Anachronistic Music, Dance, and Other Creations

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Feature Film

Non ci resta che piangere

While stranded in a thunderstorm in Tuscany, lifelong friends Mario and Saverrio find themselves unexpectedly in 1492, whereupon they fall in love a few times, pretend to be the composer of “Yesterday” and other modern-day hits, and come to the conclusion that they must stop Columbus from discovering America (either to prevent the genocide of the Native Americans or to prevent Mario’s sister from having her heart broken, depending on who you believe), and try rather pitifully to explain trains and other modern marvels to da Vinci, including a proposal to split the proceeds “thirty-three, thirty-three, and thirty-three!”

An extended director’s cut also expands the story of one of their heartthrob-esse, an Amazon named Astriaha]], but we don’t know the details of its release or whether an English-subtitled release of the film exists. —based on Wikipedia
Trentatré, trentatré e trentatré!
translate Thirty-three, thirty-three, and thirty-three.
Laid-back Massimo Troisi (as Mario) and pleading Roberto Benigni (as Saverio) pose in front of Botticelli’s Venus on the Half-Shell and Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus.
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Back to the Future I

Back to the Future

Typical skateboarding teenager Marty McFly meets Doc Brown for the first test of his DeLorean time machine, but when Libyan terrorists strike, things go awry, Marty and the DeLorean end up in 1955 where his parents are teens, and the Doc of 1955 must now send Marty back to the future. —Michael Main
Next Saturday night, we’re sending you . . . back to the future!
Michael J. Fox (as Marty McFly) emerges from the open door of the DeLorean onto two flaming tire tracks.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • 1986 Hugo
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e08)

Camikazi Kid

It seeems that the only way Sam can fulfill his mission of stopping 17-year-old Cam Wilson’s older sister from marrying shithead Bob is to race Bob “for pinks” in hopes that Bob will lose his cool and show his true self, but that’ll only work if Sam (as Cam) and his buddy Jill can soup up Cam’s pink mommobile with a blast of nitrous oxide at exactly the right moment of the race. —Michael Main
Older Brother: Come on, Mikey, we gotta rehearse.

Mikey: [waving] Bye-bye!
In the front seat of an old car, Holly Fields (as Jill) explains the workings of a new dashboard gadget to Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett).
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e06)

Good Morning, Peoria

Somewhat disoriented Sam—as Howlin’ Chic Howell at a 50’s radio station—must help station owner Rachel Powell defend rock’n’roll from the town elders and mobs of pitchfork-carrying, record-burning hayseeds. —Michael Main
Fred, I appreciate your opinion, but no matter how many editorials you publish, I am not gonna stop playing rock’n’roll.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Back to the Future II

Back to the Future II

Doc Brown takes Marty and Jennifer from 1985 to 2015 to save their children from a bad fate, but the consequences pile up when Biff also gets in on the time-travel action. —Michael Main
The time-traveling is just too dangerous. Better that I devote myself to study the other great mystery of the universe—women!
Michael J. Fox (as Marty) and Christopher Lloyd (as Doc) check their watches beside the DeLorean in a lightning storm.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

From Time to Time

Finney’s sequel to Time and Again initially finds Si Morley living a happy life in the 19th century with his 19th century family, while The Project in the future never even got started because he prevented the inventor’s parents from ever meeting. But vague memories linger in some of the Project member’s minds, and Morley can’t stay put. —Michael Main
They’re back there in the past, trampling around, changing things, aren’t they? They don’t know it. They’re just living their happy lives, but changing small events. Mostly trivial, with no important effects. But every once in a while the effect of some small changed event moves on down to the—
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

A Time Odyssey 1

Time’s Eye

And she was continually amazed at how easily everyone else accepted their situation, the blunt, apparently undeniable reality of the time slips, across a hundred and fifty years in her case, perhaps a million years or more for the wretched pithecine and her infant in their net cage.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Miri and Molly 1

The Magic Half

As a middle child stuck between two sets of twins, eleven-year-old Miri Gill feels an outsider until one day in her attic room, she slips back in time from the 21st century to 1935 where she meets Molly, another eleven-year-old who needs her help.

Also in need of some help is the model of time travel in the story, which is a mishmash of popular representations that no person at age eleven or elsewhen should be exposed to. Specifically, I would have enjoyed an attempt to square the Branching Timeline implied by the hole in floor with the single nonbranching, static timeline and Ex Nihilo paradox hinted at by the time-travel device. I truly liked that ex nihilo paradox, and wish it had been explicitly dealt with rather than swept under the carpet. —Michael Main
If you think about it too long, you’re going to go crazy, and then I’ll never get to your time.
Two eleven-year-old girls, one with long braids and the other with long, untied hair, float in front of rose-patterned wallpaper.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Edelstein Trilogie, Book 2

Saphirblau

  • Sapphire blue
  • Sapphire Blue
  • by Kerstin Gier
  • (Arena Verlag, January 2010)
Apart from amusing blustering from the Count during her trips to the 18th century, time travel took a back seat to Gwenny’s on-again-off-again romance with Gideon in this second book of the trilogy. Gwenny’s new pal, the ghost/demon/gargoyle Xemerius, was enjoyable, though we wish that he would be time traveller #13. —Michael Main
Rubinrot, Begabt mit der Magie des Raben, Schließt G-Dur den Kreis, Den zwölf gebildet haben.
translate Ruby Red, with G-major, the magic of the raven, brings the Circle of Twelve home into safe haven.
Black silhouettes of a young 18th-century man and woman on a blue background.
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Hot Tub Time Machine

Three middle-aged losers (along with a nephew) head back to their teenaged bodies at a ski resort twentysome years earlier. —Michael Main
Yes, exactly. You step on a bug and the fucking Internet is never invented.
An equation! Old mug shots of the four cast members plus alcohol plus squirrel equals young mug shots and a hot tub.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Fiddle

Fiddles had not yet been invented during Nero’s time. So just how did that rumor get started? —Tandy Ringoringo
At any rate, ready your cameras and make sure your bows are rosined.
A young man sits on a hill over a city while a lander approaches in the sky with its huge mothership behind.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Music and Musicals
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

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The Reluctant Assassin

When fourteen-year-old Victorian waif Riley shows up in the 21st century on seventeen-year-old FBI Agent Chevie Savano’s watch, the two of them pair up and head back to the late 19th century to escape Riley’s evil pursuer.

Although the book involves wormholes and scientists, it’s really a quantum fantasy, wherein an ordinary fantasy has the word “quantum” scattered throughout in key places, typically before the word magic, magician, or wormhole. Nevertheless, we’ve listed it as science fiction to match its publicity material. —Michael Main
He discovered that Einstein’s quantum theory was essentially correct and that he could stabilize a traversable wormhole through space-time using exotic matter with negative energy density.
A young teen boy wearing a green jacket and a red pendant flies straight at us in a retro time machine.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

John Cusack exhibited his most excellent judgment by not reprising his role as Adam from the first tubfest. Nevertheless, we did spend several enjoyable hours up in the ITTDB Citadel trying to devise a timeline model that fits this second adventure of Adam’s three cohorts—one of whom (Jake) also attempts an explanation of how a mortally wounded Lou manages to jump into his future, healthy body. In his explanation, the trio of travelers go to 2025 in a timeline that branched off from their own timeline—in particular, a timeline where Lou was never shot. Perhaps they are even in the very timeline that was created after the trio returns to 2015 and Lou is not shot. That means that they’re living in the 2025 timeline at a point in their personal lives that’s before their actions created that timeline. —Michael Main
So, Lou was killed in our present, which means that here in the future, he should still be dead. Well, clearly he’s not fucking dead, because he’s sitting here, still bothering me. So what that tells me is we’re in a completely different future on a completely different timeline. [. . .] Anyway, the repairman said that the past is actually the future of the present that we’re in right now. So I think what that means is the killer is from the future. So clearly, someone from 2025 will go back in time and shoot Lou.
The move’s four main yahoos, dressed as astronauts, pose in front of a full moon.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Series

내가 이 나라의 평강공주다

  • Mai onri leobeusong
  • My only lovesong
  • My Only Love Song
  • by 김수진, directed by 민두식
  • (Netflix, 9 June 2017)
Diva actress Song Soo-jung drives off in a huff in her manager’s VW van—Boing Boing—only to find herself in the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo where she meets characters from her historical TV show including the real Princess Pyeonggang and the roguish hero On-Dal. —Michael Main
A cheerful Gong Seung-yeon (as Soo-jung) drives a cute white van while a frightened Lee Jong-hyun (as On Dal) hangs on beside her.
  • Romance
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Umbrella Academy, Season 2

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • ten episodes (Netflix, USA, 31 July 2020)
Five’s plan for the Umbrella siblings to escape the apocalypse by going into the past ends up scattering them throughout different years of Dallas in the 1960s. They manage okay on their own until shortly after 11/22/63, when secondary effects from changes to the timeline cause a nuclear holocaust that can be averted only by recently arrived Five jumping back to 11/15/63 to exert his unique charm into getting the gang to work together. —Michael Main
Hazel to Five: If you want to live, come with me.”
All seven siblings of the Umbrella Academy walk in a straight line in their blue uniforms over a background of 1960s psychedelic black lines.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Series

De Volta aos 15

  • Back to 15
  • Back to 15
  • written and directed by multiple people
  • 3 seasons (Netflix, 25 February 2022 to 24 February 2024)
Thirty-yeasr-old Anita feels that her life is a failure. If only she could do things over again, starting with that miserable first day of high school at age 15. In the case of the six-episode first season, Anita travels back-and-forth multiple times, with each round of new-found self-assertiveness and fresh mistakes at age 15 creating a new life at age 30. In Season 2, she gains a traveling companion in 17-year-old Joel. —Michael Main
Que vontade de pedir desculpes pra você.
translate If I could press undo in real life, I would do everything differently.
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  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Pera Palas’ta Gece Yarısı, Season 1

  • Midnight at Pera Palace
  • Midnight at the Pera Palace
  • by Elif Usman, directed by Emre Şahin and Nisan Dağ
  • (Netflix, worldwide, 3 March 2022) [8 episodes]
While researching an article about the 130th anniversary of Istanbul’s Pera Palace Hotel, dedicated journalist Esra Koksuz finds herself at the hotel back in 1919, investigating the murder of her own doppelgänger and racing to stop the murder of Turkey’s founder. —Michael Main
Mustafa Kemal 16 Mayıs günü o gemiye sağ salim binemezse Kurtsuluşı Savaşı başlamayacak. Cumhuriyet kurulmayacak. Türkiye diye bir ülke olmayacak.
translate If Mustafa Kamal doesn’t board that ship on May the 16th, the War of Independence won’t begin, the Republic won’t be founded, and Turkey will never come to be!
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  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel