Bill & Ted Time Travel...
- Thread starter Cmndr J Crichton
- Start date
Okay, that's true, as far as it goes. But that's mainly because the movie just plain wasn't interested in things like temporal paradoxes and changes in history. Because that was irrelevant to the comedy. It's just overanalyzing to worry about the effects of removing So-Crates and Beeth-Oven from history in a movie where Napoleon goes bowling and Abe Lincoln says "Party on, dudes!"
The movie's time-travel logic follows a very... "realistiic" aproach of "the past comes first."
For example, Ted's dad's keys are missing during the first part of the movie, we discover later that Ted will travel back in time and hide the keys outside the jail so that he can discover them to get the historical figures out.
This is probably fairly close to how "real" time travel would work, since the past came first anything you will do in the past has already happened -even though you haven't left for the past yet.
So, following this, it's part of history that those various historical figures spent a day in the future/other time periods. This is also nicely shown in play when Bill and Ted (for them) first run into Rufus and the booth. While talking to Rufus Bill and Ted "from the future" arrive before (from our POV and B&T's POV) have even left, they end up having the conversation and we -the audience- later learn what the other end of Rufus' and Bill and Ted's conversation was. Ted even reminds "himself" to wind his watch (which, of course, he won't do and will end up having to remind himself again.)
The time-travel logic in this movie is beautiful and perfect and is pretty much how I feel time travel would "really work." I get geek goose-bumps just thinking about it!
Exactly. B&TEA uses time travel as if time is a fixed thing. There are no alternate universes nor the ability changing history. In essence, Bill and Ted were never in any jeopardy of not completing and passing their assignment. This is something you don't fully realize until the movie is over. That's called clever writing.
Just because it is a comedy doesn't mean it shouldn't follow a set of rules it sets out nor that it cannot be examined on a message board such as this.
True, other time travel movies usually play around with the idea that you can change the past which causes all sorts of problems for the protagonists.
Personally, I think the movie was a fresh approach for a time travel story.
Exactly. B&TEA uses time travel as if time is a fixed thing. There are no alternate universes nor the ability changing history. In essence, Bill and Ted were never in any jeopardy of not completing and passing their assignment. This is something you don't fully realize until the movie is over. That's called clever writing.
Just because it is a comedy doesn't mean it shouldn't follow a set of rules it sets out nor that it cannot be examined on a message board such as this.
True, other time travel movies usually play around with the idea that you can change the past which causes all sorts of problems for the protagonists.
Personally, I think the movie was a fresh approach for a time travel story.
And, of course, the whole "can't change the timeline" thing just makes the villian's plot in Bill and Ted 2 that much more futile. Hell, if anything else he ensured Bill and Ted would usher in the utopia.
Exactly. B&TEA uses time travel as if time is a fixed thing. There are no alternate universes nor the ability changing history. In essence, Bill and Ted were never in any jeopardy of not completing and passing their assignment. This is something you don't fully realize until the movie is over. That's called clever writing.
Just because it is a comedy doesn't mean it shouldn't follow a set of rules it sets out nor that it cannot be examined on a message board such as this.
True, other time travel movies usually play around with the idea that you can change the past which causes all sorts of problems for the protagonists.
Personally, I think the movie was a fresh approach for a time travel story.
And, of course, the whole "can't change the timeline" thing just makes the villian's plot in Bill and Ted 2 that much more futile. Hell, if anything else he ensured Bill and Ted would usher in the utopia.
I don't remember much of B&TBJ other than it wasn't all that good.
However, you would have to wonder why the villain didn't check historical records and see that he was destined to fail. Then again, maybe that was intentionally covered up so he would go back in time or maybe he unwisely thought "Well, now that I know, that won't happen to me!"
Exactly. B&TEA uses time travel as if time is a fixed thing. There are no alternate universes nor the ability changing history. In essence, Bill and Ted were never in any jeopardy of not completing and passing their assignment. This is something you don't fully realize until the movie is over. That's called clever writing.
Just because it is a comedy doesn't mean it shouldn't follow a set of rules it sets out nor that it cannot be examined on a message board such as this.
True, other time travel movies usually play around with the idea that you can change the past which causes all sorts of problems for the protagonists.
Personally, I think the movie was a fresh approach for a time travel story.
And, of course, the whole "can't change the timeline" thing just makes the villian's plot in Bill and Ted 2 that much more futile. Hell, if anything else he ensured Bill and Ted would usher in the utopia.
Actually, I think this was pretty much stated in the movie, I think one of them said "Only the winners can travel through time/change the past" something like that.
Checkmate
Commodore
That's the whole point though. They did change time, only from their perspectives. The fact that in the future, relative to where they were, these changes already took place so the eventual outcome was already known... but changes in time most definitely took place. Abraham Lincoln did travel to the future. Bill & Ted did change their grade thanks to the presentation. Future Villain Guy did kill Bill & Ted as part of his scheme. Without their manipulations throughout time, things would have been different. From their perspectives.
