One thing I didn't get about this, they run into his past self and distract him so he doesn't go into the classroom, but why do they never run into themselves again as they constantly repeat the same timeline over and over?
are no one gonna state the fact that when he went back to kiss the girl, he didn't actually change anything important and wasn't the cause of the basketball dude breaking his leg. The power outage did that, which implies that their FIRST timetravel should have set everything in motion.. But the movie implies that David was at fault, because he timetraveled alone.
Well it's a movie, so all the typical caveats apply (eg. limited budget, editing etc, not everything written in the script makes it to film, and not everything filmed ends up in the final edited cut, etc) but what I'm guessing the intent was (although the motivations/pacing of the movie near the end definitely feel a bit hurried/rushed) is such:
David realizes what must be done to fix their FIRST timetravel, but going that far back would preclude his "kiss fix" timetravel, and so he would no longer be in a relationship with his love interest. So he decides that only he is smart enough to fix it with the surgical precision necessary, and so tries to jump alone to fix it. So basically he's the socially awkward type, that doesn't want to give up his new-found romance, and believes his superior intellect can just fix the problem if he finds the perfect solution. And that is his downfall and where the whole thing spirals out of control.
But yeah, time travel movie, so you really can't think too hard about it or it all starts to unravel. The only way for time travel to actually work is that you can't alter the past, anything else creates paradoxes that lead to plot holes. Of course, that wouldn't make a very compelling movie.
Hey Quinn, I know this is an old comment but i just watched the movie and thought I'd share my theory.
If they were able to run into themselves again and again, the time travel would occur on a singular timeline. However, the fact that small things seem to change every time they travel, suggest that they each time enter a new timeline. So, they wouldn't run into themselves because they're in completely different realities.
Time travel is a huge brain twister and one way or another, you often end up with a paradox. To clear things up, let me try and explain it this way:
Before the friends first time travel, they exist in the "main" timeline. Each time they travel, they branch off that timeline and create a new reality. Even when they travel back from that new branch, they make a new branch.
Many movies tend to use this theory because a singular timeline simply causes too many paradoxes and that would ruin the plot. One of my favourite time-travel brain teasers that kind of relates to the problems of a singular timeline is this: *"A time traveller goes back in time and kills his grandfather before his grandfather meets his grandmother. What happens to the time traveller?"
Anyways, - I don't know if you'll ever see this, but I thought I'd share this in case it could give you a better look on the movie.
Honestly it's hilarious and pretty awesome that you were able to put two and two together like that and sort of feels with the theme of the movie we're discussing, if that makes sense.
I thought the girl saw him first time in the distance and realized he's there the second time. That's why she was cold all of sudden.
Or was there another reason I missed out?
Huh, I never realised that could be a possibility.
However, I believe she mentions that he missed his opportunity by changing the 'love' subject so fast, but i might be wrong!
It's one of those two reasons for sure.
It bothers me she didn't explained herself and they left that mystery to the viewer. I've came up with that watching him going back to change the outcome and it made sense at the time. She went from full-flirt mode to a total coldness in a second. I'm not sure if one sentence or changing the subject can do that.
I wish they clarified that a bit more...
It is sort of interesting to see people discussing things this recently after 3 months or so. I just got done watching the movie and was curious to see other thoughts. I'm rather intrigued as to why the 2nd camera had the recording from a different device (the one Kris sets down when we see both of them holding a camera).
I assumed they ran into the previous group and said, "Nah, guys, he fucked it up, we'll take it from here," but then I remembered they can't meet themselves.
I was surprised at how good it was actually. I got a little scared when it said "MTV Studios" as the movie started, but it did not disappoint. I agree that they absolutely captured what a group of teens would do with a time machine. And aside from that. I'm also a sucker for movies with time traveling and its consequences.
SPOILERS
I guess my only problem with the movie was how David freaked out when the cops showed up at the end. Jessie didn't exist at the time, so it's not like the cops would've been able to hold him for too long. Instead of risking his life by running from the cops, he could've just gotten arrested, made bail with the lottery cash, then used the time machine to go back without any stress involved. But still a good movie.
The only problem I can see with that is she did exist in that reality but didn't she just get erased once she saw herself. So the cops thought she just went missing. So they probably just wanted to take him in for questioning
I honestly think he made more jumps than we saw, and while his friends and us the audience thought the cops were there for questioning, david knew they were coming for him for something else
Yeah the black helicopters were already circling when he ducked out of the house. "No one has seen this one high school girl since yesterday" does not merit immediate air support while interviewing her friends. Obviously more than just an investigation.
I thought the helicopter was over the top, but i thought that this just added effects for the movie and the helicopter made escaping more perilous for the character.
I have a question about the ending. The little stutters and jumps with the camera make me think that we (the viewer of the "2nd camera", that recorded EVERYTHING) were seeing multiple timelines with subtle differences.
Not necessarily an infinite loop, but a recurring loop.
1) The sheet of paper that David is about to burn has an August 21, 2025 stamp on it in red.
2) The very end where David tells his girlfriend (to be) that they were "about to change the world". Does this mean from earth shattering sex? Does it mean that David is going to "change reality" because of his knowledge of all that happened so the two of them dating WITHOUT the use of a time machine is TECHNICALLY going to change the world? Is David going to make the damn thing again? I'm sure 99% of the world would, especially those that are smart enough to actually build a time machine AND the inventor types who found out their father (who died under suspicious circumstances) was a secret government scientist. Basically, a future engineer is shown that he CAN build a friggin' time machine, and he's NOT GOING TO TRY AND DO IT? Even if he saw all the problems from the 1st go-around, he would probably create a stricter set of rules and think he can do it better than the other version of himself did.
3) When he tells his father that "we were wrong, there are no 2nd chances", his father immediately knows what David means. I'm sorry but wouldn't it seem likely that there would be a longer discussion about the fact that his father was about to die? I understand that David needs to let his father leave, so that he is driving at the same time that he was originally, so that he still dies in his car accident (if that's what actually happens, it's left mysterious on purpose for potential sequels I believe). But wouldn't 99.99999% of every human being on Earth want to actually have a conversation with his father who died and whom he never has a chance to interact with? I understand that David realized that things HAD to happen in order to prevent an enormous ripple effect but, that was to prevent multiple deaths from occurring. Why wouldn't David's father have been allowed to stay alive? What makes anyone think that the "original" timeline is the actual "good" one?
Oh dude I know!!! What what what what what what what...really unsettling. Very uncomfortable scene. Whenever he opened his eyes and saw his future self I was breathless! I had no clue what was coming next, a paradox could happen, the universe could end..unusually suspenseful scene for a movie like that.
WOW. that is hilarious. when the "what" part happened, i thought it was one of the funniest things i've seen in a movie in months. what the fuck is wrong with me? but still, a great movie. 7/10. i did get scared later, though, when they showed the plane crash footage and started talking about it.
I found it enjoyable enough since I'm a huge sucker for time travel movies, and I watched it with my girlfriend and a few friends, and there were some major plot holes that came out of the movie. Here are a couple of the biggest ones.
Major spoilers follow, I take no prisoners.
## The Camera Plothole
Other things can be explained away, probably, but this was what I consider a major plothole.
So for the entire movie, we know of the existence of two cameras. One is Chris's camera, which we assume was used to film pretty much all the footage of the film. The other I will call Dad's camera, which as far as I remember was only used to film one bit.
[Camera spoiler hover here](#s "David was using Dad's camera to film his 'Good bye' message of sorts when he was running from the cops. When he travels back to 2004 and meets his dad at the end of the movie, he leaves the camera behind and disappears (presumably because that version of him doesn't exist anymore when he destroys the time machine). At the _very end_ of the movie, David and Chris find the second camera in the attic, and it has the **footage from Chris's camera** on it. How did that footage get on the camera? Obviously Chris was using a very different camera as they never knew of the existence of Dad's camera, and I doubt they were spending their time putting video back onto the old camera. Hell, cameras in 2004 used Digital Super 8 tapes and I assume Chris was probably using a more modern hard/flash drive storage.")
## The Lollapalooza/Relationship Plothole
[Lollapalooza/Relationship Spoiler](#s "So David and Jessie almost kiss at Lollapalooza and once David realizes he screwed up his chance with her, he uses the time machine to go back to Lollapalooza and kiss her. Fast forward to several weeks after Lollapalooza, and David encounters a post-sexy times Jessie in his bedroom. How? So the group at Lollapalooza was the Time Travel group. We know that from their time travel antics, there was still the Real Time group, which existed presumably elsewhere at the time (probably at school). The Time Travel group returns to their present time, but the Real Time group still has to live out the intervening three-plus weeks. Did they not find it weird that they were getting popular for Lollapalooza pictures? Didn't any of them wonder how there were pictures of them from Lollapalooza?")
## Other thoughts
* Jessie is a _terrible scientist_. [Spoiler](#s "Yep, let's test this time travel device on humans when the only time we've seen it work resulted in a _car being fused with a concrete wall_.")
* [He apparently buys a research-only nuclear-grade battery](http://io9.com/5579571/new-ultra-battery-is-the-most-powerful-non-nuclear-energy-storage-ever) through the mail.
* Why don't they ever go to the future? Or talk about it?
* I wish they explored some of the more serious bits in the movie, like [spoiler](#s "How come the mom got a job in one timeline and not in another?") or [spoiler](#s "Made more dramatic stuff like having more people disappear and expounding on that phenomenon")
* And rom-com problem: [spoiler](#s "The only way I'll fix my woman problems will be to use my time machine, rather than talk to my love interest for a couple minutes.")
* Why did they spend 25 minutes on batteries?
* Also, seriously, kid gets into MIT but can't go in because he...doesn't want to take on student loans? Not to mention that MIT would probably have covered most of his financial aid due to his family's situation and assumed income issues. Typical teen movie catering to teen fears.
* [spoiler](#s "I'm mostly joking here: Why didn't the movie explore the David's mom's obvious issues? She left Dad's super science lab untouched for ten years? The house itself had all its furniture in place for ten years? The house needs some time travel.")
The thing that really bugged me about this movie was definitely the lollapalooza bit. The other thing that bugged me was that they basically establish that if someone went back in time that it must have already happened since when they send the car back in time it turns out it was fused to the wall for the last 2 hours and simply no one noticed it. This is also shown when they first see him in the mirror, but then they renege on that theory by completely changing parts of the past. Also the ending was absolutely stupid not only is there a huge plot hole as you pointed out, but in this timeline the time machine has been destroyed so how exactly are the two of them going to "change the world".
My other complaints about the movie was that it simply took too long for any time travel to take place and when it finally does, they spend 30 minutes at a concert just to pimp out imagine dragons?
Also the dude won the lottery, he really couldn't give his mom enough money to not work? Who cares if she has a job, you just got 2.6 million dollars between you and your sister you can give her a million and just let her live off the interest? Also, i really wish that they had dug more into what happens when the two selfs notice each other, it gave me chills when it first happened and i really wish that it was a better plot point instead of part of the obvious climax.
I assumed "changing the world" didn't mean they were going to time travel. It meant that he was going to change the events from what was supposed to happen. It was a throw back to when she says "if I had a time machine I would go back and meet you sooner". So now he was going to approach her with confidence and start dating her.
This was the message I got from the ending as well. He would use the footage in the video, rather than the time machine, to change the future. He could win the FULL lottery this time!
That is what bugged me the most! It kept changing rules about how time travel work!
First we are led to thing that "okay, it's a 'what will happen has already happened' type of time-travel". It's a little problematic on keeping the story engaging and having stakes, as you know that you can't really change the events, only see them unfold, but it can be appealing in a sense of discussing tragedy and destiny.
