Primer explained @ Things Of Interest

Primer explained

"If you have it, you've gotta use it..."

Primer (2004) is an exceedingly complex movie for its brevity. Please find below a summary of the plot of the movie. Before reading this, it is recommended that you first read Time travel in Primer, which explains the model of time travel used in the movie. Before all that, of course, you should have watched the movie at least once without knowing anything in advance.

(I strongly recommend watching this movie with the English-language subtitles on. Much of the dialogue is difficult to pick out, or inaudible. You miss a lot without them!)

Primer plot summary

Aaron, Abe, Philip and Robert work by day at some major firm and sell home-made electronic products in their spare time. But while they've had some interesting patents, they haven't made major money from the side projects. (In fact it's implied that a man named Joseph Platts stole one of their patents and/or some of their money.) It's been agreed that each guy can put something forward to work on when their turn comes. Robert's idea is to build a strange piece of hardware which can theoretically reduce the mass of an object inside it. This is just after Christmas time (hence Aaron's new refrigerator).

The box requires superconductivity. They can't generate the low temperatures they need, so in the brainstorm session they throw out an idea or two for doing it at room temperature. They cannibalise some home appliances for equipment and a catalytic converter for palladium, and build the thing in Aaron's garage.

Later, Aaron and Abe realise that much of Philip and Robert's design is extraneous because the device they've built appears to work perfectly. While fiddling with the device, Aaron pokes his hand right the way into the field and Abe puts his hands over it to drop punched holes into the field. This becomes significant later. The box has to be hermetically sealed to outside observation and the camcorder signal is fuzzy because what's inside the box is indeterminate. They flood the box with argon and register the decrease in mass of a blue weeble put inside. Then the box seemingly malfunctions in some way.

*

We then jump forward a little. Now Aaron has done something to the box to make it work properly. In fact, it appears to be putting out more power than is even being put in. After the power is shut off it continues to run for a few minutes. This could be due to the superconductivity in the machine but Aaron and Abe seem to think that it is something else. Aaron and Abe instantly recognise the potentially gigantic applications of the device they have built and decide to cut Robert and Philip out of the loop entirely, saying that the garage has to be fumigated.

Several months pass. They get funding from a Thomas Granger, while Abe establishes a relationship with his daughter, Rachel. (Aaron is of course happily married to his wife Kara, with a daughter, Lauren.) Abe tries and fails to figure out how, exactly, the device does what it does.

Then, in quick succession, quite a lot of things happen. After repeated experiments on the weeble, Abe realises that a weird fungus is growing on it. He takes it for analysis and is told that the fungus is perfectly ordinary, but the amount of growth he has seen is consistent with years of time passing, not days. He then tries it with his watch and concludes that what they have built is a time machine.

Abe figures out how to build a coffin-sized time machine. He builds what we shall call Box A and places it in a unit at a self-storage facility.

This is now March.

Monday

At 08:30 Monday, Abe primes Box A to activate itself in fifteen minutes. He drives away from the self-storage facility and isolates himself at a hotel in Russelfield. The box activates at 08:45 and is completely powered up at 08:49.

At 15:15, he returns to Box A and switches it off. It takes another four minutes to power down completely. As it powers down, he climbs inside. He waits for what is repeatedly stated in the movie as being six hours - actually it is six and a half. At the correct time, he climbs out of the box just after it was activated (i.e. just after his other self walked away), at 08:45. While his double is sequestered, he goes to Aaron, who is listening to March Madness on an earphone (and continues to do so for the rest of the day). This is the first bench scene.

Abe walks Aaron through the precise series of evidence that led him to the conclusion that the box is a time machine - the fungus and the watch experiment. Finally, at about 15:15 Monday, he brings Aaron to the self-storage facility and they watch just as Abe's double arrives, gets into the box and disappears entirely.

Aaron is now also convinced.

Tuesday

Abe shows Aaron that he cunningly made a single excellent stock trade during the Monday too.

Abe goes through the same routine but this time Aaron insists on following along. By now, Aaron already has his own box built.

They switch on the boxes at 08:30 Tuesday, hide at the hotel all day and then return to the boxes at 15:15. Abe departs the box at 08:45 Tuesday as expected, but Aaron gets jumpy towards the end of the ride, and exits a minute or two early (or, from Abe's perspective, a minute or two late), suffering a severe physical reaction. The time is 08:50 Tuesday morning.

The dialogue during these scenes reveals a few more noteworthy facts.

Abe and Aaron are both operating under the assumption that there is most likely a single paradox-free timeline. They isolate themselves at the hotel solely in order to prevent the possibility of paradox. In particular, anything that could prevent their doubles from departing the timeline as scheduled would be a major problem since it would result in multiple Aarons/Abes running around, permanently.
The other important line is "the boxes are one-time use only". What Aaron means by this is that after you have climbed out of a box, you CANNOT go back to it later, switch it off and climb in a second time - because that's what your past self did. You CANNOT use the same box to continuously loop through the same day.

After a great deal of thought, I have come to the conclusion that this is not actually true. For the purposes of this plot summary, however, all we need to know is that Aaron and Abe both believe this is true and operate under this assumption.

They make some more money on the stock market and that evening they have a slightly drunken conversation with Aaron's wife Kara about the prospect of having unlimited money. Aaron raises the hypothetical of punching Joseph Platts in the face, then going back in time and making it so it never happens. Abe says they "can't do that", not because it's morally wrong to punch Joseph Platts in the face, or because Aaron can't tell Kara about the time machine, but because at the moment they are both operating under the assumption that history cannot be changed.

