Jon made this comment nearly two years ago and no one said, “Bravo! You nailed it!”…except Jon’s inclusionary point about multiverse is moot…but, still, he’s on it!

This good movie really isn’t difficult to figure out and was entertaining to watch. It had a cool ending because by destroying the alien master-mind and soaking up its lifeforce, the hero of the movie became imbued with an even higher ability and means to set time further back as he pleased.

Should an alien of that type invade again, the hero of the movie could manipulate time on a greater level and control the alphas since he has incorporated, through a second death and immersion in alien goo, the more advanced omega’s abilities to manipulate time.

The Tom Cruise character of the movie chooses to return at that particular time simply so he can meet up again and—hopefully at long last!—win the heart of the powerful, strong-willed and amazing woman he loves.

Although this film is for the fun of it, in regards to time travel, science has made discoveries in the sense that backward time travel is not feasible; we can only go forward in time. Also, a point to include but has no relation to the movie haha, is that we age a tad faster living in a higher altitudes. This means Taylor is aging faster than I since he resides in high mountains whereas I live in a low desert region.

https://www.livescience.com/1339-travel-time-scientists.html

https://www.livescience.com/8672-higher-faster-age.html

This movie’s song fits the ending, too, since there’s a love story simultaneously going on amid the “live, die, repeat” drama:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sZLTMC-BMCI

Timeline theory at end of movie. Cage lost his abilities that same day. How quickly does that information get sent to the omega? Is it possible that there was no looper because omega believed cage was still the alpha? But let’s say that’s not the case an a new alpha had looping power then the moment cage exploded the omega the looping signal was interrupted so alpha lost looping powers. Meanwhile, omega was not fully dead so the blood of the omega transferred to cage who died before the omega giving just enough time to restart the timeline. The reason cage woke up on the helicopter was because the events with the general couldn’t happen. I feel like choices have some part in the time line. Cage originally was waking up on the bags because his decision to tell the general to piss off led him there. Plus, I do think the sleep cycle has something to do with when you wake up. His last sleep cycle was on the helicopter before speaking to the general, since the war was won then that piece of the time line doesn’t exist for that particular day. If I stick to the theory that cage was going back a specific amount of time then is it possible that the time line of cage speaking to the general doesn’t exist which creates a gap within the timeLine. explanation, if timeline between cage and general was 2 hours (this may be totally off, just throwing out number) and now these 2 hours can’t exist and events that never happened can’t be factored into the timeline, then cage is waking up at the right time because he lost a piece of memory in his timeline. If cage is going back in time based solely on the events that happened the 2 hours are now gone because they can’t exist. So timeline lost 2hours making the jump to the helicopter scene exactly the restart event.

Why omega died the previous day? The omega had an alpha for a reason. They can die over and over. I think the omega can only pass that power to the alpha but the omega itself can not change its own timeline. Maybe the omega had some sleep cycle going on and time for the omega was different. 1 day for us could be 10 seconds for the omega or even .1 of a second. The omega was able to produce a time wrap where it’s actually seeing the future not the past. Once the omega felt confident the war would be won then the looping power was turned off to let time continue as is. Unfortunately, that never happened until the explosion. That signal was interrupted by the explosion. We don’t know what really happened that morning once cage woke up on the helicopter. All that was said was was a power surge or something occurred. Omega knew it couldn’t win and somehow affected its energy source or the omega can be in two timelines. So omega dying in one timeline would make omega die in the original timeline.

Fuck this movie makes my brain hurt.

I got confused there for a moment as there is far too many questions and answers to all questions but i have my own theories.
How about this:
1. Why Cage has a special power of resetting the day?

Because he’s got an alpha blood in him and as it was mentioned in the movie”every time an alpha dies, the omega resets the day” So with that in mind every time Cage dies (an alpha blood inside) ,the omega thinks it’s an alpha that died hence it resets the day. No?
2. Why power surge kills alien few minutes before Cage wakes up in the helicopter on the way to London and the whole time frame has changed.

How about this:
When Cage kills the omega he gets covered by the omegas blood. With that he becomes an omega himself and he then brakes the time line and sets himself several hours before the biggest nightmare of his life had began.

