I think it sets up a possible sequel (for better or worse). Without the Omega around to reset things or send visions to any human with the timetravel blood, does Tom Cruise become omnipotent? Crazy? Malevolent? Does he get corrupted by it? Do the aliens send a larger force?
What makes people think he still has the power and the reset back to sleeping on the helicopter wasn’t a one-shot deal? And if he does and can’t get rid of it thats a pretty horrific fate, does he live out his life and die happy in his bed at age 90 just to reset back to Victory Day?
I dunno, I liked the ending because I thought both Cruise’s and Blunt’s characters deserved a little happiness after what they went through and the above kind of spoils that.
And yeah it seemed to me like a movie that doesn’t really need any sequels, they story is all wrapped up and contained in one film.
Well, he could always just get a blood transplant.
Saw it last night and I enjoyed it. Agree with the cite above, the video game reset feel. I think the writers put themselves in the place of the hero in something like Halo. Every time he dies, he starts again at the last save point, with the memory of what will happen.
Kind of similar to the theme explored in the Battlestar Galactica episode Scar, where the Cylon pilot is so good because he has died so many times.
There were a few plot holes, but I think the film does better because they don’t really try to develop the back story and explain everything in the film. You just jump right in and have to learn bits and pieces from viewpoints that may not be reliable.
And that save point is right before an unskippable sixteen hour cutscene.
From a gamer’s perspective, this might just be the most terrifying movie ever.
Well as long as he had a reliable ‘out’ then it would be OK.
btw one thing mentioned in the book that wasn’t (if I recall correctly) alluded to in the movie were that the Mimics were a designed race made as another aliens means of terraforming planets to their liking. Their blood wasn’t really biological but more composed of nanotechnology, in the book combatants have to be careful because being splattered with their blood is fatal. This is one reason for the mech-suits (which I imagine were more encompassing for protection than shown in the movie) and it states that battles against the Mimics in less-developed parts of the world had horrific casualties as poorly armed and armoured human troops were pretty much done for when engaging them at close range even if they did manage to kill the enemy.
Edited to add that the Mimics in the book were also physically somewhat different being more akin to heavily armed biological tanks than the ninja-like Mimics in the movie.
I really liked this. I think people are going to find it on video and say, “Dang, I should have seen this in the theater.”
The ending was kind of a cheat but you can hand wave it away by theorizing that the omega existed outside of time so when it died it died in the entire timeline
That theory doesn’t work, because it died at a specific time according to the general in the last scene. It had been alive before that, of course, because Europe was still conquered.
I’ve read the handwave that
[SPOILER]We never see that first Alpha again – the blue one that bleeds all over Cruise during his initial run-through; our hero resets, at which point it apparently comes down with a case of Just Not Being There for the second round, or the third, or the fourth, and et cetera.
So he kills the Omega, and all its minions start dying, and Cruise resets to a point even further back because he’s drenched in high-powered Omega blood – and from that point on there’s no Omega, so Omega minions start keeling over at that point.[/SPOILER]
[spoiler]Or whoever was in charge just didn’t have the courage to let Tom Cruise’s character die for real, which is the obviously superior ending.
Seriously, this gets my vote for best movie of all time to be ruined by its ending.[/spoiler]
I don’t think the ending ruined it at all.
[spoiler]I agree. This was literally a movie about respawning after death. It would’ve felt unfinished without a “final” respawn.
“Edge of Tomorrow” is also much more of a lighthearted action flick than the grim 'n gritty uberdark that permeates every other blockbuster made these days in an effort to appeal to the Batman crowd. I thought the (relatively) happy ending was perfect for the film. If anything, the final scene felt, tonally, more to me like the bulk of the film than the CGI-stravaganza that was the final battle.[/spoiler]
Saw it last night and I really liked it, although I have the same confusion/complaint about the ending reset as everyone else.
But I have another question that no one has answered. On the final day, [spoiler]once Cage gets the transfusion he can no longer reset. So when he and Blunt and J-Squad go to Paris it’s the first time they have ever done that in any timeline. Yet, their drop ship is ambushed and someone (Blunt?) realizes that the Mimics are expecting them. How is that?
I get that the scene at the German dam is an ambush because the Omega “fed” Cage the vision of the dam to lure him there, so the Mimics were expecting him the first time he got that far. But I can’t figure out how they knew he was coming to Paris.
Unless - I’m speculating as I’m typing - the Omega could tell when Cage used that device to ‘link’ to the Omega’s network and get the true vision of where it was. I suppose at that point the Omega would expect Cruise to show up pretty quickly. Okay I guess I can live with that explanation. [/spoiler]
Still doesn’t explain how the Omega was dead two days before when Cage reset the last time. That ending really felt tacked on.
ETA: added spoiler tags since I didn’t see [spoilers] in the thread title, although it should probably be added.
Haven’t seen the movie but recently read the novel the movie is based upon: All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, Japanese Sci-Fi. Book explains in more detail the reason for the loops and how to escape them.
The author has explained that the premise for the book is based upon first person shooter games, where you have unlimited lives and keep going back to a certain point of the game until you figure out how to defeat that level.
Yes. It was consistent up until that last little bit.
Another (apparent) inconsistency came to me last night.
We find out in the farmhouse shed with the chopper that Cage has reached this point many times, and that they have never been able to both survive starting up the chopper.
One obvious question is, why doesn’t she believe him and try something different (like syphoning the gas for the car like he suggests)? She’s listened to him all day so far.
But more bothersome - back when they were escaping the beach he told her which cars they had tried already, and told her to take the one with the trailer. If he knew that one would work why didn’t he go with her? If he didn’t know, how did he get to the farmhouse before?
And if they did take the trailer before, why was he surprised when there was a mimic in it?
Possibilities I considered:
-
The scene with the cars and the scene at the farmhouse are on different days; we’re just not shown him resetting in between. Possible, but unsatisfying since they seem to be the same day.
-
Every other time through, she’s unhooked the camper like he told her to. The day we saw was the first time she forgot and they discovered the mimic inside. It still doesn’t explain why he acted like he didn’t know if that car would work or not. That lack of knowledge certainly implies that it was the furthest he’d ever gotten, which contradicts the later farmhouse scene.
I don’t remember the precise dialog and timing, but couldn’t the explanation be as simple as, the Mimics have lots of guys there all the time to protect the Omega, and then they just saw a plane flying towards them, so they all gathered there?
Didn’t the scientist guy say something about the Omega knows when people like Rita and Cage have been created and/or it knows when people are getting close to its true hiding place? I thought that had something to do with how events seem to be slightly different in each repeat over time…?
That would have been my assumption if Rita (I think it was) hadn’t said “they were expecting us.” But maybe I’m reading too much into that comment.
Well, by that point she seems to have reached a tipping point with him. He was getting too friendly and sappy, knew too much, talked too much. They’d spent all day together and he was starting to get pretty soft about her. It seems part of her character to get stubborn as all hell about that and go on to be the good soldier and do what she thought needed to be done for the mission, which was wake him up and get him moving (by dying I suppose)
I also remember him saying that he was going to the other car to create a diversion. I don’t remember there being other takes of that scene where she remembers to unhook the trailer, so I had assumed that he was creating a situation on purpose where she would forget to unhook it, because that’s what he wanted - that’s what would get him to the farmhouse.
Really though, I don’t find much use in picking apart the movie because all you can ever find with movies like this is inconsistencies that you then have to explain away in order to keep enjoying it, when you enjoyed it just fine the first go around when you weren’t picking everything apart. Summer action flicks, yanno.