Time-travelling in films

Time-travelling in films

One of the main draws of the Terminator movies is their time-travel element. It is a cool and clever sci-fi proposition for someone to protect himself using time travel. Here are five other fairly wacky reasons to do some time-travelling.

1 To be sent back in time so that one can be executed by your younger self
Looper (2012)

In 2074, when the mob wants to put a hit on somebody, the victim is sent back 30 years into the past where a hitman known as a "looper" awaits to kill him. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a "looper" in Kansas City in 2044. One day, unfortunately, the target he is ordered to snuff out is the older future version of himself (Bruce Willis, above).

2 To find out that you actually started out life as a woman
Predestination (2014)

Ethan Hawke (above), playing a time-travelling Temporal Agent tasked with preventing major crimes before they happen, is on the trail of a vicious terrorist bomber. He meets a strange man (Sarah Snook) in a bar in 1970, a writer who tells him that he started life as a female child.

As the mystery unravels time-jumping back and forth in different decades, Hawke finds out that he, the stranger and the bomber are connected in a severely twisted deep-down-everybody-is-the- same manner.

3 To carry on a meaningful relationship with a normally ageing partner
The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

A Chicago librarian (Eric Bana) with a genetic disorder has the ability to jump through time randomly and unexpectedly. He falls for a woman (Rachel McAdams, both above) who ages normally while he vanishes and then re-appears at various stages of his life haphazardly, including his wedding day, when a younger and then an older version of himself confuse everybody comically.

4 To go back in time to do the same thing over and over again until you get it right
Edge Of Tomorrow (2014)

A cowardly military public relations officer (Tom Cruise, above) gets killed horribly in his first battle fighting terrifying space aliens that have invaded Earth. Somehow, he wakes up to replay the day of the battle to change the odds in his favour. He keeps getting killed and keeps replaying the same fight over and over again Groundhog Day-style until he gets it right to become a war hero.

5 To accidentally go back to the past and since you are already there, well, might as well change the future for the better
Back To The Future (1985)

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, above left) gets into a time machine - a classic DeLorean car - in 1985 and is accidentally zapped into the past, circa 1955, before his suburban neighbourhood is built and his parents turned out to be a bunch of losers.

Before he gets back to the future with the help of nutty professor Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), he transforms his folks into winners and invents Chuck Berry's legendary guitar sound for his 1956 hit song, Roll Over Beethoven.

 


This article was first published on June 25, 2015.
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