I want to be really clear on this -- this blog has nothing to do with the old DC game and is most definitely not a sequel. I feel I need to clarify this due to the fact that my character in that game which ran from 2006-2007 had my name, went to my school, and was graduating from my program before he discovered the mysteries of 'time communication!' within the context of the narrative. This was all a part of wrapping the illusion of the storytelling into real-world facts about myself to increase believability and agency for the audience/players who were reading the (at that time) 'blarg' written by my in-game alter ego. Confused? That's ok, so was I most of the time too (and so was my character), but I'm not letting that stop me from finally having a place to put this - my favorite post from the game entitled...
Movie Time Travel Why movie "time travel" is impossible:
BACK TO THE FUTURE: “Items from the future reflect what will be, if the events of today are allowed to continue into tomorrow.”
WRONG: How do you spell "paradox" doc? If Old Biff simply faded away in 2015 after politely bringing the DeLorean back to the... well you know, then why didn't everything else change too, to the future where Biff owned everything and it was trashed? Doesn't the butterfly principle state anyway that the little changes would change other things? Wouldn't Biff's actions from 1955 change the outcome of at least ONE game he bet on? Sounds to me like Marty wasn't traveling between timelines... he was shifting universes! (Which I'll get on later)
TERMINATOR: “The future is not set, there is no fate but what you make.”
WRONG: Apparently future events will find a way eventually happening no matter what, even if it ignores all previous dates given in previous movies. It just sort of takes longer? This calls for a definition in the form of a poker metaphor: FATE: The hand you are dealt, immutable, unchangeable, set! DESTINY: your decision to alter the course of events by handing 3 cards back, or folding, raising, or staying with your hand! Poker would stink if you always call and never traded cards.
TIME BANDITS: Six dwarves steal a map of time portals from “God” of interconnected holes in the fabric of space/time.
WRONG: If as many holes existed in space time on this planet as in the plot of this movie (Sorry Terry, loved Monty Python though!) then we would constantly be falling through them and everybody would be his own grandpa. In order for space-time to be that jumbled and full of holes, then it would be proof that God wadded up the universe and tossed it in the trash, missed and the cat had a go at it for a while.
MELLENIUM: We are blocked from knowing certain details about our own life. Any changes in the past that trigger a paradox will cause “time quakes” with the potential to destroy us completely.
WRONG: Doc Brown suggested that meeting one’s self could potentially destroy the universe. And while this did not play out at all in BTTF, apparently you can “travel far enough into the future” to avoid all this as demonstrated by the freaky smoking white haired lady. The number of ways that this idea makes no sense is exactly one: if timelines can be changed by the actions of people who never lived to make the changes, then the changes never happened in the first place. (Period!)
TIMELINE: We don’t ACTUALLY travel through time, but into alternate dimensions just like our own where we appeared in the past. There are an infinite number of universes, and an infinite number are created for every potentiality that exists in every potential universe.
WRONG: Infinity to the Infinity power is still infinity. But the formula HAS to allow for a universe where there are no universes spawned by it, which means that for it to be truly infinite it must be: (Infinity to the Infinity power) minus (Infinity to the Infinity power minus one.) This is clearly impossible.
DONNIE DARKO: If changing past events causes a paradox, then the universe will slip from its normal rules until the thing that must happen does, correcting itself.
WRONG: Donnie’s powers and the appearance of an early-dead rabbit have no basis in fact. If something did fall through a time portal and cause/prevent a death, so long as that person didn’t prevent the “thing” from going back in time, then it would have happened that way in the first place. The universe doesn’t play dice with God either… In fact I’m not altogether sure if the two are on speaking terms.
LAKE HOUSE: Messages can be sent back and forth through time, but love conquers all… or something.
WRONG: In my heart, Keanu’s character was hit by the stupid bus. Even if you accept the GLARING irrational hiccup of causality that was set forth from the beginning proving “you can’t change things” but was blatantly ignored by the planting of a tree that just “appears”, there is still no practical reason WHY Keanu would have gone to the stupid mailbox all the way out of town on the off chance that she would message him when she’s been ignoring him for a year! And speaking of Mr. Reeves:
BILL AND TED: You can't change anything "what will happen has happened"
WRONG: Er... actually I got nothing. Aside from the obvious lunacy of traveling through "the circuits of time" in a phone booth ("Dr. Who" Fans sit down!) and being there physically to kick around in the past... this one kind of makes the most sense.
