The Time Machine (2002 film): Difference between revisions
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==Plot== |
==Plot== |
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Alexander Hartdegen is a young scientist who lives in [[1899]] [[New York City]]. He is obsessed with the idea of [[time travel]] and convinced that it is theoretically possible. After the murder of his girlfriend Emma, he resolves to try to save her, and he eventually succeeds in building a working [[time travel|time machine]]. |
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{{Plot|date=January 2008}} |
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Alexander Hartdegen is a young scientist who lives in [[1899]] [[New York City]]. Obsessed with the idea of [[time travel]] and convinced that it is theoretically possible, he teaches at [[Columbia University]] as a professor of "[[Applied Mechanics]] and [[Engineering]]" and often gets into trouble for his free-thinking, radical theories. It is also stated that he was a [[pen pal]] of [[Albert Einstein]]. As Alexander rushes to the park to meet with his girlfriend Emma, he pauses to buy flowers; however, this notion is soon lost when he becomes embroiled and excited about an early motor car which has pulled up beside the park gates. He puts himself in immediate good fortune with the driver who, while refueling, forgot to activate the parking brake – something Alexander does quickly when it threatens to shoot off, out of control. |
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| ⚫ | Disenchanted after several attempts to intervene, he decides to go forward in time to find out if there are any answers to this problem in the future. He stops on [[May 24]]th [[2030]] and learns that the Moon is being prepared for colonization. Finding nothing of use, he moves on to the future, until he hit a 'bump' seven years into the future at [[August 26]]th [[2037]], where he finds that the Moon mining operation has disrupted the lunar orbit. As a result, the Moon is breaking apart and showering [[Earth]] with massive chunks of rock. He makes it into the time machine just as the city is being destroyed, but is knocked unconscious and fails to witness the destruction of human civilization, speeding through hundreds of millennia, with the landscape ever changing and evolving. |
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Forgetting the flowers, he travels on and meets Emma at the skating rink; they talk and walk through the park for several minutes until they pause in a small clearing where Alexander proposes to Emma. However, the romantic moment is short-lived: a robber emerges from nearby bushes and holds a gun on them, stealing Alexander's wallet, gloves and [[pocket watch]]. As the thug attempts to take Emma's engagement ring, Alexander tries to intervene; during the struggle, the gun goes off and Emma is fatally wounded, dying in Alexander's arms as the robber flees. For the next four years, Alexander spends every waking hour in his laboratory working on his [[time travel]] calculations. Eventually, he succeeds in building a working [[time travel|time machine]]. |
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His self-imposed exile has led to him being ostracized from his oldest friend David Philby, who eventually arrives at the lab to confront Alexander who in turn flies into a rage. Philby invites Alexander to dinner in the hope it would cause him to leave the lab and eventually return to a normal life, but Alexander postpones the dinner until the following week; after Philby has left Alexander remarks that in a week they "wouldn't have had this conversation". |
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With the time machine finished, he is ready to travel into the past. Having smartened his appearance, he travels back to that night four years ago and intercepts with Emma before she was destined to meet his 1899 counterpart. Escorting her away from the park, they begin their walk back to her apartment where he leaves her out in the street to purchase some flowers. However, despite Alexander having removed her from the danger of the robber, Emma is knocked down and trampled by a horse and carriage outside of the flower shop. The horses were spooked by the early motor car and driver that Alexander had stopped the first time he'd encountered it. |
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Alexander realizes bitterly that if he prevents one means of Emma's death, another will take its place. Disenchanted with the prospect, he decides to go forward in time to find out if there are any answers to this problem in the future. |
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Alexander stops on [[May 24]]th [[2030]] and learns that the Moon is being prepared for colonization. He visits the [[New York Public Library]] where he talks with Vox 114, the library's [[holography|holographic]], [[artificial intelligence|artificially intelligent]] librarian. |
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When posed the question of time travel and later its practical applications, Alexander is given information on [[H. G. Wells]], [[Isaac Asimov]], [[Harlan Ellison]] and even one of his own papers, but the library does not have any information on [[time travel]] theory; Vox states that such a thing is impossible - as one cannot travel into the past. |
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| ⚫ | |||
Regaining consciousness, Alexander brings the machine to a halt on July 16th, 802,701 AD, and finds that human civilization has devolved to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Calling themselves the [[Eloi]], these survivors have built their homes into the side of a cliff on what resembles [[Manhattan]]. Alexander begins to develop a relationship with a woman named Mara, a teacher, and one of few who recall some of the Time Traveler's now obsolete language. He also realizes the Moon is no longer what it once was; it is now broken in half with a ring of dust and rocks orbiting it. |
