"Cassandra in Greek legend, you recall, was condemned to know the future but to be disbelieved when she foretold it. Hence the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it."
The major part i love about this film is the never ending loop of it all, if the virus is never stopped then it is possible that James Cole could be trapped for ever in a loop that he can't escape from... of course we are supposed to believe at the end that james has actually got the message to the future and that the pure virus will be gotten hold of by the future scientists... (the woman next to the bad guy in the plane ;) ...but i prefer to think about how the loop of the same brain witnessing its own death changes itself to become the person who is then the one who is killed and witnessed by its younger self.
I love symbolism and anything that symbolises infinity and recursion (circles and lines). so i love the logo of the twelve monkeys - it shows well the never ending trail of us humans following each other into infinity / our mortal end... it is also depicts that there is no real leader - no one who really knows what is right to do - we are all just as lost as each other. but the logo in itself also shows a monkey breaking away, being free from the trap of life. which is an extremely difficult thing to do, but has always been an dream of mine to not be tied down by all this world that we've built up around us. To actually achieve that tho you do have to turn against and give up everything and everyone you have ever known. Which is an extremely lonely thing, unless of course you can find someone to do it with you... (grin)
I have always been fascinated by the subject of time, past and present... and for a film "Twelve Monkeys" handles it extremely well - it doesn't show a man going back in time to prevent a tragedy as many other films have done previously - instead it shows him getting information to the people who have survived the tragedy and helping them to change the state of life in the future. Which i think is a much more conceivincable idea.
"There's the television. It's all right there - all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We're not productive anymore. We don't make things anymore. It's all automated. What are we *for* then? We're consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally *ill*. Fact, Jim, fact - if you don't buy things - toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, servo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers... "