Script Analysis: “Looper” — Scene By Scene Breakdown

Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

Today: Looper (2012). You may download the script here.

Written and directed by Rian Johnson.

IMDb plot summary: In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent into the past, where a hired gun awaits — someone like Joe — who one day learns the mob wants to ‘close the loop’ by sending back Joe’s future self for assassination.

Looper
Scene-by-scene breakdown
By Michael Perkins
GoIntoTheStory.com

A few notes — There are two extra scenes in the screenplay that were edited out of the final film. The film also changes the order of one or two scenes. The order below reflects the final film — although the page numbers will give a clue as to which scenes were rearranged. 47 scenes in the movie, 49 in the screenplay.

1–2: Joe kills a guy. VO explaining time travel, Loopers. Disposes of the body. Collects his silver.

2: Joe in the diner — bonjour Joe, bonjour beatrix (set up of the diner and the waitresses name).

2–3: Goes to turn his silver into cash. He gives two bars. The Looper behind him gives 4 (insight into Joe’s character, set up)

3: Joe in his apartment studying French, getting dressed, uncovering his car, see more of the world as he drives. School bus broken down. Someone steals a bag and gets shot (world building and seeing Joe in his natural state).

4–5: Seth at the side of the road with his broken bike, aggressive with a homeless guy. Walk around the bike, AROUND. Joe pulls up. They drive together to the belle. Intro slap bike, and the TK mutation (more set up).

5–6: It’s like this whole town — big heads, small potatoes. Joe and Seth pull up. Get let in the back. Joe sees Suzy in the back. Understand Joe likes her, and that she is a hooker/dancer (more insight into Joe’s character and the world).

7–8: Another Looper CLOSED his LOOP, talking to Abe — the concept of closing the loop is explained. Doesn’t attract the most forward thinking people. We celebrating? (Major set-up).

9–10: They celebrate. Eye drug. Clubbing. Driving. Shows us the lifestyle of the Loopers. Almost hits a kid. Joe sees himself in the kid. Joe and Seth talk about planning for the future. Foreshadow not having enough and needing to keep criming it up.

11–12, 25: Day in the life montage — see Joe kill lots of guys, diner, clubs, 4th loop closed this month? More kills, more silver, more drugs, more closed loops. Joe is unnerved. Emphasized again that he only claims 2 of his bars while everyone else takes 4.

13–16: Joe is in his apartment — knock on the window. It’s Seth. Explains that he LET HIS LOOP RUN. We see from their convo that it’s really bad. Hear about the RAINMAKER. Ends with Gat men coming for Seth. Joe hides Seth and goes to meet with Abe.

17–18: Joe and Kid Blue chat while they wait for Abe — blunderbuss vs. GAT. Intro to kid blue. Tension between the two, Joe being cool. Blue being not. Ends with door in the head. Great tension in this scene and great introduction to their relationship that drives Kid Blue’s antagonism.

18–21: Abe and Joe — Abe is from the future. Learn about Joe’s plans. Learn about what’s important to Joe (his plans/silver over Seth). Backstory Abe recruiting Joe, youngest looper, Joe rolled a watch shop. See the BAD VERSION OF YOUR LIFE — foreshadowing the rainmaker. TWO PATHS. Joe gives up seth to “keep what’s his” (a driving motivation for Joe at the start. A representation of his selfishness and the starting point for his character arc). .

23–25: Call the DOC — older seth tries to run. Realizes they are torturing and maiming his younger self. He tries to get back to the address in time. Most horrifying scene ever as his limbs start disappearing. Establishes just how bad this is, and just what is at stake if a looper lets this happen.

21–22: Joe and Suzy — backstory for Joe (can’t remember my mother’s face) — another link to the rainmaker (mom). Joe is having a tough time. Just let his best friend get killed for silver. Joe wants to give Suzy some money to raise her kid. Silvers got strings. I got my job. Why don’t we just stick to services rendered. She looks at the clock.

23: Joe goes back to his place — makes sure his silver is all there. One bar is out of place. And there is a tiny bit of blood on it (great visual story telling in this scene).

