Poll: The Best Time-Travel Movie

[Dead Seerius]

Where's Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure?

You can't have a legitimate time travel poll without Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!!!

How did I forget! Please forgive me, Ted.

 

[Olas]

Well 12 Monkey's is the very best TT movie in my opinion.

12 Monkeys is my choice.

I don't mean to pick on you two specifically, but anyone who picked 12 Monkeys should be ashamed of themselves! Not only was it dull, drawn out, too dark and a complete waste of the awesomesauce that is the Willis, but the original short film it is based on had a much, MUCH more atmospheric feel to it, and unlike the tripe that 12 Monkeys was, La Jetee told you everything you needed to know, and got the entire story wrapped up nicely in just 25 minutes! And without that absurd mental institution scene to boot! Have a look for yourselves, then hang your heads in shame!


/rant.

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!
I don't see how you can possibly call 12 Monkeys dull or drawn out compared to that 25 minute snore-fest. The only thing I'm ashamed of is actually sitting through the whole thing. I'm not saying time travel movies should look like they were directed by Micheal Bay, but I'd appreciate at least a little production value you know.
And what exactly makes this more atmospheric? The fact that it's in black and white? Come on, how pretentious do you have to be to pretend to enjoy this over the rich inventive visuals of 12 Monkeys, especially in the future scenes. Terrence Gilliam is a master of visual aesthetics, 12 monkeys may not be the best example of his talent but it's still leaps and bounds over most boring uninspired sci-fi flicks in terms of atmosphere.

In fact, I believe you've made me realize what it is about 12 Monkey's that I like so much, it has the creativity and boldness of vision we typically associate with an art film with the large budget and production value of a hollywood blockbuster. That's just something you don't see much, and 12 Monkeys totally benefits from both.

And don't attack the mental institution scene. The main characters uncertainty of his own sanity throughout the film and lingering doubt over whether the future memories are even real is one of the best parts of that movie. It's in many ways reminiscent of The Shining or the ending to Inception where we don't even know if we can trust what we're seeing to be anything more than the protagonists imagination. Just another way in Which 12 Monkeys is more conceptually interesting than this little slideshow. And don't even get me started on all the nature and religious symbolism in 12 Monkeys which this little terd obvious has none of.

Sorry to shit all over the thing you like, but you did do that to me and several other people, so I don't think it's exactly unfair. I suppose this little short film works to some degree in it's own minimalistic way. judged purely on it's own accord I can see what some (very patient) people could like about it and how it could inspire a full feature length film, I just wouldn't go around comparing the two side by side if I were you.

 

[AnotherAvatar]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo, Looper had one good concept but when you try and put it in the real world you have to ask - why the fuck won't they do the infinite other activities you can do with this device? I mean - it's already illegal, what's stopping people (criminals) from doing what the hell they wanted? It's so narrow in the way it looks at the concept.

12 Monkeys was just an evil movie.
Planet of the Apes made little sense to me.
Terminator was the epiphany of a mediocre movie made on a flimsy budget (Thus making it even more awesome) getting over-hyped and having three more sequels added to it after it became a bloody cult classic.
Primer had a very neat system but suffered a bit from its structure. Yes, not exploding car chases and titties flying around, but it still lacked something.
StarTrek? seriously?

How was 12 Monkeys evil?

That film is amazing, gotta love Gilliam.

Edit: And while I voted for 12 Monkeys, I'm doing a write in right now for Donnie Darko. Sure, maybe it's not about time travel, maybe it is, maybe it's about nothing, maybe it's about everything, and that's why I'm voting for it!

Edit of an Edit: Also... while we're talking Gilliam and Time travel.. my mind is blown that Time Bandits isn't on that list.. Honestly that MAY be the best time travel movie ever.

 

[Olas]

No Bill And Ted? No sale!

Boo!

Wow, I was so certain that would be on the list I didn't even bother checking for it. Surely nobody could create a list of time travel films and not include that little gem. I'm shocked.

Also, this just occurred to me but Prince of Persia is essentially a time travel movie as well. I can understand OP overlooking that one though.

 

[AnotherAvatar]

The original Time Machine was one of my favorites. It detailed changes in time and showed how much things can change in 100 years. Love it.

