouldn't completely decommission. Which means that Robertson knew that this had to happen. So that was all built into that whole thing. And then you get into the could the bartender have changed the cycle by not shooting the fizzle bomber.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Or the thought that went off in my head was okay, you need me to break the cycle. Kill myself, not kill my older self, kill the mean now, because then I can't grow old to become that person.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

That moment in the laundromat makes me think of uh you die the hero or you live long enough to become the villain. And and then you see that in real time. You have this person who is passionately doing the right thing and and has been hunting the villain the whole time, only to be confronted with the villain was him all along. And hey, usually the thing that scares you the most was you, as Grover taught us at the monster at the end of the book. Oh Sesame Street, profound messages.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

Going back to your whole, well, why not kill yourself and you know, and stop the timeline that way. Uh the problem is that as a person who is in that position, you can never do that. Because, first of all, it's you, okay? Yeah, and you're not a suicide type, you know, from that standpoint. Fair. And as as he still believed, despite everything, that there was such a thing as free choice.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Fair. But like the in my head, and again, maybe maybe this is a dark look into my psyche, um, but the the idea of in order for me not to become this version of me, killing the version of me that is the future of me is not the way to stop the cycle. Me saying in order to not turn into you, you can't exist. And the only way for you to not exist is for me to take out this, because then I physically cannot become that.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

Yeah, I d I think that's a lot harder as a person.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

The thistle bomber himself, I think in that scene, he even says, killing me is what will trigger all of this. Like you will, this will start you down this path. So he's even trying to get him to stop so that they could just they can live together.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

This is where it becomes the groundhog day versus the cyclical bootstrap. You would change the sentence, you would change your inflection, you would change something each time to try to see what is going to drive the you of the past to stop shooting. See, but you would remember the scene.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Ah, no, no, no. That's one of the things that I love about this and uh time travel that does this. These are years apart, and these memories have a lot of emotion attached behind them and a lot of thought that was put in afterwards. Uh, she really hates this man. He's the man that ruined her life. She hates him. She remembers the moment she met him, she remembers what she said, she remembers how she felt, and and she's revisited these choices over and over from her point of view. And when we're seeing it from the other side, it's it's all oh my god, I'm I'm in this situation, and it just comes out, and then oh, that's filling in the gap that I didn't know. It's not like you know what you're going to say. That's one of those things that I love because they're they link together in such a way that is authentic in both situations.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

You are the same person, but you're also an entirely different person. And that's and that's part of it.

Free Will Inside A Fixed Timeline

SPEAKER_04 28:00

And then we get into the in a bootstrap paradox is their free will.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Right? Because the one because as an individual, you're still going to make your choice, and your choice isn't going to change because it's your choice. It just seems fixed because you'll get this one choice in this one moment where if you look, it's like uh uh every breaststroke, uh brush, wow, breaststroke, and we're swimming now. Every brush swimming in liquor every brush stroke, brush stroke, brush, I'm having one. All those are choices, but they're still going to have this picture. But all those different uh individual choices on how you made like all those little things added up to a picture, but it was always going to be that picture. But these were all these little decisions.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

And I think that's I think that's one of the things that I've always struggled with with bootstrap paradox um time travel is the notion of free will. That even though there is free will in there, they already know what's going to happen because it has happened.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Which is basically what the Hulk was saying all along. You can't co-change the past because the past is your future, and the present will then become your past once you leave it to go to the past, which is your future. So you can't go about changing your past once you're in the future.

SPEAKER_04 29:29

And I'm sure I had some of these arguments in college uh uh while while while stoned and uh in the dorm room. Uh so yeah, I I'm pretty sure that that happened. And listening to Pink Floyd. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

So if time travel exists, all right, let's say it's your version. Would you prefer an anything goes kind of time travel, a back to the future wild west, uh uh Bill and Ted uh kind of time travel experience, uh a groundhog stay kind of experience, a do-over video game experience where more knowledge every time gives you more insight, uh, and you grow from the same experience repeated, or the bootstrap paradox where it is it was always going to be this way all along.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Can I ask one just clarifying question? Because I've had a number of old fashions and you're bringing it up.

SPEAKER_04 30:29

And you are old-fashioned, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

I am I am uh I am rather old-fashioned. Uh was that an A B in the C? Or I mean you used or a number of times, and so my brain is is is having a hard time.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

We could go back in time and fix uh B12.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

You sank my battleship.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Um first of all, I would say uh no to the time loop. I love watching time loop, but I would be so frustrated to be in one of those uh and not know what I had to do to get out of it again. To me, that would be the worst uh hell that you could go through, is just that again, you know.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

And one of the reasons I I think I love Groundhog Day so much is that you know, he he starts with the perspective of I'm just gonna like live it up. And then at some point he realizes he's just done with this and is trying to find every exit out of it, and just continues to kill himself in every freaking way he can because he's done, he's so freaking done with it. And then at some point it clicks, and he's like, you know what? We're just gonna write it. We're just gonna ride it. I'm just gonna find the best. My my my my father was a my mother was a piano tuner. No, my father was a piano tuner, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Like, it was a he was a piano mover.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Mover, mover, not even tuner, he was just a piano mover, and it's because he goes and starts learning the piano and starts absolutely horrible, but by the end of it, he's literally playing.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

It just shows you how long there is a great way of showing you how long this has lasted. But to me, I love that movie so much uh because it is this great like uh way of looking at life.