I realise that could be far fetched so i have another theory about that even more far fetched:
As we know from the movie Cage gets till the end and gets aliens big time so because the omega have a way of looking forward into the future, it has seen how far Cage got to and that he killed omega so omega decided not to let that happen at all and gave up before Cage had a chance to come over and destroy their army.
Think about that.

I had some trouble understanding this especially (but too many other questions which I will attempt to answer in the end of my comment):
• why the Omega died in the end and why before Cage woke up
• why Cage jumps to the Chopper that last time
• why even try killing something that controls time

THE PREMISE

• The invaders work like a singular organism, where the Omega and the Brain controls its soldiers via its Alphas. The Alphas is a direct extension of the Omega, and they are few in between – very rare.
• Its secret weapon is the ability to reset time by transporting its (the Omegas) consciousness back in time. And thus react to future plans of the enemy.
• Only the Omega has this ability, and it works it via one of its Alphas. The ability can only be executed by the connection to ONE singular Alpha in one timeline.
• Only an Alphas deaths can initiate a time jump
• The dead Alpha’s consciousness (or knowledge) jumps together/connected with the Omega (essentially they are one and the same). So in the jump the Alpha is dead and the Omega is alive.
• When Rita and Cage gain the power, it means their respectful Alphas are killed off the grid. However, when they jump it is still together/connected with the Omega. Albeit, this time the Omega never gets the update of details surrounding the death and it is therefore none the wiser about what happened and is therefore forced to more or less repeat what it does until either it regains the power or until it somehow learns more of the details. The latter is its prime strategy.
• The time resetting happens in the same singular timeline, it is not a multiverse kind of situation. If more than one has the ability, only one will survive the reset.
• When the ability is owned by a human, the jump happens back about one day to a point where this mind was at rest. The person realizes this at the point they wake up, but the time jump might very well be any time during this rest
• You can lose this ability by blood transfusion or bleeding out .

THE STORY

Cage merges by a freak chance with an Alphas blood and gets the ability to reset time. His consciousness is transported from his point of death to about one day back, at a time his consciousness was at rest (read: when he was asleep/passed out on the bags).

The Omega wants its power back (it knows it has been lost as it too jumps), as it can only be held by the connection to one “Alpha” in one timeline. So the Omega then tries to get it back by fake visions to lure Cage close enough (as they are still connected on some level via the jumps), so the Omega can have him bleed out.

Cage losses the power to a blood transfusion in London and at this point the Omega gets it back.

He kills it in Paris and in the process he again regains the Alpha connection and power of time reset. This time, though, he wakes up about one day earlier the last time he was at rest, which was when he was napping in the Chopper – and therefore before he got into trouble for attempting to blackmail the General. Though when he wakes up the Omega is dead and the war is already won as he lands in London.

Simplified, the timeline is like this (timestamps are for illustrative purpose only)

FIRST ACT
15:00 o’clock (day 1) – Arrives on the Chopper in London
17:00 o’clock (day 1) – Wakes up on the duffle bags
05:00 o’clock (day 2) – D-Day invasion and death and gets power to reset
[resetting about 12 hours back, and he therefore wakes up on the duffle bags 17 o’clock on day 1]

SECOND ACT
17:00 o’clock (day 1) – Wakes up on the duffle bags… from a previous death
23:00 o’clock (day 1) – Flys to Paris
03:00 o’clock (day 2) – Kills the Omega, and gets the Power again to jump 12 hour back

FINAL ACT
15:00 o’clock (day 1) – Wakes up in the Chopper in London, cause he jumped back from his death 12 hours later in Paris on (day 2)

Q: HOW CAN THE OMEGA BE KILLED, IF IT CONTROLS TIME?

A: The Omega is the central hub of the enemy. It can initiate time jumps by the death of one of its Alphas, which will bring it and the Alpha back in time. But since each jump in connected with the Omegas own consciousness, killing the Omega first will make a jump inefficient. So to kill the Omega, it is important to not kill an Alpha shortly before. If the Omega itself dies, their whole system collapses, and thus no jump will occur, at all Alphas then also ceases to function instantaneously. The mimics (the foot soldiers) will still exist, but without leadership, coordination and essentially purpose.

Q: WHY DID THE OMEGA DIE ONE DAY EARLIER AND BEFORE CAGE HIMSELF WOKE UP?

