MovieChat Forums > The Infinite Man (2015) Discussion > Time Travel Paradox?

Time Travel Paradox?

posted 9 years ago by PodMeIfYouCan
7 replies | jump to latest

Hi everyone

I think there is a flaw in the time travel of this film. Not 100% so I'm posting it here so others can help me think through the logic. So if you look at her timeline (below) you learn that each event only happens once - and that means there is a chronological narrative to the film.

HER TIMELINE
LANA 1 and DEAN 1 ARRIVE at the HOTEL to find it CLOSED.
TERRY 1 arrives and TASERS DEAN 1
TERRY 1 DRIVES away with LANA 1 and runs out of GAS
DEAN 4 Arrives and goes TO THE BEACH with LANA 1 for the next YEAR.
DEAN 2 (He’s been living there all year) CALLS and talks to DEAN4
LANA1 comes back to find DEAN 2 and time travels back with him ONE YEAR.
SHE IS NOW LANA 2
DEAN2 and LANA1 interact / LANA2 interacts with DEAN1
LANA1 leaves again (as above with Terry1) LANA 2 stays FOR 1 YEAR with DEAN3 at HOTEL (unaware of SAD DEAN2 but aware of SAD DEAN1 building time machine)
LANA2 wears the earpiece and speaks with DEAN4
This is where LANA1 comes back and time travels back
LANA2 takes out EARPIECE – BREAKS up with DEAN4
LANA2 walks away only to be accosted by Flowers from DEAN5 (Future DEAN)

Right... hopefully that makes sense.

So then his timeline:

HIS TIMELINE
LANA 1 and DEAN 1 ARRIVE at the HOTEL to find it CLOSED.
TERRY 1 arrives TASERS DEAN 1 (overhears her saying lets go to the beach) and TERRY 1 takes away LANA 1
DEAN 1 stays FOR 1 YEAR and Builds TIME MACHINE – NOW HE is DEAN 2
DEAN 2 Calls LANA1 (talks to DEAN 4)
LANA 1 comes back and TIME TRAVELS back with DEAN 2 (She is now LANA 2)
DEAN2 and LANA1 interact / LANA2 interacts with DEAN1
LANA1 leaves with TERRY1 leaving DEAN1 to become DEAN2 (build time machine)
TERRY1 knocks DEAN2 out of the window where he lies.
DEAN3 (confident) opens the door and sets DEAN2 on the path to become DEAN3 - DEAN2 moping for a year at the HOTEL to eventually become DEAN3
DEAN2 goes back again (now he is DEAN3)
DEAN3 meets TERRY2 and sees his death in the room.
DEAN3 talks to LANA1 (wants to go to the beach) but knows LANA2 is in the room
DEAN3 lives at the HOTEL with LANA2 for the YEAR talking over their relationship
LANA2 wears the earpiece and speaks with DEAN4
DEAN3 sees LANA1 go back (thinks its LANA2) and PANICS.
TERRY2 arrives and DEAN3 goes back with him (HE IS NOW DEAN4)
DEAN4 chases OUT OF GAS LANA1 and goes to the BEACH with her.
LIVES there for 1 year before getting the phone call.
HE GOES BACK and has the EARPIECE talk with LANA2.
LANA2 takes out EARPIECE – BREAKS up with DEAN4
LANA2 walks away only to be accosted by Flowers from DEAN5 (Future DEAN)

DEAN2 has the FIRST EARPIECE conversation
DEAN4 has the second EARPIECE conversation
THIS IS A PARADOX. Am I right?
Shouldn't there be TWO versions of DEAN there having the earpiece conversation?

Also the conversation coming from the earpiece is something he heard - but he also speaks it. She never speaks it - so its a loop too because it is both being spoken by him based on what he said based on what he heard etc to infinity! That is flawed because it has no origin - like the killing your grandfather thing.

Happy to hear thoughts as I'm not sure.

Thanks!

