Edge of Tomorrow - Live Die Repeat

So, i just watched the BluRay of Edge of Tomorrow - Live Die Repeat, so in the spirit of "Sunshine & Happiness", I'd like to say what I thought.

First off the movie was good, acting was good, special effects were good, tand he pace and over all narrative were well done...but.

Ugg, I really think the premise of the story was poor and had too many holes. Like....

- If the Omega knows that humans can gain it's own time-travelling (bio/tech?) power by being exposed to Alpha blood (and it knows because it happened before), why would the Omega still send Alphas on the frontline of important battles? Sure, these Mimics can slaughter us, but we can also slaughter them with all those bombs and missiles...wouldn't this be happening all the time?

- How is Cruise gaining military prowess in a day. I don't care if you know what will happend, you ability to fight like that is muscle memory, real muscles, real synopses firing. Cruise's character should know what will happen, but his body is the same...he might be fit...but physical fitness is not a body tuned for battle, it is not basal ganglia connections to make those super-hero moves.

- Why is the ground forces General Dumbo-Ass so eager to send Tom Cruise in the war zone anyway? Would it not have been better to send any other dude, cruise is not the right tool for the job...that general knows it. So why? Later why does General Dumb-Ass, give Rita and Cruise the "mind-link" equipment for even a second? Why let Cruise walk out when he pretty much has told to the general that he has repeated this past two days...500 times...1000 times? Also, the idea was to capture Cage and Rita to do 'medical tests' on them...that means the General believes they DO HAVE POWERS...so why underestimate them if you wanted to cut them open?

- Why was the Mimic Omega so lightly defended? It knew to send a memory to Cage to trick him into going to Germany, just as it tricked Rita teh first time too, but when that fails why not bring some heavy defense units to defend yourself? The Mimic Omega Brain knows something is up, but does not even put much effort into it own defense?

Okay, tons more issues but those are gig ones for me..

Let's go all the way back to the beginning: The Mimic Omega has 'lived/foreseen" that beach landing before, to be ready is has seen the landing succeed too well in one past. That is why Omega is ready that first day, it knew what woudl happen..well, until Cage blows up an Alpha. But here is the problem the first time Cage dies everything after that the Mimics should have NO KNOWLEDGE of...that means T-Minus 5 minutes after that landing all the Mimic grunts and all the Mimic Alphas should fight 1,000x worse because they lack foreknowledge. The very premise of the movies is that Mimics fight so well because "they know" ahead of time what will happen. Once Cage takes that power, that is over, even if they are faster we have strength in depth just by our numbers.

If the above is correct, which the rules of the story seem to say it is, then to WIN all Cruise has to do is hide. For humans to win all Tom Cruise's character needs to do is not die in the next few years. As long as cruise is alive the Mimics have lost their most precious power which the movies itself says is their real strength. All humanity needs to do is carpet bomb the Mimics until all the low-end mimic soldiers and alphas are dead, right? Heck, Cage doesn't even need to tell anyone that...that is the human strategy already, so he can sit back and just let that happen. Cage hides, humans get pasted on the beach; but after that the Mimics are on their own with zero prescient knowledge of the future (their only real super weapon) to guide them.

I enjoyed the movie, but there are holes in the concept you could drive a truck through. Sunshine and happiness to you all who want to respond....Sunshine and Happiness.

Still the best movie of the year even with John Wick out now. Plot holes are inherent in time travel movies; if you don't want them don't watch them; none of them are particularly egregious in this case.

Honorable mention to the Drop, which will almost certainly get Oscar consideration just because Gandolfini died; so maybe that will give Tom Hardy a shot at Best Actor.

Note: There are no dogs in Edge of Tomorrow as far as I know, but both the Drop and John Wick are dog movies.

I don't have an answer to all of it or time currently and I may expand on this later but I think the Omega's consciousness went back every time with Cruise but Cruise had the power to reset. Cruise's consciousness was remembering the training as usually most training is mental if your body is capable of it and Cruise's body was. Like I said I may expand on this later as I am typing this on a phone waiting for someone.

As already hinted, both this movie and John Wick are surprisingly good turns for the "action movie" genre which felt stale even after The Expendables. What sells both movies is that their leads easily slip into that role. You believe Cruise's character is a simpering goof that is forced to be in a war. Later on when transformed by the experience you believe that character is bad ass.

I really enjoyed it. It's based on the book All You Need is Kill. From what I understand, it was written as a critique on the inanity of death in video games.

Also, I really liked this movie. Thought the ending was rather dumb though.

Moved to Off Topic

As someone who loves time travel stories, this movie was a severe disappointment.

