Hollywood and Time Travel: Fiction, Facts, Red Herrings, and...

These are the pages from the fictional book "The Philosophy of Time Travel" by Roberta Sparrow . The text in these pages are crucial to understanding the movie and the rules within the Tangent Universe.

Foreword

I would like to thank the sisters of the Saint John Chapel in Alexandria, Virginia for their support in my decision. By the grace of God, they are:

Sister Eleanor Lewis
Sister Francesca Godiani
Sister Helen Davis
Sister Catherine Arnold
Sister Mary Lee Pond
Sister Virginia Wessex

This intent of this short book is for it to be used as a simple and direct guide in a time of great danger.

I pray that this is merely a work of fiction.

If it is not, then I pray for you, the reader of this book.

If I am still alive when the events foretold in these pages occur, then I hope that you will find me before it is too late.

Roberta Ann Sparrow
October, 1944

Chapter One:
The Tangent Universe

The Primary Universe is fraught with great peril. War, plague, famine and natural disaster are common.

Death comes to us all. The Fourth Dimension of Time is a stable construct, though it is not impenetrable.

Incidents when the fabric of the fourth dimension becomes corrupted are incredibly rare.

If a Tangent Universe occurs, it will be highly unstable, sustaining itself for no longer than several weeks.

Eventually it will collapse upon itself, forming a black hole within the Primary Universe capable of destroying all existence.

Chapter Two:
Water And Metal

Water and Metal are the key elements of Time Travel.

Water is the barrier element for the construction of Time Portals used as gateways between Universes as the Tangent Vortex.

Metal is the transitional element for the construction of Artifact Vessels.

Chapter Four:
The Artifact And The Living

When a Tangent Universe occurs, those living nearest to the Vortex, will find themselves at the epicenter of a dangerous new world.

Artifacts provide the first sign that a Tangent Universe has occurred.

If an Artifact occurs, the Living will retrieve it with great interest and curiosity.

Artifacts are formed from metal, such as an Arrowhead from an ancient Mayan civilization, or a Metal Sword from Medieval Europe.

Artifacts returned to the Primary Universe are often linked to religious Iconography, as their appearance on Earth seems to defy logical explanation.

Divine intervention is deemed the only logical conclusion for the appearance of the Artifact.

Chapter Six:
The Living Receiver

The Living Receiver is chosen to guide the Artifact into position for its journey back to the Primary Universe.

No one knows how or why a Receiver will be chosen.

The Living Receiver is often blessed with a Fourth Dimensional Powers.

These include increased strength, telekinesis, mind control, and the ability to conjure fire and water.

The Living Receiver is often tormented by terrifying dreams, visions and auditory hallucinations during his time within the Tangent Universe.

These surrounding the Living Receiver, known as the Manipulated, will fear him and try to destroy him.

Chapter Seven:
The Manipulated Living

The Manipulated Living are often the close friends and neighbors of the Living Receiver.

They are prone to irrational, bizarre, and often violent behavior.

This is the unfortunate result of their task, which is to assist the Living Receiver in returning the Artifact to the Primary Universe.

The Manipulated Living will do anything to save themselves from Oblivion.

Chapter Ten:
The Manipulated Dead

The Manipulated Dead are more powerful than the Living Receiver. If a person dies within the Tangent Dimension, they are able to contact the Living Receiver through the Fourth Dimensional Construct.

The Fourth Dimensional Construct is made of Water.

The Manipulated Dead will manipulate the Living Receiver using the Fourth Dimensional Construct (see Appendix A and B).

The Manipulated Dead will often set an Ensurance Trap for the Living Receiver to ensure that the Artifact is returned safely to the Primary Universe.

If the Ensurance Trap is successful, the Living Receiver is left with no choice but to use his Fourth Dimensional Power to send the Artifact back in time into the Primary Universe before the Black hole collapses upon itself.

Chapter Twelve:
Dreams

When the Manipulated awaken from their Journey into the Tangent Universe, they are often haunted by the experience in their dreams.

Many of them will not remember.

Those who do remember the Journey are often overcome with profound remorse for the regretful actions buried within their Dreams, the only physical evidence buried within the Artifact itself, all that remains from the lost world.

Ancient myth tells us of the Mayan Warrior killed by an Arrowhead that had fallen from a cliff, where there was no Army, no enemy to be found.

We are told of the Medieval Knight mysteriously impaled by sword he had not yet built.

We are told that these things occur for a reason.

