Science Fiction: Films & TV

[Trevp666]

I think actually what you're referring to is the 'Grandfather Paradox' which is a potential logical problem that would arise if a person were to travel to a past time.
The name comes from the idea that if a person travels to a time before their grandfather had children, and kills him, it would make their own birth impossible, thus forcing 'time' itself to intervene to prevent the paradox occurring - the gun jams, or the bullet misses the target, or at just that precise moment an obstacle gets in the way, etc etc.

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

As I've said before, I gave a very interesting lecture on time-travel, next week.

Oh I guess I missed it already!

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

I think actually what you're referring to is the 'Grandfather Paradox' which is a potential logical problem that would arise if a person were to travel to a past time.
The name comes from the idea that if a person travels to a time before their grandfather had children, and kills him, it would make their own birth impossible, thus forcing 'time' itself to intervene to prevent the paradox occurring - the gun jams, or the bullet misses the target, or at just that precise moment an obstacle gets in the way, etc etc.

But now wouldn't the future just re-arrange itself and become changed instead?
I've never understood that.

 

[Trevp666]

But now wouldn't the future just re-arrange itself and become changed instead?

In the 'grandfather paradox' as a thought experiment we find that going back in time and killing your own grandfather means that you would not be born, and thus not being in existence would mean you would not be able to go back in time to do the killing.

 

[Trevp666]

The film 'Looper' explores this somewhat.

 

[Tunn11]

Can it be the past does not want to be changed, or cannot be changed?
Anyone know or have any thoughts on that?

It gets changed all the time, but you won't remember anything that wasn't changed as it didn't happen!

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

In the 'grandfather paradox' as a thought experiment we find that going back in time and killing your own grandfather means that you would not be born, and thus not being in existence would mean you would not be able to go back in time to do the killing.

Well exactly.

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

Interesting, and we have to wonder if UFO's, or some of them, may be time-travelers coming back in time, working on something that we will never know / remember.

 

[Tunn11]

Or reality splits into two (The trousers of time) one where you and your grandfather exist and another where you went and killed your grandfather.....

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

Or reality splits into two (The trousers of time) one where you and your grandfather exist and another where you went and killed your grandfather.....

Can it split?

 

[PeteByrdie]

There are 4 sci-fi films about time-travel that I watched years ago and can't re-find (or possibly episodes of something like 'The Outer Limits' or similar). And I can't even remember their titles, but I can give a sort of plot summary from my memory for each, if anyone could tell me what these films or TV progs are that'd be grand. I would say they are all from the late 80s or early 90s.

1. A modern fighter/bomber 'stealth' aircraft is somehow transported back to Nazi Germany and it changes the future when it is reversed engineered and allows domination in WWII creating a new timeline in which the present is ruled over by the descendants of the Nazis.
Somehow it is discovered to have happened and someone uses the same time travel device to put things back to how they should be.

Philadelphia Experiment II (1993). Some time in the past I've given this same answer to this same question on this very forum, but I forget to whom.

 

[Trevp666]

Philadelphia Experiment II (1993). Some time in the past I've given this same answer to this same question on this very forum, but I forget to whom.

It's possible that I might have asked similar before.
And yes, that looks like the one.
I'll write that down for later.

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

Philadelphia Experiment II (1993). Some time in the past I've given this same answer to this same question on this very forum, but I forget to whom.

I've never been able to find out if that 'Philadelphia Experiment' actually happened in real life?

 

[Trevp666]

Or reality splits into two

Can it split?

I think we are getting into the realms of 'multiverses' here, in which every decision has every option chosen simultaneously and at that precise moment multiple different realities are created in which each of those options is played out.
The film "Back to the future" touches on it.
And so does "Star Trek:TNG"

 

[Trevp666]

I've never been able to find out if that 'Philadelphia Experiment' actually happened in real life?

This book is a very good starting point.

 

[PeteByrdie]

It's possible that I might have asked similar before.
And yes, that looks like the one.
I'll write that down for later.

