Run Lola Run is never presented as alternate realities that are actually tried, only possibilities in the main character's mind. The narrative of Groundhog Day clearly and explicitly has the same day repeating over and over again...you know, traveling back in time a day.
There can be an argument that in Run Lola Run, there were small indications in each of the stories that with each run she learnt something which she did not repeat again in the subsequent runs. These are very minor things that she learnt, but if she did learn it would mean a temporal loop is in place. The director has probably left the interpretation to the audiences. Some may see it as alternate realities, some may see it as a temporal loop or some may see it as mere possibilities in the mind of the female protagonist.
And for something you admit is a "minor difference" in the first place, I'm glad we took the time to straighten it out. But if you don't want to count Groundhog Day as a time travel movie because it only concerns a single day running in a loop, that's up to you. But technically it is time travel, you're just wrong about that. If you want to call it a subset type of time travel, so be it, but it's still time travel just the same.
The difference is indeed minor but there is a difference nevertheless.
But I'd classify temporal loop as a seperate subset of SciFi films. Anyways, I take your point.
Now as far as the
Technicality goes..
As far as I understand, a temporal loop would differ from the time travel for a few simple reasons:
1. In a temporal loop, the person is stuck in time. He's not moving forward or backwards, but he's running in loops. Of course he is travelling back in the past but what he does in one cycle has no bearing on the next cycle. He gets a fresh new start with every loop. Logically if a person were to time travel in loops (say via a time machine), with each cycle, something would change (depending on the actions of the person and the consequences of those actions).
2. If a person would time travel in loops to the same starting point (both in time and space), multiples of the same person would keep on accumulating with each loop. No such thing happens in a temporal phenomenon. There is just one copy of the person who keeps on living the same extent of time again and again.
Just compare Back to the Future trilogy and Ground hog day, you'll understand.
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