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The Time Machine - 2002 movie

I liked the 1978 Time Machine because it was just a simplified '70s version of the 1960 design:
https://colemanzone.com/images(3)/1978 TimeMachine/TimeMachine1978(6).jpg
https://colemanzone.com/Time_Machine_Project/Time Machine 1978/Time Machine 1978.htm
Unlike the 1960 or 2002 version, I think this 1978 prop could be built easily. ;)
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Wow, those Morlocks are really bad.
 
I think they would've called it a computer terminal at the time.
I knew someone would say something about that, sigh...being pedantic though it probably wouldn't be a terminal if the computer is all onboard the craft. Well, I guess it'd be a computer AND a terminal. Actually I should just keep my mouth quiet lol

EDIT: "Micro Computer" :vulcan:
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1978/h166.html
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1978/h167.html

Though it's possible what we're seeing is a terminal standing in for the prop. Goddammit, I'm so jittery about being corrected I keep editing this lol dammit.
 
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I knew someone would say something about that, sigh...being pedantic though it probably wouldn't be a terminal if the computer is all onboard the craft. Well, I guess it'd be a computer AND a terminal. Actually I should just keep my mouth quiet lol

EDIT: "Micro Computer" :vulcan:
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1978/h166.html
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1978/h167.html

Though it's possible what we're seeing is a terminal standing in for the prop. Goddammit, I'm so jittery about being corrected I keep editing this lol dammit.
Never fear being wrong or anachronistic or getting things mixed up. You'll never be able to write with that in your head. Writing is an art. Better to fail big than cramp your writing looking for the correct detail.

I like all the movies, the 60's most for it's whole shebang. I would like a movie to face the evolution aspect one day that Morlocks and Eloi were no longer what we would call human anymore than the primate ancestors of a million years ago would be what we would call human.
 
The last version had the best FX, the 70's version I liked as a kid because.....well, we didn't have much sci-fi in those days, so we tended to appreciate the stuff we had. I thought the computer and the time travel FX (the time stream fx I guess you'd call it) were cool. Didn't care for the intelligent Eloi or their light saber daggers. Not the best quality, but here's the whole movie:

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But the original is still my favorite and still one of my top five favorite movies. I love those old 60's Victorian era sci-fi films like this and First Men In The Moon. I remember the local CBS affiliate would often times show movies after the news.....The Late Movie, The Late, Late Movie, etc before going off the air. I remember hearing a station announcer say something like "stay tuned after the nightly news, tonight's movie, "The Time Machine". I had never heard of it, it just sounded cool.
And it was one of the greatest movies I'd ever seen. I was probably seven years old or something, and had to beg my parents to let me stay up to watch it.

My biggest problem with the new one was the whole "he can't save the girlfriend" thing as if there was some external force killing her to ensure she died on that day. That and I seem to recall the logic at the end being contradictory, though it's been so long that I can't recall the specifics.
 
My biggest problem with the new one was the whole "he can't save the girlfriend" thing as if there was some external force killing her to ensure she died on that day. That and I seem to recall the logic at the end being contradictory, though it's been so long that I can't recall the specifics.

It seemed to basically be that since he needed her death to build the machine, she had to die no matter what and he could never save her. It almost WAS like reality or time itself had to keep killing her to maintain how reality was.

Of course, this leads to another big problem...the Uber-Morlock leader was right in everything he said and did and Alexander couldn't make any real counter argument. He was even willing to let him leave and go home because he didn't want someone outside of their own timeline messing up any timelines.

Alexander repaid him with death.
 
My biggest problem with the new one was the whole "he can't save the girlfriend" thing as if there was some external force killing her to ensure she died on that day.
That's exactly the point. He invented the time machine because she died, so when he goes back to try to save her, he isn't able to no matter what he does.

the Uber-Morlock leader was right in everything he said and did and Alexander couldn't make any real counter argument. He was even willing to let him leave and go home because he didn't want someone outside of their own timeline messing up any timelines. Alexander repaid him with death.
You're talking about the guy who forces the Eloi into being eaten or raped, right? Yeah, I was okay with him dying. :)
 
As a huge fan of the 1960 film I was mostly disappointed in this when this first was released. Though it’s grown a lot on me over the years.

The biggest change from Wells’ book and the 1960 film is the lack of frame story which weakens the main character. By having the Time Traveler tell his friends about his adventure in time we get his perspective. In the first film the voice of Rod Taylor narrates the whole story. We heard of his excitement of first using his machine, his emotional reactions of seeing the wonders and horrors of the future.

Without that we are much more distant from Guy Pearce’s character. An actor who I am a fan of before and after this movie.

It took me a while to realize something, with so many changes to the ending and characters names. It’s in the United States not England. You could almost view this as a separate story within the future world Wells created. Consider it an alternate timeline.

Alexander’s home has a picture of HG Wells. In the future Vox knows of the novel, the 1960 film and a musical (fictional one does not exist in real life) But Hartdegen never returns to his time to pass on his story. How does Alexander find himself in a future with Morlocks and Eloi somewhat like the ones in Wells’ book?

Most fan interpretations say that Wells was one of the friends who heard the unnamed Time Traveler’s story that night. Which he used to base his novel on. Perhaps Alexander and the unnamed Time Traveler corresponded to share ideas on time travel.
 
I looked up the 2002-version Wiki page and it turns out that I did see it, because I remember Samantha Mumba-- but she is literally the only thing I remember about it.

Anybody ever see the 1978 made for TV version? It had Priscilla Barnes (Three's Company) playing Weena. I have a DVD-R copy and don't re-watch it as often as the two better known versions but still consider it a forgotten gem of science fiction films.
Okay, I know I never heard of that one. If it was Jenilee Harrison instead of Priscilla Barnes I'd be more interested in tracking it down. :rommie:

Which makes me wonder why I've never gotten around to purchasing a particular DVD package. In this set there is a short scene recorded decades later, both in real life and maybe 15 years after the events of the movie. Both Rod Taylor and Alan Young reprise their roles with George returning to his home where (and when) Filby happens to be.
That sounds nice. Can you point me in the direction of that DVD? I just have a basic, no-frills edition.
 
There were only two deaths? I haven't seen the movie since it was in theaters. People at my theater actually laughed when she got run over.
Yeah, that's her second (and final) death on screen. But the laughs I can understand to a certain degree...the car suddenly runs off screen and then you hear her scream. The staging of it can come across a tad comedically, unfortunately.

That sounds nice. Can you point me in the direction of that DVD? I just have a basic, no-frills edition.
The short is part of the documentary "The Journey Back", featured on this Blu-ray and DVD...

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Time-Machine-Blu-ray/56158/
https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/The-Time-Machine-DVD/3156/
 
As remakes/re-adaptations go, I think the 2002 version was pretty well done. It had enough of the spirit of the original to feel faithful but also brought enough of it's own into the mix as to make it worth watching on its own.

For me the major flaw was that in making both strains of future humanity more intelligent they kind of undercut basic message and themes of the original. That would be OK if they'd made it about something else, but it's not really about anything in particular, as the third act just dissolved into an action set piece.

You're not really supposed to side with the Eloi or view them as the "good" side of a conflict, you're supposed to pity them since they're the end result of cultural indolence, decadence, passivity and an abandonment of intellectual and academic thought in pursuit of purely hedonistic concerns. Similarly, the Morloks for all of their outwardly horrific appearance are equally pitiful creatures, trading in all that is fundamentally human in service of the machines of industry. So dependent on technology and so unable to change that they are little more than machines themselves.

Making the Morlocks atavistic and "evil" while making the Eloi powerless victims, yearning to be free destroys that dynamic. It's made pretty clear in the original that the Eloi *could* break free of the Morlocks, they just *don't*. It never even occurs to them.

Some wonderful VFX work though as I recall. You can really tell they were well aware that they would be judged mainly on the time-lapse scenes and works very hard to bot replicate and surpass what the original movie did.
 
One thing I much prefer in the original vs the remake is time machine itself. It's quite an iconic look and the updated version felt too generic.

Btw, has anyone read the sequel The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter? It's quite good and delves deeper into the Eloi and Morlocks and is generally a fitting sequel. Baxter got the style of the period down pat and was quite an enjoyable read.
 
Btw, has anyone read the sequel The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter? It's quite good and delves deeper into the Eloi and Morlocks and is generally a fitting sequel. Baxter got the style of the period down pat and was quite an enjoyable read.

It's really impressive, the way it both works as a direct sequel and completely updates the concept with cutting-edge physics. It does have one plot hole that bugs me, though, in that
the sort of time-traveling military force the protagonists get involved with fairly early in the book end up returning to their original time and place, even though the book later establishes that you can never return to the timeline you started from.

I think Baxter did something similar with The War of the Worlds more recently.
 
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