Resetting Time As If the Story Never Took Place

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Play

If

  • by Lord Dunsany
  • at the Ambassadors’ Theatre (London, 30 May 1921)

John Beal, a London businessman, is given a magic crystal that allows him to go back in time and change one act; he is happy with his current life, so he decides to merely go back to catch a train that he was annoyed about missing ten years ago—but the resulting changes are more than he ever expected.

This is the earliest story that I’ve seen where the hero goes back into his earlier body and relives something differently. Some of the later stories of this kind have no actual time travel, but merely give knowledge of an alternate timeline (e.g., Asimov’s “What If?”); others live out the two timelines in parallel (e.g., the 1998 movie Sliding Doors, also set in motion by a missed/caught train); and some, like If, are couched in terms of time travel (e.g., the 1986 movie Peggy Sue Got Married). —Michael Main
He that taketh this crystal, so, in his hand, at night, and wishes, saying ‘At a certain hour let it be’; the hour comes and he will go back eight, ten, even twelve years if he will, into the past, and do a thing again, or act otherwise than he did. The day passes; the ten years are accomplished once again; he is here once more; but he is what he might have become had he done that one thing otherwise.
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  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Absolutely Anything


As a test to determine whether humanity should be destroyed, four slimey aliens grant schoolteacher Neil Clarke the power to do absolutely anything. I kinda think that if I had that power, and I made as many mistakes as Neil, I'd be using my power to rewind time more often than he did.

Writer and director Terry Jones acknowledges H. G. Wells’ “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” as inspiration for the story. —Michael Main
Neil [wavinghand]: Let the explosion never to have happened.
A brown mutt on a yellow background stares up at the logo for Absolutely
                Anything.
  • Comedy
  • Cameo Time Travel
Feature Film

Tudo Bem No Natal Que Vem

  • Everything will be okay next Christmas
  • Just Another Christmas
  • by Paulo Cursino, directed by Roberto Santucci
  • (Netflix, worldwide, 3 December 2020)

While playing Santa on the roof, avowed Christmas hater Jorge takes a fall that results in him waking up every Christmas with no memories of what happened since the last Christmas. —Michael Main
Teu avô disse que eu ainda ia descobrir pra que serve o Natal. Foi você, né, sue velho?
translate He did it! Two days ago he said I’d find out what Christmas is all about! You cursed me, didn’t you, old man?
Frightened Leandro Hassum (as middle-aged Jorge) stands in a Santa hat among
                strands of Christmas lights.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Best. Scientist. EVER.


You head out on a quick, rollicking ride back through time, with an unknown pursuer and an ambiguous conclusion. —Tandy Ringoringo
You come to the conclusion that you can correct everything if you stop yourself before you steal the time machine.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for
                Daily Science Fiction.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e07), pt. 2

The Bromance


Brian Cole, a hard-core survivalist, faces his greatest challenge: working with and understanding his own young self. —Michael Main
I might be you, but I’m not a moron.
Lying on a rocky slope, Eric Winter (as Brian Cole) looks skyward while an
                out-of-focus Roselyn Sanchez (as Elena Roarke) stands calmly in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel