This week, we talk about one of the more overlooked sci-fi films of 2014, Edge of Tomorrow or, as it has been re-named for home release, Live Die Repeat. As is the case with most of our in-depth movie conversations, you can bet there will be a lot of spoilers. In fact, we discuss the ending of the film about five minutes into the podcast. It probably isn’t the best geek film of the year but it was a very pleasant surprise and we all enjoyed it. We also read five answers from Boulder!
Show notes below the fold
Here’s a link to that Myers-Briggs personality test we mentioned.
I loved the podcast, but there are some things I just had to vent.
So actually, the original was a novel, not a manga. There is a manga, but it was based on the novel.
Not having seen the movie, I still think I can pass some judgement, and one of the things I dislike about what I’ve heard so far is that it flat out ignores the climactic scene at the end of the book, and opted for something less confrontational and also less emotionally invested. Also, too many secondary characters were cut out of the movie, judging by the descriptions of the movie. I understand that they need to cut some things, but this is just too much IMHO.
Add to that the whole weird “bleeding out gets you out of the loop” thing, which seems like such a cop-out possibility, considering how the book has it so that if you kill the server (the name for the alpha), then you’re in the loop (by proxy, because the server sends a pulse to the past, and the killer gets hit with it). If someone else kills the server in your loop, then you’re out of the loop, and the new killer of the server is in a new loop. Plain and simple, no muss no fuss (literally, because they don’t actually bleed either, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish). This means that there’s no way to get yourself out of the loop except to fight yourself out of it, and it also means that you have to make sure that someone else doesn’t boot you out of the loop by accident. It’s still sci-fi mumbo jumbo, but at least it’s not as prone to head-scratchery. I do like that they kept the idea that if you’re out of the loop, you don’t remember having been in it.
Anyway, that’s all based on your comments and reading descriptions, so I might be wrong on some parts.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Interesting! See, I had always heard it was based on a novel, but was corrected (by Tim? Or maybe Friend-of-the-Show Zach Nyhus) that it was based on a manga. Perhaps the adaptation is closer to the manga’s interpretation (meta)? I’m not familiar with either, but might add one or both of them to my (lengthy) reading queue. Thanks for commenting!
Could be that it’s closer to the manga. I haven’t read it, but might consider it as a preamble to watching the movie… eventually.
I thought it was a Manga first. That comes from scanning the Wikipedia article several days before we recorded so my bad.
As I’m used to movies making major changes from the source material, these sorts of things don’t bug me. The change to how the “re-set” function works actually makes sense when you consider your description. The amount of time it would take to explain that process to a film audience in the middle of an action movie would slow it down.
I still liked the movie. I imagine I would like the book as well. Movies and books are different. I’m OK with that.
Totally agree. It’s why Blade Runner and Jurassic Park work for me.
I just listened to this episode (I’m clearly a few weeks behind), and loved this conversation. I haven’t seen this movie since I saw it at a drive in, in June. I saw it under duress, it was the third film at vali-hi,and I actively did not want to see it. But one of the people I had carpooled with wanted to stay and he was driving (or his fiance was I no longer remember). So for the first few minutes I watched it with the predisposition that it was bad. I left that drive in at nearly five am glad we had stayed. It was such a fantastic film. I don’t remember anymore, was there any religious aspect in this film?
Not really. I think a couple characters might have crossed themselves prior to the first drop but other than that, the movie doesn’t talk about god at all.
I didn’t think there was anything noticeable, but it has been so long I didn’t remember.