I’ve spent the last several months looking over a film series — the Terminator franchise — that did not take the risks for storytelling that are implicit in time travel very seriously. So I felt it was appropriate to cover a story that explores the subject of time travel in a little more depth.

Unfortunately, the problem with the time travel trope is that any amount of thought tends to lead to chaos, and both this movie and the short story on which it is based are no exception. But I’ll give the writers of the film and the author of the short story, Ray Bradbury (1920‒2012) credit for daring to carry the concept to its logical conclusion.

Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” (1952) is a classic short story that attempts to demonstrate the possible consequences of a concept in chaos theory called the butterfly effect. It’s an interesting concept, but ultimately, in my opinion, the theory isn’t plausible, and that’s the short story’s downfall.

The butterfly effect, if you don’t happen to have heard of it, is the idea that the tiniest change in past time would have grave effects on the future. So if a butterfly is stepped on in the past, the entire course of history would be altered through a giant domino effect. One little change will lead to another, and then another, and so on. The trouble with this idea is that nobody can seem to agree on what the changes would look like. Ray Bradbury dodged the problem by keeping his story short. That way he didn’t have to explore in detail how killing a butterfly eons earlier could create a situation where people chose a completely different world leader.

It’s not that the writing is bad. Ray Bradbury was a world-famous author. The problem is the premise.

Many questions loom

While this review series focuses on the film, A Sound of Thunder (2005), in order to discuss the film, I must first summarize the events in Bradbury’s brief tale. The story opens with a man named Eckels, who is going on a time safari — basically, an organized hunt to kill large predators from the past. In this case, the trophy is a T. rex, a tyrannosaur. The reason killing this individual animal doesn’t affect the present is that it is supposed to die anyway. In the short story, a tree is supposed to fall on the T. rex, so killing the beast moments before the tree falls would have no effect on the timeline.

Now, the first obvious question is how the company that created the time safari was able to develop this hunting experience without altering the past themselves. The closest Bradbury comes to addressing the question is by stating that the company built a hovercraft that enables the hunters to walk on a path without touching anything in the past. But this doesn’t really answer the question. How did they come to realize that the butterfly effect really affected time?

There are only two options. One: They’re speculating, and no one really knows. Two: They’ve already messed up the past in the past and had to correct the timeline. If the second option is the case, how did this company ever manage to open? Surely, somebody would’ve told them to shut down.

The second question is, how did they manage to enter the past in the first place without altering it? The truth is they couldn’t, not if something as small as a butterfly can unravel the current timeline. Thirdly, how did they find their perfect prey? In order for this time safari to work, somebody had to travel into the past and find a creature that died. To the film writers’ credit, they address these questions, but Bradbury’s story kept things ambiguous.

Decisions that puzzle a reader

To an extent, I understand why Bradbury did this. The point of the story is to simply demonstrate the concept of the butterfly effect, not explore the world-building behind his tale. Short stories are a unique medium, and that has to be kept in mind. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t find these questions distracting.

Image Credit: Piotr - Adobe Stock

At any rate, after a few cryptic warnings, Eckles is taken into the past on the metal hovercraft, where he encounters the infamous T. rex. When he sees the beast, he succumbs to fear, and Travis, the tour guide, tells him to return to the time machine. But, in his panic, Eckles accidentally steps off the path and unknowingly kills a butterfly. Travis and the rest of the crew kill the T. rex for Eckles but then realize that he’s tracked dirt into the machine. Furious, Travis orders Eckles to go back outside and cut the bullets out of the T. Rex.

This made no sense to me. It’s understandable that Travis would be furious with Eckles, but the whole reason he’s furious is that he knows that Eckles has altered the course of history. Why would he then order Eckles to go back outside and risk altering the future further? The tour guide might be spiteful, but even so, this was out of character.

I was also annoyed by the idea that the group was using real bullets. If they must cut the bullets out of the T-Rex each time they go on a hunt, what if somebody misses one? This problem is only made worse by sending Eckles, who’s never done such a thing in his life, to do the job. The odds of him missing a bullet are enormous. Thankfully, this was another issue the movie corrected by having the group shoot a type of ice bullet that melted after hitting the animal.

After Eckles removes the bullets, the group returns to the present to find it changed. But I found the changes to be nothing short of bizarre. Instead of the animals or the environment being altered, the spelling of words has changed. And most of the other changes are only described by a general sense of wrongness, nothing specific. Nobody can quite pinpoint the generic sense of unease, but they can tell things are not as they were.

The butterfly changes everything?

The last change of note is that at the beginning of the story there were some passing comments about an election where the reassuring candidate won, but in this new future, the dictatorial candidate has won instead. This scares Eckles and the rest of the group. Personally, given the dubious nature of this time safari, I think it might be a good thing for the other guy to have won because it’s implied earlier in the story that he would’ve shut the safari down.

Eckles then discovers the ruined butterfly at the bottom of his boot, and in a rage, Travis shoots him. There’s a sound of thunder, and the story ends.

Now, again, how in the world would stepping on a butterfly change an election? There’s clearly no connection between people’s favor towards a candidate and a butterfly’s flight. But as I said, this is the ultimate problem with the butterfly effect as a concept. There’s no clear way to map out how one change would lead to the next. The movie tries to address this problem by coming up with a more detailed system for the butterfly effect, but I don’t think the attempt fares much better.

Personally, I think this short story is overrated. I try to be sympathetic because short stories are an art unto themselves, but the plot holes still bother me. I think “A Sound of Thunder” has remained popular partially because the butterfly effect is a unique idea if nothing else. But, sadly, it’s also remained popular because of academia’s jaded preferences. I’ll begin covering the movie next Saturday.