There is an alternate explanation for Groundhog Day. The insurance seller meets him no matter what time he arrives there. He escapes the loop after he finally buys insurance from him
That's a flawed explanation. The movie only shows that he bought insurance, it does not tell how many times he had to purchase it. The same could be said for any scene where he does something for the first time and there is no implied repeated action.
Your Edge of Tomorrow criticism hurts my soul, that will always be my favorite use of the groundhog day concept. For me the best part of these stories is how the character redeems themselves through the loop and I love watching him grow from a coward to an action hero, I also think juggling the possibility of losing the power to loop was refreshing
That's all true, but it doesn't change the fact that any sentient creature with that kind of ability would make damn sure to not risk splashing enemy combatants with magic blood and give them your secret unbeatable ability, especially after it had already happened to Rita.
@ it seems like it would be hard to prevent what happens to your blood after you die lol, plus when Tom Cruise kills the alien it’s because he caught it off guard and blew both of them up together
@@korganrocks3995it was caught off guard. And it's brushed over VERY briefly, but that creature HAS to be within a certain vacinity of the smaller ones, so there will always be one nearby.
Ikr? He praised source code for doing something different and innovative and then dunks on Edge of Tomorrow for doing the same? And besides the creatures aren't even capable of space travel, they're affectively artificial lifeforms launched through space to terraform, so they are basically just run their programming to conquer the planet for their creators.
@@korganrocks3995 The original groundhog day plot has no reason at all for why the loop is happening. In Edge of Tomorrow, it attemps to give a reason, and I think it's fine, it's rooted in alien biology, which can obviously be strange and mysterious to us. Edge of tomorrow is great imo, and the manga also looks great.
17:05 the biggest obstacle Phil has in groundhogs day is the fact that no one in the film has seen groundhogs day to reference to explain to another character what’s going on like in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow groundhogs day episode, the helper only understands and helps instantly because they looper explains it saying they are in a groundhogs day scenario.
Yeah. It is like how zombie films pretend George Romero never existed in their reality. Otherwise it is like Community's zombie episode. One bite at a party and Troy is instantly exclaiming, "Holy Crap! Leonard's a zombie!"
@@AceMoonshot This is also a theory about Midnight Mass, how the word "vampire" is never mentioned, even after the build-up has the audience like... "anytime, someone is going to point out the similarity between the creature and vampires." But it just never happens. It is, apparently, set in a universe where vampire-lore doesn't exist.
@@brastionskywarrior6951 old zombie films be like “say Jim, your smelling kinda off there buddy, and why’s your face all bloody and falling off like that, why you trying to bite me Jim AHHHH”
The anime Madoka Magica does Groundhog Day from the perspective of someone who isn't in the time loop and doesn't know it exists. There's a side character who seems to know everything and shows up mysteriously at exactly the right moment. Later it turns out that character is in a time loop, but we the audience have only been watching the final loop without knowing it. Very creative take on the genre.
Ok, I take it this is the "films he missed" thread so here drops Family man Sliding doors Rewind (book only) Some of these aren't real groundhogs day movies but they all deal with an alternate time scenario.
@@xBINARYGODx There's a lot more to it than the brief description, but (without spoilers) it's not just about saving the protagonist, or even the one looping, but preventing a certain terrible fate from ever befalling anyone else. It's also a deconstruction of the "magical girl" genre as a whole and plays off a lot of its tropes to horrifying effect.
The aliens in Edge of Tomorrow are essentially scouts that found a world that they could terraform into a suitable environment for the alien race that sent them. They evolve and adapt to eliminate obstacles. In the book they explain that the first waves were not hard to beat, but they kept adapting.
was going to say this. the aliens are just like, wolves sent ahead by the actual smart aliens in a ship that crashed into the ocean. also the original story is 10x better than edge of tomorrow. the movie also changed how the time travel works, and not for the better imo.
Not scouts. They're pollen, they're just a virus and their adaptation is evolutionary, not too intelligent. It's pretty good, the only thing i don't really like is the happy ending.
@@grimscar I've never watched the movie but hearing that its about the blood of some alien that doesnt want to die was surprising, I also remembered the manga to be much better and kind of sound logic
@julikaiba it basically has video game logic. keiji (cage in the tom cruise version) gets his blood mixed with the alien's. the alien has a power that lets them go back in time every time they die and repeat the day. because of this, these beastlike aliens were able to overwhelm earth, which has lost 80 percent of its people and land. humanity's hope is rita, aka the full metal bitch, who as a 15 year old in Indiana got her blood mixed with the alien, too. she has been living, dying and repeating for years and has more kills single handedly than the rest of the planet combined.
One thing to note in Edge of Tomorrow is only one alien/person can travel through time meaning only one person can hold the power. After getting doused by the alien, he *dies* first, looping and taking the power for himself.
The movie doesn't claim that this is the case. You do not know if the Alpha is resetting multiple timelines to see which one will work. There is no part of the movie which claims only one being can reset time. And it also doesn't claim time travel (which is more like Back to the Future). This is a resetting of time and space, which is a flawed plot.
I never even thought about what if someone else got bled on during the time that Cruise was resetting time. There very well could be multiple time lines going on.. 🫠
I think the way Rita (in Edge of Tomorrow) had previously experienced the ground hog day plot herself before the events of the movie was an interesting variation on the trend. I'm a little surprised you didn't mention it in the video. Particularly in the context of the plot being about learning. In the case of Edge of Tomorrow, I sort of feel like the story embraces the plot being about learning in a traditional 'mentor with experience teaching a green apprentice' kind of way that works in an action movie. i'm not totally sure if EoT's unique take is on the same level of depth as Palm Springs (i haven't seen it) but i do think it's worth further analysis (maybe just cause i enjoyed EoT a lot and I'm not totally surue why lol)
In its own rudimentary way, I think there's still a moral lesson in EoT. Cage is a guy always looking for a way out, a way to sidestep responsibility. He keeps trying to find ways to escape the conflict. But there was that key moment when he abandons the base and the battle, and runs off to London, only to find that there's no escape. It becomes horribly clear that he's going to keep losing, keep dying again and again, till he becomes a better person, and actually takes responsibility.
@@rottensquid Damn great insight! I never looked at his story in that way, but it makes perfect sense. Makes me curious if Rita had the same type of issue when she went through her own version of events prior to the beginning of the movie. Now I want a prequel.
@@ernestogerena7419 It's actually based on a novel by the same name; the manga version came after that. I think the movie is much better. I wouldn't categorize this plot device as "learning"-it's more like infinite second chances. You get to see how your actions affect events and other people. It's a story of redemption. I love Groundhog Day, and even though it's a romantic movie, I think Edge of Tomorrow did the romance part even better. It's low-key, but because of that, the scenes where Cage falls in love with Rita hit much harder. The abandoned farm scene is great-I’d tweak it a bit, but it’s really good as it is. Rita notices how deeply Cage cares for her and realizes he’s going through the same thing she did with Hendricks. Despite her memories of Cage being limited to one day, she knows he’s in love with her, and by revealing her middle name, she signals that she wants him to care about her, even if she won’t remember any of it. The kiss, which comes later, is all the more impactful because she’s the one who initiates it. "You're a good man, Cage. I wish I had the chance to know you better." I've watched the movie more times than any other.
According to a documentary I saw about this film, it was originally a drama about a guy whose girlfriend puts a hex on him after he dumps her. The goal being to suffer from his own actions until learning his lesson. Harold Ramis rewrote the script as a comedy and removed the girlfriend part so the focus couldn’t be shifted onto his opposition to her. The goal being to force him to examine his own character. Saw it in theaters during college. Love it still. Thanks for an incredibly insightful deep dive into these similarly-plotted films. Well done.
Something that wasn't mentioned in the video, and that IMO makes Palm Springs stand apart from the others, is that it gives the love interest agency by throwing her into the loop. In all the other cases the main character seduces the love interest by gathering information about them without them knowing, which is akin to stalking. Palm Springs confronts this trope and shows how that is deeply problematic.
@@claram5482 and answer to "how you get out of Groundhog day?" isn't metaphysical. It's the only movie where answer isn't some kind of acceptance, growing better as a person or sth, it's just pure physics. And I think that's great subvertion of expectations
In Edge of Tomorrow, A, the movie basically admits that the events of the movie are humanity's last stand. It's never shown to be a close fight, it is shown that the media and governments in the movie use the success at Verdun via Rita to bolster morale and tell everyone, "Hey, we can totally win now guys, since we won one battle.". B, the aliens aren't portrayed as technologically advanced or even shown to be sentient. They're more like animals, and they didn't have FTL capabilities, they were on a meteor that crashed into Earth. The alien blood thing is a bit weird but like... Fine. Whatever. It sorta makes sense. But treating the aliens like intelligent being rather than the force of nature the movie portrays as is a bit... Weird.
Aliens were indeed completely animalistic. Even luring Cage to the dam requires no sentience. Also, we don't really know if aliens learn from the loop. They can try Verdun million times and they have to succeed just once. If they were intelligent, Cage would've been mercd on loop 2
@mikeoath9541 Yeah, the grunts show no intelligence, the alphas show some but it's hard to tell if there's anything more than what wolves or other pack animals have. And we're completely in the dark about how much intelligence the Omega has other than it tries to fool cage into a trap. So... It could be a fairly dumb bio-weapon/army. It could be a natural organism. But... It doesn't seem like an intelligent space faring race by any stretch.
@@plzletmebefrank it is an exotic type of intelligence, where the alien explores realities for solution rather than exploring it inside their mind like computers and human do. A computer replays a virtual representations of reality over and over again and act on it when it found the best outcome, this is called "searching tree" or "A*" (A-star), meanwhile the alien replays the realities over and over again to find the best outcome. Both the alien and computers had no intelligence when we peer inside it or live inside it, but the final result of the process is intelligence or artificial-intelligence.
@butlazgazempropan-butan11k87 There's the source material, All You Need is Kill. Which also had to do with killing a certain one of the aliens. I can't remember if it was supposed to be about the blood though. I don't think so... I don't think they ever really explained it though. I remember there being less exposition. But it's been a while since I read it.
I think you not only overthought the Edge of Tomorrow plot, you also missed the text of the movie. The aliens don't really have technology. They arrived on an asteroid, and all of their power is biological in nature. Anyway agree that Palm Springs is awesome. Might go watch it again.
I wouldn't even say overthought. Because he doesn't seem to have thought about the actual movie, but what he thinks a generic alien race should be. The alien he gets the blood from didn't have the ability to turn back time. They indeed don't use technology. And the fight isn't close. I actually think it was a pretty good, different take on aliens.
He didn't overthink it. The movie is flawed. Time travel in stories does not work when you explain it. It is best to leave it open ended. Let the viewer decide.
I came here for this comment. I always assumed that the aliens were simply following their natural instincts, not consciously trying to conquer a planet. They were reacting as a predator in the wild does, and the ability to reset time is simply an evolutionary development they have, not the result of technological advances. The fact that the creator of this video seems to be oblivious to this sorta ruins the rest of the analysis, or at least tempers it with some caution that he doesn't fully understand what he is analyzing.
Fun fact. Groundhog Day was filmed in my town of Woodstock, Il. My life growing up revolved around it. It will always be my favorite. Also, movie actually based in Chicago wasn’t filmed here.
While Edge of Tomorrow is my favorite, I loved how in Russian Doll they explore the idea that though they repeat the days, the days they did live may continue for those around them with many different timelines, and causes them to have some guilt for their reckless behaviors and how they end those days.
@@tessiepinkman Question about that show... Can I just watch the first season of Russian Doll and then stop? Is the first season a complete story? I've heard the second season was disappointing and I don't plan on finding out myself anytime soon. I know it sounds weird, but I also only watched season 1 of True Detective and I'm satisfied - I have no plans to continue.
That’s also implied by the ending of Source Code. The scientist thinks it’s a fading image of reality, but the soldier experiencing it can tell that he’s visiting parallel worlds.
@@SonGoku-tp8gb I watched the first season and stopped. When I heard there was a second season, I refused to entertain the idea, because it had clearly ended in the first season. I cannot say whether the second season is worth watching, but I can say if you only watch the first season, it's a good show.
They should have sent Harold Ramis to Skywalker Ranch to convince Lucas to delete the scenes where they try to explain how Jedi have the force in the prequels.
I heard somewhere that they debated how long he lived that same day. I mean a few hundred times is annoying and maddening. A few thousand times would just be.... it's bad even if he got to bang the hot lady (not his coworker, i mean the hot one from the diner I think she's a redhead IIRC). Was it 10 YEARS of Groundhog Days? No, Ramis said it was 10k years of groundhog days. Hence the many many suicides. Because you just c a n not anymore at some poiint. After a decade of the same day, i'd be sure i was in hell. I died and was sent to hell
Agree. One of my all-time favorites. I think they did the learning through mistakes video game aspect of it in a more phrenetic and intense way than others. I also liked how it skipped sometimes... Like when they go to the farm it's a while before you understand that he's already lived this day hundreds of times. Each time a new plot point comes up it's that way and I thought it was really well done and keeps the viewer guessing. His complaints about the alien blood explanation and why is this even a fight... I guess I had dim problems with that while watching but was able to suspend that disbelief pretty easily. None of these movies give any sort of explanation to why it's happening so I don't know it wasn't too big of a problem for me
9:50 I'd argue that aliens that could control time would become overly dependent on that ability and not actually become that much more competent in everything they do (if not regressing), instead becoming complacent and letting their mastery of time be their trump card instead of expending effort to maintain peak performance. It's like numerical method algorithms, if you know that you get closer to your goal every loop, and that you can easily afford to do a ton of loops, then even if it only moves a little bit each time you'll still eventually win. At the end of the day, nobody else remembers anything other than the final result. Add complacency with a very large number of repetitions and the chance that the aliens screw up and bleed blue on somebody becomes higher.