Course I'm a science geek so it may not appeal to everyone.

Oh god yes, I forgot about this film. So great!

 

[CATS FTW]

Twelve Monkeys for me, Bill and Ted's excellent adventure is very close second. Time Splitters for best gtame, and Cashback is a great time-stop rather than travel film.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I thought Planet of the Apes was a 'sleep for hundreds of years, then wake up in the future' movie, not a time travel movie. But I vote Back to the Future, mostly because they made a 50s movie, a sci-fi 50s movie, and a western, all in the same series. I can just imagine a committee trying to figure out what to do for the third movie, and someone was like "we have a time machine, we can do whatever the hell we want!"

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

You did NOT just create a thread about time travel movies and leave out The Time Machine.

(snip)

I also liked a little film called Time Crimes, a low budget flick that explores the concept quite interestingly with several cool twists and things that require re-watching. The hard part of recommending a time travel movie is often that it's hard to explain what's good about it without spoiling all the neat twists and that's definitely true of Time Crimes. Let's just say the protagonist becomes his own worst enemy. (...)

Aye, I very much liked the first Back to the Future movie, but my all-time true love is with The Time Machine (1960) with Rod Taylor. It's still one of my favourite movies. the 2002 abomination should be dumped in some landfill. It doesn't matter that H. G. Wells' great-grandson is somehow involved, idiotism can happen in the best families. I love me some Guy Pierce, but even his bod and mug can't lift this total turd of a movie out of its self-dug hole.

Cronocrimenes (2007, "Time Crimes") also happens to be one of my favourite time travel movies... as is Donnie Darko. Both of them came totally out of left field for me and I've grown quite fond of both of them. Tragic and, at times, violent in nature, but so jock full of laughs and maybe a tear and a shudder of udder confusion at times. Splendid movies, those.

Beware!!! - there's said to be a remake of Cronocrimenes in the works. Not sure if that's really the case, but if you do like time travel movies and don't develop aneurysms or cancer when watching original, non-remade, non-english movies, do treat yourself to Cronocrimenes. At times we really couldn't properly decide if we should be raging, crying or laughing our tits off. It's really a jolly good one, that.

 

[Squilookle]

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!
I don't see how you can possibly call 12 Monkeys dull or drawn out compared to that 25 minute snore-fest. The only thing I'm ashamed of is actually sitting through the whole thing. I'm not saying time travel movies should look like they were directed by Micheal Bay, but I'd appreciate at least a little production value you know.
And what exactly makes this more atmospheric? The fact that it's in black and white? Come on, how pretentious do you have to be to pretend to enjoy this over the rich inventive visuals of 12 Monkeys, especially in the future scenes. Terrence Gilliam is a master of visual aesthetics, 12 monkeys may not be the best example of his talent but it's still leaps and bounds over most boring uninspired sci-fi flicks in terms of atmosphere.

In fact, I believe you've made me realize what it is about 12 Monkey's that I like so much, it has the creativity and boldness of vision we typically associate with an art film with the large budget and production value of a hollywood blockbuster. That's just something you don't see much, and 12 Monkeys totally benefits from both.

And don't attack the mental institution scene. The main characters uncertainty of his own sanity throughout the film and lingering doubt over whether the future memories are even real is one of the best parts of that movie. It's in many ways reminiscent of The Shining or the ending to Inception where we don't even know if we can trust what we're seeing to be anything more than the protagonists imagination. Just another way in Which 12 Monkeys is more conceptually interesting than this little slideshow. And don't even get me started on all the nature and religious symbolism in 12 Monkeys which this little terd obvious has none of.

Sorry to shit all over the thing you like, but you did do that to me and several other people, so I don't think it's exactly unfair. I suppose this little short film works to some degree in it's own minimalistic way. judged purely on it's own accord I can see what some (very patient) people could like about it and how it could inspire a full feature length film, I just wouldn't go around comparing the two side by side if I were you.

How anyone... ANYONE could sit through the one-hundred-and-twenty-nine minutes of 12 monkeys and then say the 25 minute film it's derived from is boring...