26: Another day another assassination — this one is late. Bruce Willis — Joe hesitates. He shoots but hits the gold on Older Joe’s back. Older Joe knocks him unconscious.

26–28: He wakes up with a note on his back that says run, get out of town. Younger Joe goes back to his apartment. He crushes his phone. Gets to his place and sees that they are taking all of his silver. Kid blue and the gat men. He knocks kid blue in the safe. Crushes his hand (creates more antagonism between the two). Joe says he is going to find him and kill him. While trying to escape the gat man, he falls off the ladder and is knocked out.

29: Another day another assassination part 2 — this one is late, but not by as much. The man shows up with a bag on his head. It’s a golden payday. Joe just closed his loop.

29–32: Young Joe becomes Old Joe MONTAGE — year 1 to year 30. He is in shanghai. Has a lot of money. Clubs. Parties. Drugs. Money is running out. Starts to take jobs to make cash. JGL becomes Bruce Willis. He’s a junkie and a gangster. Shooting people and getting slapped. He sees a girl. She gives him the finger. Year 25 he falls in love, gets married. Five years of peace and quiet. Simple with his new wife. Joe is finally at peace and has found some kind of happiness.

32–33: Year 30 — he wakes up and has something written on his hand. Gat men from the future come and get Old Joe. Take him to the time machine. As he thinks about his wife he decides to fight back. Old Joe takes out three Gat men. He gets in the time machine — spurred by a picture of his wife (we don’t know what happened to her at this point but we can guess). See him in the time machine traveling to…

33: …The scene with Joe we’ve already seen but now from Old Joe’s perspective. He hits Joe and drives the car back to town. He sticks up a drug store for water, aspirin, bandages, and the man’s coat.

34–35: Old Joe in an alley eating his stolen aspirin gets a new memory of Young Joe’s current actions — he crushed the phone. He follows Young Joe to his apartment and sees what we have already seen, “Don’t do it you idiot.” He sees Kid Blue and the other Gat men. Blunderbusses the getaway driver and takes some guns from the car. Shoots the Gat man who was trying to shoot his younger self. Rescues his younger self from the top of the car.

35–36: Abe is now marshaling the troops. Kid blue says he can fix it. “Let the grown ups work. Kid blue.”

35: Old Joe had dropped off Young Joe at the train yard. He looks at the train and then runs right back to the city (more great visual storytelling, his decision told in a look between the train and the city). “Old bastard, how do I find you.”

37: Old Joe breaks into a library to use the internet, using the clue that was written on his hand from that morning. He finds a map with three addresses and pictures on it. Prints it out. Sees a similar mark on his wrist as we saw with Seth. Arrow and Beatrix.

39–50: Old Joe and Young Joe meet at the diner. Don’t want to talk about time travel. Learn how the memories work. Learn about the rainmaker, closing loops, about Old Joe’s transformation and quest to save his wife. Young Joe still trying to keep what is his by closing his loop. You know what this number is? Numbers from the hospital records that could lead to the rainmaker. He’s here. He lives in this county. I’m going to use this info to find the rainmaker and kill him. And stop him from killing my wife. Young Joe says this doesn’t have to happen to me. “if you give her up, she’ll be safe” If she never meets you she’ll be safe. I’m going to save her (see that Old Joe is still selfish like Young Joe and wants what is “his”). Young Joe tries to pull the gun. Old Joe takes the gun from him. Realizes the diner is empty. The Gat men come. He shoots one. Young Joe rips half of the map. Old and Young Joe start shooting at each other. Gat men going after Old Joe. So is Young Joe. As Old Joe gets away kid blue sees Young Joe and then they start chasing him. Young Joe goes to the bike and goes for the fields as well, knocking kid blue on his ass. Young Joe ditches the bike and looks down at the map. He has one address circled.

51–52: Sarah chopping wood — removing a stump. Callous hands. See her in her natural element. Fixing the door and sees Joe in the fields. Grabs her shotgun and goes out to him. Pumps it. Listen up! I have shot and buried three vagrants in the past year. Gives her speech. Joe is detoxing, not doing too well.

