MovieChat Forums > In the Shadow of the Moon (2019) Discussion > Sadly, you CAN'T CHANGE the past via tim...

Sadly, you CAN'T CHANGE the past via time travel! HERE'S why...-->

posted 5 years ago by Alessandro (112)
8 replies | jump to latest

Take a trip back in time, why not? See the great events (or tragedies) live, see famous people etc. BUT you can never change anything, even if you tried.

Example? Why wouldn't you want to go back to 1912 and tell the Captain of the TITANIC to watch out for icebergs especially during the evening of April 14?

Even if you built your time machine and are already sitting in it (maybe it looks a bit like a one-person sleigh with a big metal plate rotating at the rear end and a comfy leather chair^^), ready and eager for the trip, shaking my hand, saying, "Wish me good luck!", I would just say:

"You can get out, you didn't achieve your goal." You would answer, "Hey, I haven't gone back yet, I'm just on my way. How can you say I will not be successful?"

"Well", I would reply, showing him the Wikipedia page plus many books and articles about the TITANIC disaster and also waving the BluRay of a certain movie made in 1997, "because you obviously failed in preventing it. We all know it happened. See all this here?!"

Perplexed, you then say, "But wait, maybe others will build their own time machines and go back next year or in five years to prevent it. Maybe they will be successful! What about them?" I could only reply:

"They also failed. And I say 'failed' and not 'will fail' because even if they haven't yet gone on their journey (maybe they haven't even been born yet), they already failed because we know it happened. The physical and printed evidence is on the table and in our collective minds. Regardless of their time machine's departure point back to 1912, be it you just now or another yet-to-be-born person in 30 years from now, you all would go back to a point that is, as you can see by looking at a calendar, over 100 years past already. It happened BECAUSE APPARENTLY, NOBODY CHANGED IT."

I'd add, "But do go back and see it depart. Shed a tear for all those on board seeking a better future in the USA. But you can't prevent it from happening. Warn poor Cpt. Smith as much as you want, but something else will happen then, maybe a heart attack or something. But THE TITANIC SANK and always WILL HAVE SUNK."

(If you want further input into that direction, read Stephen King's excellent novel 11/22/63 for that matter about time heavily resisting being altered.)

And that's it, folks, plain and simple. Everything that ever happened happened because nobody changed it because it did happen in the past as we can readily see and watch and read about here in the present.

And while we're at it, if you enjoy fukking your mind up with a thing similar (and much more in the general realm of possibility) to time travel, which is time dilatation, i.e. stretching or squeezing time (and space) in the space-time continuum, read Stephen King's frighteningly good short story THE JAUNT (from his "Skeleton Crew" anthology book), ***this information really won't spoil the fun of reading it!*** where people can make a trip to Mars very fast and easily by essentially moving through a machine, going in one end and exiting the other in practically no-time – only one condition: you have to be asleep… since if in the space-time continuum you squeeze space to basically zero (instantaneous exit on Mars), then in order to maintain the balance… The rest is a devastating and shocking story, one of King's absolute best IMHO, sure to give you nightmares and food for thought long after you've read it.

And just two other essential viewing tips:

2014's INTERSTELLAR – THE single best SF movie about the effects of time dilatation ever! (Most of you will have seen it but nevertheless)

2018's DURANTE LA TORMENTA /engl. title MIRAGE!!!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6908274/reference

Thanks for reading!

[–] Costumer (1833) 5 years ago

It depends entirely on what theory of time travel you ascribe to. There are several.

Now, before I go on, I don't believe time travel is possible, so this is just an intellectual excercise

1. One theory agrees with you. No matter what you do you cannot change the past. Even if you go your actions will not change anything. In this theory you always went back in time and everything you did already contributed to what actually happened. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban follows this theory.

2. You can change the past. The moment you all of history is rewritten taking into account what you did. When you return no one will know you changed history because as far as they are concerned that is the only history they know. You, the protagonist, may or may not remember the original timeline. I believe Timeless follows this theory as does A Sound of Thunder

3. If you change the past a new timeline is born. It is separate and distinct from the original timeline. So in the first timeline history as it first was continues as normal. In the second timeline history accommodates the changes you make and changes. When you return to the present you may return to the original or the new timeline. Again, the people in those timelines will not know anything about the other. Many comics use this theory.

There may be other possibilities, but I am very familiar with these.

[–] TimMC (9143) 5 years ago

Time travel is impossible.

That's why.

Let the crazy leftwing nutbags continue their fantasy.

[–] moviechatterer (16293) 5 years ago

I havent seen this movie, what makes it a crazy leftwing nutbag movie?

[–] Redsfan001 (6215) 5 years ago

Just try telling that to "The Guardian of Forever"

[–] Moonglum9 (11336) 5 years ago

The Jaunt was always one of my favorite King short stories. It's eternity in there!

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

It was a good story. A short and simple concept, But horrifying to think about. In general, I think his short stories are better than his long books.

[–] asom (6892) 5 years ago

Agree, you cannot change the past ...

BUT ... can you change the future???

As an example: you cannot travel from the future and give to yourself the lottery numbers. But could you peek into the future and see them? (of course, assuming the tech would exist).

[–] foxtografo (9) 3 years ago

But... we haven't understood entirely how time works, there are only theories, if time travel is or not possible, we'll only know when we do.
All the theories we have now are only that because we don't know enough. No one believes things can be done until they're done, it has happened way too many times to not have learn that lesson.
So, if in this movie, they discovered the way to travel in time, even if the explanation is insufficient or unsatisfactory, just roll with it and see what happens, it's a bit silly to object a whole movie because of science that we don't understand yet, if ever...

MILD SPOILER AHEAD
Something that bothered me more from this movie (even if I actually liked it!) was the way the killer kills, why the injections? That's something that I really didn't understand and didn't get an explanation. It's a big deal of the mystery of the movie in the first half too! It seems like the Scientist is developing this tech to kill, but the main thing to achieve the plan is actually the time travelling, the targets could have been killed in a more "natural" or normal (and also less suspicious) way, as she was making physical contact with them.
I honestly didn't get why that whole plot thing, I guess I'm missing something... please let me know if I do! :)