Time Travel

WyreWizard · November 15, 2009, 02:37:47 PM

Hi there, badmoviephiles. I'm baaaaaaaaack. Yes, I spent some time with some friends out in the country and they had no internet so I couldn't check my email or check he goings-on of my favorite MB. Thankfully, I was the one doing most of the cooking because they don't know the ins and outs of the old charcoal grill. Well, enough of that. Lets get to the subject of this message.

Time Travel. Yes, a staple in many a sci fi movie, TV and books since the days of HG Wells. Y'all know what I said about time travel in the past. We time travel all the time. The only problem is its in one direction and at one speed. Perhaps one of the best time travel films I've seen is Time Cop. Yup, martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme. I like that film because it puts a strict limit on Time Travel, not by the laws of the society in the story, but the science in it. You know, you can't travel to the future because it hasn't happened yet.

But many stories erase that limit completely. The laws of their societies put strict limits on traveling to the past. You know, if you kill your grandfather, you'll never be born. I remember an episode of Futurama where they traveled back to 1947. Fry unintentionally gets his grandfather killed, has sex with his grandmother as a young woman and becomes his own grandfather

Tell me badmoviephiles, did any scifi movie or tv series ever give you a laugh or make you question their physics?

Psycho Circus · November 15, 2009, 02:39:44 PM

No, because it's just TV or a movie.

Andrew · November 15, 2009, 02:48:47 PM

Quote from: WyreWizard on November 15, 2009, 02:37:47 PM
I remember an episode of Futurama where they traveled back to 1947. Fry unintentionally gets his grandfather killed, has sex with his grandmother as a young woman and becomes his own grandfather

I'd never heard about that episode (don't usually watch "Futurama"), but I'd say that whoever wrote it had seen "Timerider: The Adventures of Lyle Swann" starring Fred Ward.

vukxfiles · November 15, 2009, 03:30:22 PM

The thing that bothered me most about the physics of time travel is a scene in The Butterfly Effect. The main character travels back to time, to when he was a child, and stabs his hands, but when he comes back to real time the wounds on his hands are fresh, and look like stigmata. Wouldn't the wounds heal over the years, or even if they don't heal they certainly wouldn't be bleeding all that time.

WyreWizard · November 15, 2009, 04:32:25 PM

Here's an even deeper question. Do you think time travel will be possible in the future? If that were the case, we would have time travellers appearing all the time. And hey, even time travellers are only human. They would make a mistake like leave behind some piece of their technology. But of course, he or his colleagues might travel back to clean up his mess. I don't know, what do you think?

meQal · November 15, 2009, 04:33:37 PM

I have seen a few time travel films in my time. Even made a post based on some rules I wrote up about a lot of the films and television series I seen which featured time travel in it. you can see that at http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,123527.0.html.
To be honest, the oddest one I ever seen was in a porn film (imagine that) where a woman went back in time and scored with herself. However this one didn't bother me as much as some other time travel things I have seen.
The film that gets to me the most is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. They go about kidnapping famous historical figures, expose them to late 80s/early 90's California, and yet no one remembers even as a foot note that any of these people went missing through out history nor did any of these historical figures remember being exposed to what would be considered advanced technology for them at all.

Doc Daneeka · November 15, 2009, 09:24:29 PM

Quote from: vukxfiles on November 15, 2009, 03:30:22 PM
The thing that bothered me most about the physics of time travel is a scene in The Butterfly Effect. The main character travels back to time, to when he was a child, and stabs his hands, but when he comes back to real time the wounds on his hands are fresh, and look like stigmata. Wouldn't the wounds heal over the years, or even if they don't heal they certainly wouldn't be bleeding all that time.

Plus if you go by the rest of the film, the event should have been written throughout the character's history, not just appeared at the moment.

Skull · November 16, 2009, 11:19:43 AM

Hehe...

Christopher Reeve has too good ones...

First, Superman 1978... rotating the earth backwards to reverse time... (talk about silly science fiction)

Second, Somewhere in Time... Christopher Reeve uses self-hypnosis to go back in time... (another silly idea)

SPazzo · November 17, 2009, 03:05:54 PM

Quote from: Skull on November 16, 2009, 11:19:43 AM
Hehe...

Christopher Reeve has too good ones...

First, Superman 1978... rotating the earth backwards to reverse time... (talk about silly science fiction)

You mean that doesn't work? Crap, I was going to try that.

I know of a film that Time Travel seems to actually work OK, Donnie Darko.

Rev. Powell · November 18, 2009, 09:54:13 PM

Quote from: SPazzo_1493 on November 17, 2009, 03:05:54 PM

I know of a film that Time Travel seems to actually work OK, Donnie Darko.

It's not actually about time travel (it's a complicated system of alternate universes). And frankly (no pun intended), it doesn't really work, either (two different versions of the same jet engine exist at the same time---the crashed one, and the one that's still attached to the plane).

Try LOS CRONOCRIMES (TIMECRIMES) for a time travel movie that really shows a rigid sort of logic. Pretty entertaining low-budget Spanish film.

SPazzo · November 18, 2009, 11:26:26 PM

Eh, most of that movie went over my head anyway... Plus I wasn't........... all there (if you know what I mean)... when I watched it.

Skull · November 19, 2009, 12:56:06 PM

Its been years since Id seen Donnie Darko but I'd thought the movie was something similar to Jacob's Ladder...

Although... I think Jacob's Ladder is closer to Slaughterhouse-Five...

*spoiler*

In general, the main characters are near death and they dreamed themselves into another world (or their soul/lifeforce/spirit is in some kind of limbo universe but its projected into some kind of alterneted universe or future)

Jim H · November 19, 2009, 03:08:30 PM

Quote from: WyreWizard on November 15, 2009, 04:32:25 PM
Here's an even deeper question. Do you think time travel will be possible in the future? If that were the case, we would have time travellers appearing all the time. And hey, even time travellers are only human. They would make a mistake like leave behind some piece of their technology. But of course, he or his colleagues might travel back to clean up his mess. I don't know, what do you think?

What would essentially be time travel into the future will most likely eventually be possible. But it'll be one way. They've pretty much proven time slows down the faster you go (via atomic clocks and high speed jets, etc). So, if we ever get ships capable of approaching light speeds without killing the passengers, people will be able to stay aboard them and pretty much travel into the future.

Also, one theory making the bands now is the Large Hadron Collider is being sabotaged from the future.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/large-hadron-collider-sabotaged-by-time-travel--642543

Personally, though they say there's no danger from the LHC and what it does occurs in nature, it makes me slightly uncomfortable. Especially when the people making it missed a few very basic design flaws in the process of building it (not to mention killing one of the workers), leading to numerous delays. It's one of those things where I don't think the benefits are worth the costs, even if they're purely financial.

Psycho Circus · November 19, 2009, 03:35:54 PM

Yeah, but if the Large Hadron Collider destroys the the balance of the world in the future, how on earth would anyone be able to go back in time to stop it, when everything is already messed up. I'm quite sure that if the power of time travel was possible in the future, it would have been exploited for far more greedy and selfish purposes, thus changing time in other ways. I've always like to think that time travel would be possible, I would love it if it ever became a reality, but I do not ever see it happening.

Skull · November 19, 2009, 04:06:25 PM

Quote from: Circus Circus on November 19, 2009, 03:35:54 PM
Yeah, but if the Large Hadron Collider destroys the the balance of the world in the future, how on earth would anyone be able to go back in time to stop it, when everything is already messed up. I'm quite sure that if the power of time travel was possible in the future, it would have been exploited for far more greedy and selfish purposes, thus changing time in other ways. I've always like to think that time travel would be possible, I would love it if it ever became a reality, but I do not ever see it happening.

How can it be exploited?

Ray Bradbury had a short story about time travel in a theme park sense, people from the future would go back in time to review the world as it was, the restriction was they were not supose to get off the plateform... In the story a character does and crushes a flower (or bug) and the result was cataclysmic.

Ok, I think the idea seemed over reaching but it does give you an idea that every little element can shift change.

Example, I go back in time and buy the first superman comicbook. I have altered time.

~ I give the seller the currency needed (it came from somewhere, even if I'd used old coins).

~ I removed one book from existance. Maybe it forces the seller to call for inventory a day earlier. (chain of events has been altered)

~ the comic I bought may had a special characteristic that might permote another to act.

~ me being in the store could alter another's response or reaction. Maybe the girl next to me would feel offended and leaves the store (her intentions was changed)