Ex Nihilo Knowledge

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Novella

Time Patrol 6

Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks

Everard Manse appears to be the sole Patrolman standing between the evil Exaltationists and the fall of ancient Tyre—or possibly the fall of all civilization. Ah, but wait! The loyal street urchin Pum will also stand by his side! —Michael Main
If Tyre explodes, why, here we’ll be, but our ancestors, your kids, everything we knew, they won’t. It’ll be a whole different history. Whether whatever is left of the Patrol can restore it—somehow head off the disaster—that’s problematical. I’d call it unlikely.
A bearded man in a blue hat and cape holds a spear in front of a futuristic flying scooter.
  • Undetermined
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Star Trek IV

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

As the brave crew of the Enterprise are returning to Earth on a Klingon Bird of Prey to stand trial for the events of the previous movie, Spock determines that Earth’s demise is imminent unless they can return to 1986 and retrieve a humpback whale (which they proceed to do).

I saw this in the theater with Deb Baker and Jon Shultis during a winter trip to Pittsburgh for a small computer science education conference. —Michael Main
McCoy: You realize that by giving him the formula you’re altering the future.
Scotty: Why? How do we know he didn’t invent the thing?
Headshots of the Enterprise crew overlook a Klingon ship passing over the Golden Gate bridge.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Terminator 2

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Once more, the machines from 2029 send back a killer cyborg, this time a T-1000 to kill young John Connor in 1995, but Resistance-leader Connor of the future counters by sending a reprogrammed original T-800 to save himself. —Michael Main
The T-800: [to Sarah at the Pescadero State Hospital] Come with me if you want to live.
Shotgun-toting Arnold Schwarzenegger in his trademarked Terminator sunglasses sits stoically on his stolen motorcycle.
  • Gold Medal Eloi
  • 1992 Hugo
  • 1991 Nebula
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

We Haven’t Got There Yet

Some 360 years before Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead debuted in Edinburgh, Will Shakespeare himself attends a performance. —Michael Main
His mind races faster than a horse galloping downhill. Try as he will, he can’t mistake her meaning. If Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is dead itself—a century dead!—then Hamlet must be older yet. But his head had only a little more hair, and that only a little less gray, when he wrote it. An impossibility—an impossibility he has just seen staged.
translate Okay, William Shakespeare, what the hell d’you want with us? Why’d you barge in here, anyway, and how much did you pay the hired muscle outside?
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  • Science Fiction
  • 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
Feature Film

Journey Back to Christmas

Nurse Hannah, grieving the death of her husband in World War II, is knocked out during the great storm of the Christmas comet, and she wakes up 71 years later. —Michael Main
I heard a big boom: I think it was thunder in the storm.
Oliver Hudson (as Jake), Candace Cameron Bure (as Hannah), and Tom Skerritt (as Mr. Cook) stand together in a wintery scene with what looks like a meteor streaking across the sky.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Families
  • 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
Feature Film

夏への扉 -キミのいる未来へ-

  • Natsu e no tobira: Kimi no iru mirai e
  • The door to summer: To the future with you
  • The Door into Summer
  • by 菅野友恵 [Kanno Tomoe], directed by 三木孝浩 [Miki Takahiro]
  • (theatrical release, Japan, 25 June 2021)
All the crucial pieces of Heinlein’s novel are here, including Pete (the cat) and a single, consistent timeline. —Michael Main
A montage of characters from the Japanese adaptation of Heinlein’s The Door into Summer.
  • Honorable Mention Eloi
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Miniseries

8 episodes

Bodies

Slowly, the investigations of four different appearances of the same body come together in four different years from 1890 to 2053. —Michael Main
My thesis dared to posit that cause and effect is malleable, right? Which therefore makes time, as we know it, totally changable and fluid.
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

A Biltmore Christmas

While trying to find inspriation for a rewrite of a classic picture, Lucy finds herself thrown back to the set of the original film at the Biltmore Estate in 1947. —Michael Main
Are you sure this is a good idea? What if you change something in the past? I mean, won’t that affect the future?
In fancy dress, Bethany Joy Lenz (as Lucy) and Kristoffer Polaha (as Jack) cuddle under a starry sky with the Biltmore Estate in the background.
  • Honorable Mention Eloi
  • Romance
  • Definite Time Travel