Comments on: Predestination Movie Unpacked Discussed and Explained

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:02:14 +0000

There’s no Lucy.

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 06:17:06 +0000

Hi Mahesh VG,

>Why the present transformed Jane(male)-John sitting on the bar doesn’t remember the face of John who impregnated her?

After John tells Barkeep she had an operation to turn her male, John says “I was always afraid to look into the mirror and see the person looking back at me. I held off as long as I could. Now [that he was operated], it did not matter anymore” [and looks into the mirror]. And…
“Everytime I looked at my appearance I was reminded of that bastard that ruined my life.”

And at the dinner John has with Jane, she says “Have we met before, because I feel like we have.”

So it seems that
– Jane never really looked into a mirror (or at least not much at all)
– John’s appearance reminded himself of the “bastard that impregnated Jane” but he could arguably not conceive of having impragneted himself and as previously stated was not overly familiar with her own face. [the sex and looks change is not as visible to the audience IMO as the movie pretends it to be]
– Jane had an incling that there was something familiar but she could not conceive the reality either. She met a guy, the first one she liked, but who was older than her, rich when she was kinda “poor”.

The whole Jane/John thing is a bit of dispension of disbelief IMO as it leaves up to imagination how Jane having underdeveloped male organs would look like and/or how they constructed a functioning penis. But then so is time travel and both is made a premise here and more a clash with our reality but not a internal logic error.

By: Mahesh VG

Mahesh VG — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 04:46:59 +0000

Bro I have a doubt, Why the present transformed Jane(male)-John sitting on the bar doesn’t remember the face of John who impregnated herJohn already faced himself while John was Jane right?

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 22 Aug 2021 07:16:40 +0000

I’m always sad this movie gets passed over, Predestination is one of my very favorite time travel movies. First, and most critically, they properly close their time loops. So many time travel movies tend to break their own internal logic a bit in order to bring the movie to a close and break my immersion. Predestination does no such thing, it is a completely closed loop. The lack of outside explanation for Jane’s initial existence that so many comments and other reviewers get wrapped up in is the very definition of a predestination paradox, it is not a flaw in the movie.

Second, I like the way John is the ultimate predestination paradox. This isn’t just his birth, this movie twists him into his own beginning, meaning, lover, enemy, and ending. He is everything to himself and his own cause of a lifetime of pain. He even tells himself how to break the loop (by not shooting himself) and yet he still cannot bring himself to do it, so the cycle continues.

Third, it looks gorgeous compared to other top time movies, such as Primer, as well as having a handy end of film visual wrap up in the aging Jane/John so the lay audience can be sure what just happened instead of having to immediately head to a google summary to figure out if what you just watched made sense or came to an illogical end.

It’s predictable because of the giveaway title and a time travel movie, but still unpredictable in exactly what will happen moment to moment. And that is exactly how it is supposed to be.

By: Tony Ray

Tony Ray — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 04:24:03 +0000

If the fizzle bomber is the result of Robertson’s time travels, then before Robertson ever time traveled there was no fizzle bomber, So why does Robertson need to time travel in the first place if there is no fizzle bomber to begin with?

By: Derek McDaniel

Derek McDaniel — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 01:16:57 +0000

Robertson created baby Jane initially as he conveniently “heard” about her from the head of the orphanage and had a lame reason for it. It’s my opinion she/he was a “test tube baby” in the beginning and the original drop off at the orphanage was by Robertson. After manipulating events Robertson created a perfect agent who will do all the dirty work and eventually kill there future self from mental anguish which will perpetuate the cycle … this is likely the case for all 11 agents. Now Robertson can freely send his agents to different times and affect outcomes all in between there “final mission” which is really there first mission in the end.
So long story short…. create a multi gender infant..drop off at orphanage. Make said person feel like a success and failure all at once… give them hope that you see the purpose in them they were destined for…just have to convince the “heads of space core” to see it like Robertson does…creat a paradoxical situation so a person has a finite set of events that cannot be altered based on there psychological disposition… become the only one who truly understands The persons situation and give them a purpose “temporal agent” … use them repeatedly in between there created paradox for your own purpose.

I want a second movie where Robertson is caught in the creation process of an agent who ..while freeing the other 11 agents… stops Robertson’s evil scheme.

