Exploring the Sustained Fascination Hollywood has for Time Travel

Time is a linear and irreversible experience in our lives. But mankind has always been curious about the idea of time. Even before we named it time, it existed as an ongoing sequence of events that take place. Categorizing this sequence into slots of past, present and future gives us a sense of control over it. While in real life, time as a dimension lords over us mercilessly, in reel life, a lot of liberty has been taken in tampering and playing around with the linearity of time. There are remarkable movies that explore the possibilities of time as a reversible non-linear dimension where one can move forward and backward with ease. Imagination alone sets the limit to the ambition of movie makers.

Some of the movies made on the motif of time have attained cult status. Box office success aside, they all have unique plots which stretches the human imagination to its peak. Time travel movies have not been restricted to the genre of Sci-fi alone. There are very entertaining Rom-Coms too that explore the idea. It is tough to choose a favorite among the many time travel movies ever made, but here are 5 movies which guarantee a very interesting viewing experience.

Back to the future: This is probably the most iconic of all time travel movies ever made and a favorite among movie buffs even after almost 4 decades since its release. This is a sci-fi classic where a teenager Marty McFly played by Michael J Fox is taken back to 1955, when an experiment by the eccentric scientist Dr Emmet Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd goes wrong. Marty travels back in time in a DeLorean car modified by the doc and meets the teen versions of his parents. He has the challenging task of making them fall in love with each other as only that can ensure his existence in the 80's. He also has the tough task of saving Doc’s life and returning to his real timeline. Some remarkably entertaining events unfold while he sets out to achieve it and all's well that ends well. Interestingly, Marty wears a Casio CA53W calculator watch and Doc Brown wears a Seiko A826 known as the Training Timer in the movie, both of which were popular models in the 80's.

Terminator:  Arnold Schwarzenegger who plays a Cyborg assassin known as a Terminator or T-800, travels from 2029 to 1984 disguised as a human to kill Sarah Connor played by Linda Hamilton. Kyle Reese who is also sent from future, but to protect Sarah, reveals the details of Skynet, an artificial intelligence Network from future which is expected to initiate a nuclear holocaust. Skynet wants  Sarah as well as her unborn son John Connor to be terminated because they know that John will lead the fight against Skynet in future. The movie is about the attempts by Sarah and Kyle to save themselves and the future generations from Skynet and its Cyborgs. Till date there are six movies made by the franchise with Terminator as the central character. We have to wait and watch if ‘he will be back’ and if there will be a 7th movie!

Interstellar: This is indeed one of the most fascinating movies made by maverick director Christopher Nolan. The background of the movie is where the earth becomes uninhabitable due to various calamities. Professor Brand, played by thespian Michael Caine is a scientist in NASA who is planning to save mankind by transporting the entire humankind to a new home through a wormhole. As part of the preparation he must however first send Matthew McConaughey, superbly cast as pilot Cooper, and a team of scientists through the wormhole, across the galaxy to check which planet has ideal conditions for human habitation. The scientific facts in the Movie were authenticated by an actual physicist Dr Kip Thorne who prevented the filmmakers from using concepts that violated any established laws of physics.

In time: This movie which did not get much mainstream fame, talks about a future scenario where time is actually money; a commodity you can trade in. So the wealthy can live longer as they have better purchasing power. The story weaves around Will Salas played by Justin Timberlake who is poor and has less than a day’s worth of time left in his credit as per the watch on his wrist that keeps tab. He saves a wealthy man from time thieves and gets gifted a century of time in return as payback. Authorities turn suspicious of him after the huge value transaction of time comes to their attention. He gets falsely accused of murdering a wealthy man’s daughter. The story unfolds with the couple joining hands in their attempts to make time a more equitably distributed wealth in everyone’s hands.

13 going on 30: This is a feel good movie about a girl who is bullied in school, and gets transformed into a grownup overnight. The teenager Jenna hopes for a boyfriend but is unable to find one. She also fantasizes about being a mature well-adjusted adult. Suddenly, her secret desire becomes a reality and she sees herself in the body of a 30-year-old played by the very talented Jennifer Garner. But adulthood comes with its own set of personal and professional challenges which are equally daunting to her. She makes an effort to learn from her mistakes and eventually wakes up back as a young girl of 13 in 1987. She sets right all the things she did wrong to have a happily ever after ending.

There are many more movies where time as a concept had a significant role to play. There are also cases where particular brands of watches became popular after a prominent character was seen wearing it.

•     Rolex: When Sean Connery introduced James Bond to Hollywood with Dr No he came wearing a Rolex Submariner ref. 6538 on the big screen. Loyalty to Rolex continued in many subsequent bond films like From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball. Rolex Sea-Dweller Deepsea was the preference of Ben Affleck in the much newer Argo. In American Psycho Christian Bale wore a Rolex datejust. Rolex allowed the same only under the condition that Bale wouldn’t been seen wearing it while committing any of the crimes he does in the movie.
  
  
•     Omega: By the time Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig took over as Bond, the preference moved to Omega. In Goldeneye Brosnan wears an Omega Seamaster and Craig wears a Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M in Skyfall and Quantum of Solace. Omega speedmaster was worn by Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 that achieved cult status in space exploration movies of all times. A vintage Omega CK2129 was worn by Tom Hardy in Dunkirk, the heroic WW2 movie inspired by real events.
  
  
• Breitling: A 44mm titanium Breitling Chrono Avenger is lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s preference in Blood diamond the award winning movie based on the diamond smuggling during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
  
  
•   Seiko: The quartz Seiko H558 diver watch was nicknamed “Arnie” as Arnold Schwarzenegger was seen wearing it in 3 of his biggest hit movies of the 80's- Commando, Predator and The Running Man.
  
  
•    Tag Heuer: Steve McQueen wears a Tag Heuer Monaco in Le Mans, one of the best racing movies of all time. Matt Damon when he reprised the role of Jason Bourne, went with Tag Heuer Link Chronograph for the first three of the series.

Some of the other popular time based Hollywood movies are Tenet, Predestination, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Doctor Strange, Donnie Darko and Arrival. To shop for some of the best watches Hollywood prefers or to buy other luxury watches online log on to https://zimsonwatches.com/

Pic courtesy: pinterest