MovieChat Forums > Frequency (2000) Discussion > great film, but time travel consequences...

great film, but time travel consequences as always, greatly underestimat

posted 15 years ago by martytamu27
13 replies | jump to latest

I know its a movie, but just think about things.
if you alter a past event...even so much as only holding someone up at a stop sign for 30 seconds, as an example-think of a million other minute seemingly inconsequential things in your head, you alter the entire history of countless other people and events forever...branching farther out as time goes on.
a great many people will not ever exist and many more willthat otherwise would not have. just think of it.
suppose when you held up that one person they didnt meet the person they would have one day mated with, it happens all the time, chance encounters that lead to marriage or whatever... so instead they go on to someone else and that other person does as well and that creates a chain reaction over and over branching out exponentially...if you did that 30 years ago, the current day 30 years later would be nothing like the one that previously had been.

im just saying i couldnt direct or write a time travel movie, except in fun like hot tub time machine, because theres no way it would in anyway be remotely realistic and i wouldnt believe in it.

just think of how the smallest changes can alter the future in tremendous ways. and how each event, no matter how small has huge effects on all others.

all that said, it was a very touching movie, that was somehow overlooked.
thank you for talking about it on reno 911, so that i had the pleasure of watching it.

[–] JR541 15 years ago

Since time travel is impossible we will never know if you are right.

He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?

[–] martytamu27 15 years ago

Me being right wasnt the issue.
the reality we live in is the culmination of all those trillion to once deals that just happend to fall into place to lead to us...change one tiny little thing...infintesimal and it will have enormous consequences on the future and the farther into the future one goes the greater the result of that small action.
and dont believe me, just figure it out in your head.
yeh time travel is impossible, or is it?
but if it wasnt, as it wasnt in many movies, then they are still completely unrealisitic

...and another example...there are hundreds of millions of sperm every time there is a pregnancy....all wanting to be the one, but only one makes it...just think..watch conan for a few seconds longer before making the move that leads to the conception and a differnt sperm would have been the lucky one to make it to the egg...therefore a different person would have been born...and all that that entails.

[–] LocoHero 14 years ago

Or maybe the same sperm still makes it to the egg because it is still the strongest one.

Maybe things will still happen as they did before, but with the details changed so slightly that the knock-on effects are inconsequential. ie as if there is some element of "fate" in the universe that can only be altered by drastic actions like murder, or saving someone's life.

[–] martytamu27 14 years ago

maybe, blah
hundreds of new sperm are created each second in the testicles.
and even if it was the strongest, it has to compete with 450 million others to get there first. so a few seconds later would guarantee, at least 999,999 times out of one million that a different sperm would win the race, as the strongest would be starting from a different location, probably farther back or whereever it doesnt matter, not in as advantagsous position as the time when he made it there first.
but arguing this is dumb, there are infintesimal different outcomes from just the smallest changes...all multiplying exponentially the farther out in time from that first tiny change.
the sperm was just an example.

[–] proteus122 14 years ago

Time travel isn't entirely impossible...at least going forward. According to Einstein’s Special Relativity it is possible to go forward in time by means of time dilation. It's a one way trip though as the math doesn't support going backwards in time.

You leave earth traveling at least half the speed of light. Time goes forward for you normally and you're trip around the solar system takes you, say, three years. When you return to earth you're surprised (or not) to find out that hundreds of years have passed(Maybe someone who understands the theory and the math better could chime in). You have effectively jumped into the future.

What a shame though that the acceleration up to 1/2C would have killed you and used half the energy in the known universe. But Ces't la vie!

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module4_time_dilation.htm

Since we are on IMDB, the home of the flametard, I should say that I'm not a physicist and only remember what I do from HS. So please, if you have the chops to further enlighten us, please leave the snarky, hipper-than-though comments with your mommy in the basement and edify us with more accurate knowledge.

[–] king_of_bob 13 years ago

Time travel isn't entirely impossible...at least going forward. According to Einstein’s Special Relativity it is possible to go forward in time by means of time dilation. It's a one way trip though as the math doesn't support going backwards in time.

Forward and backward travel are equally possible by way of wormholes. Should they prove to actually exist beyond theory.

Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!

[–] nednut 14 years ago

What everybody in this thread has completely missed is the fact that this is not even a film about time travel.

It is a film about time manipulation and granted time manipulation can still escalate exponentially and maybe it does even in this film. But as the story only concentrates on five or six people and how the time manipulation affects them then that is all that matters surely.

Otherwise we'd be talking about a film in the style of Crash that basically goes on forever!

[–] martytamu27 14 years ago

why bog down in technical definitions?
its altering the future by messing with the past.
and while its possible all are still alive because of the changes, by making such grand changes in the past...saving a life. the effects 30 years down the road on current life wouild be enormous.
just to start...think about it, she lives, he lives also, so that means somebody else doesnt take her job or his, that causes other peoples lives to change..people that would have met and reproduced never will.. people are in teh wrong place at the wrong time and die, when they normally wouldnt have and people are born or not born that would have had no changes been made...and you can think all day of the changes...a presdidnt or killer wouldnt ahve been born or would have.
just the tiniest things change everything eventually.
think about important people youve met in your life and how the tiniest changes or decisions made and they never would have come into your life and all that that ential.

it makes for a good movie, but it far too simplistic on the effects of manipulating that past has on the future.

[–] king_of_bob 13 years ago

Stop talking as though anyone knows exactly how time travel would work, because nobody does. A work of fiction establishes it's own rules of time travel. Besides which, movies do not have to conform to reality. If they did, we wouldn't have fantasy and horror movies(not to mention film in general would be quite boring).

We're all perfectly aware of the butterfly effect, but that doesn't enter into this movie. Minor changes result in relatively minor repercussions within the framework of the movie.

Besides which, 30 years is not much time in the grand scheme of things. Not that many lives are going to be changed by the minor changes Frank causes in the timeline.

just think of how the smallest changes can alter the future in tremendous ways. and how each event, no matter how small has huge effects on all others.

Yeah yeah. We get it. You've seen The Butterfly Effect. The problem is, that movie is not the only model for time travel.

Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!

[–] martytamu27 13 years ago

Yeh everyone has heard of it, but apparently few comphrehend it fully. Hence my spelling it out.
30 years is a long time. Just someone's presence in the past alters everything eventually. Just think how many people meet by chance that ten seconds here or there and their paths would never cross. So a person there alters paths. Two people don't meet so they wind up with other people. So kids are. Born that never would have and some that had existed never will. And that is just one example. Car crashes. We will never know how man times we narrowly avoid death. Because we're still alive.
That is how things work. It's like math. A movie can't chane that. It can change the rules of time travel but not hard reality. It's fun to watch. But any presence in the past even fleeting had huge repercussions

[–] king_of_bob 13 years ago

Yeh everyone has heard of it, but apparently few comphrehend it fully. Hence my spelling it out.

No, the butterfly effect is probably the easiest model of time travel to understand.

30 years is a long time.

In the grand scheme of things, no, it really isn't. 30 years is not even a drop in the bucket.

Just someone's presence in the past alters everything eventually.

True in the Butterfly Effect, not every single work of fiction involving time travel. The problem here is, that you seem to think the Butterfly Effect is the ONLY way to deal with time travel, and it absolutely is not.

Just think how many people meet by chance that ten seconds here or there and their paths would never cross. So a person there alters paths. Two people don't meet so they wind up with other people. So kids are. Born that never would have and some that had existed never will. And that is just one example. Car crashes. We will never know how man times we narrowly avoid death. Because we're still alive.

Yes we all get it. You can stop trying to explain it because I get it. The point remains, this is not the only model of time travel. Nothing your saying means anything, because the butterfly effect does not apply in this movie. Changes to the timeline result in "minor" repercussions, not wiping people from the entirety of history.

That is how things work. It's like math. A movie can't chane that. It can change the rules of time travel but not hard reality. It's fun to watch. But any presence in the past even fleeting had huge repercussions

This is absolutely ludicrous. Have you ever time traveled or known someone who has? Then you have 0 ability to make this claim. A movie can use whatever model of the universe it likes, because nobody knows which is correct. Besides which, as I said, works of fiction are not required to conform to reality anyway.

Everything you're saying is pure speculation, yet you present your argument as though it's absolute fact and it is not even close to that. You look like kind of an idiot when you try to suggest you know for certain when it's completely impossible for you to know what model of the universe is correct.

For all you know, we exist in a self consistent universe(for example). So any action a time traveler will take, is already established history before they make any trip. Any attempt to alter the past is doomed to fail because it's already factually happened, including the time travelers part in events.

Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!

[–] martytamu27 13 years ago

First the butterfly effect isn't a model ofI time travel. It's a consequence of.
And yeh it's understood on a superficial level but. Very few comprehend how the tiniest presence changes things drastically. And eventually everything.
30 years in butterfly effect is a very long time for major changes to manifest. In geological time it's not but in the context of this argument it is very long.

And third why do I debate you?
You're one of those Guys that debate someone and frame every response and argue them all and 99% of the time your counter argument is completely baseless.

So that's all I have to say to you about this.
Life is too short to waste on nonsense

[–] king_of_bob 13 years ago

First the butterfly effect isn't a model ofI time travel. It's a consequence of.

It's a consequence of a nonlinear system. However, since we do not currently know what sort of system our universe exists in, you cannot claim absolute certainty as you are in your preceding posts.

And yeh it's understood on a superficial level but. Very few comprehend how the tiniest presence changes things drastically. And eventually everything.

No, it's actually very easy to understand. It's in fact probably the easiest to comprehend.

30 years in butterfly effect is a very long time for major changes to manifest. In geological time it's not but in the context of this argument it is very long.

No it really isn't. Considering the universe is 14 billion years old, 30 years isn't even a drop in the bucket. Even when compared to life on this planet, 30 years is an incredibly small fraction.

In the context of this argument, it's still an incredibly short amount of time. Hell, even if we ONLY talk about the existence of man, 30 years is still a very short period of time.

And once again, your assumption that only possible outcome is the butterfly effect is patently false. Since once again, we do not know the specific nature of our universe. Once again, we could very well live in a self consistent universe were paradoxes are literally impossible to produce, and the butterfly effect wouldn't enter into it.

And third why do I debate you?
You're one of those Guys that debate someone and frame every response and argue them all and 99% of the time your counter argument is completely baseless.

You're not debating me actually. You're just stubbornly sticking to your claim that the butterfly effect is 100% correct even though there is 0 factual supporting evidence.

My argument is far from baseless. I'm afraid it's you who are making the baseless claims by suggesting that the butterfly effect is factually correct. This claim only shows that you're ignorant of the fact that we do not know the nature of the timeline we live in, not to mention the fact that fiction does not have to conform to reality.

You haven't addressed a single one of my arguments. You just keep repeating your belief in the butterfly effect even though, as I said, there is no factual evidence to support it.

So that's all I have to say to you about this.
Life is too short to waste on nonsense

You're pathetic. You start this conversation about how the butterfly effect is the one true consequence of time travel, and then throw up your hands and give up as soon as you're presented with an argument that shows your total lack of understanding of the subject at hand.

This nonsense was started by you, not me.

Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!