First, I didn’t see anywhere that anyone had pointed out that the name of the evil organization, Torus, is also the word for a geometric shape, which is the shape of a donut, or a circle. It doesn’t really have any impact on the discoveries of the story, but I think it does symbolically represent the obvious circular time loop as well as hinting at the ever present or ongoing threat of the evil corporation out there.

Second point, there have been a lot of speculations about why certain things are happening outside of the barrier versus inside the barrier and I like several of the different ways people proposed this could be explained, and I have one myself. A lot of people assumed that while time loops inside the barrier and continues to progress in a linear fashion outside the barrier, but we don’t necessarily know this is the case. As a for instance, its possible since there are two cycles, the smaller 3:14:15 hour loop, and the larger 9-cycle loop. So perhaps the boundary we see is boundary for the three hour loop, while there is a larger circumference boundary that exists for the nine-cycle loop (so the ZMPs are nearby but inside the second loop, and they get a one call within a nine-loop cycle). Or, another explanation entirely could be that time doesn’t proceed in a linear fashion outside, and instead hasn’t progressed at all. What this would mean is that those in the loop are actually brought back to their original point in time, so when Sonny calls for backup, there is only ever one call. Those outside the bubble don’t get thousands of calls, because the loop sends them back to the same point over and over and over again. So outside they aren’t exactly repeating the bubble, but the thousands of iterations inside the bubble all happen in the same span of time that takes place outside the bubble.

Final thought. As to the whether the movie has a pessimistic or optimistic view, I have to agree that no matter how many iterations they go through, it would only take one ‘correct’ iteration for a positive outcome, while it would take infinite failures to confirm the negative outcome. Since we can see that they were able to make small improvements to the recording from the previous loop, they are incrementally getting closer and closer to succeeding, even if it does take a lot of attempts. Practice makes perfect.

It feels pessimistic but I feel like this reference is alluding to the loop in the movie going on infinitely.

“The Heaviest Burden.

What if a demon crept after you into your loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to you: “This life, as you live it at present, and have lived it, you must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to you again, and all in the same series and sequence – and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and you with it, you speck of dust!” – Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth, and curse the demon that so spoke? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him: “You are a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!” If that thought acquired power over you as you are, it would transform you, and perhaps crush you; the question with regard to all and everything: “Do you want this once more, and also for innumerable times?” would lie as the heaviest burden upon your activity! Or, how would you have to become favourably inclined to yourself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?”

start> 06:11:06:03 end> 09:25:21:09 complete

09:25:21:09 – 06:11:06:03 = 3:14:15: 6. -> 3.14159 = pi (to the first 6 digits).

The significance of the time values being equal to pi is that time here is circular.

The only thing I didn’t like is how you get the “9 loops in sequence” wrong. They are not always 9! It’s when Sonney power-offs the ARQ when the sequence ends. So they just need to succeed before he remembers and fucks them over. The video is VERY helpful! In the next sequence, our guys will see the video, know to work together and not kill each other and succeed way before the 9th loop.

Thanks Luke – glad you enjoyed it. If you liked ARQ, check out Time Lapse. Same kind of tight construction world, and similar time dynamic.
https://taylorholmes.com/2015/05/12/time-travel-movie-time-lapse-explained/