NOTES

Living Receiver

Donnie Darko

Manipulated Dead

Frank Anderson
Gretchen Ross

Manipulated Living

Edward Darko
Rose Darko
Elizabeth Darko
Samantha Darko
Katherine Farmer
Elisabeth Farmer
Jim Cunningham
Kenneth Monnitoff
Karen Pomeroy
Larry Cole
Cherita Chen
Seth Devlin
Ricky Danforth
Joanie James
Susan Bates
Susan Bailey
Sean Smith
Leroy Jones Carter
Linda Connie
Roberta Sparrow

http://www.donniedarko.org.uk/philosphy-of-time-travel/

Alternative Explanations

There is little doubt that this movie is very much open to interpretation. There are several possible explanations and in most cases plenty of viewers will love it even though they have no idea what happened. To be honest there can't be many people who completely understood the movie the first time they watched it unless they had some inside knowledge.

The real explanation follows "The Philosophy of Time Travel" and you can read it here. When you follow this explanation there doesn't seem to be any holes in the plot. Every scene makes sense, the story is consistent and the whole movie comes together.

Here are some of the alternative theories.

Schizophrenia

Dr ThurmanIt is implied in the film that Donnie is a schizophrenic and therefore the film is him going through an episode of his illness. This theory is plausible because every single event could be put down to this. Hallucinations and hearing voices is a schizophrenic trait and could easily explain Frank’s appearance. There is a scene with Donnie’s therapist at the end of the film where she admits to giving Donnie placebo’s as medication for his illness. This would suggest that he in fact never was a schizophrenic. For me Richard Kelly put the idea of Donnie being schizophrenic into the movie deliberately as a red herring. It's an easier alternative theory that allows first time viewers to still enjoy the movie.

Dream

The whole movie was a dream theory is of course possible but ultimately pointless. When he goes to sleep on October 2nd at the beginning of the movie he dreams this mystical adventure just before he gets smooshed by jet engine.

The obvious hole in this theory is why do the first few minutes of October 2nd happen twice? An easy theory to enjoy maybe for the first watch but why would the director create this amazing magical alternative Universe theory and then just make it all out to be a dream?

Donnie Is Shown the Future

The Ghost Of Christmas FutureThis is quite a popular theory. It portrays Frank as a kind of Ghost of Christmas Future character who saves Donnie and then either shows him or allows him to live the next 28 days of his life. At the end Donnie returns back to October 2nd and now has the opportunity to choose his own fate.

So many bad things happened in those 28 days including his girlfriend getting killed and Donnie becoming a killer himself that he decides to stay in bed at the end of the film to sacrifice himself for the good of others. By dying he saves Frank, Gretchen and his mother and sister from a plane crash.

Unfortunately this theory asks more questions than it answers:

Why is Frank giving Donnie this choice?
Why does he tell Donnie to Flood the school and burn down Jim Cunningham’s house?
Why does Frank appear as a dead version and an alive version?
Why does “The Philosophy Of Time Travel” appear in the story?
How does the unexplained jet engine figure in the story?

The biggest weakness in this theory is the fact that Donnie is shown or lives out a completely different future from what would normally have happened. Most of the events only happen because we are within a Tangent Universe.

Frank gets Donnie to flood the school which means Donnie walks Gretchen home.
Frank gets Donnie to burn down Cunningham's house which leads to the party
Donnie rips the engine off the plane his mother and sister are on

None of these things would happen in the real world. What's the point in Donnie being shown an alternate future and then given the choice to live or die based on events that wont happen?

There are just too many plot flaws with this theory. It just doesn't work and there are virtually no scenes in the movie to back it up.


The Looping Tangent Universe

Carpathian Ridgehere is a theory out there that follows The Philosophy of Time Travel but with one major change. The idea is that every 28 days the Tangent Universe collapses, then loops back round to October 2nd and starts over again. Basically the Tangent Universe is a repeating time-loop that will continue until Donnie is successful in returning the jet engine into the Primary Universe. The film is Donnie's first successful attempt at returning the jet engine and there have been several failed attempts before.

This explanation can be read at www.themoviegoer.com/donnie_darko. One of the reasons this theory is so popular is it usually comes up on the first page of google if search for a Donnie Darko explanation.

I don't think this idea follows The Philosophy Of Time Travel accurately enough. The Tangent Universe only lasts for several weeks before it collapses and destroys the whole Universe. If it looped back round every time then the Universe wouldn't be in danger.

