Here are two excellent movies about time travel. The first see a man being sent from the future to protect a woman who will give birth to a great man. Also being sent back is a cyborg bent on terminating her before she can give birth to him. Once these two beings arrive there is no more physical time travel but the implications and paradoxes continue throughout. Sarah Conner is at first a timid mullet wearing woman who is thrust into a situation where she is being hunted and where she is told that she will train her son to be a great soldier. She is told of the destruction of the majority of Earth's population, she knows the date. She is told of a war that happens afterwards between the machines and the survivors of mankind.
In the second movie another terminator has been sent back to kill the son who is 12 years old, and to protect him another terminator, captured and 'tamed' has been sent back to protect him. Once again no more time travel is used once they arrive but the foreknowledge of events to come drive the story. Can they prevent the war? Can they stop the machines from becoming what they are? Does killing the man solely responsible for this make them any better than the machines? All this is dealt with in a way which is entertaining to an audience, we can enjoy this purely as an action movie, but if we wish, we can also look into the deeper messages.
2. 12 Monkeys
I love this movie, though I never at first. To me this agrees with my own theories on time travel; you cannot prevent what has already happened from happening.
Mankind has been enduring a virus that has killed off most people. The survivors live underground but scientists can send back James Cole to the past to gather information on the virus and maybe even obtain a sample of it in it's pure form so that a cure can be made. He also has to track down the army of the 12 monkeys who may have started all of this.
Unfortunately, time travel screws with your mind and being sent back to a strange time can lead you to being caught and put in a nut house if you aren't careful. Guess what? Cole wasn't careful. Throughout the story, Cole is treat as a mental patient, his story isn't believed, he is on the run from the law. His psychiatrist begins to slowly believe him but just as we the audience start to get our doubts. This movie deals with time travel but also insanity. Is Cole really from the future or is he insane? Perhaps it's both? He is also reminded of a dream he keeps having which may or may not be a memory of when he was a boy. A memory that gradually seems to be coming true as the story progresses, the characters becoming the people Cole is around.
There is a lot to get from this movie. A first viewing may or may not make you like it, but you definitely need to watch this at least twice because you will start to pick more things up, more paradoxes, more questions, more theories and more headaches. It truly does get greater with each viewing and cannot be justified in this post.
1. Back to the Future Trilogy
Not only is this one of the best time travel movies, it is one of the best movies ever, period. The script is incredible in it's comedy, plot arch and characters. This is all brought to life by brilliant directing, effects and a perfect cast.
Time travel in this movie works this way: You can change anything that has happened in the past, but it will have severe consequences on the future. The last thing you want to do is prevent your own birth...which is what Marty McFly does within his first few hours of arriving back in 1955. The movie is a race against time to get his young mum and dad together before he fades away out of memory. The second two movies, although not planned at all during the making of the first, brilliantly add on to this story. We see Marty go back, yet again, to 1955, where he has to avoid his past self whilst interacting with the events we witnessed in the first movie. Not only that, we see a glimpse of the future, 2015, and get a lesson in paradoxes when a character from 2015 goes back to 1955 and changes history. We see how this effects the present, and also the character in the future (he quickly fades away after coming back from the past).
Some people dismiss this as confusing and not as good as the first. While the latter is true, the second movie is still hugely entertaining and explains time travel and paradoxes in a way that no other movie has been able to do (who can forget Doc's diagram on the blackboard?).
The third movie, only deals slightly with the issues that the first two did, but is still a great movie, entertaining in the same vein as the others and a great way to end the trilogy
.So, what are YOUR favourite movies that deal with time travel? No doubt you will disagree with my list but it would be enjoyable to see what you think of it and to name your own. Feel free to put all thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.
