Thursday, December 02, 2010

Thursday Talk: Time Travel

J: Time travel as a plot device can be really fun or it can be really bad. What are your favorite movies, books or TV shows involving time travel? And which ones were just stupid?

Jennifer: As a sci-fi/fantasy fan, there are just so many good options! In movies, I have to go with the classic Back to the Future. It's so hilarious when Marty's mom starts hitting on him! My book pick is A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle. It's incredibly imaginative with a fascinating made-up history and just lots of great characters. Oh and of course Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, both the book and the movie (because we apparently HP is an appropriate answer for almost every Thursday Talk question). For TV series, I'll plug Being Erica again and of course Doctor Who. I'm generally more a fan of the episodes where they go into the past (like the classic "The Girl in the Fireplace") but the future/alien worlds can be really great too. As for the bad, I really cannot let go of the terrible, terrible last half season of Felicity...

Mira: Well... Favorite blog entries on time travel was definitely this: pooryoricksadventure. ;-) Favorite book for me was Time Traveler's Wife, though I haven't reread it in a while and apparently barely remember the tragedy that hits Henry. Nor have I watched the movie yet (though I love Rachel McAdams!). Jasper Fford's Eyre series does a very interesting thing with time traveling/space traveling. Favorite movie was: 13 Going on 30. It sorta counts as time traveling, right? Least favorite of all time traveling things: I agree, Felicity SUCKED.

4 comments:

burkie said...

i've done quite a bit of research on this topic ;)

i agree with gavin cardigan in that one of my favorties is the little known movie Time After Time (1979). check it out sometime if you've never seen it. David Warner is great as Jack The Ripper (remembering that he was even greater as Bob Cratchitt in the george c. scott version of A Christmas Carol. quite a contrast!)

for least favorite, did you ever see a show called Seven Days? i think it was on the sci-fi channel in the late '90s. pretty preposterous stuff.

Fanny said...

My favorite book involving time travel is also Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; I loved the way J.K. Rowling tied everything together. For movies, I love A Christmas Carol[1951], Meet the Robinsons and Donnie Darko [does that count?]. I also liked Journeyman for television. It was only on for one season, but it was nice to follow [possibly because Kevin McKidd is the main character.] The dumbest time travel related media I ever saw was this Hong Kong show called D.I.E, about a cop who upon touching certain items, can see the events that occurred around the item. He would then use these visions to solve his cases. That show infuriated me to no end. Every time he had a vision, he would do this ridiculous head bobbing thing and he completely relied on the visions to close the cases? Where was the proof? Worst time travel/cop show EVER!

Jennifer said...

Donnie Darko is one of my favorites too but even though it's about time travel...it doesn't have all that much of it in it? I also really liked Journeyman and was somewhat disappointed when it was cancelled.

Burkie, I vaguely remember Seven Days...I think it was on UPN, which well, I think kind of says it all. I'll have to check out Time After Time! r

burkie said...

hahaha, D.I.E. sounds pretty bad! a time travel movie i forgot about was The Terminator. i liked the movie (the first one, anyway). i never saw the recent TV show, though.