Future Villain Guy likely did do research and did decide to attempt his plot to change the outcome. And he did. Again, from his perspective. But the real future, not the one he divined through whatever scheme before he did what he did, already knew the real outcome. Exactly how Bill & Ted knew they were going to fail their test unless they did something outstanding, but that was knowledge from their perspective, not the history books of the future.
In other words, even though they always did these things from the very beginning, we only know that because of a third person's perspective. Not theirs. Which is exactly the same for why nothing changed with the historical figures. Whatever effects occurred because of the time travel was already factored into the equation that lead to Bill & Ted's present, but not to the historical figures themselves. Even though Bill & Ted had no idea about it, either, until after it occurred.
The fact that nothing actually changes in the relative future of each time change doesn't factor into it at all. Just because it always did happen from that perspective doesn't mean it did actually happen until it did.
Future Villain Guy likely did do research and did decide to attempt his plot to change the outcome. And he did. Again, from his perspective. But the real future, not the one he divined through whatever scheme before he did what he did, already knew the real outcome. Exactly how Bill & Ted knew they were going to fail their test unless they did something outstanding, but that was knowledge from their perspective, not the history books of the future.
In other words, even though they always did these things from the very beginning, we only know that because of a third person's perspective. Not theirs. Which is exactly the same for why nothing changed with the historical figures. Whatever effects occurred because of the time travel was already factored into the equation that lead to Bill & Ted's present, but not to the historical figures themselves. Even though Bill & Ted had no idea about it, either, until after it occurred.
The fact that nothing actually changes in the relative future of each time change doesn't factor into it at all. Just because it always did happen from that perspective doesn't mean it did actually happen until it did.
B&T are actually consistent in the same way Star Trek used to be. There aren't "many worlds"; there's just this one.
How do we know that Abraham Lincoln didn't find out about the assassination at the theatre, or Socrates that he would be forced to drink hemlock? Maybe they had a mind-altering experience while hanging with the guys and forgot? Or maybe they weren't killed those ways, but some other ways, and in avoiding them, got killed the way we have in our history books. We can't know.
So maybe they did alter history, only we don't know because we only know the altered one.
Heavy, man.
How do we know that Abraham Lincoln didn't find out about the assassination at the theatre, or Socrates that he would be forced to drink hemlock? Maybe they had a mind-altering experience while hanging with the guys and forgot? Or maybe they weren't killed those ways, but some other ways, and in avoiding them, got killed the way we have in our history books. We can't know.
So maybe they did alter history, only we don't know because we only know the altered one.
Heavy, man.
^ We never saw exactly what happened when the famous people were 'put back' in their proper times, did we? Perhaps B&T gave them some kind of amnesia drug (supplied by Rufus) that made them forget everything they'd seen in the future so history would not be changed.
As has been pointed out, their being in the future is part of history. So it's likely they never discovered any information valuable to them, or they did but for whatever reason they couldn't avoid it. Or trying to avoid it caused it to happen.
B&T used a closed-loop time travel theory. Nothing that B&T could've done could've changed the history they knew. It was set in stone. The past came first.
B&T used a closed-loop time travel theory. Nothing that B&T could've done could've changed the history they knew. It was set in stone. The past came first.
One of my favourite aspects to Bill & Ted is the end of Bogus Journey with the newspapers headlines of how the Wyld Stallyns created a utopia.
Bringing peace to the Middle East simply by touring there, and ushering world peace through a love of awesome music
And curing the Ozone problem by the discovery that air guitar defeats smog
Bringing peace to the Middle East simply by touring there, and ushering world peace through a love of awesome music
And curing the Ozone problem by the discovery that air guitar defeats smog
Well, yeah, but there's nothing to suggest that they *remembered* any of it after they got back to their proper time periods.
We can assume B & T dropped off the figures near the point in time they picked them up at
Grab Socrates go to the future
While a future Bill and Ted drop in mere seconds after the first team
Drop off Socrates
Leave
Checkmate
Commodore
Who said they didn't remember? It's just that the memories of those events had no impact on history. Or, more correctly, the impact they had on history had already been made. Bill & Ted had always snatched them for their report.
You know, I never considered that, and this makes sense, especially from a movie where saying "We'll put the keys in the bush later" equaled instantly finding the keys in the bush. The same goes for part 2, when they left the concert to train and get better, and what was months or years for them, was an instant for the concert attendees.
Ah, I love this movie
I keep arguing this with people I know and they say it wouldn't because eventually they go back to there own time. But I think that if someone were to go to the future, that it would change things. There was an episode of Supernatural where Dean got sent to his immediate future, and his future self was there. That doesn't make sense to me, but who knows. You would think that if you or I would travel to the future that our future selfs wouldn't be there. That's the way I see it.
Ah, I love this movie
This all depends on what rules of time travel you follow, really in Bill & Ted, and what sounds like with Supernatural, it's a fixed timeline thing. He might have gone into the future, but because he will go back and still live out that timeline (potentially?), then it's always happened and therefor his future self should still exist.
This, is all why O'Brien hates temporal mechanics
