No Time Like The Present
Time travel in a sci-fi series is often a cheat--an easy way to get around a problem. But something else often bothers me about it.
The biggest conceptual error in popular entertainment time travel is there's one "real" time, the present, while the past and future don't really count.
I was reminded of this recently when watching a rerun of Time Tunnel. The premise of this series was a couple of scientists get stuck going back and forth in time. Every week the government would try to get them back, and they'd end up in another time and place (sort of like Quantum Leap). Not much of a show, but it featured a cool set and a nice John Williams' theme.
Anyway, one episode had time travelers from the future messing with them. The heroes finally defeated them--in the future--and everyone acted like "well, that takes care of that." That's because there's only one real time, the present--otherwise, we'd have to worry about how the future guys can come back as many times as they like.
(I'm also reminded of Back To The Future, which actually handles the time travel issue quite well, making a blunder in the final scene. An agitated Doc appears and says Marty is needed immediately to go solve some problems with his future kids. What's the rush?)
What really got me thinking about this was the latest Heroes. Set five years in the future, it showed a horrible society if New York is allowed to blow up.
Hiro, the time traveler, meets a (potential?) future Hiro, and is told what he must do to save the planet. Now here's where we see the series succumbing to the time travel fallacy of one "real" time. Apparently, it is possible for Hiro to return to the present and fix things, because, after all, the future isn't real, our "now" (whenever that may be) is.
Good and fine, except in a previous episode we met waitress Charlie Andrews, an appealing character whose power is memorizing things immediately and perfectly. She's killed soon after she meets Hiro. So he tries to go back in time to save her, but can't, too late, she's dead.
So Hiro can go to the future and learn to change what will happen--from our present perspective--but can't go back to the past and change what's in their future. Because the present of the show is the only reality.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:48 AM
4 Comments:
I'm a big fan of Heroes, and have thought a lot about the ramifications of their time travel scheme. I think it is pretty good (like Back to the Future) but it assumes I believe it assumes a multiple number of time streams and that the time traveller cannot jump to alternative time streams, at least not permanently.
So Hiro in 2011 jumps back to 2006 and warns Peter to Save the Cheerleader. He then goes forward again, but nothing visin\bly has changes, even though Peter does go on to save the cheerleader. Then Hiro 2006 shows up, and Hiro 2011 doesn't remember this event, so clearly it did not happen in his timeline. Also, Peter in 2006 has a scar, which he wouldn't have if he had ever met the cheerleader. So Hiro 2006 has somehow jumped time streams to a future he will already not ever experience.
On explanation could be the Back to the Future concept that changes in the past some how move forward in time in their effect at a certain rate. Thus, when Marty goes back 30 years, the picture he carries starts fading gradually, as if the impact of his changes have not reached his present yet. Also, in the scene in B2TF II, where old Biff returns to the future after changing himself in the 1950s, he is in pain, and a scene was cut out where Biff actually disappears (because he no longer exists in the future, presumably having died earlier in the changed reality he has created). The directors cut this scene out because they thought it would just confuse the audience.
Essentially, the time traveller who ventures back in time and then returns to his own time can jump over the impact his changes are making, though they eventually catch up to him.
Interesting comments.
One of the questions in time travel stories is does the timeline split when someone moves back and forth, or is there only one (which either has changed or is always the same and has always had time travelers--Terminator 1 and 2 had different answers to this)?
I could be misreading Heroes, but I think there's only one timeline in it. When Present Hiro visits Future Hiro, that's the future for everyone, unless (as he's warned) he goes back and changes things. I might add if the future that Future Hero lives in can't change no matter what Present Hiro does, Future Hero is sure working pretty hard to create a new timeline where things are better without doing anything for the world he lives in.
What I think happened is Present Hero met Future Hiro before Future Hiro has had his chance to jump back and meet Present Peter. But now he's ready to do that (Present Hiro told him he saw him do it already) and he tells Present Hiro what else he must do.
Or perhaps I'm just completely confused.
As to Peter's scar, I have no idea how that fits in.
Which is possible, except future Hiro got shot up and it seemed killed at the end of last week's episode. I hope there isn't one, unchangeable timeline (a'la Terminator) because I'd hate to watch this show for 5 years just to end up in the same future we saw a glimpse of in season 1.
But it is possible. Future Hiro thought Claire had been killed by Sylar at least because he thought Sylar healed himself after Hiro stabbed him. But maybe Linderman will heal Sylar (he can heal plants we know), and Bennet has been trying to hide Claire for years, so future may have simply been mistaken. As for the scar, maybe there is a future hero who can cause Peter injuries that can't be regenerated (it's TV after all, they can write anything they want).
On another note, what is your favorite Time Travel film? I had heard 12 Monkeys is great, and I watched it recently. I didn't think it was that great (though a very good - single time line story). Now I want to watch Primer, ccause I have been told it is better than 12 Monkeys. Right now my favorite is probably Somewhere in Time, but mostly because no machine is required to travel in time, you can just will yourself back and forth in the 4th dimension.
Primer is a low-budget, intelligent time travel film that's very hard to follow.
I never quite thought of it as a genre. I guess Back To The Future is the best, since it takes the concept head on an has so much fun with it. (And is a lot better than the first version of the script).
Another one I like a lot is Star Trek IV, even though the worst argument I can imagine for saving the whales is if we don't, they won't send a message out to uncomprehending but powerful aliens who will then mistakenly destroy us centuries in the future.
Then there's the first two Terminator films, with their contradictory messages.
There are a lot that don't quite work, such as Forever Young and Peggy Sue Got Married and even the ending of Superman 1.
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