When the trailer for Tom Cruise’s next movie, Edge of Tomorrow, first started making the rounds on the social networks, I didn’t bother to watch it. It sounded like yet another generic sci-fi movie where Cruise is a superhero like he always is. In fact, I haven’t watched Oblivion for much the same reason, despite actually liking most of Tom Cruise’s movies and science fiction in general.
But then – for whatever reason – I sneaked a peak, and I was hooked.
Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise star in “Edge of Tomorrow”.
It’s not that the movie seems completely original, or has the potential of being a masterpiece. No, it actually does look kind of like yet another generic sci-fi movie where Cruise is a superhero like he always is. What grabbed my attention were two things: one, the trailer was beautifully made, and two the SF “Groundhog Day” time loop he seems to be trapped in. Looking for more info on the movie I found that it was based on a Japanese military SF novel titled All You Need is Kill, and that was all I needed. To get the book, I mean.
Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel has much the same qualities as my favorite SF novel of all time, The Stars my Destination: reads fast, grips you and never lets you go. Neither one of them has the brilliance of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, for example, but both possess good stories set in worlds turned upside down by uncommon circumstances; while The Stars my Destination changed the landscape of human civilization by the advent of mental teleportation, All You Need is Kill does so by trapping its main character Keiji Kiriya in a time loop where death is but the reset button.
The setting is as follows: an alien civilization far more advanced than us is exhausting their planet resources and needs new worlds to colonize in order to survive. They find Earth suitable for those needs, but first they must terraform it, so they send a big ship full of terraforming machines (called “Mimics” by the humans) to do the job. Neither the aliens nor the machines care much about the life they are about to wipe out, so the humans have no choice but to defend themselves.
As we enter the story the war has raged on for years, and new recruit Keiji Kiriya enters his first battle.
And dies.
He wakes up thinking that that was a weird dream prior to his first real battle, except that everything he experienced in the “dream” is happening again. The one thing that changes this time around is how he gets killed, as a spear that had previously done his friend now came straight at him. By the time he realizes what’s going on, it’s clear that, no matter what he does, the Mimics will find him and kill him.
Enter Rita Vrataski, the hero of the United Defense Force, nicknamed officially “the Valkyrie”, and unofficially the “Full Metal Bitch”. Rita is a one of a kind supersoldier, winning so many accolades now the UDF is making up hero awards just for her, since no one else had ever done the things she has. Turns out Rita was the first to be trapped in a time loop and, just like Keiji after her, has used the battle experience to hone her mental skills into something normally impossible for a human. Obviously, at one point Keiji and Rita will unite forces, but the interesting bit here is that Keiji’s time loop is not the same as Rita’s (she eventually managed to get out of hers), so he has to begin at zero every time they meet to train together.
The UDF propaganda machine in full force for Rita Vrataski.
Since death isn’t the end in a time loop, the real threat comes from dying once the time loop is broken. I have spoiled enough already so I won’t give away how they have to do it; suffice to say that once they were on their way to break it, I was genuinely concerned for them both. You see, Sakurazaka didn’t focus only on the technical aspects of the war and the time loop; he took his time to expand not only on Keiji but also on Rita, so that by the end we know them and are rooting for them to beat the damn Mimics and come out on top. The ending, while I felt was a bit forced, did its job emotionally, and somewhat reminded me of how I felt about the ending of the SF military classic The Forever War. The ride was great, and the ending stays with you. What else can you ask of a good story?
I wonder how Edge of Tomorrow will fare. I’m not really expecting it to be a great adaptation, but so long as they keep the core elements intact and don’t change the end into a Hollywood cliché I’ll be happy. Tom Cruise is as far removed from Keiji as you can get, but Emily Blunt is sort of how I pictured Rita in the novel (although I have a friend that fits the Rita mold like a glove, and that’s who I was picturing as I read it). If the adaptation is at least as good as Ender’s Game‘s was, I’ll be a satisfied customer.
