TagTime travel (in science fiction)
Time Travel: How and Why the Terminator Series Worked—Then Didn’t
Part 2: Time travel works well enough as a soft magic system but time-travel stories run into problems when it is treated as a hard magic system
Time Machine 2002: When the Good Guy Somehow Becomes the Bad Guy
In this final part of my six-part review, I look at a basic problem: The movie is pretentious without ultimately having anything to say
Time Machine (2002): When the Bad Guy is Nicer Than the Good Guy…
In Part 5 of my extended review, we get an answer to the story question: Can the traveler save Emma?
Review: Time Machine 2002 — Hold On. Someone’s Destroyed the Moon
Part 2: The Eloi we meet in this film are radically different from H.G. Wells’s Eloi and that of the 1960 film version
The Time Machine (1960): Two Meetings and One Big Flashback
In Part 1 of my four-part review of this time travel classic, I look at the 19th century novel that started the genre and the movie that followedOver the last several months, I’ve talked about time travel. Originally, I’d planned to discuss the trope in more detail — when and how to use it, when and how not to use it, and whether it was better to rely on fate as a stabilizing force in the narrative. Or is it better to play around with various paradoxes? But then I realized that no in-depth discussion about the trope would be complete without reviewing the novel and subsequent movie that started it all. The Time Machine (1895) by H.G. Wells (1866–1946) can only be described as the most notable work on time travel. In fact, Wells is often thought of as the man who invented science fiction itself. Read More ›
Sound of Thunder: How To Fix a Mess When Everyone Forgot About It
In Part 6 of my continuing review of the 2005 sci-fi classic, we look at efforts to go back in time and fix the disastrous timewave problem
Sound of Thunder: Surfing the Time Waves When the Tide Is High
When plants start growing through cement walls, it is obvious that there is a problem
A Sound of Thunder: Comparing the Film With the Short Story
What’s the same? What’s changed? What works and what doesn’t
A Sound of Thunder: Does the Famous Butterfly Effect Make Sense?
I am going to look at the 1952 short story first — the premises and the plot — before tackling the 2005 film
My Parting Thoughts on the Terminator Series
Nostalgia is powerful enough to make people stay away from new films if those films undermine what they loved about past ones
Terminator Dark Fate: Just Too Many Johns Now
Here’s Part 3 of my review: How multiverses and time travel can doom a story
Terminator Genisys Review, Part 10: Too Many Time Machines!
Terminator Genisys was simply removed from the canon, and for good reason, as we will see
Interstellar 2014, Part 5: Time Travel Saves — But Also Destroys
Time travel solves some problems for planet Earth but it turns out to be no match for human mortality and sundered relationships