"But the idea had been spoken. And the words wouldn't go back once they had been uttered aloud."

Kara also mentions a mysterious noise in their attic. Birds? Rats?

Wednesday

The same routine again.

They argue at the supermarket and the gas station that morning about paradoxes, free will, paranoia and predestination - specifically, the problems of living in a predestined universe which was made that way by somebody else. At the hotel, and then later on Wednesday afternoon at the library, Abe and Aaron discuss the problem that Aaron is keeping the time machines secret from Kara. They also discuss the problem of keeping them secret from Robert and Philip, and agree to give them a certain amount of patent rights and/or equipment and/or cash in order to salve their consciences instead.

They loop back in time as normal. At 08:15 Wednesday, shortly after getting out the machine, Aaron is bleeding from his ear.

That day, make their successful trades. In the afternoon, they finally admit that the garage has been "sprayed", and work at the garage with Robert and Philip resumes. Robert and Philip have now received their gifts from Aaron and Abe.

Robert reports an interesting story. It seems that Monday night was Robert's birthday party. Abe wasn't there, but his girlfriend Rachel was there. So was Rachel's ex-boyfriend, who walked into the party brandishing a shotgun. So was Aaron, who by all accounts risked his life to defuse the situation safely.

On Wednesday evening, while Aaron and Abe are outside looking for Aaron's missing cat, Abe is angry that Aaron, a family man, risked his life in such a way, and genuinely confused that Aaron acted so uncharacteristically irresponsibly. Aaron makes excuses and claims that since the discovery of the time machines he is seeing the world differently, referencing their conversations of earlier in the day. But this does not fully explain his actions.

Thursday

The same routine again.

During the day spent at the hotel, Aaron's cell phone rings. It is Kara, asking about dinner. This is a mistake, since Aaron is supposed to be sequestered. Abe tells Aaron not to bring the cell phone back in time with him - this is a perfectly sensible way to avert the possibility of a paradox.

They loop back in time as usual. On the second time through Thursday, Aaron watches a sports match (whose outcome they already know) while Abe eats a muffin. Then, on the way to a restaurant, Aaron's cell phone (which he has foolishly brought back in time with him) rings again.

This is a problem, and a critical turning point in the movie. There are two Aarons at this point (one at the hotel), and, due to Aaron's clumsiness, two of his cell phones (one at the hotel). If the phone in Aaron's hand is ringing then, so Aaron and Abe reason, the phone in the hotel cannot be ringing. Symmetry is broken and history has changed. History can be changed.

Friday

At about 02:00 on Friday morning some kids set off car alarms outside Abe's home. Abe goes to Aaron's house and gets him out of bed. Abe reveals that he has been routinely turning the boxes on at 17:00 and turning them off the following morning.

Abe then puts forward a confusing and potentially dangerous plan to visit Joseph Platts at his home, punch him in the face, then, around 03:00 Friday, to use these boxes to go back in time to 17:00 Thursday and make sure that neither the car alarms nor the punching happen. In theory, as a result, both Aaron and Abe's doubles would stay in bed all night, get into their boxes at 15:15 Friday as normal, and leave this timeline permanently, leaving just one of each of Aaron and Abe behind.

It is not clear whether this plan would work or not.

As they climb into the car, however, they realise they are being followed by Thomas Granger, Abe's girlfriend's dad and the project's main source of funding. Granger has several days' growth of beard on his face - but Aaron last saw him at 18:00 Thursday, when he was clean-shaven. Abe phones Thomas Granger's number and the guy who answers is indeed Thomas Granger... but he's not the guy who is following them. Something really weird is going on. This man is a different Thomas Granger who has come back in time using one of the boxes, probably exiting the box at 17:00 Thursday when Abe switched them on. Aaron runs after Granger and when they get close to one another, Aaron trips and falls while Granger falls completely unconscious. They put Granger to bed at Abe's house; Aaron cannot approach him with actually somehow knocking him unconscious. They check that the boxes are indeed turned on. Aaron proposes shutting them off to see if Granger is inside, an act whose consequences would be exceedingly difficult to guess at. They do not do this.

Why has Granger come back in time? Obviously at some point in the future, Aaron or Abe told Granger about the boxes. Then, something happened to prompt Granger to head backwards in time to this point (the earliest he can go) and start observing them. They conclude that the situation would have to have been a real emergency but they have no clue what it could possibly be. "The permutations were endless." History has definitely changed now that Granger has come back, but they have no way of guessing whether the emergency in question has been fully averted by his brief interactions with them and the rest of the universe - he has only been out of the box for about eight and a half hours.

And so Abe loses his nerve.

It is now revealed that there is a failsafe box, built by Abe, in a second storage unit. This box has been running for 3 days 22 hours - in other words, since early on Monday morning. Abe started the box at about 05:00 Monday, then went back to bed until 08:30 when he returned to start Box A. At roughly 03:00 Friday, Abe returns to the failsafe box, with four days' oxygen and water and a small tank of medical-grade nitrous oxide, enters it and travels all the way back to 05:00 Monday.

Monday again

Abe (now Abe Two) exits the failsafe box at 05:00 and gasses his double in bed with the nitrous oxide. He stashes his double in his bathroom.

Now we come to the second bench scene. As in the first bench scene, Aaron is listening to what is supposedly basketball on his earpiece. Abe Two is ill, after four days of very little food, and in shock, after violently gassing his double. Aaron, however, repeats most of the same lines as last time.