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[–] abcdefgg 9 years ago

Not sure I understand what you're saying...
How are they two different deans that have the earpiece conversation? This isn't a time loop movie (like Triangle) so everything happens just once until everybody exit the 'loop' like LANA2 and DEAN5 at the end and Terry2 with the gym bag (sad dude...).
We just see different portion of things happen at different times in the movie, which makes it brilliant, but there is no repetition here.
As for the conversation coming out of nowhere, yeah, of course it's a paradox, information cannot go back in time and feed itself, and doctor Floyd cannot build his time machine based on what a Marty McFly from the future tells him, but once you assume time travel is possible (and it isn't if you put altering the past in the picture, but if you don't you have no drama...) then you have to buy everything else

[–] lordrosemount 9 years ago

Nah, he's right, you know. Two different Deans did have that earpiece conversation: I just went back and checked; there were definitely two different conversations from his side. What happened, if you recall, is that the first time we saw the prelude to this conversation Dean 2 was making some final adjustments to his time machine, consulting a circuit board manual about how to open loops, and then went out to talk to Lana - but then the second time Dean 4 came in, tazered Dean 2 and took his place his place. That means Dean 2 is later going to wake up having not gone through the sequence of events that led him to take Lana back in time with him, leaving him as some sort of stray artefact.

I enjoyed this film, but this demonstrates some unclarity as to which theory of time travel it was operating on. You're assuming it follows the 'Los cronocrímenes' model where everything that happens, happens the same in every iteration, but this opening of the loop seems to indicate that's not the case. Dean (any version) doesn't seem sure whether the world works more like that, or more in the 'Primer' vein where time travel can actually alter the timeline by essentially creating new universes. Some of his actions think it's the LC model, for example insisting on hanging around the hotel with Lana for a year because his previous iteration had seen them around instead of just taking her away with him, but then almost immediately after that he insists Lana wear an earpiece so he can tell her what to say, instead of just telling her to go out and say whatever came naturally, since whatever she said would be what she would always have said. I can appreciate that as he went through the loops his own theory of time travel may have changed, but that doesn't explain why it would have changed almost immediately for no apparent reason.

(I think the earpiece device was introduced more for the sake of dramatic irony than for its function in the plot, since you ended up in a situation where Dean was vehemently protesting that he 'could never control' Lana, when in fact he was controlling her completely throughout that entire conversation.)

It is important to stress that Dean was talking about 'opening' rather than 'closing' the loop, so maybe it was just during the middle phase of his existence - circa Dean 2/3 - that he thought the timeline was fixed (presumably Dan 1 didn't believe that, else he'd have had no reason to try time travel in the first place), but the question is, with Dean 4 having opened the loop, what happens to Dean 2 at the end of the film?

[–] abcdefgg 9 years ago

You're just assuming that Dean4 didn't ALWAYS tazer Dean2 and have the conversation in his place, because you see different montages and voice tones and you assume two different deans are talking. But that is just direction, you know. They SEEM different because now WE are seeing them with different eyes (of course they ARE quite different but just to imply this). In reality it is always the same dialogue that goes on between the same characters which we see three different times throughout the movie with three different meaning and points of view (kind of like the whole movie really).
HE thought he was opening the loop but the loop was always like that.

[–] lordrosemount 9 years ago

That's possible, of course, if the director was deliberately trying to fool the audience by having the earpiece scene played twice in quite different ways, making the camera into a sort of unreliable narrator. Unless there have been any public statements by the director as to his intention, it's impossible to state with any authority that that's the case.

All I know is what I saw was the scene being played from two different motivations in two different ways, and so to me, in the absence of any other evidence that what plays out on screen isn't intended to be precisely what happened, the conclusion that makes more sense is that things actually had changed between those scenes. In addition, Dean 2 never gave any indication of having woken up after being inexplicably tazered, and you'd think that might have been something he'd start to wonder about.

[–] carl_johnson-1 9 years ago

I'd have to watch it again, but I remember coming away thinking that perhaps there were two separate earpiece conversations in a single timeline. Could be Lana 3 and Dean 5 come back and fool Dean 4 to think he's replaced Dean 2 in the original conversation, for example.

Say Dean 2 has the earpiece conversion with Lana 2 (fed lines by Dean 3?) and goes back up to his room. Dean 4 shows up TOO LATE, tazes him, and has earpiece conversion with Lana 3 (fed lines by Dean 5).

Anyhow, it probably doesn't work, even if you try it with different Deans and Lanas, but that's along the lines of what I got out of it.

[–] PodMeIfYouCan 9 years ago

Thanks everyone who jumped in on this...

I'm going to watch it again with this in mind.

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[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 3 years ago

Oi!

😎