If You Love Netflix’s Dark, Watch the ’90s Sci-Fi Classic That Created the Time-Loop Blueprint

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Fans were captivated by the complex time travel story in Netflix’s Dark over its three seasons. If you enjoyed unraveling the mysteries of characters like Jonas and Martha, then Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys is a fantastic next watch. The film actually pioneered the “closed loop” storyline – a concept Dark later popularized – and did so brilliantly.

Taking cues from the 1962 French film La Jetée, 12 Monkeys creates a similar feeling of unsettling anxiety as the series Dark, but presents it within a wildly chaotic and gritty industrial landscape – a vision uniquely brought to life by director Terry Gilliam. The film tells the story of a man traveling back in time with the mission to save humanity, only to discover that the world may not want to be saved, and that his role isn’t what he thought it was.

Bruce Willis’ Mission in 12 Monkeys Mirrors Dark’s Doomed Loops

Similar to the show Dark, the movie 12 Monkeys explores the dangers of trying to change the past to improve the present or future, and the story immediately establishes this central conflict. The film is set in 2035, after a deadly virus has decimated the human population, leaving only 1% alive. The Earth’s surface is now claimed by animals, while the remaining humans live in underground bunkers controlled by emotionless scientists.

Scientists select prisoner James Cole, portrayed by Bruce Willis, for a dangerous assignment. However, there’s a crucial limitation: they clearly state that altering the past is impossible, as it has already occurred.

As a huge cinema fan, I always find the specifics of time travel plots fascinating. In this story, it’s not about preventing the virus, which is a twist! Cole isn’t sent to the past to save everyone who died, but to actually retrieve a clean version of the virus from 1996. They need that original sample in 2035 to develop a cure for those still alive in the ruined future. It’s a harsh reality, but the billions who perished in the initial outbreak? They aren’t coming back, and that’s a key part of the story’s stakes.

This idea aligns with the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle in physics. Essentially, it suggests that if time travel to the past occurs, the traveler was always destined to be there. This means they can’t alter the past because their actions are already woven into the fabric of history, and actually caused the timeline to unfold as it did. These concepts significantly impact the overall feeling and energy of the movie.

Cole isn’t your typical time traveler racing to change events. He’s more like a ghost, drifting through time in a chaotic way. He’s haunted by the knowledge that everyone he encounters is destined for tragedy, and he feels powerless to prevent it. This creates a deep sense of sorrow that will resonate with viewers of shows like Dark, particularly those who watched Jonas Kahnwald’s repeated, ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to save the town of Winden.

Cole stands out from characters like Jonas and Claudia because he’s been sent on a specific mission by others – to gather information that could ultimately lead to a solution. Jonas and Claudia, however, are independently searching for the source of the problem. What both stories share is that neither Cole, nor Jonas and Claudia, truly have control over their own choices.

12 Monkeys’ Reimagines La Jetée’s Static Tale Into Madness

As a huge fan of 12 Monkeys, I always found its origins fascinating! It turns out the movie is actually based on a really unusual short film from 1962. This original is only 28 minutes long and it’s made almost entirely of still photographs! The story is about a guy who’s sent back in time because he’s haunted by a childhood memory – a woman’s face on a pier and a man who’s dying. It’s a pretty wild concept, and it’s amazing how much of it made its way into the bigger film!

I’ve always loved how David and Janet Peoples took this really beautiful, almost sad idea and made it feel so distinctly American. They kept the heart of the story – this guy being haunted by his own death – but they threw in a lot more action and chaos around it. And honestly, Terry Gilliam was the perfect director for it. He’s famous for loving that gritty, ‘junk-tech’ aesthetic, and he definitely didn’t want to make the world look all polished and clean!

The film 12 Monkeys visually portrays a chaotic future, resembling a cluttered, industrial space with exposed wiring. This reflects the characters’ disorientation and the unsettling atmosphere of the year 2025. The time travel technology isn’t sleek or advanced; it’s a crude, frightening tube that sends the protagonist through time in a jarring way. Even the interrogation setup is unsettling – a bizarre, floating sphere of old televisions and robotic arms that feels more like a makeshift torture device than a scientific instrument.

Gilliam was determined to create a visually rich and immersive world in his film. A well-known story from the set, called “The Hamster Factor,” illustrates this: he spent an entire day trying to film a hamster running on a wheel – a small detail most viewers wouldn’t even see. But for Gilliam, it was crucial. He aimed to fill every shot with a sense of life, activity, messiness, and a feeling of being closed in.

The film’s focus on imperfection is also evident in its visuals. The director and cinematographer frequently used a wide-angle lens, which intentionally distorted the characters’ features – exaggerating noses and eyes – and warped the surrounding scenery. This technique effectively conveyed the feeling that reality itself was unstable and shifting.

12 Monkeys’ Madness, Memory, and Performances Shatter Sanity

What really struck me about this movie’s script is its clever handling of reality versus illusion. When the protagonist, Cole, attempts time travel, things go awry – he doesn’t land in the intended 1996, but instead finds himself in 1990. Predictably, when he starts warning everyone about a future with billions of deaths, he’s committed to a mental institution. And that’s where the film really gets interesting. It brilliantly messes with your head, making you genuinely question everything you’re seeing and whether any of it is actually happening. It’s a fantastic narrative trick!

The story refers to characters who struggle with reality as “mentally divergent.” It proposes that Cole might have invented his vision of the future as a way to cope with the pain of being imprisoned. This uncertainty is brought to life by two outstanding acting performances. Brad Pitt, then a popular leading man, delivers a surprisingly intense and erratic portrayal of Jeffrey Goines.

As a film buff, I always loved the story about how Terry Gilliam made Brad Pitt quit smoking right before filming. Apparently, Pitt was genuinely going through withdrawal during the shoot, and that real agitation you see in his character, Jeffrey, isn’t acting! It’s fascinating because watching his performance, you can definitely see hints of what would become Tyler Durden. His frantic, angry speeches against consumerism are so similar, in fact, that a lot of fans believe Durden and Jeffrey are actually the same person, existing at different points in time. It’s a really cool connection to notice!

I always felt like Goines was this chaotic force, constantly challenging everything and making Cole question what was actually real. He seemed to be saying there’s no real right or wrong, just what people think is right. And then there’s Bruce Willis, who we all knew as this total action star. But Terry Gilliam completely flipped that! He actually gave Willis a list of things he couldn’t do as an actor – no smirking, no intense stares, all those typical hero moves were off-limits.

The ending of 12 Monkeys is so powerful not because of the plot itself, but because of the emotions it evokes. By the time the story reaches its peak at the airport, it stops feeling like a science fiction film and becomes more like a classic Greek tragedy.

The show Dark kept viewers hooked for three seasons as Jonas and Martha struggled against a seemingly endless loop called the “knot.” The film 12 Monkeys creates that same feeling of being trapped, unfolding in a complete and inescapable cycle from beginning to end.

If you enjoyed Dark, you’ll likely love 12 Monkeys. Dark explored complex ideas like time loops, repeating patterns, and destiny over three seasons, but 12 Monkeys tackled those same themes earlier, and with a thrilling intensity that still feels fresh today.

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2026-01-21 01:11