I still think Groundhog Day uses the plot device the most effectively. It’s weaved into the plot and the messaging of the film, rather than just being a plot device for ensuing shenanigans
He doesn't just repeat the day. He becomes a slightly better person with each repetition, until at the end he's a mensch (Yiddish for a decent person.).
Something interesting about Source Code is thay its actually a modern retelling of Quantum Leap. In fact, when he calls his Dad later in the film its Scott Bakula who is on the other side.
@@Heligany I bit the bullet for you. It is Scott Bakula, and he starts the conversation with "Oh Boy!" as an homage to Sam. The relatedness of the shows is intentional.
My favorite example in the episode "As I Have Always Been" of Agents of SHIELD. The way there's 2 people in the loop, but where the 1st has to wake the other, but the 1st doesn't remember anything if they die, makes it a loop within the loop. The quick cuts just showing the repeated deaths, knowing each time comes with another complete set of loops before the 2nd character is woken up makes it spectacular.
YES!! Loved that episode and yes that's one of the best adaptations of a timeloop trope I've seen. The ending was a bit sad though. Honestly Agents of SHIELD is the best TV show ever made
tbh I love how Edge of Tomorrow plays with the trope, providing a mentor who has been through the time loop before and can directly help the protagonist through it, and the fact that the time loop ending dramatically raises the danger/stakes for the protagonist. now he'll stay dead, he's back to having 1 UP instead of infinite lives, and we get to see if everything he learned during the loop is enough to get him through it
And there's the added risk of exiting the loop via blood transfusion which raises the stakes for our protagonist who NEEDS to stay in the loop to discover the Omega's location
I'm not a big fan of rankings, but this isn't a bad ranking. But I think you're getting bogged down by the wrong things with Edge of Tomorrow. After all, if Groundhog Day has no explanation, why should it really matter that Palm Springs' explanation is paper thin, and Edge makes no logical sense? But setting that argument aside, I actually think, if you really wanted to think through the logic of Edge, it actually does make sense. If a biological species developed the ability to reset time any time it died, then logically, it would never evolve further. And all its success would be a result of infinite resetting, hammering against a problem over and over till it figured out a solution. I wouldn't needed much in the way of technology, as its innate ability would give it all the power it needed. Even interstellar travel might just be a result of it hammering away at a problem infinitely until it succeeded. That's the thing about evolution. It tends to continue till a problem is solved, and then stops. So since all this creature's problems are solved by this one adaptation, it's no wonder it needed no others. I mean, if you really need an explanation.
When the explanation isn't actually important (it really isn't in groundhog day), having an explanation and it being bad is worse than having no explanation and letting the viewer decide for themselves. Either way, I don't think he's letting that particular nitpick affect his ranking that much. He still rated the movie very well.
@@jacobnorris8256 That's a good point, and to be sure, the Edge of Tomorrow explanation was more flimsy than understated. I just thought the attempts to poke holes in the logic of it seemed a little flimsy as well. There's not enough substance to it to poke holes in.
@@jacobnorris8256 Well, the explanation is significant to the structure of the story. If he dies in the third act, then it's game over for him and humanity. So, if you were to leave the explanation a mystery, then you'd have to do more than just take out some exposition.
The Groundhog story has a long history on television as well, notably in the Star Trek: TNG episode "Cause and Effect" which aired a year before Groundhog Day came out. My favorite version of this concept I've seen is probably in another science fiction series, with the Stargate SG-1 episode "Window of Opportunity"
There is an excellent variation in Agents of Shield season 7 where the ship they are travelling on is approaching a sort of black hole and every loop it gets closer so a couple of characters have to find a way to repair the ship. There is another twist because there is a human and a robot character, the robot can only be woken up by the human character, but she forgets about the whole time loop if she dies, so he sometimes has to remind her of the whole situation and they have to convince the rest of the crew who aren't in the time loop. It's a really good episode.
@@AgusSkywalkerDamn, I forgot about this one! I reckon they implemented the Groundhog Day scenario was really clever. Then again, everything S.H.I.E.L.D. did was pretty much top notch!
I a, so glad you put source code in this list! I absolutely love that movie’s ability to tell a compelling story while also being ethically challenging
Edge of Tomorrow has a special place in my heart because it's a criminally underrated movie and in my opinion, one of the better movies that'll still appeal to a general audience. Yes there are minor plot holes like the lack of realism in the alien war as mentioned in the video, but otherwise the pacing, plot and writing are well done enough that I hate how unknown it is to many movie goers
Not a movie, I know, but the Supernatural episode "The Mystery Spot" deserves a mention in this conversation, I think. The Winchester brothers go to Florida to investigate a weird thing, and Dean Winchester ends up dead. Then Sam wakes up, and he's back in the hotel where they started the morning, and Dean is still alive. Each day, Dean keeps dying no matter what Sam does to try and stop it, and every time Dean dies, Sam wakes up again that morning. It contains possibly my favorite line to summarize the Groundhog Day plot, as Sam exasperatedly explains to Dean, "yesterday was Tuesday, right? But today is Tuesday, too!" although it is certainly hurt by the 40-minute runtime instead of a feature films' standard 90. And there are some limitations because it's part of an over-arching season plot. But it's a very fun episode.
There are tons of TV shows that do the trope - so mentioning only one would be out of place. Mystery Spot is just one of several, and doesn't hold a candle to: Star Trek: The Next Generation,, Xena, X-Files, 7 Days, Farscape, Eureka, Dark Matter, Stargate SG-1, 12 Monkeys, Blood Ties, Agents of Shield, Buffy, Angel, Charmed, Fringe, Blindspot, Legends of Tomorrow, The Librarians, Travelers, Star Trek: Discovery, etc. The entire premise of Day Break is this trope. So is Russian Doll and Tru Calling. Doctor Who did it several times (Eve of the Daleks, Heaven Sent, Tardis defense system is a time loop and traps River in it in The Big Bang, etc). Lucifer depicts Hell as one big time loop of regret. (Preacher also says Hell is one big time loop) What I am surprised wasn't mentioned is a movie that came out the same year as Groundhog Day - 12:01. It was based on a 1973 short story of the same name and a short film in 1990. Some call the short story the trope maker in American media.
Sam was brilliant in that episode. But what detracts from the episode a bit in my opinion, is that the pain he went through was never acknowledged or sympathised with by Dean, which is a running theme throughout the show.
I vividly remember that episode, I watched Supernatural back in September, so it's been 3 months/100+ days, and that was an episode on season 2, and they were going against the Arch-angel Gabriel, which was originally known as a Trickster (a Trickster is a supernatural entity that thrives to Trick people for a reason that doesn't exist), and aft r it was revealed, he was the Harbringer of Tricksters (Loki), and then finally it was revealed he evolved to the arch angel Gabriel, anyways Gabriel had fun tormenting and killing dean over and over again, to ultimately teach Sam a lesson, knowing that he cannot ultimately kill Dean, because their destiny and fate lasts 15 whole season s (328 episodes), not 60 episodes and 2 seasons
As someone who (more or less) loved all the movies you mentioned in the video, I (once again more or less) agree with your markings, I definitely don't disagree with them, and am happy with how high they are. They are great. There obviously is more groundhog day-type movies (time loop), which I tend to try and find and watch almost all, because I love the concept. You definitely chose the ones from top, and maybe even best for if someone finds this video as introduction to this concept and what to watch.
My favorite is: In Stargate SG-1's "Window of Opportunity" (Season 4, Episode 6), Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c find themselves trapped in a time loop caused by an ancient device activated by a grieving scientist, Malikai. He seeks to rewind time to be with his late wife. As the loop repeats, O'Neill and Teal'c initially struggle to adapt but soon embrace the opportunity to indulge in hilarious and outrageous activities. Eventually, they solve the mystery and convince Malikai to stop the loop, restoring the normal flow of time.
Great episode. It's one of my favorites and I still enjoy it every time I do an SG-1 rewatch. The scenes in the mess hall when O'Neill is first experiencing the time loop get more hilarious every time it resets, and then when Teal'c starts experiencing it and they go off and just have wacky hijinx is just icing on the cake. His reactions to Daniel's long technobabble every time the loop resets in that mess hall scene just get increasingly unhinged as it goes on. Doesn't he even throw food in Daniel's face at one point? Can't remember now, it's been too long! Might go rewatch that episode now in fact, thanks for mentioning it. I miss that show.
" struggle to adapt" This is my favorite part of GHD-scenarios and sadly underused. At some point, either before or after the shenanigans, a character realizes he cannot achieve what he needs to do. Escape the loop (Stargate), save someone (Steins;Gate, also Edge of tomorrow), change an event. The implication that the character you see has, off screen, maybe tried for dozens, hundreds or even thousand of times to do something and failed, to try and feel the defeat the character experiences in this moment is so powerful.
1:03 in my senior year in high school, one of my teachers had us go through an exercise to calculate just how long he stayed in that time loop. I honestly forgot the actual number, but it’s a lot longer than you think. Just thinking how long it takes someone to not only become proficient at piano, but a master pianist, an expert ice sculptor, perfect fluency in French, knowing every person’s whereabouts throughout the day, etc…it was something like thousands of years when you factor in that you’ll have bouts of lack of motivation. Also, I really liked Palm Springs Edit: a good follow up to this video would be 5 movies that did the Groundhog Day thing, badly 2nd edit: just got done with the video…this is refreshing. Actual analysis that teaches me something new. No fluff. You got a sub!
The writer was inspired by Anne Rice vampires and wondered how depressing and repetitive such a long life might become. So conceptually it was originally very long.
Skills can be learned simultaneously. Learning French, piano & ice sculpture can occur on the same day, especially if you become a time mgmt professional
@nyeupe-nguvu I never said you couldn’t do them in the same day…but 1) the movie implies he’s learning these things one at a time (the assignment was to calculate how much time Phil specifically stayed in that time loop, not how much time would it take if you try to maximize your time and you had unlimited motivation)…and 2) you say that like that will shorten the time passed before he becomes a master of all of them. It is fairly understood that it’s generally easier to learn and master one skill at a time, rather than trying to learn multiple skills. Unless they’re complementary skills, learning multiple skills at the same time can lead to cognitive overload and make it more difficult to actually retain anything
I think it's at the least possible to learn ice sculpting and French simultaneously. Learning a language vs learning how to carve something are not taxing the same part of your brain. Kids can learn how to play football and study Spanish at the same time. Adults can too, especially if they live in a world with no real responsibilities or consequences to not working a job e@@FrancoDFernando
Prior to the filming of Groundhog Day, there was a movie called "12:01" starring Johnathon Silverman and Helen Slater (of Supergirl fame), along with Martin Landau. Unable to find a box office backer, the film's owners setted for it to be broadcast as a "made-for-tv-movie" and was broadcast by the newly-formed FOX TV Cable channel. The original short story (called 12:01 PM) was written by Richard Lupoff and appeared in the December 1973 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. After Groundhog Day hit theaters, the writers threatened to sue Columbia Pictures for stealing their idea. 12:01 does seem to be very similar in some ways, but different in other ways. It's sci-fi, but not really a comedy, rather a more serious sci-fi thriller / mystery of sorts. The interesting thing here is that 12;01 predates Groundhog Day rather than following it (as is true of the other compared films in this video). In my opinion, whether Groundhog Day used the plot device from 12:01 or not, 12:01 is definitely worth a watching. Give it a look-see. You'll like it.
Yeah, I recall watching 12:01 as a kid and liking it back then. Didn't know it came before Groundhog Day, though. Boss Level is also great GHday movie :).
This! I came to this comments section exactly searching for this, and I would do it if I couldn't find it. I remember watching this movie as a kid, and loving it. I think I enjoyed it more than Groundhog Day. I was really surprised to discover later that the movie came BEFORE Groundhog! I don't understand why this movie is so obscure, I never found anyone who has watched it. It's a good movie, I really like the sci-fi approach, and how the character has also to discover WHY and how the looping is happening to be able to stop it.
Yeah, when I was in the army, a sergeant who was really into sci-fi hardcore turned me on to that short story long before Groundhog Day was ever released. He also told me about the short film version. I'm sure glad that someone mentioned it! Best to you-
There was a short-lived TV show called "Daybreak" starring Taye Diggs. It was the Groundhog Day plot. Taye Diggs is a detective framed for murder and he lives the same day over and over trying to solve the murder. I watched three episodes. Not sure where the show went after that
Even though the show was canceled and they didn’t air all the episodes on TV. The first season was completed, and it did have a conclusion where he was able to escape the time loop.
