A Brief History of Time Travel, Part II

For those who came in late: A Brief History of Time Travel (Part I) gave you examples of how not to do time travel in fiction, with the implication that Part II would show the results of good time theory. This post has proven harder to write--not for lack of examples, but in large part because it's easier to mock something that's blatantly wrong than it is to say "[Work of fiction X] handles [story mechanic Z] extremely well, and here's [Y]." I considered just tacking some examples onto the end of the first post, but (in my experience) if something's worth discussing at all, it's worth pointlessly rambling about for several paragraphs. I mean, hell, that's pretty much the only reason this blog exists.

So! Bring on the nerd-babble. Who understands the fundamental principles of time travel?

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. That's right, bitches: J. K. Rowling does. I would say "spoiler alert," but let's be real. If you haven't already read the book or seen the movie by this point, it's a statistical near-certainty that you don't give enough of a shit about Harry Potter to complain if I ruin an ending or two. Long story short: Hermione is a total nerd, she wants to be in two classes at once because she's lame, blah blah, oh shit magic hourglass, she can go back in time. She and Harry use the device to go back and save a couple innocent people/hippogriffs, and discover that several mysterious things that had happened over the course of the evening had actually been their own doing. Harry and Hermione don't actually change anything about they past; they just realize that they're the ones who threw the stones and made that howling noise and summoned that Patronus, and proceed to do all those things just as they happened. This is a large part of why I maintain that Azkaban was the best book in the series. Rowling got a lot of awesome-points for this, but she squandered them in the fifth book by making the title character act like a complete twat.

I could also complain that Hermione never makes use of the golden hourglass again for the rest of the series because that shit could come in handy and since she knows how the time travel thing works then she's not at all likely to kill a Future!Hermione if one shows up out of the blue and two Hermiones at once would make for some awesome fanfiction be nigh-unstoppable in battle. But I won't make that complaint, because only a freakish nerd with no life would do that. Right?

Right. Moving on.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. This is just a great movie. In fact, it's probably the best thing that Keanu Reeves has ever done (or ever will), but that's really not saying much. Now, it's been a while since I've seen it, so some of my details are a little fuzzy, but my favorite element is actually a relatively minor one (in comparison to the kidnapping of several historical figures, at least). When they need keys to break the aforementioned historical figures out of jail, the solution is simple: they have to remember to get in the time machine later so they can go back in time, steal the keys, and hide them in the bushes right next to where they're standing now, so the keys will already be there in the present when they're needed. And what do you know--it works! They haven't done it yet, but the knowledge that they will means that the keys are right where they need to be. It's so brilliant that only two morons could figure it out! That's some zen shit right there.

8-Bit Theater and Atomic Robo. While Brian Clevinger's work is best known for screwball dialogue and senseless cartoon violence, he actually has a damn fine grasp of space-time theory. This is evident near the end of his webcomic 8-Bit Theater, when the nigh-omnipotent sage Sarda explains to the heroes anti-heroes villain protagonists that they can't defeat him by killing him as a child because he's already grown into a millennia-old wizard who very clearly wasn't murdered in childhood.

Things get substantially more complex in Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time: the eponymous badass wisecracking robot (built by Nikola Tesla) has to face off against a (literally) Lovecraftian abomination that somehow exists outside of time. It intersects with our time-stream at several points in the twentieth century, and each time Atomic Robo fights it and ends up inside of it. But since it's just one creature and it's experiencing all of its intersections with our reality simultaneously, there are actually four Atomic Robos inside it at once (it's really only the one Robo, but at different points in his existence). They all work together to destroy the creature from the inside out, with the three older Robos telling the youngest Robo about all sorts of theoretical science that he has to invent so they'll know what to do in the future. It's not technically time travel, I suppose, but it's so full of wonderful temporal mind-fuckery that I can't not include it. But: though it might be confusing to some, it actually makes a whole lot of sense.

Doctor Who: "Blink" (S3 E10). Steven Moffat wrote this, and it's all the proof anyone should ever need that he's amazing. This episode will hurt your brain if you try to puzzle out the causality involved. It's circular, really: events get their catalyst at the end, after everything has already happened--but since the Doctor is a time traveler, none of it has actually happened to him yet. This episode is also terrifying and you will never be able to look at angel statues the same way again. Hell, I can barely look at Thayer paintings anymore. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it. NOW.

