MovieChat Forums > The Time Machine (2002) Discussion > It makes more sense that God\Destiny wan...

It makes more sense that God\Destiny wanted Emma to die

posted 13 years ago by souldivide25
19 replies | jump to latest

I've read some of the threads on this board and cannot accept that Emma just so happens to die in many different ways just because. Just because is not a good answer. It's not a sufficient answer and i think this movie is partly to blame, What most people on this board say is that it was the way it supposed to happen or its destiny. Hear me out, if Emma was for example in a warzone and that was going to be nuked in x amount of time and Dr. Alexander had x amount of time to not only find her but save before the bomb was dropped. Then you could argue the futility of his actions. A man in that type of envirement under those circumstance would be hard pressed to save anyone. But dont tell me that if i go back in time and save someone from a mugger that the person whose life i saved will die a dozen different ways just because they were meant to.

The fact that Alexander even built a time machine in the first place makes him a unique individual, and therefore somewhat exempt from so called concepts such as destiny. I think the movie would have been better of discussing whether or not there was some kind of intelligence or will behind the events that lead up to him building his time machine. Because if i had a time machine and had suffiecient knowledge of future events and the ability to save a single persons life by avoiding someone like a mugger in a specific place or a specific time there is no reason in the world she should have kept getting killed. In short Emma should have survived to marry Alexander. In short introducing the concept a god like being or some kind of great will behind the events in Alexanders life would have made Emmas many deaths and Alexanders failure to save her a bit easier to swallow. A good example is a series called Quantum leap that was on television some years ago that suggested that the main characters leaps through time were not just random and that there was a devine will behind everything that happeneed durung the series. I think the time travel theory in this movie is a bit flawed does anyone else share my opinion?

[–] gold_nava17 13 years ago

If Alexander was able to save Mara and Kalen's people, I don't see how he wasn't even able to save his own fiance Emma?

[–] cmlegend 13 years ago

Because he didn't build a time machine for Mara but for Emma...

"Worry about your sword, his sword and nothing else"

[–] pv61 12 years ago

I thought that by the time Emma died, he had been working on that project already. Maybe she was that spark that motivated him to finish it so he could use it.

[–] Daizyglrl 13 years ago

I think the irony there was that he was unable to change the past, but he could change the course of the future.

[–] fp_ff_fp 12 years ago

Except this makes little sense in a time travel concept because any future is someone's past you can travel to with your time machine.

Since he went ahead of Mara's time, Mara was also the past.
Perhaps Emma's time was the origin point and since it happened once and the time machine got built only after that point, any attempt to change it wouldn't work since the time machine couldn't get built then.

Meaning t=0 for the time machine starts around Emma's death and hence it (Emma's death) cannot be changed. But other events can?

Not sure, I'm just speculating confusedly here.

[–] Zero_Wolf 12 years ago

The problem is he DID change his own past, in a time before the machine was built.

First she died by acute lead poisoning, then she died by horse crushing. That's a difference

That fact negates the whole silly paradox explanation the uber-morlock offered.

[–] fp_ff_fp 12 years ago

Yeah. But no, I'm saying that Emma's death is the t=0. In any timeline Emma has to die. Method can be any which way. Be that poisoning or horse death or whatever. She has to die so the time machine gets built in every timeline.

Once that is built new time machine timeline begins where future may be altered (but remember that future for someone here is still someone's past).

Only condition is t=0 ie Emmas death has to be preserved. Rest can alter after this point

[–] Guardsman_Bass 13 years ago

It has nothing to do with destiny, and everything to do with the fact that paradoxes are impossible as far as we know.

As the movie pointed out, Emma's death was the reason he successfully built the time machine. Without her death, he never builds it - it just ends up as possible plans on paper in his drawer. If she doesn't die in the past, he doesn't build the time machine, and thus he can't go back in time to save her from death.

That means that she has to die, one way or another, for Alexander to end up back in time trying to save her. Maybe she wouldn't have died exactly at the time she did, but she would have died.

[–] manofsteel4455 13 years ago

Proof that everything happens for a reason.

You want to play the game, you'd better know the rules, love.
-Harry Callahan

[–] nbreyfogle-1 13 years ago

Things happen for reasons, yes. It's called cause and effect, recognized by logic, reason, rationality, science, etc.

[–] manofsteel4455 13 years ago

All that can't just happen by itself.So it all had to be done by God.

You want to play the game, you'd better know the rules, love.
-Harry Callahan

[–] savaslikesmovies 12 years ago

He explains the paradox, and you just get out that as proof of everything happening for a reason... then you end up with "god" as your last word.. seriously you are missing the ball so much i don't think you should even bother swinging.

it doesn't HAVE to be done by god. he explains, he can only save her by going back in time. he only manages to make the time machine because of her death. so how can you have a time machine without her death? so, no, proof that EVERYTHING doesn't happen for a reason, just that in this fictional universe, you can't have those two things as it a sort of one or the other.

[–] Zero_Wolf 12 years ago

so how can you have a time machine without her death?

And yet when he first goes back in time his time machine is there and she is alive.

Not only that, but he then changes the past.

The paradox explanation is nonsense. For it to make sense he wouldn't have been able to affect the course of events in the past at all.

[–] be236 12 years ago

I dont get it.

When he goes back to save Emma the FIRST time, at that point isnt he and her in an "alternate" timeline?

The original timeline where she died the first time is now split off into its "original" timeline.

So in this alternate time line, why can't he and her live a normal life (unless it is FATE/DESTINY/GOD that determines she will die regardless.

In that case it would be independent of the time machine itself, no?

[–] billgoldbergmania 12 years ago

"I dont get it.

When he goes back to save Emma the FIRST time, at that point isnt he and her in an "alternate" timeline?

The original timeline where she died the first time is now split off into its "original" timeline.

So in this alternate time line, why can't he and her live a normal life (unless it is FATE/DESTINY/GOD that determines she will die regardless.

In that case it would be independent of the time machine itself, no? "

You've been watching to much sci-fi.

Nothing about alternate time lines is mentioned in this movie so there's no reason to even go there.

[–] MuggySphere 12 years ago

Why didn't he just go back on the very first trip, take Emma with him on the time machine and keep her by his side. She never would have died then?

[–] PhantomPhan222 12 years ago

You are right that "just because" is not a good answer. But the words "god" and "destiny" are just personifications of "just because"; they are equally poor answers.

The only good answer from a layman is: "I don't know". The only good answer from an expert would be "I don't know but it could be x, y or z. I will conduct experiments a, b and c rigorously to try and discover the answer".

"Two by two we'll go from door to door cause God loves Mormons and he wants some more"

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] mark-maples 11 years ago

He would never have made the time machine had Emma not died, he obsessed until he had come up with a way to time travel, has no one heard of a paradox, you are who you are because of your past!
He can change Mara's people by simply being there, his knowledge can help them build a better world.

Wasn't me