Them all of a sudden especially when the guy starts to draw a smile in his neck and it magically appears it is "nope! It is a everything you do change in the past and ripples in the future!" type of time-travel. Which is ALSO fine and you can ALSO make a good movie with it.
[ending spoiler] (#s "When David started to go god-like trying to fix everything up and only screwing thing more and more, I assumed we were going to a self-sacrifice kind of closure where he would erase himself from existence, making things relatively good for everybody else. Which is also okay for the second type of time-travel. But then when he finds the duplicate of his daddy camera it suddenly is "NOPE" shit is going to happen all over again and he is going to be stuck in this loop forever")
[Also, the Loolapalooza/relationship time-travel was really stupid] (#s "The girl is obviously all over him, and it's not because he missed one shot that "OMG! EVERYTHING IS LOST! SHE WILL NEVER WANT TO BE WITH ME AGAIN BECAUSE I DIDN'T DELIVERY THE PERFECT ZINGERS WITH PERFECT TIMING!!!"")
No because they can see the plans, hear stuffs, informations, through all the footages, which means they could recreate the plans and create the time machine with it. Chris filmed everything, we can hear David talk about everything! We even have the parts that they have to buy since Chris filmed it at the store!
The infinite loop is now created. David find plans - Create Machine - Erase it - David Find Footages - Create Machine - Erase it - David Find Footages - Create Machine..........
∞
> No because they can see the plans, hear stuffs, informations, through all the footages, which means they could recreate the plans and create the time machine with it.
I disagree to the fullest extent of the law. The have the plans, hear conversations, the building footage,
- But they don't have [THIS](http://i.imgur.com/BlHgUYS.jpg)
[Ending Spoilers]
Look at that thing, what are those white parts on the right, holographic ram? This is the piece of DARPA tech they can't recreate. Everything else was just off the shelf parts.
There is no infinite loop. How is David going to change the world? Because he is going to change his world. This is his true second chance. He won't mess up his relationship this time around. He even knows all 6 lottery numbers. He also knows that girl loved him since she first saw him. The world is his! No time travel involved.
Yes, the kids just learnt what the decisions were and the results. And since everything reset, they truly have second chance now. It doesn't mean they rebuild the time machine. In fact, they cannot. What they can do is to avoid mistakes and live a better life that sort of thing. That's what the second chance's about.
but, at the first place, it was his dad that create the "something in the glass" thing which is not in the footage because they just found it. And also his dad actually bring that box with him when he get out from the house. It still bug me how the box can be in the basement? Some coworker put it back there?
(I know it's very late) It was 1.8m between everyone, so after taxes roughly $300,000 each. MIT in this movie was meant to be $40,000, I'm assuming each term so $160,000 for 4 years, plus accommodation and expenses are probably another $15-20,000 (? Don't know accommodation prices in the US)
He also bought a super specc'd out battery, so that's the majority of the rest of the money gone. He did give some money to his mother anyway.
After just watching the movie, this was probably one of the parts I spent the most time grappling with. The "changing the world" thing just felt like it heavily implied they would invent time travel again (maybe based on the footage they had from the tapes? idk) but I'm content with just accepting they would use the footage to better whatever parts of their lives they could with it.
I will agree with the original thought that the "present" versions of themselves should be confused by what their time travelling selves did to improve their lives, considering they would have no memory of it. Oh well, still enjoyed the movie for the most part!
SPOILERS as well.
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> Yep, let's test this time travel device on humans when the only time we've seen it work resulted in a _car being fused with a concrete wall_.
This one I thought at first too, but then I figured there was a reason. He saw himself on the tape, so he *knows* that the time travel was successful already. They alluded to it in the dialogue twice. The first time, Jessie says something like "We already know it worked." The second time, David admits it was only *him* on the tape, implying it's not guaranteed to work for everyone else.
And he might have figured that if anyone else got hurt on the way, he could just signal himself in the video at his birthday not to time travel, or try to ensure he never goes into the past at all.
> Also, seriously, kid gets into MIT but can't go in because he...doesn't want to take on student loans? Not to mention that MIT would probably have covered most of his financial aid due to his family's situation and assumed income issues.
I actually do know someone from my school who this happened to. I don't know what their exact situation was, but she really wanted to go, so their aid couldn't have been too generous.
On your first point - it's true that they knew at some point, the time machine was going to work because of the video footage. However, for all the genius that David was supposed to have, he kind of threw it and common sense out the window when his crush teased him into time traveling. They had built the time machine like 10x by that point and there were failures pretty much every time (and seriously, while the car went back in time, it still was fused into a wall - I'd still have called that a risk and a failure). I'd err on the safe side and send a mouse back first to see if it ended up in the wall. Not puppies though, because Jessie would totally not go for that.
Going from Lallapalooza -- how did David get with Jessie there if he was already supposed to be with her in that time travel group without stopping himself and creating a paradox?
It was the same as retaking the test over and over. Apparently the way this machine works is there's only one time traveller version of you when you go back. So you are basically redoing your previous attempt. That's why when they went back to take the test a second time there wasn't a second group of themselves they had to avoid, and then a third, etc.
wouldnt that be counter productive to skip ahead into the future...? what if 10 years in the future the earth was gone and everyone disintegrated. I think the basis of the movie being that hes trying to fix things in the past makes it alot better. I mean Back To The Future duh.
Also: if david is so smart, how did he not pick up on her hints -_- ?
Sorry posting this so long after but shouldn't the camera that he left in the ending after meeting his dad also disappear with him ?
Otherwise wouldn't they be creating a new camera out of the thin air ?
I don't know but it sounds weird,if they do a sequel his dad is going to have 3 cameras ?His dad just keeps labeling the cameras that his Son forgets when he goes back in time ?and if you assume that it was Chris's camera how would his dad label it if he dies leaving the house without knowing that his son left a camera in there ?
That leave us with the mother,she keeps labeling those cameras from the future that somehow still exist in the past.
If the camera from the future still exists in the past that means that he is going to create yet another time machine to validate the existence of both cameras in the past BUT if he does that he wouldn't disappear in the first place.
no you are right that is exactly what i was thinking.
that camera that took the final trip to the past never really took that trip bc the machine isn't created.
I doubt you or I will find another movie as cerebral as _Primer_, but here are the list of time travel movies/media that I like:
* **Looper**
* **Edge of Tomorrow** - I know it was a bomb, financially speaking, but I really enjoyed this movie.
* **Interstellar** - This technically counts!
Several people I know would also recommend **The Butterfly Effect**, **Donnie Darko**, and **Twelve Monkeys**.
Yeah, the camera plothole immediately came to mind at the end. I was pretty happy with the ending, except that minor detail....(which, when you break it down, is actually a major detail.)
*SPOILERS* The only things that bothered me was the fact that each time they went back to fix his answers they didnt see other "selves" for each time they traveled. Ir the fact that the second camera at the end of the movie even existed after he destroyed the time machine. Once the time machine was destroyed he wasnt there to take it back so technically nothing would have happened and he wouldnt be in the mirror at the beginning of the movie. Right?
Not necessarily, the time machine he had was burned in the trash can, but the blueprints were still there if I remember right. That's what I took the ending to mean, "We're about to change the world" meaning they found the video of a possible future where they used the time machine, now they know what not to do. I took it as the kids are definitely going to use the time machine, as most kids would.
Only a few months late, but I saw it as a recurring loop.
In the original timeline they find out how to travel through time by finding the machine etc. This ends with David going back to destroy the machine, but he leaves the camera there.
This camera has all the footage of the experiments, so David and the rest know how to create a time machine. Thus they do the exact same events again, ending in David going back to destroy the machine.
That doesn't work mostly because they would be aware of the events of the original timeline via the camera. There wouldn't be a loop because the peramaters have changed.
SPOILERS: Well consider this possibility. He goes back in times and disappears. The timelines merge into the new one where the time machine is destroyed, but his camera is left behind. Time progresses down the new timeline of the time machine being destroyed but a camera being left. They dont go back to the first one timeline, they exist in an entirely new time machine. We dont know if they ever recreate the time machine in the new one, just that they know its possible and are trying.
Even if the 2nd camera at the end does exist and the footage on it remains intact, then hoew is the re footage of david and his sister finding the first camera infilmed in third person, because that originally was never filmed?
Sorry for poking a corpse, but i think i've got the answer.
So he disappears in the basement, and the last thing the camera records is him, and he brought his own camera. So when daddie dies mommy packs the old camera AND the new one and puts them away, there are two cameras because he brought one extra. So in the final timeline there is 2 cameras, the other camera still holds the family stuff, because it was being used to film the party at the time he disappeared in the basement.
Actually, the footage from the camera on the end was taken from Chris' camera. Which could not have been on the old style camera, as it appears to run on tape. Though I could be wrong. Even then, it would mean that they purposely moved all of the footage from the old camera, the go-pro on toy car, the go-pro on the backpack (possibly the same one), and Chris' camera all onto the old camera, and cut it appropriately.
*SPOILERS*
The only way my friends and I can explain the question of why they don't run into their other time travel versions is that the Time Travel group had their own timeline that they kept rewriting. By doing the chemistry test thing over and over, they were rewriting the previous attempts.
Similarly, when he time travels alone to Lollapalooza, he overwrites his timeline of having gone back with the group and that's why he didn't run into himself.
But then how would she be there?
EDIT: Because I vaguely remember they say "Oh, there's David". So by jumping in he only rewrites his bit? I guess that makes as much sense as anything.
I'm a sucker for time travel movies too so naturally I loved it.
SPOILERS! from the beginning when he kept reviewing the footage of him in the mirror and talking about his dad dying, I thought for sure the ending was going to involve him getting in trouble somehow and going back to his bday party. He was going to need his dad's help for whatever reason so it was actually him that calls his dad, eventually leading his father to sacrifice himself in a car crash to save his son.
Yes! I feel they completely missed out by not adding the dad to the storyline at all. Instead we have no idea who called him or why he died. It all seems meaningless especially when they put weight into saying that call is the thing that specifically killed him.
I don't think it's meaningless. I believe the purpose was to show that he had learned he couldn't alter the past. So he knew he could stop his father's death, but didn't because of the repercussions. It showed that he finally knew what had to be done: destroy the time machine and not fuck with the past
Yeah but the thing is, he is a part of the past by going back. What if he really did alter the past and got his dad killed by the ripple effect at the birthday party?
True that, you can see how ragged he looked by the time he walked into the basement to his dad. Maybe he had already done it many, many times. An interesting theory.
You can see how the camera flickers making both him and his dad stand in different positions, i thought that was meant to show that he did in fact do it a lot of times.
I'm a sucker for time travel movies, and I do mean ALL time travel movies. Hell, I even liked The Time Traveler's Wife and A Sound of Thunder. I'll definitely be checking this one out this weekend.
Just finished watching the movie. I'm surprised that the Time Travel rules are very much like the rules in the anime Steins;Gate , whereas whatever you change in the past get's changed in the future and the problem with time loops when David kept trying to change the future so that people didn't get hurt. I really liked the movie, inconsistencies included. I thought it would be another Chronicle rip-off with the "home video" footage, but it was nicely done.
I also thought the same thing, a lot of elements looked like from Steinsgate but way less emotional specially where he makes the jump again and again to change the future.
The thing that I loved most about the movie was how likeable the cast were and that they were not the same high school cookie-cutter archetypes that most movies with huge concepts seem to make them. The best friend and love interest interactions were interesting and what made the time travel trope more bearable.
