Christopher McQuarrie Has Explained What Bothers Him About The ‘Worst’ Scene In ‘Edge Of Tomorrow’

Now that Christopher McQuarrie is currently gearing up to direct Tom Cruise in two more Mission Impossible films that will definitely not be sending Ethan Hunt to the moon, the filmmaker is a very busy man. But that doesn’t mean he’s occasionally spending the occasional bits of free time on Twitter, where the director regularly comments on his own films and whatever else he happens to be watching. So, when a discussion of Ghostbusters‘ internal logic led to time travel, McQuarrie offered a brief bit of trivia about 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow.

An adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s science-fiction novel All You Need Is Kill, which McQuarrie co-wrote with Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth for director Doug Liman, the film follows Cruise and Emily Blunt’s characters in a battle that pits humanity against time-traveling alien invaders. Sure, it’s not the simplest of premises, but it’s enough to get things moving — or, at least McQuarrie thought. Warner Bros., however, wanted more. Per IndieWire, he said a scene of exposition concerning the aliens was demanded in studio notes.

They are invaders. They invade.

As humans, we should not have to have this explained.

— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 7, 2019

The Wolverine and Logan writer/director James Mangold added to McQuarrie’s thesis by comparing it to the basic logic of the alien in Ridley Scott’s Alien.

— Mangold (@mang0ld) July 7, 2019

Though, eventually, it all came back to time travel for McQuarrie.

— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 7, 2019