‘Lost’ Goes Somewhere in Time
There’s an interesting article in the Boston Globe about television’s daring new desire to jump back and forth through time. They of course highlight Lost for the most part, but the article also mentions shows like Heroes and How I Met Your Mother. Anyone who is obsessed with the intricate story structure that Lost pulls off should definitely give it a read.
Reading the article reminded me of one thing in particular: time jumping is one tough thing to pull off properly. For every Lost or Slaughterhouse Five there’s a fairly pedestrian Heroes or Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. On the movie side of things, for every classic like The Fountain or Memento there’s less elegant schlock like Timeline or The Butterfly Effect. If you’re going to time jump you better know exactly what you’re doing, otherwise you risk completely alienating the audience. Thankfully the people behind Lost are fairly brilliant at it.
Read the entire article here, and chime in with your favorite time travel movies, books, and shows below.
Doctor Who, of course. The new series has handled time travel brilliantly.
Comment by johnny9k — March 3, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
I always loved how the Back to the Future movies played with time. Particularly, the future/present being altered by choices made in the past, i.e., Marty goes back to 1985 in BTFII after having left behind the sports almanac for old Biff to find, who goes back in time to give it to himself in the past, and then Oak Park of 1985 becomes some raunchy, filthy, gold-covered, casino-filled hellhole. It always amused me.
And I loved The Time Machine the book by H.G. Wells, but the movie was a cinematic nightmare. What a piece of crap movie.
Comment by Feesh — March 3, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
I’m a fan of Donnie Darko on a number of levels including the time travel aspect.
Comment by TrillianM — March 3, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
Doctor Who is an awesome choice.
Comment by Don — March 3, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
The Time Traveler’s Wife was pretty interesting book regarding time travel. Some elements in the book reflect what is happening to Desmond.
Comment by MBK — March 3, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
I actually like Butterfly Effect, Terminator Sarah Conner Chronicles and Heroes. lol
Comment by Gary — March 3, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
I was always a big fan of the movie “Frequency” which starred Jim Caveizel and Dennis Quaid. My favorite scenes were the ones that involved Caveizel’s character from the present talking to Quaid’s character in the past. Gave me goosebumps.
Comment by showstop — March 3, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
Oh I forgot about that movie showstop. I really liked it too.
Comment by TrillianM — March 4, 2008 @ 5:57 am
Oh yeah, I have The Time Traveler’s Wife. I should read that.
Comment by Don — March 4, 2008 @ 6:35 am
“Frequency” is a good one. I just watched it again the other day. Ironically Elizabeth Mitchell plays Dennis Quad’s wife.
Comment by redheadheidiho — March 4, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
one of the best time travel movies I’ve ever seen is called Primer. It was a Sundance film festival release made for around $7,000 and has one of THE most confusing stories ever put to film (the difficulty is getting past the slow start and following through to the absolute end). I had to watch it 5+ times to TRULY understand what happened. To some, that might be a major turn off, but for me it was the exact opposite.
Comment by Jeff — March 4, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Speaking of “Frequency” and Elizabeth Mitchell, did anyone notice that the actor who played the nurse killer looks like the same guy who plays Kate Austin’s lawyer? Can anyone confirm this?
Comment by trivia buff — March 4, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
The killer from Frequency IS the same guy who plays Kate’s lawyer…and his character’s name in the movie is Jack Shepard…
Comment by CJB — March 5, 2008 @ 11:03 am