MovieChat Forums > The Time Machine (1960) Discussion > So did George's time travel cause a para...

So did George's time travel cause a parallel 1966?

posted 8 years ago by VidaBoheme
11 replies | jump to latest

I know the obvious answer is that the movie took place 6 years before 1966, and the writer's were trying to use the film to scare audiences (precautionary tale). But retroactively trying to figure the film out, could George somehow have created an alternate timeline with his disappearance in 1899? Maybe the smaller time travel device had something to do with it? He shared the secrets of the time machine with others. Maybe one of them gave that information to someone unsavory? Surely George left plans behind in his house?

[–] leader-7 8 years ago

No one would have believed them -- so it would have been pointless-- esp since what we see in 1966 is "rectified" when he returns for dinner with his friends the following week, disheveled, and shares his experience with them.

The past tense of cast is cast.

[–] kurthowe 8 years ago

...but then he leaves again (presumably never to return to his own time). So what he sees and experiences in his first trip could still play out the same way. No alternate timeline needed.

I wonder if that flower he brought back with him caused a chain of events which led to the war he saw? For example, if it was instrumental in the creation of some new drug or something that got out of hand?

[–] leader-7 8 years ago

I know you're kidding about the flower. You have to be.

I know that because you know that the war he saw, WWI, was caused directly by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and not because of any botanicals. Right?

And even though the book was publixhed in 1895, and upon which the film is based, the screenwriter and director did add some historical (facts, known in modern times) to the film to give it a little more dose of reality -- for instance, the air raid in 1966 -- and the alluding to "musshrooms" being the clouds caused by atomic weapons.

Thanks for being the astute student of history that you are.

The past tense of cast is cast.

[–] kurthowe 8 years ago

Not kidding. And yes, I know that the WW1 and WW2 happened just as they did (since this film was made in 1960). But a non-indigenous intrusion happening on a global scale could take much longer than that, or much shorter. That would all depend on what that intrusion is, and how aggressive it becomes (not to mention, how long it may take for the indigenous life to notice/become affected by that change). An air raid over England did not happen in 1966 in -our- reality...so by the screenwriter's implication, something significant DID happen between 1960 and 1966 in -this film-'s reality. A 3rd world war? A pandemic? The film does not say...so it is a possibility.

[–] leader-7 8 years ago

It's a work of fiction. Enjoy it for the fantasy and don't bring your "current" "Knowledge" into the story to obfuscate Wells' intention about a time traveller.

The past tense of cast is cast.

[–] kurthowe 8 years ago

Oh, I had no idea it was fiction. Sorry.

Just interested in what led to the apocalypse *within the film* which led to our downfall and the rise of/mutation into the Morlock/Eloi races ;) Although this is explored a tiny bit in the film (the siren instructing the Eloi to move underground toward the Morlocks who stay underground parallels the 1966 air raid siren...and the blackness which surrounds the machine a good deal away from our time), Wells' novel does not delve into it. No apocalypse in the Novel, they were just the human race who continued to evolve (and then into some kind of kangaroo creature when he went ahead further from the Eloi/Morlock era).

In the remake, the Moon was destroyed - laying waste to the Earth's surface.

[–] leader-7 8 years ago

"Oh, I had no idea it was fiction. Sorry."

In the immortal words of Ralph Kramden, "Hardee har har."

The past tense of cast is cast.

[–] VidaBoheme 8 years ago

Don't tell me what to do.

[–] virgiltx 8 years ago

According to butterfly-effect theory, his mere physical activities setting up the time machine would cause a parallel future to the future without those activities, even if the time machine didn't work.

____________________
The story is king.

[–] DarthRoger (867) 6 years ago

That's one school of thought. It all depends on what you believe to be true about the theoretical physics of time travel.

[–] mariomonsieur (281) 2 years ago

Particlewise the relativity theory says it's possible they can go forward but not backward, then they'd have to allow reasoning that time itself can hold still or nature be suspended.