TV in the Movies – Gonna go BACK in time

If vampires are all the rage in movies and television, then time travel has to be a close second. The ability to travel through space to another era continues to fascinate humanity. For centuries, scientists have studied the laws of physics to determine the validity of time travel. Even the most brilliant minds have been unable to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the concept is possible.

At present, no one has successfully traveled forward or backward in time, or if they have, they must be stuck wherever the hell they went. If you read the Weekly World News, there are thousands of individuals roaming the planet from either the past or future. Although, I’m told they aren’t a very reliable source. Wink.

There are several ways to discuss time travel. The majority of fictional treatments posit the future can be altered by screwing shit up in the past. However, paradoxes and parallel universes can muddle up the proceedings. Truthfully, attempting to wrap your head around all the concepts can lead to severe headaches and regular visits to the local asylum. I’m not smart enough to delve into time dilation and the theory of relativity; I’m just here to compare and contrast Back to the Future and Lost. If you want things like facts and intelligent discourse, look up Stephen Hawking.

I love me some Back to the Future. Marty McFly and Doc Brown are one dynamic duo. Is there a cooler time machine than a 1982 DeLorean? I think not. To recap the plot, Marty is shipped back to 1955 and manages to screw up pretty much everything, which in turn threatens his own existence. His mom gets the hots for him (creepy) instead of his dad George, so Marty has to ensure his parents fall in love before he himself fades away into nothingness. When you stop to think, the movie is damn ridiculous, but the fun factor makes up for obvious gaps in logic.

The movie adopts the principle that a person can affect the past by his/her actions. In this case, Marty actually changes things for the better. Before hurtling through time and space, he and his family were of bunch of pathetic losers. Biff berated his old man and lasciviously drooled over his mom. Thanks to Marty’s presence in 1955, George learns how to stand up for himself. By punching out Biff, George changes his path and becomes a confident, successful sci-fi author, rather than a pocket-protector-wearing pussy. (Off topic: I still find it odd that when Marty returns to 1985, his old man is keeping Biff around as a man servant, even though the guy tried to rape Lorraine at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.)

Now, the absurdity of Marty “disappearing” is where BTTF falls apart for me. It makes sense that if his parents never got together he wouldn’t have been conceived, but watching Marty watch his own hand fade away makes me laugh, and not in a good way. Other than that, I think Zemeckis and Spielberg do a credible job employing a variation of the “Grandfather Paradox” theory. Marty’s potential vanishing serves as a dramatic work around to the paradox. It’s silly, but in the context of the film, it fits.

Time travel on Lost dominated season five. The notion of changing the past to prevent future events, i.e. the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, surfaces in the final few episodes. Daniel Faraday believed wholeheartedly that detonating a nuke at the Swan Station would disrupt the timeline. Was he right? Unfortunately, we have to wait until next January, and even then we might not get an answer (I dig the show, but the writers/creators can be real assholes). If we are to believe Faraday – who was a pretty sharp fella – then the previous seasons of Lost were all for naught. The crash, the hatch, Sawyer and Kate hooking up, Charlie, Mr. Eko and Shannon dying; none of it happened. What the hell?

If the writers decide to go this route, it will make for an intriguing and equally enraging final season. Maybe we will get to see where all these disparate characters would have gone if the plane crash had not occurred. A host of pesky paradoxes must be accounted for, but I digress. Leave it to Lost to steer me off track. My relationship with the show is of the love-hate variety.

At any rate, both Back to the Future and Lost tread similar territory in terms of time travel lore. By surmising that a human variable is capable of disrupting a specific timeline, thereby changing future events, both the movie and series take a common fictional stance, ignore scientific paradoxes, and instead elect to operate under a many-worlds type model. (Consider adult versions of Juliete and Sawyer were living in the same year (1977) as the child versions of themselves. Wild.)

George McFly’s uppercut to Biff’s jaw and the hydrogen bomb’s detonation at the Swan Station are singular events that permanently altered the futures of all individuals concerned. Maybe. I’m certain someone who hasn’t eradicated countless numbers of brain cells by consuming mass quantities of alcohol will correct the inaccuracies in my inane ramblings.

Next week, I’ll broach the subject of parallel universes. The season finale of Fringe ventured down this road. Of course, I’ll require a hallucinatory aid to properly prepare myself. I know people. Just keep it under your hats. Hmm… I think I’ll go watch Back to the Future. It never gets old.

Clacked by Scott Tunstall
on Jun 24, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT