Why are loopers required to kill themselves?

Why are loopers required to kill themselves? - Pink and White Love Print Textile

I was just wondering if anyone could think of any reasonable reason as to why in Looper the loopers have to kill their older selfs? I mean why not just send the older looper back to a different looper to kill and nobody would be any the wiser? It seemed to cause them a lot of problems....



Best Answer

Shamelessly copied from my answer over on sci-fi & fantasy.SE:

In an interview with Slashfilm, the director, Rian Johnson, addresses this:

Why is it essential for a looper to close his own loop?

This is another one of those questions Johnson had answered in his head but didn’t put in the movie. In fact, he even conceived a scene with Abe addressing it but never shot it.

“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. Because, for example, if someone else kills your older self and you have to exist with your own murderer for 30 years, what’s stopping you for murdering them or doing something to screw everything else up? ”Every bit of evidence is gone from that loop when you kill yourself,” he said.




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Why are loopers required to kill themselves? - Top view of slogan Stop Killing Us on surface of square blackboard on black background
Why are loopers required to kill themselves? - Youngster putting rose flower to head in suicidal thoughts
Why are loopers required to kill themselves? - Wild lioness eating prey in savanna



Why did Joe kill himself Looper?

Young Joe realizes that if old Joe kills Cid, it will put the steps into place for Cid to become the Rainmaker, so he decides to shoot himself as a way to stop old Joe.

Why do they have to close the loop?

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.

What happens when you close your loop Looper?

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.

What are they putting in their eyes in Looper?

Eye drops are used as drugs and the city's run by a mobster from the future (Jeff Daniels). Once loopers hit 30 years past the date they began their first job, they are sent back into the past and are killed by their younger selves.



Looper: Old Seth dies (HD CLIP)




More answers regarding why are loopers required to kill themselves?

Answer 2

This is a good example of how Looper's premise is shaky in terms of logistics -- too many unanswerable questions, such as:

  1. Wouldn't it be better to have the FIRST person each looper kills be the looper's future self? Then each loop would be closed from the start.

  2. Given their drug-addled, crime-ridden lifestyles, how many loopers will actually live a full 30 years after "retiring"?

  3. If a given looper did live 30 years, wouldn't he go into hiding in year 30? Or maybe start cooperating with the authorities in an effort to save his life?

  4. Overall, if they're all running around for 30 years, isn't there a risk that one or more loopers would alter the timeline significantly, changing what the world would look like in year 30?

Answer 3

Because when you kill yourself you have no one to blame but yourself.

To answer the four questions asked from someone below your question;

  1. If it would be better they sent yourself to kill first to close the loop from the get-go and erase all traces you’ve ever existed, then so would be your contract closed and you could walk free by doing just one job. Of course, they don’t want that. They want that loopers do a pretty amount of work before retiring.

  2. That’s unknown. Joe states that IF someone lives those 30 years, they’ll be found and sent back in time.

  3. Yes they would go hiding and that’s what Joe kinda did. They’ll be found nonetheless. I don’t think anyone who’s a criminal will go to the authorities asking them for help. Why would they help them?

  4. That’s a basic time travel question that shouldn’t be asked. Maybe it’s a movie where little things such as one person don’t affect the grand scale of the future. Maybe it isn’t. The movie shows however that it can change the outcome of the future for one person (the little kid) who’s known to be the Rainmaker.

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