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Review: The Time Machine 300

Posted by JonKatz from the trivializing-a-great-story dept.
We should all be immensely grateful to the British social class system. It inspired some of the greatest fantasy and sci-fi writers in modern literature, from Mary Shelley and Jules Verne to H.G. Wells. In addition to sounding the alarm about life in England, these tales delivered powerful moral messages about technological hubris. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings did great justice to J.R. Tolkien's war and class-conscious trilogy, but Simon Wells' new version of The Time Machine, while it offers some stunning special affects and shining moments, lacks heart, soul and coherence. Spoilage warning: plot is discussed, not ending, which everybody probably knows.

Everybody has his own favorite, but The Time Machine has to rank way up there as one of the best, darkest and most prescient futuristic yarns ever spun. But while Jackson was able to infuse his movie with the spirit of Tolkien's story, indiscriminate special effects and limpid, forgettable acting leach H.G. Wells and his eerily dark vision of the future out of this one. Reading A Time Machine, you always felt humanity would pay dearly for its arrogance one day. Seeing this movie, you just end up looking at your watch.

For some reason, the locale of this film has moved from London to New York. Why? You get the feeling the producers were trying to make this movie a bit of a cautionary nuclear tale. Then the movie was delayed by 9/11, because it originally contained (and still does) some destruction-of-Manhattan sequences, most removed. Film essayists will have a field day in a few years de-constructing post and pre-9/11 Hollywood.

Guy Pearce plays the brooding, tragic scientist Alexander Hartdegen, Jeremy Irons the Uber-Morlock. Irons is great. Pearce is strangely miscast here, alternately twitchy, sweaty, distracted and simply inarticulate. If you haven't read the book, you have no idea what his motivations are, who he's is involved with, or why he's making so many staggering decisions about the human race all by himself, in a mili-second. But it's Hollywood silly, so it's all about the girl, in this time or another. This profoundly trivializes the story. The ending of The Time Machine is one of the great closings in all sci-fi, but here it has all the punch of some wet paper towels.

Increasingly, from the Star Wars series to this movie, special effects are becoming a problem for sci-fi movies. All of the bad guys look alike (the Morlocks could slip easily into Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, or Return of the Mummy). Hollywood's ideas about villains are less effective than Wells prose. Enough, already, with these special-effect monsters who are all alike: loud, bug-eyed, simian, fast-moving, cannibalistic, slimy.

In the novel, Hartdegen was brave, angry, philosophical and passionate. Here, Pearce mostly seems to have been clubbed in the head early on and remains largely insensate. Aside from taking on the class issues -- one species above ground, the other below -- Wells was joining Shelley and Verne in squaring off on tech arrogance, something very much alive, especially in America, at the opening of the 21st century. That theme is almost completely obscured here, apart from a lame cautionary alarm that one of Hartdegen's friends sounds about scientists' uncertainty about where they are going. Against a backdrop of growing hysteria about suitcase-sized dirty bombs being detonated in our major cities by enraged working class kids from foreign cultures, the themes of The Time Machine are more, not less, powerful.

The actual time travel is pretty neat -- fast and beautiful -- but that accounts for only about 15 minutes of this movie. When we're not zipping ahead in time, the movie becomes simplistic and soulless. Mostly, it's just flat. Sadly, you can give it a pass, and that's a pity, an opportunity squandered. We're not going to get another remake of this book anytime soon.
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Review: The Time Machine More

Review: The Time Machine

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  • "Enough, already, with these special-effect monsters who are all alike: loud, bug-eyed, simian, fast-moving, cannibalistic, slimy." What about CowboyNeal? :)
  • That's JRR Tolkien for you.

  • The Time Machine (Score:3, Informative)

    by BrianGa ( 536442 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:04AM (#3137815)
    A preview is available at UpcomingMovies.com [upcomingmovies.com]

    The official site is here [countingdown.com].
  • devastating...