And no, being black and white has nothing to do with it's atmosphere, and I happen to find 12 Monkeys' visuals to be -anything but- rich and inventive. Terry Gilliam isn't a master of asthetics, he's just a master of weird- and whether or not his visions actually work on film is an entirely different matter. Nine times out of ten he just creates an absolute mess. The film wasn't bold (though the funding of it almost certainly was), and definitely wasn't creative: it just took an existing self contained story, and chucked a bunch of other loose concepts in to pad it out.

Considering how little material of any value whatsoever 12 Monkeys added to La Jetee while expanding the running time more than five time over!, you can keep your nature and bogus religious symbolism- the short film does just fine getting the point across without relying on such cliches.

Still can't get over the idea of needing to be more patient for the short film than for the looooong movie!

 

[Olas]

Snip

How anyone... ANYONE could sit through the one-hundred-and-twenty-nine minutes of 12 monkeys and then say the 25 minute film it's derived from is boring...

You're surprised? You think that somehow simply being shorter makes it more interesting or engaging? That 25 minutes felt like an ETERNITY! It has about 1/5th the run time and roughly 1/50th the content. The GIF you just posted is more interesting to watch.

It helps that 12 Monkeys isn't a tedious slideshow of uninteresting photographs with slow, brief, and infrequent narration being the only real source of a story. 12 Monkeys actually has character development. The characters have backgrounds beyond "He was the man who's story we are now telling", dialogue beyond "She asks about his medallion. He invents an explanation". And when 12 Monkeys spends long periods of time on a visual it has an actual visual worth stopping to look at, not repetitive montage of people's faces.

I mean La Jetee is little more than the skeletal framework for the story that 12 Monkeys used and added to enormously, it's almost hard to understand why we're comparing them at all. 90% of the story elements from 12 Monkeys, including the central conflict of the main character questioning reality and how he actually creates the organization he was originally trying to stop, the best parts of 12 Monkeys essentially, aren't even from La Jetee but were original concepts. The biggest thing it borrowed, him seeing his future self get shot, really isn't even that important to the story or significant beyond being an ironic coincidence.

La Jetee has very little going for it. I threw you a bone when I said it worked in it's own minimalistic way. Why you feel the need to press this and try to compare these respective artworks of completely different scales is beyond me.

And if it isn't the monochrome that you think gives your film more atmosphere, what the hell is it? You've been leaving this detail out. In fact, you haven't really explained why this movie is good at all except that 12 Monkeys apparently sucks by contrast.

 

[poxyrom]

Unlike every person I have ever spoken to about this movie, I loved Deja Vu.
Although 12 Monkeys was great too.

 

[Spade Lead]

I'm gonna say Back to the Future.. But I suspect that's because of the rose tinted nostalgia goggles.
Haven't seen any of the films in ages.

They are the only movies mentioned here that have made it into my (Annoyingly) limited Blu-ray collection, and I bought them the first weekend they came out on Blu-ray. That said. I really don't remember the others of the movies mentioned that I have seen (Terminator isn't a time travel movie, in my opinion, only because we never see any change in what happens from one movie to the next. Furthermore, why not send the Terminators further back in time, rather than keep sending them at such long intervals between attacks? Hell, why not send 10 T1000s at the same time and get the job FUCKING DONE!)

 

[PrimitiveJudge]

Bill and Ted's excellent adventure for this reason alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UGAbAPPkk . Extreme lead guitarist is so badass

It is sadly more accurate on what would happen, people acting their age and getting arrested. Well fine not all Different, but it was funny.




P.S. 12 Monkies was so boring, it almost made me want to do drugs, instead I took the DVD player to the back yard and unloaded 3 shotgun shells into it.

 

[Squilookle]

Truth be told, as soon as I saw that gif I knew I just had to use it somewhere... someday

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as angry or anything like that- it's really more just bewilderment. We're just coming at this from two completely opposite angles, and I'm finding it increasingly frustrating that the deeper I get into the 12 Monkeys fanbase, the more and more of them I find don't even know about the film's originator.

12 Monkeys actually has character development. The characters have backgrounds beyond "He was the man who's story we are now telling", dialogue beyond "She asks about his medallion. He invents an explanation". And when 12 Monkeys spends long periods of time on a visual it has an actual visual worth stopping to look at

See, I just can't agree with you there. Look, I'll admit Jetee was bare bones- there's more to think about after the story than while watching it, sure, but it's a short film. Less content is par for the course, and the stuff to ponder once it's done is a bonus. I really didn't see much in 12 Monkeys that actually expanded on anything in a meaningful way. I did not see the main character in 12 Monkeys develop any more than the one in Jetee. Sure he gradually got better at his job, but that's the same in both films. Yes he questioned reality but that ultimately went nowhere either. There were other elements to 12 Monkeys put in, but they'd all been seen done better elsewhere, and saying they make up 90% of 12 Monkeys seems a bit of a stretch.

And if it isn't the monochrome that you think gives your film more atmosphere, what the hell is it? You've been leaving this detail out. In fact, you haven't really explained why this movie is good at all except that 12 Monkeys apparently sucks by contrast.

It's hard to say for sure, but I think it's the way it implies rather than outright shows the bleakness of the future, and maintains a feel of not rushing itself while moving along at a more or less constant pace. The way, for instance, that it had the camera linger on the healthy leaves on the trees and the animals in the museum (possibly being the main character's point of view) gave the film the feel of seeing what is commonplace to you and me through the eyes of someone who did not grow up with them and is consequently fascinated with them. I'm sure you get a similar feel from 12 Monkeys, but where I think they differ is that Jetee has a clear goal of how it's story plays, and sticks to it knowing exactly what it's doing. 12 Monkeys meanders around in the darkness trying to pad out the existing plot with other strands that are ultimately pretty forgettable. To be honest I don't know if anyone could stretch Jetee into a feature-length movie and make it work. Perhaps it could be done, but I just don't think 12 Monkeys was that film. Though like you said, it didn't go the standard sensationalist sci-fi route, so it definitely deserves points for that.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

We're on the third page and not one shout for Army of Darkness?

Spoiler: *shakes head*

Escapist, I am dissapoint.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

The Back to the Future trilogy, hands down. Ironically, its concept of time travel makes no fucking sense in retrospect, but that doesn?t matter when they?re such clever and enjoyable films. I wouldn?t really count any of the Terminator films as ?time-travel films?; they?re more like just ?sci-fi films?, as they don?t deal specifically in time travel (there?s only those initial scenes that show a naked Terminator/John Connor coming back to the past, with a few flash-forwards to the future).

What I dislike about the Back to the Future series is that it implies that it is a-ok to change the past / future if it fits you. Especially the second movie has the premisse of where Doc Brown jumps out of character and wants to change history to prevent shit in the future when his biggest gripe in the first was that you are not allowed to change time (though he breaks his standard due to human flaw). The changes made are also on a too small scale for my liking. Biffs entire life is ruined but is that all? No, I'm pretty sure a lot more is changed and people who never did a bad thing are now pretty much fucked.

Spoiler

Doc Brown only ever said that it's wrong to change the history for your own financial gain, which is why he berated Marty for buying that sports almanac. And anyway, in the middle of Back to the Future II, Brown does say that he never should've built the time machine in the first place, because it was so dangerous and could've fallen into the wrong hands (which it did), and was planning to destroy it before he got blasted back to 1885 (...and then they converted it into a train, and he presumably decided to keep it because of his new family).

The Back to the Future films don't have any overarching message, other than the usual "don't fuck too much with the past". Even the little plotholes with its most basic concept of time travel, as well as Marty rewriting history by using Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix's signatures in his routine, doesn't overshadow an overall brilliant trilogy.

I think Cracked did a video on this a while ago, so just watch that. But anyway, my point still stands. They?re still good, unrestrained fun.

 

[Padwolf]

Just two words
Groundhog Day

I was going to say Time Bandits but then I read this. He's right.

I voted other because I agree with these guys, Groundhog Day. That was such a great film! I don't know if it counts, but it is some sort of time travel.

Also I am going to give a mention to The Time Traveller's Wife. It was a good film in my opinion, good use of time travelling.

 

[BartyMae]

I really don't generally care for Bruce Willis movies, but 12 Monkeys is my favorite out of this list, followed by Back to the Future. 12 Monkeys was so weird, but it was pretty awesome.