Huge flaw - Timecop (1994) Discussion

[–] jjreed 19 years ago

How about this flaw. (Spoilers) Van Damme saves the day. He rescues his wife of 10 years ago by carrying her out of the house just before it blows up, and sets her next to his unconsious body of 10 years ago before returning to the future. When he returns to the future and goes home he ends up at his house in which he had lived in with his wife 10 years ago. I guess that house somehow magically got put back together after it was oblitorated by C4.

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[–] triforcer 19 years ago

one i can't get over is where the hell the pods go after they punch through time and another is how the hell did they get back in the pod in re-entry.

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[–] plastic_plan 19 years ago

When Ever Stuff Like This Happens In Movies, A Wizard Did It.

Cheers.

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[–] twopetsnakes 19 years ago

also...what happened to his mullet? it was there in one scene, but disappeared.

why are you wearing that stupid man suit? -dd

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[–] eschwartz80 18 years ago

They could have had that house rebuilt.

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[–] JR541 18 years ago

jreed wrote: ""I guess that house somehow magically got put back together after it was oblitorated by C4."" You can actually rebuild a house without magic.

He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?

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[–] frankzappayay 10 years ago

lol

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[–] uk_jb 19 years ago

They mention something about 'Iran trying for the 5 time this month or something'. Perhaps the prototype was the only other machine in America.

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[–] Elson321 19 years ago

Despite the flaws, it is still an enjoyable film.

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[–] giamatt02 19 years ago

I think it was sort of like nuclear weapons, US developed the first one, and then eventually other countries developed their own.

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[–] polsixe 16 years ago

Walker was making the timecop trips for 9-10 years, he had told the wife in 1994 that he was joining the new unit of the Washington PD, so, yes, like weapons other people can copy. There were only two known units in the US. It also took the senator about 10 years to figure out his plan of using the technology. Also, the home insurance carriers would rebuild equivalent to the old, maybe Mr. and Mrs. Walker wanted a visual duplicate.

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[–] Spifflock_Holmes 16 years ago

. . . maybe Mr. and Mrs. Walker wanted a visual duplicate.

There's no need to rebuild the house, now that McComb disappeared in 1994 and therefore never went back and destroyed it in the first place.

But that probably is what happened after the house was destroyed the "first" time: Max had it rebuilt just as it was, so that he could live there and remember Melissa.

----

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

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[–] mrsantUSCG 15 years ago

when he travels back he kills the 1994 senator by joining him with the 2004 senator. Now since the senator dies in 1994 he never gets to age to his 2004 version who travels back in time to destroy the house, no evil senator in 2004 means no one comes back to destroy the house anymore.

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[–] dipetriantonio 14 years ago

Yeah, but with that logic no evil Senator in 2004 also means no evil senator can come back in time and get annihilated with his younger self, therefore the younger self being older, now is able to go back in time to get annihilated with his younger self, this leading to, again no evil senator being able to come back in time... Hmm... Better not think to hard trying to make actual sense of this movie. Just enjoy it for what it is. Jean-Claude Van Damme in a mullet! How can you go wrong??:)

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[–] jeffleroo 19 years ago

This isn't a flaw.

Several times in the movie there is talk about the other cases that the TEC are currently working on. One which comes to mind is them talking about someone going back and "buying up Beverly Hills for chump change." The plot easily suggests that there are more time machines out there and that criminals are trying to use them to change the future, but the TEC is successfully stopping them. No flaw.

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[–] ThrowingChicken 14 years ago

But the movie also states there are only two time machines, and they act surprised that the senator has access to one of them. Why are they not surprised by all of the other time travelers?

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[–] aseddon130 19 years ago

>>>I know it's redundant to point out paradoxes in a time-travel flick, (I have, to date, not seen one without them)

See Back To The Future ... thats near perfect imo!

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[–] Mac-59 19 years ago

Back to the Future is the best time travel movie I've seen but it's far from perfect.
For one, how is it that McFly's body starts to fade out in pieces inside of just disappearing all together when it seems that his future isn't going to happen?
And when he does return to the future after his dad stands up to Biff, his family's lifestyles have changed but they still live in that crapola house.

Also, i think that if you go back in time and meet your dad, even the tiniest interaction with him will eradicate you instantaneously. George may eventually hook up with Marty's mom and have a son but it wouldn't be Marty anymore. The instant of conception where that particular sperm cell fertilizes the egg is a one in a billion shot. Even the slightest interuption from Marty would cause a change reaction affecting the exact moment when the "Marty" sperm got to the egg.
I think if you went back in time 100 years ago and even said "hi" to someone, the fabric of time, trillions of interwoven strands of actions and thoughts would cause exponential alterations maybe even leading to the deletion of the time traveller himself.

I think the movie that gets time travel as accuratly as possible is The Butterfly Effect.Even though he doesn't literally travel through time, he does affect the past.

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[–] therach1025 18 years ago

Oh man, I was trying to explain that sperm theory to my sister and it was tough getting her to understand. I told her it was like a jar full of marbles (or half full so they can move) being shaken and spilled repeatedly and expecting the same one to fall out first each time you refill and shake. However the egg of the woman would likely be the same. I also noticed that "fading Marty" phenomenon. Either he's born or he's not. There's no inbetween. He either exists or he doesn't.

I should see The Butterfly Effect but my aversion to Ashton Kutcher prevents me from doing so.

Timecop is so full of flaws I could barely stand watching it. Plus, it's a really really bad movie.

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[–] gregforttmags 18 years ago

Most time travel stories are nonsense and highly convoluted. If timetravel was discovered, it would be far too dangerous to implement, half of humanity would be erased if you went back in time and the Milky Way would implode into a time vortex.

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[–] daveh898 18 years ago

I felt that way too about seeing this movie.....but trust me, it's worth seeing even though it has Kutcher. The alternate ending on the dvd makes it even better.

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[–] bohdave 18 years ago

I don't really understand how the ending of the movie works out. He saves his wife back in 1994 right and comes back to the future. He goes home and meets his 2004 wife and son (for the first time).

What about from their point of view? As far as they are concerned did he go to work as usual that morning? If so at what point did "their" Walker fuse together with the Walker we go through the film with? How does he explain that he's completely forgotten them? Would "our" Walker really look exactly the same as "their" Walker (hair style etc)? They didn't seem to think anything was amiss at the end of the movie.

Also I don't understand how it works when they return from a mission, the future having been changed. Take the final mission for example. Walker returns to a nice, happy 2004. McComb has been dead since 1994, Walkers wife and son are alive, so how does it work that Walker had just returned from the past when there would have been no need for him to go on the mission to begin with? When he returns he is greeted like he was just sent out on a mission, so why would he have gone out in the first place (from the 2004 personnels point of view)? It can't have been the alternative 2004's reason (to see if Fielding was in a hospital) because she would have been alive and well already in 2004 (as we see when Walker meets her in the corridor).

Ugh, why am I doing this to myself. It's just a fun action film...

---
I may be a tiny chimney-sweep but I've got an enormous brush.

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[–] KISSfan2001 18 years ago

I think that it was once mentioned in the movie that TEC cops could not alter their own future when going back (it's been a while since I've seen the movie). This is exemplified in the fact that Walker has no memory of his wife being alive after 1994 or that he has a son in 2004. Also there is never any mention of a report of the mission being filed since Walker was the only person who had any memory of the events that took place. If I remember correctly, Walker was greeted like he just got back form a mission, but there was no discussion about the specifics of the mission.

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[–] digitalboy72 16 years ago

To those who think that the Back to the Future films are perfect, see if you can track down a series of articles (there were three, one for each film upon their release) that Starlog magazine did years ago called The Return of the Other Marty McFly and you'll realize very quickly that you were sorely mistaken lol.

Those articles were mind boggling to read and a hell of a lot of fun.

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[–] Spifflock_Holmes 16 years ago

I don't really understand how the ending of the movie works out. He saves his wife back in 1994 right and comes back to the future. He goes home and meets his 2004 wife and son (for the first time).

What about from their point of view? As far as they are concerned did he go to work as usual that morning? If so at what point did "their" Walker fuse together with the Walker we go through the film with? How does he explain that he's completely forgotten them? Would "our" Walker really look exactly the same as "their" Walker (hair style etc)? They didn't seem to think anything was amiss at the end of the movie.

Yep, those are some of the biggest flaws in the film's time travel logic. Probably and arguably, either Max should have returned home with a full set of memories from that timeline, or he should have come back and found himself a stranger in a timeline that already had a Max Walker in it.

----

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

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[–] holtman-d 16 years ago

"Why are they even policing time travel at all? How are people going back in time since according to the characters, there are only 2 machines in existence: the one they are using and the prototype in Calverton, Maryland. Metuzak even says it out loud: "how is the senator making these alleged trip into the past?"

What about machines made in the future sending travelers back past 1994? Perhaps they are policing against this. Although, I am not sure how they send these future time travelers back to their own time, as traveling in the future is not possible for the TimeCops.

Also, shouldn't time traveling be like Bill and Ted's Great Adventure? You return at almost the same time you left.

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[–] hcadonis 15 years ago

Also having spent the last 10 mins of the film talking to mellissa in 1994 when she got shot and he helped place her next to the young walker...when he travels back to 2004 and he goes home then Melissa should still have memories of that encounter as he was dressed in the uniform and looked like the walker she encountered in '94....right!?

Or does memory get wiped out during the lines of confluence or she just thought it was a dream??

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[–] Spifflock_Holmes 15 years ago

Also having spent the last 10 mins of the film talking to mellissa in 1994 when she got shot and he helped place her next to the young walker...when he travels back to 2004 and he goes home then Melissa should still have memories of that encounter as he was dressed in the uniform and looked like the walker she encountered in '94....right!?

Well, the problem with that is that since Walker destroyed McComb's younger self, McComb is no longer around to go back and cause those events in the past. So as far as Melissa's memory is concerned, they never happened. She's in a timeline in which they never occurred (because there's no McComb), so there's no reason for her to remember them. The mystery (well, one of the mysteries) is why Max does remember them.

----

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

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[–] kimdealslover 15 years ago

Yeah, this film has A LOT of flaws.

I mean, if history can be changed without people realising it (e.g. the agency gets shut down and nobody has ever heard of Walker), how the hell can they police time-travel in the first place?!

I know they get tip-off's every now and again with the technology...but if someone succeeds with a crime, like with McComb, it seems pretty redundant.

---
"Now...where was I?"

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[–] sharkmanface 15 years ago

The house was not rebuilt, after the two McCombs joined together that instanly got rid of the house blowing up and the wife dying in the timeline, it just didn't instanly happen at the point they were at so if Walker had stayed their and not gone make so quik he may have seen a rippel go over everything and putit back to normal.

Yes other countries did have time equipment.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] GameGeekRob 15 years ago

They say in the film that matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time... This makes no sense in explaining the results of a person touching themselves in the past/future. For one, because cells age and die technically, the future self would have different cells that those of the past self. Also, touching something dosn't mean you occupy the same space as it.

I also don't agree with the whole elimination of the two people, as well. I don't really consider anyone's physical existance unique to such ends because I believe that the Universe is vastly infinite, meaning there is an infinite amount of chances for an idividual to exist. This would mean that there could be another solar system exactly like ours in a galaxy exactly like ours on a planet exactly like ours in every circumstance. This is similar to the idea that if given until the end of time, a room full of monkeys on typewriters could produce Shakespeare.

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[–] cjmarbutt 15 years ago

Maybe monkeys on typewriters explains the script for Timecop? I remember it as an enjoyable film with plot holes the size of transdimensional rifts in the space-time continuum.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] archento 15 years ago

Good thoughts. But what happens to everyone else in point B? That's what I'm most curious about...his boss, for example, Fielding, Ricky? Do Ricky's memories just get erased and replaced, or is he a whole new Ricky in point C? That makes sense, but what happens to Ricky in point B? Does Van Damme cease to exist in point B?

This is the only thing that makes sense. But say it isn't a new timeline (which it has to be!): how are everyone's memories erased?

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[–] markkosberg 15 years ago

Good thoughts. But what happens to everyone else in point B? That's what I'm most curious about...his boss, for example, Fielding, Ricky? Do Ricky's memories just get erased and replaced, or is he a whole new Ricky in point C? That makes sense, but what happens to Ricky in point B? Does Van Damme cease to exist in point B?

This is the only thing that makes sense. But say it isn't a new timeline (which it has to be!): how are everyone's memories erased?

you have officially given this movie's plot more thought than the screenwriters

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] jconn426 14 years ago

Greetings from the year 2010!

I watched Time Cop earlier this evening. When Walker enters the timeline where the agency is being shut down, the take I got was that Walker was now just another agent to the Commander, not a personal friend. Since McComb's company made time travel possible, he must have made sure the workplace rules prevented field agents from getting chummy with their superiors. (McComb's 1994 incarnation treated his own staff member like dirt, for example, when he asked her, "Have you ever seen the inside of the Presidential limousine?" When she said no, he replied that he'd send her a picture.) On the other hand, McComb exercised his tidy influence on the resident techno-geek who now dresses neatly, wears his long hair in a pony tail, and insists on being called Richard instead of Ricky.

One thing that really got to me was how in the world would they know there was a problem with time when every change in the past instantly rippled forward to the present and seemed natural? All of a sudden now, everyone would remember McComb having a scar on his cheek for the past 10 years, for example. In some time travel stories like ST-TOS's "City On The Edge Of Forever" the time machine itself creates a sort of protective enclosure for those standing around it. They are totally unaffected by changes in time, even changes that would have prevented them from being born, or at least from being there. Thus, Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhura, and the red shirts they brought with them were still there even after McCoy made the Allies lose WWII to an atomic bomb-equipped Germany and prevented the founding of the UFP. The Enterprise disappeared from orbit after McCoy jumped through the machine, but then reappeared as soon as Spock and Kirk brought him back.

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[–] midflinx007 8 years ago

I imagine the TEC knew there were time travel violations because they could detect the ripples like a stone in a large lake. The ripples move forward through time, but once they pass they won't be seen again. The TEC gets one chance to detect them. Anyone they send back retains memories, and the reports that are filed are the primary evidence of ever sending people back. Though there could also be corroborating evidence like strange or improbable events recorded in newspapers that happened when fixing the timeline. The agent can point to those as well.

None of which changes the ending in which there are two Walkers. But hey, since one Walker never has enough time to satisfy a woman, maybe two Walkers can.

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[–] avortac 9 years ago

"George may eventually hook up with Marty's mom and have a son but it wouldn't be Marty anymore."

Flawed premise.

What you are is not dictated by what the inseminator of the physical body you use did in the past, any more than what you are is dictated by what the builder of your house did in the past.

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[–] nielw 10 years ago

Timecop is one of those movies that simply forgoes making sense in order to drive an action story. I think this has to be one of the biggest offenders I've ever seen. Who cares that there were plot holes all over the place due to time travel paradoxes...they had a story tell!

It doesn't have to make sense! It just has to make money!

The fact that Fielding is suddenly alive again, or that JCVD comes home to an intact house at the end...or a bunch of other little problems... They all just went away once the story was resolved, regardless of whether or not it made any sense.

Show me a movie worse than this one that breaks its own rules and makes no sense, in favor of driving the story... I can't think of any...

Mirror inspector is a job I could really see myself doing.

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[–] MadDog-ThrashTillDeath 10 years ago

Die HArd 4 broke almost every aspect the franchise had built up to that point, making no sense and just going for the money ...(Robocop remake also???)

this is an action film, main attraction is Van Damme kickin as$ with a higher budget / scope ... this is not pretending to be 2001 space odyssey ... if you wanna be smarta$$es and breakdown details you'll find a lot to whine about, we could only wish be getting action films like this one nowdays

- Thundering chords is what life's all about - Gerre

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[–] frankzappayay 10 years ago

Well said.

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[–] midflinx007 8 years ago

When Fielding died in the past she was a Jane Doe in that timeline. Her 16 year-old self grew up and joined the TEC, which is now overseen by a different senator. Meanwhile the younger Walker and his wife had the house rebuilt to look like the original, which unfortunately means there are now two Walkers in the same timeline. Maybe their wife will like that.

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[–] frankduxvandamme 10 years ago

Why are they even policing time travel at all? How are people going back in time since according to the characters, there are only 2 machines in existence: the one they are using and the prototype in Calverton, Maryland. Metuzak even says it out loud: "how is the senator making these alleged trip into the past?"

You could go back in time and build another one at a point before the very first one was ever built and use that one in that time to travel elsewhere in the past and alter the past. Then return to that time, before returning to the original time. Perhaps that could circumvent the detection methods in the original time.

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[–] avortac 9 years ago

"I know it's redundant to point out paradoxes in a time-travel flick, (I have, to date, not seen one without them) but this is more of a paradox/plot mistake."

According to wiktionary, 'redundant' means:

"1. Superfluous; exceeding what is necessary.
2. (of words, writing, etc) Repetitive or needlessly wordy."

Why would it be redundant to point out paradoxes in any flick?

Isn't that what IMDb is (at least partially) for?

You haven't seen one without them? Well, try watching the ones that utilize the more flawless paradox types, like 'the predestination paradox'. The movies "The Terminator (1984)" and "12 Monkeys" actually have pretty much flawless time travel plots, with no time-travel-related faults, problems or plotholes.

So, you should watch both, that would basically make TWO of them.

Then again, you are talking about paradoxes - and in some way, talking about time travel always means talking about paradoxes, so perhaps you'd care to refine or clarify what you really mean to say. Plausible, working, flawless paradoxes are probably not what you mean, right?

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