  • suckage (Score:3, Informative)

    by fjordboy ( 169716 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:09AM (#3137836) Homepage
    I went and saw "The Time Machine" on Friday....the theatre (being UA) sucked...and the movie didn't really help it. I was a little worried about the movie when I first walked in the theater and found it practically empty. I liked the beginning of the movie (there was a beautifal continuous shot down a flight of steps and through some hallways), and even up to the first time travel. However, after Alexander reached the far future...the whole movie went down hill. First of all, the civilization looked EXACTLY like the communities in Riven [riven.com], and the underground world looked exactly like Isengard in "The Fellowship of the Rings" [lordoftherings.net]. The time travel was cool, but as Katz mentioned, there wasn't much. I expected a LOT more as far as character development and more of an actual story. So much was left unexplained and the ending didn't really help. So, I rate this movie fairly low. To see my full review, go to Peterswift.org/html [peterswift.org]

    A quote from my review: "If they had added some monkeys and woodchucks in random places in the movie, it would have been far more interesting and entertaining.

    • Re:suckage (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by FFFish ( 7567 )
      And yet as much suckage as this film has, I'll bet you dimes to donuts that fully three-quarters of Slashdot users piss away their ten bucks on it, once again rewarding Hollywood for making lowest-common-denominator crap.

      I'm so glad I'm boycotting the theatre chains.
      • yeah, but I bet everyone already did, before the reviews came out. (I saw it opening day). I was expecting a LOT more from it. I mean..come on..the plot and story of "The Time Machine" is incredible and powerful...but this movie brought nothing. So much could have been done with it...but this one ended up sucking. I was grossly dissappointed. I hope spiderman and Blade II aren't as poor. (Though I fully expect "Attack of the Clones" to suck).

    • If they had added some monkeys and woodchucks in random places in the movie, it would have been far more interesting and entertaining.

      Except that would defeat the purpose of the whole story. The Morlocks have to eat the Eloi (who look way too 2002-human in the movie; I distinctly remember that the novel described the Eloi as looking closer to Precious Moments figurines) only because the Morlocks have run out of other animals to eat through over-hunting. (The Eloi are frugivores. We 2002-humans are designed to be frugivores too (sorry, the link has expired), but some people choose to ignore that and eat meat.)

      But given the copyright industry's behavior over the last few decades, the copyright on this movie adaptation probably won't expire until the year 802701 ;-)

      • (the previous post also appears on the responses to my review [peterswift.org]. :)

        I said at random places...not necessarily in the end. I suppose they could also be robotic or something to prevent any chances of the morlocks actually eating them...it would also explain why they can still be around in 802701 (I mean..come on...the computer survived..what's going to prevent a bunch of robot woodchucks from surviving?). *shrug* I don't care if it defeats the whole point..it would have been a LOT more entertaining. :)
      • Oh... pshaw. We humans have been eating meat all the way back. Primates are omnivores; cousin chimp eats meat (they're just crummy hunters). Cretaceous protoprimates were cowering insectivores (hmmm... bugs!). Big Macs are bad for you. Running after a lean elk until it gives up and stabbing it with a stick & eating it is good for you (if bad for the elk).

    • Re:suckage (Score:2, Interesting)

      by spikedvodka ( 188722 )
      I have to agree with you. I went and saw it yesterdady with a few of my friends (the 3 of us increased the population of the theatre by 150%)

      the effects were very well done, but the story lacked a lot. My main gripe with it, is that it doesn't really follow the book. (though honestly, IIRC if they stuck to Wells' view of the future, everyone would have fallen asleep).

      The movie does however bring up 2 philosophical issue that I found rather interesting
      1) Humanity has to think about what it is doing, never knowing what might happen down the line in N year
      2) what would happen if someone could travel into the past and attempt to change things. though for another interesting view on this one, read some Heinlein.

      I think Holywood needs to leave Cliche movies, but the problem with that is, they have their tried and true money-making plans, which ends up producing cliche movies
      • what would happen if someone could travel into the past and attempt to change things.


        I'm glad the protagonist only tried to do this once. By the end of that scene I was already unconsciously referring to the Emma character as 'Kenny'.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Come on, didn't you just *know* it was going to suck when the commercials proclaim it as "The Cinematic Event of the Year" or something like that -- whenever they use that kind of language in the commercial, it's usually becuase no reviewer had anything good to say about it -- not even when they misquote the movie reviewer!
  • I remember watching a movie when I was a kid about a time machine. The machine looked exactly like the one in this movie and travelling through time looked pretty much the same to. It also had those futuristic monsters. I forgot the name of the movie, does anyone know it? At the time, I was pretty impressed by it. Was this another remake of "The Time Machine" book?

  • Tyme machines (Score:5, Funny)

    by Aurorya ( 557733 ) <michelle.craine@gm a i l . c om> on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:12AM (#3137847) Homepage Journal
    Back home, people call ATMs Tyme Machines because that's the company that bought them all out. I get to college and ask where the nearest Tyme machine is in town, and I get some smack about this book, "we're not in London, sweetie," etc.

  • Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdot@sta[ ].org ['ngo' in gap]> on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:13AM (#3137849) Homepage Journal
    I'm about to jump in the shower and go catch a matinee of this flick, so I don't have time for a long, drawn-out reply. But I think it will be entertaining, though after reading several reviews I expect it to be inferior to the 1960 version in all aspects except effects.

    I replied mostly to complain about this continuing trend of chopping scenes out of movies so as not to offend people still haunted by the terrorist attacks. Why do The Powers That Be think we'll all be reduced to sniveling wussies if we see a skyscraper blow up in a work of *fiction*? I had hoped this practice would've run out of steam by now, six months after the fact. Memo to Hollywood: If you're so concerned about offending me, leave the 'destruction of New York' scenes in your movies, and stop labeling me and the rest of your customers as potential thieves, chomping at the bit to steal movies and music from you.

    ~Philly

    • Atomic Train (Score:3, Interesting)

      by coyote-san ( 38515 )
      We're approaching the third anniversity of the Columbine shootings. Right after they occured NBC aired the epic made-for-TV movie "Atomic Train" everywhere in the country except the Denver market.

      It seems they were afraid that we would have such febble minds we couldn't distinguish between the reality of Columbine and a fictional account of a nuclear explosion near town.

      My mother taped it for me, and I passed it around to my friends. I find it hard to imagine anyone taking the story seriously, and if you have any real technical knowledge the story was absolutely incomprehensible.

      Hollywood movies can get it right, but it's extremely rare. For every Terminator 2 or True Lies, you have a hundred Armaggedons(sp).
      • It seems they were afraid that we would have such febble minds we couldn't distinguish between the reality of Columbine and a fictional account of a nuclear explosion near town.

        Remember these are the same people who though that people couldn't distinguish between a real shooting and a throwaway line in an episode set in a ficticious town in California.

      • "It seems they were afraid that we would have such febble minds we couldn't distinguish between the reality of Columbine and a fictional account of a nuclear explosion near town."

        Thats because MotherFscken Hollywood thinks we ARE the elloy. In the book they were skinnier, more attractive, more fair skinned and dumber, than the movie, kinda like supermodels. They shifted physical strength to the Morlock in the movie to create a contrast, but in the book they seemed more like intelligent (if mean and ugly) humans.

        Don't bother with this movie, it is so mutilated to hollywoods priorities it completely misses the point.

        FU Hollywood elitist freaks. You'll see just hard I can dig my claws into the first amendment(at the expense of copyright...) Later on you'll wonder why you ever pitted them against each other. I am not a sheep, and you sure as hell are not a wolf!

        Sorry to much RATM.

      • The problem is that some people actually can't distinguish between a movie and reality and that some people want to blame others for whatever happens to them - and make a fast buck from it by sueing them.
    • But I think it will be entertaining, though after reading several reviews I expect it to be inferior to the 1960 version in all aspects except effects.

      The 1960's version also covers nuclear war anyway...

      I replied mostly to complain about this continuing trend of chopping scenes out of movies so as not to offend people still haunted by the terrorist attacks.

      At least they havn't started chopping up pre-existing movies. The WTC is still there in "Trading Places", even in "Pushing Tin" and "Meteor".
    • This remake was far superior to any other version I've seen. The special effects were great. Morlocks hunting was a less ridiculous than a nuclear warning siren luring them in. Agreedly, it's not quite clear why his final action "changed the future" since every other part of the movie seemed rather coherent. My sister and brother and friends all enjoyed it. At least they could sit through this version, while they would never be able to appreciate any previous version, much less stay awake through them.
    • Why do The Powers That Be think we'll all be reduced to sniveling wussies if we see a skyscraper blow up in a work of *fiction*?

      Yet no one seems to have any second thoughts about endlessly replaying *actual* footage of the WTC disaster from every conceivable angle...go figure.

      Interesting how hollywood shows some hero endlessly slaughtering faceless foreigners in some third-world country or an execution or a Kevin Costner film without a second thought to how it might traumatize their audience. But when it comes to terrorists blowing up a building...that's just too graphic for people to accept.

  • Bloated Pontification (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Original Bobski ( 52567 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:20AM (#3137874) Homepage Journal
    Anyone who who even caught a sidelong glimpse of the trailers could tell this was a lame 02's remake of the superior 60's "Time Machine."

    It was instantly recognizable as a dead horse straight out of the gate.

    Katz actually spent good money just so he could "First Post" a review on a shitty movie?

    Dude, while I don't expect more, I certainly hope for it.
    • Yet another, "It was obvious from the commercials that the movie sucked, so why bother going to it?" response. I've seen too many great commercials for bad movies (and vice versa) to respect this sort of thinking.

      It looks to me like the standard practice for movie marketing is to take whatever movie is being promoted, pigeonhole it into one of several genres ("Chick Flick," "Horror," "Kids Film," "Shoot-em Up," etc.) and then spend thirty seconds trying to convince everyone that the movie is the greatest example of that genre ever to grace the box office. So a crappy movie with pretty actors and a couple of mind-blowing scenes has a huge advantage over a superior movie with less eye candy.

      Thus, you wind up with lousy commercials for great movies, because the commercials don't capture the unique feel of the movie in its race to overwhelm your visual cortex.

      Don't judge a book by its cover, or even its jacket lining. Judge it by whether or not JonKatz liked it. :)
      • Point taken. However, I've been around for far too long to not have picked up on a few cues.

        Trailers tend to try to put their best foot forward right from the start, adding extra tidbits as time passes. The Time Machine trailers sucked right out of the chute. If that was the best they had to offer, then it's awfully obvious there is nothing more to see here, move along.

        Here's a prediction using the same a priori reasoning about Ice Age: A Total Bomb.
        • Here's a prediction using the same a priori reasoning about Ice Age: A Total Bomb.

          Dude, the original teaser for Ice Age rocked (should be up on Apple's trailer site still). It doesn't look like it has anything to do with the movie, but manages to be stand on its own as a 2.5 minute animated short. How many trailers are both hilarious and coherent? Most trailers are simply a collection of a few of the best visuals and action scenes (or jokes, depending on genre). I've seen some great trailers of this sort that led to very disappointing movies.

          That said, the second trailer for Ice Age didn't look too good, and I'm sure the movie will suck. But let's give credit where it's due- that first trailer was fucking awesome.
    • Of course the movie was a remake, idiot. It was a remake of the original H.G. Wells book, which the 60's movie was a remake of as well...

  • Jules Verne? British? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Flave ( 193808 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:20AM (#3137875)
    We should all be immensely grateful to the British social class system. It inspired some of the greatest fantasy and sci-fi writers in modern literature, from Mary Shelley and Jules Verne to H.G. Wells.

    Ummmm, John? Jules Verne was French so how exactly was he influenced by the British social class system?
    • Check out the books. "20k leagues" and "Voyage to the Moon" ("voyage"/"journey"?) both use English characters.

      Basically, remember when JV was writing. Britain was _the_ superpower then - like America today but many, many times more so. (Flame away, Britain lost the War of Independence in America, but the Empire stayed intact for another 150 years.) Every writer, regardless of nationality, would be affected by Britain, and to claim otherwise would be similar to saying that a modern film-maker wasn't influenced by America and American films. This goes double for anyone writing books with British characters.

      Not that I think the British social class system was a good thing - a caste system is never good. It's worrying that the US seems to be reinventing it with the quantity of top jobs going to the same families (ie. the families with money), and the election-by-money-not-policy system. You're effectively getting a class of aristocrats only without the responsibilities of the old-fashioned aristocracy.