It is strange to have this niggling memory of something you can't place. I have two. One is from when I was very young, and I was on the sofa watching a movie or perhaps an episode of some anthology TV series. Some airmen were in a desert around their crashed aeroplane, and whenever one wasn't being observed he just disappeared. I have no idea what the cause of this turned out to be, but it clearly had an impression on my childish mind.

The second is a monster movie about a group of people presumably on a desert island or something. I remember them on a raft and there were two sea monsters (fighting, I think), there were giant tortoises at some point, and a giant ape near the end. It doesn't appear to have been any adaptation of Mysterious Island (into which they always seem to want to insert monsters), but it was something along those lines.

 

[PeteByrdie]

I've never been able to find out if that 'Philadelphia Experiment' actually happened in real life?

Inevitably, most investigations have concluded it didn't. But it makes for a good story.

 

[Tunn11]

Can it split?

I'm afraid that none of the versions of me has any idea.

 

[Trevp666]

Some airmen were in a desert around their crashed aeroplane, and whenever one wasn't being observed he just disappeared.

I've seen this I think. In the story it turned out they had all died in the crash and they were ghosts.
One of them disappeared when some 'wreck hunters' turned up and moved part of the wreckage of the fuselage and uncovered his skeletal remains underneath.
As soon as his body was found his ghost was no longer tied to the site.

 

[Trevp666]

Found it.

"Sole Survivor"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065007/reviews

 

[Trevp666]

Blimey.
Starring William Shatner and Richard Basehart!

 

[PeteByrdie]

Found it.

"Sole Survivor"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065007/reviews

I owe you, that has been an irritation virtually my whole life.

Blimey.
Starring William Shatner and Richard Basehart!

Well how's that for sci-fi royalty!

 

[Tunn11]

Blimey.
Starring William Shatner

Was he wearing a red shirt? Would have been a clue.

 

[Trevp666]

Was he wearing a red shirt? Would have been a clue.

Nah....US army clothing.

 

[Trevp666]

Side note:

The last day of filming for Star Trek (The Original Series) was January 9, 1969.
Sole Survivor was shot primarily on location in the El Mirage Dry Lake in the northwestern Victor Valley of the central Mojave Desert, within San Bernardino County, California. The shooting schedule involved a three and half-week period in May–June, 1969.

So in my head I can picture William Shatner picking up the phone and calling his agent in January of 1969 and hearing his voice saying "They've cancelled Star Trek!"
And his agent replying "Don't worry Bill, I 've got a nice job for you, a film, 3 weeks at the end of may, out in the desert"

 

[PeteByrdie]

Found it.

"Sole Survivor"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065007/reviews

Well, Sole Survivor is on YouTube. I watched it this morning. I don't know if it's what I watched, or if so how much I saw and how much I understood. I was extremely young. My memory is of a kind of horror situation of the airmen vanishing one by one when not observed. I think I imagined something under the sand dragging them. Knowing the way my brain works, I could have been inspired by what I was watching to devise my own, more sinister story, which then replaced the genuine memory of what I was watching. Or, there's still a scary film or TV episode of something like The Twilight Zone with crashed airmen being picked off one by one.

What I can say is I thoroughly enjoyed Sole Survivor. Give it a watch if you get the chance.

 

[MrRING]

Are either of these worth tracking down?

The Changes 1975

Escape Into Night 1972

 

[ramonmercado]

Are either of these worth tracking down?

The Changes 1975

Escape Into Night 1972

I've heard of The Changes but haven't seen it.

Are such series' still produced by the BBC/ITV etc? Are they on children's channels?

 

[maximus otter]

George Jetson was born yesterday:

maximus otter

 

[JahaRa]

There are so many good sci fi movies and television. I really enjoyed Dark Matter, but recently I watched some Hulu nightmarish movie (never got to the end it was so bad) called Setllers. I am so disappointed in the movies and television shows that are coming out recently. Non of the new writers seem to understand how to write a good story, it is seems to be scene after disjointed scene with no character development, cardboard characters that no one would want to have a converstaion with (much like Woody Allen movies).