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Time Travel Tropes

The Meteor Girl

by Jack Williamson
When a meteor lands on the beachfront airfield of our narrator and his partner Charlie King, Charlie realizes that it provides a space-time portal through which they view the death-at-sea of Charlie’s ex-fiancée.
— Michael Main
A terrestrial astronomer may reckon that the outburst on Nova Persei occurred a century before the great fire of London, but an astronomer on the Nova may reckon with equal accuracy that the great fire occurred a century before the outburst on the Nova.
“The Meteor Girl” by Jack Williamson, Astounding, March 1931.

Weird Fantasy #14 (1950)

The Trap of Time!

by Gardner Fox and Jack Kamen
Physicist Don Hartley has a plan to save his beloved Adele, who died in a car crash on a hot July night.
— Michael Main
You will be tampering with tremendous natural forces, Don! It is dangerous! You may unleash some awful catastrophe!
“The Trap of Time!” by Gardner Fox and Jack Kamen, Weird Fantasy #14 (EC Comics, July/August 1950).

Time Patrol 1

Time Patrol

by Poul Anderson
In the first of a long series of hallowed stories, former military engineer (and noncomformist) Manse Everard is recruited by the Time Patrol to prevent time travelers from making major changes to history. (Don’t worry, history bounces back from the small stuff.)
— Michael Main
If you went back to, I would guess, 1946, and worked to prevent your parents’ marriage in 1947, you would still have existed in that year; you would not go out of existence just because you had influenced events. The same would apply even if you had only been in 1946 one microsecond before shooting the man who would otherwise have become your father.
“Time Patrol” by Poul Anderson, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1955.

The Twilight Zone (r1s02e09)

The Trouble with Templeton

by E. Jack Neuman, directed by Buzz Kulik
The trouble with aging actor Booth Templeton is that he sees life as useless even decades after his young wife died. The answer to his trouble may lie in the people he meets—including his dead wife, Laura!—in what appears to be his hangouts from some thirty years ago. Actual time travel or something more fantastical? You be the judge.
— Michael Main
Laura! The freshest, most radiant creature God ever created. Eighteen when I married her, Marty, . . . twenty-five when she died.
The Twilight Zone (v1s02e09), “The Trouble with Templeton” by E. Jack Neuman, directed by Buzz Kulik (CBS-TV, USA, 9 December 1960).

Superman I

Superman

by Mario Puzo et al. , directed by Richard Donner
The humor didn’t quite click for me, but I did enjoy other parts including Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, the John Williams score, and a well-presented Superman mythos including his first time-travel rebellion against the don’t-mess-with-history edict of Jor-El.

As for the actual time travel, I had always assumed that the Man of Steel time traveled as he always did, via high speed, but in the extended edition of the movie, Donner states: “And he stops the world. And now it’s actually going backwards. Which means, none of this actually happens.” Is that right? Does he reverse the spin of the Earth? CJ Moseley has more to say on the matter over at the Time Travel Nexus.

— Michael Main
Jonathan Kent: My son, there is one thing I know, and that is that you are here for a reason.
Superman by Mario Puzo et al. , directed by Richard Donner (premiered at an unknown movie theater, Washington, D.C., 10 December 1978).

A Touch of Petulance

by Ray Bradbury
On his way home on the train, Jonathan Hughes meets Jonathan Hughes + 20 years and receives a warning that his marriage to a lovely young bride will end in murder.
— Michael Main
Me, thought the young man. Why, that old man is . . . me.
“A Touch of Petulance” by Ray Bradbury, in Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley (The Viking Press, August 1980).

The Ray Bradbury Theater (s04e06)

Touch of Petulance

by Ray Bradbury, directed by John Laing
A faithful adaptation of Bradbury’s 1980 story of a man who returns to his warn his younger self about the future course of his marriage.
— Michael Main
We are one, the same person: Jonathan Hughes.
The Ray Bradbury Theater (s04e06), “Touch of Petulance” by Ray Bradbury, directed by John Laing (USA Network, USA, 12 October 1990).

This Must Be the Place

by Elly Bangs
At a bar, Andrea meets a loopy man who seems to already know her; he leaves a mysterious message on a napkin, which turns out to be a hint about their next meeting where the man is younger and no longer knows her.
— Michael Main
If I had the power to decide never to meet him again, I reasoned, surely I had the power to change the course of the relationship for the better.
“This Must Be the Place” by Elly Bangs, in Strange Horizons, 2 February 2009.

Time’s Arrow

by Geeoff Hart
A physicist with a dead girlfriend experiences various precognition episodes leading up to his attempt to travel to the past to undead the girlfriend, or at least plant the seeds for the precognition.
— Michael Main
I’m certain I didn’t send myself any mail recently, but then again, I have plans to do so in the near future—or near past, I suppose.
“Time’s Arrow” by Geeoff Hart, in Short Stories by Geoff Hart (no specified publisher, added 10 February 2009) [ongoing e-collection at www.geoff-hart.com/fiction/short-stories/, accessed 20 December 2021[/d[/ex].