Regaining consciousness, Alexander brings the machine to a halt on July 16th, 802,701 AD, and finds that human civilization has devolved to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Calling themselves the [[Eloi]], these survivors have built their homes into the side of a cliff on what resembles [[Manhattan]]. Alexander begins to develop a relationship with a woman named Mara, a teacher, and one of few who recall some of the Time Traveler's now obsolete language. He also realizes the Moon is no longer what it once was; it is now broken in half with a ring of dust and rocks orbiting it. |
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| ⚫ | The Eloi are attacked by [[Morlock]]s, monstrous, pale, [[ape]]-like creatures that hunt the Eloi for food. The Morlocks capture Mara and carry her off. Alexander finds a way into the underground realm of the Morlocks, who capture him and bring him before the Über-Morlock (played by Jeremy Irons). The Über-Morlock reveals the reason why Alexander cannot alter Emma's fate: he is caught in a [[temporal paradox]]. Since Emma's death was the prime factor that drove him to build the time machine, he cannot use the machine without her death being incorporated into the timeline, as otherwise he would have had no reason to build the machine in the first place. |
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As Alexander is introduced to Eloi society, he is shown a collection of stone fragments and signs from what was once New York, including a sign from [[Tiffany and Co]], the [[Empire State Building]] and a section of tiled panels from [[Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)|Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Subway Station]]. |
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While Alex is inspecting the machine after seeing an Eloi memorial for their parents, Mara tells him to go back to his own time and take her younger brother Kalen with him. Suddenly, the Eloi are attacked by [[Morlock]]s, monstrous, pale, [[ape]]-like creatures that hunt the Eloi for food. The Morlocks capture Mara and carry her off. Trying to find out where she has been taken, Alexander is told that "the Ghost" might know. As it turns out, the Eloi are speaking about Vox 114, the holographic librarian that Alexander had talked to before the destruction of the Moon, who is still functioning after all these years where the New York Public Library once stood because of his fusion-power plant. It is also revealed that his memory is intact perfectly, as he remembers the last book he recommended, some of the last moment's before the Moon's destruction, and, to Alexander's surprise, he remembers the conversation that he and Alexander shared, many many millennia ago. |
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With Vox 114's help, Alexander finds a way into the underground realm of the Morlocks. Eventually, Alexander is captured by the Morlocks who take him to an underground chamber where Mara is kept in a cage, and where the Morlocks' leader, the Über-Morlock (played by Jeremy Irons), is waiting. The Über-Morlock reveals that they have a [[caste]]-like society, with each caste (nearly a different species in itself) fulfilling a different role in Morlock society. The ruling caste of this society are super-intelligent [[telepathy|telepaths]], while the hunters that Alex has encountered so far were bred to be predators and hunt for the others. Attempting to explain his actions, the Über-Morlock reasons that he and his people are not evil; they are simply the result of millennia of [[evolution]]. He asks "Who are you to question eight hundred thousand years... of evolution?" He also indicates that there are other clans similar to his, each ruled by a different [[psychic]] overlord. |
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| ⚫ | The Über-Morlock |
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Alexander learns that the Morlocks were people who chose to stay underground after the Moon collapsed and the Eloi were those who chose to brave the [[fallout]]. His time machine has been found by the Morlocks and taken underground. To escape, Alexander jumps into the machine and sends it hurtling forward in time, taking the Über-Morlock with him. The two of them fight until Alexander pushes him outside of the time sphere and sets the machine into 'forward'. He watches as the Über-Morlock ages and dies outside of the time bubble, while still clinging to the time machine. |
Alexander learns that the Morlocks were people who chose to stay underground after the Moon collapsed and the Eloi were those who chose to brave the [[fallout]]. His time machine has been found by the Morlocks and taken underground. To escape, Alexander jumps into the machine and sends it hurtling forward in time, taking the Über-Morlock with him. The two of them fight until Alexander pushes him outside of the time sphere and sets the machine into 'forward'. He watches as the Über-Morlock ages and dies outside of the time bubble, while still clinging to the time machine. |
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| ⚫ | Finally accepting that he can never save Emma, Alexander travels back in time to rescue the trapped Mara. After setting her free and before escaping, he sets the time machine to travel to the future and uses his pocket watch to jam the controls, causing it to malfunction and explode, creating a time distortion stream. Alexander and Mara escape just as the explosion kills off the Morlocks. As he is now trapped in the future, Alexander resolves to build a new life for himself with Mara, and begins to rebuild the human civilization along with the Eloi. |
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Still rapidly moving forward through time, Alexander slows the machine as the sky appears overhead. He has traveled to the year 635,427,810 AD, and the landscape is now a desolate wasteland, completely dominated by the Morlocks. |
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==Critical Reception== |
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| ⚫ | Finally accepting that he can never save Emma, Alexander travels back in time to rescue the trapped Mara. After setting her free and before escaping, he sets the time machine to travel to the future and uses his pocket watch to jam the controls, causing it to malfunction and explode, creating a time distortion stream. Alexander and Mara escape just as the explosion kills off the Morlocks. |
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The film was not well received by critics, who compared its lack of a central message unfavourably with Wells' original and [[George Pal]]'s 1960 film (made at the height of the [[Cold War]]). Criticism was also levelled at the treatment of the Morlocks and the conclusion, which relied heavily on [[plot device]] rather than resolution of the preceding narrative.<ref>http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020308/REVIEWS/203080302/1023</ref><ref>http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Observer_review/0,,726341,00.html</ref><ref>http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,,724766,00.html</ref><ref>http://www.reelviews.net/movies/t/time_machine.html</ref> |
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The film was not a financial success, posting estimated losses of around $20 million after worldwide distribution.<ref>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268695/business</ref> |
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As he is now trapped in the future, Alexander resolves to build a new life for himself with Mara, and with the help of Vox, he begins to rebuild the human civilization along with the Eloi, Vox telling the Eloi the stories that he retains in his memory banks. He shows Mara and Kalen the spot where his laboratory used to stand. This closing scene is shown side by side with a sequence in the year [[1903]], where David Philby chats with Alexander's elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Watchett, before leaving and throwing away his [[bowler hat]] as a small tribute to a conversation they had had before the accident, wherein Alexander had wanted his students to be free thinkers and to "knock off every bowler they saw." |
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==Cast== |
==Cast== |
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Revision as of 12:08, 21 February 2008
| The Time Machine | |
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 Promotional poster for The Time Machine | |
| Directed by | Simon Wells |
| Written by | H. G. Wells (novel) David Duncan (earlier screenplay) John Logan (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Walter F. Parkes David Valdes |
| Starring | Guy Pearce Jeremy Irons Orlando Jones Samantha Mumba Mark Addy Phyllida Law Sienna Guillory |
| Edited by | Wayne Wahrman |
| Music by | Klaus Badelt |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates | March 8, 2002 |
Running time | 96 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $80 million |
The Time Machine is a 2002 science fiction film directed by Simon Wells as a remake of The Time Machine (1960), and starring Guy Pearce, Jeremy Irons, Orlando Jones, Samantha Mumba, Mark Addy, Sienna Guillory, and Phyllida Law with a cameo by Alan Young from the earlier film. Like the original film, this movie is loosely based on the 1895 novel The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
Plot
Alexander Hartdegen is a young scientist who lives in 1899 New York City. He is obsessed with the idea of time travel and convinced that it is theoretically possible. After the murder of his girlfriend Emma, he resolves to try to save her, and he eventually succeeds in building a working time machine.
Disenchanted after several attempts to intervene, he decides to go forward in time to find out if there are any answers to this problem in the future. He stops on May 24th 2030 and learns that the Moon is being prepared for colonization. Finding nothing of use, he moves on to the future, until he hit a 'bump' seven years into the future at August 26th 2037, where he finds that the Moon mining operation has disrupted the lunar orbit. As a result, the Moon is breaking apart and showering Earth with massive chunks of rock. He makes it into the time machine just as the city is being destroyed, but is knocked unconscious and fails to witness the destruction of human civilization, speeding through hundreds of millennia, with the landscape ever changing and evolving.
Regaining consciousness, Alexander brings the machine to a halt on July 16th, 802,701 AD, and finds that human civilization has devolved to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Calling themselves the Eloi, these survivors have built their homes into the side of a cliff on what resembles Manhattan. Alexander begins to develop a relationship with a woman named Mara, a teacher, and one of few who recall some of the Time Traveler's now obsolete language. He also realizes the Moon is no longer what it once was; it is now broken in half with a ring of dust and rocks orbiting it.
The Eloi are attacked by Morlocks, monstrous, pale, ape-like creatures that hunt the Eloi for food. The Morlocks capture Mara and carry her off. Alexander finds a way into the underground realm of the Morlocks, who capture him and bring him before the Über-Morlock (played by Jeremy Irons). The Über-Morlock reveals the reason why Alexander cannot alter Emma's fate: he is caught in a temporal paradox. Since Emma's death was the prime factor that drove him to build the time machine, he cannot use the machine without her death being incorporated into the timeline, as otherwise he would have had no reason to build the machine in the first place.
Alexander learns that the Morlocks were people who chose to stay underground after the Moon collapsed and the Eloi were those who chose to brave the fallout. His time machine has been found by the Morlocks and taken underground. To escape, Alexander jumps into the machine and sends it hurtling forward in time, taking the Über-Morlock with him. The two of them fight until Alexander pushes him outside of the time sphere and sets the machine into 'forward'. He watches as the Über-Morlock ages and dies outside of the time bubble, while still clinging to the time machine.
Finally accepting that he can never save Emma, Alexander travels back in time to rescue the trapped Mara. After setting her free and before escaping, he sets the time machine to travel to the future and uses his pocket watch to jam the controls, causing it to malfunction and explode, creating a time distortion stream. Alexander and Mara escape just as the explosion kills off the Morlocks. As he is now trapped in the future, Alexander resolves to build a new life for himself with Mara, and begins to rebuild the human civilization along with the Eloi.
Critical Reception
The film was not well received by critics, who compared its lack of a central message unfavourably with Wells' original and George Pal's 1960 film (made at the height of the Cold War). Criticism was also levelled at the treatment of the Morlocks and the conclusion, which relied heavily on plot device rather than resolution of the preceding narrative.[1][2][3][4]
The film was not a financial success, posting estimated losses of around $20 million after worldwide distribution.[5]
Cast
(in order of appearance)
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Deleted scenes
 |
- A scene was removed from the opening of the film, showing a practical experiment by Alexander Hartdegen explaining thermals; the scene led to a brief conversation between Hartdegen and the Dean of Columbia University. Evidence of the removed scene can be seen in cast members looking directly at the camera (originally intended to represent the point of view of the Dean) and a collection of coats left in Hartdegen's classroom.
- A scene that was scripted, but abandoned as it was considered inappropriate in light of the then recent events of September 11th 2001, was to have shown sections of the shattered moon crashing into the futuristic skyscrapers of 2037 New York City.
- The scenes of college life and of Hartdegen as a professor, which were cut from the film, were shot on Vassar College campus in Poughkeepsie, NY.
Alternate sequences
A selection of scenes and sequences are shown in the trailers to have notable differences from those seen in the final film. These include:
- An alternate cloud pattern and fewer futuristic skyscrapers in the establishing pan sequence of the 2030 New York Public Library.
- Alternate identification and menu graphics appear on the transparent display screens of the Vox hologram system within the library.
- A possible 'alternate future' depicts Hartdegen and the time machine, standing on a hillside before a futuristic settlement, set within the changed landscape of what was once New York. This could suggest that an alternate ending or series of events was planned to show that the Eloi would regain an 'ambition for the future'. If this was intended as the 'positive' future for the Eloi compared to one where they are overruled by the Morlocks, then Hartdegen witnessing and visiting it with the time machine contradicts the sequence in the film where he destroys it to defeat the Morlocks. It is possible, however, that this was intended to 'tease' the audience with the stereotypical idea of a futuristic landscape.
Production
Special Effects
The Morlocks (in the story, semi-human creatures which live in the future), were created using actors in costumes wearing animatronic masks. For scenes in which they would have needed to run on all fours faster than would be humanly possible, ILM created Computer-generated versions of the creatures.[6]
Many of the time traveling scenes were entirely computer generated, including a 33-second shot which begins in the workshop where the time machine is located. The camera pulls out, traveling through a city and then into space and past the moon to reveal earth’s lunar colonies. Plants and buildings are shown springing up and then being replaced by new growth in a constant cycle. In later shots, the effects team used an erosion algorithm to digitally simulate the earth’s landscape changing through the centuries.[7]
For some of the lighting effects used for the digital time bubble around the time machine, ILM developed an extended-range color format, which thy named rgbe (red, green blue, and an exponent channel) (See Paul E. Debevec and Jitendra Malik, “Recovering High Dynamic Range Radiance Maps from Photographs, Siggraph Proceedings, 1997).[8]
See also
References
- ^ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020308/REVIEWS/203080302/1023
- ^ http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Observer_review/0,,726341,00.html
- ^ http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,,724766,00.html
- ^ http://www.reelviews.net/movies/t/time_machine.html
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268695/business
- ^ About Time: Barbara Robertson, Digital Domain and ILM developed new technologies to create effects for the movie The Time Machine, Computer Graphics World, March 2002, Volume 25 Number 3, pages 24-25
- ^ About Time: Barbara Robertson, Digital Domain and ILM developed new technologies to create effects for the movie The Time Machine, Computer Graphics World, March 2002, Volume 25 Number 3, pages 24-25
- ^ About Time: Barbara Robertson, Digital Domain and ILM developed new technologies to create effects for the movie The Time Machine, Computer Graphics World, March 2002, Volume 25 Number 3, pages 24-25