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Post by rberman on Aug 3, 2018 12:03:02 GMT -5
One of the more popular science fiction plots of the 20th century involve time travelers who go back to try to prevent a disaster from occurring, either by delivering a warning or by taking a more active role which often results in bringing about the circumstances they were trying to prevent. What are the main milestones in this trope? Here are a few to get us started:
1941 By His Bootstraps (short story by Robert Heinlein writing as Anson MacDonald): A series of future versions of a mathematician come back in time to either abet or impede his writing of a treatise on time travel.
1957 Soldier from Tomorrow (short story by Harlan Ellison): A soldier from the future goes on a lecture tour to warn of the future dystopia from which he came.
1962 La Jetee (slide show "short film" with voice-over, written by Chris Marker): Nuclear war ravages the world, and the surface is uninhabitable. A subterranean human society sends a convict back in time to get information about the past, and also forward in time to get technology to help his own civilization. Learning that he is to be killed for his knowledge, he flees back to the past, where he is executed by another agent from his own time. His younger self sees this execution, which explains a memory from his own childhood.
1964 Soldier (Episode of The Outer Limits TV show by Harlan Ellison): A soldier from the future is taken in by an American family. A second soldier from the future arrives subsequently, and the two of them kill each other.
1967 City on the Edge of Forever (Episode of Star Trek TV show by Harlan Ellison): Leonard McCoy travels back in time and saves a woman from a car accident, unwittingly bringing about a dystopian future in which peaceniks prevented the United States from entering World War II, resulting in the triumph of Hitler. Kirk and Spock travel back in time and prevent McCoy from saving the woman, restoring the normal timeline.
1972 Day of the Daleks (four part Doctor Who TV serial by Louis Marks): Nuclear war ravages the world in the late 20th century, and robots (Daleks, who are technically aliens in tank bodies) take over the world. Human resistance fighters travel back in time to kill the peace negotiator whom they hold responsible for the war, though they are mistaken; he was actually working to prevent it. The Doctor protects the peacenik from the commandos as well as the Dalek forces sent back to fight them.
1981: Days of Future Past (two part X-Men comic #141-2 by Chris Claremont and John Byrne): The assassination of a U.S. Senator by evil mutants led to a war which ravaged the world in the late 20th century, and robots take over the world. Human (mutant human, that is) resistance fighters send the consciousness of the prisoner Kitty Pryde back into the mind of her younger self. She prevents the assassination, but it's unclear whether this will prevent the Mutant Registration Act which became the casus belli between humans and mutants resulting in destruction of society. The story gets increasingly convoluted down the line as more and more visitors from the future arrive, trying to push the outcome one way or another, including Jean Grey's daughter Rachel Summers, Bishop, Nimrod the robot, Cable and other versions of Nate Summers, Hope Summers, etc.
1984: The Terminator (film by James Cameron): Nuclear war ravages the world in the late 20th century, and robots take over the world. A robot assassin is sent back in time to murder the mother of the future resistance leader before he is born. The humans send back an agent of their own, who prevents the robot assassin's work while fathering his own future boss.
1995: Twelve Monkeys (film by Terry Gilliam from a script by David and Janet Peoples, based on La Jetee): A virus ravages the world in the late 20th century, and the surface is uninhabitable. A subterranean human society sends a convict back in time to get information about the virus so that he can leave messages to be found in the future to help find a cure. He succeeds, but in the process, he inadvertently triggers the chain of events which causes the virus to be released in the first place. He is shot by police while failing to prevent the tragedy from happening. His younger self sees this execution, which explains a memory from his own childhood.
2012: Looper (film by Rian Johnson) has a plot which is not easily summarized, but it involves assassins hired to travel into the past to kill various targets.
2014: X-Men: Days of Future Past (film based on the comic book): The assassination of a scientist by a mutant led to a war which ravaged the world in the late 20th century, and robots take over the world. Human (mutant human, that is) resistance fighters send the consciousness of Wolverine back into the mind of his younger self. He prevents the assassination, but it's unclear whether this will prevent the development of the Nimrod Sentinels which became the casus belli between humans and mutants resulting in destruction of society.
