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. 🤣
Love original Terminator & Trek IV's time travel is one of my favorite film sequences to express temporal transitions. Watching Nicholas Meyer's TIME AFTER TIME and was reminded by how much his sequence resembles Voyage Home's - wonder if Nimoy appreciated it and emulated.
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.
Yes, it's all in the way it's handled. As I say in the piece, I love many temporal tinged productions, but there's often an easy, lazy way it can be employed and can be too much saturation at times. Thanks for the recommendation of The Forever War!
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. 🤣
Love original Terminator & Trek IV's time travel is one of my favorite film sequences to express temporal transitions. Watching Nicholas Meyer's TIME AFTER TIME and was reminded by how much his sequence resembles Voyage Home's - wonder if Nimoy appreciated it and emulated.
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.
Yes, it's all in the way it's handled. As I say in the piece, I love many temporal tinged productions, but there's often an easy, lazy way it can be employed and can be too much saturation at times. Thanks for the recommendation of The Forever War!