Dimensions

by Antony Neely, directed by Sloan U’Ren
Imagine you’re a young boy in 1921 Cambridge when your equally young first love dies in a deep well. What would you do? Naturally, you’d vow to become a great scientist in an artsy movie so you could go back in time to alter the tragic event.

Apparently, people in early 20th-century Cambridge espouse many wise thoughts about time, parallel universes that encompass every possible combination of events again and again, and something about every decision every made creating a branch point. In the end, it's difficult to make a cohesive model of time from the plotline of Dimensions, but we tried our best to do so in our plot notes.

— Michael Main
Annie: Are you ready to leave?
Stephen: Yes.
Annie: How long will it take?
Stephen: I don’t know: seconds, decades, an eternity.
Annie: An eternity? For a few moments together?
Stephen: Yes.
Dimensions by Antony Neely, directed by Sloan U’Ren (Cambridge Film Festival, 21 September 2011).

Anna Green 1

Time between Us

by Tamara Ireland Stone
Somewhat self-absorbed 16-year-old Anna Green manages to fall for the first time traveler she ever meets, not realizing that he’s a time traveler or that he’s hoping his mission to 1995 will be a short-term affair.
— Jeff Delgado
It’s too easy for me to say the wrong thing today, and if I do, we may never meet at all
Time between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone (Hyperion Books, October 2012).

The Here and Now

by Ann Brashares
Teenager Prenna James and her mother are two of the survivors of a future plague who return to the early 21st century to live out a quiet life under strict non-interference rules.
— Michael Main
“And then I’ll be a proper early-twenty-first-century girl?” I ask. I feel like crying. I don’t want to be set.”
The Here and Now by Ann Brashares (Delacorte Press, April 2014) [print · e-book].

Videoville

by Christopher East
In late 1986, geek Tim Stanek (he prefers the term “nerd”) and his high-school buddy Louis are approached one night by an unheard-of sort of person: a sensitive and inclusive football jock who asks them to come with him on a mission that needs their particular kind of resourcefulness.
— Michael Main
AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, NFLX
“Videoville” by Christopher East, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2014.

Displacement

written and directed by Kenneth Mader
Brilliant physics student Cassandra Sinclair finds herself running from the evil Initiative Organization—which includes her childhood friend Josh and a posh lady with an English accent—who are after the equations in her thesis notes that somehow (she’s not quite sure how) launched her on multiple slips back in time (we counted eight) that may or may not result in destroying yourself by getting too close to yourself, a closed timelike curve, quantum entanglement, and/or solving the Grandfather Paradox (without ever having anything that resembles the Grandfather Paradox, quantum entanglement, or a closed timelike curve). We suspect that writer/director Kenneth Mader had been reading “Experimental Simulation of Closed Timelike Curves,” but the actual science didn’t fully translate from the lab to the silver screen.

Handy Hint: The movie is eminently more watchable in a late-night group where everyone shouts “Great Scott!” whenever a character spews a sequence of pseudoscientific quantum mumbo jumbo that vaguely resembles an English sentence.

— Michael Main
We’ve been running simulations to resolve the Grandfather Paradox, and we experienced an unusual electromagnetic pulse at the school that was triggered remotely. We were able to locate the source, but I suspect someone may have taken our simulations a step further. . . . The equation in your daughter’s thesis notes may have actually solved the paradox. But they’re untested and now they’re missing, and you said Charles has been absent. Could he have taken them and induced an entanglement?!
Displacement written and directed by Kenneth Mader (Boston SciFi Film Festival, 7 February 2016).

Somewhere Between

by Stephen Tolkin et al., directed by Duane Clark et al.
After San Francisco suffers a week of terror at the hands of a serial killer ending with the death of Laura Price’s eight-year-old daughter Serena, Laura falls into a dark depression and attempts suicide. Next thing she knows, she’s waking up before that week, whereupon she teams up with ex-police detective Nico Jackson (who also got thrown back in time), hoping to change the week, catch the killer, save Nico’s brother’s life, and save Serena—all in a mere nine additional episodes.
— Michael Main
I’m not going to let anybody hurt you this time. I swear to you on my life.
Somewhere Between by Stephen Tolkin et al., directed by Duane Clark et al., 10 pts. (ABC-TV, USA, 24 July – 19 September 2017).

Marley and Marley

by J. R. Dawson
Somewhat jaded 28-year-old Marley comes back through time to take care of 12-year-old orphaned Marley.
— Michael Main
He told me all the horrible things that would happen if I broke any Time Laws. Worlds would collapse. I would turn inside out. Important people would die and important things wouldn’t happen.
“Marley and Marley” by J. R. Dawson, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December 2017.

7 Splinters of Time

written and directed by Gabriel Judet-Weinshel
While on medical leave for his mental health, police detective Darius Lafaux is called back in to investigate a case that turns into multiple murders of men who look exactly like himself.
— Michael Main
Alise: You died ten years ago.
Darius: I was born ten years ago.
7 Splinters of Time written and directed by Gabriel Judet-Weinshel (Cinequest, 3 March 2018).

Il était une seconde fois

English release: Twice Upon a Time Literal: It was a second time

by Nathalie Leuthreau and Guillaume Nicloux, directed by Giillaume Nicloux
At first, Vincent’s only plan for the mysterious 600mm wooden cube that provides a tunnel to the past is to make sure that Louise doesn’t break up with him four months in the past, but new circumstances soon raise the stakes. Then it gets weird in this four-part miniseries.
— Michael Main
En fait, je suis passé dans un cube, et ça . . .
I actually went through this cube, and it . . .
English
[ex=bare]Il était une seconde fois | It was a second time[/ex] by Nathalie Leuthreau and Guillaume Nicloux, directed by Giillaume Nicloux, at the Berlin International Film Festival, 12 February 2019.

In Another Time

by Jillian Cantor
Hanna Ginsberg—a young Jewish violinist in Germany during the rise of Hitler—awakens in a field in 1946 with no memory of the past decade.
— Michael Main
“Do you have a time machine,” he’d asked his father. It was hard to fathom, unbelievable even as he’d said it, but the idea fascinated him with little-boy wonder.
In Another Time by Jillian Cantor (Harper Perennial, March 2019) [print · e-book].

Opposite of Always

by Justin A. Reynolds
When high school senior Jack Ellison King’s first girlfriend Kate dies from complications of sickle cell anemia, Jack is thrown back to the moment they first met—all of which happens again and again.
— Michael Main
I know this game. I’ve seen this game. State goes on a frantic late run and wins with an off-balance three at the buzzer.
Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds (Katherine Tegen Books, March 2019) [print · e-book].

Boss Level

by Chris Bore et al., directed by Joe Carnaham
After visiting his estranged wife, Jemma, at her top secret lab, retired special forces agent and ne’er-do-well Roy Pulver finds himself endlessly repeating the next day, which always starts with the same assassin in his apartment and always ends with Roy dead, even as he learns more and more about Jemma, their son Joe, Jemma’s work, and how to kill endless assassins.
It’s like being stuck in a video game in a level you know you can’t beat. —from the Hulu varient
English
Boss Level by Chris Bore et al., directed by Joe Carnaham (premiere, ArcLight Cinemas, Hollywood, California, 11 February 2020).

The Umbrella Academy, Season 2

by multiple writers and directors
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.”
The Umbrella Academy, Season 2 by multiple writers and directors, ten episodes (Netflix, USA, 31 July 2020).

Annie and the Wolves

by Andromeda Romano-Lax
Historical research Ruth McClintock and local high school student Reece have a journal written by Annie Oakley, from which they conclude that Annie was a time traveler to traumatic moments in her own life—a power that Ruth seems to share.
— Michael Main
Reece, it isn’t just clarvoyance or neurosis, either.
She’d tell him in person, the thing they should have come out and admitted from the start.
It’s time travel.
“Annie and the Wolves” by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Soho, February 2021).

The Other Emily

by Dean R. Koontz
A decade after David Thorne’s wife goes missing on a solo trip to northern California, her exact duplicate shows up—without having aged a day and claiming not to be Emily—at a bar in one of David’s favorite restaurants.
— Michael Main
Equally in the grip of dread and amazement, David Thorne began to awaken to a previously unthought-of truth, the ramifications of which were devastating and numberless.
The Other Emily by Dean R. Koontz (Thomas and Mercer, March 2021).

What If . . . ? [s1e04]

What If . . . Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

by A. C. Bradley, directed by Bryan Andrews
As we all know, when the world’s formost surgeon, Doctor Strange, lost the use of his hands in a car wreck, it prompted him to search out mystic treatments and eventually become the Master of the Mystic Arts. But what if he had lost something else in that wreck?
— Michael Main
The Ancient One: Her death is an Absolute Point in time.
Dr. Strange: Absolute?
A.O.: Unchangable. Unmovable. Without her death, you would never have defeated Dormamu and become the Sorcerer Supreme—and the guardian of the Eye of Agamotto. If you erase her death, you never start your journey.
“What If . . . Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?” by A. C. Bradley, directed by Bryan Andrews, What If . . . ? [s01e04] (Disney+, worldwide, 1 September 2021).

The Adam Project

by Jonathan Tropper et al., directed by Shawn Levy
In 2050, time jet pilot Adam Reed steals a jet and heads back to 2018 to save his stranded wife, but he gets waylaid in 2022 where his 12-year-old self is the only hope to save the mission.
— Michael Main
Young Adam: I mean if this is happening to me, that means that it already happened to you—right?—unless it works more like a multiverse where each ripple creates an alternate timeline—
Middle-Age Adam: It isn’t a multiverse! My god, we watch too many movies.
The Adam Project by Jonathan Tropper et al., directed by Shawn Levy (Netflix, worldwide, 11 March 2022).

Eye of the Storm

by Steve Rasnic Tem
A nameless narrator tells of unimaginable results and understandable regret that arose from testing what seemed like sound theories.
— Michael Main
What has to happen to make you change?
“Eye of the Storm” by Steve Rasnic Tem, Daily Science Fiction, 8 April 2022 [webzine].
as of 1:09 p.m. MDT, 18 May 2024
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