10 Common Errors That Time Travel Movies Surprisingly Still Make Today

The representation of time travel within the world of movies has often been filled with mistakes and inaccuracies. Due to the overly complex nature of time travel and the often contradictory rules that science fiction movies present, there are countless time travel mistakes across cinema that many modern movies continue making to this day. From paradoxes to the butterfly effect, time travel brings up many scientific and philosophical questions that movies fail to properly address or explore to a satisfactory level of realism.

There are certain time travel movies that have paid close attention to scientific accuracy but nonetheless still fall victim to common time travel errors or falsities. Other films completely ignore time travel movie rules for the sake of entertainment with the assumption that audiences can suspend their disbelief enough to just enjoy the narrative for what it is. While the idea of time travel itself is a fun thought experience, the development of accepted scientific theories and detailed hypotheses about its consequences means many time travel errors can be spotted by those knowledgeable enough to notice them.

10 Simplified Time Paradoxes

Seen in Interstellar (2014)

A central question of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar dealt with the most common of all time travel movie errors, the time paradox. The Interstellar ending revealed that Cooper sent a message from the future making the book fall off the shelf and creating a loop that sets the movie’s events in motion, without that action Cooper would have never gone to space, and therefore should not be in the Tesseract. This time travel trope of constant time loops without explanation has long been a staple of science fiction cinema with an earlier example occurring in Back to the Future.

9 Fixed Timelines Versus Altered Timelines

Seen in Looper

While the Rian Johnson action-thriller Looper was an interesting time travel movie, it also suffered from confusing inconsistencies regarding fixed and altered timelines. By focusing on present-day Loopers, time-traveling assassins terminating their victims in the past, Looper blurred the lines between fixed and altered timelines and failed to properly address the scientific ramifications of the actions of Looper’s lead Joe. Fixed and altered timelines mistakes are something that many modern time travel movies continue to make, as, without a definitive explanation of how cause and effect work within the movie’s universe, the internal logic becomes muddled and hard to accept.

8 Oversimplification of the Butterfly Effect

Seen in The Butterfly Effect

Within chaos theory, the butterfly effect posits that one small act can have long-lasting and unintended consequences, when this is applied to a time traveler the ramifications of their actions will always be dramatic. Movies such as The Butterfly Effect explored this idea, however, it failed to take it to its most logical extreme. One small interference in the past changes everything about the future, and when Evan from The Butterfly Effect interfered with his past, the consequences should have entirely changed his life, affecting who would be born and drastically altering everything about his existence.

7 Unrealistic Time Machines

Seen in Hot Tub Time Machine

There are few things scientists can agree on regarding time travel except that it is incredibly complex and that a functioning time machine would be one of the most advanced technological inventions ever. That’s why movies like Hot Tub Time Machine, with their oversimplification and lack of explanation around the mechanics of the machine, failed to pass a scrutiny test and made it difficult to suspend disbelief in the movie. The time machine in Hot Tub Time Machine was created after four friends accidentally doused an energy drink on a hot tub which, sadly, was not a scientifically sound explanation.

6 The Consequences of Time Travel Tourism

Seen in Bill & Ted

Countless time travel theories dealt with the unintended consequences of interfering with the past and how time travel tourism would create issues of paradoxes, the butterfly effect, and accidentally undoing history. However. the excellent adventures of Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan in the Bill & Ted series ignored these consequences, as historical figures, like Socrates and Abraham Lincoln, were brought to the present day and seemingly sent back to their past without entirely transforming modern existence. The consequences of time travel tourism are a common movie mistake that is often ignored due to its sheer complexity.

5 Ignoring Relativity

Seen in many science fiction series such as Terminator

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity has long been accepted within the scientific community; however, time travel movies often fail to account for its consequences. The theory of relativity proposes that the space-time continuum is intrinsically linked and time and space are connected. This means that when a movie hero travels to the past, they must also account for the location they will arrive in, the fact that time passes at different rates depending on the speed, and that the act of traveling to the past or future could have massive unintended consequences on the travelers body.

4 Not Accounting For Human Stupidity

Seen in Déjà Vu

One common error that most time travel movies make involves human’s inability to immediately grasp incredibly complex ideas. Films like Déjà Vu, starring Denzel Washington, featured scenes where the time travel concept of the story was quickly outlined to the characters who immediately accepted and understood its nature. This quick acquisition of massively complicated information was completely out of step with how most people react to something of this magnitude. Time travel movies often skip over the countless questions, multiple retellings of information, and utter confusion that would occur if these theories were proven a reality.

3 Unaddressed Consequences Of Free Will

Seen in Minority Report

Free will proposes humans can make their own choices and live without a predetermined outcome. While this is a philosophical question that is impossible to fully confirm movies like Minority Report are based on the idea that there is a predetermined future and with the use of future knowledge criminal deeds can be stopped before they happen. This concept at the heart of Minority Report ignored free will, but also showcased that the future was changeable, which resulted in creating its own paradox. A thought-provoking and interesting concept, Minority Report suffered from a time common time travel error.

2 Temporal Geography

Seen in almost every time travel movie

One of the most common unaddressed errors across all time travel movies relates to temporal geography. This refers to the connection between time and space and the idea that the Earth is always moving through the universe and as such to travel to the same location in the past would mean certain death as the time traveler would no longer be on Earth but instead floating through the vastness of the universe. While there are time travel movies that aim to be as scientifically accurate as possible, like Primer, they often still fall for the temporal geography error.

1 A Linear Representation of Time

Seen in About Time

Richard Curtis’ time travel rom-com About Time was an enjoyable movie that broke its own time travel rules. About Time presented a linear representation of time for all the other characters in the movie, Domhnall Gleeson as Tim was able to interact with and change the past. In the process, About Time ignored all the errors it created and broke its own rules by traveling forward in time. While About Time did interestingly address the butterfly effect by having Tim accidentally undo the birth of his child, it also presented several logical errors surrounding the progression of linear time.