How does the time reset actually work? Why are they called "mimics"?
Here are the answers to your biggest questions about "Edge of Tomorrow".
In the film's opening montage, we learn that a meteor has crashed to Earth, bringing with
it an invasive extraterrestrial species that humans call "Mimics." They've been spreading
across Europe for years, easily overcoming all conventional military defenses. To combat this
alien menace, the world's governments join together to form the United Defense Force,
or UDF, and begin manufacturing suits of powered armor for their infantry.
When the UDF has their first victory at the Battle of Verdun,
the belief is that the new mech suits have proven their worth. After all,
Sgt. Rita Vrataski was able to use one to perform incredible and daring feats despite
limited experience, proving that anyone with minimal training can operate one efficiently.
"With the new jacket technology and minimal training,
we've been able to create super soldiers."
In actuality, Rita's apparently instant mastery of the armor and the battlefield
were the result of her ability to repeat any day in which she dies,
giving her unlimited replays of any deadly scenario. Since the UDF is
unaware of this — and refused to believe it in any of Rita's previous lives — they move
forward confidently with an aggressive invasion of France, Operation: Downfall.
However, Rita and her ally Dr. Carter suspect there's still another layer
to the Battle of Verdun. They believe that the Mimics eventually allowed the
UDF to win at Verdun in order to lend them a false sense of confidence,
prompting an all-out assault that would allow the Mimics to annihilate the
UDF in a single stroke. It's also possible that the Mimics accepted the result of the Battle of
Verdun that ended with Rita losing her ability to reset, deciding that this was victory enough.
Throughout the story of "Edge of Tomorrow," the shape-shifting alien menace that's conquering
Earth is always referred to as the "Mimics." It's a cool-sounding name that helps to uniquify the
film's villain, avoiding the constant reuse of the words "alien" or "enemy." However,
although the Mimics do look and move in a strange, ever-changing way,
it's never exactly clear who or what it is they're "mimicking."
To find an answer to this question, you'd have to go back to the source material,
the light novel "All You Need is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. There,
it's explained that the aliens based their earthly shape on the
first life form they encountered after crash-landing on our planet: a starfish.
This idea isn't really represented in the film, with the Mimics receiving a totally original
design that doesn't map easily onto anything in our animal kingdom. Their forms are constantly
changing, their metallic tentacles forming into legs or sharp spikes, or unraveling so that they
can rest flat in the dirt beneath their prey. Since the Mimics' bodies are incredibly fast
and perpetually reshaping themselves, the audience rarely gets a good, long look at them. Ironically,
this makes them one of the more interesting and memorable alien designs in recent memory, since
we get an idea as to what they look like, but would struggle to describe them to another person.
"Starfish" doesn't really cut it, and neither does any other comparison. "Mimic" will have to do.
When Cage rescues Sgt. Rita Vrataski on the battlefield, demonstrating a clear
foreknowledge of the dangers around them, Rita realizes that he must be on a time loop.
"Find me when you wake up."
In his next life, Cage finds Rita and learns that, months earlier, she also absorbed the
blood of an Alpha Mimic, gaining the ability to start the day over upon her death. However,
she lost that ability on her last loop, during which she managed to win the Battle of Verdun
but also suffered serious, non-lethal blood loss. When she received a transfusion of new,
normal blood, she lost the ability to reset the day.
Upon hearing this, we can't help but ask one logical question: How can Rita possibly know
that she no longer resets time when she dies, unless she died and didn't come back? This,
unfortunately, is something the viewer simply has to accept in order for the movie to work.
To patch up this potential plot hole, we're forced to accept that Rita, and the later Cage,
can simply feel that their ability to reset time is gone. We see it happen to Cage,
after he suffers his own similar injury and blood transfusion in the final loop of the film.
Is it beyond belief that Mimic Alphas would have such a sixth sense that allows them to
know whether or not they're detached from the time stream? Not entirely. One can imagine
that such an instinct might have evolved within Mimics in order to alert an Alpha that it's lost
its metaphysical save state. Still, it's certainly convenient for our heroes — and for the audience.
Dr. Carter does a pretty solid job explaining the mechanics of "Edge of
Tomorrow's" time travel during his initial meeting with Cage. While most Mimics are of
the animalistic soldier variety, there are two special kinds of Mimic that, together,
give them their unique advantage over humanity. Their movements are governed by a massive
Omega Mimic, a strange and stationary creature with the power to skip backwards in time by about
one day. However, the Omega can only do this when its counterpart, the Alpha Mimic, is killed. This
is basically a defensive reflex. While the Omega remains hidden, the Alpha goes into battle. If the
Alpha is killed, that means a battle has not gone as well as possible and should be attempted again,
with the benefit of this experience. In short: the Mimics are save-scumming the war for Earth.
When Cage is infused with the Alpha's blood on the battlefield, he acquires the Alpha's
ability to trigger the Omega's time reset. The Omega is still the one altering time,
but it's reflex is kicked every time Cage dies, instead of when the Alpha dies. Cage
gets the added benefit of countless replays and accumulated experience, giving him an advantage in
battle. Like Rita before him, Cage only loses this power once enough of his blood has been replaced.
Because the Mimics' activities and motivations are kept a mystery from the audience,
we never definitively learn what effect Cage's blood infusion has on the Mimics' own abilities.
