Time travel

[Dan Stack]

Twelve Monkeys. Told you the way it ended over and over again, showed it over and over, but made you hope it wouldn't happen.

[Cochrane]

I guess I could have included Groundhog Day as well.

In Superman, wouldn't part of him have occupied the same space as part of him right before and right after at the same time?

Back to the future: Did Marty's altered parents tell him anything about 1955 before he was seen leaving by himself?

did 85 Doc who had met Marty in 55 pack the extra plutonium?

Where did the Marty, who had been friends with the Doc who had met him before, go after he himself went back to 55?

Does George McFly equal George Lucas?

Was Lorraine Griff's grandmother?

Did the main characters keep time travel a secret from the public after 1985?

[C5]

Okay, so apparently it's not that as strange as I though for families in the US to remain in the same place for 130 years. Though it's true we are talking about at least two families (McFly and Tannen) here.

Cochrane : I was unaware of such a scene (but I saw it was written that way in the novel). Reminds me I should buy the DvD sometime

How come the McFly own the same home with George being a successful author as with George being a overexploited worker ?

Why does the matchbox instantly changes when the Almanach is destroyed and the photograph with Doc's tombstone when Mad Dog is taken down, while Marty's photo took a full week to be erased ?

BTW, I saw a lot of episodes of the cartoon. Most of them were pretty average (if not downright bad), but a few were just as fun as the movie (like when Doc mistakenly destroy the Dinosaurs asteroid and discovers a world where the dinos are the dominant species - with one of them looking very much like Biff, or when they discover Robin Hood being an ancestor of Marty). But they don't explain much about the movies.

[Cochrane]

Shouldn't the time machine emerge somewhere else along Earth's orbit or something?

Why did Marty look familiar to Lorraine's mother? More evidence of inbreeding?

Did Doc ever stop time travelling? When did he die?

Where do Michael J Fox movies come up with names like Biff and Boof?

Why does the time machine always disappear right when it's about to run into something?

Why didn't 1885 Doc in the saloon just say cars instead of automobiles?

Why didn't 1885 Doc in the saloon say people run for exercise?

[spyone]

Originally posted by Cochrane


When Doc said he had already been to the future, did he mean in the train? Does that explain Clara being able to have children at her age?

Yes to the first, anyway. It was quite obvious.
Since Doc had gotten a "hover-conversion" for the Delorean in the future, and had a hover conversion for the train, it seems obvious that he took the train to the future.

I liked Quantum Leap, too. My only problem with it was why Al could remember things as they were before.
I mean, in one episode Sam is saving a witness who is going to get killed. But instead of just saving her, he also tells her that she should go to law school because she can become anything she wants to be.
Back in the "Present", Al has been defending the Project's funding before a Senate Committee. It seems clear that the project is doomed. But, as Sam "leaps out", the Chairman of the comittee is replaced by a woman who looks quite a lot like the woman Sam saved, and she renews their funding.
Thing is, Al saw it happen, and the shocked look on his face said he noticed it happen.

That aside, Quatum Leap rocked.

[spyone]

Originally posted by Cochrane
In Superman, wouldn't part of him have occupied the same space as part of him right before and right after at the same time?

I just rewatched Superman (Sci-Fi marathon), and the problems/questions are endless.

Turning the Earth backwards does nothing to the passage of time. Now, I used to argue that the Earth turning backwards was an effect, not a cause, but then why does Supes fly the other way to get time going in the right direction again?
It would be SO much better if he just went FTL and traveled back in time.

In the first time through, Lois sits in her stalled car when a tremor hits, the road splits open, her car falls in, a landslide starts burying her, and the crack starts crushing the car as it closes.
In the second time through, Lois sits in her stalled car when Superman comes up and starts a conversation. Then Jimmy Olsen runs up.
What happened to the tremor? The car-swallowing crack? And where the hell was Jimmy the first time?

[spyone]

Originally posted by C5
How come the McFly own the same home with George being a successful author as with George being a overexploited worker ?

Because in both cases it's the house he bought right after he got married.

Why does the matchbox instantly changes when the Almanach is destroyed and the photograph with Doc's tombstone when Mad Dog is taken down, while Marty's photo took a full week to be erased ?

Because Marty was only becoming improbable. He had interfered with his own existance, but not negated it. But no one wanted Doc dead except Mad Dog, so with Mad Dog gone Doc lives.
Not sure about the almanac. #2 is not remembered clearly.

[whiteknight]

Originally posted by Cochrane
Why did Marty look familiar to Lorraine's mother? More evidence of inbreeding?

Because Lorraine's mother is Marty's grandmother. He looks familiar because he looks like his mom (who is sitting right next to him at the time). It's supposed to be funny because Grandma asks if she knows Marty's mother.

I voted for Back to the Future just because I had loved that series so much when I was a kid.

Here's one that's been bugging me lately. In the original "Terminator", John Conner from the future sends his friend back in time to protect his mother. The friend (whose name I can't recall) ends up impregnating Sarah Conner and becoming John's father. Wouldn't this have to mean that John would have to be a totally different person than he was in the original timeline? His genetics would be different and since Sarah now knew that she had to train him to be a warrior, everything that he knew would be different. He is a totally different person, with the only similarity the name. So why don't the humans have much more success against the machines in the future?

[Cochrane]

So to Lorraine's mother, Lorraine resembles Jamus from 1885? Maybe George's father looks like Marty and Jamus?

[whiteknight]

Originally posted by Cochrane
So to Lorraine's mother, Lorraine resembles Jamus from 1885? Maybe George's father looks like Marty and Jamus?

No. Lorraine does not have a mustache.



PS
I'm no expert in nameology (guess THAT film reference), but wasn't his name "Shamus"? Or is that how the Irish would actually spell it?

[Sea Tyger]

Originally posted by whiteknight

I'm no expert in nameology (guess THAT film reference), but wasn't his name "Shamus"? Or is that how the Irish would actually spell it?

Seamus is the proper spelling.

[whiteknight]

I guess that makes sense. I've seen "Sean = Shawn" plenty of times that I should have known.

[Balok]

Originally posted by whiteknight
Here's one that's been bugging me lately. In the original "Terminator", John Conner from the future sends his friend back in time to protect his mother. The friend (whose name I can't recall) ends up impregnating Sarah Conner and becoming John's father. Wouldn't this have to mean that John would have to be a totally different person than he was in the original timeline? His genetics would be different and since Sarah now knew that she had to train him to be a warrior, everything that he knew would be different. He is a totally different person, with the only similarity the name. So why don't the humans have much more success against the machines in the future?

I've heard this sort of thing called a paradox loop: the time travel can't happen unless things unfold properly in the future -- and the time travel is essential to that unfolding, because the traveller does something in the past that makes things unfold the way they did.

Put another way, the future from which Reese started his journey was the future that occurred because he made the journey.

Time travel makes the head hurt. We're probably very lucky we haven't actually figured out how to do it -- assuming it's even possible. I suspect that if it is, we will have to come up with new definitions for "impossible".

[whiteknight]

So basically we would have to assume that the future is already written? Yuck. That's one thing I didn't like about T3, how John was locked into his fate no matter what. That would drive me nuts if I knew for absolute certainty the horrors the future would hold and that I could do nothing about it.

Well I think I've gone off topic far enough. Sorry.

[C5]

Actually, what's interesting to not is that there are many different theories about time travel and causal paradoxes.
The first main one, mentioned above, is the "predestination theory" : the time travel had to take place for the future to unfold. In this theory, the "grandfather paradox" can't happen : if you try to shoot your grandfather before he met your grandmother, the result are likely that either he'll survive and happen to meet your grandmother thanks to that, or that you'll learn that the guy you killed wasn't actually your grandfather.

The second main time travel theory is that the past can be changed by any action you do and instantly affect your future. Here however two theories differ - either the time traveler is also affected by the change in time (like in BttF), or he's somehow protected from the changes in the timeline (like in most Star Trek time travel episodes) or maybe actually sent to a different universe. Of course, should the time traveller be erased by his own actions, we are now faced by the grandfather paradox - if he didn't exist, he could never have travelled back in time to change his past, so he exists, so he travels back in time to change his past, etc...

That's why I usually like the "past changes affect the future but the time traveller is protected from any changes" theory better - it can explain most time travels stories (well, except BttF, of course) and is relatively paradox proof (no grandfather paradox).
BTW, I once read a rationalisation of this theory in a Poul Anderson novel.

And of course, there's the last theory, often used in less complex stories (and sometimes in Star Trek too) : No matter what the time traveler does, the timeline won't be affected and everything will be identical once he returns to the present - the only trouble he'll face being escaping the T Rex, the angry peasants mob or the nazi soldiers...