Friday, May 23, 2014

Time Travel and fiddling about with history

I'm a sucker for a good science fiction story, and especially time travel. One current favorite is 12:01--it's a lot like other repeating day stories, but it's tongue-in-cheek with science thrown in somewhere (not especially great science, but just overlook that bit and you'll be fine). What makes a good time travel story special is when things actually matter as a result. Time travel allows the audience to be part of the story in a way other story types don't allow.

In recent times the time travel movies that got things started were: Groundhog Day and The Terminator. I love that each of these movies are so very different, even though they are grounded in the same idea of time travel. It demonstrates the incredible variety of stories with similar plots. There are said to be only a handful of story plots, but the mind boggling diversity shows how creative we human beings actually are.

The neat thing about time travel is the chance to do things over, undo events and try a different tactic. There is a new movie coming out dealing with this idea, where a new soldier recruit find himself living the same day over and again, learning to fight the alien menace, and making the good guys win. Of course, if everyone has the ability, then what would ever get done? I've read many scientific meanderings about time travel, and have my own pet theories, but the main point is that nothing is permanent in a universe with time travel. And that's the fun... seeing what people do with the power to change history.

- M

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