# Time travel paradoxes in movies: Do you care? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 7, 2001, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167 "2001-09-07T01:59:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/42 "2014-09-09T15:47:49Z")
Something like this happens in _Minority Report_ too, but without the time travel. Tom Cruise gets pegged for a murder by the precogs. He doesn’t know who or what or why, so he goes to find out. When he does find out, he end up killing the guy that’s there. Why did the precogs peg him for murder? Cuz he killed the guy. Why did he kill the guy? Cuz the precogs pegged him for murder. It’s a closed loop. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/43 "2014-09-09T16:23:14Z")
Forgot to mention that I enjoyed “Frequency” a great deal too. The transmission of _information_ through time can be just as disruptive as going there yourself. (Read “Timescape” by Benford for more.) But in “Frequency” the whole thing is tied to a phenomena, the Aurora Borealis, that waxes and wanes. So the thing can work in a manner exactly required by plot at any given time without undermining the credibility of the film. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/44 "2014-09-09T17:57:51Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Anybody want to talk about “Time Cop”, a not-half-bad VanDamme movie. I agree about it being not half bad, but that movie does have the Marty McFly problem, if I am remembering the movie correctly. If they live in a world where changes to the past are possible, and Van Damme comes back to the changed future, and since everyone in timecopland knows who he is, (they just don’t believe him that things have changed) what happened to the Van Damme who grew up in that changed world, the one that left on the mission? The one who fathered his kids? Where’d he go? And, why is the house standing in the 2004 present, when it got blown up in 1994? Of course, that’s not a paradox - it’s sloppy filmmaking. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/45 "2014-09-09T18:49:19Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > Something like this happens in _Minority Report_ too, but without the time travel. > > Tom Cruise gets pegged for a murder by the precogs. He doesn’t know who or what or why, so he goes to find out. When he does find out, he end up killing the guy that’s there. > > Why did the precogs peg him for murder? Cuz he killed the guy. > Why did he kill the guy? Cuz the precogs pegged him for murder. > > It’s a closed loop. That’s a little different, though. The ‘prediction causes the event’ idea goes all the way back at least to the story of Oedipus or earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Osiris\_the\_1st](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9de0a6/32.png) [@Osiris\_the\_1st](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osiris_the_1st)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/46 "2014-09-09T20:00:14Z")
> [@LinoleumInnocence](#): > > I fail to see the distinction. He sent Einstein to 10:06 (by the way I think that is right). Einstein should then have existed in 10:06 and continued to move forward from that point. The Doc and Marty should never have caught up with Einstein. > > They were consistent with this throughout all the movies, which is good, but I just don’t get how they could have ever caught up with Einstein. He should have always remained 1 minute ahead of them in the future. Be it 5:04 and 5:05 or 11:51 and 11:52 etc. > > I should probably just accept it huh? But it hurts my head a little. > > Li So, by your reasoning Einstien and the Delorean should be the only things that exists when he arrives at 10:06 because everything else that exists wouldn’t be able to “catch up” with him? That makes absolutely no sense. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/47 "2014-09-09T21:09:44Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > That’s a little different, though. The ‘prediction causes the event’ idea goes all the way back at least to the story of Oedipus or earlier. True, but it results in the same problem as with time travel. You still need a start to the events or you get a loop/paradox. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/48 "2014-09-09T21:18:03Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > True, but it results in the same problem as with time travel. You still need a start to the events or you get a loop/paradox. No, in that case, you just get someone talking a lot of bullshit and calling it a prophecy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/49 "2014-09-09T23:30:39Z")
It bugs me more when the protagonist travels back in time, accidentally or otherwise, and finds out he’s the central character in the historical event he’s trying not to interfere with. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/50 "2014-09-10T00:15:31Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > If I were to re-watch _BTTF_, for instance, the part I’d have the most trouble with (for me, the bit with the fading photo is kinda charming in its absurdity) is when Marty wakes up back in 1985, stumbles into the kitchen, realizes it’s quite different, and says to his siblings, “Hey. What the hell is this?” and they look at him quizzically and one of them says, “Breakfast.” > > OK, so he’s just jumped from his original 1985, back to 1955, where he’s done some things that resulted in a new, improved life for him and his family in 1985 and the years preceding. And he’s jumped to this new, improved 1985 directly from 1955, so he doesn’t remember any of it. He hasn’t _lived_ any of it. > > But some alt-Marty, who would have woken up that morning with no idea that anything was different, _has_ lived it. Where is alt-Marty? What’s happened to _him_? Where have his life experiences and memories gone? They’re not kicking around ur-Marty’s head. They’re just gone. And nobody - parents, siblings, girlfriend - notices that he’s a different Marty than the one they’ve known. > > Fortunately, this happens near enough to the end of the movie that it doesn’t really matter. If something as problematic as this happened in the first hour of the movie, I’d never make it through the rest of the movie. The movie does a decent job of explaining it by the term “ripple effect.” Time changes for everyone involved EXCEPT the time traveler. As the ripple effect approaches 1985, all of the non time travelers: George, Lorraine, Biff, etc. are transformed by the changes. The time travelers like Marty and Doc retain their previous memories (and their alternate memories never existed and were imagined by the non-travelers). Of course, any time travel movie must suffer from these problems since time travel is impossible. The only one that has a good theory is something like 12 Monkeys: time travel is possible but you can’t change anything or else you would have already done it. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/51 "2014-09-10T01:16:50Z")
> [@Osiris\_the\_1st](#): > > So, by your reasoning Einstien and the Delorean should be the only things that exists when he arrives at 10:06 because everything else that exists wouldn’t be able to “catch up” with him? That makes absolutely no sense. Unfortunately, the person you’re responding to lives in 2001, and you’re posting in 2014. So they’ll never be able to catch up with your post in order to read it! ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/52 "2014-09-10T01:59:15Z")
> [@karenishere](#): > > I mind! Yes, I mind! > > A really simple example, also ala Back To The Future. It’s 1955 and Marty is playing Johnny B. Goode on his guitar, and one of his backups is “Marvin Berry”. Marvin goes to the phone and calls his cousin, Chuck Berry, to tell him about this awesome song, the implication being that CB didn’t really write the song, it was a “gift from the future”. Where does that leave the actual creation of the song, with God? I can see god now, doing that one-leg forward jump-bounce as he strums a white guitar and gets his beard caught in the strings. Marty only knew the song because CB wrote it, but CB only wrote it because Marty played it for him? Aaak, I can’t get my head around that. Although released in 1958, _Johnny B. Goode_ was written by Chuck Berry in 1955. Marty McFly performs the song on November 12th of that same year, which means the odds favor the song already existing. So when Marvin calls, his cousin Chuck is probably thinking “who the fuck stole my song?” ---
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/53 "2014-09-10T09:50:09Z")
Anyone read Charles Stross’ Singularity books? His solution to time travel paradox might be plausible to a degree (but other aspects may be not). /slight spoilers ahead, obviously First you have to research and wait until AI gains consciousness and takes over the planet (not unlike in T2) and then the galaxy and beyond. We are talking classical singularity close-to-godlike being here (Stross calls it Eschaton). Then at some point time travel can be researched and used by all. But only Eschaton has the meanings to micromanage all the time travel escapades (other than its own) and to repair the time cone to the point it was able to do that. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/54 "2014-09-10T12:52:57Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I think it’s even better when the whole paradox thing is **exploited** in the story (like the technology thing in T2) - there’s a wonderful story called ‘By his bootstraps’ by Heinlein(I think) that does this masterfully. Heinlein pretty much rang all the changes on the time paradox in his three stories - **By His Bootstraps** , **All you Zombies** (how appropriate!), and **Door Into Summer**. Any subsequent writer has to at least acknowledge their debt. (In his late career he played again with the concept, but didn’t really add anything new to it.) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167/55 "2014-09-14T11:54:23Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Of course, any time travel movie must suffer from these problems since time travel is impossible. The only one that has a good theory is something like 12 Monkeys: time travel is possible but you can’t change anything or else you would have already done it. The problem isn’t the impossibility; the same is true of FTL travel, but fictional workarounds via hyperspace, collapsar jumps, and whatnot so that your protagonist can roam the galaxy without needing many lifetimes to do it, don’t get particularly problematic. The problem is that, unlike with getting between points in space more quickly than Uncle Albert allows, being able to jump between different points in time creates problems either with paradox or sheer _meaning_. Universal predestination, erasure of people’s lives and experiences, spinning off new timelines…none of the potential resolutions allow time travel to be useful without being truly problematic from a moral standpoint. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-paradoxes-in-movies-do-you-care/80167.md?page=2)