For anyone who has seen the new film Looper, you may be a bit confused. If you haven’t then go and see it so you can be confused too. In a nutshell, Looper is about time travel and features one of Britains top actresses Emily Blunt, the one from The Devil Wears Prada. 
In the film, a man travels back in time to kill someone who will become an evil gang lord in the future. On the way he meets his younger self and their actions change time, possibly. The chart shows the original path of the main character Joe as well as an altered path and possible path for the young and old Joes, as well as 2 other characters called Sara and Cyd.
Conditionals
Now, to discuss all these future and past possibilities we need conditionals. We’ll start off with a basic rule of time travel: If you travel back in time, you change the future Not everyone believes this though, some say it’s only possible, such as: If you travel back in time you can change the future =It’s physically possible Here’s another example that’s less probable: If you travel back in time you could/might change the future We can also use the Will conditional: Cyd will become a gang lord if Joe doesn’t stop him =This is a future possibility Again, we can add could/might or may to make it less probable and to have an element of choice: Cyd could/might become a gang lord if Joe doesn’t stop him If Sarah supports Cyd, he will/could/might/may grow up and not become the rainmaker We can use conditionals to talk about the results of past events in the film by using the Would conditional: If Joe hadn’t become a Looper he wouldn’t be in this mess If Sara hadn’t raised Cyd on her own, he would be fine The infamous third conditional is useful too for thinking about past events that didn’t happen and their results. Old Joe wouldn’t have fled to the past if the rainmaker hadn’t attacked his wife Young Joe couldn’t have saved Cyd and Sara, even if he had survived. If young Joe hadn’t killed himself, would old Joe have been stopped? If young Joe had survived, he and Sarah might have started dating.
Here are some questions to think over
- Would losing his mum turn Cyd into the rainmaker if he didn’t know he had special powers?
- If old Joe had only been planning to kill the rainmaker why did he travel back with so much gold?
- If being attacked by old Joe is what causes Cyd to turn evil in the future, would he stay good without that experience?
- Will there be a sequel if enough tickets are sold?