I think the bigger plot hole is that those aliens are so fast and move so irregular that the earth would be taken in a day or two. You see in the first battle that one of them can take out ten, twenty people in a matter of seconds. They'd have cleared the planet in no time, before the humans could ever develop the mech suits... but y'know, it's super entertaining anyways, if a little bloodless.

I really liked the movie but I'm curious if anyone knows how well it did at cinema? I ask because when it was originally released I remember it being clearly branded as The Edge of Tomorrow but the home release seems to be very much "Live. Die. Repeat." with The Edge of Tomorrow name being hidden away as though the film did poorly so they're rebranding it in hopes of getting more people to watch it.

I didn't dislike the movie, but hated the fragmented pacing of most of the film. Seing days fly by in seconds of screenplay was simplistic and made most of the movie repetitive, as the action from the next day never strayed too far from the previous and sometimes there was even a little repeat of the events of the prior day.

The ending was about the fact that the Omega was outside of time, and killing it, destroyed its presence in all times and places it had been, and was.

Let's accept that the only entities that know each step are Omega and Cage, but that means Omega and Cage MUST constantly be changing tactics, because if Omega knows what happens each day too why doesn't it always thwart Cage unless he does something different. Cage would not learn what happens next if Omega was reading Cages playbook each time. See, at most, Omega can only know the day resets. For the story to have any logic, Omega cannot know why, where, or how that rest occurs. Otherwise, there is nothing for Cage to do but do something different each time which means he cannot learn a pattern to move on. At most Omega can watch the battle and try to identify someone doing something different that is trying to changes the outcome, but Cage cannot change the outcome which is why eventually he just gives up saving anyone but Rita and himself - anything else is pointless.

But, no matter the movie was fun. Yet, I think there was away to do the same basic story with less holes and not making it about blood...or whatever.

A lot you say above I can agree with, you're right or could be right on some of the above.

But, this last point? Nope, I just don't/can't buy that one at all. It is logistically as well as narratively impossible to for humanity to put it all the the table. Hell the Mimics at best overrun London on invasion day. We are told in the story itself Russia and China are fighting back on an Eastern front. That means the US, Canadian, Mexican militaries are still there even if they are thinner with helping in Europe. That also means there is probably forces in South America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, Pakistan, the entire Middle East and Africa too. The Mimics are in Europe, we can assume since they swept London they are built up too. Yet, there is no way for that to be humanities last stand....that is tactically/logistically not how humans fight...it is logistically impossible even if you wanted to.

I still say if Cage hides, the Mimics would be in for a real fight from that point on. I also think that once Cage dies the Omega can only have a fuzzy understanding of it future...Tau-lines of possible futures at most. If it could do more it would have snatch up Cage each time, and squish hims like a grape to have an Alpha drink his blood.

Action-wise, this, John Wick, and Winter Soldier made it a good year for action.

Edge of Tomorrow is the best Dark Souls movie I've seen yet.

@meaninoflife42: Pfft Dark Souls clone with questionable pedigree, I'm waiting for the review.

@monkeyking1969: It was my understanding the invasion was set up as an all-or-nothing effort. The war needed to be won there, or they would be overrun. I could be mistaken. I'm going to watch the movie again to check (as I love the movie anyway, I might as well).

We seem to disagree on the base fighting power of the mimics though. It seems to me like one mimic could take on multiple humans at once, and ever single one of the mimics are 'soldiers', while humanity only has so many. If they were ripped from their power, they would still win, I'd argue. They'd just have to do with heavier losses.

EDIT: As the General says: 'Operation Downfall; the entire might of the UDF, focused on driving the mimics back and then exterminating them all in the middle'. Rita: 'It wants us to throw everything we have against it. Operation Downfall isn't our endgame, it's the enemy's'.

All or at least the vast majority of resources and personnel are being used for the invasion of the beach. If they lose that, they'll lose the war.

It is also a pretty dope anime. Best I have seen in a while. All You Need is: FULL METAL BITCH

I'm glad it got made. There's never been a time travel movie devoid of holes because time travel (well, back in time, we're always traveling forward) is a fictional construct, but interestingly (to me) instead of everyone agreeing to time travel "rules" I like that different movies set their own rules for how things work. Movies like this and Timecop are meant to be enjoyed for their action and pseudo intellect and the cool scenarios it sets up. If you want a time travel movie where every question is attempted an answer take some advil and watch Primer.

In defense of Cruises "actual combat ability" he does live the same couple days well over a thousand times (supposedly). Stop and think about that. 2x1000 = 2000 / 365 = 5.4 something. Meaning we see a ton of montage.... but that montage could have totaled like 5 years worth of the same two days over and over. You CAN become a trained soldier in that amount of time. Bear in mind he wasn't out of shape, he just wasn't a "fighter".

