7 Stupid Movie Time Travel Mistakes
Temporal anomalies and other tosh…
BY Jul 10th 2009 8:08AMFILED UNDER: Features
User Comments (3)
The Movie: Timecop (1994)
The Time Travel Scenario: With time travel now possible, the government decides to place restrictions on how and why it can be used, primarily to prevent people from going back in time and getting rich/indulging in other nefarious deeds.
Naturally, some (mostly US government types) decide to do exactly that, which is when Time Enforcement Agent Max Walker (Jean-Claude Van Damme) discovers a conspiracy swirling around a senator (the brilliantly evil Ron Silver).
When Walker eventually confronts Senator McComb, a big battle ensues and, since the movie hinges on one big “rule” of time travel – that two versions of the same matter cannot exist in the same space – Walker ends up chucking one version of McComb from the future with his past self and the two implode into a puddle of blood, which then vanishes.
Saves on the cleaning bills, we guess.
The Problem: The whole “identical matter cannot share the same space” idea is shaky to begin with, but here’s the real kicker: McComb is not quite the “same” matter.
Sure he’s the same person, but one of the men is from 10 years ago. During 10 years, the human body switches out its essential matter many times as everything down to follicles is replaced.
All that would likely happen is the two McCombs would bounce off each other and Van Damme would look foolish.
Maybe he could kick them both hard enough so that they’d explode?
Albert Einstein Says: “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
In Other Words: Based on this and A Sound Of Thunder, people should really stop letting director Peter Hyams anywhere near time travel films.
Next: Kate & Leopold
Print Comments (3)
1: Desperation says
" (we’d like to credit them with the iPod and blame them for Johnny 5), "
I'm sorry, you appear to have got these the wrong way round.
Posted: Jul 10th 2009 // 10:21AMAlert a moderator
2: sowasred2012 says
I always refer back to the parallel outcome idea in time travel movies these days - it's the only way to stay sane. Kudos to Terminator Salvation for running with the idea that they could be in an alternate timeline now, but I have a big problem with some of it's internal logic - (SPOILERS, kinda) as the movie opens Connor is freaking out cos he's discovered Skynet has started R&D on the T-800 model, yet Marcus, a guy who signed his body over to Cyberdyne upon his execution FIFTEEN YEARS ago, displays way more advanced tech then we've seen in previous terminators. Why put R&D into a model that can be beat by a unit you created 15 years ago?
I was almost expecting this to be addressed, or at least hinted at, in the movie with some sort of time travel explanation - but I saw nada. Unless you count the stunt casting of Helena Bonham Carter, and the extra notice she makes you pay to that opening scene might suggest that story will be told in a sequel, but I'm not confident that's the case.
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