By: Fizzle

Fizzle — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:21:09 +0000

I agree with Brandy. The Temporal Bureau is basically The Patriot Act, War on Terror, Homeland Security, Snowden’s revealed surveillance state. The March 1975 attack is basically 9/11, allowed to occur by the people in power to create a reason to create time travel and the Temporal Bureau. Also think of it like this, warnings of attacks by a terrorist were given, but was allowed to occur anyway. The same terrorist was trained by a secret government agency to fight for them against a common enemy, who was oddly enough terrorising this terrorists country. I am speaking of course of Osama Bin Laden who was trained by the CIA to fight against the invasion of the Soviet Union in the late 70s, forming the Mujahadeen, which later became the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and now Islamic State. This is a terrorist who later goes rogue against his trainers and commits acts of terrorism in order to destroy their growth of control. This is essentially what The Fizzle Bomber says “We are just puppets. We are Robertson. He made the whole thing up. PLayed us for fools. He laid out the dominos and we’re just watching it fall”. The Fizzle Bomber basically also behaves like a crazed conspiracy theorist, how apt. There’s also stuff in reality where Bush was claimed to be working with Bin Laden’s family, a large Saudi Oil Family, working with the US under The Carlyle Group, according to Michael Moore at least in Farenheit 9/11. Ironically, Bin Laden, trained by the CIA was later assassinated by members of the CIA and US Military, Homeland Security, when he no longer became necessary and was considered a potential threat. There’s also supposed links between Pakistan, where Bin Laden was living, providing funding to Mohammad Atta, one of the terrorists, and having meetings with the CIA before 9/11. Basically this is the tale of how one person was manipulated through time-travel to create no trail in their history due to being their own parents/child, and also being their own recruiter, creating not only their conception but also assassination of their rogue terrorist version whose acts of trying to save people, and their own existence by allowing the March 1975 bombing that leads to the creation of time travel and the Temporal Bureau, becomes a motivation or source for the Temporal Bureau being funded and granted ultimate power. If 9/11 which caused 3000 deaths roughly led to The Patriot Act, War on Terror, Homeland Security, and Snowden’s revealed Surveillance State, what would a March 1975 bombing which caused over 11,000 deaths cause?

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 16:41:06 +0000

>Robertson […] his motive […] to create his department in order to fight crime.

He does not need a motive. He knows he has done it so he will do it again. Additionally, it may play into his interests though, yes.

>I was thinking the loop can be broken.

That would cause a time paradox and if the movie shows anything it is that in spite of other intentions by the characters, the loop happens.
but the mission to stop the fizzle bomber is so ingrained in John’s mind he is unable to

>how does Jane become in the first place. Because without Jane having parents in the first place she wouldn’t be. It’s conveniently not mentioned […] blow a hole in the entire time travel logic. […] this I see is the weakest link.

It is not a weak link. The movie assumes time travel is possible. If it is and not to cause a paradox, it means whatever effect time travel has in another time, has already been part of the equation. Hence the loop.
Jane can be born because she has parents who time travelled and did the gender change. Compare with the first terminator (where the franchise should have ended as far as inner logic is concerned): terminators (and skynet) were built based on leftovers of the terminator that had travelled back in time. You do not need a cause in the past if it can travel from the future. Chicken and egg story with a time travel element.

Two elements in this movie give rise to doubt:
– John, a trained time travel agent, believes he can change (past/present/future) events ; he ignores the time travel paradox and cannot possibly have any evidence that something was ever different before it was changed (or how would that evidence be preserved, come to be)
– the idea of Jane having male genitals inside her body that on top can be removed and attached to function outside her body.

By: ChronoTrigger

ChronoTrigger — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 09:14:24 +0000

I think it’s totally possible for Robertson to be one of those villain and hero characters in this movie and it could make total sense that he could be the NYC bomber, his motive he may see as righteous to create his department in order to fight crime. However, he would need to cover up his own crime by conveniently killing two birds with one stone in the guise of John.

First he facilitates John knowing full well he is the perfect loop and secondly he is the perfect chrono-cop with superior intellect and physical abilities, that will aid his department. He knows full well that with increased field hours John will eventually lose his mind and become the Fizzle Bomber and again the perfect shadow for John to chase. We see this clearly as Robertson is the one that gave John the last clue even though it was his retirement, he was the one who sabotaged his decommissioned time travel violin knowing John would use it to become the fizzle bomber with his insanity. Robertson is also lenient as breaking the rules will result in death but John gets away with it all the time thanks to Robertson

I was thinking the loop can be broken but the mission to stop the fizzle bomber is so ingrained in John’s mind he is unable to do it and it is also due to the grooming job Robertson does on him. It’s really sad because in John/Jane he is the one that is the victim, in his BS life he experiences all the emotions of life in the extremes. Love and hate, birth and death, exclusion, gender change, bullying, grooming, losing a child and more. It’s a godsend that he’s doesn’t have mental illness (or does he?) and of course excessive time travel that induced dementia. So how can he break the loop and save himself? I think… if someone can correct me… he needs to kill the young John before he has sex with Jane and to cover his tracks but this is only possible within the current rules that the universe of time travel for Predestination is a single universe and not a multiverse, this it is. Just a thought, if he kills John would he disappear from the timeline or is that an exception in the Predestination time travel rules?

One big question mark is how does Jane become in the first place (someone mentioned this above). Because without Jane having parents in the first place she wouldn’t be and then Robertson wouldn’t be able to manipulate her. It’s conveniently not mentioned maybe it’s not necessary or maybe it would complicate the story and blow a hole in the entire time travel logic. You could argue shes a test tube baby but then we see that because of the loop John is both his own father and mother, this I see is the weakest link.