Next year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is positioning itself as a seminal temporal experience. This is hot off the heals of Marvel’s time travel story, Loki. However, time travel is also known for being confusing, and time travel movies can be mind-bending cinema epics.
Time travel logic is often inconsistent. While this is to be expected between movies, this can also happen within one film’s runtime. While no film is free of logical errors, some films that feel easier to take at face value.
Avengers: Endgame (2014)
Avengers: Endgame is not just a big time travel film, but one of the biggest films period. It’s a conclusion to the MCU’s multi-part saga and is pretty complicated on its own. It also picked one of the most complex time travel variations in multiverse theory. However, the movie actually uses time travel in a pretty simple way.
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The film centers around a “time heist” where characters travel back in time to steal objects from the past, stealing duplicates instead to avoid paradoxes. This worked for most audiences, as besides a reveal at the end, most audiences were able to accept it easily. It’s not the easiest movie to follow in general, but equally, there are more complex time travel movies than Endgame.
Time After Time (1979)
H.G. Wells is known for his classic sci-fi novels, which include The Time Machine. The film Time After Time (and its later TV show) sees Wells use a time machine to entertain his dinner guests. He takes them back in time to look for Jack the Ripper and accidentally causes the murders. What follows is a delightful chase throughout time.
The time machine in question does have some mechanisms that make it a bit complicated. Most notable is a “non-return key” that locks it in the place where it is in time. Other than that, though, the film is mainly a lighthearted romp throughout different eras. While paradoxes are brought up, the film mainly remains gleeful in its time travel approach.
The Time Machine (1960)
Being the modern codifier of time travel, one would expect The Time Machine to have a simple incarnation of it. The ’60s adaptation of HG Wells’ classic treats it pretty well. Rod Taylor and Alan Young star in this slow-paced film that has special effects that are still impressive by modern standards.
Similar to Time After Time, this adaptation casts Wells as the time traveler, although this is just a rename. Wells demonstrates a small-scale model and then a larger time machine. The destinations of the time machine in this film are almost exclusively in the future. As such, it feels more like a teleporter and doesn’t have to concern itself with paradoxes.
Idiocracy (2006)
One of the least complicated ways to do time travel is to travel forward in time. It avoids any paradox-based idiocy common in the genre. Speaking of idiocy, that’s the core theme in the cult film Idiocracy. The film begins with protagonist Joe and female lead Rita being cryogenically frozen.
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The protagonists awaken five hundred years in the future when the world has become significantly less than average in intelligence. The plot centers around the protagonists searching for a way back in time, but no such way exists. The time travel in this film is extremely simple and allows the audience to emphasize easily.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure takes its inspiration from one of the titans of the genre, Doctor Who. Doctor Who is known for playing fast and loose with its rules and Bill & Ted is no different. Unlike Doctor Who, Bill & Ted never tries to explain itself beyond some temporal planning. The sequels use time more often, but this first one mainly uses it for set pieces.
Bill and Ted are given their time machine by Rufus, who wants them to use it to ace their history report. This leads to Bill and Ted meeting tons of fun historical figures. They are brought to the modern day, of which the consequences are never really dwelt on. This is to the film’s benefit, as it keeps the tone fun and light.
Frequency (2000)
Later spinning off into a TV show, Frequency is an underrated time travel movie. The movie stars John Caviezel as a detective and Dennis Quaid as his late father, Frank. On the anniversary of his father’s death, he discovers a cross-time radio frequency that allows him to talk to his father in the past. Talking to his father changes the future.
The time travel aspect of this film is believable because of the small number of variables involved. While the changes to the present can sometimes be drastic, the changes to the timeline usually follow simple logic. Also, as there is no physical matter traveling through time, it remains uncomplicated even as an elaborate murder mystery forms.
About Time (2013)
About Time is somewhat controversial as a romantic comedy, but where it shines is its use of time travel. It has a very relatable setup. The main male lead uses time travel to fix his mistakes in a relationship. As this movie isn’t meant for science-fiction fans, it also presents a simpler time travel method.
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Every member of the protagonist Tim’s family has the ability to travel to any moment in their lifetime. It’s much more magical than technological, and as it’s personal doesn’t really ever cause any big personal problems. In fact, in the film’s narrative, it’s a metaphor for the reliance on parents and growing into maturity, which Tim does by the end of the story.
Back To The Future (1985)
When it comes to time travel films, the original Back to the Future is one of the most beloved. While the two sequels in the unintended trilogy, its comics, video games, and other media all have their fans, it’s the first that is the tentpole of time travel fiction. The film only involves one major trip to the past. When the hero returns to the future, the changes follow well from the past events.
The concept is immediately obvious to those watching and doesn’t require a lot of long exposition. The only real thing preventing BTTF from being the most accessible is the grandfather paradox that Marty narrowly avoids by succeeding, which has baffled some casual viewers for decades.
Groundhog Day (1993)
Time loops are perhaps one of the most relatable forms of time travel. Everyone can relate to the horror of being caught in a predictable routine. That’s what made the ’90s comedy classic Groundhog Day one of the best time travel films. While plenty of films try to be like Groundhog Day, very few are willing to copy its simple approach to time travel.
Famously, Groundhog Day never explains why the main protagonist, Phil, gets trapped in the loop. There was an explanation in an early draft, but it was left out during filming. This worked well, as, despite producer opinions, the lack of an explanation kept the loop exciting and mysterious. The lack of an explanation actually made it easy to understand for most audiences.
The Terminator (1984)
When it comes to closing a time travel plotline with no lingering plot threads, the original Terminator succeeds. While the sequel is perhaps a better film, the original uses time travel cleanly and smartly. Sarah Connor will have a child that becomes a major enemy to the evil AI Skynet in the future. Skynet sends an assassin back in time to kill her and ensure its dominance.
Logic dictates that this shouldn’t work because her child is alive in the future. However, audiences are kept in suspense by Kyle Reese, a man from the future sent to protect Sarah. However, it’s later revealed that he was sent back to father Sarah’s child, and was sent back by the child to keep the timeline consistent. At the end of the first film, Terminator’s time travel closes in an easily understandable way.
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