      Grab.

  • Slimy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spankophile ( 78098 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:24AM (#3137889) Homepage
    Actually, one of the comments I made to my buddies after watching the movie, was that I was impressed how _not_ slimy the Morlocks were.

    They were downright creepy, a sort of cross between the "Grey Alien" look and neanderthal.

    Slime is usually used to _hide_ poor costumes/effects for bad guys; it's hard to screw-up dripping. The only goo in Time Machine is the dart-poison, and the "pit".

    Just like in the latest movie version of "The Count of Monte Cristo", I found they wrapped things up far too soon. Just as you start to really get into it - they realize they want to end in 5 minutes, and it's bang-bang-save-the-girl-THE-END-roll-credits.

    Book adaptations should be required to be a minimum 3 hours.
    • The only goo in Time Machine is the dart-poison


      Hmm. Now that you mention it... that dart poison didn't really seem to bother anybody that got hit with it. Perhaps it was a placebo?

    • You do realize that the book was only a short story, right?

      In fact, if you read the book, that's kind of what it feels like when it ends (I haven't seen the movie yet). It feels like it should keep going to some other time, because he only visited one time (for very long) before going to the end of time and then heading home.
      While I'm on the Time Machine subject, TECH HUBRIS??!!! Where's that in the book? He uses the machine to travel to a time when there is no technology, except to make clothing and food, and stays there for the entire book, until he goes on to see the earth's death as the sun dims, which also has little to do with technology (no technology caused that). I suppose the last sentence (ending which I won't give away) could be about that, but how can you say that the book is all about technological hubris based upon a single sentence?

      I think someone is lumping all of their Victorian writers into the same category without reading very carefully. Its good if that's not in the movie, 'cause it sure ain't in the book.
      • > It feels like it should keep going to some other time,

        There is a sequel by Stephen Baxter.
        http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch /isbnInqu iry.asp?isbn=0061056480

        > I suppose the last sentence (ending which I won't give away) could be about that

        http://www.literature.org/authors/wells-herbert- ge orge/the-time-machine/chapter-13.html for those who do want to see it. Pushing it to say that's about technological hubris.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @11:34AM (#3137921)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Why are a lot of these situations not being explained in any way? Not everyone has read the book (or in the case of PotA, seen the original wonderful film or read the book).
      such as?

      What are the motivations of these various characters, esp. Hartdegen?
      The death of his fiance.

      Why is the story moving so fast? I can't keep up, and I still don't understand the what's and wherefore's of the last scene.
      that was odd.
      Where is the suspense and drama? Scenes are being vacated before letting the characters or the audience settle into the reality of them.
      such as?
      Why is the ending so dull and unimaginative (of course, in the case of PotA, it was downright stupid)?
      because Hollywood thinks we're all dull and umimaginative.
      What the hell am I supposed to be taking from this film? What's the lesson? (That Hollywood thinks the American people are morons who can't handle complex detail?)
      mans arrorgant use of technology will be our doom.

      Finally, the story is not about the making of a time machine, its(supposed) to be about mans destruction. Thats why there is a 4 year gap between his fiance death and the creation of the time machine. Persoanlly, I don't want to spend hours in a thater watching some guy lathe brass parts for his machine.

  • Saw it last night (Score:2, Informative)

    by schroet ( 244506 )
    I saw it at a Cinemark theater here last night. While not particularily deep, it was a satisfyingly consistent movie. It didn't insult the viewer's intelligence once, which is saying a lot for a movie these days. Certain plot twists, while unexpected, help the storyline along. I give it 2 thumbs up for being easy to watch and it didn't totally mangle the original concept!
    • It didn't insult the viewer's intelligence once
      I guess that would depend on the viewers intelligence?
      The fact that he can't change the past, then does, is quite annoying.

      The intial comment is just a funny jab, not meant as an insult.really.
  • It looked kinda cool, but I was very concerned when I walked into a near-empty theater on a Saturday night. I went about brushing that off, realizing that the main-stream America isn't into Sci-Fi films.

