SDM's movie recommendation to the math inclined: Primer

[sexdrugsmoney]

This post is to David and anybody else who is math inclined, and/or has an interest in Physics.

I watched this movie at the cinema I knew nothing about beforehand called 'Primer'. (made in 2004 and directed by Shane Carruth)

Anyway, the film went over my head a little as it deals with the paradoxes of time travel, but unlike alot of other movies doesn't flesh out the concept for an audience who didn't take 8th grade physics.

There seem to be four kinds of people who see this movie:

1) Those that get it fully.
2) Those that don't get it but say they do to fit in. (I'm looking at you Ebert)
3) Those that partially get but need more explanation. (I am here)
4) Those that don't get it all.

So anyway, I thought I'd make SMP aware of this film if they aren't already, and I'd be particularly keen to hear David's thoughts on it.

Cheers,
SDM

[benkahuna]

Some spoilers here, but minor. Just stuff that might influence your opinion of this film. No point in reading my post if you haven't seen it. And no point in reading it if you haven't either because it's reasonably likely to influence your response to the film. You've been warned...




I just watched this mind "you know what" of a movie last night. I wish I had one of their doohickey's to stop msyelf from having done so. :P

I found it so confusing at points as to be consciousness-altering. I told my roommate that I was very glad to be watching it sober. We were both seriously confused at some points, but by the end there were a number of things that made sense.

While theoretically interesting, I felt there were many problems with the movie. Like some reviewers, I felt the end was rushed. Even upon rethinking it, certain scenes flashed by so quickly that it is difficult to know what happened. The discordant overtalking constantly occurring between characters was off-putting and made conversations in an already confusing film more difficult to follow. I also don't like that it requires for anyone without a perfectly photographic memory multiple viewings to figure out the finer plot details. I'm (probably) not going to watch it again.

The potential issues with time travel, understanding oneself to figure out how one would respond in certain situations, paradoxes and other issues were good for promoting thought.

No other film has succeeded in making time travel look so unappealing and confusing.

Oh yeah, there was a lot of BS science stuff in there. All this stuff about odd numbers and parabolas, etc. That was silly. A lot of electronics talk earlier in film. Also silly.

[AleoMagus]

Anyone who has watched this might be interested in this:

timeline (http://neuwanstein.freeweb.hu/primer_timeline.html)

Of course I recommend thinking about it first and trying to figure it out for yourself. Repeat viewings help. By my third viewing, I was pretty close, though I doubt anyone can say for sure EXACTLY what is going on in some scenes.

good movie.

Regards
Brad S