Boring...

I find this film very Romantic, and I don't mean just the romance of the love story. In a way, it's a movie about a man escaping from a world in which he does not really belong and finding both love and purpose in another idealized world.

It is a hugely sentimental film and Russell Garcia's score excels in conveying this. The music establishes that this is a bittersweet movie about a man who literally has to give up everything, including his only friend, in order to find his destiny.

In an odd way, the entire film is actually told from Filby's point of view (filling the role of the narrator in the novel). Everything we see of the future is merely the story that George relates to Filby and the others. So, at the end, the film is also about Filby's loss - made even more poignant by our knowledge of the fate that awaits Filby in the future.

I think this has impact because, though the audience has come to identify with George, we ultimately realize that we are in Filby's shoes - prisoners in our own time.

So, in a way, this is a film about separation and about moving on - about how time and space both separates and brings people together. The final shot of the film, with the lights in George's house being extinguished one by one, is pure poetry. George has truly left the building - but he's not gone.

Ultimately, I think one's response to the film has something to do with how much a Romantic you are - Romanticism in the artistic sense of emphasizing imagination, emotion, introspection and freedom of spirit. Very few science fiction films hit those chords.

The film has charm and is unfettered by CGI effects.

It never gets old. I hope you can find the magic in it someday.

This is one of the most beautiful movies ever made.

HG Wells was right, the human race is devolving. The op of this thread is proof.

I kind of agree with you that this movie was a little boring. Plus, I couldn't get past the Murlocks' appearance -- seemed a little cartoonish in their garishness. I had watched the remake years ago and didn't like it much either.

Would love to see a movie which explores the Eloi/Murlock era with a little more subtlety, i.e., two similar looking groups of people rather than one group of gorgeous youngsters and another group of brutish monsters who do not look human at all.

I don't think it's boring, but I kinda wish he'd have spent more time in other time periods instead of devoting 90% of it to the Eloi/Morlocks.

The real question here is why do you like Star Trek? Some of the original episodes can entertain you while you sit at the old folks home but other than that it sucks

The OP is right.

Sadly, this film has not aged well. I say that as one who loves it anyway, loves the H.G. Wells source, George Pal's magic in general, good old flicks, and the siren lure of nostalgia. But the last is about all this one has going for it. Certainly not one of Pal's best, nowhere near as good as his The War of the Worlds (directed, of course by the inestimable Byron Haskin, not Pal) or even his very sound When Worlds Collide.

Both script and direction are just tedious. Pal should have hired a good director and stuck to the FX, though even they are jarringly inadequate here. (Well, except for the machine itself - love that machine - WANT that machine!)

Interesting that the OP is a Trekkie. Only a few years after this Pal effort, Roddenberry was producing far more engaging and believable glimpses of the future - on a television budget! - including even a few forays into time travel. Think the nearly flawless City on the Edge of Forever or the well-crafted Tomorrow Is Yesterday or even the pleasant goofiness of Assignment: Earth. If the OP grew up on Star Trek TOS you can see where he/she would find the flaws of The Time Machine glaring.

Oh, and bossdog677? - from the old folks home: pfffhht!)