I just saw this film earlier today and let me just say that it was quite a mind-bender that I was not prepared for. I am not going to go into a lengthy review with this film as I do my others since I don't have the time or energy at the moment but more importantly because this is a movie you should see for yourself without giving away too much. However let's take a cursory glance at this movie and its plot to find some evidence of future memes and realities that may be coming right around the corner.
The main Character Joe is played by both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis - the first in his formative years and the latter in his later years. Joe is a "Looper" or a hired gun who works in the past for a crime syndicate that exists int the future. Joe waits at predetermined locations for kidnapped people to show up at which point he executes them, point blank before cremating their bodies. This works out well for the crime syndicates of the future who need to dispose of bodies without a trace during a period when apparently it is difficult to do so. Having a hired gun from the past eliminating someone from the future (who supposedly does not exist yet) results in a clean kill without a trace. On the other hand, these hired guns (otherwise known as "loopers") are themselves subject to the same treatment of assassination (after 30 years have past and they are old enough to possibly interfere with the crime syndicate again). Once the "loopers" themselves are sent back to the past they are often shot and killed by the earlier version of themselves resulting in a "closed loop". Without going into the specifics of the logic behind such a mind-bending plot and the hyper-dimensional quantum physics involved (which I assure you I do not understand) I will just say that this allows for some very wild twists and turns as well as a seriously long movie.
In any case, at some point Joe winds up with the inglorious task of having to kill the future version of himself to "close his loop" at which point he becomes entangled in both bringing down the current day mobsters being run by future mobsters, as well as preventing "Future Joe" from assassinating individuals who are now Joe's employers or other children that "Future Joe" believes will become part of the crime syndicate in the future. Again, far too complicated to discuss in detail here.
However, there were several themes that were revealed in this film that I believe may have relevancy to emerging trends in our current world. First, all Loopers are paid in silver. As many of us who study alternative economic news already know, silver is both a commodity and a precious metal and the value of paper silver is attrociously repressed to prevent this commodity from being traded and sold at its true worth - NOT SO in the movie. The movie makes it clear that SILVER is the currency of the future as well as the parallel present. So WOW, yeah, that's quite an admission and statement in the film (obviously the director thinks this new silver-based reality is on its way).
There was also another meme that the film brought up about
telekinesis in the future. In the film many people develop this ability
and are able to "float quarters" (usually just to pick up chicks) in
their hands. At first this seems to be completely tangential to the film
but later we learn it is not - let's just leave those details out for
the moment so as not to ruin the film.
The final theme that stood out for me is that there seems to be a suggestion that this time travel technology could already exist. There are rampant rumors all over the internet about the possibility of time traveling involving everything from Nazi UFO's to quantum teleportation to astral projection and lucid dreaming (also see the movie "Source Code" for similar content). So the question then becomes, are these technologies already influencing our reality now? No way to be sure of course - I suppose there's no way to verify this other than to time travel yourself but I couldn't help thinking about it throughout the film.
On a final note, I couldn't help escape the feeling that this film was a warning of sorts about messing with certain aspects of reality and how destructive it could all become if certain technologies were to fall into the wrong hands. We have a tendency to laugh off such things these days but perhaps we shouldn't. A crime syndicate that mastered the science of time travel could eventually come to rule the world and all of its parallel dimensions and entangled timelines as well (if you catch my drift). It would be better if the population at large developed into aware and enlightened citizens (i.e. not the sheep they have become today) to ensure this does not happen but I am not holding my breathe....
