MovieChat Forums > Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) Discussion > So, about the antikythera... (SPOILERS)

So, about the antikythera... (SPOILERS)

posted 9 months ago by Karl Aksel (1453)
8 replies | jump to latest

So, according to Helena, the antikythera was actually only ever going to find time rifts that brought people to Syracuse at the time of the siege. Which begs the following questions:

1. Just how many rifts in time lead back to the Siege of Syracuse, anyway? One assumes there are more rifts in time, but the antikythera only predicts the ones Archimedes cared about.

2. Indy, while present at the siege, says to Helena, "reverse these numbers, they'll get you back home." How would that work, if the mechanism only ever finds rifts that bring you to the time of the siege? If you can find other rifts by reversing the numbers, shouldn't the anikythera be able to take you to any time you'd like? In the end, it appears they simply went back through the same rift before it closed.

3. If the purpose of the antikythera was to bring help against the Romans, why hide it with obscure clues and the like? It's not like it's a distress signal. "Please come to our aid, and bring troops!" would have been helpful. As it is, what are the odds that anyone travelling through time would A) even be able to help at all, or B) side with Syracuse in the first place? After all, it could be the Romans themselves who unlocked the secrets of the antikythera and travelled back in time to the Siege of Syracuse. They'd be baffled, as Indy et al. were, and take the opportunity to make their victory even more complete, and less costly. It's a really dumb idea by Archimedes, no matter how you look at it.

[–] Truthtalker (1872) 9 months ago

agreed

[–] mikethemartian (6101) 9 months ago

Does she actually say that in the film? I don’t remember that but I assumed that that was the case where the date was hardcoded in the device.

[–] Karl Aksel (1453) 9 months ago

She does say it, at the end. I forget the exact wording, but she spelled it out that the antikythera was "always going to lead to this place"; that no matter what time they thought they chose, it was always going to be the siege of Syracuse, for the purpose of helping Carthage against the Romans - referencing her card trick earlier in the film.

[–] Pete314 (2462) 9 months ago

It wasn't a dumb idea by Archimedes to make the antikythera a stupid time machine because he did not. It was a dumb idea by the movie makers.

[–] Karl Aksel (1453) 9 months ago

In the movie - which is what we're talking about here, not the real world - it was Archimedes's idea.

[–] mikethemartian (6101) 9 months ago

I don’t want to get into the physics of time travel because that is just something made up for the movies, but in general in physics if you have a system it is described by a differential equation which is sometimes referred to as an “equation of motion”. If you have an initial condition and the equation and “turn the crank” you can theoretically (if not practically) determine all future states. But you can also go the other way if you start with a final state and turn the crank backwards to get the initial state. Generally the only thing that prevents you from going backwards in a system is entropy.

[–] Karl Aksel (1453) 9 months ago

My point was that if the antikythera always brings you to the Siege of Syracuse, regardless of what date you plotted into the antikythera, then reversing the numbers will have no effect because it was rigged to only detect one specific fissure. If reversing the numbers did work, then that would mean the antikythera worked for more than one fissure - in other words, it wasn't rigged.

Of course, Helena's conclusion that it was rigged was not really based on anything, but the writers gave her that line and it's clear it's what they intended.

[–] Galactus03 (4289) 9 months ago

Well they didn't really make it clear in the movie. Maybe it can only take you to the siege and back again from where you started. That's it. I wasn't bothered by it. In every it's been pretty vague exactly what the item does. Every movie only dealt with each item at the last act of the film. So they don't have much time to really get into the exact specifics.

By the way I'm glad you guys actually watched the movie instead of talking bullshit like 2/3 of the people here....kudos to you .. 😂