Beyond that yeah, you got a ton of good points. Especially about sending him in at all. It was moronic, why would you send a guy who is so poorly trained he is just as likely to get his team killed as anything else? If you want to punish him throw him in the brig, not get a unit of soldiers killed just to screw 1 guy.

Yeah, it was certainly plot-holey, but at the same time utterly entertaining. Any alien race that can cross light years of space to arrive at our planet is quite simply going to wipe the floor with us. It was a bit hard to swallow that they had no projectile weapons at all. But I suppose all of that can be overlooked if you think of them as an infestation rather than an invasion. Fun-fact: Blunt is 21 years younger than Cruise.

Most of the things being described here aren't plot holes. A plot hole is defined as, "when there is a crucial gap or inconsistency in a storyline (as presented) that prevents the proper functioning of the plot or central characterization (as presented)."

That definition is from this essay which I highly recommend: http://badassdigest.com/2012/10/30/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-plot-holes-and-movie-logic

Also a lot of your points can be answered with, "then the movie would be over/wouldn't exist". The reason the Alphas are in combat may be touched upon in the movie(I havent seen it in a few months) but the real answer is that if they didn't then Tom Cruise would of died on his first deployment and the movie would end.

It did really really badly, thus the rebranding of it as Live, Die, Repeat for the DVD. In my opinion they should have stuck with the name All You Need Is Kill, maybe the most badass name ever as opposed to the most generic sci-fi movie title I have heard in a long while.

I thought the movie was great even though the ending was crazy confusing and pretty stupid, but I didn't care that much because hey it was a good movie. The death montages were hilarious and the action was great, even the acting was really good.

As far as Cruise's military/fighting abilities go, sure he wasn't really trained or in fighting shape, but reliving the same battle hundreds of times probably makes your brain pretty good at awareness and how to control your body in combat. Also don't forget hes wearing a futuristic fighting robot suit so that certainly helps his "not in fighting shape" problem.

@mrfizzy: The film made over 100 million domestic and 369 million worldwide, more than double its budget.

Just saw this myself tonight. Tom Cruise never lets me down. Awesome fucking movie. That is all. More need to see it.

I just have one question about this movie: why the hell was Cruise's character send to the front line? Was it just because that general was a dick?

If I remember correctly it was wedge in after X-Men: Days of Future Past and before Transformers 4. Edge of Tomorrow/Live Die Repeat clearly "won" but didn't have much time to shine and ultimately dwarfed by other movies. So it didn't do badly but in a summer with a a couple of literal and figurative giants in it, you are correct that it was easily lost.

Basically to prove a point that you shouldn't fuck with people in places of authority.

@zirilius: What? I totally missed that. What did he do?

He was told he was going to be on the front lines for filming and he basically told the General I'm not combat trained. The general arrested him for treason and that's why he ended up at the camp demoted.

There's a little more to it then that but that's the gist of it.

Yea, but why was he going there in the first place, it was definitely not in his 'job description'. You don't send a high officer for such nonsense to the front line. Everyone can film there.

The whole movie I thought this very thing would be revealed and maybe even the reasoning of his time travel ability (maybe he was part of some fancy virtual reality training or something, proving that even HE could be a great soldier).

Big fan of the book and manga - saw the trailer and who was in it and went 'nope'.

Can someone confirm if the ending is still the same or has it been hollywoodised?

He was the lead Military Correspondent for the military and the US wanted him to be there in what they were considering to be the "final" battle against the Mimics. He refused to go and tried to push his duties onto someone else and the General just said screw it.

They changed the ending, so that they could keep both of the main cast alive.

As in, no duel to the death.

What's the ending of the manga?

The ending for the movie is he wakes up after destroying the overseer prior to the battle but all the mimics are docile. He then walks to the camp and see's Rita the same he's always seen her for the first time and starts laughing.

@zirilius: @gtcknight: That confirms what I thought would happen. Heaven forbid they actual stay true to the material. I guess that means a lot of the reasons for stuff in the movie are changed too. Keiji's character being a war correspondent etc...

Ending of the manga

I loved the movie. The new name is terrible though.

Just watched it on BluRay. Fantastic movie. A bit too much exposition at the beginning, but it keeps the pace up. Not the biggest fan of the ending, but it fits better with the tone of the film. The manga/LN or whatever it is sounds better, but the tone may also be a bit more serious there. Appart from that, one of my favorite films of this year. Definitely my favorite big budget action movie of 2014. Ahead of stuff like Winter Soldier or Rise of the PotA.

To counter one of your points, muscle memory is a myth. Why? Simple. Muscle has no memory. The reason you get good at something is practice. Your brain remembers. Drive a car long enough it becomes second nature...because you practice it everyday and you remember. Since Cruise has his memory it makes perfect sense that he would get better each time. Everyday he is learning and getting better. To him it is no different then going to bed and waking up

I loved the book and manga and highly recommend both. Both easily brought a tear to my eye at the end. However, I still enjoyed the movie and forcefully perceived it more as a film with a similar premise than an adaptation to avoid frustration.

What I said was "...you ability to fight like that is muscle memory, real muscles, real synopses firing."

He is not gaining strength, he is not making synaptic linkages each time he rests. He sees what happen, but each day it his out of shape body and his out of tune mind. The fact he rests in time means he will never get better just more and more aware... but that is nearly useless on that battlefield.

I liked the movie, but thought it was flawed also. It's basically an action movie version of Groundhogs Day. I think the concept is more interesting with comedy, but it was still fine. Cool to keep seeing Bill Paxton in movies again, too.

Most of your questions were answered (poorly) in the movie:

- If the Omega knows that humans can gain it's own time-travelling (bio/tech?) power by being exposed to Alpha blood (and it knows because it happened before), why would the Omega still send Alphas on the frontline of important battles? Sure, these Mimics can slaughter us, but we can also slaughter them with all those bombs and missiles...wouldn't this be happening all the time? The movie suggested it did know about it and would use it to it's advantage just as much as the humans were trying to. The more complicated question is why time only resets for Tom Cruise's character, but not for Alphas when they die? Or even crazier- how could they ever lose even if we did defeat them, as every time an Alpha is defeated it would reset their time and start over? Time travel... so fun and confusing haha

- How is Cruise gaining military prowess in a day. I don't care if you know what will happend, you ability to fight like that is muscle memory, real muscles, real synopses firing. Cruise's character should know what will happen, but his body is the same...he might be fit...but physical fitness is not a body tuned for battle, it is not basal ganglia connections to make those super-hero moves. I agree. I had this problem too. Sure, he would practice everyday, but it would always be the same day starting over so he'd never actually get any better because his body would never change (even if he remembers moves and stuff). He'd never become physically better even if we go by movie logic and he continues to remember things. Remembering is not a physical change. I guess the movie presumes that his body as a whole is the only thing moving through time and everything else is resetting so in that case it would make sense even if that concept doesn't actually make sense when you break it down. It's video game logic which is why people call this movie "video game the movie."

- Why is the ground forces General Dumbo-Ass so eager to send Tom Cruise in the war zone anyway? The movie never really explains that other than to imply that people don't like Tom Cruise's character. I think it's part of the symbolism the movie is going for- everyone should take up the mantle when duty calls even if it means they will die. Unfortunately the ending downplays this concept and makes it altogether pointless in the first place. It's similar to Oblivion in it's bullshit.

Would it not have been better to send any other dude, cruise is not the right tool for the job...that general knows it. So why? The movie implies it doesn't matter who they send as they are using brute force tactics to defeat the enemy instead of any real strategy. It says this multiple times. They do have a bad ass there- the girl who had the time power before. She doesn't have it anymore, though, so she makes mistakes and dies most of the time. Anyway, the movie is implying they keep losing for the most part which isn't a surprise given how stupid the military is in general in this movie. If I recall that battle would have been the deciding battle in the war- any way it turned out.

Later why does General Dumb-Ass, give Rita and Cruise the "mind-link" equipment for even a second? Why let Cruise walk out when he pretty much has told to the general that he has repeated this past two days...500 times...1000 times? Also, the idea was to capture Cage and Rita to do 'medical tests' on them...that means the General believes they DO HAVE POWERS...so why underestimate them if you wanted to cut them open? Supposedly by admitting everything and "placing his cards on the table" the general is swayed to do what they ask. It's weak- I agree.

- Why was the Mimic Omega so lightly defended? It knew to send a memory to Cage to trick him into going to Germany, just as it tricked Rita teh first time too, but when that fails why not bring some heavy defense units to defend yourself? The Mimic Omega Brain knows something is up, but does not even put much effort into it own defense? It's called hubris. They implied already that the Omega is so powerful that they usually lose battles. The Omega doesn't believe they will defeat it. It's saturday morning cartoon logic that goes along with the video game logic of the rest of the movie. This is the only reason I find that forgivable- it's following it's own logic.

The movie is goofy and full of holes (even more than you mention), but I still found it fun. It wasn't as bad as Oblivion at least.

Birdman's pretty good.

I really enjoyed it. The whole dying and retrying thing had me thinking of the Souls series funnily enough. The ending also reminded me of Tassadar killing the Overmind in Starcraft, so there's that too. This movie just reminded me a lot of a video game in general. Probably why I had such a fun time with it even if it is flawed. Hell, I'd probably play a game with the same premise. Would be no different than an old school game with no checkpoints. Really dug the alien design too. Not ground breakingly creative, but just something about the way they moved and seemed to be constantly pulsing is freaky.