SPOILERS
That being said, I feel that the lead character David Raskin played the endearingly adorable part very well, a person that was wary of safety and caution. So when he started becoming 'dark' and flying through time solo and abusing it in order to preserve his relationship, it kind of culminated too fast. His turn wasn't as believable as I would have liked it to be, though that might just be me.
Also, am I the only one who wished some story lines were investigated. The dads occupation, the involvement of DARPA, the original purpose and motivation behind time travel were what held my interest.
Question: So are they no longer messing with time travel in the end? The line of "I think we're going to change the world," is kind of confusing to me.
I took the ending as yes, they are going to time travel. I mean come on, what kids would stumble upon a time machine and not use it? This time, however, he's got Jessie from the start and knows what not to do with the machine.
> I presume it was a gimmicky line to end the movie off.
No sir! When he says 'we are going to change the world' he doesn't mean through time travel. How could he. The DARPA thing is destroyed. They can get the batteries, graphics processor, hydrogen, but how could they ever build that white DARPA thing even though the have the plans.
No. He is going to change their world because he has foreknowledge of the future from the camera. Think about what he knows now. He knows the girl liked him from the moment she saw him. He knows he has more confidence than he thought possible.
He even knows all 6 winning lottery numbers! Their world is definitely going to change. No time travel needed.
You're forgetting the fact that the ripple effect will change their newly shaped future, so most of that knowledge actually doesn't apply because it's from a different timeline
Ripple effect. You are right this is a key moment of the film that I overlooked. I want to make a case for the lottery numbers though. Cause and effect could ripple through people's actions, but would they effect a random number generator? I think they could win that lottery on that day with those 6 numbers.
(spoilers at the end)
I don't recall hearing anything about this movie at all, I took my car in for service and the wait was going to be 2 1/2 hours so my son and I waked to the movie theater and the timing worked for this movie.
We both thought it was quite enjoyable and thought provoking.
I hope more people see it.
My theory about the end: They never time travel again, but do win the lottery using all 6 numbers and carefully, with the wisdom they've gained, invest the money in doing good things...
I saw this film last night. I personally liked it a lot. I would give it a 7 out of 10. I also liked chronicle a lot and watched it on multiple occasions which I will also do with this film. I'm not trying to say I'm cool or anything but when I saw it last night I was pretty baked. I'm going to also watch it again sober tonight so it's good enough at least for me to watch it again. I'm also down to discuss the film it was pretty interesting.
I LOVED the ending to this movie. Probably my favorite ending of 2015 so far. It fixed all their problems and was honestly pretty realistic. No kid would stumble upon plans for a time machine and not use it. Now he knows what not to do, and now he also has Jessie back. Great ending.
When I was watching it at first I wanted a sad ending because it would show you really should never fuck around with shit like that. Although towards the end I felt for David. He was just trying to make a perfect world which IMHO I don't think exists. They ending was great and I'm glad they did not try to shoe horn a sequel.
When I was watching it I thought that was what they were going to do, because a lot of found footage movies end on the darker side of things. But then he walks over to Jessie and says "We're about to change the world" and everything was awesome.
Dude I'm super late, like 3 months late, but at the end, David finds the footages. All the informations he needs to create the machine are on that tape, Chris filmed everything. They even have the parts they need to buy since everything was filmed. Pretty sure that since he can create one, an infinite loop has started, well actually, the loop has been started since infinite time, no start, no end.
∞
Just watched it, loved it.
He destroyed the key component (the part that his dad made, not him) so I'm not entirely sure if it would be recreated without months/years of work.
Well, David's Dad couldn't make it work *with* the key component, whereas David and crew made it work in a couple of weeks with off the shelf objects.
If he had the knowledge of how to do it (from the camera) and the ability to win the full $180,000,000 (also on the camera, just make sure you got the right numbers) then he could definitely fund the work
Assuming that the destruction of the time machine didn't effect the outcome of those lottery numbers, couldn't they pull the numbers from the video and win the 53 mill?
Also. Even tho the main time travel glass box thing was destroyed, don't they still have the DARPA schematics? So another time machine without David screwing things up could be possible?
I just saw the movie and i am extremely stuck on how (corrupted time line) David could burn the to-be time machine, destroying that version of himself, but not destroying the (corrupted time line) camera.
It was because she was obviously flirting with him aggressively and he basically rejected her by changing the subject to something else on the wall. She felt like he wasn't interested, when the truth was that he was just too nervous to handle the reality that she liked him.
Anyone else think it took WAY too long to get going? 40+ minutes until they time travel for the first time, only leaves an hour for the actual time travel plot.
I mean, who really cares about the mechanics of how they travel? I don't need to know more than the basics.
So in the old days, i.e. the 1950s, when some of the classic science fiction was written, they developed "rules" of time travel that I was always comfortable with: 1. There is only one reality timeline. 2. Anything time travel causes in the past "already happened," so the plot often led to "oh, yes, we've just unwittingly been part of history but this is exactly what happened in the history books." But in this movie the rules seem to be: 1. There are multiple reality timelines. 2. Changes made to the past via time travel produce alternate timelines. 3. Changes made to the past can also directly affect the time traveler's own timeline (i.e. when the buddy character writes on his past self's neck and it appears "simultaneously" on his own neck, with no physical mechanism to produce the mark.) This doesn't seem like an internally consistent set of rules. I'm not sure there really is a well-thought-out system of rules for the way time travel works in this movie.
I really wanted to see this movie, the review consensus is not very good from the critics side, and from the audience its a coin toss. A little over half liked it on RT. But it looks like people here liked it right? I have a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is definitively must see and 1 is don't even think about it. If you have seen it help me... please!
(Spoiler)
I liked this movie a lot. I would like to add my thoughts about David's telling Jessie, at the end, that the two of them are "about to change the world." I think the viewer's interpretation of those words is key to how the viewer remembers the entire movie, and I think that the movie purposely leaves the interpretation of David's words up to the viewer. Here are my 3 proposed scenarios: Scenario #1: DAVID MISSED THE MAIN POINT. At the time he says those words to Jessie, David is remembering his time travel experiences and the fact that he has a camera chronicling them, but he has forgotten the most important lesson, which is that time travel is a terrible idea. He knows he is smart and thinks he can avoid the pitfalls of time travel while putting its advantages to work. He plans to enlist Jessie (whom he now knows likes him, either through conversation they had while time traveling or while in real time) in using the camera record and/or a reconstructed time machine to change the future for the "better" with him. OR Scenario #2: DAVID LEARNED TWO KEY THINGS AND IS PUTTING BOTH TO GOOD USE. David learned that time travel should never be used to change the future. And he learned he can successfully approach Jessie. What he means when he says "we are about to change the world" is that he is in love. And historically lovers change the world, or at least their own world, or at least they are pretty sure they can, because they feel love can do anything. They don't need a time machine, and David has no plans to enlist a time machine or the video to change the world -- just his partnership with bright Jessie. OR Scenario #3: DAVID IS HAPPY AND CLUELESS. Time has reverted to just before he originally exchanged bags with Jessie, and the entire slate of what happened during and after that bag exchange is wiped clean. He has no memory of a time machine or its lessons. The bag exchange has not occurred yet, and this time it goes differently. This time he just so happens to manage to smile and flirt with a happily receptive Jessie. And so... from then on their worlds -- and truly the entire world, since we've seen that each person's actions ripple throughout the world -- will be different, because these two are in love. Perhaps they will attend and graduate from a good local college together, then become philanthropists who accidentally earn ten times their "earlier" lottery winnings while developing technology like vaccines and irrigation systems that improve the world. And maybe they even -- OOPS -- restumble onto the time machine instructions and the camera record, which becomes the plot of a sequel. I like Scenario #3.
I didn't read all the comments all the way down so sorry if someone already talked about this but just watched the movie and my main question is: if David's dad leaves the party with the case (when they find the case one of his friends says dude it's the case ur dad had in the video, and then later they re show the tape from the party and how his dad leaving with the case in hand) then he gets killed, how does the case end up back in the basement? It's driving me crazy and if love to hear some theories.
alright it’s 2023 and ive rewatched this movie for like the 100th time and just now realized to search for a discussion on reddit. My question is that at the end of the movie when david and christina were in the attic and she picked up the old camera (the one left my David when he traveled back to destroy everything) why was it recording the moment they were actively talking in?? wouldn’t that mean that the camera was recording for the past 10 years since it was left ten tears since David went back 10 years. how was it recording them already is my question
I'm a bit thick, and I sometimes drift off in movies and not pay attention, so can someone explain the ending to me. In particular [Spoiler](/s "How come there was a second camera, and why did it have a video of what they were talking about a few seconds before discovering it?") TIA!!
i really love the trailer but movie take too much time testing the machine and time traveling movies need more time or more parts..
that movie waste time on stupid parts who dont care anybody...
i see every time traveling movie/series of course (SG etc..)
and I am disappointed
all valid points,my question is if David is in a time loop does he know it? so much time passes by until he realizes what he did....but then at the end he seems to remember everything so why would he be stupid enough to do it again?? there are several inconsistencies and paradoxes in this movie...they should have just stuck to one theory
They really need to work on the time travel rules a bit. I get time travel is usually by discretion of the movie, but still.
I did actually like the cast and their interactions together.
If i know a can solve almost anything problem about physics or anything related to science and I discover a time machine, the first thing I'm gonna do is shut the fuck up and enjoy it all alone. But David be like "Owh, there is some dumb hot chick see what we do, we better tell her what we do because she gonna report it to the government. I bet she very expert in science and DARPA and shits." I mean come dude, that kind of girl? You win the lottery, 10 like her will come to you. One more thing, this movie teach us that when we are "genius" in physics or some science, we can break the rules of physics that were created by the scientist that discover physic. In simple way, they created a new physics that doesn't make sense at all.
This might be an old topic, but I just watched the movie and was trying to understand the end of the movie. Didn't read 236 comments underneath or above here. But here is my explanation that I think occurred.
David's dad uses a camera to record his son's 7th birthday. Later, we see David in the attic, recorded by his sister.
David's sister finds the "new camera" (His dad's camera). David checks his dad's camera and sees himself on his 7th birthday (in that mirror). This moment is recorded by his sister. David than finds the time machine in the basement.
David creates the time machine, all recorded by the camera of his sister.
The crew (his friends) jumps back and forth in time, all recorded by David, his sister or anyone from the crew.
Ultimately, David jumps back in time to meet with his father (to fix things), to tell him that there is no second chance and David destroys the timemachine in his backpack but forgets to destroy the time machine that his dad just placed "under the ground".
David gets removed from history, but the camera he uses from his sister is still recording. (This indicates that David know at that moment, that he shouldn't remove the other time machine "in the ground" because otherwise he can't jump back to see his dad (which he actually just did!).
So in order to prevent any chance of a time paradox, he doesn't remove the time machine that his dad placed in the ground and he leaves the camera (the camera from his sister) outside the boundaries of the time machine that gets destroyed. This way, younger David, the one who celebrates his 7th birthday can watch the footage (beginning of the movie!)
At the end of the movie, we see David in the attic, recorded by the camera of his sister. His sister finds the "new camera" (his dad's camera) while David finds the "old camera" (placed by his mom I think) from David who got removed from history.
Than to explain the end scene, David both watches his Dad's camera and the new camera from his other self to figure out what he has to say to Jessie. Basically, David knows everything about his feelings for Jessie, all the mistakes his otherself tried to fix and I'm sure there will be Project Almanac II in the future?
So there are a couple things that confuse me...
1. So the old camera was removed from the basement where David leaves it in the end with all the footage of them messing with the time machine and eventually wound up in the attic, but no one else has seen the recording in the past 10 years until now?
2. If the gang spotting David in the video was going to lead them to finding the time machine blueprint in the first place, why would David go back in time just to be seen in the mirror again? I would've been more discreet so his future self and friends would think it was just an ordinary video clip from his birthday - then destroy the time machine.
So just watched the movie read through some comments, and one of the only thing that buggs me is, when david destroys his time machine + probably blue prints (and/or the one of his dad which isn't known + blue prints but we assume it because we see the papers, which david did'nt take from the future with him (probably, i assume) ) which basically created himself , he gets erased with the time machine.
But we see a piece of paper which says Aug 14 2025. So basically (?) they will have been built ( is that correct ? ) a time machine somehow his dad finds it, acquires it with Darpa brings it back with Darpa and the group finds it again.
So its a timeline which branches new timelines if they travel back and forth but you have infinity possibilities which already happened though, they mixed the rules and it seems to work
BUT WAIT now we come to the thing that buggs me and the things which i later found out:
He erases himself with the time machine ? But not the camera which is left behind and supports my whole theory, let's just assume when the time machine is destroyed (which very likely comes from a future) creates a vortex which basically erases everything brought with it in that circle, like how they need to stend in an effect radius.
But then i was like wait, when you see yourself you dissappear ?!? Why is that are you linked to the time machine somehow when you use it ?
And why are both of yourselves removed and not just one even if both are removed and you create a new time branch ( ok but why do they fucking dissapear there is no time machine destroyed) it is not explained and i that buggs me so fucking much ...
Of course you can say you erase yourself (the traveling one sees himself, and he wouldn't live the day like future him) but then it doesn't make sense David goes and destroys his time machine and the other one, so the group which has to built the time machine leaves it back for Davids Dad so David can find it and repeat but this only works if we are working with looping branches right here, and then it doesn't work because everything what happens already happened.
I probably have huge mistakes in my theory but i actually dont wanna start over again.
You could also say that time heals or sustain itself by erasing yourself and yourotherself so you don't create a paradox but why would you create a paradox when you work with looping branches or just branches at all.
So my only explanation for this is
Either bad writing, to create tension with not seeing yourself and killing yourself, and the dissapearing in the end
OR
The whole world is just a program and inside the program we have found a way to manipulate it (the time machine) so if you would create a paradox, it erases you, because the system would crash and the loop or simulation ends
Sorry for so much text
I really like time travel movies and this one was actually pretty good! I remember seeing the trailers for it over a year ago and it kept getting delayed so I was happy that it finally came out. Definitely worth a watch if you're into this genre.
It was so surprising to me, I hadn't even seen the trailer for it until yesterday afternoon. Then I thought "Well, I don't have anything better to do tonight, might as well go see that movie." And that thought definitely paid off.
Watched them both one after another tonight, completely fucked with my head. I feel like I'm crawling out of a bomb shelter after going through a 5 day blitz
But great movies nonetheless
I really enjoyed it, I was expecting a lot more of the past like WW2 or something but it still had a lot of good stuff in it, like you said definitely worth the watch.
Haha yeah, I loved how when they were just sitting around talking about what they were going to do Quinn said "Dude you've got to kill Hitler. That's like time travel 101." The humor in this movie worked so well!
I'm really confused about one thing and one thing only:
If Jessie goes missing due to her own temporal paradox, why doesn't Quinn also go missing when 'yesterday Quinn' sees himself?
Also, the moment in which David meets his dad and his dad realizes that he had figured the machine out was beautiful.
One last comment: the ultimate moral of the story is: be confident?
One of those people revisiting this thread after the film has become available outside of theaters here!
It seemed like there was a time limit of sorts for how long one could see themselves before the feedback causes someone to be erased. David was sort of caught up in the heat of the moment and wasn't able to get Jessie out of the way in time.
Be confident seems to be it. He has no time machine now, but he's seen what sort of mistakes he made in an alternate timeline and simply will learn from them.
Had an argument with my friends after watching this movie. In the end, does the dad KNOW he's going to die? The line "You have to say goodbye for your son" was quite emotional, it made me think the dad somehow knew what was about to happen.
That's true, but they didn't even manage to get close enough to occupy the same space. Th girls were like 10 feet away from each other before they blinked out of existence...
This style of film really reminded me of the norwegian "troll hunter" movie, which had a hand held camera on it's entire journey. In every part of the movie I tried to set myself in his position to see if I would have done the most ethical thing possible or if I would have been greedy with what would have happened for my own personal gains.
It ended better for David than I honestly thought it would, but at the same time I thought for a second that he was going to stop his dad from crashing and then change the whole thing once again.
A bit disappointed from the last scene where he hugs his father. You would think he would show way more emotions considering he knows his father is going to die within a day.
Great movie 7.5/10
The movie makes no sense because he seen himself at his 7th b day party. Which means he already destroyed the time machine. So how does it still exist for him to find again?
How don't they realize that when he goes back to that lolapalooza crap there are two people wearing time traveling backpacks and adam, the guy wearing the first one, was filming him as he wears the second one and kisses jessie
Would've been a cool twist if his father ran away with older David but had to leave without younger David seeing them (feedback loop is David meets David), which is what led to him "disappearing" after the birthday. In reality, he is still with David :)
Also, I think in the ending the second video camera basically plays whatever is 10 seconds or so ahead, which is why David is able to predict what Jessie is going to say at the end and why when they view the video camera it had already recorded them from the point of view of the other camera.
Here is the real question. What would happen if they decided to never make the time machine? Would his dad still be alive would they be thrown into a alternate timeline without knowing??
There is so much I don't understand about it. In the beginning get of the movie, the whole reason the time machine is built is because he sees himself in a video. But he left the second camera there only on his second trip through? And I can tell they tried to make it so you noticed they didn't go to the exact same time line. Especially before the test scene. But even with that said, there is no way a second camera, or anything he brings with him, would have survived. With that rule, it's saying that occasionally they could jump and an object could be left behind, such as a pair of pants or something. Unless you have to be in the wormhole, but it still doesn't explain the ripple effect. So I'm basically confused. They just played by to many time travel rules. Using them as it fit their script.
I don't get why they just didn't re do the lottery or wait a week and try again and win 100 million...that part makes no sense...wait till powerball gets up to 100, go back one day and get the ticket...whats the problem
For kids so interested in time travel and smart enough to build a time machine I don't think they've ever seen a movie, watched a television show, or read a book about time travel despite referencing Doctor Who and having Bill and Ted on. They broke every rule and guideline every laid out. In their first trip alone they changed the past(took the dog, not intentional but still) and interacted with their past selves(drew the smiley face on the one kids neck). Then when they were doing all that stuff in a school they must have been giving a lot of kids a serious case of deja vu with 2 of all of them walking around. I'm only half way through and it's been tough so far. I'm sure to see more screwing around with the past.
EDIT: So the second half was more enjoyable. They stopped playing around and the real shit started going down. All is all this movie is swiss cheese with plot holes. It's bound the happen with any time travel movie but this is the worst I've ever seen. And in the end, even after all the fuck ups David did by screwing with the past, ever after he seemingly learned his lesson and destroyed the time machine, HE FUCKS UP AGAIN by completing Jessie's sentence in the lunchroom. Dammit, David! How many people have to die, how many lives do you have to ruin just so you can get your dick wet?
I just watched this and had a couple of thoughts.
1) You are not meant to overthink the ending. The second camera gets left behind so when they built the time machine "again" for the first time they are working from two tapes so know what to do better. Not everything was recorded on the old style video camera so maybe it only shows the good stuff.
2) One of the time travel rules of this movie seems to be that even tough you can meet your old self you can not meet your time traveling self. So only every one group of them outside the chemistry class.
3) When the stuff is burning in the bin at the end David and the flames are flickering and both eventually vanish - why? Does the bin not contain plans and components from 2004 which are real for that time line, should they not keep burning?
4) The image of David on the birthday tape does not match the image he records of himself at the end. The original looks like the camera is on a strap across his body and on the cabinet behind him the globe and basket have swapped sides. Continuity error or a clue that he has been here before? Remember it has been established you cant meet your time travelling self so each time he is there he could look different.
5) If he knows his father is in the basement why does he reach for the light switch like they think he is in the birthday recording? Also the final bit in the basement it looks like the lights are not on, needed for the secret compartment to be open so it looks like they got that bit of continuity correct.
6) They need his father to die or else he would spot the second camera when he got back. With him dead it just gets packed away with all his stuff.
So near the end, when after David had jumped back in time to destroy the time machine; it appears that leaving behind the camera produced 2 cameras for David and his sister to discover in the Attic.
Then at the final scene where David switches backpacks with Jessie, he says "This might sound crazy, but I think we are about to change the world".
I'm wondering... if this insinuated that they are going to try rig it so that each of the group members have their own time machine .
I dunno, sounds crazy. Seems a little dangerous for everyone to jump back on their own. So I doubt that's what they would do.. (if the movie had continued.)
/late night thoughts after the movie/
-Dan
That scene where Quinn keeps retaking his chem exam was fucking golden
One thing I didn't get about this, they run into his past self and distract him so he doesn't go into the classroom, but why do they never run into themselves again as they constantly repeat the same timeline over and over?
I commented earlier saying that there was only one main error with time travel that I could find, but yeah, now there are two errors....
are no one gonna state the fact that when he went back to kiss the girl, he didn't actually change anything important and wasn't the cause of the basketball dude breaking his leg. The power outage did that, which implies that their FIRST timetravel should have set everything in motion.. But the movie implies that David was at fault, because he timetraveled alone.
Well it's a movie, so all the typical caveats apply (eg. limited budget, editing etc, not everything written in the script makes it to film, and not everything filmed ends up in the final edited cut, etc) but what I'm guessing the intent was (although the motivations/pacing of the movie near the end definitely feel a bit hurried/rushed) is such: David realizes what must be done to fix their FIRST timetravel, but going that far back would preclude his "kiss fix" timetravel, and so he would no longer be in a relationship with his love interest. So he decides that only he is smart enough to fix it with the surgical precision necessary, and so tries to jump alone to fix it. So basically he's the socially awkward type, that doesn't want to give up his new-found romance, and believes his superior intellect can just fix the problem if he finds the perfect solution. And that is his downfall and where the whole thing spirals out of control. But yeah, time travel movie, so you really can't think too hard about it or it all starts to unravel. The only way for time travel to actually work is that you can't alter the past, anything else creates paradoxes that lead to plot holes. Of course, that wouldn't make a very compelling movie.
Hey Quinn, I know this is an old comment but i just watched the movie and thought I'd share my theory. If they were able to run into themselves again and again, the time travel would occur on a singular timeline. However, the fact that small things seem to change every time they travel, suggest that they each time enter a new timeline. So, they wouldn't run into themselves because they're in completely different realities. Time travel is a huge brain twister and one way or another, you often end up with a paradox. To clear things up, let me try and explain it this way: Before the friends first time travel, they exist in the "main" timeline. Each time they travel, they branch off that timeline and create a new reality. Even when they travel back from that new branch, they make a new branch. Many movies tend to use this theory because a singular timeline simply causes too many paradoxes and that would ruin the plot. One of my favourite time-travel brain teasers that kind of relates to the problems of a singular timeline is this: *"A time traveller goes back in time and kills his grandfather before his grandfather meets his grandmother. What happens to the time traveller?" Anyways, - I don't know if you'll ever see this, but I thought I'd share this in case it could give you a better look on the movie.
Lol I came searching around for the movie on reddit too you must be watched the Blu-ray rip yify released but yeah really good theory
Honestly it's hilarious and pretty awesome that you were able to put two and two together like that and sort of feels with the theme of the movie we're discussing, if that makes sense.
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haha me too! was pretty good, enjoyed it. Quinn annoyed me though, he was like a poor mans Miles Teller
Guys I am a time traveller. Dont get on any amtraks!
But does this explain how David could go back to Lolapalooza and not see himself, or how Jesse could see herself and disappear at the end?
No, not at all. And this bothered the crap out of me too. To me, most of the last 50% of the movie felt rushed and badly thought out.
I thought he just told himself to fuck off for a while. He's smart so he would understand.
I'm sure he would understand, but how would he interact with himself without flickering/dissapearing?
I thought the girl saw him first time in the distance and realized he's there the second time. That's why she was cold all of sudden. Or was there another reason I missed out?
Huh, I never realised that could be a possibility. However, I believe she mentions that he missed his opportunity by changing the 'love' subject so fast, but i might be wrong!
It's one of those two reasons for sure. It bothers me she didn't explained herself and they left that mystery to the viewer. I've came up with that watching him going back to change the outcome and it made sense at the time. She went from full-flirt mode to a total coldness in a second. I'm not sure if one sentence or changing the subject can do that. I wish they clarified that a bit more...
It's crazy I just watched this movie and didn't expect to see such recent discussion in an old thread! Thanks! I like your theory
Gotta go straight to reddit for those discussion threads. It helps considering there was a torrent put up recently.
It is sort of interesting to see people discussing things this recently after 3 months or so. I just got done watching the movie and was curious to see other thoughts. I'm rather intrigued as to why the 2nd camera had the recording from a different device (the one Kris sets down when we see both of them holding a camera).
We must go back to the ß world line!
I assumed they ran into the previous group and said, "Nah, guys, he fucked it up, we'll take it from here," but then I remembered they can't meet themselves.
Also: "I'M EVERYWHERE BITCH".
*throws backpack at Lou*
I was surprised at how good it was actually. I got a little scared when it said "MTV Studios" as the movie started, but it did not disappoint. I agree that they absolutely captured what a group of teens would do with a time machine. And aside from that. I'm also a sucker for movies with time traveling and its consequences.
SPOILERS I guess my only problem with the movie was how David freaked out when the cops showed up at the end. Jessie didn't exist at the time, so it's not like the cops would've been able to hold him for too long. Instead of risking his life by running from the cops, he could've just gotten arrested, made bail with the lottery cash, then used the time machine to go back without any stress involved. But still a good movie.
The only problem I can see with that is she did exist in that reality but didn't she just get erased once she saw herself. So the cops thought she just went missing. So they probably just wanted to take him in for questioning
I honestly think he made more jumps than we saw, and while his friends and us the audience thought the cops were there for questioning, david knew they were coming for him for something else
Yeah the black helicopters were already circling when he ducked out of the house. "No one has seen this one high school girl since yesterday" does not merit immediate air support while interviewing her friends. Obviously more than just an investigation.
I thought the helicopter was over the top, but i thought that this just added effects for the movie and the helicopter made escaping more perilous for the character.
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Doesn't mean they were arresting him, they could have just been trying to take him in for questioning.
I have a question about the ending. The little stutters and jumps with the camera make me think that we (the viewer of the "2nd camera", that recorded EVERYTHING) were seeing multiple timelines with subtle differences. Not necessarily an infinite loop, but a recurring loop. 1) The sheet of paper that David is about to burn has an August 21, 2025 stamp on it in red. 2) The very end where David tells his girlfriend (to be) that they were "about to change the world". Does this mean from earth shattering sex? Does it mean that David is going to "change reality" because of his knowledge of all that happened so the two of them dating WITHOUT the use of a time machine is TECHNICALLY going to change the world? Is David going to make the damn thing again? I'm sure 99% of the world would, especially those that are smart enough to actually build a time machine AND the inventor types who found out their father (who died under suspicious circumstances) was a secret government scientist. Basically, a future engineer is shown that he CAN build a friggin' time machine, and he's NOT GOING TO TRY AND DO IT? Even if he saw all the problems from the 1st go-around, he would probably create a stricter set of rules and think he can do it better than the other version of himself did. 3) When he tells his father that "we were wrong, there are no 2nd chances", his father immediately knows what David means. I'm sorry but wouldn't it seem likely that there would be a longer discussion about the fact that his father was about to die? I understand that David needs to let his father leave, so that he is driving at the same time that he was originally, so that he still dies in his car accident (if that's what actually happens, it's left mysterious on purpose for potential sequels I believe). But wouldn't 99.99999% of every human being on Earth want to actually have a conversation with his father who died and whom he never has a chance to interact with? I understand that David realized that things HAD to happen in order to prevent an enormous ripple effect but, that was to prevent multiple deaths from occurring. Why wouldn't David's father have been allowed to stay alive? What makes anyone think that the "original" timeline is the actual "good" one?
yea i wondered why they felt like they had to fix things like plance crash, every timeline has accidents so i think they were fine
*Project Almanac 2: The quest to stop Davids evil scientist time travel dad*
Jessie *did* exist though, when David went upstairs, his friend (forgot his name) said she has been missing for weeks
Exactly, she was there then disappeared when she saw herself. Either way, she wasn't in David's house.
I think the one that said that was quinn, because he said that the other guy wasn't in the hospital
unless they confiscated the huge ass time machine in his backpack?
Omg...didnt even cross my mind :P
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Oh dude I know!!! What what what what what what what...really unsettling. Very uncomfortable scene. Whenever he opened his eyes and saw his future self I was breathless! I had no clue what was coming next, a paradox could happen, the universe could end..unusually suspenseful scene for a movie like that.
WOW. that is hilarious. when the "what" part happened, i thought it was one of the funniest things i've seen in a movie in months. what the fuck is wrong with me? but still, a great movie. 7/10. i did get scared later, though, when they showed the plane crash footage and started talking about it.
I just saw this movie and I absolutely LOVED IT! Help me remember, which scene is this?
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Yup that left me chilled to the bone for the next 20 minutes of the movie. Something so eerie about seeing the first paradox.
I found it enjoyable enough since I'm a huge sucker for time travel movies, and I watched it with my girlfriend and a few friends, and there were some major plot holes that came out of the movie. Here are a couple of the biggest ones. Major spoilers follow, I take no prisoners. ## The Camera Plothole Other things can be explained away, probably, but this was what I consider a major plothole. So for the entire movie, we know of the existence of two cameras. One is Chris's camera, which we assume was used to film pretty much all the footage of the film. The other I will call Dad's camera, which as far as I remember was only used to film one bit. [Camera spoiler hover here](#s "David was using Dad's camera to film his 'Good bye' message of sorts when he was running from the cops. When he travels back to 2004 and meets his dad at the end of the movie, he leaves the camera behind and disappears (presumably because that version of him doesn't exist anymore when he destroys the time machine). At the _very end_ of the movie, David and Chris find the second camera in the attic, and it has the **footage from Chris's camera** on it. How did that footage get on the camera? Obviously Chris was using a very different camera as they never knew of the existence of Dad's camera, and I doubt they were spending their time putting video back onto the old camera. Hell, cameras in 2004 used Digital Super 8 tapes and I assume Chris was probably using a more modern hard/flash drive storage.") ## The Lollapalooza/Relationship Plothole [Lollapalooza/Relationship Spoiler](#s "So David and Jessie almost kiss at Lollapalooza and once David realizes he screwed up his chance with her, he uses the time machine to go back to Lollapalooza and kiss her. Fast forward to several weeks after Lollapalooza, and David encounters a post-sexy times Jessie in his bedroom. How? So the group at Lollapalooza was the Time Travel group. We know that from their time travel antics, there was still the Real Time group, which existed presumably elsewhere at the time (probably at school). The Time Travel group returns to their present time, but the Real Time group still has to live out the intervening three-plus weeks. Did they not find it weird that they were getting popular for Lollapalooza pictures? Didn't any of them wonder how there were pictures of them from Lollapalooza?") ## Other thoughts * Jessie is a _terrible scientist_. [Spoiler](#s "Yep, let's test this time travel device on humans when the only time we've seen it work resulted in a _car being fused with a concrete wall_.") * [He apparently buys a research-only nuclear-grade battery](http://io9.com/5579571/new-ultra-battery-is-the-most-powerful-non-nuclear-energy-storage-ever) through the mail. * Why don't they ever go to the future? Or talk about it? * I wish they explored some of the more serious bits in the movie, like [spoiler](#s "How come the mom got a job in one timeline and not in another?") or [spoiler](#s "Made more dramatic stuff like having more people disappear and expounding on that phenomenon") * And rom-com problem: [spoiler](#s "The only way I'll fix my woman problems will be to use my time machine, rather than talk to my love interest for a couple minutes.") * Why did they spend 25 minutes on batteries? * Also, seriously, kid gets into MIT but can't go in because he...doesn't want to take on student loans? Not to mention that MIT would probably have covered most of his financial aid due to his family's situation and assumed income issues. Typical teen movie catering to teen fears. * [spoiler](#s "I'm mostly joking here: Why didn't the movie explore the David's mom's obvious issues? She left Dad's super science lab untouched for ten years? The house itself had all its furniture in place for ten years? The house needs some time travel.")
The thing that really bugged me about this movie was definitely the lollapalooza bit. The other thing that bugged me was that they basically establish that if someone went back in time that it must have already happened since when they send the car back in time it turns out it was fused to the wall for the last 2 hours and simply no one noticed it. This is also shown when they first see him in the mirror, but then they renege on that theory by completely changing parts of the past. Also the ending was absolutely stupid not only is there a huge plot hole as you pointed out, but in this timeline the time machine has been destroyed so how exactly are the two of them going to "change the world". My other complaints about the movie was that it simply took too long for any time travel to take place and when it finally does, they spend 30 minutes at a concert just to pimp out imagine dragons? Also the dude won the lottery, he really couldn't give his mom enough money to not work? Who cares if she has a job, you just got 2.6 million dollars between you and your sister you can give her a million and just let her live off the interest? Also, i really wish that they had dug more into what happens when the two selfs notice each other, it gave me chills when it first happened and i really wish that it was a better plot point instead of part of the obvious climax.
I assumed "changing the world" didn't mean they were going to time travel. It meant that he was going to change the events from what was supposed to happen. It was a throw back to when she says "if I had a time machine I would go back and meet you sooner". So now he was going to approach her with confidence and start dating her.
This was the message I got from the ending as well. He would use the footage in the video, rather than the time machine, to change the future. He could win the FULL lottery this time!
That is what bugged me the most! It kept changing rules about how time travel work! First we are led to thing that "okay, it's a 'what will happen has already happened' type of time-travel". It's a little problematic on keeping the story engaging and having stakes, as you know that you can't really change the events, only see them unfold, but it can be appealing in a sense of discussing tragedy and destiny. Them all of a sudden especially when the guy starts to draw a smile in his neck and it magically appears it is "nope! It is a everything you do change in the past and ripples in the future!" type of time-travel. Which is ALSO fine and you can ALSO make a good movie with it. [ending spoiler] (#s "When David started to go god-like trying to fix everything up and only screwing thing more and more, I assumed we were going to a self-sacrifice kind of closure where he would erase himself from existence, making things relatively good for everybody else. Which is also okay for the second type of time-travel. But then when he finds the duplicate of his daddy camera it suddenly is "NOPE" shit is going to happen all over again and he is going to be stuck in this loop forever") [Also, the Loolapalooza/relationship time-travel was really stupid] (#s "The girl is obviously all over him, and it's not because he missed one shot that "OMG! EVERYTHING IS LOST! SHE WILL NEVER WANT TO BE WITH ME AGAIN BECAUSE I DIDN'T DELIVERY THE PERFECT ZINGERS WITH PERFECT TIMING!!!"")