2015: Twelve Monkeys (TV series which ran for four seasons): An original time-travel script called Splinter was adapted into a series-length version of Twelve Monkeys which denied the core premise that the future could not be changed.
The connections between some of these works are blatant, and in the others seems implicit. What other works ought to be included in the lineage? What is the first one?[/b]
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 3, 2018 13:02:46 GMT -5
The connections between some of these works are blatant,
So much so that Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron over the Terminator, as it cobbled together the plots of his Outer Limits episodes The Soldier and Demon With a Glass Hand. The smoking gun was an interview Cameron gave, where he brought up the two stories and the journalist contacted Ellison. Cameron was forced to settle or lose badly in court. You could also add Colossus, the Forbin Project to that.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes solved the ending of Beneath hte POTA, by having Cornelius and Zira travel back in time in Taylor's ship, thanks to the genius Dr Milo. There, they become the genesis for the future ape society.
Babylon 5 used a time travel story to explain the mysterious disappearance of Babylon 4. Sheriden, Sinclair, Delenn, Marcus and Ivanova travel back in time to create a fake calamity to force the evacuation of personnel (which was witnessed in the first season by Sinclair and Garibaldi) and then hijack the station to an eve earlier time to become a base of operations in the first battle against the Shadows, creating a time loop for the Babylon project, the Earth and Minbari relationship and for Sinclair, himself, as he transforms to become the legendary leader, Valen, tying up the hints in the first season about what happened during the Earth-Minbari War and the statements that Sinclair had a Minbari soul.
Justice League had the group go back to WW2, in "The Savage Time," where they aided Sgt Rock and the Blackhawks in stopping Vandal Savage from aiding the Nazis. There is a further time travel episode that has them chasing Chronus back to the Old West (with Jonah Hex, Bat Lash and El Diablo) and into the future, where they meet Terry McGillis and the future Justice League.
You have to include HG Wells' The Time Machine and the George Pal movie, even though that is going forward in time; as is Nicholas Meyer's pastiche Time After Time, where Wells has created a real time machine that is used by Jack the Ripper, to escape the police. Wells follows him to the future and falls in love with a bank officer.
Somewhere in Time involves time travel and past life regression, for a man obsessed with a face in an old picture.
Red Dwarf has a great episode where they are able to travel back in time, using old photographs and mutated developing fluids. Lister goes back to prevent his young self from going on the space voyage that will leave him the last living human. Rimmer swipes the idea and goes back to his younger self to do the same; but his younger self screws it all up.
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cee
Full Member
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Post by cee on Aug 3, 2018 14:23:49 GMT -5
There's also a great Alain Resnais movie about time travel, with Claude Rich, pure avant nouvelle vague, but the time travelling doesnt help solving any problems in it, it simply makes the protagonist loose grasp with reality and life. (Resnais and Marker used to work together, from hte early 50ies up to I don't know when.)  I think it is related to another new paradigm of XXth century science or quantum physics, one seldom explored in movies in an effective way, which is Einstein's discovery of time's relativity. In so manty ways, that has influenced fine arts in spectacular ways, as cubism and surrealism are direct reactions to this : for exemple, in a Picasso portrait, you often see several angles of a head, that would be impossible to see in the same glance. But art let's you see that, which in a way means that art is more real than our limited and maybe romantic perseption of reality : if time is relative, there's no reason why we couldn't see an object from a multitude of different angles at the same time. In comics, Alan Moore is the one that first comes to mind who did use this concept for storytelling purposes. There's also this famous "orobouros" double splash page in Promethea that completely challenges the order in which to read a story, and how our reading order influences te info we get in an infinite loop of new meaning. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 3, 2018 20:29:33 GMT -5
1963 "Tikka to Ride" Red Dwarf