53–54: Abe to Kid Blue — you found him by tracking Seth’s bike. Clever. Then you lost him. Kid Blue says I could do it again. You could mess up again? Put your gat on the table. I wanted you to say I did good. Hammers his hand, takes no pleasure in it. Another notch in Kid Blue’s story line. Millers crossing Kid Blue scene here in the script (not in the movie).

54–60: Sarah sees the light in her barn is on. Sarah is trying to scare off the vagrant, Joe comes and helps. Joe throws up. Sarah helps him get through his withdrawals. He’s laying on the wood and asks for water. Kid comes and gives him his water bottle. Sid and Joe first meet. Sarah rushes him off. Tries to Kiss Sid but he turns away. She says night sweetie, and he says Night Sarah. Begin to hint at their relationship.

60–61: Old Joe under a sewer, hiding, cleaning/loading his weapon. Getting memories of Young Joe and Sarah. Struggles hard to remember the first time he saw his wife’s face.

61–68: Joe is sleeping in the barn. Sid comes out and wakes him. He is handcuffed to a cot. Sarah comes out and confronts Joe, learn why he’s there and see her reaction when he shows her the numbers. Shoots him with the rock salt. She asks him why he is there and how he got that number. He tells her. Cross cut to Old Joe going to another house to kill the kid. They talk through the plan that Old Joe has to kill each kid (potentially the rainmaker) so he can disappear and be back with his wife. Old Joe kills the first kid on the list. Walks off and is sobbing uncontrollably because nothing happens, so he knows that he wasn’t the rain maker.

68–71: Young Joe assures Sarah that he will kill the guy when he comes to the house. Young Joe says that Old Joe will kill the other two kids and come here last to avoid facing him. Sarah says the one rule is to not talk to her son. Sid wants to help Joe.

71–74: Old Joe is in the sewer freaking out about losing his memories, a tiny hand covers his mouth and he wakes up, cut to Young Joes mouth covered by Sid. Sid makes a communication device at the table with Young Joe. He asks him if he kills people. Sid says that Sarah isn’t her real mom. When he was a baby he couldn’t stop her from getting killed — he wasn’t strong enough. She’s not my mom, she’s a liar.

74–75: Gat men are chasing Old Joe. Abe gets an update from another gat man. Kid blue is sleeping in an abandoned building and sees the chase happen and decides to jump in.

75–77: Sarah is working on the stump again. Joe gives her the frogs to communicate. She knows Sid talked to him and gets pissed. Joe tells her what Sid said about her not being her mom. She tells the story about having him when 22, going to party in the city. Sister raised Sid, loved him, he called her mom. “How did she get killed” I told you one thing. Stay away from my son. Stay out of it.

78–81: Playing a game with Sid, multiplication table. He’s worried about Joe. 3 times 8–32. What is it? 32. Funny exchange. You can’t tell me what to do because you’re not my mom. Sid starts getting crazy and going all TK. Sarah gets real scared and she goes and locks herself in the safe. Scared. Joe hears Sid yelling liar from the outside. She goes back when he is done and he apologizes and she holds him.

77–78: Old Joe is at the second address, second potential rain maker. Sees Suzy go into the address that he has on his paper on the map.

81–83 (CUT FROM MOVIE): Kid Blue is found by Gat man Canady — confrontation in a car. Kid Blue kills him, drivers side window explodes outward bloody.

83–90: Sarah is awoken to knocking downstairs. She walks down the steps and the frog is blinking madly. Gat man at the door. Tense exchange between Sarah, Gat man, and Young Joe hiding with Sid. Sid asks Joe about his mom. Backstory. His mom gave him up. Joe was sold to a panhandle gang. Dreamt about killing the guys who bought him. Sid says, I’m not going to let Sarah get killed.

91: Kid blue watches surveillance footage of Joe looking into Suzy’s apartment. Hello Joe.

91–93 (CUT FROM MOVIE): Flashback scene between Old Joe and his wife.