In fact, when Abe faints, it is revealed that Aaron is not listening to basketball. He is listening to a recording of that very conversation. How can this be? The recording must have been made in some previous timeline. This is not the original Aaron. This is not the original timeline. It never was. This Aaron has come back in time from the future.

"At this point there would have been some... discussion."

Aaron and Abe confront one another and explain everything that has happened. This is the most difficult sequence in the movie to follow, partly because of the complexity of the plot but mainly because, due to the lack of CGI, it was impossible to put more than one Aaron on the screen at the same time. The two major discussion points are:

How?

Aaron's line, "They are not one-time-use only. They are recyclable," means that although you cannot re-enter a box you climbed out of, you can bring another box with you, activate it once you climb out, and later use it instead, travelling back to the same moment in time again - or a few minutes later, at any rate.

In some previous timeline, Aaron discovered Abe's failsafe box, anchored 05:00 Monday. He then got inside the failsafe and used it to go back in time, taking with him a second, folded-up time machine. This is the Aaron with the hood.

On arriving home at 05:00 Monday, Hooded Aaron set up his second time machine as Failsafe Box B, let's say at 05:15 Monday. Hooded Aaron then went to his home and drugged his double's breakfast cereal milk, then stashed his comatose double in the attic. This is the noise that Kara mentioned on Wednesday night. This means that there are now two Aarons in this timeline, permanently. Hooded Aaron assumed his double's identity and recorded all of the week's conversations.

Then, he used Failsafe Box B (remember: he cannot re-use Failsafe Box A since he already climbed out of it once) to go back in time to 05:15 Monday yet again. He took yet another time machine with him, which he set up as Failsafe Box C (05:30 Monday). He becomes Aaron Three, with the white jumper, no hood. Aaron Three arrives at his house just as Hooded Aaron has finished drugging and stashing Aaron Prime. Aaron Three tries to subdue Hooded Aaron in turn, but this time he is too exhausted, and Hooded Aaron wins. After a conversation, however, Aaron Three persuades Hooded Aaron to leave. There are now three permanent versions of Aaron: Aaron Prime, who is drugged in the attic; Hooded Aaron, who has left town; and the Aaron we have been looking at since the beginning of the first bench scene, with the headphone in his ear feeding him lines, is Aaron Three and always has been.

Aaron Three has had a LOT of exposure to the boxes. This is why he began bleeding from his ear on Wednesday, and it also why his contact with Thomas Granger nearly killed him.

It is Hooded Aaron who is the narrator of the story, or rather the person making the phone call.

So which box did Abe use to come back in time? Logically, Abe must have used Failsafe Box C, since Failsafe Box A contained Hooded Aaron and Failsafe Box B contained Aaron Three. How did that happen? Aaron must have SWAPPED Failsafe Box A and Failsafe Box C. The box that Abe believed was Failsafe Box A (anchored 05:00 Monday) was actually Failsafe Box C (anchored 05:30 Monday). This is not seen or even alluded to in the film, but it is necessary to resolve this plot hole.
Why?

Problems of logistics aside, the last remaining question is why Aaron chose to come back in time so far, sacrificing so much, permanently duplicating himself twice. What is he trying to set right, exactly?

The key to all of this is the party. It is obvious, though left largely unsaid, that when Rachel's ex-boyfriend walked into the room with a shotgun, things could have gone considerably worse. Aaron Three, we remember, risked his life to successfully defuse the situation. We now understand why he would take this risk. There are two other Aarons in this timeline, one of them being Aaron Prime. Aaron Three does not matter - he is a non-person, a walking dead man, and he has no right to Aaron Prime's family. He has no life to risk.

If I may jump ahead in the movie slightly, the basketball scene (which takes place sometime in the middle of Monday) is also important. This scene additionally establishes that it was Aaron who originally invited Will, Rachel's ex-boyfriend's cousin, to the party - and that it was Aaron who suggested that Will should bring Rachel's ex-boyfriend with him. In other words, whatever originally happened at the party was indirectly Aaron's fault. He holds himself responsible. This is why he has done what he's done.

Aaron Three thought the problem permanently settled. But the fact that Thomas Granger came back in time to 17:00 Thursday indicates that it was not, and something bad was still looming in Aaron and Abe's future. However, it is Monday morning again, and both Aaron Three and Abe Two are prescient now. They decide to engineer the situation to end better this time, with Rachel's ex-boyfriend actually arrested and jailed.

By Monday afternoon, Aaron and Abe are both suffering from the effects of a great deal of time travel - they are unable to write correctly.

At this point, the narrator, Hooded Aaron, reminds us that HE, of course, does NOT come from a timeline where everything worked out perfectly. Hooded Aaron has only been to the party once, and he has only seen how it originally played out. He has no idea how long it will take for Aaron Three to "reverse-engineer a perfect moment". From what we see in the movie, though, for Abe Two and Aaron Three, it appears to work first time. The jealous ex is arrested and jailed. The End.

On Monday night Aaron Three crashes at Abe's house. Abe Two cannot sleep. And with that problem resolved, everybody lives happily ever after.

With the following exceptions.

Tuesday again

Aaron Prime wakes up in his own attic after being drugged for 24 hours by his double. Abe Prime wakes up in his bathroom after being gassed for 24 hours by his double. There are three running failsafe boxes which evidently nobody has thought to shut down, in addition to Abe Prime's original Box A, which hasn't been activated yet but is nevertheless operational. "They'll be building their own boxes in another day. And [Abe Prime] already knows what they built."