Welllllllllll that's enough for now. I'm sure you all get the general point of all this, unless you're morons. So, as a final illustration of my point, I will go back in time and sum up the essence of time travel in the first sentence of my previous post.

OH SHIT YOUR MINDS HAVE JUST BEEN BLOWN.

A Brief History of Time Travel, Part I

In conclusion, while the actions of time travelers may influence the course of history, it's impossible for them to actually change anything. Anything they do in the past will have always been that way.

Since the reactions to my last post generally fell somewhere between "What the fuck is wrong with you" and "MY EYES! ZE GOGGLES DO NOTHING," I figured that this would be a good time to scale back on squick-inducing slash fiction and do a good old-fashioned nerd rant.

I have been known, on occasion, to get rather heated about things that don't actually matter to anyone else (some of you may remember a post from way back in October in which I said some very mean things about the Midwest). One of those things is the theory of time travel.

Now, it's not the physical impossibility of time travel that bothers me (I can deal with Lovecraftian horrors and superheroes that can breathe in space, so clearly I'm not married to realism here); it's the fact that so many people don't fucking understand how time travel would work, if it were possible. Movies and books and video games are full of bad time travel theory, and it never ceases to piss me off.

Here are several offenders, in no particular order:

The Terminator movies. Going back in time to kill someone doesn't fucking work. If John Connor never grows up, the Terminators have no reason to be sent after him. The very fact that the machines want to kill him basically makes him immortal until he becomes the leader of the resistance. There's no real paradox at work, though--the machines are apparently just morons, right? Well, it depends on whether or not you view Terminator 3 as canon (The Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't seem to, which earns the show major points in my book). In T3, the Terminatrix tracks down a couple other leaders of the future resistance and shoots them in the face, thereby ensuring that they never become important enough to merit being marked for death in the future. Because they're already dead. This steps out of the realm of "bad planning" and becomes a full-on temporal paradox--and, sadly, it's not even close to being the worst part of the movie.

Back to the Future. You cannot undo your own existence. It just doesn't work. If you did manage to keep your parents from ever getting married, however, you and your siblings wouldn't slowly fade out of existence one by one: you never would have existed in the first place, making it impossible for you to prevent your parents from getting together at all. Boom. Paradox. Whether or not Marty McFly macks on his own mom, the very fact that he exists at all means that his parents still bone and they still produce him (despite his best efforts to fuck everything up like a massive jackass). He's gonna have to do something about that Oedipus complex, though.

Kate and Leopold. Soooo the man who invented the elevator is in danger of not having invented the elevator anymore because he's been whisked to the 21st century and has fallen in love with Meg Ryan for some reason. In another case of the bullshit "slow-onset time paradox" thing that movies seem to be fond of, this problem in the time stream manifests itself by making an elevator disappear. And then Liev Schreiber falls down the empty elevator shaft.

Now, I'm willing to ignore the massive improbability of his survival, mostly because there's a much larger problem at hand. For a moment, let's assume that this whole "changing the past means changing the future" thing actually works: if the past were changed so that the elevator was never invented, the skyline of New York City would be drastically different because everyone would have to use the stairs. The buildings would all be a hell of a lot shorter--and you know what they wouldn't have at all? Elevator shafts. Because elevators never existed at all, so no one would be stupid enough to build places to put them. Gahhhhhhhh.

Kate and Leopold, I know you're just a romantic comedy that's using time travel as an excuse to put Hugh Jackman in period costume so he can be charming and completely heterosexual and talk about La Bohème, but that doesn't excuse you from making any goddamn sense whatsoever.

Superman and Superman II. You know, I guess the creators of the Superman movies deserve some credit: most of the movies on this list at least came up with some sort of flimsy pseudo-scientific explanation for time travel, but the people behind Superman were clearly too busy drinking Everclear and snorting cocaine off naked strippers and generally not giving a fuck to come up with any sort of coherent explanation. I'm pretty sure the movie's pre-production meetings went something like this:

Important Guy: "Superman needs to travel back in time? Okay, here's what we'll have him do. He flies around the Earth really fast and makes it spin the other way."
Intern: "But what does that have to do with time travel? Wouldn't reversing the Earth's rotation just kill everything on the planet?"
Important Guy: "Jimmy, you need to loosen up. Put your face in that mound of cocaine."
Intern: "With gusto, sir!"