Daybreak was good. It had basically 3 plots - he cleared himself after 8 episodes, had to resolve another situation for the next 8, and a final season-ending overall story for the last 8, where he also discovers other people experience the loops and he winds up in another one.
I was about to mention this show. I watched the entire show back many years ago and I liked it. It only had 13 episodes. It stopped at a point that made sense. I actually found the DVD and will give it another shot. 😊
One of the best Time Loops settings i have ever seen is a bit of a obscure fantasy novel/series called Mother of Learning, in which a teenage mage student with quite a lot of flaws, conflicts and toxic behaviours in an early magically-industrializing world is thrust into a month long time loop in which he is not even the main focus of the time loop. And in which he ask himself the "why?, how? and if?" questions and you get a satisfying answer out of them all in the end. Because of the book format and the 30 days long time loop the character and world gets way more fleshed out that in a movie and allows for a better exploration of how everything works and comes from. From the relationships he has with other characters, especially family and schoolmates to the real state of the world after a series of political conflicts, wars and crises have happened not long ago, to how magic weaves and affects the social, economic and political landscape of the world.
Hell yeah! I absolutely loved Mother of Learning too. The month-long loop alone allowed tons of things a single-day loop can't, and that was very well explored by the writer, but on top of that there were so many fascinating stories and characters. It's a truly amazing book.
If we're including fiction in words rather than movies, there's also Hard Reset, a MLP fanfic, which is a bit unusual in that the story continues after the end of the loops and also has that some of the loops spun off into surviving timelines that have to be dealt with. And someone made a (sadly incomplete) elaboration/sequel of it, Reset Harder, which involves nested loops with duelling loopers who don't reset at the same time. And of course there's the Infinite Loops setting.
@@paulvanpraag Yeah, read that one too. It was pretty good! I liked its deviations from the formula, and the multiple significant loops (e.g. Monaco or the first save,vs the main loop)
There are so many. I started making a list a while ago: Groundhog Day 👆 Happy Death Day 👆 Edge of Tomorrow 👆 D.C.'s Legends of Tomorrow 👆 Naked 👆 ARQ 👆 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children 👆 12:01 2:22 Before I Fall 👆 Blood Punch 👆 Haunter 👆 Repeaters Mine Games The Incident Triangle 👆 Source Code 👆 Gravity Falls - The Time Travelers Pig 👆 Doctor Who - Heaven Sent/Hell Bent 👆 When We First Met 👆 Happy Death Day 2U 👆 Futurama-Meanwhile 👆 The Map of Tiny Perfect Things 👆 Boss Level 👆 The Flash-The One with the 90s 👆 Russian Doll The Simpsons-??? 12 Dates of Christmas 👆 Suite Life on Deck-The International Dateline 👆 Another Time (Justin Hartley) The Fair (2019) Maanaadu Time Loop (2020) Damascus Mountain Time 👆 Loki (Season 2 last 2 episodes) 👆 A Day (2017) Palm Springs 👆 Premature Supernatural (Mystery Spot) Timeshifters Disasters in Time Doctor Who (Eve of the Daleks) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Endless Eight arc) The X-Files (Monday) Tru Calling (TV series) The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Anime Movie) TNG (Cause and Effect) Stargate (Window of Opportunity) re:zero (Anime) Sakura Car Captors (Ep. 12 - Sakura's Never-Ending Day/Time and Again | Originally: Sakura no Owara nai Ichinichi) Adventure Time (Hall of Egress) Being Erica (Episode #?) Summertime Rendering Reset (Chinese TV Show) Retroactive The Librarians (S2E8 And the point of Salvation) Day Break (2006) Some of this may be iffy Edit: I add and update this if I've seen them or not with the "👆"s.
Also Timeshifters, which is mostly a man preventing disasters he has advance warning of from some time travelers, but he does reset his day once to do it right. And another movie called Disasters in Time, where they use a passport to travel around.
What about "About Time". A little twist is that he can make himself go backin time at will. However, he is trying to make a day turn out perfectly. Also, the butterfly effect which I also liked.
Groundhog day is my favorite movie and Palm Springs is a top 5. I've never clicked on a TH-cam video so fast! Loved your commentary and just knowing that someone else also admires the plot device. This video was awesome - thanks for making it! :)
There is an excellent Japanese anime called 'RE: ZERO' that is a groundhog day scenario about a high school student who suddenly finds himself in a medieval setting with no explanation as to why he's there. The only thing he knows is that whenever he dies everything is reset from a checkpoint in time that he cannot control. The death scenes get worse and worse
Re:Zero is my favorite of the groundhog day variations because particularly by season 2, the MC goes through so much character growth and really learns life lesson gems that I don't think would have been possible without the groundhog day gimmick.
Re: Zero does the time loop amazingly but I cannot stand so many of the characters, especially the MC. I really tried to like the anime but I just could not get over it
You're missing the finest groundhog day every - the Dr Who episode Heaven Sent. The plot device cause isn't explained until the final few minutes, though you see sneak peeks early on. The soul searching is very real and gritty and the montage near the end showing his repeated loops is heartbreaking when you discover he's been in the loop for possibly as long as a billion years suffereing an agonizing drawn out death each couple of days. The way he gets out of it, while attempting to tell an allegorical story that each time gets closer and closer to being finished, is a master class in writing.
I want one that's realistic. We know rita only gets to reject phil so many times before he takes her by force and show the time he kills and eats larry. No more pg time loops
I only clicked on this video because I loved Palm Springs so much. Such a great movie! Also, apparently there was a version of the Groundhog Day script that included scenes explaining why the loop happened, and it was a jilted ex who put a voodoo curse on Phil. Thank god someone decided it was much better without any explanation.
Groundhog Day holds a special place in my heart. One of my high-school teachers loved it and fkund a way to wedge it into like every class he taught. I'm pretty sure I watched it in class at least 3 times throughout high-school. It was maybe relevant to the class for one of those times. Good times.
One thing you got wrong about Palm Springs, the lesson and personal development and escape comes from Sarah. She breaks through to Niles and gets him to leave, but all the growing and learning and escape all come from Sarah who wants to be better than she was, goes nuts Niles style, then becomes better and learns and grows and becomes a better more functional person and Niles comes through passively through following in Sarah’s wake after first introducing her to the loop and how it works. He’s Yoda not Luke, but the movie focuses on him because Andy Samberg is watchable and a primary force of funny.
You gotta watch Happy Death Day 2 U! It takes the sci-fi to a new level and if you didn’t laugh much at the first one then you’ll definitely laugh more at the second one. It also answers a couple of those questions. I also hoped beyond hope that you would somehow review the circa 2007~ Nickelodeon film about a kid stuck in the last day of summer
The Day after Tomorrow is one of my favourite movies. Emily Blunt is stunning, and the plot is really thrilling. I hadn't seen Groundhog Day until a couple of months ago. I saw it with the family and everyone loved it. Two very different films, but both use the plot device perfectly.
16 วันที่ผ่านมา +3
A TV show rather than a movie, but Day Break, starring Taye Diggs, is a stunningly good Groundhog Day setup. One thing I loved about it was that every time I thought I'd spotted either a continuity error or something that the writers had missed - no, no, that was deliberate. Only thing wrong with it is that it clearly had a "season" plot and a "series" plot, but wasn't renewed so there was clearly more to discover that went unrevealed. Still, highly recommended.
This show didn't get the recognition it deserved. They set it up poorly though, it should have been a one season show with a nice wrapped up ending, but like you said they tried to extend it for multiple seasons and thus we never got a real conclusion. It's a shame, because what we did get was awesome.
Run Lola Run from 1998 is another great time loop movie. It's a more philosophical take on the concept since Lola's influence on the loops is limited and left to interpretation. And it has this fast paced 90s music video vibe
That wasn't time loop film or Groundhog Day type plot. It was simply a What-if story like Sliding Doors (1998) where the protagonist has no knowledge of any previous life.
@@raymondtan2415 it's open to interpretation; Time loop, alternate universes, just an idea, butterfly effect, chance, destiny, will.. . She seems to remember some stuff from previous runs like how to use a gun at one point etc. which could indicate groundhog mechanics.
@@raymondtan2415 It's implied that she does have some knowledge of previous loops. She learns a skill first time around which she applies in the next loop (although it comes across as instinct rather than a conscious memory). There are also other hints in the movie that she's able to manipulate space and time (the screaming in the casino, the line by Mani "Lola gets what Lola wants" and the fact that she appears to choose to loop at the end of the first go around. It's quite a bit different than the others in that there's no montage rapid timeloop cuts. You get 3x 20 minute loops filmed in realtime (each loop lasts 20 minutes),
@@davescripted3796 - I'd say that you had missed quite many good and/or interesting variations from the list of works with time loops. I found some new ones to watch in comments and the Wikipedia list. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_time_loops )
Have youe ver seen 12:01? It's on youtube. A dude's day resets every day at 12:01am and has to find a way to prevent the death of a co worker he has a crush on. Pretty good film :)
I saw part of it when I was maybe 9 and looked for it for years. I think I only found it on youtube earlier this year, was very pleased to see it properly again :)
I came here to make sure somebody mentioned this. I was surprised that the video did not mention it. 12:01 is top notch, as far as time loop movies go.
The war wasn't closed the humans were being completely demolished the won one battle The aliens were ridiculously successful and we don't know if there are different kinds of aliens at the top of the alien hierarchy
Good take. I am a fan of the repeat trope and of all the movies. It gives me good feelings, like I can’t mess my life up too bad that I can’t come back from it, and there is always time to become a better person.
Groundhog day wins obviously, and while Death Day is good and a nice horror movie plot update. Live Die Repeat is not bad. I think the 12days of Christmas movies (not a franchise and all typically with similar titles) do a good job as well and tend to be some of my favorite Christmas movies. Back to GHD it is fantastic that you have no clue how many days Bill Murray relived and wondering how many times he just woke up and ended it.
I'd highly recommend you check out Primer (2004). It's not actually a Groundhog Day like film, but the time-travel mechanism does allow for people to repeat loops, overlap loops, and have loops inside other loops. It also doesn't hold the viewer's hand; if you don't pay attention, the film doesn't care if you miss the reveal. This may help explain why the film is so unknown, although the fact that it cost $7000 to make is also a big part of that.
Wish you had included Map of Tiny Perfect Things, which came out around the same time as Palm Springs. It has the unique quality of having a character that wants to change and one that doesn't. It used the mechanic to such a wonderful effect, even if the movie itself is a little more juvenile in its intended audience.
There is a book called Mother of Learning which takes the time loop concept and applies it to a month. Its in a world with magic (sort of groundhog day meets harry potter) but they are able to take the concept really far in terms of what the character does with the ability
Sad I didn’t see anything about Outer Wilds here. Easily the best utilization of the Time Loop concept from a player perspective. The fact that the entire game is open to you from the minute you start, and the only thing limiting you from progressing is your knowledge, is actually the most phenomenal game mechanic I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the story about life, death, and the things we have to give up or risk for things to get better is just amazing storytelling. You should def check it out if you haven’t.
Agreed with everything you said about Palm Springs. The reason for the time loop is weird but I think they felt they needed to set themselves appart from Groundhog Day and needed a "practical reason". Not the best but it's fine.
I love the repeating day plot device. Some lower quality examples, but still fun because the plot device is fun: 12:01, a Jonathan Silverman TV Movie from the early 90s. Boss Level, a covid era movie released on Hulu that treats the repeating day like a video game. There was a Disney Christmas special with a segment where Huey, Dewey, and Louie repeat Christmas until they're sick of it.
@@101wildgoose I always liked it. I had a VHS copy I watched many times. Very funny. My one complaint is it seemed like he only repeated the days maybe 10 times (at least that was the impression it gave), and that wasn't enough to master the situation like other films.
would love to see you do this with some tv episodes. There's many but i can think of Buffy, Supernatural, Magicians, Phineas and Ferb, Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow, Star Trek Next Generation, Doctor Who, X-files, and Agents of Shield off the top of my head. Russian Doll also counts but that's a whole series? so that might be too much. time loop fiction is probably my favorite trope of all time so it was next to see this in my reccomended. great video!
I remember watching 'Christmas Every Day' long time ago. It was about a teenager who was reliving Christmas Day. Back then I like quite a lot, but I do not know whether I would like it now.
One more time is a recent Netflix movie that combines the ground hog dy plot with timetravel. As Amelia turns 40 she reminices about her 18th birthday and has to relive it in a timeloop. It's a pretty cute film and a real throwback to 2002!
Finally someone mentions Stargate. It was the absolute most amazing funniest episode of the whole show and probably my favorite time loop ever on screen
please review a map of tiny perfect things! its two people who get stuck in a time loop but the don't know each other when it happens, they find each other. it's super cute.
The film Momento also came to mind. It uses the device of repetition but this time in absence of memory, kind of like flipping Groundhog Day on its head.
Great video! I would only add that the reason for the time loop in Happy Death Day is actually explained in the sequel, which is also fairly good, in the same sense.
There are so many more time loop movies missing from your list, one that I really recommend is "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" on Amazon Prime. Triangle was also one that I really enjoyed.
I'm surprised how far down the comments I had to go to find "Triangle". By far my favorite time loop movie and actually one of my favorite movies period. Also, if you enjoyed Triangle, check out Time Crimes, which likely inspired Triangle.
@justinamfieldsr At first, I thought of 50 First Dates as a kind of reverse Ground Hog day, but then I thought if that counts, then Memento should count too; but sadly, no, they are a different concept altogether.
I find it hard to believe that he didnt spend a lot more time in the video covering what is one of the most genuinely introspective takes on the Groundhog Day theme. And its self-awareness ("Isnt there a Bill Murray movie about that?") is the perfect antidote to the reaction that all the other ones give me: Oh no ... not this plot gimmick again!
@@k-matsu Exactly. It's genuinely really good and refreshing. Really makes me think about life and how easy it is to forget how to live. Palm Springs also tackled that idea, but I think The Map expanded it even further with Margo's storyline. It's so sad. By the way to be fair, Happy Death Day also referenced it, but I see your point. Lol. It's like a one trick pony. It needs something new to keep it fresh and engaging.
One thing that I found interesting that somebody said, The piano teacher... If she only saw one day's worth of improvement, why was she so excited that he was so amazing on the piano in the party scene? From her perspective, in that day, would have went from great to Great. So the conclusion was, she was in the time loop but all she cared about was teaching somebody. She could escape her time loop by helping him.
you should re-watch source code because its not a memory at all. It's a different alternate reality so every time he fails he really does get all those people dead in that dimension
True, however I suspect Dave wanted to avoid the major spoilers. The initial perspective is that he is simply experiencing memories, however it is only at the very end that we find out about the alternate dimensions.
The TV series Supernatural also had a really interesting take on The Groundhog Day plot. In fact, I'd argue it's a top ten episode of the series. The episode's called Mystery Spot. To give some context for those who have not seen the show: Sam and Dean Winchesters are brothers and the main characters. They hunt monsters. Spoilers for season 1-3 ahead. Dean has sold his soul to Hell, and only has a year to live. That's all the background info needed. We see the episode through Sam's eyes. The two brothers find a case involving some strangeness around a Mystery Spot, one of those lazy tourist attractions that's only there to make money. When they first go to explore The Mystery Spot, Dean is killed. Then a moment later, Sam awakes and begins the day anew. That's the essential cycle of the day. Sam has to relive the same day again and again, and Dean keeps dying in increasingly comic ways. He's shot, chopped by an ax, driven over by a car, a piano falls on him, he chokes on his food, and he even slips in the shower one time. No matter what Sam does, Dean always ends up dying and the day resets. They figure out that a powerful demigod is behind this, and with one singular purpose. He's pushing Sam to accept the fact that his brother will inevitably die. They kill this Demigod, and all seems well. Until the day after, where Dean once again dies. Only this time, the day doesn't reset. Sam is left all alone, and with the realization that the demigod isn't dead. We get a montage of the next several months, where Sam sinks deeper into his depression and loss, seeking out the demigod that did this. He does succeed in the end, and is brought back to the day that started it all. Dean's alive. But Sam has learned what will happen when his brother dies. It's an incredibly funny episode, with some very hard-hitting moments mingled throughout. I consider it one of the best takes on this trope. I'd seriously recommend watching the episode. It's better to watch it after seeing all prior episodes, but I'd argue it even works as a standalone. Anyway! I just wanted to share.
Supernatural at it's best was excellent. The series kinda overstays it's welcome during the last few seasons though, which is unfortunately typical for many long-running TV series.
Somehow, I saw the movie "12:01" (starring Jonathan Silverman) before seeing Groundhog Day. So it's my personal favorite, as it introduced me to the 'same day repeating' trope. (Not twelve minutes and one second into this video; the movie's title is "12:01" lol)
The fact that he learned to play the piano, learn a language, and all the other things he learned that well make me think he repeated the same day 1000s of times.
Enjoyed the video! If you do a follow up, please include the movie “Before I Fall”! It has a groundhog mechanic but breaks some of the patterns that are found in all these others I think. And it’s emotional and deep even though it’s about a high school girl
This such a nice discussion - thanks! I think I've seen "Happy Death Day" - the clips looked vaguely familiar. Haven't seen any of the others, but am intrigued to now, especially "Palm Springs". I'd add a couple of cents to your lovely review and analysis of "Ground Hog Day": I think that Rita is the one who finally prompts Phil in the right direction. Three key moments point me here: Phil has a throw away line that is important in the first rejection scene with Rita: "I don't even like myself". In the second scene at the hotel room, Phil confesses that the worst part of having spent this open, persuasive time with Rita is her forgetting all about it next time, and that she'll go back to treating him like a jerk because, he admits, he is a jerk. And then, in this same sequence, Rita is the one to suggest that maybe Phil isn't under a curse but a blessing. The last night, Phil says (paraphrasing) "No matter what happens tomorrow, I'm happy now." When Rita also says she's happy, it begins to snow, and Phil notices. Being happy, truly happy, meaning there's an internal reservoir of energy to keep him afloat, without losing who he is, breaks the spell.
My friend got me to watch an anime that had a similar premise to groundhog day, called Re:Zero. The only difference is that instead of repeating the same day every day, he actually gets checkpoints if he manages to survive. The first "day" is spent dying over and over until he manages to figure out how to save himself and all his friends, and then he progresses to the next day. Whenever action isn't happening in the show, he spends his downtime completely normally, since only his own death sets him back. In that sense, it's more like a video game checkpoint system rather than a time loop, but that's also sort of how Edge of Tomorrow works, so it's still relevant. It's absolutely insane how much trauma the guy goes through though. Since it's animated, they don't hold back from showing overt gore. He sees his closest friends get crushed, ripped apart, vaporized, literally erased from existence, mangled, crumpled up, and cut apart over and over again, until he manages to get the one in a million chance to prevent all of their deaths entirely. What's fascinating is how the whole checkpoint system ties into it. The show doesn't feel too tense until you realize that a checkpoint could get set after he messes up, and he then loses the capability to fix that mistake, since it's now set in stone.
I’m sorry for this completely unrelated topic, but is there any chance you could let me know what font you used in the screen at 14:37? Been looking for this font for a long time!
I wanted to like it, but didn't, and watched it twice to figure out why. Answer: It was infected with modern feminism. (Insufferable) Girl don't need no Boy, (and certainly doesn't deserve him), but the chump somehow falls for her anyway. Why? Who knows? Aside from finally developing enough spine to face reality, she doesn't grow as a person or learn or care that other people have feelings. It could have been a good film, but.., the creators were infected by the mind virus, or some subspecies of it.
I agree. Unlike the other movies where we see the restarts, triangle shows the entire loop and we get to infer it has been going on for a long time with the same person.
Although this was a TV series episode rather than a movie, Stargate SG-1 had a Groundhog Day episode that I thought was really good. They had an in-universe explanation for why it was happening, and they went through all the stages from being confused, to panic, to giving up, to trying to solve it. And best of all, a lot of elements in it were played for laughs and let them do things in the series they couldn't do otherwise like Jack kissing Carter and just generally silliness. And I think this plot device works well for silly because the premise itself IS silly.
I love seeing that someone made a video about the ‘Groundhog Day’ plot device, and enjoy the conversation going on. I was disappointed that my second favorite Groundhog Day style movie wasn’t included, ‘Happy Death Day 2U’. Sounds like you intend to watch it, but I was amazed how they essentially made a sequel that takes place immediately after the original yet is a very different genre and with a different tone to the film. I see a lot of comments about Russian Doll, and the various episodes of Sci-Fi shows that tackle this (I enjoyed Legends of Tomorrow’s take), but I honestly think there is one piece of media that did ‘Groundhog Day’ better than Groundhog Day - the video game the Outer Wilds. It’s such a creative approach to the mechanic (amusingly from the actor that played the time traveler Hiro from ‘Heroes’). I’m not a big fan of VR, but the Groundhog Day video game also is worth a look if you expand to other media.
There is an alternate explanation for Groundhog Day. The insurance seller meets him no matter what time he arrives there. He escapes the loop after he finally buys insurance from him
Plot Twist: After buying the insurance he dies the next day out of the loop and Rita cashes in.
@ 😄
That's a flawed explanation. The movie only shows that he bought insurance, it does not tell how many times he had to purchase it. The same could be said for any scene where he does something for the first time and there is no implied repeated action.
@@mikewazowski350 i bet you're a real hoot at parties
Let's buy insurances like there is no tomorrow !
Your Edge of Tomorrow criticism hurts my soul, that will always be my favorite use of the groundhog day concept. For me the best part of these stories is how the character redeems themselves through the loop and I love watching him grow from a coward to an action hero, I also think juggling the possibility of losing the power to loop was refreshing
That's all true, but it doesn't change the fact that any sentient creature with that kind of ability would make damn sure to not risk splashing enemy combatants with magic blood and give them your secret unbeatable ability, especially after it had already happened to Rita.
@ it seems like it would be hard to prevent what happens to your blood after you die lol, plus when Tom Cruise kills the alien it’s because he caught it off guard and blew both of them up together
@@korganrocks3995it was caught off guard. And it's brushed over VERY briefly, but that creature HAS to be within a certain vacinity of the smaller ones, so there will always be one nearby.
Ikr? He praised source code for doing something different and innovative and then dunks on Edge of Tomorrow for doing the same?
And besides the creatures aren't even capable of space travel, they're affectively artificial lifeforms launched through space to terraform, so they are basically just run their programming to conquer the planet for their creators.
@@korganrocks3995 The original groundhog day plot has no reason at all for why the loop is happening. In Edge of Tomorrow, it attemps to give a reason, and I think it's fine, it's rooted in alien biology, which can obviously be strange and mysterious to us.
Edge of tomorrow is great imo, and the manga also looks great.
17:05 the biggest obstacle Phil has in groundhogs day is the fact that no one in the film has seen groundhogs day to reference to explain to another character what’s going on like in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow groundhogs day episode, the helper only understands and helps instantly because they looper explains it saying they are in a groundhogs day scenario.
Yeah. It is like how zombie films pretend George Romero never existed in their reality. Otherwise it is like Community's zombie episode. One bite at a party and Troy is instantly exclaiming, "Holy Crap! Leonard's a zombie!"
@@AceMoonshot This is also a theory about Midnight Mass, how the word "vampire" is never mentioned, even after the build-up has the audience like... "anytime, someone is going to point out the similarity between the creature and vampires." But it just never happens. It is, apparently, set in a universe where vampire-lore doesn't exist.
Its like zombie movies
@@brastionskywarrior6951 old zombie films be like “say Jim, your smelling kinda off there buddy, and why’s your face all bloody and falling off like that, why you trying to bite me Jim AHHHH”
groundhog day*
The anime Madoka Magica does Groundhog Day from the perspective of someone who isn't in the time loop and doesn't know it exists. There's a side character who seems to know everything and shows up mysteriously at exactly the right moment. Later it turns out that character is in a time loop, but we the audience have only been watching the final loop without knowing it. Very creative take on the genre.
Endless eight arc in Haruhi Suzumiya has the whole cast and eight episodes in a time loop they don’t know they’re in
@@CrazySD1993yeah but when that came out everyone hated it
neat, a nice little added change to the pov - but not "very creative" unless other stuff about it is.
Ok, I take it this is the "films he missed" thread so here drops
Family man
Sliding doors
Rewind (book only)
Some of these aren't real groundhogs day movies but they all deal with an alternate time scenario.
@@xBINARYGODx There's a lot more to it than the brief description, but (without spoilers) it's not just about saving the protagonist, or even the one looping, but preventing a certain terrible fate from ever befalling anyone else. It's also a deconstruction of the "magical girl" genre as a whole and plays off a lot of its tropes to horrifying effect.
I watched this video, paused at the beginning of the Palm Springs part, then watched that entire movie before continuing. Thank for the tip!
I literally just did that too, then continued the video while scrolling down to read comments
Oh, I did this too. Very worth the watch.
The aliens in Edge of Tomorrow are essentially scouts that found a world that they could terraform into a suitable environment for the alien race that sent them. They evolve and adapt to eliminate obstacles. In the book they explain that the first waves were not hard to beat, but they kept adapting.
was going to say this. the aliens are just like, wolves sent ahead by the actual smart aliens in a ship that crashed into the ocean.
also the original story is 10x better than edge of tomorrow. the movie also changed how the time travel works, and not for the better imo.
They're not sent. They arrive when an asteroid crashes and they're not technological, it's all biology.
Not scouts. They're pollen, they're just a virus and their adaptation is evolutionary, not too intelligent. It's pretty good, the only thing i don't really like is the happy ending.
@@grimscar I've never watched the movie but hearing that its about the blood of some alien that doesnt want to die was surprising, I also remembered the manga to be much better and kind of sound logic
@julikaiba it basically has video game logic. keiji (cage in the tom cruise version) gets his blood mixed with the alien's. the alien has a power that lets them go back in time every time they die and repeat the day.
because of this, these beastlike aliens were able to overwhelm earth, which has lost 80 percent of its people and land.
humanity's hope is rita, aka the full metal bitch, who as a 15 year old in Indiana got her blood mixed with the alien, too. she has been living, dying and repeating for years and has more kills single handedly than the rest of the planet combined.
One thing to note in Edge of Tomorrow is only one alien/person can travel through time meaning only one person can hold the power. After getting doused by the alien, he *dies* first, looping and taking the power for himself.
Exactly. And the reason the aliens haven’t beaten earth yet is due to Rita possessing the power not long before Cage gains it.
The movie doesn't claim that this is the case. You do not know if the Alpha is resetting multiple timelines to see which one will work. There is no part of the movie which claims only one being can reset time. And it also doesn't claim time travel (which is more like Back to the Future). This is a resetting of time and space, which is a flawed plot.
@mikewazowski350 They do explain it in the movie when they explain that the MC was receiving visions so the alien can get the power back
@@mikewazowski350 How is resetting time and space a flawed plot? Actually, don't answer. Your answer would be stupid and only serve to annoy me.
I never even thought about what if someone else got bled on during the time that Cruise was resetting time. There very well could be multiple time lines going on.. 🫠
I think the way Rita (in Edge of Tomorrow) had previously experienced the ground hog day plot herself before the events of the movie was an interesting variation on the trend. I'm a little surprised you didn't mention it in the video. Particularly in the context of the plot being about learning. In the case of Edge of Tomorrow, I sort of feel like the story embraces the plot being about learning in a traditional 'mentor with experience teaching a green apprentice' kind of way that works in an action movie. i'm not totally sure if EoT's unique take is on the same level of depth as Palm Springs (i haven't seen it) but i do think it's worth further analysis (maybe just cause i enjoyed EoT a lot and I'm not totally surue why lol)
In its own rudimentary way, I think there's still a moral lesson in EoT. Cage is a guy always looking for a way out, a way to sidestep responsibility. He keeps trying to find ways to escape the conflict. But there was that key moment when he abandons the base and the battle, and runs off to London, only to find that there's no escape. It becomes horribly clear that he's going to keep losing, keep dying again and again, till he becomes a better person, and actually takes responsibility.
Edge of Tomorrow was based on a manga. All You Need Is Kill
by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. It's really good.
Such a damn good movie. Will always remain in my top favorite modern action films.
@@rottensquid Damn great insight! I never looked at his story in that way, but it makes perfect sense. Makes me curious if Rita had the same type of issue when she went through her own version of events prior to the beginning of the movie. Now I want a prequel.
@@ernestogerena7419 It's actually based on a novel by the same name; the manga version came after that. I think the movie is much better.
I wouldn't categorize this plot device as "learning"-it's more like infinite second chances. You get to see how your actions affect events and other people. It's a story of redemption. I love Groundhog Day, and even though it's a romantic movie, I think Edge of Tomorrow did the romance part even better. It's low-key, but because of that, the scenes where Cage falls in love with Rita hit much harder.
The abandoned farm scene is great-I’d tweak it a bit, but it’s really good as it is. Rita notices how deeply Cage cares for her and realizes he’s going through the same thing she did with Hendricks. Despite her memories of Cage being limited to one day, she knows he’s in love with her, and by revealing her middle name, she signals that she wants him to care about her, even if she won’t remember any of it. The kiss, which comes later, is all the more impactful because she’s the one who initiates it. "You're a good man, Cage. I wish I had the chance to know you better."
I've watched the movie more times than any other.
According to a documentary I saw about this film, it was originally a drama about a guy whose girlfriend puts a hex on him after he dumps her. The goal being to suffer from his own actions until learning his lesson. Harold Ramis rewrote the script as a comedy and removed the girlfriend part so the focus couldn’t be shifted onto his opposition to her. The goal being to force him to examine his own character. Saw it in theaters during college. Love it still. Thanks for an incredibly insightful deep dive into these similarly-plotted films. Well done.
TNG s5e18 "Cause and Effect" premiered eleven months before Groundhog Day. And remains one of the best bottle episodes of Trek.
Cough 'the girl who leapt through time' cough
This made me remember that Stargate SG-1 also did a groundhog day episode.
@ArchNipper
Poor T'eac. Also was O'Neil not listening to Jackson some sort of fore shadowing?
Oh yeah that one was good! Xfiles did one too where they try to stop a bank bombing.
Palm Springs is indeed a great hidden gem.
Something that wasn't mentioned in the video, and that IMO makes Palm Springs stand apart from the others, is that it gives the love interest agency by throwing her into the loop. In all the other cases the main character seduces the love interest by gathering information about them without them knowing, which is akin to stalking. Palm Springs confronts this trope and shows how that is deeply problematic.
@@claram5482 and answer to "how you get out of Groundhog day?" isn't metaphysical. It's the only movie where answer isn't some kind of acceptance, growing better as a person or sth, it's just pure physics. And I think that's great subvertion of expectations
Yes. Very. Watch Palm Springs, folks. It's far better then the trailer or this summary makes on.
As is Happy Death Day.
@@RonnieRubin-i9f Still hoping we get a 3rd Happy Death Day
In Edge of Tomorrow,
A, the movie basically admits that the events of the movie are humanity's last stand. It's never shown to be a close fight, it is shown that the media and governments in the movie use the success at Verdun via Rita to bolster morale and tell everyone, "Hey, we can totally win now guys, since we won one battle.".
B, the aliens aren't portrayed as technologically advanced or even shown to be sentient. They're more like animals, and they didn't have FTL capabilities, they were on a meteor that crashed into Earth.
The alien blood thing is a bit weird but like... Fine. Whatever. It sorta makes sense. But treating the aliens like intelligent being rather than the force of nature the movie portrays as is a bit... Weird.
Aliens were indeed completely animalistic. Even luring Cage to the dam requires no sentience. Also, we don't really know if aliens learn from the loop. They can try Verdun million times and they have to succeed just once. If they were intelligent, Cage would've been mercd on loop 2
@mikeoath9541 Yeah, the grunts show no intelligence, the alphas show some but it's hard to tell if there's anything more than what wolves or other pack animals have. And we're completely in the dark about how much intelligence the Omega has other than it tries to fool cage into a trap.
So... It could be a fairly dumb bio-weapon/army. It could be a natural organism. But... It doesn't seem like an intelligent space faring race by any stretch.
@@plzletmebefrank it is an exotic type of intelligence, where the alien explores realities for solution rather than exploring it inside their mind like computers and human do. A computer replays a virtual representations of reality over and over again and act on it when it found the best outcome, this is called "searching tree" or "A*" (A-star), meanwhile the alien replays the realities over and over again to find the best outcome. Both the alien and computers had no intelligence when we peer inside it or live inside it, but the final result of the process is intelligence or artificial-intelligence.
Im pretty sure that there is another version of the film, where he gauns this power slightly diffrently but at this point I dont remember.
@butlazgazempropan-butan11k87 There's the source material, All You Need is Kill. Which also had to do with killing a certain one of the aliens. I can't remember if it was supposed to be about the blood though. I don't think so... I don't think they ever really explained it though. I remember there being less exposition. But it's been a while since I read it.
I think you not only overthought the Edge of Tomorrow plot, you also missed the text of the movie. The aliens don't really have technology. They arrived on an asteroid, and all of their power is biological in nature.
Anyway agree that Palm Springs is awesome. Might go watch it again.
I was gonna say this, too. The aliens seem like a hive mind that's focused on devouring life
I wouldn't even say overthought. Because he doesn't seem to have thought about the actual movie, but what he thinks a generic alien race should be. The alien he gets the blood from didn't have the ability to turn back time. They indeed don't use technology. And the fight isn't close. I actually think it was a pretty good, different take on aliens.
Also, the reason they haven’t beaten earth yet is because Rita had their power for awhile and continued to beat them prior to Cage gaining it.
He didn't overthink it. The movie is flawed. Time travel in stories does not work when you explain it. It is best to leave it open ended. Let the viewer decide.
I came here for this comment. I always assumed that the aliens were simply following their natural instincts, not consciously trying to conquer a planet. They were reacting as a predator in the wild does, and the ability to reset time is simply an evolutionary development they have, not the result of technological advances. The fact that the creator of this video seems to be oblivious to this sorta ruins the rest of the analysis, or at least tempers it with some caution that he doesn't fully understand what he is analyzing.
Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) is a fantastic German film with a similar plot device.
Lola isn't caught in a time loop. Run Lola Run is more of a butterfly effect, what-if movie like Sliding Doors.
Bro I watched this in German class😂
@@thefactoryslyricperson Next week assignment is Die Blechtrommel
@@JesseFagan true
Fun fact. Groundhog Day was filmed in my town of Woodstock, Il. My life growing up revolved around it. It will always be my favorite.
Also, movie actually based in Chicago wasn’t filmed here.
While Edge of Tomorrow is my favorite, I loved how in Russian Doll they explore the idea that though they repeat the days, the days they did live may continue for those around them with many different timelines, and causes them to have some guilt for their reckless behaviors and how they end those days.
Russian doll is one of my favourite series. Although i wish the last season was better, there were many things that could have been imrpoved
Russian Doll is *amazing* precisley for the reasons you mentioned. I friggin love that show! :)
@@tessiepinkman Question about that show... Can I just watch the first season of Russian Doll and then stop? Is the first season a complete story? I've heard the second season was disappointing and I don't plan on finding out myself anytime soon. I know it sounds weird, but I also only watched season 1 of True Detective and I'm satisfied - I have no plans to continue.
That’s also implied by the ending of Source Code. The scientist thinks it’s a fading image of reality, but the soldier experiencing it can tell that he’s visiting parallel worlds.
@@SonGoku-tp8gb I watched the first season and stopped.
When I heard there was a second season, I refused to entertain the idea, because it had clearly ended in the first season.
I cannot say whether the second season is worth watching, but I can say if you only watch the first season, it's a good show.
The studio tried to force an explanation scene on Groundhog Day. But Ramis was too smart for that.
They had one that they removed because it spoiled the plot to explain it.
They should have sent Harold Ramis to Skywalker Ranch to convince Lucas to delete the scenes where they try to explain how Jedi have the force in the prequels.
I heard somewhere that they debated how long he lived that same day. I mean a few hundred times is annoying and maddening. A few thousand times would just be.... it's bad even if he got to bang the hot lady (not his coworker, i mean the hot one from the diner I think she's a redhead IIRC).
Was it 10 YEARS of Groundhog Days?
No, Ramis said it was 10k years of groundhog days. Hence the many many suicides. Because you just c a n not anymore at some poiint. After a decade of the same day, i'd be sure i was in hell. I died and was sent to hell
I love Edge of Tomorrow. One of the best sci-fi action films I’ve ever watched
Based on the manga All You Need Is Kill.
Exactly, I think he overlooked the movie
Agree. One of my all-time favorites. I think they did the learning through mistakes video game aspect of it in a more phrenetic and intense way than others. I also liked how it skipped sometimes... Like when they go to the farm it's a while before you understand that he's already lived this day hundreds of times. Each time a new plot point comes up it's that way and I thought it was really well done and keeps the viewer guessing.
His complaints about the alien blood explanation and why is this even a fight... I guess I had dim problems with that while watching but was able to suspend that disbelief pretty easily. None of these movies give any sort of explanation to why it's happening so I don't know it wasn't too big of a problem for me
@js72634 and the fight is fair the aliens want us to have hope or we just nuke everythingso they have to give us the illusion of a future
It really wasn’t that good. It was in no way a bad movie, but its not even remotely close being one of the best sci-fi action films.
"Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies...." Liked and subscribed after that line
9:50 I'd argue that aliens that could control time would become overly dependent on that ability and not actually become that much more competent in everything they do (if not regressing), instead becoming complacent and letting their mastery of time be their trump card instead of expending effort to maintain peak performance. It's like numerical method algorithms, if you know that you get closer to your goal every loop, and that you can easily afford to do a ton of loops, then even if it only moves a little bit each time you'll still eventually win. At the end of the day, nobody else remembers anything other than the final result. Add complacency with a very large number of repetitions and the chance that the aliens screw up and bleed blue on somebody becomes higher.
“Map of Tiny Perfect Things” - like Palm Springs, two people both caught in the time loop together.
Fantastic film
Personally I thought it was better than Palm Springs.
I'll vote for not as good as Palm Springs, but still good.
DUDE - SPOILERS!!!
Yes, this is one of my favourites, but do not explain it in this way to people who have not seen it.
I still think Groundhog Day uses the plot device the most effectively. It’s weaved into the plot and the messaging of the film, rather than just being a plot device for ensuing shenanigans
He doesn't just repeat the day. He becomes a slightly better person with each repetition, until at the end he's a mensch (Yiddish for a decent person.).
Just watched source code and i think its my favorite spin on thr concept now.
Something interesting about Source Code is thay its actually a modern retelling of Quantum Leap. In fact, when he calls his Dad later in the film its Scott Bakula who is on the other side.
I want this to be true so much that I almost dont want to check LOL
@@Heligany I bit the bullet for you. It is Scott Bakula, and he starts the conversation with "Oh Boy!" as an homage to Sam. The relatedness of the shows is intentional.
Run Lola Run. It's a masterpiece, much better than all these films (except Groundhog Day) and deserves a mention.
My favorite example in the episode "As I Have Always Been" of Agents of SHIELD. The way there's 2 people in the loop, but where the 1st has to wake the other, but the 1st doesn't remember anything if they die, makes it a loop within the loop. The quick cuts just showing the repeated deaths, knowing each time comes with another complete set of loops before the 2nd character is woken up makes it spectacular.
YES!! Loved that episode and yes that's one of the best adaptations of a timeloop trope I've seen. The ending was a bit sad though. Honestly Agents of SHIELD is the best TV show ever made
Yes!! I’m so glad someone mentioned AoS. My favorite show growing up.
Came here to say that
tbh I love how Edge of Tomorrow plays with the trope, providing a mentor who has been through the time loop before and can directly help the protagonist through it, and the fact that the time loop ending dramatically raises the danger/stakes for the protagonist. now he'll stay dead, he's back to having 1 UP instead of infinite lives, and we get to see if everything he learned during the loop is enough to get him through it
And there's the added risk of exiting the loop via blood transfusion which raises the stakes for our protagonist who NEEDS to stay in the loop to discover the Omega's location
checkout Maanaadu(2021). it ups the stakes midway by having the anatagonist stuck in the loop.
I'm not a big fan of rankings, but this isn't a bad ranking. But I think you're getting bogged down by the wrong things with Edge of Tomorrow. After all, if Groundhog Day has no explanation, why should it really matter that Palm Springs' explanation is paper thin, and Edge makes no logical sense?
But setting that argument aside, I actually think, if you really wanted to think through the logic of Edge, it actually does make sense. If a biological species developed the ability to reset time any time it died, then logically, it would never evolve further. And all its success would be a result of infinite resetting, hammering against a problem over and over till it figured out a solution. I wouldn't needed much in the way of technology, as its innate ability would give it all the power it needed. Even interstellar travel might just be a result of it hammering away at a problem infinitely until it succeeded. That's the thing about evolution. It tends to continue till a problem is solved, and then stops. So since all this creature's problems are solved by this one adaptation, it's no wonder it needed no others.
I mean, if you really need an explanation.
When the explanation isn't actually important (it really isn't in groundhog day), having an explanation and it being bad is worse than having no explanation and letting the viewer decide for themselves.
Either way, I don't think he's letting that particular nitpick affect his ranking that much. He still rated the movie very well.
@@jacobnorris8256 That's a good point, and to be sure, the Edge of Tomorrow explanation was more flimsy than understated. I just thought the attempts to poke holes in the logic of it seemed a little flimsy as well. There's not enough substance to it to poke holes in.
@@jacobnorris8256 Well, the explanation is significant to the structure of the story. If he dies in the third act, then it's game over for him and humanity. So, if you were to leave the explanation a mystery, then you'd have to do more than just take out some exposition.
The plot device defies logic so it is suitable for only escapist fantasy.
@@TimJBenham how does it defies logic?
The Groundhog story has a long history on television as well, notably in the Star Trek: TNG episode "Cause and Effect" which aired a year before Groundhog Day came out. My favorite version of this concept I've seen is probably in another science fiction series, with the Stargate SG-1 episode "Window of Opportunity"
Also the “Russian Doll” tv series.
Supernatural has a time loop episode too. But nothing beats Window of Opportunity.
Sci👏🏽Fi👏🏽Supremacy👏🏽
There is an excellent variation in Agents of Shield season 7 where the ship they are travelling on is approaching a sort of black hole and every loop it gets closer so a couple of characters have to find a way to repair the ship. There is another twist because there is a human and a robot character, the robot can only be woken up by the human character, but she forgets about the whole time loop if she dies, so he sometimes has to remind her of the whole situation and they have to convince the rest of the crew who aren't in the time loop. It's a really good episode.
@@AgusSkywalkerDamn, I forgot about this one! I reckon they implemented the Groundhog Day scenario was really clever. Then again, everything S.H.I.E.L.D. did was pretty much top notch!
I a, so glad you put source code in this list! I absolutely love that movie’s ability to tell a compelling story while also being ethically challenging
Edge of Tomorrow has a special place in my heart because it's a criminally underrated movie and in my opinion, one of the better movies that'll still appeal to a general audience. Yes there are minor plot holes like the lack of realism in the alien war as mentioned in the video, but otherwise the pacing, plot and writing are well done enough that I hate how unknown it is to many movie goers
Not a movie, I know, but the Supernatural episode "The Mystery Spot" deserves a mention in this conversation, I think. The Winchester brothers go to Florida to investigate a weird thing, and Dean Winchester ends up dead. Then Sam wakes up, and he's back in the hotel where they started the morning, and Dean is still alive. Each day, Dean keeps dying no matter what Sam does to try and stop it, and every time Dean dies, Sam wakes up again that morning.
It contains possibly my favorite line to summarize the Groundhog Day plot, as Sam exasperatedly explains to Dean, "yesterday was Tuesday, right? But today is Tuesday, too!" although it is certainly hurt by the 40-minute runtime instead of a feature films' standard 90. And there are some limitations because it's part of an over-arching season plot. But it's a very fun episode.
There are tons of TV shows that do the trope - so mentioning only one would be out of place.
Mystery Spot is just one of several, and doesn't hold a candle to: Star Trek: The Next Generation,, Xena, X-Files, 7 Days, Farscape, Eureka, Dark Matter, Stargate SG-1, 12 Monkeys, Blood Ties, Agents of Shield, Buffy, Angel, Charmed, Fringe, Blindspot, Legends of Tomorrow, The Librarians, Travelers, Star Trek: Discovery, etc.
The entire premise of Day Break is this trope. So is Russian Doll and Tru Calling. Doctor Who did it several times (Eve of the Daleks, Heaven Sent, Tardis defense system is a time loop and traps River in it in The Big Bang, etc). Lucifer depicts Hell as one big time loop of regret. (Preacher also says Hell is one big time loop)
What I am surprised wasn't mentioned is a movie that came out the same year as Groundhog Day - 12:01. It was based on a 1973 short story of the same name and a short film in 1990. Some call the short story the trope maker in American media.
Sam was brilliant in that episode. But what detracts from the episode a bit in my opinion, is that the pain he went through was never acknowledged or sympathised with by Dean, which is a running theme throughout the show.
I vividly remember that episode, I watched Supernatural back in September, so it's been 3 months/100+ days, and that was an episode on season 2, and they were going against the Arch-angel Gabriel, which was originally known as a Trickster (a Trickster is a supernatural entity that thrives to Trick people for a reason that doesn't exist), and aft r it was revealed, he was the Harbringer of Tricksters (Loki), and then finally it was revealed he evolved to the arch angel Gabriel, anyways Gabriel had fun tormenting and killing dean over and over again, to ultimately teach Sam a lesson, knowing that he cannot ultimately kill Dean, because their destiny and fate lasts 15 whole season s (328 episodes), not 60 episodes and 2 seasons
"Listen fellas, it has been a really tough week. It has been all Tuesdays." -- from _12:01_, a TV movie from 1993
@@q00u Yup, it was released the same year as Groundhog Day. It was based on a short story from 1973 (and a short film from 1990).
Boss Level is a fun version of this trope.
I agree, pretty nice action movie :-)
Only recently discovered that movie; Boss Level (2020).
Boss Level is a totally hilarious version of this plot
I am Guan Yin and Guan Yin has done this!
@@ramigilneas9274 I am Guan Yin, and Guan Yin has done this !
You should do Russian Dolls. The first season is a fascinating take on this concept.
Yeah Russian Doll is one of my favourite stories with this type of plot.
Indeed the second season was all over the place.
Sequels to time loop stories are also interesting. HAPPY DEATH DAY 2 U, the second season of RUSSIAN DOLL-- Are there any others?
@michaelfarrellsmith There's a sequel game to Groundhog Day about the son of the movies main character.
@@makatronI liked that they tried something different with the second season
As someone who (more or less) loved all the movies you mentioned in the video, I (once again more or less) agree with your markings, I definitely don't disagree with them, and am happy with how high they are. They are great. There obviously is more groundhog day-type movies (time loop), which I tend to try and find and watch almost all, because I love the concept.
You definitely chose the ones from top, and maybe even best for if someone finds this video as introduction to this concept and what to watch.
My favorite is:
In Stargate SG-1's "Window of Opportunity" (Season 4, Episode 6), Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c find themselves trapped in a time loop caused by an ancient device activated by a grieving scientist, Malikai. He seeks to rewind time to be with his late wife. As the loop repeats, O'Neill and Teal'c initially struggle to adapt but soon embrace the opportunity to indulge in hilarious and outrageous activities. Eventually, they solve the mystery and convince Malikai to stop the loop, restoring the normal flow of time.
Great episode. It's one of my favorites and I still enjoy it every time I do an SG-1 rewatch. The scenes in the mess hall when O'Neill is first experiencing the time loop get more hilarious every time it resets, and then when Teal'c starts experiencing it and they go off and just have wacky hijinx is just icing on the cake.
His reactions to Daniel's long technobabble every time the loop resets in that mess hall scene just get increasingly unhinged as it goes on. Doesn't he even throw food in Daniel's face at one point? Can't remember now, it's been too long! Might go rewatch that episode now in fact, thanks for mentioning it. I miss that show.
" struggle to adapt" This is my favorite part of GHD-scenarios and sadly underused. At some point, either before or after the shenanigans, a character realizes he cannot achieve what he needs to do. Escape the loop (Stargate), save someone (Steins;Gate, also Edge of tomorrow), change an event. The implication that the character you see has, off screen, maybe tried for dozens, hundreds or even thousand of times to do something and failed, to try and feel the defeat the character experiences in this moment is so powerful.
1:03 in my senior year in high school, one of my teachers had us go through an exercise to calculate just how long he stayed in that time loop. I honestly forgot the actual number, but it’s a lot longer than you think. Just thinking how long it takes someone to not only become proficient at piano, but a master pianist, an expert ice sculptor, perfect fluency in French, knowing every person’s whereabouts throughout the day, etc…it was something like thousands of years when you factor in that you’ll have bouts of lack of motivation. Also, I really liked Palm Springs
Edit: a good follow up to this video would be 5 movies that did the Groundhog Day thing, badly
2nd edit: just got done with the video…this is refreshing. Actual analysis that teaches me something new. No fluff. You got a sub!
I read an interview with the director years ago where he said that Phil was stuck in the time loop for at least 10,000 years.
The writer was inspired by Anne Rice vampires and wondered how depressing and repetitive such a long life might become. So conceptually it was originally very long.
Skills can be learned simultaneously.
Learning French, piano & ice sculpture can occur on the same day, especially if you become a time mgmt professional
@nyeupe-nguvu I never said you couldn’t do them in the same day…but 1) the movie implies he’s learning these things one at a time (the assignment was to calculate how much time Phil specifically stayed in that time loop, not how much time would it take if you try to maximize your time and you had unlimited motivation)…and 2) you say that like that will shorten the time passed before he becomes a master of all of them. It is fairly understood that it’s generally easier to learn and master one skill at a time, rather than trying to learn multiple skills. Unless they’re complementary skills, learning multiple skills at the same time can lead to cognitive overload and make it more difficult to actually retain anything
I think it's at the least possible to learn ice sculpting and French simultaneously. Learning a language vs learning how to carve something are not taxing the same part of your brain. Kids can learn how to play football and study Spanish at the same time. Adults can too, especially if they live in a world with no real responsibilities or consequences to not working a job e@@FrancoDFernando
Prior to the filming of Groundhog Day, there was a movie called "12:01" starring Johnathon Silverman and Helen Slater (of Supergirl fame), along with Martin Landau. Unable to find a box office backer, the film's owners setted for it to be broadcast as a "made-for-tv-movie" and was broadcast by the newly-formed FOX TV Cable channel.
The original short story (called 12:01 PM) was written by Richard Lupoff and appeared in the December 1973 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. After Groundhog Day hit theaters, the writers threatened to sue Columbia Pictures for stealing their idea.
12:01 does seem to be very similar in some ways, but different in other ways. It's sci-fi, but not really a comedy, rather a more serious sci-fi thriller / mystery of sorts. The interesting thing here is that 12;01 predates Groundhog Day rather than following it (as is true of the other compared films in this video). In my opinion, whether Groundhog Day used the plot device from 12:01 or not, 12:01 is definitely worth a watching. Give it a look-see. You'll like it.
Literally came to the comments after watching to recommend (twelve oh one)..! I agree it’s another hidden gem!
Yeah, I recall watching 12:01 as a kid and liking it back then. Didn't know it came before Groundhog Day, though.
Boss Level is also great GHday movie :).
This! I came to this comments section exactly searching for this, and I would do it if I couldn't find it. I remember watching this movie as a kid, and loving it. I think I enjoyed it more than Groundhog Day. I was really surprised to discover later that the movie came BEFORE Groundhog! I don't understand why this movie is so obscure, I never found anyone who has watched it. It's a good movie, I really like the sci-fi approach, and how the character has also to discover WHY and how the looping is happening to be able to stop it.
Yeah, when I was in the army, a sergeant who was really into sci-fi hardcore turned me on to that short story long before Groundhog Day was ever released.
He also told me about the short film version.
I'm sure glad that someone mentioned it!
Best to you-
I came here to either make this comment or find it!
I rented 12:01 as a teenager. I remember really liking it.
There was a short-lived TV show called "Daybreak" starring Taye Diggs. It was the Groundhog Day plot. Taye Diggs is a detective framed for murder and he lives the same day over and over trying to solve the murder. I watched three episodes. Not sure where the show went after that
Even though the show was canceled and they didn’t air all the episodes on TV. The first season was completed, and it did have a conclusion where he was able to escape the time loop.