Aaron Three and Abe Two wind up at the airport. Aaron is going to steal his double's passport and leave the country, because he can never go home. He has lost Kara and Lauren to Aaron Prime. Abe, meanwhile, is going to stay behind so he can sabotage their doubles' attempts to build the time machines. And, more sinisterly, stay close to Kara and Lauren. And protect them from Aaron Three. What?

And finally, on the other side of the world, Hooded Aaron makes his phone call to Aaron Prime. Maybe Aaron Prime records it and believes it, maybe he doesn't. Hooded Aaron explains the entire story, including why he drugged Aaron Prime, and thus "[repays] any debt I may have owed you".

"You will not be contacted by me again. And if you look, you will not find me." Hooded Aaron hangs up, and begins construction on a time machine the size of a warehouse. The End.

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Discussion (58)

2009-11-10 22:36:25 by Ben:

Bravo. Really, this is fantastic.

2009-11-11 00:11:28 by Thrack:

Heh, you actually wrote another article about Primer. Cool. I haven't read it yet though because I haven't seen the movie. I plan to though. Eventually. (And if I remember, I'll turn on subtitles.)

2009-11-11 16:31:55 by Cory:

There were a couple things I could never resolve... This helps a lot.

2009-11-11 21:28:26 by John:

Nice article! Your first article on Primer was what prompted me to see it. Great movie!

2009-11-12 08:24:06 by scotherns:

How many viewings did it take you to get all this? Superb work figuring it all out!

2009-11-13 22:44:29 by MrX:

There are no flaws in how Primer deals with time travel. I think you misunderstand how it works. Instead of there being a global timeline, it instead works on the basis that every human has its own timeline at every instance. Normally, ALL instances of time will have the same timeline for any person, only that it is shifted in time. But Primer says that there are infinite YOU's, all in sequence. But that each of those YOU's are independent beings. Since normally there is nothing to make them act differently, they only appear to be the same person.

So you can indeed use the same box if you want. Suppose you enter the box at 2 PM and exit it at 1 PM. You then wait around for an hour and stop your double from entering the box. You can then enter said box no problem for a second time.

But let's suppose you DON'T enter the box. No one is entering the box. Truth is that a few minutes into your own personal timeline's future, there IS someone in the box (he is going back in time from everyone else's POV). However, from your personal timeline's point where you stopped your double from entering the box, there won't be anyone there. So if you DO enter the box, there will be a double in the box with you, but a few minutes into the future from your POV (your future is actually back in time for everyone else) and this is perfectly fine as there is never more than one person in the box at any given time. You will never meet this double because he is in your immediate personal future (unless he goes back in time to meet you).

Back to the situation where you DON'T go into the box. What then? If you don't go into the box, who will stop the double on the next iteration? Well, no one. You stopped him from getting into the box. So if you wait around for two hours, then if you could look two hours into Earth's past, you would see that no one is there to stop the "double". So he gets into the box, goes back into the past, waits an hour and stops his double. This scenario will flip back and forth.

And this is actually what the story of Primer is all about. If you get into a ping pong situation, you only fixed the situation for a segment of your personal timeline (if you fixed anything at all). The other side of the ping pong timeline is still screwed. And this ping pong effect is what happened when they use the failsafe (and knocked the guy out and put him in the attic). This is why Thomas Granger came back. Because half of the timeline is screwed and in that messed up half, Granger used the box to try and come back and fix things. Only problem is that he calculated the amount of time to go back wrong. He ended up on the wrong side of the ping pong timeline. The side he ended up, the timeline was already "fixed". His presence there will have unforeseen effects because he's just created his own ping pong timeline without realizing it. In the timeline that isn't screwed, Granger has no need to get in the box because everything is fine (these two scenarios will happen one after the other continuously). So you have the failsafe of Aaron ping ponging with the ping pong timeline of Granger. What effect this will have overall will be unpredictable.

2009-11-14 16:08:17 by Mick:

Sam, I guess you're just that good of a writer, but I enjoyed reading this more than actually watching Primer.

2009-11-15 07:51:36 by Ian:

You ask why Abe Two suggests that he's staying to protect Kara and Lauren from Aaron Three. In that same conversation, Aaron suggests that they kidnap Kara and Lauren, make doubles of them, and then go travel somewhere with copies of each in separate hemispheres. Abe Two wants to make sure this never happens -- that Kara and Lauren's lives are never disrupted by their doings.

2009-11-17 11:22:47 by M:

after reading this, i though you might have a giggle at this:

http://xkcd.com/657/large/

bottom right is a character interaction line flow for Primer (the rest of the image is pretty fun too!)

2009-11-17 11:25:45 by Sam:

Randall Munroe is a quitter. His main error was to treat time as a one-dimensional axis.

2009-11-28 07:52:35 by Ryan:

Are you entirely sure the phone call is placed to Aaron prime and not Abe prime?

2009-12-02 03:09:48 by Ian:

I don't think it really matters who the phone call is directed to.

2010-01-12 16:15:27 by nogenius:

There's the graph of primer that xkcd did (although I expect it's wildly inaccurate)

http://xkcd.com/657/large/

2010-01-31 22:17:19 by Katrina:

If Aaron 3 steals his own (Aaron Prime's) passport, how did Aaron 2 (Hooded Aaron) get to France?

2010-02-28 12:57:00 by Wepol:

OK, but why did <u>Abe</u> failsafe (for four days) all the way back to Monday when he didn't need to?

2010-02-28 18:33:50 by Sam:

Because he felt he'd lost control of the situation and he'd lost his nerve. This is pretty clear from the movie.

2010-03-03 04:08:58 by Sammy:

Not really sure what this is. I'll try to read this when I am not so tired and write some feedback. I really loved the Primer Universe book. Is any of this based on the book or just personal speculation? The whole hidden clue thing makes me wonder if any other films are similar to this effort by the film maker. Too bad he only made one film. Leaps and bounds better than the Prestige.

2010-05-29 11:46:36 by Fixer:

It just popped into my head this evening: How did Aaron bring the failsafe machine back with him? I can see bringing the "coffin" back, but how do you take the machine into itself? Do you take a new box and the machine in with you?

Oh, my head.

2010-06-06 07:54:06 by Astyanax:

The answer to this question is that you can make doubles of the machine just like you can people. All you have to do is fold one up and take it with you, and make sure your double on the other end doesn't take it back inside at the end of the day. Since Aaron was keeping two of his doubles from going inside again (drugging and persuasion), it's safe to say the extra machines also stayed outside.

It's like wishing for more wishes; you can use a time machine to make more time machines. :-) Rule of thumb: always take a time machine with you when you go inside one. :-)

2010-08-13 09:42:38 by Bobz:

This is great! But..... the explanation says - "They put Granger to bed at Abe's house; Aaron cannot approach him with(out) actually somehow knocking him unconscious." - However, in the film, both Narrator Aaron and Aaron Three suggest that it is Abe's proximity that causes Granger's unconsiousness. Why would being close to Abe cause Granger's unconsiousness?

2010-10-03 02:14:14 by Carnate:

Very nice explanation of everything but at the beginning of the article you mention "While fiddling with the device, Aaron pokes his hand right the way into the field and Abe puts his hands over it to drop punched holes into the field. This becomes significant later." I don't see where you explain where this is significant.

2010-10-30 18:19:11 by Chuckles:

The first time we see Aaron on the bench it is Aaron "recording the conversations of the day'. He is wearing the earpiece only for cosmetic effect because he knows he will be wearing the earpiece when comes back. If he doesn't wear the earpiece while recording he will not be able to record people's reactions to the earpiece when the same conversation comes up again.

Imagine if Aaron recorded the conversations and the next time around he wore red, floppy, clown shows. By introducing a new visual variable the recorded conversations would become much less helpful.

Aaron is so smart that he knows he needs to keep as close to the same appearance as possible to try to keep the conversations the same. Since Aaron knows he will need the earpiece later in order to listen to the conversations he knows that he needs to wear it while recording in order to keep the conversations the same as the recording.

2010-12-08 13:02:22 by Mika:

@Bobz

According to a theory on http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ehsvr/which_one_movie_blew_your_mind/c18754k

"The idea — such as it is — is that is Granger talks to Abe, he'll tell him something that'll motivate Abe to use his failsafe box to go back and reset everything, thus preventing Granger from ever traveling in time, resulting in a paradox. It's this looming paradox that causes Granger to black out whenever Abe is near."

2011-03-12 06:42:58 by Seething:

Reading this has made me very angry! And my head hurts! Pay for my brain transplant!

2011-03-20 05:19:17 by TomC:

I would also like to know more about the punched holes - how are they significant later in the film?

Useful explanation thanks, but my head is still resisting the knowledge.

2011-04-24 16:51:06 by urza:

Thanks a lot for excellent explanation. I finally get it.

Last time I felt like this was while studying the formal definition of halting problem :)

2011-04-29 20:45:24 by Indigo:

"Abe then puts forward a confusing and potentially dangerous plan to visit Joseph Platts at his home, punch him in the face, then, around 03:00 Friday, to use these boxes to go back in time to 17:00 Thursday and make sure that neither the car alarms nor the punching happen. In theory, as a result, both Aaron and Abe's doubles would stay in bed all night, get into their boxes at 15:15 Friday as normal, and leave this timeline permanently, leaving just one of each of Aaron and Abe behind."

You see, Abe should have thought this one over.
Their daily trips go from 08:45 to 15:15 (or 15:15 to 08:45 rather) on the same day. If they had managed to sleep through the night, they would've woken up Friday morning, restart the machines at 08:30, set the 15 min timer, and jump in at 15:15. Meanwhile, the leftover duo would have witnessed another set of doubles re-emerging from the storage facility shortly after 08:45 Friday morning. The problem of duplicates remains.
In theory, it might have possibly worked if they somehow convinced their doubles to leave the machines on and not restart them so that when they went back, they would be able to go as far back as 17:00 Thursday afternoon (the same emergence time of the duo that prevented the kids setting off the car alarms). Of course, they can always just kill them too! Abe's stock plan was much more sound.
Indeed, we find out near the end of the film that any time symmetry is broken in a manner that significantly affects your double (ie. not entering the box when he/she should have), we get the duplicates dilemma. Think of how many Aarons there would have been if he didn't nail that party plan on his third run. He would've had to keep going back and convincing the previous to take a hike.

It helps to remind oneself that the premise for time travel in reality is not understood at all. So we go on what is presented by the storyteller. In this case, history can change and branching timelines exist. The story unfolds from a particular perspective - Abe's perspective - starting from a particular timeline (a timeline where Abe did not go back to gas himself, but a timeline already altered by Aaron). If the story followed Aaron in a certain timeline, we could have seen him going to the party to witness the incident, going back to drug himself, recording the week's conversations, going back again to fight himself, and convincing the previous to leave, and so on. It might have been a longer movie, and probably not as intriguing. Stranger still, it might have been a very different movie altogether if it were told from either Aaron or Abe who got drugged. From their perspective, they just built a machine they didn't even understand yet, and suddenly they wake up in the dark not knowing how they got there. This subject does tend to get confusing. I kept asking myself, how could symmetry really be broken? Wouldn't I always see the end result? In other words, if I wanted to go back a few hours to make a change.. to say hello to myself for instance; wouldn't I have seen myself greet me a few hours ago in the first place? And so, you can get trapped in this circular logic if you don't accept certain rules like the possibility of multiple timelines.

2011-06-02 00:23:59 by dan:

I don't see why the hole punch bits from the beginning are relevant, does anyone know why?

2011-06-02 00:26:06 by Sam:

The hole punch bits aren't relevant. What's relevant is that Abe and Aaron both stick their hands into the machine.

2011-06-02 10:23:32 by Dan:

*is stupid* I still don't understand why their hands going into the machine is relevant :\

Concerning Aaron swapping the Failsafe boxes: wouldn't Abe know his failsafe, f0, has been swapped for Aarons f1 or f2, as the timer would differ by the time it takes Aaron to exit f0 and set up f1/2? Assume it's not that bit a time difference and doesn't really matter.

2011-06-22 16:41:27 by clarissa:

I disagree that he builds at warehouse sized Time machine at the end. Because that makes little sense what is he gonna take back that needs that Much space? And he can only use it ONCE. Instead there is the last line of the movie. " Good morning, every have meter.... everywhere.... everywhere." What is he asking them to build every half meter.... everywhere? Time Machines... a LOT of them.

He is filling the warehouse up with a LOT of time machines, that way he can turn them ALL on at once. This way he will always be able to go back to the moment they were ALL turned on... and be able to always have a fail safe, until his health gives out.

2011-07-03 05:32:59 by Peter:

I have a few questions, if anyone could help :)

1) At the point where Abe and Aaron are testing their device at their garage and they think they blew it. Then they decide to remove the case so they can pick up Aaron's camcorder. Now all this is long before the fateful Monday in March when the whole main plot begins. After they both say '1-2-3' and remove the case, the scene blacks out and changes, showing Abe unconscious on the floor and the sound of static can be heard. It's really strange; what on earth happened here? Notice how Aaron calls him on the phone and Abe wakes up; then the scene REPEATS and Abe is still on the floor while Aaron's voice continues talking (asking him if he's hungry) and Abe is shown to pick up the phone again. It looks like there's TWO Abes here... For example, we see that one Abe gets up and Aaron is heard saying 'Abe, it's 7'. Then we see Abe getting up AGAIN and Aaron now says 'Abe, it's 7 at night'. This repetition of movements, and the way the scenes are presented, show (at least to me) that we have here TWO Abes. My initial theory was that this was a result of Abe Prime's proximity to the time machine which he had brought in his house (???) to test it, after they took Aaron's camera out of it and removed the case, and somehow he'd fallen unconscious as a result of so many 'leaks' (no cover). But I really am not sure. So what's up with this scene here?

2) After the last scene at the fungus lab, right after Aaron asks "Wait digital or old mechanical?", and Abe replies "Exactly. I did both." Then Aaron: "And?" and Abe: "I want you to do it". At that point... Well, first, I want to make sure: this is on Monday late morning, right?

3) Anyway, the NEXT scene shows another Aaron playing with some garden clips while next to him we hear Abe and Aaron talking (about to discover what their device really is; it is heard in the background "We thought we were degrading gravity" etc.) Now, it is obvious this Aaron is impatient as they are already in the storage facility as well. He keeps looking at the clock on the wall, which however shows 14:08. So which Aaron is this and where and when did he come from and why is he there and when does he intend to leave and where to?

2011-07-04 03:21:57 by Jfjdkf:

The hands are relevant because they stick them in there when testing and that part of their bodies are aging faster than all the others, just like the webel growing mold the hands age causing them to not be able to control writing. Which is why Aaron said he knows the letters he just can't get his hand to make them........ I think.

2011-07-15 04:03:31 by Anonymous:

Would it be possible to:
- Modify the small prototype box to eject any object inside at the right time
- Power it up, intending to insert a diamond a few minutes later
- A few moments after powering it up, at the window, the duplicate future diamond should be ejected
- Don't insert the diamond, effectively doubling your money. So much easier than going in yourself and doubling money by trading in the stock market (forex would've been better). I would think that'd raise some insider trading alarm bells.

2011-07-18 23:39:13 by blackacidlizzard:

You're loading ideas you have about time continuity which are not in the final cut of the movie. Unless you have inside information on the writer's intent, you are making assumptions with no backing.

There is no reason to think that observer-dependent wave collapse plays any role here. No examinations of the hand or paper placed in the already active field which is open to observation are ever carried out - how would you know if your hand aged a few thousand minutes? No mention is made of effects of observation, the characters are worried about the lack of environmental containment suitable for the field ; and the idea that a camera signal full of static equals probabilistic indeterminacy is a ridiculous leap.

The question of whether time is singular or branching is irrelevant, all that can be known is what is observed, and every observer will always only know one path, whether or not there are any other paths. This movie treats time branching the same way "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" does: it is never mentioned or hinted at.

A confrontation with your other self "causing" two of you to exist in the same timeline is laughable. Lock yourself in a room, fly to the moon - there are still two of you in the same timeline. The only concern that is close to this is that the chain of causality flowing from any action (not just meeting yourself)may cause your other self to not get into the box - which would leave two of you permanently walking the earth.

