Time Travel Sucks: Science Fiction Relies Too Much On Time Machines
Enough Time Tripping Let's Get Back To A Future More Plausible And Meaningful Sci-Fi
Timeline? This is no time to talk about time! We don't have the time! - Deanna Troi - Star Trek: First Contact
Thank you, Counselor Troi, for crystal clear temporal clarity. You may not be the most technologically savvy of Captain Picard’s Enterprise crew, yet you know how people think. How they feel. If you scanned me with your prying, privacy busting half-assed Betazoid psychic powers, you’d discover I dislike temporal mechanics affecting our prime space-time continuum.
In other words, I don’t have the time for time travel.
Incoming! Shields up! Spare me the vitriolic hate email. It’s not the most original nor unpopular notion for us sci-fi fans - or writers - in our beloved no narrative limits genre. For me, as both science fiction lover and writer, it’s always a tough call. Time travelling across the universe can be so fun and fanciful frolic. It can be so challenging and dynamic. It can be so….. predictable.
The H.G. Wells Chrono Legacy
Let me first and rightly praise one of English literature’s jewels, The Time Machine. British author H.G. Wells crafted a memorable novel romp which has been filmed numerous times for both cinema and television. It still resonates. Published in 1895, the book remains a soaring literary blueprint which has spurred many future time trippers to spin temporal teasing tactics.
I enjoy nearly all filmed incarnations of this compelling tale. No matter what era new readers and watchers encounter Wells’ epic, I’m certain it’ll be as powerful because of the core characters and irresistible narrative dynamic.
Numerous other productions have embraced a Wellsian notion of time tampering. Most notably, and fun perhaps, is the Nicholas Meyer directed Time After Time from 1979. Not only does Meyer use time travel, he uses the novel’s conceit of having H.G. Wells be the actual creator of the time sculpting craft. It stars two future Star Trek stars in Malcolm McDowell (Star Trek: Generations) and David Warner (Star Trek V: The Undiscovered Country) and Meyer would go on to direct Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.
I love Time After Time. I actually love many time traveling films. They do and can work. However, their convenient, safe clean up can just as easily disturb and annoy me. And there’s so much market saturation and overkill. Too much of a good, easily reliable thing.
Despite how fun it can be, fellow sci-fi writer guys, can we maybe cool it already? Isn’t it a bit too much? Enough of the sweeping temporal magic wands to rescue humanity’s future or right all the temporal correctable wrongs. Hell, even Hogwart Harry Potter wouldn’t be caught dead using time portal spells or what not.
But as in any boundless story spanning vehicle, there is another…
A Myriad Of Multiple Realities Spin Madness
Of course perhaps my prayers have already been answered by the current trendy pop culture saturation of Multi-Verse Madness.
You know it well. It’s the nifty, newish plot device which the marvelous MCU and desultory DCU have employed in their various comic book silver screen sagas. Sure, many strict sci-fi fans don’t consider comic superheroes real science fiction, but it does dabble liberally in the trappings. I’d calculate that owing to sheer volume, Mirror Mirror shenanigans haven’t tired us out collectively just yet, but it’s close to shutting down enjoyment from stories woven from that plot device as well.
Still, parallel dimensional dancing doesn’t necessarily impact on the prime universe its reflecting. Like time travel, it all depends on how well and how creatively the authors employ the brain strain concept.
In retrospect, perhaps I’ve been too hard on all the time machine driven stories. Back To The Future is certainly more than enjoyable and works in the end. The various Star Trek feature films and TV episodes seem to do fine with all that blazing temporal magic coursing through its Starfleet starships.
You know something. Yes… I think I’m realizing how wrong I was… I actually don’t mind time travel. I now feel……
*INCOMING TRANSMISSION*
TEMPORAL CLEAN-UP MISSION SUCCESSFUL. SUBJECT HAS BEEN MENTALLY READJUSTED BY TRAVELLING BACK IN TIME TO CONVINCE HIM TO FULLY EMBRACE TEMPORAL NONSENSE.
*END TRANSMISSION*
I don't mind time travel stories, but I greatly appreciate it when such tales bother to explicate their metaphysics of temporality. It's weird to me that folks think "there's a way time travel should be", in that, well, there isn't any time travel. So time travel is more akin to magic in fantasy stories for me: I want to see the way the gears mesh, or at least be able to put it together from what's in the story.
It's part of why I prefer Terminator to Terminator 2: the temporal mechanics in the latter story don't track for me. Well, that and stop-motion, of course. 🤣
I think I broadly agree with your proposition, except when it comes to The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It uses time dilation, not as a mere plot device, but as a narrative tool that explores the emotional and philosophical consequences of altered time and war. And, time travel is not predictable or superficial, at least for me.