SPEAKER_04 32:25

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think I'd w want to time travel um in a closed situation, um like a bootstrap. I'd like to stay in my timeline, and I'd be fine with being more the observer kind of time traveler. Would you go to the future or the past? I mean, my first instinct would be the future. I would want to know, you know, did we survive?

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Right? And these days that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

It's actually the scariest question I think I have.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

I think I would be, I think, I think I would I would chicken out and go to the past because I'm too scared of the future.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

I almost feel like the A anything goes, if we go with the Bill and Ted situation where it's just like nothing, nothing they did actually hurt hurt the timeline. In fact, almost everything they did uh allowed them to, you know, go back and and and fix things that they were going to do. Uh I think that would probably be my my hot take as I would go with A. And then I think I actually would go near future and and and tiptoe out. Um like go just a year out, go two years out. Like, I I don't think I would go into the distant future.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

You're not gonna go and then frequency back and be like, buy stock in Yahoo!

SPEAKER_02 33:52

No, I eventually would, but like it would be like I wouldn't I wouldn't start by going two little steps at a time. Yeah, because I would be afraid to go 50 years into the future and like in a nuclear place where there is no Earth. Like I'm just standing on an asteroid that is like and die because we fucked up. Like, like that that would be my big fear is that like I actually I'd probably start with like one month in the future and just like tiptoe out. Right, like it would never be.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

You're wading into the water, yeah, and you're at this point of your life where when you go, what year is it? People are like, nah, I used to just old.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Yeah, exactly.

Time Machines, Physics, And What We’d Choose

SPEAKER_04 34:33

Now there is another factor when you put together your time machine. Okay, and that is that if you just create a time machine that makes you go, let's say, a month in the future, where would you be?

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Geographically or yes.

SPEAKER_04 34:57

You would be in the middle of space.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Oh, that's true. Because the earth is moving.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

Yes, you gotta account for the movement of the earth, of the solar system, of the galaxy that is all moving.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Right? And as as as Scotty would say, it never occurred to me that space was a thing that was moving.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

I recently read a time travel book that was really more about duplication. Because what they did was they created time travel that that that was like one four hundredth of a second, and that was as far as they could go, but that would make you move to a place that was 28 miles away. Oh, because of the change and and movement of the thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

And that is how teleportation works. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Although at the same time, now that takes me to the prestige, which is a whole different mind fuck. Anybody remember the prestige? Oh, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

Trick?

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Do you remember prestige?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

I just know it was a it was a magician thing, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 36:03

You're a magician thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

It was more than a magician thing. Okay, but if you had a choice of time machine, would it be a portable case that you can travel with, like in this movie? Would it be a DeLorean? Would it be a phone booth? What would what is your what is your preferred method of time travel?

SPEAKER_04 36:22

A wristband. Yes. Because otherwise, if you got a vehicle, where do you leave it?

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Ooh, okay.

Ouroboros Symbols And Watchlist Picks

SPEAKER_04 36:30

Uh, I do have a a couple more notes. I I found it fascinating that a science fiction short story in 1958 dealt with intersex.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

That to me was was really kind of fascinating. Cause, you know, uh, because a lot of people just don't think of it being something that had been talked about, you know, and and all that. And and this was this was actually um six years after Christine Jorgensen, who is mentioned in both the short story and in the movie.

SPEAKER_05 37:07

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

So that was sort of fresh in people's minds from that standpoint, and so uh so I found it interesting that the short story mentioned that. Uh also both the short story and the movie had the um Ouroboros snake.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

The ring, the snake eating its tail, eating its tail, yes, yes, which is really the sign of the bootstrap paradox. Correct. Is that is that Ouroboros snake. And then uh the other thing that was also in the short story that also appeared at various places in the movie. I don't remember exactly where in the movie, but these phrases never do yesterday what should be done tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

If at last you do succeed, never try again. Yes. A stitch in time saves nine billion.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:01

A paradox may be paradoctored.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

Yes. I love that statement. Pete, if there was a film and a book that you feel our our listeners need to uh uh the you know the treasure trove of uh time machine wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff. Nice. What would be your hey, you need to check this out if you have not already?

SPEAKER_04 38:30

There are so many. I mean, if you if you want if you want to be completely messed up and confused, uh tenant, without a doubt. If you really want to start getting into multiple dimensions, uh we're talking Interstellar. Um and I think that's that that's that's a really good choice there.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:51

Uh if you want to go time loop but not groundhog day, I would go with the um Emily Blunt and um Edge of Tomorrow. Uh it's a great time. That's a great lift I repeat. That's a great time loop movie. That's a good, really in-depth. But I think I think I think predestination is definitely one of those because I think predestination is the ultimate bootstrap paradox. There there are there are lots of bootstrap paradox movies, but none that is as bootstrappy uh as as this one because you've got the whole works is all bootstrapped.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

It is it is continuing to come with you no matter where you go.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

You have a time machine. Your memory is that you can go back into the past anytime you want, and you can go into the future and imagine what will be. And a lot of things can be self-fulfilling. If you see it, you can be it, right? So we have that capability, and that's such a cool thing, even though it's not reliable.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

We greatly appreciate our listeners for choosing this podcast, supporting Independent Films and the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival. I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, and thanks for imbibing with us. Cheers.