Most solid use of time travel in media (endgame spoilers incl.)
- Thread starter astroboy
- Start date
Monkey67
Sr Member
Back to the future is and always will be the best use time travel.
Bill and Ted even did a better use and style of it than endgame.
The terminator use was ok, but jacked it up with Reese being John conners daddy. But they were still on point of killing one in the past would remove and alter the present / future.
I’m a firm believer in the butter fly effect. You mess with the past you will alter the future. No crappy there are other realms and other parallel universes. If they do not have different things with in side each one. It will be a total failure. The show Sliders ( good show btw) did it very will from one world to the next. Some changes were extreme while others minor.
I’ll just wait for the another group from a different parallel world come in and curb stomp this group from endgame.
Bill and Ted even did a better use and style of it than endgame.
The terminator use was ok, but jacked it up with Reese being John conners daddy. But they were still on point of killing one in the past would remove and alter the present / future.
I’m a firm believer in the butter fly effect. You mess with the past you will alter the future. No crappy there are other realms and other parallel universes. If they do not have different things with in side each one. It will be a total failure. The show Sliders ( good show btw) did it very will from one world to the next. Some changes were extreme while others minor.
I’ll just wait for the another group from a different parallel world come in and curb stomp this group from endgame.
Last edited:
astroboy
Master Member
So you subscribe to the idea that we are all on a train and if you go back, it will magically alter things that are today. Or perhaps we are simply in flux.
One thing I always found interesting is that (I believe Spock said this) if time travel we're possible, then we would constantly be visited by people from the future.
There's a lot to unpack there
Monkey67
Sr Member
Yes, don’t touch the past unless you are looking to change the present / future.
Who said we are not visited by people from the future? They could be here and there at times. Slight changes to what cause them to come back in time. Could be to take out a person we would never meet anyway. Give lotto numbers or something else to a current person. If they ( future ppl) come here and did something crazy. Then maybe they know it would greatly alter their own lives to a point that they or something else is never in the future. Thus don’t start or change anything of great important across the board. Spock rode around on a ship. So it might be harder for future people to pin point his butt in time and place. Also maybe no one in the future gave two ***** about him or the crew of Star Trek. So why go back to see them?
astroboy
Master Member
I think the theory is that if someone in the future builds a time machine, then eventually, that invention will become common place. Millions of people will have access to time machines. And then our present, future, and past will be filled with people from the future and there will be a ton of evidence of it.
harrisonp
Sr Member
I like the time travel in Terminator, and T2, but I have personal theories about it that go along with that.
I feel that the way they’ve laid things out means you can never alter your own future by going to the past. As soon as you travel to the pst you are in a new timeline and anything you do creates points of divergence from the events that previously would have unfolded.
I personally believe that John is not Kyle Reese’s son in the “prime” Terminator timeline. John having been fathered by some other man and rising to leadership by chance sends a trusted soldier to save his mother, their pairing creating a John who is genetically different than the John that sent Kyle in the first place.
Prime John and Kyle’s Future continues to be destroyed by Skynet, while the newly created timeline of the Kyle/Sarah pairing gets the chance to avert Judgement day using knowledge gained from that prime timeline.
Further entries in the series may have added new rules that explain time as a closed loop or something to that effect but that’s what I always took from those two movies.
I feel that the way they’ve laid things out means you can never alter your own future by going to the past. As soon as you travel to the pst you are in a new timeline and anything you do creates points of divergence from the events that previously would have unfolded.
I personally believe that John is not Kyle Reese’s son in the “prime” Terminator timeline. John having been fathered by some other man and rising to leadership by chance sends a trusted soldier to save his mother, their pairing creating a John who is genetically different than the John that sent Kyle in the first place.
Prime John and Kyle’s Future continues to be destroyed by Skynet, while the newly created timeline of the Kyle/Sarah pairing gets the chance to avert Judgement day using knowledge gained from that prime timeline.
Further entries in the series may have added new rules that explain time as a closed loop or something to that effect but that’s what I always took from those two movies.
FWIW - posting a thread about time travel and referencing Endgame in the title could be considered spoilers themselves. Please be considerate of your fellow board members who haven’t seen it yet...
Sean
Sean
Monkey67, how the heck is BTTF the best use of time travel? It was one I considered one of the most broken until I understood how the flux capacitor works. It's a perfect example of the Grandfather Paradox: You can't go back in time and, say, interfere with the events leading up to your own conception, as then you would never exist to go back in time and interfere with your own conception. This isn't a fun logic puzzle to try to think your way around. No "fading out" allowed. The universe just isn't so arranged as to allow such to happen.