The Red Dwarf crew inadvertently prevents the assassination of JFK when they accidentally cause the death of Lee Harvey Oswald. Unfortunately, history takes a turn for the worse and they recognize that for the betterment of mankind, Oswald must be allowed to carry out the killing. Realising that Oswald can no longer attempt his assassination from the 4th floor of the Texas Book Depository because of their own presence there in this timeline, they arrange for him to shoot Kennedy from the fifth while they watch from the third. However, with Oswald trying to kill the President from a different floor, the trajectory of his shot is off and he misses. With Oswald unable to successfully kill Kennedy from the third, fourth, or fifth floor of the Texas Book Depository due either to presence of his past self, the presence of the Red Dwarf crew, or simply being unable to make the shot, Dave Lister wearily stares out the window and suggests that perhaps someone attempt to shoot Kennedy from those "bushes over there". What, you mean that grassy knoll?". "Sure". Although all agree to the plan in theory, no one wants to be the person to pull the trigger. Lister however, has an idea. Knowing that in this new history, Kennedy was impeached and arrested due to events stemming from his affair with a mob boss' wife, he offers the JFK of the new timeline the chance to redeem himself - to become the second gunman on the grassy knoll and assassinate himself. "It'll drive the conspiracy nuts crazy but they'll never figure it out". Although hesitant, Kennedy recalls his "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" speech and accepts the offer.
1979 "City of Death" Doctor Who
An alien spacecraft destructs on Earth at some point during our planet's history. The pilot survives but suffers the misfortune of having himself split into five different periods of human history. All is not lost however, as each of these selves can communicate mentally with one other. With his 1979 self planning to build a machine to send him back in time to prevent the accident from occurring in the first place, his 15th century self concocts a plan to force Leonardo Da Vinci to paint multiple copies of the Mona Lisa and hide them for his 20th century self to retrieve and sell each one to various buyers (each of whom assume that they're the only purchasers of this one of a kind item) to fund his experiments and his time machine. Unfortunately, things get complicated when The Doctor realises that it was the explosion of this alien spacecraft which triggered the birth of the human race in the first place.
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Post by rberman on Aug 3, 2018 20:48:46 GMT -5
The connections between some of these works are blatant,So much so that Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron over the Terminator, as it cobbled together the plots of his Outer Limits episodes The Soldier and Demon With a Glass Hand. The smoking gun was an interview Cameron gave, where he brought up the two stories and the journalist contacted Ellison. Cameron was forced to settle or lose badly in court. You could also add Colossus, the Forbin Project to that. Right, there's a whole lineage of stories which seems to start with the three Harlan Ellison stories, in which factions vie to alter or protect the past, running through Day of the Daleks, Days of Future Past, and Terminator. Cameron was compelled by the court to put "The producers acknowledge the works of Harlan Ellison" in the credits, which was a compromise wording that gave Harlan credit without actually saying that The Terminator ripped him off. The graphic novel Top Ten:The Forty Niners (2005) has one as well, with the twist that instead of time-traveling Allies trying to stop Hitler before he starts, it's time-traveling Nazis trying to save Hitler. The 2016 graphic novel "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe" is a spoof in this in which Doctor Doom travels back in time to get an edge, and a whole army of alternate future Squirrel Girls team up to defeat him to restore the timeline. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 3, 2018 23:24:53 GMT -5
Marvel Two-in-One kind of wrapped up the Guardians of the Galaxy, in the 20th Century, when Vance Astro visits his younger self, hoping to persuade him not to become an astronaut and be sent on the interstellar mission that left him trapped inside his suit and a man out of his own time, in the 30th Century. His presence, near the young Vance, causes a storm and the end result is he just creates an alternate timeline where his fate is not changed, but young Vance does not go on the mission and , instead, later becomes a superhero and member of the New Warriors and Avengers.
