Good time travel movies?

[Guy Gardener]

S. Darko (about his sister) is a messed up piece of boring fluff.

 

[tighr]

Groundhog Day is technically a Time Travel movie. An awesome one, too.

 

[J.T.B.]

Maybe. I don't think that was the intent of the filmmakers though. They were trying to find a cure so in their future they could return to living on the surface.

Yeah, the movie makes it pretty clear that -- under its rules -- time travel doesn't change anything. You can't change the future, Cole says, because "it already happened." That was what grabbed me when I first saw the movie: Finally, a time travel story without alternate timelines and such. One of the very few times in my life I paid to see a movie again just because I was thinking about it so much.

I had forgotten that part of the plot; in light of that, you're probably right about the implication of the ending. As for the filmmaker's intent (for whatever it's worth), I believe Gilliam hated that part of the ending, but was obligated to leave it in.

I'm not sure he hated the content in that next-to-last scene so much as he didn't want anything there; he thought the movie should end on Dr. Railly and young Cole in the airport.

The scientist on the plane was an intentionally ambiguous touch, but IMHO the best explanation is simply that she was there to pick Peters' brain in continuation of the effort to develop a cure for the virus. The "insurance" line I think refers to insuring the scientist-oligarchy's continued dominance in the future.

Justin

 

[M'Sharak]

Not a movie, but an episode from the old steampunk/Weird West TV series The Wild Wild West: "The Night of the Lord of Limbo"

It's left a little vague as to whether time travel really takes place (only goes back a few years, if so) or it's all just a mindfuck perpetrated by the 'Lord of Limbo' of the title. Such effects as there are ask for the use of a little imagination on the part of the viewer, but it's still pretty good, and said title character is played by an actor who most here would be able to recognize through the make-up.

 

[tighr]

If we're gonna talk TV shows, then how about a made-for-tv movie? Bender's Big Score, the first Futurama movie. It features an interesting concept: A method of time travel that automatically adjusts for paradoxes (ostensibly, to allow for ridiculousness to happen).

I don't know how they did it, but the writers were able to create a time travel story that actually made sense, and kept continuity with all the previous episodes of Futurama.

 

[Gojira]

I have the movie Timeline, and it isn't too bad.

http://www.amazon.com/Timeline-Wide...=UTF8&qid=1346553340&sr=8-4&keywords=Timeline

Based on Michael Crichton's book, this time-travel adventure helmed by Richard Donner ("Lethal Weapon") stars Paul Walker as a member of an archeological team who uses a time "fax" machine to hurl themselves back to 14th-century France to save Walker's professor father, who was zapped there earlier. During their incredible journey that plunks them in the middle of the Hundred Years War, the group tries to save the life of a French princess while racing against time to get back to the present.

 

[Gojira]

The 1991 Godzilla movie, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah has a lot of time travel in it. People come from the future to the present and take some scientists back to the past to prevent Godzilla from ever being created. I won't give the rest away but it is pretty fun.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Prince of Darkness. The time travel element scared the shit out of me, and had me go mad on a small crusade to find out who the fuck this asshole Nostradamus was.

"War will reign happily before and after 1999."

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

In Terminator 2 How did Sarah know the exact date of Judgment Day (she said it at the mental hospital)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Michael Jackson's birthday, without taking into account that Michael Jackson would have be decade for quarter of a century by 2027(or 2030, depending which canon you run with.) when sarah felt safely on the other side of all this bullshit.

http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Judgment_Day#1997

One thing it took me a while to notice, well verify after I was told, was that T2 was set four years into the future compared to when the movie was filmed, which is pretty fucking obvious to explain why John isn't 6 years old. But still, that's a pretty kick ass 10 year old.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I'll add another vote for Time Bandits. Yeah, it's silly 80's in sci-fi form, but a lot of recognizable guest stars including Kenny Baker as one of the little fellows.

Another Red Dwarf episode with time travel was Stasis Leak. They ended up with three versions of everybody at the end, including the gang from the "double double future".

Also the Bill & Ted movies.

 

[tighr]

One thing it took me a while to notice, well verify after I was told, was that T2 was set four years into the future compared to when the movie was filmed, which is pretty fucking obvious to explain why John isn't 6 years old. But still, that's a pretty kick ass 10 year old.

Terminator 2 was released in 1991, but chronologically takes place in 1995 when John Connor is 10 years old. "Judgement Day" is supposed to be in 1997, two-three years in the future. Of course, Terminator 3 screws with the timeline, and assumes John is supposed to be 13 in T-2, but that's obviously a continuity error.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If Mike Kripki's basement was full of ten year olds having a sex party, the church groups would have rallied!

 

[Romulus Prime]

...what are some good time travel movies?

Scrooged - Starts in the present, then goes to the past, then back to the present, then into the future.

+ Christmas.