MovieChat Forums > The Time Machine (2002) Discussion > Ways to save Emma that contradict the wh...

Ways to save Emma that contradict the whole premise of this movie

posted 11 years ago by sebaser
3 replies | jump to latest

The idea that you cant change the past is just ridiculous and contradicts itself in a situation where you can go back to visit the past. By going back in time you already change what did happen ( even if a little ), so you already successfully did affect the present.
You never actually know the past, you only observe it form one point, by this simple fact we can create infinite scenarios in which saving emma is possible and in which she can both die and survive.

1. Go back in time and give the younger Alexander design for the time machine

This way we remove Emma from the equation allowing for her to be saved without braking the original loop.

2. Kidnapping Emma into the future

Emma still goes missing but survives, we dont break any rules the movie introduced

3. Go back in time, kill the robber, take his place, use blanks/poison

Another option that allows us to keep everything as it was, but let Emma survive, Alexander still has a reason to make the time machine since he dosnt know she didnt really die.

4. Go into the future, get tech advanced enough to revive someone who died form a bullet wound

Another option that allows her to both die and survive, we brake no rules of this movie.

You could go on like this for a long time, only shows how bad the script for this movie was.
Honestly everything about this movie was idiotic, i wont even go into teh second half of this flick.

[–] Duke_NukeAss 11 years ago

The problem is that he could change the past, he just couldn't find the solution to save Emma since her death was the catalyst to him making the time machine.

However you pretty much nailed how to beat that paradox. Seeing your older self to anyone except someone capable of building a time machine may cause issues but not someone like Alex. He could've done one of two things.

Go to see himself and personally explain the situation to himself. Give him precise directions on what to do or what will happen. The past Alex then does as the movie had him do, treating the next few years as Emma's death. Meanwhile the future Alex continues the relationship with Emma. This way both created the time machine but both get the time they lose with Emma.

The second is for him to go back in time and entirely stage Emma's death and kidnapping her, bringing her to the future and letting her wake feeling she was in a coma for the years Alex made the time machine.

[–] Hammerfanatic46 11 years ago

In Eastern Philosophy it has often been suggested that there is no such thing as "objective" reality . If this is true then time loses much of it's meaning as there are as many "realities" as there are conscious minds to subjectively observe and interpret them .

Gordon P. Clarkson

[–] snwlonelysoldierboy 10 years ago

Number 4 is the only thing he can't do, he went to future but after a few years after he meet the girl with the bike (8 years if my memory doesn't fail me) they screw the moon and then everything went to hell so we can say 2030 was the peak of technology and it doesn't seem that they could bring back someone from death, actually there isn't too much difference from now, except for those guys on the moon.