Of course, the first Doctor Doom appearance in FF #5, has Ben, Reed and Johnny sent back in time to find Blackbeard's treasure, only to find out that Ben is Blackbeard, in a time paradox. Only problem with it was that it ignored Edward Teach's actual history and makes Blackbeard out to be some random guy who no one knew, before Ben showed up in disguise.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 9, 2018 22:18:16 GMT -5
I really, really hate time travel (most of the time). Of all the weird sci fi stuff out there, it's the at the same time the most compelling and the most ridiculous.
I think the only story I've read that truly made sense was Babylon 5.. that was well planned in a nice bow.
Most other stuff.. not so much.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 10, 2018 5:49:48 GMT -5
A distant neihgbourhood by Jiro Taniguchi is a moving time travel story in which a man finds himself thrown back in time, to the days of his early teens, but with all his adult memories.
How does one deal with it? After deciding that no, this is not a dream, and realizing that it might be for the duration, how do you relive your life, knowing what lies ahead? How do you handle relationships, now that you have all the maturity of a grown-up?
Another Taniguchi masterpiece.
A book that explores a similar theme is the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood. In it, a man apparently has a heart attack and is thrown back in time, in his own youthful body but with all his memories. We follow him as he does relive his life, making what he thinks are better decisions (which are not always so), resulting in his having quite a different second life... until he dies again, He is then thrown back again, only a few years later than for his first replay... and again, and again. It’s a pretty engaging tale of how fate can change enormously depending on a few decisions.
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Post by rberman on Aug 10, 2018 7:08:31 GMT -5
A distant neihgbourhood by Jiro Taniguchi is a moving time travel story in which a man finds himself thrown back in time, to the days of his early teens, but with all his adult memories. How does one deal with it? After deciding that no, this is not a dream, and realizing that it might be for the duration, how do you relive your life, knowing what lies ahead? How do you handle relationships, now that you have all the maturity of a grown-up? Another Taniguchi masterpiece. A book that explores a similar theme is the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood. In it, a man apparently has a heart attack and is thrown back in time, in his own youthful body but with all his memories. We follow him as he does relive his life, making what he thinks are better decisions (which are not always so), resulting in his having quite a different second life... until he dies again, He is then thrown back again, only a few years later than for his first replay... and again, and again. It’s a pretty engaging tale of how fate can change enormously depending on a few decisions. Yes, there's a whole subgenre of "reliving life to get it right" stories. The film Groundhog Day is probably the most famous. There's also the German film Lola Rennt, the engaging 2014 Tom Cruise sci-fi war film Edge of Tomorrow (also known as Live. Die. Repeat.), the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect," and probably a dozen spoofs of this genre in kiddie cartoons. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 10, 2018 14:51:24 GMT -5
I have fond memories of Lola rennt!
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Post by rberman on Aug 10, 2018 15:02:15 GMT -5
SPOILER:
In fact, even the currently-in-theaters Titans Go! movie has a sequence in which the Titans try to prevent a situation by going back in time to prevent the tragedies at the heart of various DC hero origins (the explosion of Krypton, the death of Batman's parents, etc.) and find that the modern world has turned into a disaster zone without those heroes to save it.
In Walt Simonson's run on Fantastic Four in the early 90s, the time police offer The Thing that they can prevent the space flight that cursed him with his powers. But he quickly realizes that this would mean that Galactus, with no one to stop him, eats the Earth. So Grimm declines.
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Post by UKMikey on Jan 5, 2020 10:39:56 GMT -5
Is it time to add Endgame to the list?
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jan 6, 2020 23:53:58 GMT -5
No mention of Back to the Future yet? For shame.
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Post by berkley on Jan 7, 2020 0:53:22 GMT -5
No mention of Back to the Future yet? For shame. I think it must have been mentioned, then some time later the poster thought better of it and went back in time to erase it. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jan 7, 2020 0:57:31 GMT -5
No mention of Back to the Future yet? For shame. I think it must have been mentioned, then some time later the poster thought better of it and went back in time to erase it. Ah, I see. So, we're all now living in a dystopian alternate present, right? Well, that certainly explains a lot. |
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