The Thing About Time Travel

 September 14, 2016

The thing that no one ever mentions, aside from the absolute bending of reality for it to occur. From a physics standpoint, it just cannot occur. Which leaves the concept and theory of time travel to the world of fiction. And while there have been many successful film franchises that rely on time travel as a plot device, there have been many more that like to ignore the problems that are no doubt encountered when moving through time.  For every Back to the Future, there are Star Trek films. Sorry Trekkies, far too many movies and episodes of the TV shows involve time travel. It’s become a writer’s crutch. There, I said it. Prove me wrong. 

Conversely, at least Doc Brown touched on the paradox and multiverse theory in the Back to the Future series. Remember, once Marty changed how his parents got together and his dad finally stood up to Biff, the world he came back to was totally different than the one he remembered. He altered the Space-Time Continuum. Only because he was the time-traveler, would he be able to remember the original timeline he came from. Multiverse theory. Or, within the same series, from part 2, when Biff traveled to 1955 to give his younger self the Sports Almanac, he would have altered the timeline and could never have returned to the 2015 he originally left. In fact, if Biff altered the timeline back in 1955 and had Doc Brown committed in his new timeline, then Emmitt could never have built the time machine for original Biff to steal and take back to 1955 in the first place. Paradox.

Had The Terminator series left it at the one and done, it would have been a perfect way to mess with people’s heads. Pregnant Sarah recording a story for John that he NEEDED to send Kyle Reese back in time, otherwise he would never have been born. Too bad Cameron got money hungry and ruined his own franchise with the worse and worse sequels. Yes, I’m even talking about T2. A single line from the original movie should have killed any sequel. But, I digress.

But even if we were to ignore those in the first place, I’d actually be MORE worried about traveling through time where the world was a much more dangerous place. I’m not even talking about a gunfight in the old west, getting stuck in Ancient Greece or a laser battle against robots in the future. No, I’m talking about going to a period in time where our bodies aren’t protected from diseases we haven’t had to deal with in a few hundred years. Our bodies have no immunity to Spanish Flu or the plague. Hell, we don’t even vaccinate against small pox since it was eradicated. So imagine going back to pick up some medieval princesses and bringing back a case of small pox in your phone booth.  

By the way, if you want to read a good, short story about time travel and its negative implications, find a copy of “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury.  Marvelous and a quick read.  Make sure to ignore that gawdawful movie of the same name.