Daybreak was good. It had basically 3 plots - he cleared himself after 8 episodes, had to resolve another situation for the next 8, and a final season-ending overall story for the last 8, where he also discovers other people experience the loops and he winds up in another one.
I was about to mention this show. I watched the entire show back many years ago and I liked it. It only had 13 episodes. It stopped at a point that made sense. I actually found the DVD and will give it another shot. 😊
Haiku alert 0:52
Bruh 💀
I immediately imagined it in the tone of jacksfilms song
How did you see this on a first glance? 😂
lol
Palm Springs is probably my favourite “Groundhog Day AU” movie. It’s just really fun.
One of the best Time Loops settings i have ever seen is a bit of a obscure fantasy novel/series called Mother of Learning, in which a teenage mage student with quite a lot of flaws, conflicts and toxic behaviours in an early magically-industrializing world is thrust into a month long time loop in which he is not even the main focus of the time loop. And in which he ask himself the "why?, how? and if?" questions and you get a satisfying answer out of them all in the end. Because of the book format and the 30 days long time loop the character and world gets way more fleshed out that in a movie and allows for a better exploration of how everything works and comes from. From the relationships he has with other characters, especially family and schoolmates to the real state of the world after a series of political conflicts, wars and crises have happened not long ago, to how magic weaves and affects the social, economic and political landscape of the world.
Hell yeah! I absolutely loved Mother of Learning too. The month-long loop alone allowed tons of things a single-day loop can't, and that was very well explored by the writer, but on top of that there were so many fascinating stories and characters. It's a truly amazing book.
If we're including fiction in words rather than movies, there's also Hard Reset, a MLP fanfic, which is a bit unusual in that the story continues after the end of the loops and also has that some of the loops spun off into surviving timelines that have to be dealt with. And someone made a (sadly incomplete) elaboration/sequel of it, Reset Harder, which involves nested loops with duelling loopers who don't reset at the same time. And of course there's the Infinite Loops setting.
@@drachefly If you are going that deep you might also enjoy Perfect Run which is kind of like Mother of Learning crossed with Worm.
@@paulvanpraag Yeah, read that one too. It was pretty good! I liked its deviations from the formula, and the multiple significant loops (e.g. Monaco or the first save,vs the main loop)
Great book!
That one Supernatural episode deserves an honorable mention
HEAT OF THE MOMENT 🕺🕺💃💃
There's an excelent Battlestar Galactica episode based on the plot, called something like 33 minutes?
There are so many. I started making a list a while ago:
Groundhog Day 👆
Happy Death Day 👆
Edge of Tomorrow 👆
D.C.'s Legends of Tomorrow 👆
Naked 👆
ARQ 👆
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children 👆
12:01
2:22
Before I Fall 👆
Blood Punch 👆
Haunter 👆
Repeaters
Mine Games
The Incident
Triangle 👆
Source Code 👆
Gravity Falls - The Time Travelers Pig 👆
Doctor Who - Heaven Sent/Hell Bent 👆
When We First Met 👆
Happy Death Day 2U 👆
Futurama-Meanwhile 👆
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things 👆
Boss Level 👆
The Flash-The One with the 90s 👆
Russian Doll
The Simpsons-???
12 Dates of Christmas 👆
Suite Life on Deck-The International Dateline 👆
Another Time (Justin Hartley)
The Fair (2019)
Maanaadu
Time Loop (2020)
Damascus Mountain Time 👆
Loki (Season 2 last 2 episodes) 👆
A Day (2017)
Palm Springs 👆
Premature
Supernatural (Mystery Spot)
Timeshifters
Disasters in Time
Doctor Who (Eve of the Daleks)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Endless Eight arc)
The X-Files (Monday)
Tru Calling (TV series)
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Anime Movie)
TNG (Cause and Effect)
Stargate (Window of Opportunity)
re:zero (Anime)
Sakura Car Captors (Ep. 12 - Sakura's Never-Ending Day/Time and Again | Originally: Sakura no Owara nai Ichinichi)
Adventure Time (Hall of Egress)
Being Erica (Episode #?)
Summertime Rendering
Reset (Chinese TV Show)
Retroactive
The Librarians (S2E8 And the point of Salvation)
Day Break (2006)
Some of this may be iffy
Edit: I add and update this if I've seen them or not with the "👆"s.
Supernatural episode mystery spot
Also Timeshifters, which is mostly a man preventing disasters he has advance warning of from some time travelers, but he does reset his day once to do it right. And another movie called Disasters in Time, where they use a passport to travel around.
Doctor who has another one, called Eve of the daleks
Also what do the fingers mean?
@@Slackow Means I've watched that one.
The infamous "Endless Eight" arc from the anime _The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya_,,,
What about "About Time". A little twist is that he can make himself go backin time at will. However, he is trying to make a day turn out perfectly. Also, the butterfly effect which I also liked.
Groundhog day is my favorite movie and Palm Springs is a top 5. I've never clicked on a TH-cam video so fast! Loved your commentary and just knowing that someone else also admires the plot device. This video was awesome - thanks for making it! :)
There is an excellent Japanese anime called 'RE: ZERO' that is a groundhog day scenario about a high school student who suddenly finds himself in a medieval setting with no explanation as to why he's there. The only thing he knows is that whenever he dies everything is reset from a checkpoint in time that he cannot control. The death scenes get worse and worse
Re:Zero is my favorite of the groundhog day variations because particularly by season 2, the MC goes through so much character growth and really learns life lesson gems that I don't think would have been possible without the groundhog day gimmick.
Man, that sounds like the title of a video game. Heck, it could actually be one too....
Re: Zero does the time loop amazingly but I cannot stand so many of the characters, especially the MC. I really tried to like the anime but I just could not get over it
you have "Skeleton soldier couldn't protect the donjon" with the same premice, with a skeleton rebooting to his "rebirth" each time he is destroyed.
@@osmanyousif7849They actually make a lot of video game parallels in the anime, so that makes sense
You're missing the finest groundhog day every - the Dr Who episode Heaven Sent. The plot device cause isn't explained until the final few minutes, though you see sneak peeks early on. The soul searching is very real and gritty and the montage near the end showing his repeated loops is heartbreaking when you discover he's been in the loop for possibly as long as a billion years suffereing an agonizing drawn out death each couple of days. The way he gets out of it, while attempting to tell an allegorical story that each time gets closer and closer to being finished, is a master class in writing.
Wasn’t I four billion years?
4.5 billion years
I want one that's realistic. We know rita only gets to reject phil so many times before he takes her by force and show the time he kills and eats larry. No more pg time loops
@@Stockhandle123 crazy that you're telling on yourself like this
@@bardeenios251 Fr, he needs to be on all the lists!!
I only clicked on this video because I loved Palm Springs so much. Such a great movie! Also, apparently there was a version of the Groundhog Day script that included scenes explaining why the loop happened, and it was a jilted ex who put a voodoo curse on Phil. Thank god someone decided it was much better without any explanation.
Most wholesome conclusion of any interpretative video I have ever seen
Bravo man, your brain is awesome, I love it
Groundhog Day holds a special place in my heart. One of my high-school teachers loved it and fkund a way to wedge it into like every class he taught. I'm pretty sure I watched it in class at least 3 times throughout high-school. It was maybe relevant to the class for one of those times. Good times.
One thing you got wrong about Palm Springs, the lesson and personal development and escape comes from Sarah. She breaks through to Niles and gets him to leave, but all the growing and learning and escape all come from Sarah who wants to be better than she was, goes nuts Niles style, then becomes better and learns and grows and becomes a better more functional person and Niles comes through passively through following in Sarah’s wake after first introducing her to the loop and how it works.
He’s Yoda not Luke, but the movie focuses on him because Andy Samberg is watchable and a primary force of funny.
You gotta watch Happy Death Day 2 U! It takes the sci-fi to a new level and if you didn’t laugh much at the first one then you’ll definitely laugh more at the second one. It also answers a couple of those questions. I also hoped beyond hope that you would somehow review the circa 2007~ Nickelodeon film about a kid stuck in the last day of summer
I wasn't interested in the sequel but you convinced me to give it a try:)
@davescripted3796 I know I didn't like the first one when everyone did but the sequel I actually thought was solid and funny.
I also enjoyed the sequel more than the original.
The Day after Tomorrow is one of my favourite movies. Emily Blunt is stunning, and the plot is really thrilling.
I hadn't seen Groundhog Day until a couple of months ago. I saw it with the family and everyone loved it. Two very different films, but both use the plot device perfectly.
A TV show rather than a movie, but Day Break, starring Taye Diggs, is a stunningly good Groundhog Day setup. One thing I loved about it was that every time I thought I'd spotted either a continuity error or something that the writers had missed - no, no, that was deliberate. Only thing wrong with it is that it clearly had a "season" plot and a "series" plot, but wasn't renewed so there was clearly more to discover that went unrevealed. Still, highly recommended.
This show didn't get the recognition it deserved. They set it up poorly though, it should have been a one season show with a nice wrapped up ending, but like you said they tried to extend it for multiple seasons and thus we never got a real conclusion. It's a shame, because what we did get was awesome.
I did like things in it like, a background character in episode 1 or 2 turns out to be key to resolving things in episode 6 or 7
Thank you for turning me onto Palm Springs. I'm watching it now, and having a blast
It's genuinely hilarious!
Run Lola Run from 1998 is another great time loop movie. It's a more philosophical take on the concept since Lola's influence on the loops is limited and left to interpretation. And it has this fast paced 90s music video vibe
I forgot about that! All I remember is the roulette scene where she screams which I though was hilarious. Gotta watch it again;-)
That wasn't time loop film or Groundhog Day type plot.
It was simply a What-if story like Sliding Doors (1998) where the protagonist has no knowledge of any previous life.
@@raymondtan2415 it's open to interpretation; Time loop, alternate universes, just an idea, butterfly effect, chance, destiny, will.. . She seems to remember some stuff from previous runs like how to use a gun at one point etc. which could indicate groundhog mechanics.
@@raymondtan2415 It's implied that she does have some knowledge of previous loops. She learns a skill first time around which she applies in the next loop (although it comes across as instinct rather than a conscious memory). There are also other hints in the movie that she's able to manipulate space and time (the screaming in the casino, the line by Mani "Lola gets what Lola wants" and the fact that she appears to choose to loop at the end of the first go around.
It's quite a bit different than the others in that there's no montage rapid timeloop cuts. You get 3x 20 minute loops filmed in realtime (each loop lasts 20 minutes),
@@davescripted3796 - I'd say that you had missed quite many good and/or interesting variations from the list of works with time loops.
I found some new ones to watch in comments and the Wikipedia list. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_time_loops )
Have youe ver seen 12:01? It's on youtube. A dude's day resets every day at 12:01am and has to find a way to prevent the death of a co worker he has a crush on. Pretty good film :)
I love that movie from my childhood!
I saw part of it when I was maybe 9 and looked for it for years. I think I only found it on youtube earlier this year, was very pleased to see it properly again :)
I came here to make sure somebody mentioned this. I was surprised that the video did not mention it. 12:01 is top notch, as far as time loop movies go.
I here just to check if he mentions 12:01 and he didn't. Thanks!
It's also based on a 1973 short story and came out the same year as Groundhog Day. It's a TV movie and has its flaws but still worth a watch.
The war wasn't closed the humans were being completely demolished the won one battle
The aliens were ridiculously successful and we don't know if there are different kinds of aliens at the top of the alien hierarchy
Good take. I am a fan of the repeat trope and of all the movies. It gives me good feelings, like I can’t mess my life up too bad that I can’t come back from it, and there is always time to become a better person.
Groundhog day wins obviously, and while Death Day is good and a nice horror movie plot update. Live Die Repeat is not bad. I think the 12days of Christmas movies (not a franchise and all typically with similar titles) do a good job as well and tend to be some of my favorite Christmas movies. Back to GHD it is fantastic that you have no clue how many days Bill Murray relived and wondering how many times he just woke up and ended it.
I'd highly recommend you check out Primer (2004). It's not actually a Groundhog Day like film, but the time-travel mechanism does allow for people to repeat loops, overlap loops, and have loops inside other loops. It also doesn't hold the viewer's hand; if you don't pay attention, the film doesn't care if you miss the reveal. This may help explain why the film is so unknown, although the fact that it cost $7000 to make is also a big part of that.
I love Primer.
I love time travel movies and books but I think Primer is a little too complicated for its own good.
Wish you had included Map of Tiny Perfect Things, which came out around the same time as Palm Springs. It has the unique quality of having a character that wants to change and one that doesn't. It used the mechanic to such a wonderful effect, even if the movie itself is a little more juvenile in its intended audience.
There is a book called Mother of Learning which takes the time loop concept and applies it to a month. Its in a world with magic (sort of groundhog day meets harry potter) but they are able to take the concept really far in terms of what the character does with the ability
Death spell that exists outside of time and kills anything for all future time loops was a great way to keep the stakes high
If you are looking for other examples in literature, I would say "Perfect Run" is a great one to look at as well.
This is a great book indeed! Loved it!
Omg mother of learning mention in the wild
Book? Holy moly!
it's come so far now?
