The Time Machine Movie (2002) Review
I know that mostly everyone has forgotten this spiritless and pointless failure that was obviously intended to leave bad impression of H.G. Wells with everyone who never actually read his books. However, I just have to highlight even more stupidities and inconsistencies that this flick is essentially made of.
Just to be fair, I want to bring up the only TWO positive points of this movie - the actual Time Machine prop that actually resembled the original concept (as far as its description goes in the original text) and made a solid steam-punkish impression of the Edwardian-era futuristic technology AND the Sienna Guillory's appearance. Despite of not being allowed to do much, she does a great job playing a romantic, cute but serious lady who just keeps popping up in all the wrong places at the worst possible time.
Now, to the not-yet-mentioned-flops as I perceive them.
1) Why this movie is called "THE Time Machine"? Does it imply that this is THE most definitive, most all-encompassing story that beats the original book without even following 99% of the author's story line?
2) We are lead to believe that Alexander's short chat with the steam-powered vehicle driver allows him to learn the way to build a better steam power source. So, upon being called to do so, Alexander builds his totally self-sufficient time-travelling apparatus that evidently uses the power of steam (recall all the steam pressure gauges that machine proudly displays) to provide sufficient energy for a limitless number of time jumps in all possible directions. I mean, since no actual time machine exists yet, it is pointless to argue what it can be powered by or how much of what kind of power is necessary, etc. Although the Back to The Future's time machine that required a carefully balanced mix of high speed motion and influx of great number of Gigawatts of electricity made a more convincing (though somewhat humorous) impression of a time-travelling apparatus. In the H.G. Wells's original novel there was no specific mentioning of the power source employed by the time machine. One just knew that it was not horse-powered and the power source was actually self-contained.
3) What made the script writers think that back in the late 19th century NYC a public place filled with respectable public would be favored by armed robbers? Come on! There was more than enough social segregation in existence during those days that made it practically impossible for a low-life lower class armed robber to even appear in the midst of respectable and well-to-do public. I can hardly imagine anyone insane and lucky enough to be willing or able to carry out a time-stretched armed robbery resulting in shooting a robbery victim to death. Keep in mind that a large caliber revolving pistol produces TONS of noise and police used to patrol such public places ON FOOT (not locked up in cars staring at computer terminal screens like they do it today) at a distance of being able to hear a police whistle produced by a nearby patrol (cops had no portable radios then).
4) Now, the idea of the Moon falling apart from some nuclear mining operation is ridiculous (although beautifully depicted) considering what our next-door space neighbor went through already with them giant meteorite impacts and stuff.
5) WHY the Eloi was turned into some sort of a mixed African/South American tribe living in hanging flower pots is way beyond my understanding. No one can possibly believe that such obviously physically capable and inventive group of people would fail to defend itself from some ape-like primitively armed and armorless Morlocks. Obviously, the directors wanted to include some strong but oppressed people of color to the movie, but did not know how and why to do it.
6) Why was the Uber-Morlock character added to the movie? What “insight” did he provide? If he was such incredibly powerful mind-controller, then why did he resort to a primitive knife fighting and chocking? That was just ridiculous.
7) What happened to the planet in the far-far away future? We just see a bunch of the Morlock-built scary structures all over the place. Which means that they did not eat all the Eloi at once after all or they got scared of messing with Eloi and started eating one another instead?
8) What made Alexander abandon time travel without clearly learning the reasons why the past cannot be changed? Being a true scientist, would he just drop all his research like this? If one is to speculate about this topic of changing the past, the assuming that the past that already happened cannot be changed, then travelling “into” in would be impossible in the first place. Or an attempt to change the past would result in a “fork” in the time line thus creating an “alternate” reality. But the movie does not bother to bring up any of these theories.
9) What made it possible for the NYPL to nicely survive all the disasters, land changes, ice ages and who knows what else that presumable took place in 800,000-odd years? Even the shelves storing PAPER BOOKS were left practically intact. The books themselves stayed there unmoved! Why? The library was not hidden deep underground and filled with inert gas or something! There would have been absolutely no trace of any library left whatsoever.
