MovieChat Forums > The Time Machine (2002) Discussion > Can someone explain this?

Can someone explain this?

posted 5 months ago by CodyXBrenda (326)
6 replies | jump to latest

The Uber Morlock leader explains that he is the result of Alex's tragedy (to prevent Emma's death). So this leads to an interesting theory: Because Alex lost Emma when a mugger shot her, he would spend the next 4 years building a time machine to go back and try to prevent her death; only to find out that it's not possible to change her fate and that she will die, no matter how many times he tries. This somehow leads to humanity accidentally causing a global apocalyptic disaster (136 years later) and causing mankind to split into two, along with the loss of all technology for the next 800,000 years; and it's all because of Alex couldn't save Emma from her fate. So does this mean if Alex had been successful, the 2037 moon apocalypse wouldn't have happened and none of morlocks and their leader wouldn't even exist? So was Alex responsible for that desolate future, because of his guilt and failure to save Emma, or was it something else?

[–] Pactive (19) 5 months ago

I'm not sure what your question is?

[–] CodyXBrenda (326) 5 months ago

It's a theory based off what the Uber Morlock leader said. He shows Alex a "what if" scenario where Emma had lived and she and Alex had kids, then he tells him the reason why he couldn't save her, due to a paradox and brings up the reason why the whole post-apocalyptic future even exists in the first place.

[–] AnagramYYZ (606) 5 months ago

You're confused. What happened in the post-apocalypic future has nothing to do with Alex, Emma or the time machine.

Alex travelled to the future with the presumption that they would have greater knowledge of the mechanics of time travel. It frustrated him, because he felt his invention should have led to success in his quest. To his surprise, the future has always considered it as part of theoretical fiction, and no answers were forthcoming.

When tragedy strikes, and he by chance ends up 800,000 in the future, he encounters the Uber-Morlock with telepathy. The Morlock only knows what ails Alexander because of the mind control powers. His advanced evolutionary reason allows him to see the correlation between the event of his fiance's murder and his effort to construct the temporal apparatus. He answers his question to stroke his own ego and with the expectation that Alex'll leave... and he basically considers him a primitive piss-ant regardless of his invention.

The theme, at this point, is Alexander overcoming the futility of his machine. His character arc is to relinquish his selfish reason for creating it, and redirect it's purpose to save the Eloi and sacrifice it all.

[–] CodyXBrenda (326) 5 months ago

Then why does the Uber Morlock say "You are the inescapable results of your tragedy, just as I am of the inescapable result of you."?

It sounds like the catastrophic Moon event that occurred on August 18, 2037 had something to do with Alex's failure of not changing the past and as unrelated as that was, caused the whole Eloi and Morlock split to occur for the next 800,000 years.

It would make little to no sense why his own personal tragedy would indirectly affect the entirety of civilization, over a century later and at a huge cost; with all the developed technology being wiped out and the dual split of mankind where one half would de-evolve into monstrous beings, while the other would revert back into cavemen like beings in a "Stone Age" style premitive future while being hunted by the other race.

[–] AnagramYYZ (606) 5 months ago

I think he meant "You" as in "Humanity." He's the certain evolutionary outcome, given the direction that Humans, always divided between the "graceful" and the "animalistic," were tending towards.

I did say he was stroking his own ego, and he couldn’t skirt inserting his own existence into the question by comparison as if humanity’s endeavors only served to his eventuality as a species. It also explains why he is not afraid of letting Hartegan leave. Now that Alex understands how the moon disaster affected the species, he wouldn’t be able to theoretically prevent the moon collapse debacle since his motivation for doing so would be an encounter with a future subterranean Uber being who gave him a lecture. That’s the comparison.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (14381) 5 months ago

Alex's time machine and the paradox of his wife had nothing to do with the mining of the moon disaster. That was a separate thing that would have happened regardless of whether he'd invented the time machine or not.

And while the Uber Morlock spoke the truth, keep in mind he was planning to kill Alex and was manipulating him for fun. Obviously the creature hadn't had an intellectual chat with anyone in a long time, so it probably was amusing to him; but he also could tell from reading Alex's mind, that he was a threat, which is one of many reasons they had the final conflict they did.