Time travel has been a popular plot device in science fiction movies for a while now. Protagonists for centuries have tried to get a second chance at life. It is almost as if humans are obsessed with changing destiny, however, time travel when used as a story telling device almost never turns out well.
One reason for this is because time travel is an inherently complex concept. This in turn can make movies overly complicated. In the movie Project Almanac a hero erases himself from history by causing a time paradox. Directly after this one of the first scene from the movie is replayed, the protagonist finds a second video camera along with the original the details the adventure before the paradox. This makes no sense logically. The new camera should have disappeared along with our protagonist. Knowing this makes it much harder for readers to suspend disbelieve. This could ruin the movie for some people.
Traveling into the future may seem to be a way to avoid paradoxes and the such. This however creates more problems. The future being a place that can be traveled to mean the it is set in stone. The ability to travel forward time means there is no free will. Every decision made by everyone has been predetermined. That thought ruins the suspense.
It may be felt that this headache may be avoided by using the multiverse theory. This states that there are a infinite number of universes in an infinite number of configurations. This would make time travel simple traveling to another universe that is in a similar state to the past. Paradoxes would not be a problem due the fact it is not actually the past. There is one flaw to using this as a device. You could not change your own world in anyway by traveling through time. There would be no point. A pointless adventure rarely makes a good story.
All in all time travel as a science fiction plot device should be avoided in my own opinion. It can be done well, but it has a high possibility of failing. A good author knows what he can do well, and he should not let people like me tell him what to do.
One reason for this is because time travel is an inherently complex concept. This in turn can make movies overly complicated. In the movie Project Almanac a hero erases himself from history by causing a time paradox. Directly after this one of the first scene from the movie is replayed, the protagonist finds a second video camera along with the original the details the adventure before the paradox. This makes no sense logically. The new camera should have disappeared along with our protagonist. Knowing this makes it much harder for readers to suspend disbelieve. This could ruin the movie for some people.
Traveling into the future may seem to be a way to avoid paradoxes and the such. This however creates more problems. The future being a place that can be traveled to mean the it is set in stone. The ability to travel forward time means there is no free will. Every decision made by everyone has been predetermined. That thought ruins the suspense.
It may be felt that this headache may be avoided by using the multiverse theory. This states that there are a infinite number of universes in an infinite number of configurations. This would make time travel simple traveling to another universe that is in a similar state to the past. Paradoxes would not be a problem due the fact it is not actually the past. There is one flaw to using this as a device. You could not change your own world in anyway by traveling through time. There would be no point. A pointless adventure rarely makes a good story.
All in all time travel as a science fiction plot device should be avoided in my own opinion. It can be done well, but it has a high possibility of failing. A good author knows what he can do well, and he should not let people like me tell him what to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment