Clarification about closing a loop in Looper
After watching "Looper", I could not understand how closing a loop works. What I understood is, If person A is in present as a looper, he would be sent to Past where he would wait for the victim from the present and would kill him so that he can easily dispose of the dead body in the past. Then he would return to present again.
So when a loop is being closed, the looper has to kill his own future-self. But how is it done?
EDIT: After getting a clear answer by @Dforck42 about closing a loop, my question changes a little. So when a contract with a looper comes to an end, the present looper kills his future self in present which is sent from future. Now I am trying to set up an example to clarify what I am trying to ask regarding this concept.
Suppose Abe decides to end the loop of person A in present. Then the future self of A has to be sent from future to present by future Abe. So how can the future Abe know that A should be sent to the particular past say 30yrs back, i.e. present from movies perspective? Somebody should inform the future Abe that A's loops is being closed in present. Then only future Abe can know that A should now be sent to present. But it is not shown anywhere explicitly in the movie.
Best Answer
The way it works is someone is hired as a Looper, with the contract saying that their employment will end when they kill themselves and get a nice payout. This is called closing their loop. After a loop is closed a looper has 30 years to live until their loop is closed.
The way it works is the Looper's future self is sent to the past (the present from the movie's perspective) and the present looper kills themself. They then go on living their life until 30 years later when they're grabbed and sent back and killed.
update for edit:
the decision to close a loop is made in the future, so the looper is sent 30 years back to the past (present in the movie). the decision to close a loop is not made by the Abe in the present.
When a person is sent back they are usually masked, the loopers usually shoot the second they see someone appear. It also seems to be a part of the job to not look at who they just killed.
There's a conversation in the movie about the future bosses closing out the loops. It's never mentioned that Abe actually decides when a loop is closed, or have any say in it at all. It was told that in the future the bad guy (the rainmaker) took over and started closing loops. We just see the part where the Rainmaker took over and started closing ALL of the loops. It's not alluded to though that Abe makes any decisions on when a loop is closed, he just manages the loopers to make sure everything goes without a hitch and that they close their own loop.
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How does closing your loop work?
In business jargon, \u201cclosing the loop\u201d means to follow up on and/or close out an area of discussion. The phrase is closely related to \u201ccircle back around\u201d and \u201cloop in.\u201d To better achieve your objectives, experts say it's vital that you learn to close the loop on actions so that the important actions can get done.Why do loopers close their own loop?
"People in the future, all they know about time travel is to be afraid of it. So they're trying to keep it as tight as possible. So the initial reason they set it up this way was to keep the causality loop as tight as possible," Johnson said.Why did The Rainmaker want to close all the loops?
That might explain why Rainmaker was wiping out all the Loopers. On the surface, it looked like he was just taking care of loose ends, but maybe he also used this as an excuse to exact revenge against people like the person who murdered his mother and left him an orphan.Do loopers kill themselves?
A Looper killing his older self signifies that his time as a Looper is done, he can retire. There's a big pay off, and they have about 30 years until they are found in the future, and sent back for execution.Closing the loop
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Answer 2
Like DForck42 already answered on how a Looper contract works, one who chooses the Looper profession also chooses to kill himself somewhere in future and to have a rich life from that moment on for only 30 more years.
On your question update, taking the Abe example: in the movie, it is never implied that Abe makes decisions on closing loops. But suppose he did, then the answer is very simple: he just has to remember to send that Looper back in time. It surely is his own decision; all he needs is a calendar.
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