How does the time reset actually work? Why are they called "mimics"? Here are the answers to your biggest questions about "Edge of Tomorrow".
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00:00How does the time reset actually work? Why are they called Mimics? Here are the answers
00:05to your biggest questions about Edge of Tomorrow.
00:08In the film's opening montage, we learn that a meteor has crashed to Earth, bringing with
00:12it an invasive extraterrestrial species that humans call Mimics. They've been spreading
00:17across Europe for years, easily overcoming all conventional military defenses. To combat
00:22this alien menace, the world's governments join together to form the United Defense Force,
00:27or UDF, and begin manufacturing suits of powered armor for their infantry.
00:31When the UDF has their first victory at the Battle of Verdun, the belief is that the new
00:35mech suits have proven their worth. After all, Sgt. Rita Vertasky was able to use one
00:39to perform incredible and daring feats despite limited experience, proving that anyone with
00:44minimal training can operate one efficiently.
00:46With the new jacket technology and limited amount of training, we've been able to create
00:50super soldiers.
00:51In actuality, Rita's apparently instant mastery of the armor and the battlefield were the
00:56result of her ability to repeat any day in which she dies, giving her unlimited replays
01:00of any deadly scenario. Since the UDF is unaware of this and refuse to believe it in any of
01:05Rita's previous lives, they move forward confidently with an aggressive invasion of France, Operation
01:11Downfall. However, Rita and her ally, Dr. Carter, suspect there's still another layer
01:15to the Battle of Verdun. They believe that the Mimics eventually allowed the UDF to win
01:20at Verdun in order to lend them a false sense of confidence, prompting an all-out assault
01:25that would allow the Mimics to annihilate the UDF in a single stroke. It's also possible
01:29that the Mimics accepted the result of the Battle of Verdun that ended with Rita losing
01:33her ability to reset, deciding that this was victory enough.
01:38Throughout the story of Edge of Tomorrow, the shapeshifting alien menace that's conquering
01:42Earth is always referred to as the Mimics. It's a cool-sounding name that helps to uniquify
01:47the film's villain, avoiding the constant reuse of the words alien or enemy. However,
01:52although the Mimics do look and move in a strange, ever-changing way, it's never exactly
01:57clear who or what it is they're mimicking. To find an answer to this question, you'd
02:02have to go back to the source material, the light novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi
02:07Sakurazaka. There, it's explained that the aliens based their earthly shape on the first
02:12lifeform they encountered after crash-landing on our planet, a starfish. This idea isn't
02:17really represented in the film, with the Mimics receiving a totally original design that doesn't
02:22map easily onto anything in our animal kingdom.
02:24Their forms are constantly changing, their metallic tentacles forming into legs or sharp
02:29spikes or unraveling so they can rest flat in the dirt beneath their prey. Since the
02:35Mimics' bodies are incredibly fast and perpetually reshaping themselves, the audience rarely
02:40gets a good, long look at them. Ironically, this makes them one of the more interesting
02:45and memorable alien designs in recent memory, since we get an idea as to what they look
02:49like but would struggle to describe them to another person. Starfish doesn't really
02:54cut it, and neither does any other comparison. Mimic will have to do.
02:58When Cage rescues Sergeant Rita Votrasky on the battlefield, demonstrating a clear foreknowledge
03:03of the dangers around them, Rita realizes that he must be on a time loop.
03:07"...find me when you wake up!"
03:09In his next life, Cage finds Rita and learns that, months earlier, she also absorbed the
03:15blood of an Alpha Mimic, gaining the ability to start the day over upon her death. However,
03:19she lost that ability on her last loop, during which she managed to win the Battle of Verdun
03:24but also suffered serious non-lethal blood loss. When she received a transfusion of new
03:29normal blood, she lost the ability to reset the day. Upon hearing this, we can't help
03:34but ask one logical question. How can Rita possibly know that she no longer resets time
03:39when she dies, unless she died and didn't come back? This, unfortunately, is something
03:44the viewer simply has to accept in order for the movie to work. To patch up this potential
03:48plot hole, we're forced to accept that Rita, and a later Cage, can simply feel that their
03:52ability to reset time is gone.
03:55We see it happen to Cage after he suffers his own similar injury and blood transfusion
03:59in the final loop of the film. Is it beyond belief that Mimic Alphas would have such a
04:04sixth sense that allows them to know whether or not they're detached from the time stream?
04:08Not entirely. One can imagine that such an instinct might have evolved within Mimics
04:12in order to alert an Alpha that it's lost its metaphysical save state. Still, it's certainly
04:17convenient for our heroes and for the audience.
04:20Dr. Carter does a pretty solid job of explaining the mechanics of Edge of Tomorrow's time travel
04:25during his initial meeting with Cage. While most Mimics are of the animalistic soldier
04:29variety, there are two special kinds of Mimic that, together, give them their unique advantage
04:34over humanity. Their movements are governed by a massive Omega Mimic, a strange and stationary
04:40creature with the power to skip backwards in time by about one day. However, the Omega
04:45can only do this when its counterpart, the Alpha Mimic, is killed. This is basically
04:49a defensive reflex. While the Omega remains hidden, the Alpha goes into battle. If the
04:54Alpha is killed, that means a battle has not gone as well as possible and should be attempted
04:59again, with the benefit of this experience.
05:01In short, the Mimics are save-scumming the war for Earth. When Cage is infused with the
05:06Alpha's blood on the battlefield, he acquires the Alpha's ability to trigger the Omega's
05:10time reset. The Omega is still the one altering time, but its reflex is kicked every time
05:16Cage dies, instead of when the Alpha dies. Cage gets the added benefit of countless replays
05:21and accumulated experience, giving him an advantage in battle. Like Rita before him,
05:26Cage only loses this power once enough of his blood has been replaced.
05:31Because the Mimic's activities and motivations are kept a mystery from the audience, we never
05:35definitively learn what effect Cage's blood infusion has on the Mimic's own abilities.
05:40Whether or not the Alpha's death would still trigger a time reset while Cage has the power
05:45is never totally clear, since we don't see an Alpha killed between the first and final
05:50versions of Operation Downfall. However, since the Mimic's behavior remains predictable in
05:55the time loop, we can safely assume that they're not retaining knowledge from each reset.
06:00The only changing factor is Cage's psychic visions from the Omega, which grow stronger
06:05after each loop. This is how the Mimics eventually figure out that Cage has become the new reset
06:10trigger, setting a trap for him with a fake vision of the Omega's location. In this loop,
06:15the Mimic Alpha corners Cage and deliberately keeps him from killing himself, apparently
06:20trying to capture him alive so as not to lose this progress. Cage manages to reset anyway,
06:26and the Mimics never seem to pay special attention to him again. This implies that they only
06:30know of his unique nature on loops in which he gives it away.
06:35Before their final charge towards the Omega during their final loop, Rita and Cage share
06:39a brief moment during which Rita commends Cage on his bravery during their work together.
06:44Just before charging into battle, Rita kisses Cage on the lips, saying that she wishes she'd
06:49gotten to know him better. It's not totally unreasonable to think that Rita might just
06:53want a last kiss before dying, especially when the available, willing partner is a fellow
06:58soldier who looks like Tom Cruise. However, the moment rings a little false when you consider
07:03that while Cage has known Rita for years through the repetition of the time loop, Rita
07:07has only known Cage for about a day and a half. True, there have been loops during which
07:11Cage and Rita have grown close over the course of a long road trip, but even then, Rita remains
07:15an emotionally guarded person who hesitates to let herself feel for Cage. Because each
07:20loop implies the repetition of some, but not all, of the routines that Cage and Rita follow
07:25on their usual paths, we actually don't see very much of Cage and this version of Rita.
07:30So this is one of the reasons why the kiss raises some eyebrows. In an essay for The
07:35Wire, film critic Esther Zuckerman described the last-second romantic twist to be a betrayal
07:40of the character for the sake of offering Cage a reward for his personal growth over
07:44the course of the film. Indeed, the moment plays as if it's more about demonstrating
07:48that Cage is no longer the loathsome, unlovable weasel that we meet at the start of the film
07:54than it is about Rita learning to trust again.
07:57As previously mentioned, the film is based on a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka entitled
08:01All You Need Is Kill. According to an interview with Variety, Warner Bros. president of marketing
08:06Sue Kroll found that audiences were put off by movies with the word kill in the title,
08:10leading to the project's rebranding. Director Doug Liman, on the other hand, later told
08:14Den of Geek that the film was renamed to accommodate the film's tone, which is significantly lighter
08:19than that of the source material. He suggested that the film be renamed Live, Die, Repeat
08:24instead. Someone at Warner Bros. wasn't fond of this title and bequeathed the project the
08:29more generic-sounding title Edge of Tomorrow against Liman's objections. Live, Die, Repeat
08:34was used as a tagline for the movie instead. Liman feels that this contributed to the film
08:39underperforming at the box office despite critical acclaim.
08:43Someone must have listened, because when the movie was released on home video months later,
08:47Live, Die, Repeat was suddenly the larger print on the box, and digital marketplaces
08:52listed the full title as Live, Die, Repeat, Edge of Tomorrow. Depending on when you purchased
08:57a physical copy of the movie, it may feature the two titles in a different order. Doug
09:01Liman said that the sequel's working title is Live, Die, Repeat, Repeat, and that its
09:06release would canonize Live, Die, Repeat as the title of the first film.
09:10What took you so long?
09:12Once Cage has lost the ability to reset time, he and Rita lead a suicide mission to destroy
09:18the Omega, which is hidden under the Louvre Museum in Paris. Their mission is successful,
09:22as Cage is able to drop a belt of live grenades into the Omega's mouth. Cage and the Alpha
09:27are caught in the blast as well, and it appears that Cage lives long enough to absorb some
09:32of their blood. Then, he wakes up at an earlier point in the timeline than he's accustomed
09:36to, before his disgraceful demotion to Private, and learns that the Mimics have lost their
09:42capacity to fight the war. Instead of a bloody trench battle, Operation Downfall will now
09:46be met with minimal resistance from the extraterrestrial menace.
09:50This seems awfully convenient for Cage, who has now saved not only the world, but his
09:55own career and reputation. The film didn't give us a clear explanation as to why this
09:59has happened, but we can extrapolate one from the logic of the film. It may be that Cage
10:03absorbing the Omega's blood has a different effect than just absorbing the Alpha's, giving
10:09him more control over the time stream than he had as merely the trigger for the reset.
10:13He may have instinctively selected a moment in time to return to that would put him in
10:17the best possible position. Co-screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie promised in a since-deleted
10:22tweet that the sequel will concretely answer this question.
10:25"...I'll see you tomorrow."
10:27Arguably one of the biggest points of confusion surrounding Edge of Tomorrow was why it wasn't
10:32really considered a hit. Before the film was even released, the press was already prepared
10:37to write off Edge of Tomorrow as a flop. Whether this is the fault of the generic-sounding
10:41title or the marketing campaign's failure to convey the high concept is still up for
10:45debate. In any case, Edge of Tomorrow opened at number three at the box office, losing
10:50The Weeknd to the tear-jerking romance The Fault in Our Stars and the live-action Disney
10:55fantasy Maleficent. The film grossed about $100 million at the U.S. box office and another
11:00$270 million overseas, but its reported budget was $178 million.
11:06It's also worth noting that projecting Edge of Tomorrow to be a failure fit into a popular
11:10narrative that Tom Cruise's star was fading in the United States. His previous three films,
11:15Oblivion, Jack Reacher, and Rock of Ages were all considered to have underperformed domestically,
11:21so it's possible that the atmosphere around the film's release was already poisoned.