Whether or not the Alpha's death would still trigger a time reset while Cage has the power is
never totally clear, since we don't see an Alpha killed between the first and final versions of
Operation: Downfall. However, since the Mimics' behavior remains predictable in the time loop,
we can safely assume that they are not retaining knowledge from each reset.
The only changing factor is Cage's psychic visions from the Omega, which grow stronger after each
loop. This is how the Mimics eventually figure out that Cage has become the new reset trigger,
setting a trap for him with a fake vision of the Omega's location. In this loop,
the Mimic Alpha corners Cage and deliberately keeps him from killing himself, apparently
trying to capture him alive so as not to lose this progress. Cage manages to reset anyway,
and the Mimics never seem to pay special attention to him again. This implies that
they only know of his unique nature on loops in which he gives it away.
Before their final charge towards the Omega during their final loop,
Rita and Cage share a brief moment during which Rita commends Cage on his
bravery during their work together. Just before charging into battle,
Rita kisses Cage on the lips, saying that she wishes she'd gotten to know him better.
It's not totally unreasonable to think that Rita might want a last kiss before dying,
especially when the available, willing partner is a fellow soldier who looks like Tom Cruise.
However, the moment rings a little false when you consider that, while Cage has known Rita for years
through the repetition of the time loop, Rita has only known Cage for about a day and a half. True,
there have been loops during which Cage and Rita have grown close over the course of a
long road trip, but even then, Rita remains an emotionally guarded person who hesitates
to let herself feel for Cage. Because each loop implies the repetition of some but not all of
the routines that Cage and Rita follow on their usual paths, we actually don't see very much of
Cage and this version of Rita. So this is one of the reasons why the kiss raises some eyebrows.
In an essay for The Wire, film critic Esther Zuckerman described the last-second romantic
twist to be a betrayal of the character for the sake of offering Cage a reward
for his personal growth over the course of the film. Indeed, the moment plays as
if it's more about demonstrating that Cage is no longer the loathsome, unlovable weasel
that we meet at the start of the film than it is about Rita learning to trust again.
As previously mentioned, the film is based on a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka entitled "All You
Need Is Kill." According to an interview with Variety, Warner Bros. President of Marketing
Sue Kroll found that audiences were put off by movies with the word "Kill" in the title,
leading to the project's rebranding. Director Doug Liman, on the other hand,
later told Den of Geek that the film was renamed to accommodate the film's tone,
which is significantly lighter than that of the source material. He suggested that the film be
renamed "Live Die Repeat" instead. Someone at Warner Bros. wasn't fond of this title, and
bequeathed the project the more generic-sounding title "Edge of Tomorrow," against Liman's
objections. "Live. Die. Repeat." was used as a tagline for the movie instead. Liman feels that
this contributed to the film underperforming at the box office despite critical acclaim.
Someone must have listened, because when the movie was released on home video months later,
"Live. Die. Repeat." was suddenly the larger print on the box, and digital marketplaces
listed the full title as "Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow." Depending on when you
purchased a physical copy of the movie, it may feature the two titles in a different
order. Doug Liman said that the sequel's working title is "Live Die Repeat Repeat,"
and that its release would canonize "Live Die Repeat" as the title of the first film.
"What took you so long?"
Once Cage has lost the ability to reset time, he and Rita lead a suicide mission to destroy
the Omega, which is hidden under the Louvre museum in Paris. Their mission is successful,
as Cage is able to drop a belt of live grenades into the Omega's mouth. Cage and the Alpha are
caught in the blast as well, and it appears that Cage lives long enough to absorb some
of their blood. Then, he wakes up at an earlier point in the timeline than he's accustomed to,
before his disgraceful demotion to Private, and learns that the Mimics
have lost their capacity to fight the war. Instead of a bloody trench battle,
Operation: Downfall will now be met with minimal resistance from the extraterrestrial menace.
This seems awfully convenient for Cage, who has now saved not only the world but his own career
and reputation. The film didn't give us a clear explanation as to why this has happened, but we
can extrapolate one from the logic of the film. It may be that Cage absorbing the Omega's blood has a
different effect than just absorbing the Alpha's, giving him more control over the time stream than
he had as merely the trigger for the reset. He may have instinctively selected a moment in
time to return to that would put him in the best possible position. Co-screenwriter Christopher
McQuarrie promised in a since-deleted Tweet that the sequel will concretely answer this question.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
Arguably, one of the biggest points of confusion surrounding "Edge of Tomorrow" was why it wasn't
really considered a hit! Before the film was even released, the press was already prepared to write
off "Edge of Tomorrow" as a flop. Whether this is the fault of the generic-sounding title or
the marketing campaign's failure to convey the high concept is still up for debate. In any case,
"Edge of Tomorrow" opened at #3 at the box office, losing the weekend to tear-jerking
romance "The Fault in Our Stars" and the live-action Disney fantasy "Maleficent."
The film grossed about $100 million at the US box office and another $270 million overseas,
but its reported budget was $178 million. It's also worth noting that projecting
"Edge of Tomorrow" to be a failure fit into a popular narrative that Tom Cruise's star
was fading in the United States. His previous three films, "Oblivion," "Jack Reacher," and
"Rock of Ages," were all considered to have underperformed domestically,
so it's possible that the atmosphere around the film's release was already poisoned.