I thought that primer was very interesting. I was particularly interested in the way time travel worked in the movie. There was a set of rules. They could only go back in time and had to stay in the box and away from their doubles. When Aaron eventually broke the rules paradoxes were created in time. Doubles of the charters were brought into existence and they could not get rid of them unless they used their failsafe box to go back to the very beginning of their time traveling.
All of these rules shifts in time, and paradoxes remind me of the hypertexts we have read. In most of them there is a set of rules that the reader has to operate within to get the story. There are shifts in where links will take you and almost like time travel certain links will take you back and forth within the story.
I did think that the movie was kind of hard to follow as a plot. I had to look up some extra information after watching it. Parts were missing or not explained fully. I did not really understand why they wanted to stop the gunman from not shooting anybody at the party. Rachel’s father who used the box somehow. I also felt that they left out the creation of the failsafe and how the doubles were created but maybe I just missed that.
The way that the plot went was also reminiscent of a hypertext though. The gaps in the plot only made me more interested in what was going on and how the story was being told in particular. Were there reasons that they left out these important scenes? It added to the confusion that the characters may have been going through. Not knowing what would happen to them as they time traveled. What the consequences of their actions may have been.
While researching to try and figure the movie out I found this timeline for the events. http://www.freeweb.hu/neuwanstein/primer_timeline.html I thought it was interesting because it looks like the contents of patchwork girl withal the different places that the story goes. Very similar to hypertext as I have already said.
The way that they explored the time travel reminded me of the way that Navidson and his friends explored the house. At first they just went for a couple hours testing the travel and how it works. Then they went further attempting to use it for their own personal gain. Eventually they went to far like Holloway and got trapped within the paradoxes that they created with no way to go back and change what they had done.
I thought that the doubles were created no matter what, since that is why they had to bring both cars because the double was using the other car while the 'original' was heading home. Again, I may be wrong, but that is what I thought happened. I liked how the movie somewhat touched on possible problems/ paradoxes, like with the cell phone and the technical questions that followed it, such as who would get the call. I still think it would be helpful to create a second movie that would follow every time line or have some way of tabbing it.
ReplyDeleteIt's not really a coincidence that time-travel is reminiscent of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books.
ReplyDeleteThe CYOA books are essentially narrative time-travel, allowing us to go back from a point to "relive" the story and change things. Primer worked in basically the same manner, the problem being that both Aaron and Abe had their own goals they wanted to further that eventually became exclusive.
Given the opportunity, most people would probably attempt to improve their lives in the same manner as Aaron and Abe did, of course, the paradoxes and time loops might be infinitely more destructive as a result.
I thought it was interesting how you said that it was hard to get at times. Do you think it was because it was almost impossible to hear what they were saying at times!!!?? Because in that fountain scene I heard just about half the words they were saying. It's kinda hard to understand a story/movie if you have no idea what they're saying. Do you agree? However, I also used the mighty wikipedia to help me along in my further understanding of the movie, even though I don't like doing so. I did notice that it was also like a hypertext so I'm glad you noticed as well, I completely agree with you.
ReplyDeleteSamantha Calver
ReplyDeleteThere are always rules when it comes to time travel, in some you can’t occupy the same space as your double or unknowable devastation will happen to the world, but I too was intrigued with the concept of time travel in primer. Although I enjoyed the new take on time travel in primer I had a hard time following the movie, half of the time I could not figure out what was going on and the other half I would see scenes and draw conclusions that were so far off base from what really happened. What you said about primer in some way being like a hyper text I totally agree with, aside from what you said my ability to only understand bits and pieces of the movie reflects my ability to understand some of the hypertext pieces we read.
I also thought that Primer was just like a hypertext especially with them brining you back to the beginning all over again! What I think was confusing about the movie was the verbage they used... half the time I didnt even know what they were talking about and I found it hard to know if their doubles still existed or not... because of the car situation it makes me think that they still did? Could be wrong...
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