Predestination (2014)
Okay, so, Robert A. Heinlein wrote some weird shit. We all know this, right? But his writing was very much formative for me because it was the first "adult" sci-fi I read (at around 12/13 years old).
They just made a movie about one of his short stories. It's about time travel and paradoxes, about 13 pages long, and you can read it here. The story is called "--All You Zombies--", but the movie is called Predestination.
The basic conceit of the story is that the protagonist is his own mother AND father, having been born with some handwavey fictional intersex condition and impregnating himself through time travel. To be honest, sex and gender aren't handled especially well in the story (maybe only a tiny bit better in the movie) . . . I'm hardly an expert, but the way the protagonist's condition is portrayed seems pretty damn close to the offensive hermaphrodite trope. There is some decent discussion of sexism as experienced by someone who lives as both a man and a woman, but the movie is set in the past so it's not current sexism.
Anyway, to the parts I liked! Because I did genuinely enjoy this movie, especially the second half. I'd read the story years ago, so the whole reproductive paradox thing that holds the short story together was already familiar to me. The part of the movie that sets all that up was still interesting to watch, but it didn't have the same impact on me that I expect a first-timer would get, or is intended to get. What I really liked is how they fleshed out the plot! In the story it ends right after the protagonist recruits himself into the time agency where he works, but in the movie that is extended in order to connect everything to the "Fizzle Bomber", which is adapted from something mentioned in the short story. This turns the plot into an actual plot instead of just a vehicle for a temporal paradox, and I enjoyed where they went with it.
I also really liked that they developed the protagonist's feelings for the other versions of himself. I mean, he did genuinely fall in love with a future version of himself as a young woman, but the movie made it clear that A) the future version of himself also fell in love with that young woman, and B) those emotions never went away, even after more paradoxy stuff happened. He never stopped being in love, and that's how the movie ended, and I was charmed. Possibly I wasn't meant to be charmed, because it was also implied that this wasn't good for him? But I was charmed nonetheless.
They just made a movie about one of his short stories. It's about time travel and paradoxes, about 13 pages long, and you can read it here. The story is called "--All You Zombies--", but the movie is called Predestination.
The basic conceit of the story is that the protagonist is his own mother AND father, having been born with some handwavey fictional intersex condition and impregnating himself through time travel. To be honest, sex and gender aren't handled especially well in the story (maybe only a tiny bit better in the movie) . . . I'm hardly an expert, but the way the protagonist's condition is portrayed seems pretty damn close to the offensive hermaphrodite trope. There is some decent discussion of sexism as experienced by someone who lives as both a man and a woman, but the movie is set in the past so it's not current sexism.
Anyway, to the parts I liked! Because I did genuinely enjoy this movie, especially the second half. I'd read the story years ago, so the whole reproductive paradox thing that holds the short story together was already familiar to me. The part of the movie that sets all that up was still interesting to watch, but it didn't have the same impact on me that I expect a first-timer would get, or is intended to get. What I really liked is how they fleshed out the plot! In the story it ends right after the protagonist recruits himself into the time agency where he works, but in the movie that is extended in order to connect everything to the "Fizzle Bomber", which is adapted from something mentioned in the short story. This turns the plot into an actual plot instead of just a vehicle for a temporal paradox, and I enjoyed where they went with it.
I also really liked that they developed the protagonist's feelings for the other versions of himself. I mean, he did genuinely fall in love with a future version of himself as a young woman, but the movie made it clear that A) the future version of himself also fell in love with that young woman, and B) those emotions never went away, even after more paradoxy stuff happened. He never stopped being in love, and that's how the movie ended, and I was charmed. Possibly I wasn't meant to be charmed, because it was also implied that this wasn't good for him? But I was charmed nonetheless.