moviefan2k4

What are the most notable ones you can think of?

For me, the one which really fries my brain regards John Connor from the "Terminator" franchise. Who was his original father before sending Reese back in the first movie? Was there some kind of "John Connor Prime" prior to that point? Cameron never bothered explaining it.

islandclaws

Primer.

All of it. I'm sure it makes sense after, like, 26 viewings. Maybe.

Not a paradox, but having just watched Star Trek IV there's no way they could have fit whales on a Klingon cruiser. The entire operation blew my mind with inaccuracies. But it was worth it for Scotty's line.

TimeandTide

All of Looper.

Granted, I watched it on a small-ass screen during a trans-Atlantic flight so perhaps I missed a key moment when I was asked what I wanted to drink.

Or maybe I'm just slow to catch on because I never could figure out what the fuck was happening at any point during the film.

My Other Self

As with any time-travel film, each has its own set of rules as there's really no definitive way for it to make sense without creating a paradox.

Although I felt it was highly overrated and didn't care for it, I did think Looper managed to pull off its own time travel theory without much of a paradox overlay. What was happening made sense to me.

Unless it's a movie without a complex story (i.e. time travel comedies like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure... pretty much any comedy with it as a plot point), most time travel films need multiple viewings for what happened to "sink in".

I've always felt The Terminator series has the worst time travel "laws". None of it makes much sense sense and everything is a paradox in of itself. I think James Cameron even said at one time it gets confusing.

JumpCutz

Hot Tub Time Machine...because, well...time travel!

Also, The Life of American Pi.

UAIOE

"Terminator" and "T2" win as far as trying to apply logic to the "laws". But the later movies (and show) go and change things that it becomes damn near impossible to explain anything.

Mike86

I'm going to agree with The Terminator films. It's just confusing how John Connor is alive in the future to send Kyle Reese back to ensure that Sarah lives and that he is born.

Sonic

The ending to Superman 1978 with Superman spinning the Earth backwards and shit going backwards.

Mattflix

The Terminator movies are a closed loop. John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time who conceives John, who grows to send Kyle back in time who conceives John, and so forth. There is no start point, it just loops.

Same with Skynet, nobody ever invents it. The T-800 is sent back through time, Cyberdyne finds the arm & chip, reverse-engineers the tech to create Skynet, which sends the T-800 back through time, etc etc. It's kind of cool like that.


If there's an inconsistently it's with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home coupled with Star Trek (2009) in the way they handle time travel. The first implies that time travel is fixed, and you can travel back and forward in time. But the 2009 movie is the more modern concept of time travel, where the act of time travel creates its own universe.

Michael Corvin

My favorite part was when the tiger fucked the pie.

Hokeyboy

You guys are overthinking time travel. Because it doesn't exist.

Kyle Reese was always John Connor's father. He always came from the future to slap sloppies with Sarah. If you accept that the timestream is fixed and multidimensional, this is simple enough.

Or it created an alternate timestream when he came back. Whatever. Just smile, lay back, and enjoy it. It'll be over soon.

majorjoe23

No one is going to buy your prostitution lessons if you keep giving away the milk for free.

Hokeyboy

This is the best advice I've ever received I'm definitely gonna pay you back... in RAPE DOLLARS.

story

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Groucho

This tuna club sandwich I'm holding says otherwise.

Troy Stiffler

On Terminator and T2... The scripts do express the philosophy of predetermined fate vs "the only fate is what we make". That was Cameron's way of dealing with the paradox of time travel.

RocShemp

Speaking of Star Trek IV, I always laughed that Kirk pawned off the glasses that McCoy gave him as a birthday present because Kirk thought that once they travelled back to their present, Kirk would have the same glasses again. That would never work unless McCoy bought him another pair of antique glasses for his next birthday that just happened to be the same pair Kirk pwaned off in the 80's.

I liked the concept in Looper that the time traveler is actively affected by the changes he makes. However, the movie did nothing interesting with that and simply remained a bore. Also, the final act by JGL was extremely stupid since his actions would affect the Rainmaker which in turn would lead to Bruce Willis never having been sent back in time, which in turn means that the events that led JGL to do what he did never happened, which in turn means JGL never accomplished a damn thing, which in turn means it all happens again anyway. Now I'd be fine with that kind of an ending but the movie tries to go for a bitter-sweet ending and wrap everything up in a pretty pink bow.

Mr. Flix

Triangle. That one bent my brain into a pretzel for days.

RocShemp

I like how everything concluded but I hated the entire middle section. It was frustrating to me due to its wasted potential.

Rockmjd23

Back to the Future: I'm trying to comprehend how Marty travelling to and from 1955 changed Jennifer's appearance!

story

"Ahh, yeah. Well, whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it."

RocShemp

Clearly Marty's antics with the skateboard forever changed who would be one of Jennifer's parents. Duh!

Mattflix

I liked the episode of Futurama where Fry goes back in time, unknowingly impregnates his grandmother and becomes his own grandfather.

"Oh another lesson in maintaining the space-time continuum from Mr. 'I'm my own grandfather!"

DaveyJoe

RocShemp

I loved that episode so much.