…And so on and so forth. In short, you should really just read the book first and foremost.
Just to be fair, I want to bring up the only TWO positive points of this movie - the actual Time Machine prop that actually resembled the original concept (as far as its description goes in the original text) and made a solid steam-punkish impression of the Edwardian-era futuristic technology AND the Sienna Guillory's appearance. Despite of not being allowed to do much, she does a great job playing a romantic, cute but serious lady who just keeps popping up in all the wrong places at the worst possible time.
Now, to the not-yet-mentioned-flops as I perceive them.
1) Why this movie is called "THE Time Machine"? Does it imply that this is THE most definitive, most all-encompassing story that beats the original book without even following 99% of the author's story line?
2) We are lead to believe that Alexander's short chat with the steam-powered vehicle driver allows him to learn the way to build a better steam power source. So, upon being called to do so, Alexander builds his totally self-sufficient time-travelling apparatus that evidently uses the power of steam (recall all the steam pressure gauges that machine proudly displays) to provide sufficient energy for a limitless number of time jumps in all possible directions. I mean, since no actual time machine exists yet, it is pointless to argue what it can be powered by or how much of what kind of power is necessary, etc. Although the Back to The Future's time machine that required a carefully balanced mix of high speed motion and influx of great number of Gigawatts of electricity made a more convincing (though somewhat humorous) impression of a time-travelling apparatus. In the H.G. Wells's original novel there was no specific mentioning of the power source employed by the time machine. One just knew that it was not horse-powered and the power source was actually self-contained.
3) What made the script writers think that back in the late 19th century NYC a public place filled with respectable public would be favored by armed robbers? Come on! There was more than enough social segregation in existence during those days that made it practically impossible for a low-life lower class armed robber to even appear in the midst of respectable and well-to-do public. I can hardly imagine anyone insane and lucky enough to be willing or able to carry out a time-stretched armed robbery resulting in shooting a robbery victim to death. Keep in mind that a large caliber revolving pistol produces TONS of noise and police used to patrol such public places ON FOOT (not locked up in cars staring at computer terminal screens like they do it today) at a distance of being able to hear a police whistle produced by a nearby patrol (cops had no portable radios then).
4) Now, the idea of the Moon falling apart from some nuclear mining operation is ridiculous (although beautifully depicted) considering what our next-door space neighbor went through already with them giant meteorite impacts and stuff.
5) WHY the Eloi was turned into some sort of a mixed African/South American tribe living in hanging flower pots is way beyond my understanding. No one can possibly believe that such obviously physically capable and inventive group of people would fail to defend itself from some ape-like primitively armed and armorless Morlocks. Obviously, the directors wanted to include some strong but oppressed people of color to the movie, but did not know how and why to do it.
6) Why was the Uber-Morlock character added to the movie? What “insight” did he provide? If he was such incredibly powerful mind-controller, then why did he resort to a primitive knife fighting and chocking? That was just ridiculous.
7) What happened to the planet in the far-far away future? We just see a bunch of the Morlock-built scary structures all over the place. Which means that they did not eat all the Eloi at once after all or they got scared of messing with Eloi and started eating one another instead?
8) What made Alexander abandon time travel without clearly learning the reasons why the past cannot be changed? Being a true scientist, would he just drop all his research like this? If one is to speculate about this topic of changing the past, the assuming that the past that already happened cannot be changed, then travelling “into” in would be impossible in the first place. Or an attempt to change the past would result in a “fork” in the time line thus creating an “alternate” reality. But the movie does not bother to bring up any of these theories.
9) What made it possible for the NYPL to nicely survive all the disasters, land changes, ice ages and who knows what else that presumable took place in 800,000-odd years? Even the shelves storing PAPER BOOKS were left practically intact. The books themselves stayed there unmoved! Why? The library was not hidden deep underground and filled with inert gas or something! There would have been absolutely no trace of any library left whatsoever.
…And so on and so forth. In short, you should really just read the book first and foremost.