There's alot of good stuff in this post, but when you assume you make an ass out of yourself and anyone who accepts your assumptions.

2011-07-21 01:59:01 by HelloWorld:

I think being unable to write was just a side-effect of several trips inside the machine. It seemed to affect the brain somewhat. Aaron told Abe to compare it to writing with his left hand and they looked the same.

2011-07-21 02:26:15 by HelloWorld:

Also, It didn't make sense for Abe to have affected Thomas just by proximity, if the reason was causality. Abe and Aaron doubles have gone near each other and prevented each other from going back without suffering the same effect.

I'm thinking something like this happened: In one timeline, Thomas Granger found out about the machine, and probably used the failsafe. In the same timeline, Abe used the same box and was disintegrated. This sorta explains the proximity problem between Thomas and Abe.

2011-07-26 10:53:43 by Betty:

I enjoyed the film, but I could not buy into the fact that either character's main concern was to go back in time to manipulate the stock market and basically steal money in that way. These guys created a Time Machine, they're geniuses. Both characters develpment indicated that their primary concern would be to continue research related solely to the time machine and its effects. They wouldn't be interested in punching someone in the face or stealing money, that part just didn't fit, and really didn't add anything to the film. And for a couple of geniuses, go figure, they invite an ex-boyfriend to the party for no reason whatsoever, out of the blue. Are these guys high school dropouts? Yeah, sounds like it to me. Carruth could have easily found a more realistic scenario for the emergency travel back circumstances.

2011-08-05 04:50:11 by Brad:

Awesome, awesome explanation. But to me, the lingering question is... what happens to the other Abe? One flies off at the end of the movie, one wakes up in the attic, and the other....

2011-08-14 08:12:18 by Ichneumon:

Not a time machine the size of a warehouse.

Not thousands of time machines in a warehouse all turned on at the same time.

Thousands of time machines in a warehouse turned on at *different* times.

Set them to kick on in sequence; one at noon, one at 1pm, one at 2pm, etc., day after day, week after week.
At any time in the future, you can return exactly (well, within the hour) to any date/time you choose. Just pick the machine that activated at the date/time you want to travel back in time to, and hop in.

Even better, you no longer have to do it all in one session -- you don't have to sit in a box for a full month to go back in time a month. Get into the box that started 4 hours ago, spend 4 hours in it, then get out, stretch your legs, go to the bathroom, have lunch, grab another oxygen bottle, then get into the box that started 4 hours before *that*, etc. Repeat until you've gone back however far you want.

2011-10-02 08:41:35 by raymond:

I appreciate the author's input on this film. It stimulated a lot of interesting reads.

Given the "reality" of the movie, what would happen if you put a running time machine inside of a another time machine then turn that machine on?

From what I can tell, you can only travel back in time to the point where the machine was turn on. That's like an anchor point. When you turn the machine off, you are in essence opening up a door through time. However, it seems you MUST sit in the time machine for the length of time the time machine was on. You have to experience that time (in essence, you gain that time as part of the time travel). But I was thinking if there was a way to compound the length of time you traveled through, and decrease the amount of time you spend in the box by sitting inside 2 time machines.

I know this is all fiction, but it's neat to think about.

2011-11-11 23:29:29 by tre:

So much to read, not sure if this has been touched upon, but if one of the premises is alternate time lines, you don't necessarily need 'multiple' failsafes for the scenario to play out. the only thing that need exist is the 'you' in the box you came out of. It creates what seems to be a paradox, but if the concept is changeable/multiple time lines, as soon as you step out of the box, whether you are still in it or not is irrelevant.
i.e. you can prevent the 'earlier you' from entering it if you desire, but because it's an alternate timeline, you just prevent the 'you' in that timeline from going back to create another version, etc. (yeah, splinters get nuts to follow)
Think of it this way - if you can in fact go backward in time, the moment you step out potentially creates a new timeline where anything that happens from that moment forward is irrelevant to the old timeline, including the part where you were sitting in the box going backward. It's like creating a wormhole between alternate realities - once you step out of the hole and the machine shuts down or whatever, you are in a new place/time with new causalities. So if you wanted to re-use the same failsafe, you just keep the 'other you' from getting into it, say by drugging him in your attic, then you can use the same (empty) failsafe box to go back again.

2011-11-11 23:35:15 by tre:

With that said, the last scene would, however, require one additional failsafe (which is mentioned in the movie) for both of them to have been able to go back via the long-term failsafe mechanisms to have fore-knowledge at that moment. But this only means that for that last 'loop' from Aaron's perspective, he only need 'allow' Abe to enter the first failsafe while he enters the second. He could have technically used the other failsafe many times already and come out of it again playing the long-loop again and again and the only thing he need to each time is make sure that Abe wasn't entering it at the end of the long-loop.

2011-11-11 23:42:34 by tre:

Oh, and of course the duplicate thing - any time you 'prevent' yourself from re-entering at the end of the loop is where the potential for a duplicate of yourself would occur.... until you re-enter the box again and go back to create yet another different time line (and another potential for a duplicate) - there would only end up with one duplicate of yourself in any one timeline - at least in the same-box-reuse scenario. As soon as you prevent yourself from entering the same box making it available for 'new you', you need to get 'old you' out of the way when you go back and until you loop again (or old you loops at all), there are two of you. If you don't loop in his stead, there is two of you. But as long as you continue to re-use the same machine preventing 'old you' from doing so, that time line is left with one of you and you become a duplicate back at the same point in time with a new branch.
A 'third' you wouldn't occur until you prevented 'old you' from going and did not take 'old you's place then repeated that whole process yet another time. I didn't see anything in the summary that would have suggested that.

