If Robert A Heinlein and his wife Virginia had lived to see this, they would have been more than pleased. They would have sat there with jaw agape at how perfectly this film follows every detail of the story it is based upon.
I heard about this project a few months ago in a Reddit board. Whenever I hear about my favorite books or stories being made into Film, I always wonder how much they will muck it up. In the case of this, the source matériel is so unusual that I knew that regardless of who made this film, I would be seeing "All you Zombies".
Of course, anyone who has read "All You Zombies" - The Short (very short) story by The Dean of Science Fiction, would have every detail of it memorized. It's one of those stories you have to read, and then read again, and then wonder what the blazes you have read, so you read it again. This is one of those stories that you have to read maybe 50 timers before you really understand what's being said.
Because there is no "Unwed Mother", there is no "Bartender" and there is no "Fizzle Bomber", at least not as individual people. And there never was a baby dropped off at the steps of an orphanage in 1945. And John Never met Jane. And most important, the Chicken never laid the egg that grew back up into the Chicken.
Of course, that "Chicken" would have also have to have been 1/2 Rooster. But that is Heinlien's Handywork for you, his twisted humor, which he revisits in his last four books from "The Number of the Beast" to "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"- All of which deal with Time Travel and Alternate Universes.
This is a story that takes time and tosses it into a blender and re- shapes it, but where other Time Travel paradox stories fail is where 'All you Zombies" is a perfect circle, we can see the clear direction of Time's Arrow.
Speaking of which, the story which comes closest to Predestination's planned perfection is Star Trek's "Times Arrow" two parter which spans from 1890's San Francisco to the planet Dividia II in the 24th Century- Beginning and ending with Data's Head. But where some of these Time Tales revolve around an "Altered Timeline", this one has none of that- It's all the same Timeline, the time-line of a single individual.
But this story can never go past the 50 year mark - 50 years from when time travel had been "stitched" out, in either direction. Because just like Heinlein's very first published story "LifeLine", this is all told from within the life span of one person.
In a way, John and Jane's story is the story of every man or woman on Earth, but In John's case, he actually was "his own grandpa".
I have read All You Zombies at least a hundred times, I know every facet of this story. And whoever "The Spierig Brothers" are, they not only created this perfect rendition of the story, even doing much of the special effects and music - But on top of that, they UNDERSTOOD exactly what Heinlein was saying, and so there is not one idle phrase from the story that is not represented here, in this visual retelling.
I have been waiting for this story to be made into a film all of my life, and I for one am in no way disappointed with any part of it - The story is recanted by Jane/John to "The Bartender" just like the written story, and the events of John's story match every detail of the original short story.
There are some things that go a little further than the story, like this stuff about a "Fizzle Bomber", And I think it was a logical way to include the Ending of the story - Because the short story only has the Beginning and the Middle and then the beginning again, so the added material actually provides the end of the Ouruboros' tail- The snake that eats it's own tail.
It's just another Brief History of Time, but in this case it tells a remarkable and fascinating story.
I heard about this project a few months ago in a Reddit board. Whenever I hear about my favorite books or stories being made into Film, I always wonder how much they will muck it up. In the case of this, the source matériel is so unusual that I knew that regardless of who made this film, I would be seeing "All you Zombies".
Of course, anyone who has read "All You Zombies" - The Short (very short) story by The Dean of Science Fiction, would have every detail of it memorized. It's one of those stories you have to read, and then read again, and then wonder what the blazes you have read, so you read it again. This is one of those stories that you have to read maybe 50 timers before you really understand what's being said.
Because there is no "Unwed Mother", there is no "Bartender" and there is no "Fizzle Bomber", at least not as individual people. And there never was a baby dropped off at the steps of an orphanage in 1945. And John Never met Jane. And most important, the Chicken never laid the egg that grew back up into the Chicken.
Of course, that "Chicken" would have also have to have been 1/2 Rooster. But that is Heinlien's Handywork for you, his twisted humor, which he revisits in his last four books from "The Number of the Beast" to "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"- All of which deal with Time Travel and Alternate Universes.
This is a story that takes time and tosses it into a blender and re- shapes it, but where other Time Travel paradox stories fail is where 'All you Zombies" is a perfect circle, we can see the clear direction of Time's Arrow.
Speaking of which, the story which comes closest to Predestination's planned perfection is Star Trek's "Times Arrow" two parter which spans from 1890's San Francisco to the planet Dividia II in the 24th Century- Beginning and ending with Data's Head. But where some of these Time Tales revolve around an "Altered Timeline", this one has none of that- It's all the same Timeline, the time-line of a single individual.
But this story can never go past the 50 year mark - 50 years from when time travel had been "stitched" out, in either direction. Because just like Heinlein's very first published story "LifeLine", this is all told from within the life span of one person.
In a way, John and Jane's story is the story of every man or woman on Earth, but In John's case, he actually was "his own grandpa".
I have read All You Zombies at least a hundred times, I know every facet of this story. And whoever "The Spierig Brothers" are, they not only created this perfect rendition of the story, even doing much of the special effects and music - But on top of that, they UNDERSTOOD exactly what Heinlein was saying, and so there is not one idle phrase from the story that is not represented here, in this visual retelling.
I have been waiting for this story to be made into a film all of my life, and I for one am in no way disappointed with any part of it - The story is recanted by Jane/John to "The Bartender" just like the written story, and the events of John's story match every detail of the original short story.
There are some things that go a little further than the story, like this stuff about a "Fizzle Bomber", And I think it was a logical way to include the Ending of the story - Because the short story only has the Beginning and the Middle and then the beginning again, so the added material actually provides the end of the Ouruboros' tail- The snake that eats it's own tail.
It's just another Brief History of Time, but in this case it tells a remarkable and fascinating story.