MovieChat Forums > Timescape (1992) Discussion > Why was there only one group at 'The Eve...

Why was there only one group at 'The Event' ?

posted 14 years ago by MLaertesFlapsItsWings
10 replies | jump to latest

Not that I like fueling temporal mechanics theory BUT one thing that wasn't clear to me during the movie was the fact that there was only one group of tourists present. In the tourists' time they must send several groups of these people back, right? Different groups being sent over years and years of time (their time of course, this is all relative). But since there's only one event in a certain time frame wouldn't all of those groups appear together at once? It's not like visiting the Louvre which has been there for years and will be there for years and groups of tourists miss each other all the time. If group A comes from the year X and group B comes from the year X+40 they'd still meet at the disaster. And what if group A has children which leave in group B? But there was only ONE group there. Was it just not a popular tourist attraction and there was only one group? Ever?

[–] imdbonyx 14 years ago

Fantastic point.

[–] jbhatch 13 years ago

Maybe time travel tourism is only for the financial elite and only a few have ever been able to afford it before the time portal was destroyed in the Milky Way civil war?
A very good point though.

[–] terryperring104 12 years ago

Which, my friend, proves that travelling backwards in time will/not/has/have been (!!) discovered! Because tourism would certainly be enjoyed if it were, even if it was in a million years time. They would be watching Hitler, 1066, Titanic, Beatles etc.... but they are/were not.

[–] ltoledo23 11 years ago

Which, my friend, proves that travelling backwards in time will/not/has/have been (!!) discovered! Because tourism would certainly be enjoyed if it were, even if it was in a million years time. They would be watching Hitler, 1066, Titanic, Beatles etc.... but they are/were not.

Ah, but how do you know they weren't. Maybe the time travelers are so good at being inconspicuous that they just simply aren't noticed.

[–] jlam888 (627) 6 months ago

Agreed hehe, it is not like future time travellers would be left alone if they were to be discovered. They better be careful.

[–] astralone1 10 years ago

Actually, one of the current theories of time travel is that, should it be invented, it will only be possible from that point on. This is not pertinent to the movie, because it would be a huge fail on my part to imply that time travel had been invented at the local movie present time, but it would explain why we have not yet met a time traveler. Basically you can't travel a track that has yet to be laid.

[–] Momadison87 9 years ago

Holy cow I never thought of that angle! Over 20 years & I've watched this movie countless times! Well done, mind blown!

[–] EAPierce 9 years ago

Add me to the chorus exclaiming what a terrific point that is! That never occurred to me.

Now that I'm thinking about it, there's only thing I can imagine which would prevent all the tour groups from converging at the same place, and that's if one puts the story into the context of a multiverse hypothesis. If there is an infinite amount of universes spawned by events taking different courses, plenty of those universes would still contain this specific disaster even though they differ in other ways. Beings capable of time travel might also have charted routes to various "alternate universes," and would be able to view the same event, but in different places. In fact, that sort of dovetails with the phrase "this timescape," which is used by at least one of the tourists.

[–] WerdnaMernox 8 years ago

You're assuming there was only one group. There was only one group staying at their B&B, only one group depicted in the movie, but there could have been any number of other time travelers in the surrounding area, passing for locals, hiding in the hills, watching from their invisible airships, whatever.

They couldn't just go building a luxury hotel and meteor strike theme park to accommodate all the tourists who wanted to come back and watch, because that would attract attention and change the future.

Anyway, there are any number of disasters to choose from, many many prehistoric ones, many many much more spectacular ones. And if the disaster you want to witness is all booked, no room for more tourists, you just go back in time to before it was all booked up.

[–] Boromir (10031) a year ago

Good point. Even if it's tourism only for the rich people, still must be more than one group. I only can imagine how many people today will "die" to seen the Titanic crush, 9/11 terror attacks or old cities that were destroyed like Pompeii. There is no logic that only one group of tourists will participate in the tour. The only thing I can think of is a desire to reduce the possibility of changing the future by allowing a limited amount of people to attend the event.