Thirty minutes before the film, the protagonists Abe and Aaron, both in a four-person team, work in the company during the day, and are engaged in R&D in the warehouse when they are free, and hope to get the attention of venture capital.
But later, Abe and Aaron began to find excuses to separate the other two and complete the equipment independently. This is because they discovered interesting things from this machine: first of all, it can reduce the weight of any object. Secondly, it can delay time. Finally, Abe discovered that they had accidentally created a time machine.
There are two concepts that need to be explained here:
1. How this machine works. The retrospective effect of the machine on time cannot last too long. The specific time is the time when the machine started. That is to say, turn on the machine at 6:00, and the machine will warm up ("wind up") after five minutes and reach the running state. The time is 6:05. After six hours, that is, turn off the machine at 12:05, wait for the machine to cool down ("wind down") and quickly enter the machine, the internal time of the machine will gradually return from 12:05 to 6:05. Of course, the required time is also 6. Hour. Then the machine will cycle back and forth between 6:05 and 12:05. (It should be possible to quit the machine at any time, but this is not shown in the movie)
2. Replacement: This is a basic principle of time travel, which is also explained in another film "The Hot Problem of Time Travel" . That is, I (called Me_1) entered the machine at 12:05 and stayed in the machine for six hours and returned to 6:05. At this time, I have become Me_2, and Me_1 is still doing what he should do, and then Me_1 will be there. Enter the machine at 12:05. In this way, there is only Me_2 in this world. Therefore, as long as they don't meet each other within these six hours, they will not affect each other. This is also reflected in the plot, that is, hiding in the hotel to isolate the contact, and finally watching the past Abe and Aaron drag the gas cylinder into the machine. (Of course, in each world, this situation is recursive, that is, Me_1 will become another Me_3...)
Okay, then continue our story:
Abe built a prototype machine that was large enough to hold one person. After a time-space retrospect, Aaron informed Aaron of the details and took Aaron to witness his past tense into the time machine. After Aaron knew about it, they made another machine so that both of them could look back in time and space at the same time. The two initially used the time machine to trade stocks because they could use the extra time to spy on the future stock market. But with the development of time, they gradually began to have the idea of taking risks, that is, going back to the past and having an impact on their past self. The trigger was a person named Thomas Granger who used one of their time machines to go back in time. (The specific reason is not explained in the film). So they turned on the machine while Thomas Granger was looking back in time, turning Thomas Granger in the machine into a vegetable.
Aaron believes that this is just because he had some contact with Thomas Granger. However, Abe didn't think so. He concluded that time travel is too dangerous. This led to later, he used the machine to go back in time to try to stop the past self. (At this time, he used the third machine: Abe made another machine at the beginning and turned it on, called "failsafe", in order to be able to return to the original point in time under special circumstances.)
However, Abe But I don’t know that Aaron has discovered this "failsafe", maybe Aaron used it on Thomas Granger and has been using it to repeatedly intervene in a shotgun male incident (during this period, he was wearing headphones. According to the film, Judging from this. The purpose of his earphones is to play the recordings of conversations in the past, and the purpose is to repeat the same words with minimal changes in history. At the same time, Aaron restarted the start time of "failsafe" to use "failsafe" for himself ”, which means that no one can use “failsafe” to return to Aaron to change history. After not knowing how many times back, he found that after each intervention, the subsequent actions of the gunman were unforeseen, so in the end he realized that he could only stop the gunman on the spot. In the end, Abe finally stopped him before the shotgun man shot, so Abe became the hero of that party.
Since Aaron restarted "failsafe", when Abe tried to stop her in the past, the "failsafe" used was not the time she set. So when he spent more than 22 hours in the machine for three days, he still saw Aaron with headphones reciting the recording, and learned everything from Aaron, including using "failsafe" to look back the time, using the recording, Finally, Abe convinced Aaron to stop the shotgun man "again" together.
In fact, the timeline of the film is sequential, but it is difficult to distinguish who is Aaron_1 and who is Abe_2. In fact, after the stock backtracking, they have started to use "failsafe" to backtrack independently. They both tried to change history, but due to their different opinions and will, the two experienced very different time travel. Regarding the use of the machine, their opinions gradually parted ways, which led to the rupture of the final friendship. In fact, you can see the gradual split between the two people in the film, their mutual suspicion and deception. So although the film is hard to understand, the main theme is a story about the friendship between the two people, broken by the time machine.
In the end, Abe did not go with Aaron. He stayed and continued to try to stop the original Abe and Aaron, which is the "Prime-er-the original" implied by the film's name. Aaron has gone abroad. At the end of the film, he is trying to build a time machine the size of a house.
After reading this, I believe you should have a preliminary understanding of the structure of this film. What I want to say here is that the view of time and space in this film is different from the view of time and space in previous science fiction works. The previous view of time and space said that after returning to the past, the parties in the past will repeat what they have done intact according to a "road of destiny". History is certain, which is more or less fatalistic. mean. However, in the time and space of the film, even if it goes back to the past, the person's uncertainty as a person is quite large, which is why Abe can only stop the shotgun man at the last moment. This view seems to be able to easily eliminate the grandfather's paradox, that is, it is impossible for the person to go back to the moment before the time machine was created, but it is still flawed in a short time: if I go back to 6:00 at 12:00, And then stop the "I" who has not yet entered the machine, then the "I" cannot travel time and space, and I no longer exist.
In fact, I just found out here, why there is a little scientific knowledge. It seems that this film is a joke. If it is not for the so-called "warm-up" of 5 minutes, if you cross back, you will immediately meet with you over there. You just started the machine, you saw you get out of the machine, laugh. . .
As a low-cost film, this film is said to only cost the self-written, self-directed and self-acting director 7,000 US dollars, which can be said to be an ultra-small cost. If you can improve the script (I don't know if this script is perfect, or it is inherently full of loopholes) and increase investment, it may also be a good one. Recently, low-cost sci-fi movies have emerged in an endless stream. It also gave me new hope for the more and more expensive road of sci-fi. It is not the special effects that can win. "Moon" and "Man from the Earth" are all very good examples. . This is why I like this kind of low-cost science fiction, because they can withstand pondering, and the more they ponder, the more flavorful, the sensory stimulation of those grand scenes has long been aesthetically tired.
In general, I recommend everyone to watch this film. For a production of US$7,000, I get a very cost-effective film. Even if there are loopholes in many places, the shooting, actors, and soundtrack are very rough. Being able to understand this film will exercise your thinking very much.
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