The guide to time travel in the movies

https://arstechnica.com/features/2023/11/the-ars-guide-to-time-travel-in-the-movies/

by BerislavLopac • 3 years ago

4 4 3 years ago

Some confusion: HG Wells' time machine is said to not travel to the past. It travels both ways, repeatedly. Don't know why they said that.

The Superman reference to violating a directive to 'not interfere in human history' is strange - every act Superman does can be put in that category. Going back in time 15 minutes to save one person is not materially different from just, you know, saving one person. Which he does routinely.

In fact this author, setting themselves up as an arbiter of what is 'scientific' and what not, confounds 'traveling back in time' with 'traveling before the time machine was invented'. How is it different to manipulate events in a future timeline, than in the so-called 'current' one, or even one in the time before the traveler's birth? No difference.

And then this galactically confused statement: "In the larger Star Trek universe, time travel eventually becomes commonplace, leading to the “Temporal Wars,” after which the technology was banned."

How do you ban time travel 'after' anything? The entire statement is meaningless.

Anyway, the author set themselves up as a time-science arbiter, so my pedantic quibbling is no different from their own. In fact, maybe I wrote that article! In a different timeline.

31337Logic• 3 years ago

...also, author put Primer in the "Less Entertaining, Less Scientific" quadrant! "Entertaining" is obviously subjective, but I would argue that Primer is one of (if not the best) scientific, realistic representations of time travel in movies (if you subscribe to backwards time travel being possible at all - which I don't.)

krapp• 3 years ago

And then this galactically confused statement: "In the larger Star Trek universe, time travel eventually becomes commonplace, leading to the “Temporal Wars,” after which the technology was banned."
How do you ban time travel 'after' anything? The entire statement is meaningless.

To be fair, that is the canon, senseless as it is. Expecting Star Trek to be logically consistent is a fool's errand - time travel episodes don't even agree on how time travel works between them. It's basically a plot device.

CaptainHardcore• 3 years ago

Sean Carroll & Jennifer Ouellette are trash hacks. They wouldn’t know quality if they where asked to write about it.

The guide to time travel in the movies

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