What a coincidence! I just had a rather lengthy discussion about the represention of time travel in film with my dad. I find it interesting how many of the more popular films center around the the theme of the "grandfather clause"-( the notion that if you went back in time and killed your grandfather you would cease to exist) I had always just passively accepted this theme (in films such as The Terminator) but my dad pointed out that in basing a film on this premise, your film loses legitimacy- for example the act of sending a terminator back in time to kill sarah conners indicates that failure is inevitable, whereas if there was any chance that the terminator could kill sarah conners then you wouldn't be aware of this as an option, because sarah conners would already be dead... and there would never have been an issue... There is one film, a rather old film that I saw many years ago about a safari tour in the future that sends individuals back in time to kill dinosaurs, and one man accidently crushes a moth and this seriously affects the course of history- that seems to work... but then again I am not sure... 'tis a baffling topic for discussion- one that perhaps requires beers, or ever snifters of brandy...
1:36 PM
I was looking around online for a copy of the script of 12 Monkeys over a bet on some of the dialogue a friend and I made, and I found this rather interesting web site.
http://www.mjyoung.net/time/index.htm
It is a bit excessive, but it is kind of cool that someone actually took the time to have a serious look at the treatment of time travel in all these movies. I don't plan on reading much of it, but it might be good for a look. Time travel is a constant theme in sci-fi and the logical paradoxes involved in it are interesting.
"Time Travel Analyzed"
1 Comment -
What a coincidence! I just had a rather lengthy discussion about the represention of time travel in film with my dad. I find it interesting how many of the more popular films center around the the theme of the "grandfather clause"-( the notion that if you went back in time and killed your grandfather you would cease to exist) I had always just passively accepted this theme (in films such as The Terminator) but my dad pointed out that in basing a film on this premise, your film loses legitimacy- for example the act of sending a terminator back in time to kill sarah conners indicates that failure is inevitable, whereas if there was any chance that the terminator could kill sarah conners then you wouldn't be aware of this as an option, because sarah conners would already be dead... and there would never have been an issue... There is one film, a rather old film that I saw many years ago about a safari tour in the future that sends individuals back in time to kill dinosaurs, and one man accidently crushes a moth and this seriously affects the course of history- that seems to work... but then again I am not sure... 'tis a baffling topic for discussion- one that perhaps requires beers, or ever snifters of brandy...
1:36 PM