Thursday 29 January 2015

Best Time Travel Movies

Everybody would like a do over no matter how seemingly perfect the first draft of their personal history was. Personal history is a total environment. The reason the JFK assassination resonates so strongly is that its easy for the lay person to imagine a world where he had not been killed. Now we paint a better future on this blank canvas because its human nature. Nevertheless its clear that human nature is a wondrous thing allowed to bloom unfettered by the remnants of the lizard brain.

That's why Interstellar gets my vote as the best Time Travel movie ever. Movies are the most refined expression of human desire. If a picture is worth a thousand words even a bad movie tickles the lizard somewhat. A great movie hits every scale of humanity. Interstellar played me like a grand piano, a harp with the strings played by an expert.

The boundary between science fiction and fantasy is ill defined. My definition is that science fiction is built upon some technology. Dilithem crystals versus the magic mirror. Its science vs superstition on the big screen.

When a creator asks me to suspend my disbelief its not a big ask. Its human nature to never be satisfied and fantazie. As an aside the biggest failure of humanity is that we collectively make it so difficult to turn fantasy into reality.
With enough money we can make the most fantastical dreams come true.

The majority of time travel movies have no science behind their travel. The ones that use science have mostly escaped reality. Interstellar has some plausibility in what we know about the universe. There is no more magic in instellar than there is in the microwave that is in every kitchen. 

The fact that Interstellar producers knew enough about human nature to create a film based upon science is not a first. However its the first big budget movie time travel movie that has physicist probability attached.

In the future learning will be an advanced video game. Interstellar was a learning experience that was both painless and a harbinger of the uplift humanity is going to get soon.

In summary I like Interstellar.

Now on to the lesser movies.

My second movie is Primer. Its just so pure. Its not a big movie, it just makes you think. Its like the reality version of Cloud Atlas, I do not understand it, but it moved me to another place and time.

Third
Edge of Tomorrow.
Magical science for sure. However a great movie. A out of the box plot.
Long after people forgot Tom Cruise hopped on a couch, this movie will be playing religiously in the homes of the informed.

Fourth
The Philadelphia Experiment

I like movies with a veneer of reality. This B movie has deep truths.

Five
Planet of the Apes
The story of evolution told backwards was in French.  The  French gave the world democracy and this is a missile at the heart of our fascist superstates.

Six

Twelve Monkeys
A serious Monty Python sketch. Historic view of future history.

Seven
Millennium
A very B movie starring Chris Kirsotffison. But a brilliant thought train with a compelling scientific solution to contemporary human infestation of the ecosystem.
It was made in 1989 and becomes more real every day.

Eight
Star Trek: The Voyage Home
Explaining Trekkyism is like explaining a freaky religion. I am a Trekkie, can not speak Klingon but admire the effort. This 1986 movie had everything a Trekkie could worship.

Nine
Time cop
Why why why you ask do I rate Time cop above Terminator? The answer Jean Paul.

Ten
Terminator
Maybe I am a harsh critic but Terminator broke no new ground. It was a great sythithis of everything.  It remains one of the most influential movies in human history. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Eldon Musk are telling everyone who will listen right now that artificial intelligence is the biggest risk humans have ever gambled upon. Terminator brought that idea home. In the end when we must take action against AI it might be the thing that saved humanity.

Then again we can not take action against the dictators that rule this planet
so what fantasy do we live in that we might expect we could defeat a cold clinical version devoid of human foibles representing the 1%.

I may or may not have reviewed some of these movies. If you like the cut of my jib, sail here.




2 comments:

  1. Excellent list. Did you see io9's list of the same type yesterday? They had BTTF at #1 http://io9.com/every-time-travel-movie-ever-ranked-1682363164

    12 Monkeys will always be #1 for me. Not that the time travel aspects were particularly great (though they were intriguing) but the rest of the movie (the performances, the look) were just wow.

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    1. 29 I am comprimised, I read the list and fundementally disagreed,

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