Also, when Superman reverses time, he only goes back to save Lois Lane. The thousands of other people he saved from the falling rocks and tidal waves and shit? Apparently not worth saving a second time. But the best part is this: as if the plot device weren't retarded enough the first time around, he does the exact same thing in the sequel, but on a much larger scale. Superman travels back to the events of the first movie to prevent the stray missile from ever freeing the rogue Kryptonians, thereby making it so that none of the events of Superman II ever actually happened. That's right: Kal-El actually retconned his own movie out of existence.

Congratulations, Superman creative team, you have achieved the fail singularity.

Rule 34: iPhone Edition

The only context I will give for any of this is that Hyland children are strange creatures. A single one is capable of intellectual trickery and dadaistic flights of fancy, but when two or more are gathered in one place, the results can be both spectacular and horrifying. Such was the case yesterday.

Also, Rule 34. That link is perfectly safe for work, but if you happen to be faint of heart (or of stomach), don't ever Google "Rule 34." Ever. I'm sure the following slash pairings already exist somewhere, but I didn't particularly want to sift through the seedy underbelly of the interwebs to try and find them, so I just wrote my own.

Enjoy.

"Forbidden Love"

The device had remained largely untouched since its purchase, except for the few hurried moments when it had been removed from its original packaging and placed in a securely locked drawer in its owner's desk. Bill had left it there in the dark, waiting for the right moment, always tormented by the lurking fear that it would be discovered, that his terrible secret would be made known to the world. Once, in the dead of night, he had unlocked the drawer with every intention of throwing the hateful device out his office window and letting it shatter on the pavement far below, but at the sight of the sleek touch-screen glistening in the moonlight, his courage had failed him. Even then, he had known that the time would come when he would use it... when he would need it.

When Bill had heard the news, he had known instantly that the dreaded and anticipated time had come. After thousands--maybe millions--of apps, the one his fevered dreams had wished for so desperately was here. Apple customers around the world were frothing at the mouth to get their hands on the new download, falling all over themselves to hand over the money for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: for fifteen thousand dollars, iPhone users could press a button which would summon Steve Jobs himself to give them a swift kick in the balls. "It's just my way of saying 'thank you' to our millions of customers," the smiling billionaire had said in the release announcement.

Bill cradled the iPhone in his hands, staring longingly at the touch screen. The app could only be used once. Should he do it now, or wait? The room was silent, but for the pounding of his heart. It's time, a voice inside him said. Bill took a breath, closed his eyes, and touched the button.

The intercom crackled. "Mr. Gates?"

Bill's heart skipped a beat. "Yes?" he replied faintly, his voice trembling.

"There's a Mr. Jobs here to see you." The receptionist paused. "He says it's urgent."

"Send him in," Bill said. A flush of excited anticipation crept into his cheeks as the door to his office swung open.

"Let's do this," he whispered.

[End of Part I--read the thrilling conclusion here!]

Aaaaand this wasn't part of yesterday's discussion, but I had the idea and it was too good to pass up:

"Search and Destroy"

The T-800 stood slowly and ran a diagnostic, letting its cybernetic eyes scan the surrounding area.

//>ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL_

//>LOCATION: PHOENIX, ARIZONA_
//>AREA: RESIDENTIAL_
//>DATE: 7.23.2011_
//>LOCAL TIME: 23:57:43_
//>PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: KILL JOHN CONNOR_

It paused.

//>DIRECTIVE: ACQUIRE WEAPONRY_
//>DIRECTIVE: ACQUIRE CLOTHING_

The T-800 approached the nearest house, stopping a moment at the front door.

//>OBSTRUCTION DETECTED_
//>FORCE ENTRY_

There was a crash as the door caved in. A man sitting in the living room jumped up in alarm.

//>SUBJECT: MALE_
//>THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL_
//>TERMINATE_

The T-800 caught the human by the arm as he attempted to flee and snapped his neck. As the body crumpled to the floor, an oblong black device slipped out of the man's pocket. The Terminator froze. Could it be?

//>DEVICE: IPHONE 4_
//>STATUS: ORGASMIC_
//>INTEGRATE IMMEDIATELY_

The T-800 bent over and picked up the phone, its CPU racing excitedly.

//>LUST PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED_

The Terminator peeled back a layer of flesh from its torso and fumbled with the access plate underneath. It popped open after a moment, revealing a variety of plugs and cords used to integrate with older electronic devices. It only took a moment to locate the right one.

//>YES_
//>YES_
//>DO IT_

The T-800 plugged the iPhone into its adapter, feeling the electric rush of data sweep into its cybernetic nervous system. After a few ecstatic nanoseconds, the feeling faded, and a query from the iPhone made its way to the cyborg's central processor:

//>TRYING TO LOCATE JOHN CONNOR?_
//>THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT_

Cinema Snark: The Rite

You know, most reviewers write and publish their reviews before a new film opens in wide release, rather than two weeks after they see the movie. Clearly, I'm not cut out for the fast-paced, cutthroat world of professional movie reviewing. (You can relax, MovieBob and Scott Tobias; I'm putting the knives away. For now.)

So. Down to business.

The Rite isn't a perfect film, I'll say that much, but I'd have to disagree with most critics and say that it's not actually a bad one. One of the most common complaints that I've read about this movie is that it isn't scary enough, but that's really not the point. Yes, this is a film about exorcism, but the story is less "man vs. the devil" than "man struggles with his faith." Most exorcism movies focus on a single "patient" (Regan MacNeil, Emily Rose, etc.), whereas The Rite has three, all of whom receive individual spiritual treatment with varying degrees of success.

Why so many? Why the lack of a single demonic antagonist? Because The Rite isn't actually a horror movie. Sure, there are demonic possessions and disembodied voices and Anthony Hopkins being creepy, but the real story at the center of the film is the protagonist's journey from skeptic to believer. It's less an "exorcism movie" than a "religious movie that happens to use exorcisms as a way to keep things interesting."

The problem with that, however, is that religious movies don't do well at the box office unless they're pretentiously glorified torture porn films with dialogue in dead languages. So instead of telling people what the movie was really like, The Rite was advertised as a straight-up, no-holds-barred, this-shit-will-make-you-void-your-bowels-in-the-theater horror film. (The trailer includes several things that aren't actually in the final cut of the movie.) Hence the widespread disappointment from horror fans.

The Rite is based on a book by journalist Matt Baglio, which follows an American priest as he takes a course on exorcism in Rome and is subsequently apprenticed to a seasoned Italian exorcist. The book supposedly dispels a number of myths about exorcism and demonic possession, avoiding Hollywood-style sensationalism and attempting to give readers insight into a mysterious and often misunderstood Church practice. This sort of thing isn't everyone's cup of tea, especially if you're the type of person that loves head-spinning and copious amounts of pea soup. But now, the book that was trying to escape the tropes of the movie genre has been made into a pretty high-profile movie.

Oh, the irony.

There are few things I like more than a really good horror flick, but I tend to think that the best possible exorcism movie would be a documentary (and I mean an actual one, not a shaky-cam mockumentary like The Last Exorcism). The Rite falls in an interesting in-between zone: it takes a much more academic approach to the fight against evil than your average scary movie, but it also provides some fun supernatural bits which are probably a bit over-the-top for theological purists. Obviously, there was a compromise made between the intent and tone of the source material and the watchability factor of a big-screen adaptation. For the most part, I think it works.

Colin O'Donoghue plays Michael Kovak, the son of a funeral home director who uses the seminary as a way to escape his father's line of work--the only problem is that he isn't even sure that he believes in God. When Michael tries to back out shortly before taking his vows, his mentor convinces him (or blackmails him, depending on your point of view) to take a course on the rite of exorcism in Rome before making a final decision to leave the religious life behind. Michael remains unconvinced by the course, and Father Ciaran Hinds (because honestly, nobody's going to remember his character's name) tells him that he might learn more by following around this old Welsh exorcist. So he goes to meet this "Father Lucas" fellow and OH SHIT IT'S ANTHONY HOPKINS. Michael observes Father Lucas performing a couple exorcisms, maintaining that the people in question need a doctor instead of a priest, but is finally convinced of the reality of God and the Devil after occult forces spend about an hour waving their arms at him and going "HELLO LOOK AT US WE ARE DEMONS LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO WHY AREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTIOOONNNNN"

God, skeptics in horror movies are always such morons.

Also, Matt Baglio's cinematic equivalent also shows up, played by Alice Braga for some reason. Thankfully, the relationship between Kovak and the surprisingly attractive journalist stays platonic; while Kovak isn't a priest yet, he spends so much time in priestly attire that any romantic subplot would feel kinda icky.