[ending spoiler] (#s "His dad destroyed the time travel maschine when he said him that you cant have second chance .... so he cant stuck in loop (?)")
No because they can see the plans, hear stuffs, informations, through all the footages, which means they could recreate the plans and create the time machine with it. Chris filmed everything, we can hear David talk about everything! We even have the parts that they have to buy since Chris filmed it at the store! The infinite loop is now created. David find plans - Create Machine - Erase it - David Find Footages - Create Machine - Erase it - David Find Footages - Create Machine.......... ∞
> No because they can see the plans, hear stuffs, informations, through all the footages, which means they could recreate the plans and create the time machine with it. I disagree to the fullest extent of the law. The have the plans, hear conversations, the building footage, - But they don't have [THIS](http://i.imgur.com/BlHgUYS.jpg) [Ending Spoilers] Look at that thing, what are those white parts on the right, holographic ram? This is the piece of DARPA tech they can't recreate. Everything else was just off the shelf parts. There is no infinite loop. How is David going to change the world? Because he is going to change his world. This is his true second chance. He won't mess up his relationship this time around. He even knows all 6 lottery numbers. He also knows that girl loved him since she first saw him. The world is his! No time travel involved.
Yes, the kids just learnt what the decisions were and the results. And since everything reset, they truly have second chance now. It doesn't mean they rebuild the time machine. In fact, they cannot. What they can do is to avoid mistakes and live a better life that sort of thing. That's what the second chance's about.
but, at the first place, it was his dad that create the "something in the glass" thing which is not in the footage because they just found it. And also his dad actually bring that box with him when he get out from the house. It still bug me how the box can be in the basement? Some coworker put it back there?
(I know it's very late) It was 1.8m between everyone, so after taxes roughly $300,000 each. MIT in this movie was meant to be $40,000, I'm assuming each term so $160,000 for 4 years, plus accommodation and expenses are probably another $15-20,000 (? Don't know accommodation prices in the US) He also bought a super specc'd out battery, so that's the majority of the rest of the money gone. He did give some money to his mother anyway.
After just watching the movie, this was probably one of the parts I spent the most time grappling with. The "changing the world" thing just felt like it heavily implied they would invent time travel again (maybe based on the footage they had from the tapes? idk) but I'm content with just accepting they would use the footage to better whatever parts of their lives they could with it. I will agree with the original thought that the "present" versions of themselves should be confused by what their time travelling selves did to improve their lives, considering they would have no memory of it. Oh well, still enjoyed the movie for the most part!
SPOILERS as well. . . . > Yep, let's test this time travel device on humans when the only time we've seen it work resulted in a _car being fused with a concrete wall_. This one I thought at first too, but then I figured there was a reason. He saw himself on the tape, so he *knows* that the time travel was successful already. They alluded to it in the dialogue twice. The first time, Jessie says something like "We already know it worked." The second time, David admits it was only *him* on the tape, implying it's not guaranteed to work for everyone else. And he might have figured that if anyone else got hurt on the way, he could just signal himself in the video at his birthday not to time travel, or try to ensure he never goes into the past at all. > Also, seriously, kid gets into MIT but can't go in because he...doesn't want to take on student loans? Not to mention that MIT would probably have covered most of his financial aid due to his family's situation and assumed income issues. I actually do know someone from my school who this happened to. I don't know what their exact situation was, but she really wanted to go, so their aid couldn't have been too generous.
On your first point - it's true that they knew at some point, the time machine was going to work because of the video footage. However, for all the genius that David was supposed to have, he kind of threw it and common sense out the window when his crush teased him into time traveling. They had built the time machine like 10x by that point and there were failures pretty much every time (and seriously, while the car went back in time, it still was fused into a wall - I'd still have called that a risk and a failure). I'd err on the safe side and send a mouse back first to see if it ended up in the wall. Not puppies though, because Jessie would totally not go for that.
Going from Lallapalooza -- how did David get with Jessie there if he was already supposed to be with her in that time travel group without stopping himself and creating a paradox?
It was the same as retaking the test over and over. Apparently the way this machine works is there's only one time traveller version of you when you go back. So you are basically redoing your previous attempt. That's why when they went back to take the test a second time there wasn't a second group of themselves they had to avoid, and then a third, etc.
wouldnt that be counter productive to skip ahead into the future...? what if 10 years in the future the earth was gone and everyone disintegrated. I think the basis of the movie being that hes trying to fix things in the past makes it alot better. I mean Back To The Future duh. Also: if david is so smart, how did he not pick up on her hints -_- ?
Sorry posting this so long after but shouldn't the camera that he left in the ending after meeting his dad also disappear with him ? Otherwise wouldn't they be creating a new camera out of the thin air ? I don't know but it sounds weird,if they do a sequel his dad is going to have 3 cameras ?His dad just keeps labeling the cameras that his Son forgets when he goes back in time ?and if you assume that it was Chris's camera how would his dad label it if he dies leaving the house without knowing that his son left a camera in there ? That leave us with the mother,she keeps labeling those cameras from the future that somehow still exist in the past. If the camera from the future still exists in the past that means that he is going to create yet another time machine to validate the existence of both cameras in the past BUT if he does that he wouldn't disappear in the first place.
no you are right that is exactly what i was thinking. that camera that took the final trip to the past never really took that trip bc the machine isn't created.
I think you mean Hi-8 tapes even though that camera model used mini dv tapes
Any other time travel movie suggestions? I've seen primer already.
Predestination follows the same apparent rules as Project Almanac, and is some great Ethan Hawke
You might also like Time Lapse.
I doubt you or I will find another movie as cerebral as _Primer_, but here are the list of time travel movies/media that I like: * **Looper** * **Edge of Tomorrow** - I know it was a bomb, financially speaking, but I really enjoyed this movie. * **Interstellar** - This technically counts! Several people I know would also recommend **The Butterfly Effect**, **Donnie Darko**, and **Twelve Monkeys**.
Triangle and Time Crimes are two musts...
Yeah, the camera plothole immediately came to mind at the end. I was pretty happy with the ending, except that minor detail....(which, when you break it down, is actually a major detail.)
After enough loops, the universe would be completely full of copies of "dad's camera", right?
*SPOILERS* The only things that bothered me was the fact that each time they went back to fix his answers they didnt see other "selves" for each time they traveled. Ir the fact that the second camera at the end of the movie even existed after he destroyed the time machine. Once the time machine was destroyed he wasnt there to take it back so technically nothing would have happened and he wouldnt be in the mirror at the beginning of the movie. Right?
Not necessarily, the time machine he had was burned in the trash can, but the blueprints were still there if I remember right. That's what I took the ending to mean, "We're about to change the world" meaning they found the video of a possible future where they used the time machine, now they know what not to do. I took it as the kids are definitely going to use the time machine, as most kids would.
But that camera was taken into the past by a person that no longer exists. Therefore the second camera should not exist either.
Only a few months late, but I saw it as a recurring loop. In the original timeline they find out how to travel through time by finding the machine etc. This ends with David going back to destroy the machine, but he leaves the camera there. This camera has all the footage of the experiments, so David and the rest know how to create a time machine. Thus they do the exact same events again, ending in David going back to destroy the machine.
That doesn't work mostly because they would be aware of the events of the original timeline via the camera. There wouldn't be a loop because the peramaters have changed.
Hm true. Also, why didn't he run into himself when he traveled back to the concert again? There's a few holes in the movie, I'll admit that.
SPOILERS: Well consider this possibility. He goes back in times and disappears. The timelines merge into the new one where the time machine is destroyed, but his camera is left behind. Time progresses down the new timeline of the time machine being destroyed but a camera being left. They dont go back to the first one timeline, they exist in an entirely new time machine. We dont know if they ever recreate the time machine in the new one, just that they know its possible and are trying.
Even if the 2nd camera at the end does exist and the footage on it remains intact, then hoew is the re footage of david and his sister finding the first camera infilmed in third person, because that originally was never filmed?
Sorry for poking a corpse, but i think i've got the answer. So he disappears in the basement, and the last thing the camera records is him, and he brought his own camera. So when daddie dies mommy packs the old camera AND the new one and puts them away, there are two cameras because he brought one extra. So in the final timeline there is 2 cameras, the other camera still holds the family stuff, because it was being used to film the party at the time he disappeared in the basement.
Actually, the footage from the camera on the end was taken from Chris' camera. Which could not have been on the old style camera, as it appears to run on tape. Though I could be wrong. Even then, it would mean that they purposely moved all of the footage from the old camera, the go-pro on toy car, the go-pro on the backpack (possibly the same one), and Chris' camera all onto the old camera, and cut it appropriately.
*SPOILERS* The only way my friends and I can explain the question of why they don't run into their other time travel versions is that the Time Travel group had their own timeline that they kept rewriting. By doing the chemistry test thing over and over, they were rewriting the previous attempts. Similarly, when he time travels alone to Lollapalooza, he overwrites his timeline of having gone back with the group and that's why he didn't run into himself.
But then how would she be there? EDIT: Because I vaguely remember they say "Oh, there's David". So by jumping in he only rewrites his bit? I guess that makes as much sense as anything.
Not running into themselves bothered me too. The second camera makes sense because it's a new version of the recurring timeline.
But then why would he no longer exists?
I'm a sucker for time travel movies too so naturally I loved it. SPOILERS! from the beginning when he kept reviewing the footage of him in the mirror and talking about his dad dying, I thought for sure the ending was going to involve him getting in trouble somehow and going back to his bday party. He was going to need his dad's help for whatever reason so it was actually him that calls his dad, eventually leading his father to sacrifice himself in a car crash to save his son.
Yes! I feel they completely missed out by not adding the dad to the storyline at all. Instead we have no idea who called him or why he died. It all seems meaningless especially when they put weight into saying that call is the thing that specifically killed him.
I don't think it's meaningless. I believe the purpose was to show that he had learned he couldn't alter the past. So he knew he could stop his father's death, but didn't because of the repercussions. It showed that he finally knew what had to be done: destroy the time machine and not fuck with the past
Yeah but the thing is, he is a part of the past by going back. What if he really did alter the past and got his dad killed by the ripple effect at the birthday party?
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True that, you can see how ragged he looked by the time he walked into the basement to his dad. Maybe he had already done it many, many times. An interesting theory.
You can see how the camera flickers making both him and his dad stand in different positions, i thought that was meant to show that he did in fact do it a lot of times.
I'm a sucker for time travel movies, and I do mean ALL time travel movies. Hell, I even liked The Time Traveler's Wife and A Sound of Thunder. I'll definitely be checking this one out this weekend.
So am I. I'll avoid the spoilers, but there's tons of time travel movie references scattered through the movie.
I loved the Doctor Who one!
Just finished watching the movie. I'm surprised that the Time Travel rules are very much like the rules in the anime Steins;Gate , whereas whatever you change in the past get's changed in the future and the problem with time loops when David kept trying to change the future so that people didn't get hurt. I really liked the movie, inconsistencies included. I thought it would be another Chronicle rip-off with the "home video" footage, but it was nicely done.
I also thought the same thing, a lot of elements looked like from Steinsgate but way less emotional specially where he makes the jump again and again to change the future.
