Movie Narrative Chart

Comic

There is a great xkcd about plotting the relationships of characters in a movie. I find it a very elegant way to present information that is otherwise a complicated network of changing relationships.

Primer

Of course, the punchline is the movie Primer which involves a substantial amount of time travel. It’s just a bunch of scribbles. Ha Ha.

Back when I first watched the movie (2011?), I stumbled upon this chart explaining the timelines. There are at least 9, by the way. While better than the xkcd gag at explaining the movie, I wanted to make an honest attempt at displaying the information more concisely.

Result (Spoilers)

There are a few key plot points that are not obvious:

  1. Abe has a failsafe time machine (box)
  2. Aaron discovers and uses the failsafe very early (this is only his 2nd time using a box).
  3. Aaron takes both boxes with him in the failsafe (he calls this “recycling”)
  4. Aaron replaces himself and the failsafe. (rats in the attic?…no)
  5. Upon witnessing Granger go into a coma, Abe decides to use the false failsafe placed by Aaron.
  6. Aaron uses his own failsafe bringing audio recordings with him. (This is Bill and Ted style time travel. Just think about recording conversations, and your future self will deliver it to you.)

Other than these, the rest of the film is actually easy to plot. There are very few characters, they spend the entire film together, and they typically time travel for half a day once per day.

While I’m at it, why not make the plot look hand drawn.