h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In fiction, it started with the classic "go back and kill grandfather" plot, but since then there have been many variations, like Timecrimes, which involves the same sort of thing but much more complicated, or Dr Who's 'Blink'.

What's your favourite?
Perhaps you've got an innovative plot of your own?

When it comes down to it, there are really only two: "You can change time" or "You can't change time". Not to spoil endings, I'll just say that I prefer the 'Twelve Monkeys' version. It's simply neater.

I was thinking just about that this morning, how I love time-travel plots! The sillier the better

My favourite one just now is Day of the Tentacle (an old Lucasart game).

I liked Twelve Monkeys a lot too, even though it is much less silly.

The Time Travellers Wife and its bastard child, River Song. The epilogue of the TTW is an absolute killer and Niffenegger manages to create such tension towards the end using time travel. Having just seen its conclusion, I'm also very fond of the Superhoodie plotline in Misfits.

I guess what all 3 have in common is the idea of fate or Doom (proper, capital D Doom) and seeing how people react to that.

A couple of Robert Heinlein stories - "By His Bootstraps" and "-All You Zombies-" are basically the same idea, but very cleverly plotted.

>>Having just seen its conclusion, I'm also very fond of the Superhoodie plotline in Misfits.

I'm not sure it did conclude, did it? There's still that mysterious photo apparently taken in Vegas to explain.

I was going to suggest the Time Traveller's Wife. It's rather good.

*Heavily spoilerific for Misfits S3*





Quotes the photo must have ben taken in the gap between S2 + S3. Antonia Thomas (Alisha) has confirmed she's left the show as has Iwan Rheon. Which is a shame because he was my main reason for watching it

Not surprisingly, Time Traveller's Wife is new to me. A Canadian production as well. Not heard of it until this thread, not been in local theatres. Again, not unusual. Looks interesting though, will have to watch for a DVD to come out

can't pick a favourite but I can recommend "Somewhere In Time", and some episodes of Trek: The Visitor, Little Green Men and Children of Time.

I loved the TV series Crime Traveller.

My favourite has to be Asimov's story 'The End of Eternity' which makes liberal use of time travel plot devices. A close second would be the 'Badwolf' theme running through Dr Who.

t.

"...All You Zombies..."

The Man Who Folded Himself.

A Sound of Thunder. (Not the film!).

The Butterfly Effect.

Most contemporary time travel plots tend to focus
on cause and effect relations in terms of people
and their politics - missing the whole point of the
much more relevant and critical factors like geo-
physical planetary change and an expanding universe.

Bear in mind that the original Time Traveler story
as created by HGWells was in part inspired by the
growing awareness in the late Victorian era of earth's
geological change. It features large, if not central,
to the story he imagined.

One of my favourite later stories is Isaac Asimov's
the Ugly Little Boy, a short story which raised many
imaginative questions and was later expanded into
a full length novel by Robert Silverberg (published in
the UK as Child of Time):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Little_Boy

It was also a fairly amusing TV movie in the 1970s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeJ4LKqn4lU


~jwf~

Nick, read the book. The film is ok (not a bad stab at it, and Eric Bana is always worth watching ) but the book is truly brilliant.

Are either of those Heinlein stories the one where the main character goes back and impregnates himself when he was a woman and turns out to be his own mother and father in the end? Or something. I find that one worrying but am quite unable to forget it. So that one.

Are either of those Heinlein stories the one where the main character goes back and impregnates himself when he was a woman and turns out to be his own mother and father in the end? Or something. I find that one worrying but am quite unable to forget it. So that one.

Yes, that was -All You Zombies-

Yes, that was -All You Zombies-