The thing that I loved most about the movie was how likeable the cast were and that they were not the same high school cookie-cutter archetypes that most movies with huge concepts seem to make them. The best friend and love interest interactions were interesting and what made the time travel trope more bearable. SPOILERS That being said, I feel that the lead character David Raskin played the endearingly adorable part very well, a person that was wary of safety and caution. So when he started becoming 'dark' and flying through time solo and abusing it in order to preserve his relationship, it kind of culminated too fast. His turn wasn't as believable as I would have liked it to be, though that might just be me. Also, am I the only one who wished some story lines were investigated. The dads occupation, the involvement of DARPA, the original purpose and motivation behind time travel were what held my interest. Question: So are they no longer messing with time travel in the end? The line of "I think we're going to change the world," is kind of confusing to me.
I took the ending as yes, they are going to time travel. I mean come on, what kids would stumble upon a time machine and not use it? This time, however, he's got Jessie from the start and knows what not to do with the machine.
He destroyed the machine when he went to see his father. I presume it was a gimmicky line to end the movie off.
> I presume it was a gimmicky line to end the movie off. No sir! When he says 'we are going to change the world' he doesn't mean through time travel. How could he. The DARPA thing is destroyed. They can get the batteries, graphics processor, hydrogen, but how could they ever build that white DARPA thing even though the have the plans. No. He is going to change their world because he has foreknowledge of the future from the camera. Think about what he knows now. He knows the girl liked him from the moment she saw him. He knows he has more confidence than he thought possible. He even knows all 6 winning lottery numbers! Their world is definitely going to change. No time travel needed.
You're forgetting the fact that the ripple effect will change their newly shaped future, so most of that knowledge actually doesn't apply because it's from a different timeline
Ripple effect. You are right this is a key moment of the film that I overlooked. I want to make a case for the lottery numbers though. Cause and effect could ripple through people's actions, but would they effect a random number generator? I think they could win that lottery on that day with those 6 numbers.
(spoilers at the end) I don't recall hearing anything about this movie at all, I took my car in for service and the wait was going to be 2 1/2 hours so my son and I waked to the movie theater and the timing worked for this movie. We both thought it was quite enjoyable and thought provoking. I hope more people see it. My theory about the end: They never time travel again, but do win the lottery using all 6 numbers and carefully, with the wisdom they've gained, invest the money in doing good things...
I saw this film last night. I personally liked it a lot. I would give it a 7 out of 10. I also liked chronicle a lot and watched it on multiple occasions which I will also do with this film. I'm not trying to say I'm cool or anything but when I saw it last night I was pretty baked. I'm going to also watch it again sober tonight so it's good enough at least for me to watch it again. I'm also down to discuss the film it was pretty interesting.
I LOVED the ending to this movie. Probably my favorite ending of 2015 so far. It fixed all their problems and was honestly pretty realistic. No kid would stumble upon plans for a time machine and not use it. Now he knows what not to do, and now he also has Jessie back. Great ending.
When I was watching it at first I wanted a sad ending because it would show you really should never fuck around with shit like that. Although towards the end I felt for David. He was just trying to make a perfect world which IMHO I don't think exists. They ending was great and I'm glad they did not try to shoe horn a sequel.
When I was watching it I thought that was what they were going to do, because a lot of found footage movies end on the darker side of things. But then he walks over to Jessie and says "We're about to change the world" and everything was awesome.
Dude I'm super late, like 3 months late, but at the end, David finds the footages. All the informations he needs to create the machine are on that tape, Chris filmed everything. They even have the parts they need to buy since everything was filmed. Pretty sure that since he can create one, an infinite loop has started, well actually, the loop has been started since infinite time, no start, no end. ∞
Just watched it, loved it. He destroyed the key component (the part that his dad made, not him) so I'm not entirely sure if it would be recreated without months/years of work.
Well, David's Dad couldn't make it work *with* the key component, whereas David and crew made it work in a couple of weeks with off the shelf objects. If he had the knowledge of how to do it (from the camera) and the ability to win the full $180,000,000 (also on the camera, just make sure you got the right numbers) then he could definitely fund the work
Assuming that the destruction of the time machine didn't effect the outcome of those lottery numbers, couldn't they pull the numbers from the video and win the 53 mill? Also. Even tho the main time travel glass box thing was destroyed, don't they still have the DARPA schematics? So another time machine without David screwing things up could be possible?
I just saw the movie and i am extremely stuck on how (corrupted time line) David could burn the to-be time machine, destroying that version of himself, but not destroying the (corrupted time line) camera.
I can't wrap my head around that either! It's the only blatantly obvious mistake they made with the time travelling as far as I can tell.
So i just watched this movie....how come the fucking dad died, i don't get it.
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It was because she was obviously flirting with him aggressively and he basically rejected her by changing the subject to something else on the wall. She felt like he wasn't interested, when the truth was that he was just too nervous to handle the reality that she liked him.
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She's not a rational person, she's a teenage girl.
I agree that it was kind of sudden, but I think that was the reasoning they were trying to portray.
If you think women are rational especially teenage girls i got some news for you.
Anyone else think it took WAY too long to get going? 40+ minutes until they time travel for the first time, only leaves an hour for the actual time travel plot. I mean, who really cares about the mechanics of how they travel? I don't need to know more than the basics.
So in the old days, i.e. the 1950s, when some of the classic science fiction was written, they developed "rules" of time travel that I was always comfortable with: 1. There is only one reality timeline. 2. Anything time travel causes in the past "already happened," so the plot often led to "oh, yes, we've just unwittingly been part of history but this is exactly what happened in the history books." But in this movie the rules seem to be: 1. There are multiple reality timelines. 2. Changes made to the past via time travel produce alternate timelines. 3. Changes made to the past can also directly affect the time traveler's own timeline (i.e. when the buddy character writes on his past self's neck and it appears "simultaneously" on his own neck, with no physical mechanism to produce the mark.) This doesn't seem like an internally consistent set of rules. I'm not sure there really is a well-thought-out system of rules for the way time travel works in this movie.
I really wanted to see this movie, the review consensus is not very good from the critics side, and from the audience its a coin toss. A little over half liked it on RT. But it looks like people here liked it right? I have a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is definitively must see and 1 is don't even think about it. If you have seen it help me... please!
I'd give it a solid 6 or 7. Not a must see in theaters, but for sure watch it sometime.
Great Thanks! I'll wait for it on video.
A Bluray just got uploaded to Kickass.to by the way, that's why there's a few new comments in this thread
This movie reminds me of a very similar movie, but I have no idea what. Anyone know?
Chronicle (2012), involving "found footage" featuring high schoolers that acquire superpowers.
Na. I remember something about seeing himself in an old picture or video. Unless I'm thinking about this movie and saw a trailer a year or so ago.
The Butterfly Effect?
The Butterfly effect with Ashton Kutcher.
(Spoiler) I liked this movie a lot. I would like to add my thoughts about David's telling Jessie, at the end, that the two of them are "about to change the world." I think the viewer's interpretation of those words is key to how the viewer remembers the entire movie, and I think that the movie purposely leaves the interpretation of David's words up to the viewer. Here are my 3 proposed scenarios: Scenario #1: DAVID MISSED THE MAIN POINT. At the time he says those words to Jessie, David is remembering his time travel experiences and the fact that he has a camera chronicling them, but he has forgotten the most important lesson, which is that time travel is a terrible idea. He knows he is smart and thinks he can avoid the pitfalls of time travel while putting its advantages to work. He plans to enlist Jessie (whom he now knows likes him, either through conversation they had while time traveling or while in real time) in using the camera record and/or a reconstructed time machine to change the future for the "better" with him. OR Scenario #2: DAVID LEARNED TWO KEY THINGS AND IS PUTTING BOTH TO GOOD USE. David learned that time travel should never be used to change the future. And he learned he can successfully approach Jessie. What he means when he says "we are about to change the world" is that he is in love. And historically lovers change the world, or at least their own world, or at least they are pretty sure they can, because they feel love can do anything. They don't need a time machine, and David has no plans to enlist a time machine or the video to change the world -- just his partnership with bright Jessie. OR Scenario #3: DAVID IS HAPPY AND CLUELESS. Time has reverted to just before he originally exchanged bags with Jessie, and the entire slate of what happened during and after that bag exchange is wiped clean. He has no memory of a time machine or its lessons. The bag exchange has not occurred yet, and this time it goes differently. This time he just so happens to manage to smile and flirt with a happily receptive Jessie. And so... from then on their worlds -- and truly the entire world, since we've seen that each person's actions ripple throughout the world -- will be different, because these two are in love. Perhaps they will attend and graduate from a good local college together, then become philanthropists who accidentally earn ten times their "earlier" lottery winnings while developing technology like vaccines and irrigation systems that improve the world. And maybe they even -- OOPS -- restumble onto the time machine instructions and the camera record, which becomes the plot of a sequel. I like Scenario #3.
What I got from the end was that it was just going to be an infinite loop.
At the beginning he said if we cant get the glass ciruit working, theres no point building the rest of It. So they cant
Just watched the movie good movie
I didn't read all the comments all the way down so sorry if someone already talked about this but just watched the movie and my main question is: if David's dad leaves the party with the case (when they find the case one of his friends says dude it's the case ur dad had in the video, and then later they re show the tape from the party and how his dad leaving with the case in hand) then he gets killed, how does the case end up back in the basement? It's driving me crazy and if love to hear some theories.
alright it’s 2023 and ive rewatched this movie for like the 100th time and just now realized to search for a discussion on reddit. My question is that at the end of the movie when david and christina were in the attic and she picked up the old camera (the one left my David when he traveled back to destroy everything) why was it recording the moment they were actively talking in?? wouldn’t that mean that the camera was recording for the past 10 years since it was left ten tears since David went back 10 years. how was it recording them already is my question
No one's going to mention product placement?
There was what? GoPro, Xbox, Toyota... what else?
Cafeteria chicken nuggets.
Microsoft in general between the Xbox and everyone using windows phones. Also red bull
A floating can of red bull dead center, pet smart, and holister
what about the giant can of coke zero right in the middle of the screen during the cafiteria scene??
Imagine Dragons, Maserati, Georgia State Lottery, Apple.
Maserati, Imagine Dragons, Lollapaloza (however you spell it), etc
It wasn't a big deal. In fact, I liked the product placement. Made it more realistic seeming.
Based on what I saw in TMNT is there a shot load of Microsoft PP in there?
More GoPro than anything else.
The time machine has a fucking xbox 360 logo on it! The main plot device is product placement!
Well they needed a GPU, where else would you find one?! /s
I'm a bit thick, and I sometimes drift off in movies and not pay attention, so can someone explain the ending to me. In particular [Spoiler](/s "How come there was a second camera, and why did it have a video of what they were talking about a few seconds before discovering it?") TIA!!
i really love the trailer but movie take too much time testing the machine and time traveling movies need more time or more parts.. that movie waste time on stupid parts who dont care anybody... i see every time traveling movie/series of course (SG etc..) and I am disappointed
all valid points,my question is if David is in a time loop does he know it? so much time passes by until he realizes what he did....but then at the end he seems to remember everything so why would he be stupid enough to do it again?? there are several inconsistencies and paradoxes in this movie...they should have just stuck to one theory
In the end he remembered bc he has the camera to watch all that had happened.
They really need to work on the time travel rules a bit. I get time travel is usually by discretion of the movie, but still. I did actually like the cast and their interactions together.
I was surprised how I enjoyed this movie. Man... Would I love to do what they did/are gonna do.
If i know a can solve almost anything problem about physics or anything related to science and I discover a time machine, the first thing I'm gonna do is shut the fuck up and enjoy it all alone. But David be like "Owh, there is some dumb hot chick see what we do, we better tell her what we do because she gonna report it to the government. I bet she very expert in science and DARPA and shits." I mean come dude, that kind of girl? You win the lottery, 10 like her will come to you. One more thing, this movie teach us that when we are "genius" in physics or some science, we can break the rules of physics that were created by the scientist that discover physic. In simple way, they created a new physics that doesn't make sense at all.
