The Time Machine
Apr. 7th, 2002 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioDani and I went to see The Time Machine tonight, a movie that I guess you could say is inspired by Wells' story.
They applied their artistic licence pretty widely, including:
They told an interesting story, one I enjoyed seeing (but for one major nitpick, below). I appreciated many of the smaller bits, including the holographic library interface (still haven't mastered usability issues, I see) and the cause of the fall of (this) civilization. I believe Wells left that unstated. In another movie adaptation (mid-50s, I think), it was a nuclear war. Here it was screwing with space in ways that space maybe ought not be screwed with. Perhaps in each generation, the story is adapted to reflect then-current concerns.
I did miss the ambiguity of the book's ending, though. I found that I didn't want to know whether they ultimately prevailed against the Morlochs. And I like the fact that while the time traveller could have taken all sorts of goodies back with him to arm the Eloi, all he actually took were three books (identities not given). This conveys a sense of dealing with the Morlochs as needed and slowly rebuilding. In this movie, the Morloch threat is gone but it seems like Eloi culture will remain static. (I bet he won't even teach them to defend themselves, now that they don't need to.)
Assorted other thoughts:
Why is it that the time machine always seems to be ornamented, polished, decked up with frills, and whatnot? It's a prototype; it should have some chewing gum and twine holding things together. :-)
I thought the visual effects of the time machine dragged in places. They could have reclaimed a few minutes and spent them on story instead.
What was with the darts? I expected them to cause Eloi to fall over (poison/tranquelizers), but they didn't. And do morlochs ever miss?
Breeding stock? Um, that's a really cheesy excuse for keeping the love interest (now named Mara, not Winna) alive but captive.
I guess the Eloi were supposed to be an amalgomation of many current races; they had a mix of features and were not clearly any one group. I wonder how hard the makeup was to do.
There is a palette of musical techniques and themes that always seems to be used for "primitive" peoples of any sort. I can't put my finger on what it is, but I found it a little intrusive. Otherwise, the score was pleasant enough but unremarkable. (These parts weren't unpleasant on their own; they just didn't do a good-enough job of staying in the background.)
Ok, major nitpick. As the time traveller is standing there in the far future, with morlochs all around him and an unimpeded path to the time machine, why does he not say "I'll be back in a second" and hop on? I mean, the guy has had his brain wrapped around time travel for years; he knows he can come back to this precise moment in time. With weapons, for instance. It would destroy the story, of course -- so they should not have given him a clear shot at the machine at that point.
And one minor continuity point: given what we saw, when exactly did Alex write the book on time travel that he found in the near future? (Normally I don't nitpick continuity, but if you're going to do a time-travel story, you shouldn't create temporal impossibilities in the process.)
It's still a fun movie, though you might want to catch a matinee.
They applied their artistic licence pretty widely, including:
- The time traveller (now named Alex) is motivated by a desire to undo the death of his fiance, not by the pure love of science.
- The Morlochs are very different; they are hunters, not farmers, and they have an uber-moreloch who's super-intelligent, leads a hive mind, and sees into people's thoughts.
- Once the time traveller leaves home (New York now, not London), he never returns.
- The ending is not at all ambiguous, as it was in the book.
They told an interesting story, one I enjoyed seeing (but for one major nitpick, below). I appreciated many of the smaller bits, including the holographic library interface (still haven't mastered usability issues, I see) and the cause of the fall of (this) civilization. I believe Wells left that unstated. In another movie adaptation (mid-50s, I think), it was a nuclear war. Here it was screwing with space in ways that space maybe ought not be screwed with. Perhaps in each generation, the story is adapted to reflect then-current concerns.
I did miss the ambiguity of the book's ending, though. I found that I didn't want to know whether they ultimately prevailed against the Morlochs. And I like the fact that while the time traveller could have taken all sorts of goodies back with him to arm the Eloi, all he actually took were three books (identities not given). This conveys a sense of dealing with the Morlochs as needed and slowly rebuilding. In this movie, the Morloch threat is gone but it seems like Eloi culture will remain static. (I bet he won't even teach them to defend themselves, now that they don't need to.)
Assorted other thoughts:
Why is it that the time machine always seems to be ornamented, polished, decked up with frills, and whatnot? It's a prototype; it should have some chewing gum and twine holding things together. :-)
I thought the visual effects of the time machine dragged in places. They could have reclaimed a few minutes and spent them on story instead.
What was with the darts? I expected them to cause Eloi to fall over (poison/tranquelizers), but they didn't. And do morlochs ever miss?
Breeding stock? Um, that's a really cheesy excuse for keeping the love interest (now named Mara, not Winna) alive but captive.
I guess the Eloi were supposed to be an amalgomation of many current races; they had a mix of features and were not clearly any one group. I wonder how hard the makeup was to do.
There is a palette of musical techniques and themes that always seems to be used for "primitive" peoples of any sort. I can't put my finger on what it is, but I found it a little intrusive. Otherwise, the score was pleasant enough but unremarkable. (These parts weren't unpleasant on their own; they just didn't do a good-enough job of staying in the background.)
Ok, major nitpick. As the time traveller is standing there in the far future, with morlochs all around him and an unimpeded path to the time machine, why does he not say "I'll be back in a second" and hop on? I mean, the guy has had his brain wrapped around time travel for years; he knows he can come back to this precise moment in time. With weapons, for instance. It would destroy the story, of course -- so they should not have given him a clear shot at the machine at that point.
And one minor continuity point: given what we saw, when exactly did Alex write the book on time travel that he found in the near future? (Normally I don't nitpick continuity, but if you're going to do a time-travel story, you shouldn't create temporal impossibilities in the process.)
It's still a fun movie, though you might want to catch a matinee.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-04-08 07:38 am (UTC)Time machine sounds fun for a matinee as you suggested. And while I enjoyed ET, I was a little annoyed by the additions. There were added scenes which looked Computer animated to me (like a bathtub scene) vs. however they did the original ET. Also, nothing looks quite as stupid as 30 Government officials chasing after a runaway space alien brandishing walkie talkies (ooooh I'm so scared) that was annoying. But on the whole it was nice to relive a little piece of childhood nostalgia...