Particularly Silly Uses of Time Travel in Fiction

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aboleth_lich

Temporal Novice
Fiction is rife with tales involving time travel, usually being a major factor in the story in question. However, not all uses of time travel in fiction are equal and some cases are downright silly and incredulous to some degree. What do you think are particularly silly uses of time travel in fiction?

1978's Superman: The Movie comes immediately to my mind. Don't get me wrong: it's a truly fantastic film, a classic, and a benchmark in movies in general and superhero movies in particular--but I always cringe whenever we get to its rather (in)famous climax...


That's right, Superman flew around the Earth so quickly that he forced it to rotate backwards--which in turn made time itself turn backwards as well! As if time were a VCR tape and the Earth were the spindle unwinding the tape! Even if we assume that Superman were able to reverse the Earth's rotation, which is exceedingly silly itself: doing so wouldn't reverse the flow of time as such! (He has the cause and effect backwards here!) All it would do is create an even greater disaster on the surface! The Silver-Bronze Age method of Superman travelling through time by merely flying at superluminal speed (as The Flash can still do in the modern age, albeit sans the flight part) may have made Einstein shake his head, but it was at least considerably less silly of a concept!

 
2012's Looper also comes to mind, not in terms of the mechanism of its travel (which isn't really depicted) but in its use. Having time travel be outlawed (seems prudent) and subsequently having the technology used only by the mafia is an interesting concept--but would they seriously use it primarily for hits and body disposal? Granted, I suppose that we can assume that William Hurt was sent back to do more than simply require new hitmen and co-ordinate the hits' logistics--but I would have thought the mob would think bigger and come up with a more lucrative use!

All of that being said, there are others who are far harsher on Looper than I'm being here...


Ouch!

 
In the movie Just visiting a knight travels from the 12 century to the present day which is 21 century and with his mate as well and has to make sure Julia is born. He finds out she does look like the princess in his time, and he had killed her under a spell and in this time is Julia and, the boyfriend is using her only and she breaks up with him. The knight returns with the wizard and stops himself from killing the princess, and matt the boyfriend comes but is captured by the people. The knight is allowed to return to the present day and, also is reunited with Julia and his mate with another girl and, was a bit strange at times due to how the time travel occurs and at least we don't have any bad things occuring.

 
I'm going to have to cite Black Knight with Martin Lawrence to keep with this knight theme you started up there. Just...c'mon...a magical moat? The movie itself wasn't that great either so I don't think it helped but just that method made me roll my eyes. I think taking that concept seriously would be an interesting movie. Sans the moat, of course.

 
I give considerably more leeway for silliness when the mechanism for travelling through time is some sort of magical spell. Unlike science fiction, the methodology for traversing time doesn't need to sound reasonably plausible on an at least pseudo-scientific level when it is ultimately magic based as circumventing and violating the limitations of natural laws like physics is sort of the entire point of magic in fiction.

However, I do have qualms about the lazy use of magic to any degree within fiction in general. It shouldn't be a hand-waving license for anything to happen without due explanation (such as Joe Quesada's "It's magic! We don't have to explain it!" dismissal of having to explain the new Spider-Man continuity following the travesty that was One More Day or the more general, widespread "A wizard did it!" meme). To me, the use of magic as such need appropriate bounds, including rules and limitations, to maintain a semblance of conflict and engaging story structure. For example, I would have long ago lost interest in DC Comic's John Constantine if he could simply waive his hand to remove whatever obstacle by conjuring some deus ex machina silliness!

All of that being said, and beyond that caveat about the use of magic in fiction: I much prefer a science fiction explanation for time travel rather than a magical one. Certainly, the blending of genres can be great when done well (e.g. the combination of science fiction and westerns that is Firefly) but I regardless prefer that sci-fi elements like time travel and extra-terrestrials remain strictly sci-fi and not be coupled with the sort of magical explanations better left to fairy tales and the medieval fantasy genres.

 
For me, it's any case of "disappearing hands", with the primary example being Back to the Future. It pretty much wrecks the trilogy for me. It's hard to even bother with the movie when the guy who supposedly invented time travel can't even get it right. The movies tried so hard to get a coherent model, and yet somehow managed to throw in every possible model you can think of, and failed spectacularly at all of them. Ultimately resulting in the 'disappearing hands' that I despise so much in time travel fiction.

It's pretty much the obvious sign that the writer didn't bother to even think about the coherency of his story, and just wrote whatever he damn well pleased.

 
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