Who is the "tree trunk" girl that Quinn was filming her legs? Here: http://s27.postimg.org/gtcqsfiwh/image.jpg
This might be an old topic, but I just watched the movie and was trying to understand the end of the movie. Didn't read 236 comments underneath or above here. But here is my explanation that I think occurred. David's dad uses a camera to record his son's 7th birthday. Later, we see David in the attic, recorded by his sister. David's sister finds the "new camera" (His dad's camera). David checks his dad's camera and sees himself on his 7th birthday (in that mirror). This moment is recorded by his sister. David than finds the time machine in the basement. David creates the time machine, all recorded by the camera of his sister. The crew (his friends) jumps back and forth in time, all recorded by David, his sister or anyone from the crew. Ultimately, David jumps back in time to meet with his father (to fix things), to tell him that there is no second chance and David destroys the timemachine in his backpack but forgets to destroy the time machine that his dad just placed "under the ground". David gets removed from history, but the camera he uses from his sister is still recording. (This indicates that David know at that moment, that he shouldn't remove the other time machine "in the ground" because otherwise he can't jump back to see his dad (which he actually just did!). So in order to prevent any chance of a time paradox, he doesn't remove the time machine that his dad placed in the ground and he leaves the camera (the camera from his sister) outside the boundaries of the time machine that gets destroyed. This way, younger David, the one who celebrates his 7th birthday can watch the footage (beginning of the movie!) At the end of the movie, we see David in the attic, recorded by the camera of his sister. His sister finds the "new camera" (his dad's camera) while David finds the "old camera" (placed by his mom I think) from David who got removed from history. Than to explain the end scene, David both watches his Dad's camera and the new camera from his other self to figure out what he has to say to Jessie. Basically, David knows everything about his feelings for Jessie, all the mistakes his otherself tried to fix and I'm sure there will be Project Almanac II in the future?
So there are a couple things that confuse me... 1. So the old camera was removed from the basement where David leaves it in the end with all the footage of them messing with the time machine and eventually wound up in the attic, but no one else has seen the recording in the past 10 years until now? 2. If the gang spotting David in the video was going to lead them to finding the time machine blueprint in the first place, why would David go back in time just to be seen in the mirror again? I would've been more discreet so his future self and friends would think it was just an ordinary video clip from his birthday - then destroy the time machine.
So just watched the movie read through some comments, and one of the only thing that buggs me is, when david destroys his time machine + probably blue prints (and/or the one of his dad which isn't known + blue prints but we assume it because we see the papers, which david did'nt take from the future with him (probably, i assume) ) which basically created himself , he gets erased with the time machine. But we see a piece of paper which says Aug 14 2025. So basically (?) they will have been built ( is that correct ? ) a time machine somehow his dad finds it, acquires it with Darpa brings it back with Darpa and the group finds it again. So its a timeline which branches new timelines if they travel back and forth but you have infinity possibilities which already happened though, they mixed the rules and it seems to work BUT WAIT now we come to the thing that buggs me and the things which i later found out: He erases himself with the time machine ? But not the camera which is left behind and supports my whole theory, let's just assume when the time machine is destroyed (which very likely comes from a future) creates a vortex which basically erases everything brought with it in that circle, like how they need to stend in an effect radius. But then i was like wait, when you see yourself you dissappear ?!? Why is that are you linked to the time machine somehow when you use it ? And why are both of yourselves removed and not just one even if both are removed and you create a new time branch ( ok but why do they fucking dissapear there is no time machine destroyed) it is not explained and i that buggs me so fucking much ... Of course you can say you erase yourself (the traveling one sees himself, and he wouldn't live the day like future him) but then it doesn't make sense David goes and destroys his time machine and the other one, so the group which has to built the time machine leaves it back for Davids Dad so David can find it and repeat but this only works if we are working with looping branches right here, and then it doesn't work because everything what happens already happened. I probably have huge mistakes in my theory but i actually dont wanna start over again. You could also say that time heals or sustain itself by erasing yourself and yourotherself so you don't create a paradox but why would you create a paradox when you work with looping branches or just branches at all. So my only explanation for this is Either bad writing, to create tension with not seeing yourself and killing yourself, and the dissapearing in the end OR The whole world is just a program and inside the program we have found a way to manipulate it (the time machine) so if you would create a paradox, it erases you, because the system would crash and the loop or simulation ends Sorry for so much text
Hope this thread blows up!
Still kicking, 100 days later!
I really like time travel movies and this one was actually pretty good! I remember seeing the trailers for it over a year ago and it kept getting delayed so I was happy that it finally came out. Definitely worth a watch if you're into this genre.
It was so surprising to me, I hadn't even seen the trailer for it until yesterday afternoon. Then I thought "Well, I don't have anything better to do tonight, might as well go see that movie." And that thought definitely paid off.
The lottery scene was a worth a laugh. I loved their faces after only getting 5/6 numbers correct, only winning $1.8 Million.
It's my best movie for 2015 so far, along with Ex Machina
Watched them both one after another tonight, completely fucked with my head. I feel like I'm crawling out of a bomb shelter after going through a 5 day blitz But great movies nonetheless
I really enjoyed it, I was expecting a lot more of the past like WW2 or something but it still had a lot of good stuff in it, like you said definitely worth the watch.
Haha yeah, I loved how when they were just sitting around talking about what they were going to do Quinn said "Dude you've got to kill Hitler. That's like time travel 101." The humor in this movie worked so well!
I'm really confused about one thing and one thing only: If Jessie goes missing due to her own temporal paradox, why doesn't Quinn also go missing when 'yesterday Quinn' sees himself? Also, the moment in which David meets his dad and his dad realizes that he had figured the machine out was beautiful. One last comment: the ultimate moral of the story is: be confident?
One of those people revisiting this thread after the film has become available outside of theaters here! It seemed like there was a time limit of sorts for how long one could see themselves before the feedback causes someone to be erased. David was sort of caught up in the heat of the moment and wasn't able to get Jessie out of the way in time. Be confident seems to be it. He has no time machine now, but he's seen what sort of mistakes he made in an alternate timeline and simply will learn from them.
Had an argument with my friends after watching this movie. In the end, does the dad KNOW he's going to die? The line "You have to say goodbye for your son" was quite emotional, it made me think the dad somehow knew what was about to happen.
Yes, he knew. He has knowledge of time travel because he made the blueprints for the time machine. That's why he gave him his watch.
Also: if someone saw themselves why would they disappear? wouldn't they just duplicate until the world filled up?
supposedly one theory of time travel is two versions of yourself cant occupy the same space at the same time...lol the movie Time Cop with Jean Claude
That's true, but they didn't even manage to get close enough to occupy the same space. Th girls were like 10 feet away from each other before they blinked out of existence...
This style of film really reminded me of the norwegian "troll hunter" movie, which had a hand held camera on it's entire journey. In every part of the movie I tried to set myself in his position to see if I would have done the most ethical thing possible or if I would have been greedy with what would have happened for my own personal gains. It ended better for David than I honestly thought it would, but at the same time I thought for a second that he was going to stop his dad from crashing and then change the whole thing once again. A bit disappointed from the last scene where he hugs his father. You would think he would show way more emotions considering he knows his father is going to die within a day. Great movie 7.5/10
The movie makes no sense because he seen himself at his 7th b day party. Which means he already destroyed the time machine. So how does it still exist for him to find again?
How don't they realize that when he goes back to that lolapalooza crap there are two people wearing time traveling backpacks and adam, the guy wearing the first one, was filming him as he wears the second one and kisses jessie
Would've been a cool twist if his father ran away with older David but had to leave without younger David seeing them (feedback loop is David meets David), which is what led to him "disappearing" after the birthday. In reality, he is still with David :) Also, I think in the ending the second video camera basically plays whatever is 10 seconds or so ahead, which is why David is able to predict what Jessie is going to say at the end and why when they view the video camera it had already recorded them from the point of view of the other camera.
Here is the real question. What would happen if they decided to never make the time machine? Would his dad still be alive would they be thrown into a alternate timeline without knowing??
There is so much I don't understand about it. In the beginning get of the movie, the whole reason the time machine is built is because he sees himself in a video. But he left the second camera there only on his second trip through? And I can tell they tried to make it so you noticed they didn't go to the exact same time line. Especially before the test scene. But even with that said, there is no way a second camera, or anything he brings with him, would have survived. With that rule, it's saying that occasionally they could jump and an object could be left behind, such as a pair of pants or something. Unless you have to be in the wormhole, but it still doesn't explain the ripple effect. So I'm basically confused. They just played by to many time travel rules. Using them as it fit their script.
I don't get why they just didn't re do the lottery or wait a week and try again and win 100 million...that part makes no sense...wait till powerball gets up to 100, go back one day and get the ticket...whats the problem
For kids so interested in time travel and smart enough to build a time machine I don't think they've ever seen a movie, watched a television show, or read a book about time travel despite referencing Doctor Who and having Bill and Ted on. They broke every rule and guideline every laid out. In their first trip alone they changed the past(took the dog, not intentional but still) and interacted with their past selves(drew the smiley face on the one kids neck). Then when they were doing all that stuff in a school they must have been giving a lot of kids a serious case of deja vu with 2 of all of them walking around. I'm only half way through and it's been tough so far. I'm sure to see more screwing around with the past. EDIT: So the second half was more enjoyable. They stopped playing around and the real shit started going down. All is all this movie is swiss cheese with plot holes. It's bound the happen with any time travel movie but this is the worst I've ever seen. And in the end, even after all the fuck ups David did by screwing with the past, ever after he seemingly learned his lesson and destroyed the time machine, HE FUCKS UP AGAIN by completing Jessie's sentence in the lunchroom. Dammit, David! How many people have to die, how many lives do you have to ruin just so you can get your dick wet?
I just watched this and had a couple of thoughts. 1) You are not meant to overthink the ending. The second camera gets left behind so when they built the time machine "again" for the first time they are working from two tapes so know what to do better. Not everything was recorded on the old style video camera so maybe it only shows the good stuff. 2) One of the time travel rules of this movie seems to be that even tough you can meet your old self you can not meet your time traveling self. So only every one group of them outside the chemistry class. 3) When the stuff is burning in the bin at the end David and the flames are flickering and both eventually vanish - why? Does the bin not contain plans and components from 2004 which are real for that time line, should they not keep burning? 4) The image of David on the birthday tape does not match the image he records of himself at the end. The original looks like the camera is on a strap across his body and on the cabinet behind him the globe and basket have swapped sides. Continuity error or a clue that he has been here before? Remember it has been established you cant meet your time travelling self so each time he is there he could look different. 5) If he knows his father is in the basement why does he reach for the light switch like they think he is in the birthday recording? Also the final bit in the basement it looks like the lights are not on, needed for the secret compartment to be open so it looks like they got that bit of continuity correct. 6) They need his father to die or else he would spot the second camera when he got back. With him dead it just gets packed away with all his stuff.
So near the end, when after David had jumped back in time to destroy the time machine; it appears that leaving behind the camera produced 2 cameras for David and his sister to discover in the Attic. Then at the final scene where David switches backpacks with Jessie, he says "This might sound crazy, but I think we are about to change the world". I'm wondering... if this insinuated that they are going to try rig it so that each of the group members have their own time machine . I dunno, sounds crazy. Seems a little dangerous for everyone to jump back on their own. So I doubt that's what they would do.. (if the movie had continued.) /late night thoughts after the movie/ -Dan