Viewing the Future

Tag Area: Timeline Trait
Novelette

Creatures of the Light


A Teutonic scientist attempts to create a race of artificially created superman who, among other things, can jump a few seconds through time, but only as invisible witnesses to the future goings-on. The story is disturbingly prescient of Nazi ideas of an Aryan Herrenvolk. —Michael Main
Before Northwood’s horrified sight, he vanished; vanished as though he had turned suddenly to air and floated away.
Black-and-white drawing of a well-dressed man and woman struggling behind a
                large energy-beam projector.
  • Science Fiction
  • Debatable Time Travel
Short Story

The Meteor Girl


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.
Two men, surrounded by scientific apparatus, look through a portal at a young
                woman washed up on a small rock in the sea.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

What You Need


Reporter Tim Carmichael visits Peter Talley, a shopkeeper on Park Avenue who provides things that his select clientele will need in the future.

I don’t always include prescience stories in my list, but like Heinlein’s “Life-Line,” this one is an exception, both because of the origin of Peter Talley’s prescience and because it was made into episodes of Tales of Tomorrow (the TV show) and [work-142 | The Twilight Zone]]. —Michael Main
By turning a calibrated dial, I check the possible futures
Pen-and-ink drawing of a man in a top hat and suit, sitting in a car and
                closely examining an egg.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Time Phenomena
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #2

Don’t Look!


Yep, the mirror that Harold Whitney got from an odd old man really does let you see what people will look like in the future—a situation that we’d normally mark as a mere time phenomenon and tag as a simple kind of chronoscope. But the story also has a twist at the end that makes me wonder whether the old man was also a time traveler. —Michael Main
I have here a strange invention, a mirror that will let you see how anyone will look at anytime in the future.
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Short Story

Journey into Mystery #2

The Pact


Frances Conrad learns the dark truth about an unholy pact made by his ancestor from the horse’s mouth itself. —Michael Main
The year is 1693, the month is June, and the day is the fifteenth. Come and watch with me.
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #13

What Harry Saw


If you (or Harry, of course) should happen to see your wife with another man in your chronoscope, be careful about how you proceed. —Michael Main
I turned on the futurescope and saw her kissing Edmund, a man I work with!
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #45

A Scream on the Screen


Bert Bates crosses some wires while repairing his TV, and suddenly he and his wife are seeing broadcasts from tomorrow. —Michael Main
Say, that’s the Tuesday Review program! And today is Monday! How could that be?
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Comic Book

Unusual Tales #13

After Tomorrow!


While preparing for war against Bulavia, King Gustave of Translovia sees two visions of the future by way of a magnificent timepiece. —Michael Main
I have had a vision of my victory tomorrow!
Three large panels depict King Gustave of Translovia awaiting the arrival of a
                magnificent timepiece.
  • Fantasy
  • War
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
TV Episode

The Twilight Zone (v1s01e12)

What You Need


Rod Serling does an admirable job translating the original story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore to the small screen. The story’s two main incidents (the scissors and the shoes) come through with little change. In this version, the curious shopkeeper has become a street vendor, and the man who’s interested in the vendor’s goods is now a darker lowlife than the original newspaperman. Also, the science fiction aspect has been replaced by psychic precognition, solidly in the realm of fantasy, but not quite into weird fiction. —Michael Main
What have you got in there? Some sort of machine? Crystal ball? . . . You can see ahead, can’t you? You can look into the future.
On a city sidewalk at night, Steve Cochran (as Fred Renard) menacingly
                approaches Ernest Truex (as the street vendor Pedott).
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Time Phenomena
Short Story

Journey into Mystery #60

The Swami


After John McDermott’s uncle dies, John wants to know from the swami now what his uncle’s will holds. —Michael Main
You want me to tell you your future, I presume.
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

The Twilight Zone (v1s02e10)

