MODELS OF TIME TRAVEL A COMPARATIVE STUDY USING FILMS Guy Roland Micklethwait A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University July 2012 National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences APPENDIX I: FILMS REVIEWED Each of the following film reviews has been reduced to two pages. The first page of each of each review is objective; it includes factual information about the film and a synopsis not of the plot, but of how temporal phenomena were treated in the plot. The second page of the review is subjective; it includes the genre where I placed the film, my general comments and then a brief discussion about which model of time I felt was being used and why. It finishes with a diagrammatic representation of the timeline used in the film. Note that if a film has only one diagram, it is because the different journeys are using the same model of time in the same way. Sometimes several journeys are made. The present moment on any timeline is always taken at the start point of the first time travel journey, which is placed at the origin of the graph. The blue lines with arrows show where the time traveller’s trip began and ended. They can also be used to show how information is transmitted from one point on the timeline to another. When choosing a model of time for a particular film, I am not looking at what happened in the plot, but rather the type of timeline used in the film to describe the possible outcomes, as opposed to what happened. For example a double-well timeline may have been how all the characters thought time worked, even if the timeline always converged in the story. They may have been convinced that if a big enough change had been made in the past that the timeline would definitely diverge. Note that the Internet Movie Database user rating and votes for each film were retrieved from: http://www.imdb.com on 20th November 2008. 223 Army of Darkness (1992) Director: Sam Raimi. 001 Writing Credits: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi. Production Companies: Dino De Laurentiis Company, Renaissance Pictures, Introvision International, Universal Pictures. Distribution: Anchor Bay Entertainment. Actors: Bruce Campbell (Ash), Embeth Davidtz (Sheila). Runtime: 96 minutes (director’s cut). The Internet Movie Database User Rating: 7.6/10 45,077 votes Overview: A man is sucked into a vortex and travels through time and space to England during the Middle Ages. He tries to find the Necronomicon, a book that will help him return to his own time. Plot Synopsis: At the end of the second of the Evil Dead trilogy, Evil Dead 2 (1987), Ash is sucked into a vortex and travels through time and space to England during the Middle Ages. He is taken prisoner by the locals and becomes a slave. Eventually they realise he is from the future and send him to find the Necronomicon, a book that will help them and allow him to return to his own time. He retrieves the book, but by incorrectly reciting an incantation, he accidentally awakens the Army of Darkness, who they must all now defeat. He then returns to his own time, but as he does not say the words of the magic potion quite correctly, part of the evil returns with him. On his arrival in the present, nothing seems to have been affected by his changing history. 224 Genre: Fantasy – Finding Portals. My Comments: The third of the Evil Dead trilogy. The first had no time travel, the second finished with time travel, which is where the third started. Time Travel Summary: Although Ash significantly changes history, the timeline seems to have converged by the time he returns to his present. As the evil has returned with him, we are led to believe this will cause the timeline to diverge from this point onwards. Model of Time: Open past, open future Converging timeline 225 Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) Director: Jay Roach. 002 Writing Credits: Mike Myers. Production Companies: Capella International, Eric's Boy, Juno Pix, KC Medien, Moving Pictures, New Line Cinema. Distribution: New Line Cinema. Actors: Mike Myers (Austin Powers/Dr Evil), Elizabeth Hurley (Vanessa Kensington), Michael York (Basil Exposition), Mimi Rogers (Mrs Kensington), Robert Wagner (Number Two). Runtime: 94 minutes. The Internet Movie Database User Rating: 7.1/10 62,697 votes Overview: Dr Evil cryogenically freezes himself, so that he can wake 30 years later as an unknown to steal a nuclear weapon and hold the world hostage for 100 billion dollars. Austin chases him through time by also freezing himself. Plot Synopsis: This Bond movie spoof is set in the 60s, with Austin Powers as the world’s coolest photographer and part-time British secret agent. His nemesis, Dr Evil, cryogenically freezes himself, so 30 years later, he can wake as an unknown to steal a nuclear weapon and hold the world hostage for 100 billion dollars. Austin chases him through time by also freezing himself, so that he can stop him when he resurfaces. They both arrive in 1977, but they have 30 years of missing information they need to catch up on to get up to speed. 226 Genre: Science Fiction - Cryogenic Freezing. My Comments: The idea is that the cryogenically frozen body of a human is suspended in time until such time it is thawed. The human will wake to find themselves at some point in their future, so technically they will have time-travelled. See also other films with cryogenic freezing, such as Forever Young (1992), Idiocracy (2006), Sleeper (1973), Demolition Man (1993) and Vanilla Sky (2001). Time Travel Summary: As neither Austin, nor Dr Evil goes back in time, the past is not changed, but we cannot say if it is changeable or not, so in this film, the past is undefined. However, from the moment they are frozen, they ‘disappear’ from their timeline, which could cause it to diverge away from what it would have been had they stayed. When they are unfrozen in the future, they will awaken on a timeline, but as they have no way of knowing what the events on the original timeline would have been, they cannot say if their disappearance has caused the timeline to diverge or not. It may have diverged away from the original, diverged then converged back to the original, or it may not have changed at all. Backwards time-travel would be required to know this. Model of Time: Undefined past, open future Future timeline 227 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) Director: Jay Roach. 003 Writing Credits: Mike Myers. Production Companies: Eric's Boy, Moving Pictures, New Line Cinema, Team Todd. Distribution: New Line Cinema. Actors: Mike Myers (Austin Powers/Dr Evil/Fat Bastard), Heather Graham (Felicity Shagwell), Michael York (Basil Exposition), Robert Wagner (Number Two), Rob Lowe (Young Number Two), Elizabeth Hurley (Vanessa Kensington). Runtime: 95 minutes. The Internet Movie Database User Rating: 6.6/10 68,798 votes Overview: Dr Evil uses his new time machine to travel back 30 years to 1969. Austin follows him back and joins up with Felicity. When she is killed, he travels back ten minutes to save her and then they return to 1999 together. Plot Synopsis: Dr Evil and the Ministry of Defence have both invented a time machine since we left them two years earlier. Dr Evil has returned from space and uses his time machine to travels 30 years back to 1969 to steal Austin Powers's ‘mojo’ from his cryogenically frozen body. This is the essence that makes him irresistible to women. Austin travels back in time, where he joins forces with CIA agent Felicity Shagwell, meets his frozen self, and then tracks down Dr Evil in order to recover his Mojo and stop Dr Evil from taking over the world. In the process, Felicity is killed, so Austin travels back ten minutes in time and joins forces with himself to save her. They then return through a time portal to 1999. 228 Genre: Science Fiction - Cryogenic Freezing and Transporting Body Through Time. My Comments: Dr Evil goes back in time to steal Austin’s mojo, so that he can become irresistible to women, so he is not really trying to change the past, rather he is trying to steal something from the past to bring back to the present. So he must believe that the timeline will converge after his departure, so that he will be able to return to the same present that he left. Either that or he believes in a model of time with a double- well timeline and that removing Austin’s mojo is not a major enough event to cause the timeline to diverge. Time Travel Summary: When Austin goes back ten minutes in time, he is trying to change the past by preventing Felicity’s death, more because he fancies her, than because he is trying to restore the timeline. This is confirmed by the fact that he chooses to return to the present with her because she is now missing from the timeline and that would surely cause it to diverge in a double-well model. It clearly did not, therefore this film is using a converging model of time. The past is clearly open, and the future must be open too, as he will now share a new future with Felicity. Model of Time: Open past, open future Converging timeline 229 Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) Director: Jay Roach.