Poll of the Day > Which TV show/movie would you rather be trapped in?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Quantum Leap: You leap into random people's bodies and then have to accomplish some task in order to move on. You are aided by a hologram of Dean Stockwell that only you can see.

Time Tunnel: You're a scientist trapped in the time stream and you keep appearing at important events in the past and future, but you cannot change the past.

Voyagers: You travel through time, fixing errors in history. You have an annoying sidekick, but you also have a nifty pocket watch.

Groundhog Day: You keep reliving the same day over and over again. Nobody else will remember anything you do once the day resets and if you die you'll wake up again.

Doctor Who: You're one of the Doctor's companions as he travels around the universe and throughout history, but you're never quite sure if he's your friend or if he's using you to accomplish his goals.

The Time Machine: Travel forward to a time when humans are divided into two groups, the peaceful but stupid Eloi and the underground dwelling cannibalistic Morlocks

None of the above. I despise time travel as a plot device.
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Which has the most sexy women?
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GenericGuy posted...

Which has the most sexy women?

The Time Machine has the Eloi, who do nothing but eat, sleep and screw all day.

Groundhog Day you can do anything at all you want because nobody will remember anything.

Doctor Who has all kinds of women, like the Sisters of Plenitude or Lady Cassandra O'Brien.17

G. Sliders
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Quantum leap has potential but I was never sure if he was really in those bodies or what, since he see's himself in the mirror. I think i'd go with groundhogs day though since you basically can do whatever you want in a 24 hour period until you decide your done, and then move forward with all the memories/experiences and skills you obtained.

I mean, I'd spend 30-40 years just catching up on my game library. Only really sucky part would be so many of them take more then 24 hours to finish......so I'd need to find a cheat code or an editor or online save I can download or something so I can continue the games midway or something.

Wish it was groundhogs week lol.
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Groundhog Day is tempting, but there's only so much you can do in one town (although traveling would expand your options a bit). Even if I could somehow get through my game backlog, I would eventually get bored.

I'm torn between Quantum Leap and Doctor Who. Leap would provide plenty of new experiences and social interactions in a normal setting; Who would do so in a fantasy setting. But the latter would likely be much more dangerous than the average Leap.
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captpackrat posted...

Groundhog Day you can do anything at all you want because nobody will remember anything.

Sounds like a realm of possibilities to me.
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Sure I'll be Bill Murray for eternity.
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Groundhog Day I suppose.

captpackrat posted...

Groundhog Day you can do anything at all you want because nobody will remember anything.

Interesting....
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I'd like to be trapped in Veronica's Closet
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wolfy42 posted...

Quantum leap has potential but I was never sure if he was really in those bodies or what, since he see's himself in the mirror.

Have you even seen Quantum Leap? What you described is literally the opposite of what happens.

keyblader1985 posted...

Groundhog Day is tempting, but there's only so much you can do in one town (although traveling would expand your options a bit). Even if I could somehow get through my game backlog, I would eventually get bored.

It would be fun at first, but at some point it would turn into eternal torture...
:/

captpackrat posted...

The Time Machine has the Eloi, who do nothing but eat, sleep and screw all day.

This.

In the kingdom of blissfully passive idiots and primitive savages, the guy who can actually think three steps ahead and craft simple machines will be king.


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Xfma100 posted...

keyblader1985 posted...

Groundhog Day is tempting, but there's only so much you can do in one town (although traveling would expand your options a bit). Even if I could somehow get through my game backlog, I would eventually get bored.

It would be fun at first, but at some point it would turn into eternal torture...
:/

Torture? You can have sex with as many women as you want and not have to deal with any consequences. Sounds like paradise to me.
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I have not seen Q-leap since it aired so yeah, don't remember it that well. Still don't know if he's actually in the bodies or not, but whatever.

You can end the groundhogs day btw, and since you actually saw the movie, would even know how to do it.

Meanwhile you have unlimited time to learn things, and plan things out. You COULD travel almost anywhere in fact, though your limited a bit by flight time. You could probably go anywhere in the US easily within a day though (in most cases within 12 hours) leaving you some time to explore have fun there.

Sadly due to the time it starts in the morning, most of your time in other places would be late at night (unless you could fly there in 3-4 hours). I think you could probably get to a plane and fly yourself just about anywhere though in 5 hours (in the US), and still have a decent amount of time left.

Would take a very very long time before you ran out of things to do, then you just end the ground hogs day, and use all your knowledge and skills to become super rich as well.
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Quantum Leap, but only if I also become Scott Bakula.
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Groundhog Day

I would just stay in that day for all eternity
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*sees all of the choices* lolnope! *shoots self*

GenericGuy posted...

Xfma100 posted...

keyblader1985 posted...

Groundhog Day is tempting, but there's only so much you can do in one town (although traveling would expand your options a bit). Even if I could somehow get through my game backlog, I would eventually get bored.

It would be fun at first, but at some point it would turn into eternal torture...
:/

Torture? You can have sex with as many women as you want and not have to deal with any consequences. Sounds like paradise to me.

You mean like raping them?

EnvyFox posted...

*sees all of the choices* lolnope! *shoots self*

Really? Even if you don't care for time loops and shit, traveling the universe with The Doctor sounds pretty dope.
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BADoglick posted...

G. Sliders

I was also going to ask why this wasn't up there. But I think it was because it's not really traveling through time...

Anyway, I choose Doctor Who. I think it would be pretty fun.
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Where is Buffy? :/
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I wouldn't want to do Groundhog day. While there are many possibilities, in reality you'd be quite limited in terms of the amount of distance you can travel, the amount you can realistically do before being killed or imprisoned, and it would be pretty depressing knowing that your life isn't moving on. It's like hell, where you're stuck in a cycle forever.
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MICHALECOLE posted...

GenericGuy posted...

Xfma100 posted...

keyblader1985 posted...

Groundhog Day is tempting, but there's only so much you can do in one town (although traveling would expand your options a bit). Even if I could somehow get through my game backlog, I would eventually get bored.

It would be fun at first, but at some point it would turn into eternal torture...
:/

Torture? You can have sex with as many women as you want and not have to deal with any consequences. Sounds like paradise to me.

You mean like raping them?

No I am a man of respect

Do women become unpregnant when you go back in time?

And do you lose STDs?
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GenericGuy posted...

MICHALECOLE posted...

GenericGuy posted...

Xfma100 posted...

keyblader1985 posted...

Groundhog Day is tempting, but there's only so much you can do in one town (although traveling would expand your options a bit). Even if I could somehow get through my game backlog, I would eventually get bored.

It would be fun at first, but at some point it would turn into eternal torture...
:/

Torture? You can have sex with as many women as you want and not have to deal with any consequences. Sounds like paradise to me.

You mean like raping them?

No I am a man of respect

Do women become unpregnant when you go back in time?

And do you lose STDs?

I figure they wouldn't be pregnant. I also think you would lose STDs, but I guess it depends on what TC says. Also, depending on who you are and where you are, you could. If it's a small conservative town where they don't participate in Pre-marital sex or a town where almost everyone is happily married, you choices could go down. Or if a certain person you wanted to have sex with had already planned on meeting someone else for the night...
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LinkPizza posted...

GenericGuy posted...

MICHALECOLE posted...

GenericGuy posted...

Xfma100 posted...

keyblader1985 posted...

Groundhog Day is tempting, but there's only so much you can do in one town (although traveling would expand your options a bit). Even if I could somehow get through my game backlog, I would eventually get bored.

It would be fun at first, but at some point it would turn into eternal torture...
:/

Torture? You can have sex with as many women as you want and not have to deal with any consequences. Sounds like paradise to me.

You mean like raping them?

No I am a man of respect

Do women become unpregnant when you go back in time?

And do you lose STDs?

I figure they wouldn't be pregnant. I also think you would lose STDs, but I guess it depends on what TC says. Also, depending on who you are and where you are, you could. If it's a small conservative town where they don't participate in Pre-marital sex or a town where almost everyone is happily married, you choices could go down. Or if a certain person you wanted to have sex with had already planned on meeting someone else for the night...

Not bad at all. That seems like the best choice.
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keyblader1985 posted...

EnvyFox posted...

*sees all of the choices* lolnope! *shoots self*

Really? Even if you don't care for time loops and shit, traveling the universe with The Doctor sounds pretty dope.

Haven't watched much of the show myself but I've seen enough to know I want no part of what they have to deal with in certain episodes.

As much as I like Quantum Leap the show, that would be hell as a reality. Likewise, Groundhog Day might be fun at first, but the lack of continuity would be annoying (especially trying to keep track of what you've done one day vs the next since all days start the same and have a lot of recurring events)

Not familiar with Time Tunnel or Voyagers, although Voyagers sounds the better of the two.

Doctor Who is an absolute hellscape, but it looks like it *might* be the best option especially since companions usually survive or turn out okay. Well, unless the Time Machine gave access to any time in history rather than just winding up in the dystopian future (which, in the film version, involved some kind of moon excavation -- can't remember if that was present in previous versions and I honestly remember very little of the book)

Granted, this list notably excludes Time Trax. It's a particularly egregious oversight because being a time cop would be fucking awesome.
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Zeus posted...

As much as I like Quantum Leap the show, that would be hell as a reality.

There's a reason why he was openly weeping in the finale when he started to realize he was never going to be able to go home, and was going to Leap forever.

Which also makes it even more meaningful when he willingly sacrifices his own freedom in order to help give his dearest friend a "happily ever after" by basically giving up his own.



Zeus posted...

Doctor Who is an absolute hellscape, but it looks like it *might* be the best option especially since companions usually survive or turn out okay.

In the old show, companions usually ended up better off than when they started, though a few notorious examples wound up dead, and a couple wound up in places where they probably wished they were dead.

The new show makes being the Doctor's companion a much worse fate, though. You're probably going to go through hell and get psychologically broken multiple times over, and even if you get a happy ending when you leave, you'll apparently spend the rest of your life pining over the time you spent with the Doctor and never really being able to move on. And that's assuming you don't wind up mind raped or dead.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Zeus posted...

As much as I like Quantum Leap the show, that would be hell as a reality.

There's a reason why he was openly weeping in the finale when he started to realize he was never going to be able to go home, and was going to Leap forever.

Which also makes it even more meaningful when he willingly sacrifices his own freedom in order to help give his dearest friend a "happily ever after" by basically giving up his own.

Oh right, while I remembered that he *chose* to keep leaping, I forgot that he was doing it so somebody else wouldn't be stuck leaping or some similar twist.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Zeus posted...

Doctor Who is an absolute hellscape, but it looks like it *might* be the best option especially since companions usually survive or turn out okay.

In the old show, companions usually ended up better off than when they started, though a few notorious examples wound up dead, and a couple wound up in places where they probably wished they were dead.

The new show makes being the Doctor's companion a much worse fate, though. You're probably going to go through hell and get psychologically broken multiple times over, and even if you get a happy ending when you leave, you'll apparently spend the rest of your life pining over the time you spent with the Doctor and never really being able to move on. And that's assuming you don't wind up mind raped or dead.

Well, in the new series almost every companion had a quasi-romance with him (so part of regretting not being with him clearly had a romantic component, especially as seen with Rose) and he pretty much did everything in his power (at least up until I stopped watching) to discourage male companions from hanging out with him and his current squeeze. (Come to think of it, the only male companion he really seemed to get along with was Donna's granddad, probably because he had no reason to be jealous of a potential relationship brewing.)

That said, it still seems like there are better outcomes traveling with the Doctor (vs the other options) and most of the time the stories seem to take place around modern England
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Groundhog Day. I'm definitely the bad guy.
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Zeus posted...

Oh right, while I remembered that he *chose* to keep leaping, I forgot that he was doing it so somebody else wouldn't be stuck leaping or some similar twist.

His best friend Al was a soldier in Vietnam. At one point he's taken captive, and spends a few years in a POW camp. When he finally comes home, he discovers that his wife has remarried, because she assumed he'd died. Because she was basically the one true love of his life, he never really has a successful, stable relationship afterwards, and still sort of regrets that he lost her. This has actually been established across multiple previous episodes - and in one episode, Sam actually has a chance to potentially save Al, but doesn't, because he's too focused on completing the requirements of the Leap for the person he's inhabiting (which he feels guilty about later).

In the finale, Sam is given the choice to pick ONE Leap that he has full control over - which he can use to Leap home. Instead, he uses it to Leap back to visit Al's wife, telling her that Al is still alive and she should wait for him. In the new reality, she waits, they stay married, and have a happy life together with multiple kids.

But "Dr. Samuel Becket never returned home".


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Again in groundhogs day, you can get almost anywhere fast with the power to redo things until you get it just right. Anything that is possible can be done by doing it over and over again till you get it just right.

Your in a small town, you know EVERYTHING in that town by heart at this point. You wake up, run to the fastest car and jump start it as fast as someone who has the keys. You drive at 140+ mph, avoiding any cops easily, to the nearest airfield (private) and you know every plane in that field, which ones are fueled up etc. You start the plane and take off and can fly just about anywhere within it's range (you could easily do the same with an actual airport for the longer flights, and possibly even reach over seas in some cases).

Remeber EVERYTHING reverts at the end of the day. You can kill with impunity. You don't even need to land the public airplane full of passangers, you can just don a parachute and jump out and let the plane crash (it'll all revert anyway).

Meanwhile if your starting in Pennsilvania, you can easily drive to NY at 100+ Mph for instance and play around there if you want, forget about even taking a train. Even Florida is possible I guess (west coast would require you to fly probably).

And there is a sense of continuity since you, yourself, keep improving and experiencing new things. You can easily seduce any woman (you will probably get to a point where you can do it the first time in fact, after doing it with so many others). Even if you die, you just go back, so there are no risks you can't take as well.

In the end there would be almost no experiences possible for a human to have that you could not try before finishing up the day and moving forward. Biggest problem would be finding something to actually want to do afterwards, but heck, it would be a fun ride getting there.
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What happens in Groundhog Day if he stays up past midnight? Does he blink and its the same day again?

MICHALECOLE posted...

What happens in Groundhog Day if he stays up past midnight? Does he blink and its the same day again?

I believe it's a full 24 hours, so he could in theory stay up till 9 am (was that the time) in the morning and then just poof, be waking up again. He in theory would never actually need to sleep.l
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wolfy42 posted...

MICHALECOLE posted...

What happens in Groundhog Day if he stays up past midnight? Does he blink and its the same day again?

I believe it's a full 24 hours, so he could in theory stay up till 9 am (was that the time) in the morning and then just poof, be waking up again. He in theory would never actually need to sleep.l

Unlimited sex and no sleep? Where can I sign up for this?
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wolfy42 posted...

Again in groundhogs day, you can get almost anywhere fast with the power to redo things until you get it just right. Anything that is possible can be done by doing it over and over again till you get it just right.

Your in a small town, you know EVERYTHING in that town by heart at this point. You wake up, run to the fastest car and jump start it as fast as someone who has the keys. You drive at 140+ mph, avoiding any cops easily, to the nearest airfield (private) and you know every plane in that field, which ones are fueled up etc. You start the plane and take off and can fly just about anywhere within it's range (you could easily do the same with an actual airport for the longer flights, and possibly even reach over seas in some cases).

Spending a good chunk of the day traveling sounds like it would get old fast. And even with a plane it seems like there would be practical limits. The *only* upside to GD would be immortality, although it's a tortured existence since literally nothing has meaning or significance because it just gets undone at the end of the day.
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To me, Groundhog day sounds like the worst. Well, of the ones I know. I could live the same day over and over. I feel like it would get old really fast...
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Zeus posted...

wolfy42 posted...

Again in groundhogs day, you can get almost anywhere fast with the power to redo things until you get it just right. Anything that is possible can be done by doing it over and over again till you get it just right.

Your in a small town, you know EVERYTHING in that town by heart at this point. You wake up, run to the fastest car and jump start it as fast as someone who has the keys. You drive at 140+ mph, avoiding any cops easily, to the nearest airfield (private) and you know every plane in that field, which ones are fueled up etc. You start the plane and take off and can fly just about anywhere within it's range (you could easily do the same with an actual airport for the longer flights, and possibly even reach over seas in some cases).

Spending a good chunk of the day traveling sounds like it would get old fast. And even with a plane it seems like there would be practical limits. The *only* upside to GD would be immortality, although it's a tortured existence since literally nothing has meaning or significance because it just gets undone at the end of the day.

You don't have to travel every day, and honestly it would just be something you do every so often for a change etc, you don't even have to do that.

You could just use it to master tons of skills, or heck, just use it quickly to get a bunch of finacial knowledge that you can use when it's over and be instantly rich.

The opportunities are almost limitless to be honest.

Also if you can drive 140 mph, you can spend 20 hours out of 24 of them anywhere within a 560 radius, and 16 hours out of 24 anywhere within a 1120 mile radius. Honestly you could even make a game out of getting to the west coast by car as fast as possible. Drive to the nearest sports car lot, get the fastest car possible there.

I looked it up and the fastest road cars hit 277 mphs lol. I mean, you couldn't do that non-stop, but with the ability to redo things and stuff, you might be able to hit 200 mph average...meaning you could in theory make it to the west coast by car in 10 hours lol (still having 14 left to do whatever you want).

But again, no real reason to do anything like that at all, not for a VERY long time. You could try all kinds of drugs (no addiction or side affects), you could sky dive, river raft, mountain climb, wrestle a bear...wrestle it again, wrestle 100x till you actually beat it without getting hurt (once time starts you can then video tape it while you wrestle it and put it on youtube hehe).

Would you get bored eventually? Yeah, but seriously you basically have the whole world at your feet. You can't progress so to speak (except your own skills and knowledge), but you don't actually need to because you have access to everything.

I'd say your mostly limited to the continental US but I just checked and there are 3 hour supersonic flights from NY to London lol. So I mean you could Drive to NY in an hour, hope on a supersonic flight and be in london in 4 hours, and still have 20 left to explore.

I would say Australia is probably out though.
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wolfy42 posted...

that you can use when it's over and be instantly rich.

But does it actually end in this case? @captpackrat

wolfy42 posted...

You don't have to travel every day, and honestly it would just be something you do every so often for a change etc, you don't even have to do that.

I feel like I would have to travel everyday to actually not hate my life, but then again, I also hate traveling. Being home might soften the blow, but IDK. I chose the Doctor. Seems more fun, tbh...

wolfy42 posted...

in theory make it to the west coast by car in 10 hours

From where, though?

wolfy42 posted...

But again, no real reason to do anything like that at all, not for a VERY long time.

I think that depends on where you start? Start in a small shitty town that nothing ever happens in, and that "very long time" might only be a month...

wolfy42 posted...

you could Drive to NY in an hour

From where, again?

GenericGuy posted...

no sleep

But doesn't this depend on how much sleep you were going to have before the reset? Like if you only had an hour of sleep and woke up the first day super tired, would you still be super tired every time you wake up? @captpackrat

GenericGuy posted...

You can have sex with as many people as you want and not have to deal with any consequences.

Some people can (and already) do this without the magical help of Groundhog day...
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wolfy42 posted...

I'd say your mostly limited to the continental US but I just checked and there are 3 hour supersonic flights from NY to London lol. So I mean you could Drive to NY in an hour, hope on a supersonic flight and be in london in 4 hours, and still have 20 left to explore.

Sure, if you discount the fact that you can't actually book a flight a few hours in advance most of the time, and even if you do, you'll still be spending hours in an airport before the flight.

(And that's not even getting into things like how you're straight-up fucked if you don't have a passport, preferably within easy access.)

If you're trapped in a time loop, odds are you're never going to be able to get out of your current state/nation in time to actually DO anything anywhere else.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

wolfy42 posted...

I'd say your mostly limited to the continental US but I just checked and there are 3 hour supersonic flights from NY to London lol. So I mean you could Drive to NY in an hour, hope on a supersonic flight and be in london in 4 hours, and still have 20 left to explore.

Sure, if you discount the fact that you can't actually book a flight a few hours in advance most of the time, and even if you do, you'll still be spending hours in an airport before the flight.

(And that's not even getting into things like how you're straight-up fucked if you don't have a passport, preferably within easy access.)

If you're trapped in a time loop, odds are you're never going to be able to get out of your current state/nation in time to actually DO anything anywhere else.

Plus the cost. You may not have the money for an international flight. Or any at all... Like if you started the time loop before payday and you had to use your extra funds for an emergency.
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I went with Voyagers since that sounds fun. Groundhog Day would be alright if I had some rules to it. Like I could pick where I would wake up and start the loop and I could end it whenever I wanted.
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Seriously guys, did you watch groundhogs day?

You can redo EVERYTHING until it works exactly as you want it. You could go into an airport, kill a pilot, stuff the body, take his clothes and board the plane yourself, fly it wherever, then jump out with a parachute.

You start in Pensylvania in the movie. You can get to NY in about an hour with a fast car from there.

I mean think about this for a second, it's like the most realistic, most awesome, most open world video game, where you can literally level up for centuries, with almost unlimited replay value. The game lasts 24 hours, but.....you carry information and skills over from previous playthroughs.

Say you want to have sex with the princess of wales, you could do it...heck with her husband as well probably. Want to blow up mount rushmoor for kicks? No problem. Want to scuba dive further down then anyone before? Yep, probably could. Want to go into freaking space? Might be a challenge, but even that could be possible (timing is important here, but even if a ship was only mostly ready, you might be able to get things set up to do it within 24 hours with unlimited attempts).

Almost nothing you could not do, nothing you couldn't master or learn, no information you could not gain, and all of that, you can take with you after it's over.
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LinkPizza posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

wolfy42 posted...

I'd say your mostly limited to the continental US but I just checked and there are 3 hour supersonic flights from NY to London lol. So I mean you could Drive to NY in an hour, hope on a supersonic flight and be in london in 4 hours, and still have 20 left to explore.

Sure, if you discount the fact that you can't actually book a flight a few hours in advance most of the time, and even if you do, you'll still be spending hours in an airport before the flight.

(And that's not even getting into things like how you're straight-up fucked if you don't have a passport, preferably within easy access.)

If you're trapped in a time loop, odds are you're never going to be able to get out of your current state/nation in time to actually DO anything anywhere else.

Plus the cost. You may not have the money for an international flight. Or any at all... Like if you started the time loop before payday and you had to use your extra funds for an emergency.

Also money is silly easy to get in such a situation. Remember no consequences for anything you do at all. You could literally just spend a few days learning a local bank by heart and figuring out how to go in and transfer a few mill into your bank account, and start off every day that way if you wanted (although there are tons of other ways to do it). You could get tons of people credit card info and use them etc....there is pretty much no limit to what you could do, and how rich you could be. But again, you don't even need money for almost anything since you can just take it all, and keep moving fast enough nobody can catch up to you.
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I feel like a lot of those skills you keep talking about learning(like how to rob a bank) would take a lot of work. Which defeats the purpose of the groundhog day fun you should be having. Either way, it would still suck for me. My family and my house with my pups wouldn't be close. I would rather spend time with them. But then, it would be like I never spent time with them at all. For them, at least. And since I hate driving, I wouldn't get to far in the short time limit. Maybe that sort of thing works for others, but I would hate living like that. I still choose the Doctor...

Also, I feel most of the things I would want to do would actually cost money. And I couldn't kill someone. I don't care that the day resets. I just couldn't do it. Stealing would also suck, but not as much since I know they will end up with their money(stuff) back...
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wolfy42 posted...

The opportunities are almost limitless to be honest.

You couldn't form a single lasting attachment with any living being ever again. Imagine going through life without any real connections to anybody. Only the most misanthropic person on the planet would find that appealing. Nor can you amass anything other than what you remember and you can't even count on notes to help you beyond that. After all, *nothing* but your memories continue from one day to the next. Even if the experience fun for a month or a year (or even a century), it's a day that rewinds *forever*. That's a soul-crushing hell.

wolfy42 posted...

You can redo EVERYTHING until it works exactly as you want it. You could go into an airport, kill a pilot, stuff the body, take his clothes and board the plane yourself, fly it wherever, then jump out with a parachute.

And that routine would get boring fast.

LinkPizza posted...

Plus the cost. You may not have the money for an international flight. Or any at all... Like if you started the time loop before payday and you had to use your extra funds for an emergency.

tbh, money would never be an issue because you could toss things on your credit card, takes loans you'd never repay, write bad checks, overdraw your bank account, etc.
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wolfy42 posted...

Seriously guys, did you watch groundhogs day?

You can redo EVERYTHING until it works exactly as you want it.

Except not. Because no matter how much time you have to learn or practice, you can't rewrite the rules of reality.

You can spend a million days training to be the fastest runner on Earth, and you still won't be able to run on foot from Peking to Chicago in a single day. You can steal the fastest car on Earth and drive in a way to avoid every single potential delay or traffic, and it's still going to take you time to travel from Point A to Point B. You can plan out travel details in intricate detail, but you're still going to be at the mercy of trip availability (or you'll have to try and steal major vehicles and potentially get run down or shot down when you stop no matter how clever or experienced you become). You can practice social skills, dialogue cues, and work out a million different iterations of a discussion with a specific person, and still never manage to respond in exactly the way you want them to, because they simply aren't the sort of person who would ever react in that way on the basis of a day's worth of conversation.

Yes, you have all the time in the world to practice skills and learn the order of events that are going to occur, but that doesn't mean you magically manage to make every single thing you want to happen happen. You still have to fit your actions into the preexisting pattern, or find ways to bend that pattern around you. But there will still be plenty of things you literally cannot do, either because of lack of availability, lack of time, or lack of resources.

Within the context of the movie, he apparently manages to find a music teacher who is willing to give him lessons on the same day he first meets them - you're far less likely to be able to manage that same deal with teachers of more complex or esoteric skills like piloting a plane or breaking into bank vaults. Even with unlimited trial-and-error, you aren't necessarily guaranteed to succeed at learning those skills to a level where they'd actually be useful. Waiting lists are a thing. Lack of availability is a thing. Flight delays are a thing, even if you somehow manage to be on the best possible plane. Stubborn people are a thing. And so on.

Since you've brought up the rules established in the movie, notice he never actually seems to LEAVE town. It's not because he clearly loves it there and never wants to leave. It's because he almost certainly can't get far enough away quickly enough to make it worthwhile.


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Zeus posted...

tbh, money would never be an issue because you could toss things on your credit card, takes loans you'd never repay, write bad checks, overdraw your bank account, etc.

Assuming you have a credit card with a high enough limit.

Plenty of people don't use credit cards, but use debit cards with limited funds. Even with a credit card, you still can't charge things that exceed your spending limit - trying to put a yacht on your card isn't going to work if you can only charge up to $1000 or be declined. And even if you've got a card with an unlimited ceiling, there are still plenty of things in life where they won't just take your credit card as a valid form of payment.

The other problem no one ever really seems to consider is that, at some point in the movie, he DOES break out of the loop. Imagine charging hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt to your card, only to have THAT be the day the loop ends for you.

Of course, that's a threat for most of what happens in the loop. Sure, you may think you're basically invulnerable and immune to prison time or punishment for your actions, but what happens when you shoot up a mall and kill 47 people, only to have that be the day the loop stops and you wind up in prison for the rest of your life? Or what if you drop a toaster in the tub to kill yourself the way he does in the movie, only for that to be the moment the loop ends and you're dead for real?

In the movie, he only winds up doing the things he does at the end of the movie after going through literal years of existential despair, to the point where he stops caring about the potential consequences of his actions because he no longer cares whether or not he lives or dies. That's not really a positive life scenario.


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