A Most Unusual Camera


Petty thieves Chet and Paula Diedrich are frustrated, angry, and in a bickering mood when they find nothing but cheap junk in the 400-lbs. of stuff they lifted from a curios store in the middle of the night, . . . until that boxy looking camera with the indecipherable label—dix à la propriétaire—produces a photo of the immediate future. —Michael Main
Yeah, it takes dopey pictures—dopey pictures like things that haven’t happened yet, but they do happen.
Jean Carson (as Paula Diedrich) holds up an unusual, boxy camera.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

The Time Travelers

  • written and directed by Ib Melchior
  • (at movie theaters, USA, 29 October 1964)

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. —Michael Main
Isn’t it obvious? The war did happen. You never did go back with your warning.
A monster chases people across a rocket field--along with three other scenes
                from the future before it happens!
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Scrooge


A faithful musical retelling of the original (complete with humbugs and the ambiguity over whether viewing the past and present consists of actual time travel). —Michael Main
Humbug! Insolent young ruffians coming here with their Christmas nonsense!
A cartoon Scrooge highkicks at the front of a top-hat-wearing Christmas crowd.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

from The Teacher of Symmetry Cycle

Фотография Пушкин (1799–2099)

  • Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099)
  • Pushkin’s photograph (1799–2099)
  • Pushkin’s Photograph (1799–2099)
  • by Андре́й Би́тов
  • Znamia, January 1987

In 1985, an author has visions of a time traveler named Igor from 2099. The traveler is being sent by his comrades in the domed city of St. Petersburg back to the 19th century, where he is tasked with capturing images and audio of motherland’s supreme father of poetry, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.

Note: A dissertation by Gulius Natalya Sergeevna notes that this story is part of Bitov’s Teacher of Symmetry Cycle, which consisted of a series of avant-garde stories purportedly written by an obscure Englishman named A. Tired-Boffin and loosely translated to Russian by Bitov. The English version of “Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099)” was said to have been called “Shakespeare’s Photograph” (or possibly “Stern’s Laughter” or “Swift’s Pill”), and presumably it was about Shakespeare rather than Pushkin.

Sergeevna explains that all this artistic mystification was part of an extensive footnote to “Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099),” but up in the ITTDB Citadel, we’ve yet to track down the footnote. Perhaps it was part of the 1987 publication in Znamia, or maybe it did not appear until the story was published along with the rest of the cycle in Bitov’s 1988 collection, Chelovek v peyzazhe. It is not listed in the table of contents of "]Prepodavatelʹ simmetrii(2008), which was translated to English as Symmetry Teacher (2014). —Michael Main
. . . мы сможем в будущем, и не таком, господа-товарищи, далеком, заснять всю жизнь Пушкина скрытой камерой, записать его гол . . . представляете, какое это будет счастье, когда каждый школьник сможет услышать, как Пушкин читает собственные стихи!
translate . . . we will be able in the future, and, gentlemen-comrades, not such a distant one, to photograph Pushkin’s entire life with a hidden camera, record his voice . . . imagine how wonderful it will be when every schoolboy will be able to hear Pushkin read his own poetry!
Journal cover with red text on a white background.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

Goosebumps 4

Say Cheese and Die!


No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Horror
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Time Lapse


Three friends stumble across a camera that produces pictures from 24 hours in the future. That no-good Jasper thinks to use it to make a fortune with his bookie, while painter Finn is happy to see a painting that he’s going to paint, resulting in a nice example of the artist paradox. And Callie has her own agenda going on. From there, the plot turns into a gory thriller where whatever the photos show, the three friends must make happen or they will die as Mr. B. did, all while the bookie’s henchmen threaten them all. —Michael Main
Mr. B. invented a camera that takes pictures of the future.
Danielle Panabaker (as Callie) stares straight-ahead from out of a clockface
                above a large, mechanical and electronic contraption.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Flash, Season 2

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • (The CW, USA, 6 October 2015) to 24 May 2016)

