PrimerMovie.com

[kiki2004]

I know there are a few posts in here that try to explain what is happening in Primer....but they didn't quite do it for me.

Mostly cause they don't go through the actual time in the film.

They talk about the logic of what is happening. And were very helpful for me to better understand what was happening.

But the one thing they lacked was dates and times....which I really need to have a grasp of...to make sense of things. So I've put some times and dates in (to make things more clear...I hope)....and I think I've worked out what happens in the movie.

So here it goes.....

COMPLETE TIMELINE
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There’s been a lot of posts that talk about the timeline in Primer but without being specific with the dates and times. Which I think is pretty important to include…especially when talking about time.

So here is the timeline from the perspective of the movie.

Abe builds two boxes. One is his failsafe. One is to use and show to Aaron. There is no third box built by Abe for Aaron to travel in. That comes latter...

He turns the failsafe on as soon as he finishes it….so let’s say that that is Sunday evening at 12:00 or so.

The next morning (Monday) he gets up goes to the storage space for 8 am. Turns the box on (by timer)…and gets the heck outta the way. Goes to a hotel and secludes himself. At the end of the day (3 pm) he goes back to storage space and gets in the box where he has to wait 6 hours to get back to 8 am that morning.

He places the stock trade….and goes and meets Aaron to tell him about his discovery.

However…Abe’s perspective when living the events through in the movie is not from the original timeline. The Aaron who he originally meets (in the movie) on the bench is actual Aaron2(recording Aaron/hooded Aaron). He has drugged himself, stashed himself (Aaron1, who doesn’t know anything about the box) in the Attic. And is actually recording all the important conversations of the day on tape. And pretending to listen to a basketball game on his earphone….but is just hearing the recording levels and setting up Abe to expect him to be wearing an earphone all day….so that if Aaron 2 has to come back to go through the events again (should things get messed up), and better control them…he has a script to read from to prevent causalities (a primer).

So Abe tells Aaron 2(recording Aaron/hooded Aaron) about the discovery. Aaron2 records it all…and plays along. Not always listening with the headphones….cause he doesn’t need to always be listening…just always recording.

At 3pm Tuesday, after a long day of being brought up to speed…Abe takes Aaron2 to the warehouse where he shows Aaron 2 himself returning to the storage space for his initial journey back in time.

That evening (I think) Aaron(Aaron1 [originally...in a timeline prior to the one we are seeing from Abe's perspective] but now Aaron2 [who, to protect himself from being not told about the boxes has come back to relive the events...and also to make sure the bf gets locked up]) builds their own box…with Abe’s knowledge. The next morning when they both go back in time together Abe and Aaron are talking....and Aaron says “how many boxes do you think I built”.

So now it is Tuesday morning. Abe and Aaron2 go to the storage space and turn the machines on at 8:00 am. They spend the day at the hotel doing nothing. They figure out what stock to invest in. At 3 pm they go to the storage space. Climb into the boxes and spend the next 6 hours waiting to get back to 8 am on Tuesday. They trade their mutual funds and stay away from their secluded selves.

At 3pm they head back to the storage space…and watch themselves proceeding to get into the boxes to go back to 8am.

That evening Aaron2 talks to his wife about what they would do if they have complete impunity. Aaron’s wife mentions the rats in the attic….which is actually the drugged Aaron1 that Aaron2 has stashed away sometime after he first went back on Sunday evening after Abe first setup his failsafe…and turned the timer for it to start, on.

That evening Aaron2 goes to a party that Will is having. Rachel’s ex shows up…and Aaron2 disarms him.

The next morning, Wednesday. Abe and Aaron head to the storage space again and proceed to turn on the boxes. They go to the hotel. Aaron2 forgets to turn off his cell phone and gets a call from his wife. They spend the day secluded…and research stocks…picking one that will do a lot better. Then they go buy their oxygen…get to the storage space…and spend the next 6 hours waiting for 8am to roll around. Aaron2 has an earbleed (I think). They spend the day out of the way of their secluded selves. Aaron2 mentions that he hasn’t eaten since that afternoon (6 hours ago). Later in the day, Aaron2 gets the phone call he doesn’t answer that he previously had answered.

After 3pm (and the time of their departure) Abe hears from the other garage boys that Aaron2 had disarmed the ex-boyfriend at the party the night before. Abe is angry at Aaron for being so foolish. Abe doesn’t realize that Aaron has travelled back in time to disarm the ex-bf. Now around this time Abe turns the boxes back on (5pm). Later that evening…at the fountain Abe and Aaron talk about the incident at the party. Abe is angry that Aaron is taking chances…especially with a wife and kid. Aaron2 doesn’t let on that he has travelled back in time.

That evening at 3 am Abe gets woken up by the kids. He realizes that, what with the boxes on since 5pm….he can grab Aaron2...they can go back in time to 5pm….relive the time that they were looking for the cat. Go punch Platt in the face. Then proceed to scare off the kids setting off the car alarms…which would mean that Abe would never have woken up in the first place…so he would get a good nights sleep. Problem? What happens to the Abe and Aaron2 who went back in time? If Abe doesn’t get woken up at 3am…how does he wake up Aaron2 and go back in time to 5pm? Who would remember punching Platt in the face? So what's the point of this....if it's just going to get "written over" when Abe and Aaron2 scare off the kids?

Luckily, before they can try this out….Granger appears. Scares the crap out of them…and they never end up going back in time to 5pm to punch Platt and scare the kids off. But the event of there being unaccounted time travels freaks out Abe….so he decides to go back in the failsafe to Sunday night…and never tell Aaron2 about the box…and dismantle everything.

So 3 days 22 hours after the failsafe was started….Abe climbs in and goes back to Sunday night. He drugs himself. And stashes his prior self into a closet….and becomes Abe2(the eraser).

He heads off to meet who he thinks is Aaron1…so he can not tell him about the discovery. But the conversations don’t make sense. And Abe is weak from the near 4 day voyage…and the emotional stress of having smothered his prior self to drug him and get him out of the way….and likely the realization that now he is a dobbleganger…like Granger….so he is a non-person…and can never talk to his friends or lead his life (as it belongs to Abe1)

Abe2 collapses and we find out that the Aaron we see is now reading from the recorded script he made as Aaron2(recording Aaron/hooded Aaron). In fact, this isn’t even Aaron2….it is Aaron3 (the script reader/the hero). That morning while trying to drug Aaron1…Aaron2 gets jumped by Aaron3. He fends him off. Cause Aaron3 is a lot weaker from more travel…more shaky handwriting….and probably less sleep. They talk. And Aaron2 agrees to leave (to go to France)…leaving Aaron3 to live out and redisarm the exboyfriend at the party…as he has already lived through the party scene (once as Aaron2) and has a personal agenda obviously for coming back…and a better understand of how to make it perfect (so that Aaron3 looks like a bigger hero…or so that the exbf goes to jail for certain?).

Because Abe hasn’t been able to erase Aaron’s knowledge of the boxes….Aaron3 has to confess. Aaron3 explains that he is Aaron3 (has been to the party once already…but is back for a redo) they have to protect Rachel. Aaron3 explains that no one gets hurt at the party….not in the first run (when Aaron isn’t there) or in the second run (when Aaron2 comes back and disarms the exboyfriend)…but they have to make sure that the exboyfriend gets locked up….so that he doesn’t do something worst at a later point in time. Basically, take him out of the equation.

Aaron3 convinces Abe2 to help. Abe2 gets a call from Rachel…and invites her to the party. Aaron3 meets with Wil…and gets him to invite Rachel’s ex-boyfriend to the party. (but then again, why not just have not invited the ex-bf when Aaron2 went back to the basketball court and recorded the conversation?...I guess the pysho exbf would still potentially be around...might run into Rachel some other time...and then who knows what happens).

That night Abe2 and Aaron3 go to the party. They wait for the exbf to show up. Go to his car…and take the shells out of the gun. Aaron3 stops Abe2 from breaking the window….cause Aaron3 learned, when he was just Aaron2, that the car door is unlocked…when he took the shells out of the gun the first time he was at the party. After all…when you are playing with time…why take chances? I’d guess that Aaron2 was meticulous the first time he was at the party…but somehow something didn’t go quite right…and Aaron2 didn’t look like a big enough hero…or didn’t get the exbf to get locked up. So, the exbf comes in waving the gun. Aaron3 disarms him…but in a way that he looks better…and the exbf definitely goes to jail.

Now it is Wednesday.

This is the same day that Abe and Aaron2 did their second day of stock trading….but Abe1 and Aaron1 are now actually recovering from being drugged…and Abe2 and Aaron3 are at the airport trying to figure out what to do. Aaron2 (hooded Aaron/recording Aaron) is already on his way to France.

Technically speaking Abe1 still hasn’t made his first voyage yet. And Aaron1 still doesn’t even know about the boxes yet. So Abe2 tells Aaron3 to leave and never come back. They both realize that they are screwed. They have no place in their lives anymore…cause they only drugged their earlier selfs…who will eventually wake up…and continue living their original lives. Abe2 decides to hang around and sabotage Abe1 and Aaron1 from ever using/building the boxes. He’s already rewired Abe1’s box so that it won’t work. And if Abe1 does get it to work…he’ll start taking parts out of it.

I was thinking that perhaps they could just remove the existing boxes. But that wouldn’t stop Abe1 from knowing about what the boxes can do….or how to make one. And when the boxes go missing….Abe1 would be pretty curious and driven to build new boxes. After all...if you build a timemachine...and they anything strange happens....you'd get super paranoid (as we witness with the Granger2 experience). So the only way to destroy the boxes is to leave things as they are…but sabotage the boxes so that Abe1 and Aaron1 lose interest in them….and think that the things don’t work. But the problem with that is that Abe2 drugged himself…and Abe1 saw Abe2 when he was being smothered. And even if Abe1 didn’t make himself out in the dark….or completely remember what happened (after all he was drugged with NO2)….the fact that Abe1 was drugged should be enough to make Abe1 realize that something is going on…and get curious and suspicious...

Meanwhile Aaron2 is far far away in France. And he’s going to build a much bigger box. But he also is making the phone call which comprises the majority of the dialog in the movie….we’re not sure who he is calling. But it’s likely that he is calling Aaron1…who he drugged. To even up the score a bit and give Aaron1 a fighting chance against Abe2….

After all Aaron3(the script reader/the hero) has left on a plane to somewhere…never to return….so there is no way for Aaron2 (hooded Aaron/recording Aaron/France Aaron) to call up Aaron3…but he sure as hell knows how to reach Aaron1.

Likely Aaron3 is off building his own big box....somewhere. After all...all the Aaron3...and Abe2 all have the knowledge of who is going to do really well in the stock on Wednesday....

: )

[Break on Through]

thanks that helped a lot
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[Raschied]

Best explanation yet. Made more sense to me than the timeline. Admittedly, I'm skipping steps in the "10 Step Plan" (I've only seen the movie once) but I'm trying to wrap my head around it still.

This also explains the title, which I was struggling with. Aaron, by recording all the conversations, creates a Primer for reality - what should happen, with no meddling.

[redaer]

[pedro2112]

Your timeline is confusing because you are melding a bunch of timelines. It is clear that you "get" the movie, and I concur with most of your observations. I do wish to point out some (minor) areas of disagreement.

The Aaron in the first bench scene is probably Aaron3, not Aaron2. While it is theoretically possible it is Aaron2 doing the recording, there is no evidence to suggest that in the film. Rather, all the clues point to the fact that Aaron has already recorded the events of the day at that juncture. Remember, Aaron2 (the narrator) never does record the events of the day in the film as Aaron3 already did that for him. (when he was Aaron2).

Also, you seem to skip a lot of the timelines. Are you certain that Aaron went to the "original" party without Abe, or that perhaps Abe went without Aaron? You seem to go right to the version that happened in the movie right before the garage scene without discussing what happened in earlier versions.
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[pedro2112]

Also, to Aaron at the bench, the first scene and the second scene are the same exact thing. In other words, at both scenes, that aaron sitting there has the exact same experiences and memories... they are identical in every way. Consequently, why wouldn't they say the exact same thing the exact same way.

I don't see your point Pskyo, unless I am confused about what you are trying to say.
_________________
I'm in a groove.....

or is it a rut? - Neil Peart

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