Here’s me crossing my fingers.
SAMTERTAINMENT 
DAMN. the feeling you had after finishing the book was the same as mine. I thought of The Forever War immediately!!
I know, right? Even though one is a happy ending and the other isn’t, the emotional effect is very similar.
Hei, I just finished reading this last night. I stayed up all night cause i couldnt stop.
Really enjoyed it and was a tight story regarding time travel, but i have one question, I hope someone can answer this -_-
Spoiler
During loop 159 and 160 when Keiji pulls Rita aside and answers her tea question,
how is it she remembers asking, if the loop sends him back 30 hrs after dying, unless theyre both sharing the flashback(which theyre not since she says they will be strangers every day). Maybe i missed something, i was very tired and i dont feel like reading it again right now but, i need this question answered><. since its a large plot point.
My own explanation)
One explanation could be that days before every battle, she chooses a phrase or question to use pertinent to that region to help her identify someone like her. something that she only mentions to someone dying and therefore only that person would know about.
If that is the case, its so lazily handled that its almost nonexistant unless i missed something.
I would much appreciate it if u could answer this.
Ty
Hi. If I remember correctly, I think it was a question she came up with as a password to whomever she could find that was also trapped in the loop, so when that person asked the question, she knew it was another looper and that they had met before.
And yes, it was sort of offhand, you kind of have to deduce it.
Hi! Sorry for bringing up an old topic, but I just read this novel.
Your explanation is correct, Rita chooses a question (pertaining to local customs/trivia) before a battle that she would ask on the battlefield. If someone answers her question BEFORE the battle, then she knows she met a looper. As Sam said, this was remarked offhandedly in the novel, but expounded on the manga adaptation.
I just finished this short novel and thought it was a great read as well, though some bits are a bit confusing for me…
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
The whole time I was wondering whether Rita had broken out of her loop or not, cuz it seems like she continued to experience loops afterwards. But I suppose she was able to break out of them every time now that she knew how to counteract it.
My guess is that at the same time Keiji was experiencing his loops, Rita was also going through her loops, but whether or not they were going back into the same timeline was a point of confusion for me. Keiji never figured out that Rita was still going through her loops during that time though, because there was a point where he pondered “What did she mean by ‘will’ be fun being the one outside of the loop” (or something like that, paraphrased), which I took to mean that he figured she was quite done with her loop since Florida already.
When they began their one on one fight, Keiji seemed to come to an understanding that Rita meant to die the moment they spoke, but it wasn’t explicitly explained how he came to the conclusion. My theory is that Rita was in fact going back in the same timeline as Keiji, and when he spoke to her after PT, she cried on command (as she was talented at that) to not let on the fact that she already knew what was going on and that to break out of the loop would mean that one person would have to be killed. If Keiji knew that before hand, he would not have been resolved enough to commit to the deed.
Whether it was her hardened nerves or she knew what was going on, she was very calm and collected on that morning preceding the end.
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
Would anybody mind commenting on their thoughts about this theory?
SPOILERS
Rita broke out of her loop. That’s how she knew how to break out of the loop and help Keiji. Remember, they were experiencing the same day over and over again, so if Rita was still going through her loop she wouldn’t have been able to help Keiji, since every time Keiji’s loop reset whatever it was Rita had learned would be lost.
As for the ending, I will have to re-read it to be sure, but basically Keiji knew Rita meant to die because he knew she was holding back (didn’t he say something to that effect?). My memory’s fuzzy here, but I seem to recall she was going all out (seemingly), but the hit he managed to inflict her only happened because Rita allowed the opening.
“and don’t change the end into a Hollywood cliché I’ll be happy. ”
So… Have you seen the movie? What did you think about the ending?
Haven’t seen the movie yet, read the novel only. The novel’s ending is really good, but not exactly Hollywood’s cup of tea, so I wonder.
Having seen the movie now…yep, they went the cliche route with the ending. Still, loved the movie.