93–94: Sarah laying alone in her room, sensually pulling at her dress. Touching her legs her lips. Looks over at the frog and presses it once and waits to see what happens. Hears Joe come running up the stairs. She closes the door and starts kissing him. He is surprised but goes with it, obviously.

94–95: She smokes a cigarette and is floating the lighter, TK. More impressive than what he has seen. She realizes that the guy is Older Joe. And that she knows he isn’t lying when he says he’s going to kill him. Story about how Sarah abandoned Sid and won’t do it again.

95–102: Joe comes down the steps after waking in Sarah’s bed. Jesse has a gun to Sarah’s head. Tense exchange ending with Sid going TK and exploding the gat man. Old Joe sees the memory and knows that Sid is the rainmaker. All in quick succession, there is an explosion caused by Sid, killing Jesse. And we see that Kid Blue was waiting for Old Joe at Suzy’s house and stuns him with a stun gun. Kid blue knocks him out. Back and forth between Joe and Sarah. Sarah says that he can use it for good and learn to control it. If she can take care of him he’ll turn out good. “He doesn’t.” Joe runs after Sid, intending to kill him. Finds him alone and scared and bloody and he comforts him instead (crucial part of Young Joe’s development and arc). Sid hugs his leg. Sarah comes out of the cane and hugs him. Joe just watches and can’t do it. Old Joe now knows where the rainmaker is and the crew knows where Young Joe is. Young Joe tells her to take the gat man’s truck and go.

100, 102–104: Abe’s HQ — they are all about to go and swarm on Young Joe and the farm when Kid Blue brings Old Joe to the camera — “I got him Abe, I got him” Kid blue brings him in victorious. Old Joe escapes, gets into the armory and starts killing everyone. He takes a few very large guns and goes to town on Abe’s whole organization. Kills all the gat men who were about to go after Young Joe on the farm. Old Joe comes to kill Abe after killing pretty much everyone. Old Joe is a bloody mess. I put a gun in your hand. Everything comes back around. Like you’re goddamned ties. We don’t see Abe actually die.

105: Cut to Kid Blue — who has been shot and finds that everyone is dead. We see Abe with a bullet in his head. Kid Blue is royally pissed and has his final vendetta against both Joes now. Sees the circle of where the farm is. Now Old Joe and Kid Blue are both going to the farm.

104–107: Young Joe is on the street waiting. Old Joe comes driving up in a car. Throws a gold bar. Take the truck with all the gold and go live your life. So what is your solution, Kill the boy? Yeah he’s going to take everything you’ve got. Young Joe fires at Old Joe a few times. Then kid blue comes by and breaks it up on a bike. Kid blue charges him on the bike with his gat, Young Joe shoots the ground so there is dust and then gets kid blue when he is close. Blunder buss vs. gat (culmination of their little rivalry and the end of Kid Blue’s story). While that was happening Old Joe has disappeared.

107–113: Sarah and Sid are trying to get away in the truck. Old Joe is in the way, leading to a flipped car, and a chase into a corn field as Old Joe is trying to kill Sid. Sid goes TK, then his mother calms him down. Old Joe doesn’t back down. Young Joe SEES it all. A mom that would die for her son. A man that would kill for his wife. A boy angry and alone. Laid in front of him was the bad path. The path was a circle. So I changed it. Young Joe shoots himself (climax and culmination of Joe’s character arc — went from selfishly only caring about what was his, to sacrificing himself for a kid and his mom). Old Joe disappears. Sarah screams for Sid who comes back out of the cane to his mother. He asks, where’s Joe. He had to go away baby.

113: See Sarah cleaning up Sid, tucking him in, and him hugging her, kissing her. Bars of gold on the road out of the truck. Solves all her money problems. She finds Young Joe’s body. Hears his clock ticking. Closes the watch. Touches his hair, lovingly like his mother used to. Final image of loved Sid asleep in bed.

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

To download a PDF of the breakdown, go here.

Kudos to Michael Perkins for doing the scene-by-scene breakdown.

To see 100+ screenplay scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.