2011-11-18 02:05:32 by booboobear:

I just have once concern regarding the bench scenes in the movie. I don't believe it's Aaron 3 the entire day. I think the very first time you see them on the bench, they are in the 1st timeline and it's the original Aaron and the original Abe that traveled back on that 1st Monday afternoon to Monday morning to tell Aaron about the boxes. Aaron is wearing an earpiece, but his reactions and demeanor seem genuine and there a few scenes that same day when he's not wearing an earpiece at all. I think that when Aaron 2(hooded Aaron) went back through the failsafe to Monday, he recorded all conversations from the week. the second time we see them on the bench on Monday, it's Abe's double and Aaron 3. The first bench scene is original Aaron and Abe from the very first time travel while his former self from the day is waiting at the hotel.

2011-12-28 12:53:44 by Maxim:

Why would Aaron built a new LARGE time machine in the end of the film??? For what purpose? To send MANY people back in time? What for?

2012-01-02 16:45:43 by John:

@Maxim: He left the country and has to now survive a lifetime in that time line. He is probably being commissioned to build it. He probably has no use for such a large time machine himself, but I'm sure that the military would love to have technology like that on such a large scale and would pay whatever it takes for it.

2012-01-02 16:45:43 by John:

@Maxim: He left the country and has to now survive a lifetime in that time line. He is probably being commissioned to build it. He probably has no use for such a large time machine himself, but I'm sure that the military would love to have technology like that on such a large scale and would pay whatever it takes for it.

2012-01-07 07:45:31 by Nina:

That would be the French military?

2012-01-09 14:04:17 by Pete:

The Primer concept was a great story, unfortunately, it got swallowed up its own ass by the random, confusing dialogue and the shocking continuity problems. Not bad for $7K, but would have been better if the director didn't take himself and the story so seriously.

2012-03-03 07:03:05 by uday:

awesomemovie and awesome explanation

2012-03-15 06:38:23 by J:

"At this point, the narrator, Hooded Aaron, reminds us that HE, of course, does NOT come from a timeline where everything worked out perfectly. Hooded Aaron has only been to the party once, and he has only seen how it originally played out."

This is wrong.... And I think the movie contradicts itself too. The first Aaron never went to the party. The third Aaron went to the party back when he was second Aaron. However, second Aaron never gets to go to the party at all because third Aaron makes him leave. Thus, when second Aaron makes the phone call and says that he can say what he did when he went, he must be wrong. Unless third Aaron or second Abe told him what third Aaron had done.

2012-03-15 19:18:20 by Thirteen:

Thanks for the explanation of Primer - really useful. I felt so stupid watching this film. I couldn't follow all of the subtle plot lines at all. Just vague ideas as to what was going on. So it's nice to have it laid out like this, assuming it's all correct of course! I don't want to know if it's not though!
Reading some of the comments here blows my mind though. This is just a made-up story someone wrote and turned into a film ..... for fun. It's extremely doubtful that they discovered time travel in the process and that their "theory" holds any water, so I just don't understand why people even try to rip it apart, find flaws in it, expand on it. What's the point? Just enjoy the movie, doin't suck all the fun out of it. And yes I know some people are just discussing what was in the film-maker's mind and that's completely separate - nowt wrong with that.

2012-03-25 06:34:56 by RobertLockard:

Amazing article! This is quite an achievement. Well done, sir. Now the only thing I need to figure out is why the movie is called Primer in the first place.

2012-03-31 05:31:17 by Noni:

I think the simplest explanation for Aaron's warehouse-sized time machine is to enclose a very large amount of air, water, and food. It could be a long-term failsafe.

I also wonder about nested running boxes. Run box A for a week. At the end of the week, enter box A with box B and turn on box B. When you emerge from box A at the start of the week, you've got box B, /which has been running for a week/. Assuming that nested boxes don't destroy the universe or something, this method could enable you to go back even before the machine was invented.

2012-04-04 22:11:15 by piton:

One confusing thing in the movie is that they call their (causally) past ones their doubles. Their existence is based on that the "double" will enter the machine later, so they remember everything the double experienced.
This confusion leads to that you cannot focus on the more difficult parts, and end up more confused.

2012-04-05 10:24:58 by ryan:

There is either a typo or something I'm not understanding from the explanation. In the explanation you write that His wife asks him about the rats in the attic on Tuesday nite while they're drinking a few beers but then at the bottom of the explanation you say that they had this conversation on Wednesday. Is the original Aaron (Aaron_0) the one that had the original conversation with his wife or is it the Aaron that has already went back via the failsafe?

2012-05-20 18:56:50 by Bar:

Great piece. Primer is one of my favourite movies. Such a lot to think about in there.
I'd hazard a guess that if indeed the large warehouse is to be a time machine, it could not only be used to take back large supplies of oxygen, food and supplies, it could also concievably be used to contain a dwelling, cars, helicopters, weapons, or ANY technology. If you started the machine today and left it running for ten years, then potentially you stop the machine in ten years time, and fill it up with rayguns and iPhone25's and $50 billion in used 2012 banknotes(Without getting in yourself), that stuff could magically appear in five minutes time. Or lets say you turn it on now and wait fifty years till someone invents a zero point energy machine. You could stick that in the machine and get it out in five minutes. There's no limit to what could be sent back in a warehouse of that size... I suppose it's about learning to think big!

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