After Barry aborts his mission to the past in Season 1 in order to prevent his own present from being erased, he finds that his travel has caused even bigger problems! Yep, a rift has been a-opened to a parallel world with an alternate Flash and an evil speedster and—it would seem—more time travelin’ and another attempt to save his mom and dad! —Michael Main
No, that’s not how it works. In our timeline, Barry’s mother’s already dead, and her death is a fixed point. And nothing can change that.
Surounded by yellow lightning, Grant Gustin (as the Flash) races towards us in
                his red costume with a new white logo on his chest.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

ドロステのはてで僕ら

  • Dorosute no hate de bokura
  • We at the end of the Droste
  • Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
  • by 上田誠, directed by 山口淳太
  • (at limited theaters, Japan, 5 June 2020)

For the first sixty minutes, a perfect static timeline seemed to be emerging from Kato’s video stream from two minutes in the future. We might even get some philosophical commentary on free will! Alas, that was not to be as the final ten minutes presented a more commonplace ending, although the single-take nagamawashi was executed with perfection and garnered this fun film an Eloi Medal.

P.S. Don’t skip the end-credits! —Michael Main
In front of the entire cast, Kazunari Tosa (as Kato) holds up a monitor
                depicting infinitely regressing images of monitors.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e05)

Twice in a Lifetime


The Island takes Nisha into two different versions of her future life in order to help her decide which man to marry. Only the Island knows whether Nisha is actually time traveling or merely experiencing potential futures, but the story’s ending suggests the latter. And meanwhile, out in the Island wilderness, Elena and Javier share intimate moments. —Michael Main
Let the future unfold.
John Gabriel Rodriquez (as Javier with a five-o
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e06)

The Big Five Oh


Lifetime friends Camille, Margot, and Nettie are celebrating their 50th birthdays on the Island along with a bit of time-slowing for Margot and a non-interactive trip to view a potential future for all three. —Michael Main
Margot [after seeing the future]: Was that real?
Elena: As of this moment, yes.
Daphne Zuniga, Josie Bisset, and Laura Leighton (as Margo, Cam, and Nettie) hug
                it out with smiles, champagne, and long white, terrycloth bath robes.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Future Tense


John—a.k.a. kiddo to his mom—has the “gift” of seeing possible futures and trying to avoid them. —Michael Main
There are always more than two options, John. Find option C.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for
                Daily Science Fiction.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
TV Episode

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (s01e10)

A Quality of Mercy


A despondent Captain Pike considers warning two future cadets about the accident that will kill them and maim Pike himself, but before he can write to them, his older self shows up to transport young Pike to the future that the warnings will create. —Michael Main
Young Pike: How am I supposed to believe . . . ?
Old Pike: . . . that I’m really you?
Young Pike: You ever gonna let me get a word in edgewise?
Old Pike: I knew you were gonna say that. Does that help?
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Crazy


While in a coma, a patient hears everything in the hospital room for 50 years. —Michael Main
But I heard everything, and I followed what was happening in the world.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for
                Daily Science Fiction.
  • Mainstream
  • Debatable Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Prognostiqueso


Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for
                Daily Science Fiction.
  • Mainstream
  • Time Phenomena
Feature Film

Ghosts of Christmas Always


This time around, the usual three ghosts are only one of the many three-ghost teams who are given a yearly assignment to scrooge one of the many Scrooges who seem to be more numerous than ever before. Together with their 2022 assignment—Peter Baron, an unsatisfied son of a food baron—they provide a nice tear-jerker for the entire family. —Michael Main
He’s like the anti-Scrooge.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse


Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy (as Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen) swing through various spider-verses, become close to each other, struggle to stave off the Spot, and learn of the thoughse of spider-heroes, some of who exhibit technology to reconstruct the past and possibly predict the future. —Michael Main
Well, maybe some things are supposed to be just for us.
No image currently available.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena