I just caught up on the first film and wanted to speculate a bit about the plot of the second based on what was shown in the trailers. While I enjoyed the first film (I'm a total sucker for the Groundhog Day premise) the plot was not remotely bulletproof. I am probably overestimating how thoroughly the writer will be capable of keeping his time travel consistent and semi logical. But, here goes nothing:
Reset Power Extended: It seems like based on Fine Vagine's statement in the trailer explaining that he is repeating the day after dying that we have either an extension or transfer of the extra life ability from the first film. It also seemed like based on the shot of him waking up in his car, that he reset things to the same moment on the morning of the 18th as Tree does. (there seems to be a common save point)
What is Protecting People?: While we can tell from the trailer that at least 2 people are capable of triggering the reset ability, it sounds like either there is a single totem that protects one person at a time or there are a select chosen few with the ability. I say this because there is that line where they indicate some of their friends have died and they need to intentionally cause a reset in order to revive them. If they learn to harness the reset ability, why not protect everyone they care about? Is it a single warding object of protection like the necklace? Or, can we eliminate that possibility because there was a timeline in the first film where Tree failed to retrieve the necklace before she died? Or was there a timeline in which another character died who was in possession of the necklace but did not trigger a reset? (like the killer ripped it off her or something) Just from the trailer, that seems unlikely because of the skydiving scene where Tree does not appear to be wearing the necklace when she jumps to her death.
Who Keeps Their Memory?: With multiple people triggering time resets, how is this going to work? (I was curious about this in Edge of Tomorrow too) Presumably Fine Vagine gets killed, retains his memory, and tells Tree about his experience, who still retains her memories from at least some of the previous timelines. Is the rule that only the person that triggers the reset gets to keep their memory of the timeline in which the reset occurred? That would seem like a requirement or else Tree would have likely been very confused by a seemingly random reset (caused by the death of Fine Vagine) while she was simply walking around campus or something. This seems like it is both a very convenient mechanism for plot simplicity and at the same time a very inconvenient plot device because it is going to make information sharing between characters a pain in the butt. Maybe they can explain that away by showing them intentionally resetting the loop after information sharing so that they don't have to waste an increasing amount of time each day trading valuable learned information gained from previous timelines.
The Balls on a Killer Trying to Take Down a God: There are multiple instances in the first film where the killer learns of Tree's god-like powers and yet continues to try to kill her. That seemed like a major stretch for a mere mortal who seemed only lightly motivated to kill in the first place. How on Earth is anyone going to stay motivated to kill an army of gods? Unless the killer is specifically on a mission to stop the time looping, motivation seems extremely tricky this time around.
Submitted February 12, 2019 at 12:30PM by jlarimore http://bit.ly/2S0dnzq