Using their time viewer, three scientists see a desolate landscape 107 years in the future, at which point the electrician realizes that the viewer has unexpectedly become a portal. All four jump through, only to have the portal collapse behind them, whereupon they are chased on the surface by Morlockish creatures who are afraid of thrown rocks, and they meet an advanced, post-apocalyptic, underground society that employs androids and is planning a generation-long trip to Alpha Centauri.

The film draws in at least four important additional time travel tropes: suspended animation, a single nonbranching, static timeline (with the corresponding inability to go back and change it), experiencing the passage of time at different rates, and a trip to the far future. And according to the SF Encyclopedia, the film was originally conceived as a sequel to the 1960 film of The Time Machine.

Smugglers Stella Star and Akton are sprung from prison by the Galactic Emperor (Christopher Plummer!) to rescue the Galactic Prince (the Hoff!) and save the universe (using kickboxing and an occasional lightsaber!) from the Evil Count Zarth Arn (“Evil” appears to be his first name). At various points, the murky plot has brief stints with suspended animation (Stella), precognition (Arkon), and the freezing time (the Emperor), none of which rises to actual time travel. On the other hand, in the words of reviewer Kurt Dahike, “the budget special effects transcend into the realm of real art.”

After an hour or so of mundane conversation and weird happenings—a triple supernova, a UFO, a tiny mannequin/alien, and creepy lights, and alien monsters transporting in and out—the Williams family and their horses are transported through a time-space warp to an unknown time for the other twenty minutes of the movie. (The creepy lights stick around, too.) It’s hard to tell for sure, but I think they’re going to live out their lives amongst the weird lights and crystal structures of this new time.

This syndicated TV film was cobbled together from English-dubbed episodes of the Japanese TV series, 猿の軍団 :: Saru no gundan. It tells the story of Miss Catherine and two kids who are accidently frozen and wake up on an Earth ruled by apes. Inspired by (but not part of) the more widely known Earth-ruled-by-apes series, and I suppose not really time travel either because it’s merely cryogenic sleep.

The film, about amateur inventor Nick Miller’s time machine in a two-prop plane and the evil corporation that tries to take it over, is unwatchable, but in a genuinely inoffensive, cultish way.