A: The time travel is only the consciousness and not actual physical travel. The mind travels back into its younger body. This goes for both Cage and the Omega. Cage is merged with the blood of the Omega after the explosions in the end that severed the connections to its Alpha. He thus receives the Alpha connection and power to jump once more, which happens to a point in time in the Chopper (see explanation below). The Alpha did not use its ability to jump because its consciousness is connected with the Omegas, which was effectively cut by Cage before it could die. Cage, though, still had his consciousness intact at the time when their bloods merge. Since all jumps are connected with the consciousness of the Omega, it means that Cage this time brings a dead or rather a dying consciousness back to the present. So, when he wakes up in the Chopper with his updated consciousness, so is the Omega restored with its updated (read: dead) consciousness back in Paris [he is restoring an erroneous backup, so to speak].

It dies one day earlier simply because the time jumps always happens connected with the Omegas mind – and this time around the Omegas mind was toast.

The death of the Omega in the present (one day earlier) is while Cage is sleeping on the Chopper. This is because the jumps happen at a time where the mind of a human carrier is at REST, not when he wakes up from his rest; as many assume. So during his rest, the mind from the dead Omega is jumped back to the awaken Omega during that time, thus initiating the deletion of its mind before he himself wake up – but still while he is resting.

Q: HOW COME CAGE CAN JUMP AGAIN THE LAST TIME, AND WITH A “DEAD” OMEGA?

A: If we accept my premise that each jump is based upon a connection between the Omega and one of its Alphas, it means Cage or Rita hijacked the role of an Alpha during their jumps. But since Cage and Rita have their own consciousness during their jumps, the Omega was never informed about any details (which is why it is forced to repeat its strategy until it lures the hijacker out of the equation – aka having Cage bleed out at the Dam). This is important to realize: The Alphas is a direct extension of the Omega, and this direct dependency explains why the Alpha is ineffective in the end and Cage is not, as he unlike the Alpha kept his consciousness even after the Omega explosion.

The first explosion in the end is effectively severing the connection to the Alphas (whose consciousnesses consequently parish instantly). And since there are no conscious Alphas anymore in the world, no jumps can ever occur again. However, Cage is not dead (mortally wounded and drowning, but his consciousness is still intact). So when he merges with the blood, he still has the consciousness required for him to hijack the role of an Alpha once more. And he does.

You might then ask: If the Omega is killed in the explosions, then there must be no longer any connection as the premise dictates, and therefore it doesn’t matter if Cage has become an Alpha once more?

Yes this is partly true, but not the whole truth. The central hub of the enemy consists of two parts: The Omega and the Brain (as explained by the scientist earlier in the movie). We see two explosions in the end. The first one severs the connection to the Alphas, and the second one has reaching effects above ground too. The popular discussions considers the Brain and the Omega the same, but they are not and we do not know how they work. All we do know is that the movie deemed it necessary to differentiate them. And we also know the ability to time jump is connected with this hub somehow. Perhaps the Omega is only the connection to the Alphas, and the Brain is the actual time jumper? We do not know. We do not even know if the Omega or the Brain is effectively killed in the explosions. What we do know is that Cage again gets the ability. Thus I deduce the connection for a time jump is present. Either the Omega is simply mortally wounded and Cage can take it back and overwrite the healthy Omega in the past, or Cage this time bypasses the Omega and connects directly with the Brain, and thusly jumps with a dead Omega. Such detail matters little, what matters is that Cage re-establishes a connection somehow and in his jump he takes either a destroyed Omega (possible if the Brain still works) or simply a dying Omega back. Either way, his last jump overwrites its consciousness in the past with a bad copy.

[I refute the popular explanation that Cage simply grabs the full ability from the Omega. There is no evidence in the movies that the Omega can initiate jumps without its Alphas, and so it makes no sense for me to grant it this power in the end. I instead say, the premise of an Omega-Alpha connection still stands and it does through most of the movie, and above I explain how Cage get the Alpha role once more, and how he thusly can bring back the dying Omega. This way we also avoid the question if he still has the power to reset in the very end or for the rest of his “life”. No he does not, the connection is effectively lost upon his wakening on the chopper]

Q: WHY ONE DAY AND NOT TWO OR LONGER JUMPS BACK IN TIME?

A: Since the travel is strongly connected with the mind, perhaps the cycle of about one day is because this constitutes kind of a default limit of the mind – we simply need a rest about every 12-18-24 hours, for our minds to work properly, and therefore the time travel of the mind is defined on some level by this interval. The above timeline assumes 12 hours, but it might as well have been 24 hours.

Q: WHY DOES HE JUMP BACK TO THE CHOPPER ON HIS LAST JUMP?
A: My best rationalization to this conundrum is that the jumps are related to the typical cycle of the mind, and happens to the point of rest furthest away, but still within the 12-18-24 hour interval, which length I explain above. The above simple timeline illustrates this too.

So the short answer is simply that the jump is defined within about 12-18-24 hours, and the nap on the Chopper fits that pretty well from when he got the ability in Paris. Just like the nap on the duffle bags fits this pretty well too, from when he got the ability later on the beach. In other words, the jump is about a day back from each of the two times he gets the ability, and for the second time the Chopper rest fits the bill.

[I refute the popular explanation that the Chopper is now the only possibility, as his rest on the duffle bags consequently doesn’t exist anymore qua the deletion of the Omega. That would be an illogical cause/effect chain of events if we accept my explanation to why the Omega is killed in the present and not only in the future: The Omegas present death is a function of his jump, and thus his jumps defines when the Omega dies – logically it cannot be the other way around, so the final jump could therefore in principle still have been to the duffle bags. However, since it is not, I deduce the above simpler explanation that each jumps just happens about 12/24 hours back from when the power got snatched – logical fallacies or complicated paradoxes is avoided this way]

Q: WHY IS IT NOT A MULTIVERSE?

A: Many seem to explain the movie with multiple time lines, like that the Omega transcends them all, and each death creates another line etc. It is my view that the multiverse concept defeats the whole idea of the movie. I will try to explain why: If it is a multiverse kind of situation, it means the universe continues every time Cage is killed. In other words, we will have countless universes where Rita is prosecuted for killing Cage. Also, the struggle and fight through the whole movie is about saving that one timeline – I think it is also the point of the Omegas jumping ability. If the jumps are to other timelines, or to setup other timelines, it sort of trivialises their otherwise brilliant tactics, as the jumps then will not change anything at all in any particular line.

If you instead imagine the singular timeline loops each time Cage dies. Time doesn’t stop, but the line intersects with itself and continues in a “new” direction on each reset. This way one line can have many limited futures (one in each loop, and limited by each loop) but ultimately is has only one history…

Anyways from a timeline perspective, branches of multiple lines is simpler to understand, and it fixes paradoxes, like why the Omega also dies when he arrives in London. But, from the story perspective it is much more multifaceted to grasp and really opens a can of complexity that is fundamentally not needed for this story to work.

In fact, everything in the movie supports a singular timeline perspective, except perhaps why the Omega “also” dies when he lands in London. My above explanation seeks to avoid paradoxes; it seeks to explain why the Omega dies in the “past” and it seeks to keep the more sensible singular timeline perspective and I think it works pretty well.

Great film

So I buy that Cage doesn’t have special powers, but I don’t get the 12 hour difference in your explanation.
Taylor

My answer is based on this assumption :
The time reset on the death of an Alpha or someone with Alpha blood happens this way – the day is reset to the point of time when the person woke up that morning.i.e., not 24 hours earlier or the crack of dawn, rather the start of the day as perceived by the subject. Note how the time reset by Cage’s death always takes everything back to the point when Cage is kicked awake ?

Answer : In the climax scene when the Omega is injured by Cage, the Omega resets the day hoping to reverse the damage. The day is reset to the instant when the Omega had woken from its slumber – the beginning of that day according to the Omega – at which time Cage is initially flying into London. Though the Omega manages to restart the day, it is too badly hurt to be able to revive itself. (I think the Omega was never too physically robust in the place, possibly the reason it stays in hiding while the Alphas are out waging war) So after a certain time interval after sustaining injuries the Omega dies. Hence the explosion in Paris.

As I understand Cage gains no special powers from the Omega blood in the climax fight, all the day-restart stuff is done entirely by, and for, the Omega.

In the newly reset world, the humans can easily proceed to win the war against the mimics since there isn’t an Omega mastermind behind them anymore.

-Jane

Taylor