Sloppiness.


The outline of the story had me feeling very enthusiastic when I sat down to watch the DVD. And I enjoyed the comedy of Wells' fumbling attempts to make his way in twentieth century San Francisco.
However, I was disappointed by what I thought was sloppiness in the story and a lack of research.
For example, in "Time After Time", the first of the Ripper's murders takes place in London in 1893, and every time the Ripper goes to murder someone, a musical watch plays a few bars of music. The music is quite recognisably a melody from J.Canteloube's "Songs Of The Auvergne" (not credited, though). Canteloube put together his collection of "Songs" between 1923 and 1955; so finding his work playing from a musical pocket watch at a time when Canteloube himself would have been thirteen or fourteen years old caused some surprise.
And another example. Late in the film, Wells takes Amy, the friendly bank employee, for a short trip in the time machine. Amy gets out into the future, just a few days ahead, and finds a newspaper that has a report of her murder. Next, while Wells is detained by the police over the time of Amy's murder, and considerable tension is built up by repeatedly cutting from the anguished Wells begging the police to check the flat to a terrified Amy trembling in the flat, a murder is committed in Amy's flat, but it turns out to have been of her unlucky work-mate who visited at an unfortunate moment while Amy was hiding from the Ripper in a cupboard.

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Another bit of sloppy writing is falling asleep during the middle of the day when she's worried about being killed and Wells has asked her to do something important. You'd have to be really down on sleep to not have that creep into your thoughts (correction - she took some Valium but that doesn't send you off to sleep).

But otherwise an enjoyable film, so it's not perfect but definitely above average.

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<< Another bit of sloppy writing is falling asleep during the middle of the day when she's worried about being killed and Wells has asked her to do something important. >>

I agree...but doesn't the gap in logic there begin even earlier, when Wells doesn't just take her with him on his errand? Why would he leave her alone, under any circumstances? If he was ashamed to have her see him buy a gun (which was against his values) he could have parked her at a nearby cafe or something...anywhere but where he knows her body will be discovered, later.

I know this would have upset the plot...but they could have figured out a stronger reason for leaving her alone.

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[deleted]

I rather liked the film, despite what Leonard Maltin called the "logic loopholes".

One point I don't think anyone else has mentioned ... I haven't seen the film for a long time, but as I recall it was never explained why the nurse at the hospital told H.G. Wells that Stevenson (Jack The Ripper) had died as a result of the car accident. She then refuses to let Wells see the dead body when he asks to do so. Presumably Stevenson somehow managed to fake his death, but this wasn't made clear.

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He asked to see the body so he could be absolutely sure. But she wouldn't let him. She said someone answering the description had died. but the description was a fairly general one. So it was either a "comedy of errors," or it was a hospital records mix-up.

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Someone posted elsewhere on this board that the novel explains this better than the film - apparently the Ripper did swap his medical records with a dead patient, or something like that.

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Love the film, just rented it to watch it again.

I agree with you about nitpicking every little detail. A true "goof" would be, say, a movie that takes place in 1878 and Lincoln is the president. Go with really big stuff, not every teensy, tiny detail..."that car model was first offered for sale on Tues, June 10 and the movie has the car on Mon, June 9" GOOF!

It's fantasy, fun, fiction. I think these people are trying to show off by finding errors in every excruciatingly minor detail they can. See how smart I am?!

The last paragraph of your post says it all!

Ciao!

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LOL agreed! Especially with your last paragraph LOL hahaha

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Decent people shouldn't post here. They'd be much happier posting somewhere else.

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I agree wholeheartedly! While reading the comments for this film, a line from the opening theme of Mystery Science Theater 3000 came to mind: "Just repeat to yourself that it's just a show/I should really just relax."

"Time After Time" isn't a docudrama; it's just a fun romp that makes it easy to turn your brain off for a couple of hours and go with the flow.

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So the film has an element of camp to it, so what? (While the aforementioned The Time Machine [1960], actually based on H.G. Wells' Sci-Fi Literary Classic does not--they are rather different kinds of films, despite the intentional similarities of the latter film to the former.) So what's with this deconstructionism anyway?

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And to think that computers used to be about precision! Bah! Precision! Who needs it!

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Just Read all these entries under "Sloppiness" and feel what we really need is Doc Brown from Back to the Future II drawing up the timeline and explaining the Space-Time Continuum for TAT.

I thought I understood everything until now!!!

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Haha Doc Brown drawing it all out on a chalkboard oh so concisely in Back to the Future, Part II is so excellent, perfectly brilliant, really.

OTOH, it was certainly more necessary for that film than this one, Time After Time, a much more simple and straightforward time-travel circumstance and story.

But yes, given the current moviegoing Peanut Gallery, unfortunately I can't argue your point whatwith it being so true and all hehehehehe hahahahaha  hahahahaha *beep*hole dummies! 

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I think the nurse was obviously mistaken about the john doe....I think jack the ripper must have come in just after him and they let him go because he was okay, or he refused to go to the hospital

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