    Turns out main stream America just isn't into films that stink. They took a long sordid tale and jammed it into almost exactly an hour and a half, and left the parts that should have been in there out and vice versa... Even for a Sci-Fi movie, the plot made absolutely no sense into the second half of the movie.

    The acting was pretty good, Guy Pearce seemed like he might've been a little out of his league (I kept on having Memento flashbacks the entire movie - that's how bored I was).

    All in all, at the end, I just wished that his time machine could somehow get that hour and a half of my life back, but no such luck.
  • I remember the story as one of the most haunting memories in my life. All of the science fiction I read after it with similar themes - the apocalyptic science fiction that is so popular today - depends on this story.

  • "A hero form the future, who comes from the past," or some crap like that, I knew that the story would be heavily Hollywoodized, and ergo bad. The man in the time machine was not a hero, he was at best a curious traveller who was courageous enough to get his time machine back, and stupid enough to go in to the future again.

    BlackGriffen
  • If you haven't read the book, you have no idea what his motivations are, who he's is involved with, or why he's making so many staggering decisions about the human race all by himself, in a mili-second.

    The book and the movie are almost COMPLETELY different, his motivation is different in the book and in the movie (but god forbid scientific curiousity be a motivation in a Hollywood film), and the book contains nothing about changing the human race.

    I mean, why would you say something like this, unless you've never read the book?

    It is, however, an excellent book, the text of which is online in several places if anyone wants to read it.
  • I enjoyed this movie right up to the goat-rodeo of an ending. If the director was here right now, I'd be feasting on his brain.

    The story Time Machine was great in part because of the fantastic ending; but his moving totally choked it. If you havent read the book, or even seen the older movie, do so. The story is one of the better sci-fi's ever told, and this piece of trash does not do it justice.

  • I haven't seen the movie, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dswensen ( 252552 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @12:14PM (#3138041) Homepage
    The Time Machine strikes me as one of those "adventures beyond your imagination!" which is not only not "beyond" or an "adventure," but also contains no "imagination."

    I don't mean to be snide, but I can't imagine how anyone could watch that trailer and think for one second that this movie would be any good. First is the opening scene with Orlando Jones (isn't he the "7-Up Yours" guy?) as Computerized Annoying Moron. Okay, singing computer guy! Jokes about recombining DNA! There's the red flag! Stop! Go no further!

    One could lull themselves into a false sense of security by thinking it's just a gag made for the trailer, but he shows up again in the movie trying to be spooky ("the truth is beyond your wildest nightmares of CGI Rorscharch blots etc."), so, at that point, shouldn't huge warning bells be going off in your head? They sure were mine. I was only slightly more inclined to see this movie than Queen of the Damned with Liberace Alia.

    As for the Morlocks, they look just like the animations in Planet of the Apes [imdb.com]. I remember when the awful Roland Emmerich Godzilla [imdb.com] came out in 1998, and all the "baby Godzillas" came out, tripping on gumballs, looking exactly like raptors from Jurassic Park [imdb.com] -- I strongly suspect they just lifted the kinematic libraries wholesale. I wouldn't be surprised to learn The Time Machine did the same thing, ripping off Planet of the Apes instead.

    I will probably see this on rental, just for grins (and I have a friend who works at a video store and gets all her rentals for free, so I'll bum it off her... there, no money to the MPAA, my Slashdot-social conscience is satisfied! Whew!)

    In the meantime, all I want to know is, did Guy Pearce punch out Jeremy Irons, or knock him off a cliff, or impale him on a piece of broken machinery, then say, "Time's up, asshole!"? Because I have this bet going and I don't want to have to sit through the movie to know if I won.

  • there were interesting characters, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld.gmail@com> on Sunday March 10, 2002 @12:21PM (#3138068) Homepage
    Jeremy Irons got only a few minutes of screen time, but managed to make far more of an impact on my mind than Pearce.

    I wasn't expecting such a nuanced character, though I think that probably owes more to Irons than the screenwriter.

    Orlando Jones' character was also highly interesting, and got very little screen time. Like Irons his attempts to communicate on a more interesting and philosophical level is ignored by Pearce's self-absorbed character, who's obsessed with saving his new chippie. Why is it that Hollywood scientists invariably are incredibly uncurious would-be action heroes who rarely do any actual science?
    • Why is it that Hollywood scientists invariably are incredibly uncurious would-be action heroes who rarely do any actual science?

