Paycheck
- by Dean Georgaris, directed by John Woo
- Feature Film
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Debatable Time Travel
- English
- Paycheck by Dean Georgaris, directed by John Woo (at movie theaters, USA, 25 December 2003).
Unlike Philip K. Dick’s story of the same name, the film has only viewing the future rather than physical time travel such as the story’s time scoop’s retrieval capability. Also, the film omits Dick’s dystopian police state and his theme of fate via what appears (in the story) to be a single static timeline. On the other side of the coin, the filmmakers made an epic car chase scene, took Jenning’s female sidekick off the sidelines, and attempted to massively raise the stakes via some questionable choices by Jennings.
—Michael Main
Shorty: Look, if we know anything, we know that time travel's not possible. Einstein proved that. Right?
Michael: Time travel, yes. But Einstein was very clear that he believed time viewing, theoretically, could be accomplished.
Tags
(6)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 2000 to 2099: The general technology is consistent with the early 21st century, so we assume that the date of 5/20/07 on the mailing receipt is 2007.
- Timeline Models
- Foretold or Seen Future Is Not Set in Stone: The things that Jennings (in the past) saw were exactly what happened to Jennings on the run.
- Multiple Naive Timelines: Clearly there is the timeline that Rethrick originally saw plus the second timeline that Jennings created by sending himself the trinkets. We saw no clues about an underlying timeline model.
- Single Consistent Timeline: Overall, we believe that there is one timeline only. Jennings must have seen himself using the trinkets, after which he made certain those trinkets were available to his future self.
- Time Travel Methods
- Chronoscopes: The viewer uses a powerful laser to see the future around the curvature of the universe.
- Themes
- Get Rich Quick through Time Travel: the lottery ticket
Variants
(1)
- Paycheck by Dean Georgaris, directed by John Woo (at movie theaters, USA, 25 December 2003).
Philip K. Dick (based on a work by)
Previous Works
based on “Paycheck” by Philip K. Dick (1953)