Director: Gordon Flemyng. 020
Writing Credits: Terry Nation (BBC television series), Milton Subotsky (screenplay). Production Companies: AARU Productions, British Lion Film Corporation.
Distributor: Amicus Productions (UK theatrical).
Actors: Peter Cushing (Doctor Who), Bernard Cribbins (Tom Campbell), Roberta Tovey (Susan), Jill Curzon (Louise).
Runtime: 81 minutes.
The Internet Movie Database User Rating: 5.8/10 16,395 votes
Overview: Doctor Who, his niece and granddaughter travel from the sixties to 2150 AD with a policeman in TARDIS, a time machine in the form of a phone box. After
defeating the daleks, the return to a time just before they left.
Plot Synopsis: Late one evening in the mid-sixties, TARDIS is sitting on the pavement of a quiet London street. From the outside, it looks like a London police phone box from the 1950s, but on the inside it is a gigantic time machine. Doctor Who is inside with his niece, Louise, and his granddaughter, Susan. They are about to leave for the year 2150, when a local policeman, Tom, opens the door and collapses on the floor. He has been hit over the head, while trying to prevent a burglary of a jewellery shop on this street. They have no choice but to take him with them. He eventually recovers to find himself with three strangers in a future where the Daleks have destroyed most of London and are using the humans who survived as slaves in their mines. With the help of the others, the Doctor prevents the Daleks from carrying out their plan and then takes Tom back to his time. Tom asks to be returned just before the robbery, so he is able to change history by apprehending the thieves. We see him capture them and as he is driving them away, he is dreaming of becoming a detective inspector.
Genre: Science Fiction – Time Travel Vehicle.
My Comments: The Doctor says that his time and space machine, TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), is “capable of taking us to any age on any planet in any universe.” When asked why the internal space of TARDIS is much greater than the space it occupies externally, the Doctor responds, “Just as time is regarded as the fourth dimension, so space is equally regarded as the fifth dimension. So space knows no boundaries and is completely timeless.” At the end of the film, the past is changed. We do not know what effect this will have on the future. If the timeline continues to diverge, then the battle with the daleks in 2150 A.D. may never take place. For this to happen, the timeline would have to converge, however, there is no evidence or mention of converging timelines in this film. There is a mention of his previous adventures in
Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965) when he on arriving in London, he asks why the
daleks are there, as he thought he had destroyed them. Then he questions whether that battle had taken place before or after 2150 A.D., as it had not taken place on Earth.
Time Travel Summary: Their first trip takes them to a future where they significantly change events - therefore the future is open. Their return trip allows Tom to change the past, which shows that it is also open. In both cases the timeline diverges away from the original.
Model of Time:
Open past, open future Diverging timeline
Déjà Vu (2006)
Director: Tony Scott. 021
Writing Credits: Bill Marsilii, Terry Rossio.
Production Companies: Touchstone Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Scott Free Productions.
Distribution: The Walt Disney Company.
Actors: Denzel Washington (Agent Doug Carlin), Paula Patton (Claire Kuchever), Val Kilmer (Agent Paul Pryzwarra), James Caviezel (Carroll Oerstadt), Adam
Goldberg (Dr. Alexander Denny), Elden Henson (Gunnars), Erika Alexander (Shanti). Runtime: 126 minutes.
The Internet Movie Database User Rating: 7.1/10 47,761 votes
Overview: An FBI surveillance team can track the past using a new space-folding technology, which has a variable viewing window, but a fixed time lag of four days and six hours behind the present moment.
Plot Synopsis: A ferry is blown up in New Orleans harbour during a Mardi Gras party. Agent Doug Carlin is invited to join a newly formed FBI surveillance team to
investigate the explosion. They can track the past using new ‘space-folding’ technology. It has a variable viewing window with a fixed time lag of four days and six hours
behind the present moment. It can zoom down into a city through rooftops and walls to view and hear a conversation inside a room. They can record this and watch it again later, but cannot retrospectively change their chosen viewing angle. Doug uses the machine to send a note on a piece of paper back in time to warn himself about the terrorist. It arrives on his work desk, but his partner picks it up and goes to investigate. They follow him using the satellite technology and see him killed by the terrorist, Oerstadt. This creates one of the many paradoxes in this film, as Doug is now
responsible for the death of his partner. Back in the present, the FBI arrest and charge Oerstadt, who says, “Anyone, who tries to stop [the explosion] from happening, causes it to happen!” Doug is put in the machine, like the piece of paper, and goes back in time to stop Oerstadt form blowing up the ferry. He dies doing so, but the other version of him is still alive and goes on to investigate the incident.
Genre: Science Fiction - Creating Wormholes & Transporting Body Through Time.
My Comments: This movie was written as a science fiction story, but director, Tony Scott, wanted to make it science fact, so he used Professor Brian Greene from Columbia University as his technical advisor. By surrounding the time machine with so much real technology, he added a layer of authenticity to it. Doug is told that the FBI team can fold space, bringing the target closer to them and then create a type of wormhole, called an Einstein-Rosen bridge, which is suspended via a gravitational field and powered by a huge particle accelerator. A folded piece of paper is used to explain folding space in a higher dimension so that an instantaneous link is created between two distant points. This way of explaining a wormhole was previously used in Event Horizon (1997).
Time Travel Summary: When Doug goes back in time, he is able to change the past, so the past is clearly open. However, the more he changes events on the timeline, the more he realises that the timeline is converging back and that he is not going to stop the disaster. He notices that the changes he makes are creating events that he had witnessed in the past before he made his trip. These causal loops are an example of the
predestination paradox. However, he keeps trying and does eventually prevent the disaster by killing the terrorist and in the process gets himself killed, which causes the timeline to diverge off towards a new future. The causal loops in this film would lead us to believe that a model of time with a fixed timeline is being used. However, as Doug is able to finally cause the timeline to diverge, the only explanation left is that a double- well timeline is being used and that both the past and future are open.
Model of Time:
Open past, open future