Bill & Ted, on the other hand, is a wonderful example of the continuum theory of time travel. That is, you can go back in time, but the stuff you do there is part of your already-recorded history. The stuff you do brings about the world you know and left to time-travel. Like, if you attempt to change something, other events will interfere with that, end result being what "always happened". If the causality breaks down, a la Terminator, this can also lead to what's known as the Predestination Paradox.
The other theory -- the Multiverse Theory -- holds that the Plank Instant one arrives at a non-contiguous point earlier in their timeline, it alters the quantum state of the universe from what it had been in their home timeline, and thus a new timeline splits off -- closely parallel to the originating timeline at first, but possibly growing more and more divergent as the Butterfly Effect and chaos theory come into play with a million billion tiny little random events falling one way or the other.
I tend to think of these as mutually exclusive models, and, so far, haven't seen anyone put forward a theory that encompasses both that stands up under scrutiny. One of the things that's bugged me about Star Trek all the way back is that they use both models. I'd say there's far more support in that body of work for the Multiverse Model, with special dispensation for Q and the Guardian of Forever, and allowing for localized temporal warping as in "The Naked Time" or "Time Squared". But that still means a couple episodes, such as "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Past Tense" just don't work in the larger context and need to be quietly ignored.
Best use of time travel I can think of is a tie. The 2002 remake of The Time Machine. He invented it to go back and stop the death of his fianceé, but she ended up dying a different way, and then another, and another, until he realized that since her death was what impelled him to invent the time machine, she had to die or he wouldn't have invented it. And Babylon 5. Can't go into any detail, really, because it'd make this even longer, being as it's pretty integral to the whole durn story and backstory. Both of those, though, are examples of the Continuum Theory well done.
Endgame spoilers:
Bill & Ted, on the other hand, is a wonderful example of the continuum theory of time travel. That is, you can go back in time, but the stuff you do there is part of your already-recorded history. The stuff you do brings about the world you know and left to time-travel. Like, if you attempt to change something, other events will interfere with that, end result being what "always happened". If the causality breaks down, a la Terminator, this can also lead to what's known as the Predestination Paradox.
The other theory -- the Multiverse Theory -- holds that the Plank Instant one arrives at a non-contiguous point earlier in their timeline, it alters the quantum state of the universe from what it had been in their home timeline, and thus a new timeline splits off -- closely parallel to the originating timeline at first, but possibly growing more and more divergent as the Butterfly Effect and chaos theory come into play with a million billion tiny little random events falling one way or the other.
I tend to think of these as mutually exclusive models, and, so far, haven't seen anyone put forward a theory that encompasses both that stands up under scrutiny. One of the things that's bugged me about Star Trek all the way back is that they use both models. I'd say there's far more support in that body of work for the Multiverse Model, with special dispensation for Q and the Guardian of Forever, and allowing for localized temporal warping as in "The Naked Time" or "Time Squared". But that still means a couple episodes, such as "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Past Tense" just don't work in the larger context and need to be quietly ignored.
Best use of time travel I can think of is a tie. The 2002 remake of The Time Machine. He invented it to go back and stop the death of his fianceé, but she ended up dying a different way, and then another, and another, until he realized that since her death was what impelled him to invent the time machine, she had to die or he wouldn't have invented it. And Babylon 5. Can't go into any detail, really, because it'd make this even longer, being as it's pretty integral to the whole durn story and backstory. Both of those, though, are examples of the Continuum Theory well done.
Endgame spoilers:
Endgame seems to be doing something I haven't seen before -- altered timelines split off from the main timeline, but overlaid/interacting with it, rather than separate. There are a lot of lingering, unanswered issues left at the end of the film, and I trust the creative team to be aware of them and have plans for dealing with the aftermath going into Phase 4. To believe otherwise is to have to accept Endgame as more full of plot holes than a good Swiss cheese.
I like the use of BTTF time travel
BUT even with BTTF they contradict them selfs
Because in BTTF 2, Marty heads off to the future. Once Marty leaves 1985, he doesn’t exist anymore in history never grows old, never gets married and does have kids..
So when he appears in 2015, everything we see with him shouldn’t happen
The only way doc could have changed the future was with out Marty with him there in 2015
I don’t like how Bob Gale explains it “old Marty is in the future because young Marty eventually makes it back home from 2015”
But if that’s the case.. no? Because Doc says “the future isn’t written, you make it” so who’s to say young Marty goes to 2015 and gets hit by a bus.. he never makes it back to 1985.. so would young Marty see a old Marty in 2015 before he gets hit by the bus?!
BUT even with BTTF they contradict them selfs
Because in BTTF 2, Marty heads off to the future. Once Marty leaves 1985, he doesn’t exist anymore in history never grows old, never gets married and does have kids..
So when he appears in 2015, everything we see with him shouldn’t happen
The only way doc could have changed the future was with out Marty with him there in 2015
I don’t like how Bob Gale explains it “old Marty is in the future because young Marty eventually makes it back home from 2015”
But if that’s the case.. no? Because Doc says “the future isn’t written, you make it” so who’s to say young Marty goes to 2015 and gets hit by a bus.. he never makes it back to 1985.. so would young Marty see a old Marty in 2015 before he gets hit by the bus?!
'The Distant Sound of Thunder'
Expeditions into the past to hunt dinosaurs (which are just about to die in a volcanic eruption so no ramifications). A guest hunter accidentally kills a minor life form and the future starts to unravel.
Low budget but well done, based on a Ray Bradbury story.
'Primer'
A very low budget film about some friends who accidentally discover a way to manipulate time- you have to watch it twice to catch everything once you realize what is going on.
'End Credits Sequence from Deadpool 2, Extended Version'
Deadpool bounces around time trying to correct various wrongs, including killing Ryan Reynolds so he does not do the film 'Green Lantern'. The extended version even has a baby Hitler in it. Of course not serious, but real fun to watch.
I do agree that just about every time travel film ignores the fact the Earth moving at a great velocity in several directions and going even ten minutes into the past will have you sucking vacuum.
Expeditions into the past to hunt dinosaurs (which are just about to die in a volcanic eruption so no ramifications). A guest hunter accidentally kills a minor life form and the future starts to unravel.
Low budget but well done, based on a Ray Bradbury story.
'Primer'
A very low budget film about some friends who accidentally discover a way to manipulate time- you have to watch it twice to catch everything once you realize what is going on.
'End Credits Sequence from Deadpool 2, Extended Version'
Deadpool bounces around time trying to correct various wrongs, including killing Ryan Reynolds so he does not do the film 'Green Lantern'. The extended version even has a baby Hitler in it. Of course not serious, but real fun to watch.
I do agree that just about every time travel film ignores the fact the Earth moving at a great velocity in several directions and going even ten minutes into the past will have you sucking vacuum.
Halliwax, that's where the flux capacitor comes in. In electricity, a capacitor takes incoming (potentially variable) current and regulates the output. Doc Brown's flux capacitor is in a time machine, and he himself said it's what made time travel possible. Only thing that makes sense is that it acts as a capacitor for the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Prevents paradoxes by letting the temporal flux out gradually and giving the time traveler time (hah) to fix things.
The movie Frequency with Dennis Quaid. LOVE that movie and no time travel actually occurs. A ham radio is used in the past and present day to communicate, when the past is changed, the future ( present day) changes.
There's a short story by Tim Powers called Salvage and Demolition that's my favorite use of time travel. The Heinlein short story All You Zombies is a great one too... (which was made as a so-so movie called Predestination) and oddly, this long form Audio commercial with RDJ that I can't seem to find online now.
If you are going into the literature realm, IMO the David Gerrold novel 'The Man who Folded Himself' is very good.
This. I finally saw the movie last night, but before then I couldn't even open the thread to post this, so I was hoping someone else would. Basically you titled a thread "They use time travel to fix it in this movie and other spoilers inside!!"
As someone who avoids all spoilers it really annoyed me seeing it. I didn't even watch the trailer because I already knew I was going to see it and didn't need convincing. Even Facebook (for once) didn't spoil anything for me. Only spoiler I saw...someone titled a thread in RPF that included the mechanism for solving the movies major conflict in the fricking title of the thread.
somerset fox
Sr Member
There’s a theory (that I’ve made up) which I call the ‘selfish time traveller theory”, in which no time traveller to the past ever returns to their actual point of origin, as any change, however small, sets in motion a change of events, resulting in a new time line. The time traveller leaves his companions in the future and his future history changes, there’s doesn’t. They continue to wait for him to return, which he never does. They never see he time traveller again and have to go on with their lives wondering if the experiment worked, while he may return to a future in his new time line in which time has been changed so little that his future self embarks on the same journey back in time, so when the first traveler jumps forward, he’s jumping into the seconds place. The people he returns to may look like his friends, family and co workers, but their not.
Similar threads
