It seems to fit in with that category of movie plot devices sometimes referred to as Macguffins. Nobody has any idea in the real world, how to do this, but if you could, you could write a plot about it....a time machine. Alternate time lines, events that are NOT fated to happen, or also events that ARE fated to happen all revolve around the whole time travel thing.
What would have happened if I could travel back and keep Gavrilo Princip from shooting Archduke Ferdinand? No WW I, no Nazis, no WW II? There are many plot lines you can concoct with a device like that. The cool thing about time travel as a device is that, since it's already acknowledged to be fictional, nobody can say the outcome is wrong or that you got the history incorrect.
Once you can time travel, virtually anything can happen since you just upended the basic operation of the universe anyway.
It is often a Macguffin, most obviously in
Tenet, but I was getting at something slightly different - though I like where the conversation is going. Macguffin or not, films like
Premonition leave an unfulfilling aftertaste because no matter how the director spins it, you already know that ‘John dies in the end’, therefore, no matter how good the ‘whydunit’ is, you are still not as invested as you would be if you didn’t know. That’s how I feel at least. The fundamental surprise element is surely completely removed?
Relatively few films go for the straight-up shattering of the space-time continuum, like
WARNING: spoilers below
Coherence does. Even after the comet has passed, the effects remain, there are two women left (this isn’t even quite time travel, but same sort of issue)
Coherence does. Even after the comet has passed, the effects remain, there are two women left (this isn’t even quite time travel, but same sort of issue)
.
Whereas in so many others, with the exception of good old
Back to the Future, we tend to know in advance that, regardless of the sequence of events preceding it, the end result/starting point would be as we know it.
WARNING: spoilers below
Tenet is a good example, because we know Neil dies/has died/will die, which to me certainly devalues whatever “wonderful adventures” he and the Protagonist would embark on together, because I’ll be thinking, And then he died. I’m aware that this is deliberate on Nolan’s part
Tenet is a good example, because we know Neil dies/has died/will die, which to me certainly devalues whatever “wonderful adventures” he and the Protagonist would embark on together, because I’ll be thinking, And then he died. I’m aware that this is deliberate on Nolan’s part
. But to me this is the case where Nolan, for all the hype, is not being original at all - on the contrary.
It would be one thing if there was at least an attempt to conceal what is going on, as with
Cronocrimes. This is more or less a genuine whodunnit until it is revealed
WARNING: spoilers below
that all the ‘doing’ is being perpetrated by the protagonist himself
that all the ‘doing’ is being perpetrated by the protagonist himself
.
Triangle at least is
WARNING: spoilers below
a loop
a loop
, so we don’t end up with the sense of, ‘Now I see how the opening act came about!’
But things like
Donnie Darko, even, much as I love it, tell you from the get-go who dies and then they usually do, so as to restore/preserve the space-time continuum. I find there’s a certain annoying simplicity and predictability to that. I don’t know if I’m making much sense, but I find this sort of thing to be a big letdown.
Lake House, which is largely rubbish,
WARNING: spoilers below
at least avoided that trope by having both protagonists survive via an internal logic that I can’t recall.
at least avoided that trope by having both protagonists survive via an internal logic that I can’t recall.