7 Stupid Movie Time Travel Mistakes
Temporal anomalies and other tosh…
BY Jul 10th 2009 8:08AMFILED UNDER: Features
User Comments (3)
The Movie: The Terminator (1984)
The Time Travel Scenario: In an attempt to destroy any human resistance, the computer known as Skynet sends a killer cyborg, who happens to look exactly like an Austrian bodybuilder, back in time.
His mission? To kill Sarah Connor, who will one day give birth to John Connor, leader of the human resistance and eventual victor over the machines.
To try and thwart the technological terrorist, Connor sends Kyle Reese back to protect Connor and, without knowing it, help create him in the first place – since Reese ends up falling for, and having a quick one with Sarah, conceiving John.
The Problem: For all of its strengths, Cameron’s first time in the Terminator universe falls prey to the Grandfather Paradox: to whit, if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather, you cease to exist, so how can you go back in time?
Terminator’s is trickier – the machines want to kill Connor, but if they do so, there’s no Connor to take out and no reason for the machines to send anything back in time.
And why not just send lots of machines back to kill Sarah Connor’s dad, thereby upping the chances that no one is ready to deal with the heavily armed machines?
And… And… We could go on, but that way lies paradoxes and headaches.
Of course, Cameron’s theory works if you consider the parallel outcome idea, which says that alternate timelines are created every time an event happens, but we’re not letting him off so lightly.
Albert Einstein Says: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”
In Other Words: Try not to think too deeply about it. Or you’ll need aspirin.
Next: Idiocracy
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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