I remember reading it as it was still being written chapter by chapter each month. Im so proud of Nobody103
Missed out on Boss Level. That's the best timeloop movie ever made
Sad I didn’t see anything about Outer Wilds here. Easily the best utilization of the Time Loop concept from a player perspective. The fact that the entire game is open to you from the minute you start, and the only thing limiting you from progressing is your knowledge, is actually the most phenomenal game mechanic I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the story about life, death, and the things we have to give up or risk for things to get better is just amazing storytelling. You should def check it out if you haven’t.
Did you miss the word MOVIE in the title? 😛
Agreed with everything you said about Palm Springs. The reason for the time loop is weird but I think they felt they needed to set themselves appart from Groundhog Day and needed a "practical reason". Not the best but it's fine.
I love the repeating day plot device. Some lower quality examples, but still fun because the plot device is fun: 12:01, a Jonathan Silverman TV Movie from the early 90s. Boss Level, a covid era movie released on Hulu that treats the repeating day like a video game. There was a Disney Christmas special with a segment where Huey, Dewey, and Louie repeat Christmas until they're sick of it.
12:01 was brilliant
@@101wildgoose I always liked it. I had a VHS copy I watched many times. Very funny. My one complaint is it seemed like he only repeated the days maybe 10 times (at least that was the impression it gave), and that wasn't enough to master the situation like other films.
would love to see you do this with some tv episodes. There's many but i can think of Buffy, Supernatural, Magicians, Phineas and Ferb, Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow, Star Trek Next Generation, Doctor Who, X-files, and Agents of Shield off the top of my head. Russian Doll also counts but that's a whole series? so that might be too much.
time loop fiction is probably my favorite trope of all time so it was next to see this in my reccomended. great video!
Loved the Buffy and X-Files episodes
Add The Librarians S2E8 "And the Point of Salvation"
I remember watching 'Christmas Every Day' long time ago. It was about a teenager who was reliving Christmas Day. Back then I like quite a lot, but I do not know whether I would like it now.
One more time is a recent Netflix movie that combines the ground hog dy plot with timetravel. As Amelia turns 40 she reminices about her 18th birthday and has to relive it in a timeloop. It's a pretty cute film and a real throwback to 2002!
Map of Tiny Perfect Things. Really lightheaded simple fun movie.
X-Files, Supernatural, Stargate SG-1, Farscape and Star Trek TNG have time loop episodes. Any thoughts of doing those as a follow up?
TNG even did a year before Groundhog Day!
@ I didn’t realize that, good call!
Also "Xena - battle queen"
@@SetShadows
Yes! Can't leave out 'Been There, Done That' from the list.
Finally someone mentions Stargate. It was the absolute most amazing funniest episode of the whole show and probably my favorite time loop ever on screen
please review a map of tiny perfect things! its two people who get stuck in a time loop but the don't know each other when it happens, they find each other. it's super cute.
The film Momento also came to mind. It uses the device of repetition but this time in absence of memory, kind of like flipping Groundhog Day on its head.
Great video! I would only add that the reason for the time loop in Happy Death Day is actually explained in the sequel, which is also fairly good, in the same sense.
There are so many more time loop movies missing from your list, one that I really recommend is "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" on Amazon Prime. Triangle was also one that I really enjoyed.
I second Triangle!!!
I'm surprised how far down the comments I had to go to find "Triangle". By far my favorite time loop movie and actually one of my favorite movies period. Also, if you enjoyed Triangle, check out Time Crimes, which likely inspired Triangle.
50 first dates should count too. Except the premise is one character is stuck in a loop and everyone else moves forward.
@@justinamfieldsr it's not a loop though since she actually does get older and her life does change even though she doesn't remember it.
@justinamfieldsr At first, I thought of 50 First Dates as a kind of reverse Ground Hog day, but then I thought if that counts, then Memento should count too; but sadly, no, they are a different concept altogether.
So glad I'm not the only thinking about The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things. One of my favorite movies.
I find it hard to believe that he didnt spend a lot more time in the video covering what is one of the most genuinely introspective takes on the Groundhog Day theme. And its self-awareness ("Isnt there a Bill Murray movie about that?") is the perfect antidote to the reaction that all the other ones give me:
Oh no ... not this plot gimmick again!
@@k-matsu Exactly. It's genuinely really good and refreshing. Really makes me think about life and how easy it is to forget how to live. Palm Springs also tackled that idea, but I think The Map expanded it even further with Margo's storyline. It's so sad. By the way to be fair, Happy Death Day also referenced it, but I see your point. Lol. It's like a one trick pony. It needs something new to keep it fresh and engaging.
Groundhog Day is one of those movies that could have missed the mark completely. Instead it was so much more. Great video, thanks!
great explanation for OG groundhog day ❤
One thing that I found interesting that somebody said, The piano teacher...
If she only saw one day's worth of improvement, why was she so excited that he was so amazing on the piano in the party scene?
From her perspective, in that day, would have went from great to Great.
So the conclusion was, she was in the time loop but all she cared about was teaching somebody. She could escape her time loop by helping him.
you should re-watch source code because its not a memory at all. It's a different alternate reality so every time he fails he really does get all those people dead in that dimension
True, however I suspect Dave wanted to avoid the major spoilers. The initial perspective is that he is simply experiencing memories, however it is only at the very end that we find out about the alternate dimensions.
Yea you should edit and put 'Spoilers' first...altho I saw it and dont care much ab spoilers other people do 😅
The TV series Supernatural also had a really interesting take on The Groundhog Day plot. In fact, I'd argue it's a top ten episode of the series. The episode's called Mystery Spot.
To give some context for those who have not seen the show: Sam and Dean Winchesters are brothers and the main characters. They hunt monsters. Spoilers for season 1-3 ahead. Dean has sold his soul to Hell, and only has a year to live. That's all the background info needed.
We see the episode through Sam's eyes. The two brothers find a case involving some strangeness around a Mystery Spot, one of those lazy tourist attractions that's only there to make money. When they first go to explore The Mystery Spot, Dean is killed. Then a moment later, Sam awakes and begins the day anew. That's the essential cycle of the day. Sam has to relive the same day again and again, and Dean keeps dying in increasingly comic ways. He's shot, chopped by an ax, driven over by a car, a piano falls on him, he chokes on his food, and he even slips in the shower one time. No matter what Sam does, Dean always ends up dying and the day resets.
They figure out that a powerful demigod is behind this, and with one singular purpose. He's pushing Sam to accept the fact that his brother will inevitably die. They kill this Demigod, and all seems well. Until the day after, where Dean once again dies. Only this time, the day doesn't reset. Sam is left all alone, and with the realization that the demigod isn't dead. We get a montage of the next several months, where Sam sinks deeper into his depression and loss, seeking out the demigod that did this. He does succeed in the end, and is brought back to the day that started it all. Dean's alive. But Sam has learned what will happen when his brother dies.
It's an incredibly funny episode, with some very hard-hitting moments mingled throughout. I consider it one of the best takes on this trope. I'd seriously recommend watching the episode. It's better to watch it after seeing all prior episodes, but I'd argue it even works as a standalone.
Anyway! I just wanted to share.
Supernatural at it's best was excellent. The series kinda overstays it's welcome during the last few seasons though, which is unfortunately typical for many long-running TV series.
You could make a compilation like this also for movies with the “solve your own murder” plots. Happy Death Day, DOA, etc.
I would love to experience being stuck in a Groundhog Day loop as long as I could decide when it would end.
Groundhog Day was filmed in Woodstock, IL.
Somehow, I saw the movie "12:01" (starring Jonathan Silverman) before seeing Groundhog Day. So it's my personal favorite, as it introduced me to the 'same day repeating' trope. (Not twelve minutes and one second into this video; the movie's title is "12:01" lol)
Yeah I really liked 12:01. My dad loves it as well.
Same here. I saw it way before Groundhog Day, it was the first time I was introduced to the concept. And it's probably my favorite also.
2:20 I love Source Code. It’s an awesome movie that delves into Quantum Mechanics & the Multi-World Interpretation.
More realistic
Stargate SG1 Window of Opportunity was the best version of Groundhog Day ever.
was looking exactly for this comment :)
That was such a great episode, I still want to know just what the hell Daniel was talking about lol
@@abigailslade3824 Daniel was telling Jack how much he hates MacGyver.
@ lol
The remake obviously
The fact that he learned to play the piano, learn a language, and all the other things he learned that well make me think he repeated the same day 1000s of times.
Absolute banger of an essay. Pacing, writing, everything was on point. 👍
Edge of Tomorrow is a fantastic pop corn flick and while all these except Death Day are great, I feel like you've criminally underrated it.
Enjoyed the video! If you do a follow up, please include the movie “Before I Fall”! It has a groundhog mechanic but breaks some of the patterns that are found in all these others I think. And it’s emotional and deep even though it’s about a high school girl
Thx I'll check it out:-)
I was hoping someone would say this. Real gem of a film.
Emotional - yes. Deep - no.
4:16 "The greater good!"
Yarp.
This such a nice discussion - thanks! I think I've seen "Happy Death Day" - the clips looked vaguely familiar. Haven't seen any of the others, but am intrigued to now, especially "Palm Springs".
I'd add a couple of cents to your lovely review and analysis of "Ground Hog Day": I think that Rita is the one who finally prompts Phil in the right direction. Three key moments point me here:
Phil has a throw away line that is important in the first rejection scene with Rita: "I don't even like myself".
In the second scene at the hotel room, Phil confesses that the worst part of having spent this open, persuasive time with Rita is her forgetting all about it next time, and that she'll go back to treating him like a jerk because, he admits, he is a jerk. And then, in this same sequence, Rita is the one to suggest that maybe Phil isn't under a curse but a blessing.
The last night, Phil says (paraphrasing) "No matter what happens tomorrow, I'm happy now." When Rita also says she's happy, it begins to snow, and Phil notices. Being happy, truly happy, meaning there's an internal reservoir of energy to keep him afloat, without losing who he is, breaks the spell.
My friend got me to watch an anime that had a similar premise to groundhog day, called Re:Zero. The only difference is that instead of repeating the same day every day, he actually gets checkpoints if he manages to survive. The first "day" is spent dying over and over until he manages to figure out how to save himself and all his friends, and then he progresses to the next day.
Whenever action isn't happening in the show, he spends his downtime completely normally, since only his own death sets him back. In that sense, it's more like a video game checkpoint system rather than a time loop, but that's also sort of how Edge of Tomorrow works, so it's still relevant.
It's absolutely insane how much trauma the guy goes through though. Since it's animated, they don't hold back from showing overt gore. He sees his closest friends get crushed, ripped apart, vaporized, literally erased from existence, mangled, crumpled up, and cut apart over and over again, until he manages to get the one in a million chance to prevent all of their deaths entirely. What's fascinating is how the whole checkpoint system ties into it. The show doesn't feel too tense until you realize that a checkpoint could get set after he messes up, and he then loses the capability to fix that mistake, since it's now set in stone.
I’m sorry for this completely unrelated topic, but is there any chance you could let me know what font you used in the screen at 14:37? Been looking for this font for a long time!
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, absolutely did it best. I'll die and respawn a million times on this hill.
It really is an amazing movie. The kind of movie you feel like watching when you just finished watching it! Lol
I wanted to like it, but didn't, and watched it twice to figure out why.
Answer: It was infected with modern feminism. (Insufferable) Girl don't need no Boy, (and certainly doesn't deserve him), but the chump somehow falls for her anyway. Why? Who knows?
Aside from finally developing enough spine to face reality, she doesn't grow as a person or learn or care that other people have feelings.
It could have been a good film, but.., the creators were infected by the mind virus, or some subspecies of it.
Agreed! Love the way they're sort of putting a twist to the story. It's a lovely coming-of-age movie.
Not a perfect Groundhog Day fit but The Triangle is a mind bending time loop movie.
I agree. Unlike the other movies where we see the restarts, triangle shows the entire loop and we get to infer it has been going on for a long time with the same person.
Although this was a TV series episode rather than a movie, Stargate SG-1 had a Groundhog Day episode that I thought was really good.
They had an in-universe explanation for why it was happening, and they went through all the stages from being confused, to panic, to giving up, to trying to solve it. And best of all, a lot of elements in it were played for laughs and let them do things in the series they couldn't do otherwise like Jack kissing Carter and just generally silliness. And I think this plot device works well for silly because the premise itself IS silly.
I love seeing that someone made a video about the ‘Groundhog Day’ plot device, and enjoy the conversation going on. I was disappointed that my second favorite Groundhog Day style movie wasn’t included, ‘Happy Death Day 2U’. Sounds like you intend to watch it, but I was amazed how they essentially made a sequel that takes place immediately after the original yet is a very different genre and with a different tone to the film. I see a lot of comments about Russian Doll, and the various episodes of Sci-Fi shows that tackle this (I enjoyed Legends of Tomorrow’s take), but I honestly think there is one piece of media that did ‘Groundhog Day’ better than Groundhog Day - the video game the Outer Wilds. It’s such a creative approach to the mechanic (amusingly from the actor that played the time traveler Hiro from ‘Heroes’). I’m not a big fan of VR, but the Groundhog Day video game also is worth a look if you expand to other media.