MovieChat Forums > A Sound of Thunder (2005) Discussion > How do they explain

How do they explain

posted 14 years ago by BigDaddyHuah
12 replies | jump to latest

I realize that most sci fi universes make up their own rules, so I am not challenging the junk "science" behind this story.

I simply wish to know how they explained that many many time travel groups all go back to the same place at the same time for the same event ... and none of them ever see or interact with one another, while still interacting with the world around them.

Of course then there must have be some other possibly incompatible rules that then allow the hero to then interact with the one fateful group when the plot needed him too. Not sure how they explained that one either.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] joshuayeary 14 years ago

It's funny to think that Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure did a better job at sticking to these primary concepts than this movie did :)

[–] xenophile2002 13 years ago

So did the original story by Ray Bradbury.

As for the nothing would change because whatever you do in the past already happened idea, well there's no way to know that, is there? That's one idea, but not the only one.

If that idea is right, though, it means you wouldn't be able to do big things, though you could still do small ones. For instance, you wouldn't be able to go back to World War I and kill Hitler, but you could go back and try. It's just that you would miss, or your gun would jam, or some other guy would get in the way and be killed instead, or whatever. After all, as far as anybody knows there was some unidentified person who tried to shoot Hitler during WWI but failed so miserably that nobody even noticed him.

I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hit... who? Did this person even exist?
- Jon Stewart after a time-travel event

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] macemace 13 years ago

Out of Curiosity ... Then why should the Mexicans stay home? It's already determined whether or not they will cross the border. After all, they have no free will to make that choice, only an illusion of it. Or should I take the tagline less literally? Thanks!

"Mediocre Marx Brothers is better than no Marx Brothers!"

[–] se_hackett 12 years ago

Actually, you can go back to WWI and kill Hitler. You see there would be enough time between that incident and the events that bring about WWII that would allow time and space to repair itself and plug a new Dictator into Germany. Who knows what this new Dictator would be like?
I of course know that you were trying to say WWII when you wrote your explanation, but just felt like being a dick to illustrate how having a poor sense of time would lead to being a very poor time traveler.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] RugGuy 8 years ago

The poster meant WWI. There is a legend that a guy shot at Hitler in WWI and missed. But it was because they were on opposite sides, not time traveling. You may know this by now.

[–] Beady-El 13 years ago

My thought exactly; SF writers are free to make up their own time travel rules, but they ought to at least apply those rules consistently. In this film, they failed utterly to do so.

In the original short story, incidentally, it's explained that the time machine can never be used to "meet yourself." When it passes over a point in time where any of the passengers (or even the machine itself) are already present, they feel a telltale "kick" - indicating they've passed a point at which "landing" is not possible.

[–] Neuronhead 10 years ago

And if they won't remember changing the past a second time, why would they remember changing it the first time.

I couldn't believe how irrational the time travel concepts in this movie were.

I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe

[–] Raimar_Lunardi 10 years ago

I enjoyed this film, altough I hate this stupid parte where nobody interacts and are essencially "erased" from the past... that would mean if you kill the damn butterfly, it's ok...