I just watched Edge of Tomorrow (2014). It was a pretty fun sci-fi film to watch, but unfortunately I don’t think it counts as a paradigm film.

In the beginning, the main character Cage is shown doing marketing for the exoskeleton suits that have been developed for soldiers to use against the alien invasion, claiming that it lets inexperienced soldiers become very effective. One of his talking points is how Rita Vrataski, also known as the Angel of Verdun, was able to kill hundreds of the “mimics” after wearing one. There is an opportunity here to examine the impacts of military propaganda or the impacts of the exoskeleton suits on how war is waged or its impact on society, but the movie doesn’t explore those issues. This is a little disappointing, especially when it is revealed that the exoskeleton suits are not as effective as people might think they are due to the fact that Rita was only able to be so effective thanks to time travel.

Instead, the story focuses on how Cage, a cowardly public affairs officer, gets stuck in a time loop fighting an alien invasion. Through the course of the story, he becomes a less cowardly person, develops an emotional attachment to Rita, and redeems himself. This change in Cage’s character is satisfying to watch, along with the tension and satisfaction usually associated with usual time-travelling shenanigans.

The closest the movie gets to being about paradigm shifts is when Cage meets Dr. Carter for the first time, and Dr. Cage knows that it’s the first time because Cage doesn’t know how many fingers he’s holding behind his back. This is the only time in the story when the effects of time travel on how other people who don’t experience time travel behave are examined, and it reminds me of how adventurers with the time-travelling ability are exploited in the manga My Sister and Giant: A young lady is reborn in another world.