-AB
BACK TO THE FUTURE: “Items from the future reflect what will be, if the events of today are allowed to continue into tomorrow.”
WRONG: How do you spell "paradox" doc? If Old Biff simply faded away in 2015 after politely bringing the DeLorean back to the... well you know, then why didn't everything else change too, to the future where Biff owned everything and it was trashed? Doesn't the butterfly principle state anyway that the little changes would change other things? Wouldn't Biff's actions from 1955 change the outcome of at least ONE game he bet on? Sounds to me like Marty wasn't traveling between timelines... he was shifting universes! (Which I'll get on later)
TERMINATOR: “The future is not set, there is no fate but what you make.”
WRONG: Apparently future events will find a way eventually happening no matter what, even if it ignores all previous dates given in previous movies. It just sort of takes longer? This calls for a definition in the form of a poker metaphor: FATE: The hand you are dealt, immutable, unchangeable, set! DESTINY: your decision to alter the course of events by handing 3 cards back, or folding, raising, or staying with your hand! Poker would stink if you always call and never traded cards.
TIME BANDITS: Six dwarves steal a map of time portals from “God” of interconnected holes in the fabric of space/time.
WRONG: If as many holes existed in space time on this planet as in the plot of this movie (Sorry Terry, loved Monty Python though!) then we would constantly be falling through them and everybody would be his own grandpa. In order for space-time to be that jumbled and full of holes, then it would be proof that God wadded up the universe and tossed it in the trash, missed and the cat had a go at it for a while.
MELLENIUM: We are blocked from knowing certain details about our own life. Any changes in the past that trigger a paradox will cause “time quakes” with the potential to destroy us completely.
WRONG: Doc Brown suggested that meeting one’s self could potentially destroy the universe. And while this did not play out at all in BTTF, apparently you can “travel far enough into the future” to avoid all this as demonstrated by the freaky smoking white haired lady. The number of ways that this idea makes no sense is exactly one: if timelines can be changed by the actions of people who never lived to make the changes, then the changes never happened in the first place. (Period!)
TIMELINE: We don’t ACTUALLY travel through time, but into alternate dimensions just like our own where we appeared in the past. There are an infinite number of universes, and an infinite number are created for every potentiality that exists in every potential universe.
WRONG: Infinity to the Infinity power is still infinity. But the formula HAS to allow for a universe where there are no universes spawned by it, which means that for it to be truly infinite it must be: (Infinity to the Infinity power) minus (Infinity to the Infinity power minus one.) This is clearly impossible.
DONNIE DARKO: If changing past events causes a paradox, then the universe will slip from its normal rules until the thing that must happen does, correcting itself.
WRONG: Donnie’s powers and the appearance of an early-dead rabbit have no basis in fact. If something did fall through a time portal and cause/prevent a death, so long as that person didn’t prevent the “thing” from going back in time, then it would have happened that way in the first place. The universe doesn’t play dice with God either… In fact I’m not altogether sure if the two are on speaking terms.
LAKE HOUSE: Messages can be sent back and forth through time, but love conquers all… or something.
WRONG: In my heart, Keanu’s character was hit by the stupid bus. Even if you accept the GLARING irrational hiccup of causality that was set forth from the beginning proving “you can’t change things” but was blatantly ignored by the planting of a tree that just “appears”, there is still no practical reason WHY Keanu would have gone to the stupid mailbox all the way out of town on the off chance that she would message him when she’s been ignoring him for a year! And speaking of Mr. Reeves:
BILL AND TED: You can't change anything "what will happen has happened"
WRONG: Er... actually I got nothing. Aside from the obvious lunacy of traveling through "the circuits of time" in a phone booth ("Dr. Who" Fans sit down!) and being there physically to kick around in the past... this one kind of makes the most sense.
-AB
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