MovieChat Forums > Time After Time (1979) Discussion > Wells Should Have Gone to Nov. 4 1979

Wells Should Have Gone to Nov. 4 1979

posted 14 years ago by JediKnight41889
16 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this. When Wells left his house for the future he should have set it to one day before Jack the Ripper's arrival on Nov 5. That way, he could have just waited for Jack to arrive and ambush him. I've read through the forum and loads of people have pointed out ways in which Wells should have used the machine to prevent the murders and whatever but all that involved changing the past which could set up time paradoxes. My suggestion wouldn't do that. It's just a good tactic. Of course if he did this, we wouldn't have an enjoyable movie :) I'm writing this off to how Wells wasn't that good at chess and wouldn't think of this. What do you think?

[–] ccr1633 14 years ago

Wells should've made his arrival as nearly simultaneous to John's as possible. If he arrives two minutes earlier, he steps out of his machine, waits for the ripper to show up, and then WHAMMO! He kicks him in the balls and forces him back into the time machine.

[–] xmark3 14 years ago

It struck me that at the beginning of the movie he seems to be in a hurry to quickly run and catch up with John. When really he had all the time in the world to prepare to get him and take him in. I would spend like a year getting into shape and training in hand-to-hand combat techniques and THEN go after John.

[–] sisterdebmac 14 years ago

Um, yeah, Wells was an intellectual, not Rambo. I'm sure he fully expected that he could calmly reason Stevenson into going back with him. Because that's the way his naive mind worked. And that's exactly what he tries to do when he catches up to the bastard...

"Be reasonable, John. We don't belong here."

Yeah, Jack the Ripper, reasonable. Oh, Herbert.
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[–] DannyDMc 13 years ago

Ahh yes, the balls kicking. But what if the Ripper, in an alternate timeline, showed up even later or perhaps was never caught and went into the personal protection business and was using the Alias of "Iron Balls McGinty" from the Jerk and caused Wells to break his foot at the time?

[–] miock 9 years ago

but then both he and jack would have come back and met the old hg still sitting on the stairs

[–] noskcaj22 13 years ago

Why stop the murders of 1979 and not the murders of 1893? He should have went back to 1893 before those murders and wacked him. He could have always went to 1979 to charm Mary Steenburgen. He knows where she works and she is falling all over herself the moment he starts with the British accent.There was no reason to go to the bank or track John down in 1979. It could have been done at an earlier point in 1893, 1892,..... Of course these are the problems with all time travel movies. Otherwise a good flick.

I don't see a Temporal paradox.

[–] Enrique-8 12 years ago

Should have GONE not should have WENT!

sheeshhhhhh

Enrique Sanchez

[–] Don-the-Lamplighter 8 years ago

Right?

At least they didn't say "He should of went..."

Put the joystick down and go read a book, people.

[–] Enrique-8 8 years ago

DON hahahahaha! indeed!

Enrique Sanchez

[–] johnc-4 10 years ago

Well, he may have looked at it as the murders in 1979 happened, in part, because he invented the time machine, which John took advantage of. The murders in 1893 had nothing to do with his machine being invented.

I really thought that after HG & Amy were unable to stop the 4th murder, he should have gone back a day or two before John arrives, got a gun and waited, when John arrives, kill him, then go back to 1893. I know, people think he would try to reason with John, etc., but by that point, it was clear none of that would have worked, going to the police was no help either. So lay in wait to ambush John, then get the heck out of there, would have been his best option. Then nothing is changed much at all, in 1979.

[–] Natron 10 years ago

Star Trek:TNG had a time travel plot like this, but what they tried to avoid happened anyway because of the way they tried it. The outwitted themselves and it still happened. My point is your guys idea is sound, but it would fail in a logical cause and effect universe.

[–] Strangerhand 10 years ago

Yep. The "Pogo-Stick Effect": Using time-travel (into the Past) to prevent an event unwittingly causes it. Seems a plausible theorem that such a thing would be a very probable hazard, if time-travel were a reality.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

"Using time-travel (into the Past) to prevent an event unwittingly causes it."

Sounds a bit Kung-Fu Pandaish to me, but OK.

Time travel is a tricky thing to write properly, and most of hollyweird writers fail at it, especially since they're more interested in pushing their misandristic agendas, like this movie does with that annoying hag (I can't listen to her voice more than 2.7 seconds before I just have to mute it, especially in this movie - she's more tolerable in Curb your Enthusiasm).

"Don't be a chauvinist" is said -immediately- after H.G. Wells says anything about 'surely a gentleman'. This speaks volumes on unrealistic fema-fascist agenda, that dictates that 'everything men can do, women can do better'.

This, of course, isn't true. Men have strengths women generally don't have, and women have strengths men generally don't have.

Women's strengths are based usually on 'social' and 'family' stuff (nursing, nurturing, taking care of babies, and easy, repetitive tasks that women enjoy (however secretly)).

Men's strengths are based on 'worldly' and 'technical' stuff, plus of course things like 'leadership' and 'motivating' and inspiring others, exploration, creation, ideas, inventing, etc. etc.

Basically, men build the world and platforms, that women then raise families in and build social networks in.

Back to time travel problems.

Usually either going to the past createst the event that the protagonist went to prevent there in the first place..

..or the alternative is that if the reason they go to the past is to prevent an event, then they would have no reason to go to the past to prevent the now non-event in the first place.

So it's like, if they fix the problem in the past, there's no reason to go to the past to fix the problem, because there is no problem to fix anymore.

If they can't fix the problem, then there wasn't any point in going to the past.

Either way, the whole thing is pointless.

[–] Splarne 10 years ago

I am on with this.

***

Go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

[–] RevorgPro 8 years ago

Ha! I think you're kind of brilliant.

[–] johnmiller (4011) 4 years ago

There are a LOT of obvious ways to stop what happens in this movie. But, Nicholas Meyer is clearly a slave to "Movie Logic" here.