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The Time Machine - 2002 movie

this guy was witnessing astonishing wonders and inexplicable innovations, as well as losing what I presume was the photo of his loved one, and yet he showed no detectable reaction.
He saw some dresses get shorter. His reaction changes both when he loses the photo (and when he hurts his hand reaching outside the time sphere) and when he sees the sign in the future.
 
Pretty sure he saw the [...] airplanes
How would he? They appear stylistically for us the audience, but to him they'd be a a microsecond blip in the air. Plus, amazed by cars being updated? I mean, he is riding in a time machine so I dunno if the changing shape of some cars is all that noteworthy. ;)

Either way, he's not in the mood for finding things particularly remarkable at this point in the story.
 
Either way, he's not in the mood for finding things particularly remarkable at this point in the story.

Well, I don't know the film, but if it's structured in such a way as to make the hero feel no sense of wonder at what should be the most wonder-inducing moment in the tale, then that's a profound flaw in the storytelling. The most effective way to engage your audience isn't with 50 million dollars of CGI, it's with the emotional responses of your actors.
 
Why were the Eloi so thin?

Lean meat is healthier, but 20 years is a long time to put into making a meal that will barely nourish 3 morlocks for a week.

Is it possible that the Eloi mature more rapidly than people do today?
 
Well, I don't know the film, but if it's structured in such a way as to make the hero feel no sense of wonder at what should be the most wonder-inducing moment in the tale, then that's a profound flaw in the storytelling. The most effective way to engage your audience isn't with 50 million dollars of CGI, it's with the emotional responses of your actors.

That is the biggest flaw through out the movie.

As I mention in my previous post in the 1960 film we Rod Taylor’s character reacts to the passage of time and human progress. Plus we hear him narrate his story to his friends in the past. Hearing his horrors of the Eloi and Morlocks.

But Guy Pierce’s character is emotionally distant most of the story. Those effects of time travel are great for the audience. It would be perfect if it was an IMAX ride with us in the saddle of our own Time Machine. But in a narrative film the lead character just sits passively as part of the background.
 
That is the problem of taking an existing story, H.G. Well’s book, and putting a new character with completely different motivations into the same story beats. The pieces do not exactly line up well. George Pal’s 1960 film certainly simplied things but the Time Traveler was still an explorer. Who built his machine out of scientific curiosity. While Guy Pearce’s character builds his out of grief. When it does not allow him to save his love he aimlessly travels forward on some type of philosophical quest. But still stumbles into the world of the Morlocks and the Eloi.

I think the biggest example of awkwardly trying to pay homage to the original film is including his friend Filby at the end. Alexander Hartdegen never returns to his home time. Does not seem that close of friends with Filby as the characters in the 1960 film were . So seeing Filby and Mrs Watchit looking at his empty house with no idea what has happened to Alexander feels very hallow.
 
Alexander was missing for a week. And Philby hopes that he's found somewhere he can be happy. I'm not sure I get the problem.
 
Has any work of time travel ever dealt with the rotation of the earth or the orbit around the sun? Because if your time travel is stationary but the earth moves, then your first trip could be your last.
 
Has any work of time travel ever dealt with the rotation of the earth or the orbit around the sun? Because if your time travel is stationary but the earth moves, then your first trip could be your last.
Well, Time After Time seems to deal with the Earth rotating by having the machine start in 19th century London and end up in 20th century San Francisco.
 
Well, Time After Time seems to deal with the Earth rotating by having the machine start in 19th century London and end up in 20th century San Francisco.

But that's not because of the Earth's rotation. That's because the machine was moved to San Francisco for a special exhibition on H.G. Wells. As I understand it, it went to SF because that's where the machine was in that time.

(Be a striking coincidence if the Earth's rotation just happened to land it in a museum exhibit on H.G. Wells.)
 
Well, Time After Time seems to deal with the Earth rotating by having the machine start in 19th century London and end up in 20th century San Francisco.


A sign in the museum exhibit on Wells says it was recently discovered within his old home in England. It was transported along with the rest of his belongings to San Francisco.

Presumably there was a malfunction in the Time Machine that it appears in the present before he does. I would guess similarly tied to the "vaporizing equalizer" which sends Stevenson endlessly moving in time with no way of stopping at the end.

Closest suggestion of this is that Wells blacks out on his trip to the future before arriving in 1979.
 
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Has any work of time travel ever dealt with the rotation of the earth or the orbit around the sun? Because if your time travel is stationary but the earth moves, then your first trip could be your last.
The short story, 'An Excursion in Time' by Clark Ashton Smith did that. It stuck with me because it's the only one I've come across to explicitly deal with that issue.
 
But that's not because of the Earth's rotation. That's because the machine was moved to San Francisco for a special exhibition on H.G. Wells. As I understand it, it went to SF because that's where the machine was in that time.

(Be a striking coincidence if the Earth's rotation just happened to land it in a museum exhibit on H.G. Wells.)

That is not what happened. It is not explained very well.

A sign in the museum exhibit on Wells says it was recently discovered within his old house England. It was transported along with the rest of his belongings to San Francisco.

Presumably there was a malfunction in the Time Machine that it appears in the present before he does. I would guess similarly tied to the "vaporizing equalizer" which sends Stevenson endlessly moving in time with no way of stopping at the end.

Closest suggestion of that is that Wells blacks out on his trip To the future before arriving in 1979.

Yup, you're both correct. Ben awhile since I've sat down to watch this one. Mea culpa.
 
Has any work of time travel ever dealt with the rotation of the earth or the orbit around the sun? Because if your time travel is stationary but the earth moves, then your first trip could be your last.
It would really depend on how the author decides time travel works. If you move outside timestream (whatever that even means) and then move back in, then the Earth would probably be elsewhere. The Time Traveler sees the world around him moving at an accelerated rate, and I seem to remember him feeling temperature changes as well, so we can assume he's still bound by gravity. Of course, that raises the question of why the world can't see him sitting there frozen on his machine as the centuries pass....
 
I think most people don't think of the spatial aspect of time travel. The Earth is spinning at around 1,000mph. It is rotating around the sun around 67,000mph. Our solar system is rotating in the Milky Way galaxy at about 536,800mph. The Milky Way is moving about 1,332,000mph relative to the local galaxy group.

That's a fairly complex undertaking to tracking the temporal offset. Just a second works out to the Earth rotating a quarter of mile, 18.5 miles of rotation around the sun, the sun rotating 149 miles around the center of the galaxy which has also moved 370 miles. In just a single second.

Those are just using simple numbers. The orbits are not perfect circles nor are the rotational speeds constant.
 
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