      Generally, I agree. But, this is one of the reasons I liked Stargate. While Jackson ends up playing the hero role, it's his scientific curiousity that motivates him to inadvertantly strand the team in the first place.
  • I really doubt we needed an review of these movie as it was pretty obvious it was a twisted, hollywoodified, piece of crap version of a great story. Just look at the poster alone, the main character looks like someone from a CK commercial, theres a scantily clad chick in the background... as soon as you try to sell sex in a scifi film, 100% maximal suckage garanteed. Then the previews: everything is super duper action packed, theres CG all over the place, everything is flashing by mad fast, etc... Action packed? WTF, no need to even say anything on this one, and the fact it has CG means exactly jackshit, after all ANY hollywood-class film will be able to scrape up some money to have CG. And the excuse "I just wanted to see it for the CG" is weak as hell; You could say that about FF, Mummy2, Monsters Inc, etc, but NOT for this steaming pill. If you actually spent $9 to see this for just CG, I'd say that was pretty dumb. Sorry for the ranting, but this movie's existance angers me, especially the fact they took a great story and blantantly butchered it hollywood style.

  • The original on-line text (Score:5, Informative)

    by ronys ( 166557 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @12:53PM (#3138222) Journal
    For those interested in reading the original, the text is available online here [ibiblio.org] (ASCII text) or here [ibiblio.org] (same, zip'ed), courtesy of project Gutenberg [promo.net].

    Consider this the ultimate spoiler.

    • Actualy, I wouldn't call this a spoiler for the movie at all. Too much got changed in the translation. Ugh. The only worse book-to-movie change I've seen in the last decade was Starship Troopers, which actually changed GENRE's from a coming-of-age to an aciton-adventure/romance.
  • Incredibly average movie, see at matinee price.

    You can see a lot of time and money was spent and result is a so-so movie.

  • Clueless! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig@hogger.gmail@com> on Sunday March 10, 2002 @01:21PM (#3138321) Journal

    We should all be immensely grateful to the British social class system. It inspired some of the greatest fantasy and sci-fi writers in modern literature, from Mary Shelley and Jules Verne to H.G. Wells.


    Katz, check your data! Jules Verne was French!
    • Well yes, but perhaps he was inspired by the British class system all the same.

      (waits . . . )

      (looks . . . )

      Or maybe not . . .
    • Actually, Verne was inspired by the British class system.
      At that time, most people were influenced by the british caste system. I suggest you re-read Verne with that in mind, it might give you a whole new insite to his work.
      • Actually, Verne was inspired by the British class system.
        Actually, Verne was merely a bourgeois (which is essentially synonymous with the anglo-saxon mindset of "winner-takes-all", screw the rest).

  • Read the Book! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by StefanJ ( 88986 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @01:25PM (#3138338) Homepage Journal
    I reread The Time Machine last year. A short, punchy book, in many ways dated*, but still great.


    It looks like they've turned the Morlocks into orcs. D'uh! In the book, they're pretty pathetic, lemur-like creatures. Devolved working-class folk.


    I caught a few interesting things during my re-read. On his return journey to the future, the Time Traveller packs "a Kodak." Imagine, product placement, in 1898! :-)


    --Stefan

    It's hard to believe, but at the time the book was written the world appeared both a lot younger, and with a comparitively short future. It won't be giving anything away to note that in one scene, the Time Traveller (he's never named) visits the Earth in 800,000 A.D. The sun is swollen and red, and things are starting to run down. The notions of radioactivity and fusion hadn't been concieved yet, and it was reasonable to guess that the sun only had a million or so years of life left!

    • The Morlocks like Lemurs? Isn't the point that the Eloi are the dumbed down consumers and the Morlocks are the technocrats? I think we know which species would inhabit the network centers, and they'd need more than Lemur brains to do that!

      I always liked the image of night and day passing like the beating of a great crow's wing. Oh, and the museum as the neglected repository of knowledge - some resonance with contemporary culture there, don't you think?

  • My opinion is... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Beowulf_Boy ( 239340 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @01:35PM (#3138375)
    This movie sucked.
    I saw it last night with some friends.
    Lets give it a run down.
    1. That damn trailer for "Spirit" needs to be cut, it almost made me walk out of the theatre.
    2. I did like the walking down the hallway scene, that was kinda cool.
    3. I could understand how hollywood would want to make it a better plot by having the guy go back to save his gal, but the 4 years he was working on the machine, it gave no detail on how it was built, how it worked, etc. Which i guess is better than making something up though and making it sound stupid like "it works on the plank reaction of sub-atomic quarks in the 5th dimension" or something.
    4. The Morlocks where freakin scary looking, I almost jumped out of my seat when the first one jumped in front of the screen.
    5. The Eloi looked like mullato's, and thats it, in millions of years, alot more evolution should have happened, look at the morlocks!
    6. I remember hearing about in the book (I haven't read it yet, but I am going to) that some eloi fasted because the Morlocks controlled them through their food. In the movie it just had that stupid dream, and thats it!
    7. "Just follow the breathing" WTF!!! Ok, that iron face thing was in the dream, but how in the hell did the guy know how to get there?!
    8. That computer, how the fuck was it powered for 30 million years, no less, how did it stay intact, etc.

    Thats about it.
    There was this woman in front of me I just about killed. She laughed at everything. "So help me I'll resequence your DNA" "HHAHAHAHAHAHAH, AHAHAHA, HAHAHHAHA, DNA!!! HAHAHA"
    !!!!ARGHH!!!!!
    She even laughed at the Eloi language. I hate freakin stupid people.

  • Great Washpost article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @02:56PM (#3138784) Journal
    This article [washingtonpost.com] focuses on Pearce and the problems with the movie. He's amazingly outspoken and critical of the movie and the whole process that created it -- something I think the studios would be all over him for, especially so close to the opening. But I guess, happily, it's not like the old days where studios owned stars.

    Also interesting (to me, at least!): Director Simon Wells is the great-grandson of H.G. Wells.

  • A Light in the Void (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pixelfreak ( 134849 )
    Has anyone read "A Light in the Void", by Poul Anderson?

    This was a similar story. The inventor created a time machine, but found that the farther he ventured into the future, the more energy was required to go back (it was exponential) After his third jump into the future he was unable to to his original time, so he continued to move forward - hoping technology would advance to the point that he could get back to where he started from. Along the way, there were at least 3 subplots that he was involved with in some way, even if he was just passing though.

    I can't find much about it on the web. I guess it wasn't that popular?
  • ... only because it in no way toouched on the fact that both races where dependant on each other. In fact it turned the Morlocks into a race of "bad guys". In the book, the eloia(sp?) could not survive without the morlocks.
    There was a scene removed form the movie due to 9/11. In the original cut a pice of the moon hits the WTC and it look almost exactly like the lanes hitting it. However, since the scene take placew in the future, where there is no WTC, it really makes no sense. The only way it would make sense, owuld be if he went into a building, and there was a paque that said something like " Welcome to the New WTC: Dedicated to all those who where impacyed by the events of 9/11" then have THAT buildng hit by a piece of the moon, then they could of kept it.
    They did a good job of portraying mans arrogance with technology. Remeber the moon bit, Jon? Also it was moved to new york because Great Britian is no longer the power hous it was 100 years ago, but the US is.
  • The monkier should have been "WHEN would you go?", since the time machine only travels in the 4th dimension (time), not in the other three!
    That's why he drags the machine in the original film!
    As for the '79 version, I didn't care for it becoming a "Tardis" (Time And Relative Dimensions in Space). San Franciso indeed. Hrumph!

  • When you watch the movie,
    take note:

    There is a part of the movie that takes place about 100 years ago - back when steam engine buggies were becoming popular. Apparently Mountain bikes were also popular because we noticed a nice set of shiny metal wheels with knobby mountain bike tires mounted to the steam buggy.

    I'm not sure about the tires, but the wheels definitely metal spokes & Rims. Silly that geeks like myself notice stuff like that.

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