Filby paradox? - The Time Machine (1960) Discussion

[–] psychocosmic-1 12 years ago

Well, maybe the dad told his son. But honestly, and I think this is a good point, would you really believe if your dad told you the same thing? Maybe Filbys son grew up, not really having anything to go on, and no proof of any timetrAVEL, SO IT ALL BECAME A FORGOtten tale or myth--

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[–] TheButlerDidItYes 12 years ago

The timeline that George meets Filby's son in is one in which George disappeared on December 31, 1899 and was never seen again. Filby and his friends never heard George's story. They only remembered George talking about the fourth dimension and making the little time machine disappear which they probably assumed was just a magic trick. They probably thought he was crazy and then maybe ran away to live as a hermit or committed suicide. Since Filby preserved George's house though that indicates that he might have kind of believed his claim even though he hadn't heard the story in that timeline.

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[–] rfischer-4 12 years ago

Except George did return to his own original time, where he then recounted his travels into the future with Filby senior and his other friends. So it's almost certain that Filby senior would have likely shared this story with his son.

So it's impossible that Filby's son would not have known about George's future travels, especially meeting him (Filby's son), himself. Hence the paradox.

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[–] JeanBard99 12 years ago

Not necessarily. Jamie was a baby when all of this was going on and, as his sone got older, perhaps Filby just thought it a better idea to keep mum about what George had told him. He and the housekeeper believed it but no one else did. Why make waves?

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[–] rfischer-4 12 years ago

I don't know about that. If your neighbor travelled into the future and back, told you the fantastic story, and you believed it, would you manage to stay mum about it the rest of your life? Especially not mentioning a peep to your own flesh and blood? I strongly doubt it, as that's not human nature.

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[–] JeanBard99 12 years ago

It's restraint, true. But remember, this was the turn of the 20th century, not the 21st centry. You saw how his friend reacted to what George said. Even if Filby told his wife what he susopected I'm sure she would ask him to keep it to himself for the sake of their child's future.

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[–] dtmuller 12 years ago

I think it quite reasonable to believe that the elder Filby kept the story to himself. Recall that, early in the film, Filby told George that, if the machine really could travel through time, he should destroy it before it destroys George. Believing that, he might very well have decided to tell no one, lest they try to reproduce the machine and destroy their lives as well.

In any case, this is at worst a plot weakness. I don't see it as a paradox.

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[–] thomas-begen-194-976045 10 years ago

I agree with you on that.

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[–] rekcilorf 11 years ago

This is typical of the paradox of time travel stories. How do various timelines intersect and interact? Could you go back in time and prevent your own birth? Then, what time line would you return to? What if you realized that travelling across time caused more problems than it could solve? This was the theme of a much lesser film "Time Travelers" (an MST3K movie) in which the time traveling hero did just that and went back in time to stop himself from letting anyone know of his time machine and then destroyed the data for it.
There are too many paradoxes involved and I think that this is evidence that time travel is indeed impossible in reality, but movies and books about it are a hell of a lot of fun and can lead to interesting conversations.

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[–] kurthowe 8 years ago

It only becomes a paradox if causality is not involved: which is to say that it works fine if the time-traveler himself was always a part of the time he visits. In that case, attempting to alter or shape history as he knows it will either fail completely, or be based on false information.

This film works OK because he presumably never returns to his own time after his ending trip back to the Eloi. Thus...the abandoned house, park dedication, etc. still all end up happening.

There are much more disastrous theoretical consequences involved with time travel...adding/subtracting ones own mass to the Universe, introducing modern viruses and such to earlier cultures that have no immunity, etc. Bringing back that flower might have been a bad idea in that regard.

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[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 10 years ago

Except George did return to his own original time, where he then recounted his travels into the future with Filby senior and his other friends. So it's almost certain that Filby senior would have likely shared this story with his son.

So it's impossible that Filby's son would not have known about George's future travels, especially meeting him (Filby's son), himself. Hence the paradox.

I think that what TheButlerDidItYes means is that when George returned and told his story, he created a different future from the one he had experienced traveling for the first time. The former would have been irrecoverably lost.

On the first journey, the reality experienced by Filby & son was that George had never returned.

If, on his second trip to the future, George had once again stopped to speak to James Filby, he might have gotten a different response, since in this subsequent reality, James might remember having been told something of the story.

Unfortunately, what this means is that it is unlikely that George would find Weena and the others upon his return to 802,701, since his return to his own time would have altered the future, however imperceptibly, even by something as slight as the displacement of air molecules.

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[–] brucedgo 11 years ago

The timeline that George meets Filby's son in is one in which George disappeared on December 31, 1899 and was never seen again.

I don't believe there are any suggestion of multiple time-lines in this story.

It did occur to me, though, while watching the meeting with Filby, Jr, that when Filby says George disappeared, the Time Traveler should have reacted with some emotion. After all, it implies that perhaps he never returned from this trip he was on now. Gotta react to that!

Of course he already knew his house had been deserted, he saw it with his own eyes. But that doesn't mean he disappeared.

... and the rocks it pummels. - James Berardinelli

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[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 10 years ago

I don't believe there are any suggestion of multiple time-lines in this story.

There's no way to evaluate this, since we only see George travel once into the future and back again. But it's the way time travel is understood in Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships, the officially endorsed sequel to Wells's The Time Machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Ships

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[–] brucedgo 10 years ago

I'm not familiar with The Time Ships, but I've read a different and excellent sequel: The Hertford Manuscript by Richard Cowper. It's a short story from 1976. In it, the Time Traveller, after returning from the distant future, this time goes back into the 17th Century.

... and the rocks it pummels. - James Berardinelli

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[–] Johnny_Shannow 12 years ago

Well just because George told his friends, including Filby, the story of his travels through time, it doesn't necessarily mean that he told them the complete story as we see it in the flashback. I always personally believed that he deliberately withheld the story to David about meeting his son and finding out that he died in the first world war. This idea is confirmed by 'Time Machine the Journey Back' the mini sequel shot in the 90's and included as a special feature on the dvd version of the film. It was written by David Duncan, the original screenwriter of the film, and features both Rod Taylor and Alan Young reprising their roles of George and Filby respectively. In 'Time Machine the Journey Back', an older George travels back to 1914 to meet an older Filby once more, in an effort to save him from being killed in the war, and at one point George tells Filby that he met his son in the future, to which Filby replies "he never told me" which confirms that he indeed never recounted the episode involving Filby's son to his friends in the film.

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[–] rfischer-4 12 years ago

A few points to this response.

Since George's time travel story (as recounted in the flashback to his friends upon his return) did show him meeting James Philby in 1917, David Philby would have then known (obviously being one of those friends). Otherwise, it wouldn't have been in the flashback.

The next question is whether David would have then shared George's story with his son, James. I find it improbable that in those many intervening years he would have not.

The fact that the sequel implies that David would have stayed silent doesn't change the original plot storyline, assumptions, and probabilities. The sequel, in my opinion, is a separate and independent version and interpretation, reflecting the later opinions of its producer, writer, and director.

The last point is that even if we accept that David would have stayed silent, it doesn't eliminate the possibility that he could have told his son, James. That then would still have caused the paradox of James knowing the future (expecting to meet George in 1917).

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[–] Johnny_Shannow 12 years ago

Those are fair points to make, and to an extent it is all a matter of opinion, but I don't think that we have to take it as a given that everything seen in the flashback George told to the last detail. The idea that George is so insensitive to Filby to just drop that kind a bombshell in his narrative, I find hard to believe. It's more natural and believable to assume that he suppressed that particular detail because at the end after finishing the story it more than likely would have been addressed, Filby says or acts in no way that makes it look like he's just been told he's going to die.

The sequel is made both valid and canon in my opinion, because David Duncan the original writer wrote it, despite the fact the story is loosely based on Wells's original novel, the characters as depicted in the film are his, Filby in the book is mentioned as a minor argumentative character, hardly the time traveller's best friend. In Time Machine the Journey Back, although there's no way to say definitively one way or the other, I think he's making clear what had been an ambiguous point in the movie. Did George tell Filby about meeting his son and finding out that he would be killled? No.

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[–] rfischer-4 12 years ago

You make a good point about George not mentioning David's death in the war upon George's return in recounting the story to his friends (including David). That would have been an incredible bombshell, and unimaginatively insensitive to say the least.

So I'll grant you that George probably did filter his story in not telling everything. And yes, this could have included not mentioning meeting James in 1917.

But the paradox (or at least the logically difficult situation) exists in that the possibility was there - he could have described everything.

I don't accept the sequel as canon and authoritative in its revisionism as you do. As you say, much of the story wasn't even in the original Wells version. Just because he's the original writer, Duncan isn't allowed to travel back in time to change or revise things. Only George is.

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[–] Johnny_Shannow 12 years ago

Fair enough, but I think the sequel is enjoyable and a nice epilogue for the film anyway :)

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[–] carlsez_1 12 years ago

There are enough clues and plot possibilities to suggest that a paradox is avoided.

George might have told Filby Sr. about his death, but perhaps Filby was too patriotic to avoid service. He seemed to be a very upright and morally passionate man, and he may have accepted his fate as a consequence of his convictions. He may also have heeded George's warning, but lost his life in a different manner; there are numerous ways to die in a war.

And what exactly would Filby Sr. say to his son? As a child his understanding would be limited. Would Filby Sr. say something like 'you'll be visited someday by a time traveler from the past'? How would he expect his son to believe it, either as a boy or a man? After George left for the future there was no evidence proving his time traveling. It seems that anything Filby Sr. would have said would only confuse and frighten Filby Jr.

'TheButlerDidItYes' also said something key: the timelines might be different. It's my notion that the movie is creating it's own ideas about time travel, ones that are actually more in line with the book rather than actual theories we have today (remember the book was written before Einstein's publications). In the movie I think time is like an actual fourth dimension, one which you can travel through. As you travel back and forth you create different timelines specific to where you go and your own frames of reference. So as George's timeline progresses, his warning to Filby Sr., assuming he gave one, would be specific for that Filby Sr., and he could have avoided death.

At least I know that I really want to see that sequel now.

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[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 9 years ago

The next question is whether David would have then shared George's story with his son, James. I find it improbable that in those many intervening years he would have not.

We know what James Filby was told by his father. The film tells us.

George: What about the gentleman across the street?

James: Oh, him - the inventor chap. He disappeared around the turn of the century. Look here, if you're interested in that house, sir, I'm afraid you can't buy it. Can't even get inside.

George: Why is that?

James: Well, my father was executor of the inventor's estate, and Father just refused to liquidate it. I often chided him on that account, but he felt positive the owner would return some day. People hereabouts think it's haunted, but... (chuckles)... Who are you, sir?

George: Just a stranger who once knew your father.

George moves on to Aug. 18, 1966. Air raid sirens can be heard all around. The machine has come to rest in what is evidently a public park, standing upon the site where his house used to be. George dismounts, and is soon surrounded by score of fleeing citizens. A pair of civil defense engineers urge him to move along into the shelter. As the crowd dissipates, George approaches a marble pedestal containing a dedicatory plaque. It reads:
THIS PARK IS
DEDICATED BY
JAMES FILBY
TO HIS FATHER'S
DEDICATION
FOR HIS
FRIEND, GEORGE

I've always felt that, assuming he survived the nuclear attack in the shelter and had time to think it over, old James Filby would probably have finally put it together that he'd encountered "the inventor chap" twice.

The last point is that even if we accept that David would have stayed silent, it doesn't eliminate the possibility that he could have told his son, James. That then would still have caused the paradox of James knowing the future (expecting to meet George in 1917).

That would not present a paradox. A paradox only occurs when the past is altered in such a way as to preclude the existence of the Time Traveler and his machine to begin with. (An example would be Marty McFly inadvertently preventing his parents from getting together in 1955.) Nothing David Filby told his son James would have altered the Time Traveler's beginnings in any way.

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[–] rfischer-4 9 years ago

"The last point is that even if we accept that David would have stayed silent, it doesn't eliminate the possibility that he could have told his son, James. That then would still have caused the paradox of James knowing the future (expecting to meet George in 1917)."

That would not present a paradox.

A paradox only occurs when the past is altered in such a way as to preclude the existence of the Time Traveler and his machine to begin with. (An example would be Marty McFly inadvertently preventing his parents from getting together in 1955.) Nothing David Filby told his son James would have altered the Time Traveler's beginnings in any way.

Ah, but to the contrary. Your definition of paradox is much too narrow. Paradox definition:

"a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory."

Knowing the future is logically not acceptable, unless someone can prove otherwise. According to the plot, David could have told James (his son) the whole story of the Time Traveller. That would have given James knowledge of the future, which we accept is not possible and therefore by definition a paradox.

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[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 9 years ago

Ah, but to the contrary. Your definition of paradox is much too narrow. Paradox definition:

"a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory."

My explanation of "paradox" was consistent with its narrow application as pertaining to time travel, which is in any case theoretical. It only becomes self-contradictory the way I explained it. Future knowledge does not create a paradox; it only has the potential to alter the way the future subsequently unfolds. For instance, it's entirely possible that when, after the dinner party, George returns to 802,701, Weena will not be there, nor any of the people he met there the first time.

Knowing the future is logically not acceptable, unless someone can prove otherwise. According to the plot, David could have told James (his son) the whole story of the Time Traveller. That would have given James knowledge of the future, which we accept is not possible and therefore by definition a paradox.