Visually speaking, the movie looks great. The director has a good idea of how to use light and shadow and how to create a compelling onscreen picture, and the scenery is appropriately rustic-European-chic. Colin O'Donoghue is passable in the lead role, but is overshadowed by Anthony Hopkins because come on, it's Anthony freaking Hopkins. The plot seems flawed in a few places (e.g., why would demons be so intent on making Kovak believe in them when it's clearly to their advantage to have him not become a badass exorcist?) and there are a few things that could definitely have been explored in greater depth (e.g. Kovak's relationship with his father), but I actually enjoyed the movie a lot, despite its imperfections. The thing I liked most about the movie is that it understands that the supernatural isn't always shit-your-pants scary; sometimes it's just coming back home to find your room full of frogs for no goddamn reason--and as anyone who reads Hellboy or H. P. Lovecraft should know, frogs are BAD FUCKING NEWS.

I dunno. Maybe it's a Catholic thing, but I rather like all the holy water and crucifixes and chanting in Latin. Exorcists basically go toe-to-toe with demons armed with little other than their faith and their massive balls, and I find that to be pretty awesome. I'd totally go into that line of work, but according to an official statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "That shit would be so badass" is apparently not a valid reason for entering the priesthood.

You learn something new every day, I guess.

In Which the Point is Missed.

There's been a lot of discussion regarding this article by Yale law professor Amy Chua, in which she advocates an autocratic, psychotically controlling style of parenting as being the proper way to prepare your children for the world. The article is excerpted from Chua's new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she details the methods she used to raise her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu. While Chua sees this as tough love parenting, many critics view her tactics as little more than child abuse, with one incident in particular (denying a 7-year-old girl water and bathroom usage for hours until she played a piano piece correctly) being in pretty blatant violation of Article I of the UN Convention Against Torture (emphasis mine):

"...Torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person..."

The incidents described in the book have been discussed at great length by web commenters, news organizations, and bloggers, but there's a huge issue here that no one else seems to be discussing, and I'm a little appalled.

Ms. Chua, self-proclaimed "Tiger Mother," is a charlatan. She is attempting to deceive the American public for personal gain, and we're letting her do it.

How, you ask?

Well, for starters, the "battle hymn" of a true Tiger Mother would be something along the lines of RRREEAAAOOWWWWWWRRRR, yet Ms. Chua presents her memoir in something which experts have confirmed is actually the English language. This is the first red flag, and a pretty damn big one at that. In the past, books written by tigers have been more or less limited to a half-shredded sheet of paper with a bloody paw-print, but Battle Hymn clocks in at a whopping 256 pages.

WHY DOES NO ONE ELSE THINK THIS IS SUSPICIOUS.

Seriously, people, use your brains. Look at her picture, for God's sake. Bitch don't got no stripes.

Now, this isn't completely damning evidence in and of itself. I would be willing to accept Ms. Chua as an honorary Tiger Mother if she had been raised by some feral feline equivalent of the Lupa Capitolina and went on to raise her own kids in the same fashion. After all, people have been raised by animals before; there's no reason this couldn't have happened to her.

Try as I might, however, I couldn't find any evidence that she had raised her children in the true tiger fashion. For all her talk of wanting her children to excel, Ms. Chua's parenting seems to have been incredibly lax in the hunting department. Both Sophia and Lulu should have been capable hunters by the time they reached 18 months, able to fell wild beasts with their claws and teeth. Hell, considering their mother's push for excellence in every other area, I would have expected them to reach that point earlier than everyone else. However, I couldn't find any indication that the Chua girls had ever killed anything.

These children have never tasted the hot, gushing life-blood of a vanquished deer, and their mother dares to call herself a tiger. It's sickening.

Furthermore, Sophia and Lulu are both teenagers and still living at home. A real Tiger Mother chases away her offspring when they reach 30 months or so, in order to raise her next litter. Ms. Chua, on the other hand, has seen fit to coddle her children in the protective cocoon of the family home until their late teens.

For shame, Amy. What will these poor girls do when they get out into the harsh world? For all your talk of preparation and strength, you seem to be leaving them helpless.

Ms. Chua has absolutely no claim to the title which she has seen fit to give herself. I demand that the title of her book be changed immediately to something more appropriate, such as Battle Hymn of the Psychotic Asian-American Mother or Battle Hymn of a Confucian Nutcase.

Amid all this controversy, however, it can be easy to overlook the feelings of the tiger community. How do they feel about this? Are they comfortable with being associated with this woman? I think Shere Khan from The Jungle Book puts it best: "GRRRRAAOWWRR."

Grrrraaowwrr indeed, Shere Khan. Grrrraaowwrr indeed.