Who accepts it's not possible? Everyone seated at the dinner table that night was given "knowledge of the future." Nothing really precludes it. If someone has seen a film and spoils it by telling you the ending you've been given "knowledge of the future." I don't think you've thought this through.

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[–] rfischer-4 9 years ago

How old am I? What does that have to do with it?

It seems to me you're a bit confused as to what the definition of paradox is, and are interpreting it only to try to prove your specific point of view. To explain it to you again, per definition, a paradox is any conclusion logically unacceptable as true. Knowledge of the future meets that definition (unless you have evidence showing otherwise). Therefore James potentially knowing the future would be a paradox.

Have you taken any logic or philosophy courses in college, or is high school about it?

Since it's New Year's Eve, instead of trying to do a one upmanship on this trivial point on this night, go have a glass of champaign and enjoy the event.

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[–] jsk32870 8 years ago

I think the problem with your issue and the retorts is you are labeling it a paradox based on assumption. You are assuming that Filby told his son, and you can't assume that. The film certainly doesn't show it. Therefore you cannot call it a paradox. You can ruminate all you want on whether or not Filby may have told his son, but without solid proof of same, it's merely conjecture on your part and nothing more.

Now, had the film shown Filby telling the entire story to his son, then absolutely you can label it a paradox.

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[–] rfischer-4 8 years ago

It's an assumption for sure, but based on probability and my opinion. But more importantly, the fact that it COULD happen poses the paradox. An event doesn't have to occur to define a paradox. And by the way, this database is for fun and speculation about movies. It's not a courtroom where proofs have to be provided. It's just personal opinions, and that was my opinion. Maybe relax a little and look at it that way.

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[–] jsk32870 8 years ago

Fair enough. But if you are claiming your right to hold your opinion, I hope you can accept that you have to give others the same courtesy.

You believe it's a paradox, and I don't. No need to get your feathers ruffled.

I will leave you with this thought. Do you think you know everything about your parents' lives? And all of their interactions with their acquaintances throughout their lifetimes? That's a pretty big assumption to make.

Just recently I found out that my mom lived in the same apartment building as a kid with a boy who, years later, wound up becoming my dad's best friend. None of them ever mentioned this for over 30 years. It just came up recently, from another source entirely (not from any of them). You would think, at some point, one of them would have mentioned that little tidbit. But no, they never did. So Filby not telling his son does not sound all that incredible or unbelievable to me at all. But, to each his own.

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[–] Traianus 11 years ago

But it seems incredulous that Filby senior wouldn't have shared George's time travelling story with his family (including his son) upon George's return.

Actually, I think the film gives hints that David Filby doesn't/wouldn't tell his son James (or anyone), such as when David suggests to George to destroy the time machine. Filby - not online Doc Brown at one point in Back to the Future 3 - seems to understand the dangerous implications and unintended consequences of a time machine. Whereas George's other friends scoff at the idea, George from the start seems to take it with a certain amount of caution, profundity and awe. At the end of the film, we see Filby walking off quietly into the night. He seems to be a man who is hopeful for his friend George and hopeful that the Time Machine will be put to good use, but he also seems to be someone who understands the futility of trying to explain the time machine - whether at a university lecture hall or in a private conversation with someone close to him - with anyone. Filby seems to be a voice of reason, wisdom and hope in the film.

Just my take.

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[–] rfischer-4 11 years ago

Good take and nice analysis. Filby would have to have been very strong-willed to keep this to himself the rest of his life, however. But a viable and believable alternate point of view.

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[–] daryl-b-t 10 years ago

If it was me I'd still be astonished.

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[–] jacowium 9 years ago

Haha, I think you nailed it! I'd still be standing on that pavement poking the time traveller just to make sure I'm not seeing things and hearing voices. And then I'd still hesitate to accept it's all real. In fact, I might not accept it at all.

Please click on 'reply' at the post you're responding to. Thanks.

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[–] DarthRoger (867) 7 years ago

I've seen this movie several times and it's in my DVD collection. I first saw it on TBS, using a black and white television that was at my grandmother's house. It was such a thrill, the thought of time travel. When I was in my 20's I read the book by H.G. Wells and have at least two copies of it.

Anyway, here's where I think your disconnect is - Filby's son can't remember much about "the man who lived there" when referring to George's own house, because the son is only in his early 20's. How many random adults do you remember meeting during the ages of 2-4? Not many, if any. This is the same with Filby's son. So even IF Filby told his family about his friend George who claimed to have time traveled, would you remember much about it or even WHO that time traveler was, if you'd met him while very young?

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