This theory seems to hinge on only a few pieces of the movie. The main basis of this theory is that Donnie wakes up on the mountain laughing at the beginning of the film. He's laughing as if he remembers something from the previous Tangent Universe loop. Now the major flaw there is Donnie wakes up on the mountain on October 1st yet the Tangent Universe doesn't start until midnight on October 2nd. Why would time loop round to before the start of the Tangent Universe? Another thing is wouldn't you find it a little amusing if you woke up half way up a mountain. Surely that is a better explanation for him laughing.

Another point in this theory is the characters like Mrs Pomeroy, Grandma Death, Dr. Thurman all seem to have some kind of inside knowledge and a sense of what's going, like they have done this before. Well yes they do but not because they have done this several times before, it's because they are the Manipulated Living. There behaviour may be irrational or bizarre as they are trying to guide the Living Receiver to return the Artifact. They subconsciously behave in the necessary way in order for Donnie to succeed.

http://www.donniedarko.org.uk/alternative-explantions/

But his family can't save Donnie from the strange, menacing forces massing around him. Nor can his teachers, neither Pomeroy nor science professor Kenneth Monnitoff (skillfully underplayed by Noah Wyle), to whom Donnie goes for information on time travel. Monnitoff talks about Einstein-Rosen bridges, wormholes, and transversing same in "anything made of metal," then hands him a book called The Philosophy of Time Travel, by a woman who used to be a nun before becoming a science teacher at that very school. Her name? Roberta Sparrow. Soon Donnie is seeing strange liquid spheres issuing out of people's chests, displaying their future path of motion, including his own.

http://www.locusmag.com/2003/Reviews/Person04_Darko.html

Quantum mechanics poses some serious philosophical difficulties, because in its common interpretation (the Copenhagen school), it implies a couple strange things. First, it implies that the atomic world is governed by chance, which Einstein famously objected to by saying, "God does not play dice." Second, if two particles have entangled waveforms, measuring the state of one will allow one to determine the state of the other, even if they are separated by a large distance. There is debate as to whether this represents a signal propagating faster than the speed of light, which would violate causality. As a result, other interpretations of quantum mechanics been developed, including the suggestion that there are hidden variables that we have not yet identified (the Bohm interpretation, which was largely rejected after the work of John Bell in the 1960s), and the notion that the universe we live in is one of many concurrently-existing universesthe latter idea inspired the movie Donnie Darko, and Neal Stephenson's recent book Anathema).

http://astrohow.org/science_tracts/quantum.html

Time Travel and Modern Physics
First published Thu Feb 17, 2000; substantive revision Wed Dec 23, 2009

Time travel has been a staple of science fiction. With the advent of general relativity it has been entertained by serious physicists. But, especially in the philosophy literature, there have been arguments that time travel is inherently paradoxical. The most famous paradox is the grandfather paradox: you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, thereby preventing your own existence. To avoid inconsistency some circumstance will have to occur which makes you fail in this attempt to kill your grandfather. Doesn't this require some implausible constraint on otherwise unrelated circumstances? We examine such worries in the context of modern physics.

1. A Botched Suicide
2. Why Do Time Travel Suicides Get Botched?
3. Topology and Constraints
4. The General Possibility of Time Travel in General Relativity
5. Two Toy Models
6. Remarks and Limitations on the Toy Models
7. Slightly More Realistic Models of Time Travel
8. Even If There are Constraints, So What?
9. Quantum Mechanics to the Rescue?
10. Conclusions
Bibliography
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries

1. A Botched Suicide

You are very depressed. You are suicidally depressed. You have a gun. But you do not quite have the courage to point the gun at yourself and kill yourself in this way. If only someone else would kill you, that would be a good thing. But you can't really ask someone to kill you. That wouldn't be fair. You decide that if you remain this depressed and you find a time machine, you will travel back in time to just about now, and kill your earlier self. That would be good. In that way you even would get rid of the depressing time you will spend between now and when you would get into that time machine. You start to muse about the coherence of this idea, when something amazing happens. Out of nowhere you suddenly see someone coming towards you with a gun pointed at you. In fact he looks very much like you, except that he is bleeding badly from his left eye, and can barely stand up straight. You are at peace. You look straight at him, calmly. He shoots. You feel a searing pain in your left eye. Your mind is in chaos, you stagger around and accidentally enter a strange looking cubicle. You drift off into unconsciousness. After a while, you can not tell how long, you drift back into consciousness and stagger out of the cubicle. You see someone in the distance looking at you calmly and fixedly. You realize that it is your younger self. He looks straight at you. You are in terrible pain. You have to end this, you have to kill him, really kill him once and for all. You shoot him, but your eyesight is so bad that your aim is off. You do not kill him, you merely damage his left eye. He staggers off. You fall to the ground in agony, and decide to study the paradoxes of time travel more seriously.

2. Why Do Time Travel Suicides Get Botched?

The standard worry about time travel is that it allows one to go back and kill one's younger self and thereby create paradox. More generally it allows for people or objects to travel back in time and to cause events in the past that are inconsistent with what in fact happened. (See e.g., Gödel 1949, Earman 1972, Malament 1985a&b, Horwich 1987.) A stone-walling response to this worry is that by logic indeed inconsistent events can not both happen. Thus in fact all such schemes to create paradox are logically bound to fail. So what's the worry?

Well, one worry is the question as to why such schemes always fail. Doesn't the necessity of such failures put prima facie unusual and unexpected constraints on the actions of people, or objects, that have traveled in time? Don't we have good reason to believe that there are no such constraints (in our world) and thus that there is no time travel (in our world)? We will later return to the issue of the palatability of such constraints, but first we want to discuss an argument that no constraints are imposed by time travel.

3. Topology and Constraints

Wheeler and Feynman (1949) were the first to claim that the fact that nature is continuous could be used to argue that causal influences from later events to earlier events, as are made possible by time travel, will not lead to paradox without the need for any constraints. Maudlin (1990) showed how to make their argument precise and more general, and argued that nonetheless it was not completely general.

Imagine the following set-up. We start off having a camera with a black and white film ready to take a picture of whatever comes out of the time machine. An object, in fact a developed film, comes out of the time machine. We photograph it, and develop the film. The developed film is subsequently put in the time machine, and set to come out of the time machine at the time the picture is taken. This surely will create a paradox: the developed film will have the opposite distribution of black, white, and shades of gray, from the object that comes out of the time machine. For developed black and white films (i.e. negatives) have the opposite shades of gray from the objects they are pictures of. But since the object that comes out of the time machine is the developed film itself it we surely have a paradox.

However, it does not take much thought to realize that there is no paradox here. What will happen is that a uniformly gray picture will emerge, which produces a developed film that has exactly the same uniform shade of gray. No matter what the sensitivity of the film is, as long as the dependence of the brightness of the developed film depends in a continuous manner on the brightness of the object being photographed, there will be a shade of gray that, when photographed, will produce exactly the same shade of gray on the developed film. This is the essence of Wheeler and Feynman's idea. Let us first be a bit more precise and then a bit more general.

For simplicity let us suppose that the film is always a uniform shade of gray (i.e. at any time the shade of gray does not vary by location on the film). The possible shades of gray of the film can then be represented by the (real) numbers from 0, representing pure black, to 1, representing pure white.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel-phys/

HigherLove wrote:New Scientist: Adventures in the fourth dimension

It flies, it drags and sometimes it crawls. We keep it, waste it and wish we had more of it. Time feels so natural to us that it is easy to forget just how stunningly peculiar it is.

The more we learn about time, the more unsettling it becomes. Why does it only flow in one direction? Is it real, or just a figment of our imagination? Is time travel possible? How did it start? Will it ever end? And can it provide that frustratingly elusive theory of everything?

In these articles we dig deep into the past, present and future of the most mysterious dimension of all.

http://www.newscientist.com/special/about-time?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2PQi5ueqig4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Teleportation and Wormholes: The Science of 'Jumper'

The movie "Jumper," opening today, has a hero with the extraordinary power to teleport anywhere on Earth by imagining the place he wants to go.

As fantastic as teleportation seems, it can actually happen in the real world.

"The fact is that physicists have teleported things over miles," said Edward Farhi, the director of MIT's Center for Theoretical Physics. "It doesn't violate the laws of physics."

There's a huge — or rather, very tiny — caveat, however. For now, it only works with a single photon.

http://www.livescience.com/2306-teleportation-wormholes-science-jumper.html

Mercuriel wrote:

HigherLove wrote:Teleportation and Wormholes: The Science of 'Jumper'

Its known as "Biolocation" and It works through Superposition which is a Scientific example of the Principle of Oneness actuated and thereby directed VIA Consciousness / Awareness...

In contradiction to the slightly misleading title, "Mimsy Were The Borogroves," is the only story here that has any connection to The Last Mimzy movie. Happily this is no handicap, as the book collects seventeen mostly unconnected works, all of which are rich in entertainment value. Ray Bradbury, who writes the introduction, describes Henry Kuttner as "a man who shaped science-fiction and fantasy in its most important years." Kuttner, who died in 1958, was a writer's writer, whose prolific imagination anticipated the future that is our present. This uncanny and prophetic vision even stretched to his own untimely death, which he wrote about a decade prior to the event.

The lead story, "Mimsy Were The Borogroves," is about a small boy who finds a box containing many curious objects, which he at first thinks are toys. These include a crystal cube that brings thoughts to life, like a play inside it, and a doll with removable organs, which do not quite correspond to those of the human body. As the boy and his younger sister play with the treasure trove, the way they think and perceive the world around them is subtly altered, into something both more and less than human.

"The Two-Handed Engine," is set in a future where the machines have taken over. In scenes reminiscent of the Terminator and The Minority Report, murderers are automatically sentenced to death by Furies. These ultimate arbiters of final justice are steel humanoids, who shadow their prey for an unspecified period, in full view of their future victim and all those who witness his day-to-day life. Walking warnings that crime will be punished. Until, that is, someone works out a way to buck the supposedly infallible system.

http://www.sfsite.com/08a/lm253.htm

Last Mimzy’: Science Meets Spirituality
posted by Donna Freitas | 5:33pm Friday March 23, 2007

I’ve no doubt “The Last Mimzy” will keep you glued to your seat. Yes, it’s a hokey premise–people from the future send a box of “toys” (and in particular, a stuffed rabbit) for two children to find in the past–and it only gets hokier from the moment Emma and Noah find these treasures on the beach. But you have to remember: “The Last Mimzy” is made by the same people who did “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” So it follows in the vein of that movie.

What’s fascinating about this story is the way it mixes science–virtual technology and string theory–with Buddhist spirituality. As Emma and Noah learn to “play” with these mysterious toys, Noah becomes a scientific genius of some sort–he can suddenly talk to spiders and make objects move with this mind–and Emma becomes a meditation guru.

Noah’s science teacher (played by Rainn Wilson of “The Office”), whose wife, Naomi, (Kathryn Hahn) happens to be a palm reader and aficionado of all things Tibetan Buddhist, steps into the picture not only because Noah develops a shocking science project about spiders, but because Noah is drawing what are called Mandalas–ancient Tibetan artworks that depict the history of the universe through intricate, beautiful, and mind-gripping patterns.

Naomi helps the family understand the spiritual significance of Emma and Noah’s new intelligence, since not only do Noah and Emma recognize all of the most famous Mandalas, but the kids also know the proper names of the historical artwork.

And then of course there is Mimzy, the stuffed rabbit. Though Mimzy is central to the film and Emma’s enlightenment–an almost human piece of virtual technology that becomes Emma’s teacher/guru–it’s still a stuffed rabbit. The premise is that because Mimzy was meant for a child, it had to be a stuffed animal.

This is where the film’s holes start to show. Mimzy is teaching Emma the art of meditation and mindfulness. And up until now there are some very interesting, cool things that the children learn–string theory, levitation, and many other scientific and spiritual subjects. But how does this help them save the future? What’s wrong with the future? And do the kids use what they have learned to save the future? Is that what Mimzy’s ultimate purpose is? Not really.

Without giving away the ending, I can say that it gets out of control and is the biggest disappointment of the film, so be warned. The payoff behind why “the toys” were sent is utterly weak and unsatisfying. But if you can forgive the ending, “The Last Mimzy” is a family-friendly, heady trip.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/idolchatter/2007/03/last-mimzy-science-meets-spirituality.html#ixzz1hcVBRcAa

Elegant physicist makes string theory sexy

If you're trying to impress the geeks, being a professional string theorist would have to put you pretty high up on the coolness scale. And if you're a string theorist with books, movies and TV shows to your credit, so much the better.

By those measures, Columbia University physicist Brian Greene has already achieved superstring stardom: His book about string theory, "The Elegant Universe," broke onto bestseller lists and spawned a "Nova" documentary series by the same name (which you can watch online). He has consulted with — and taken cameo roles in — movies ranging from "Frequency" to "Deja Vu" to "The Last Mimzy" (which opens Friday). He's made the talk-show circuit, from "Nightline" and Letterman to "The Colbert Report." And as if all that wasn't enough, he's also organizing a World Science Festival in New York City.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17738478/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/elegant-physicist-makes-string-theory-sexy/#.TvgWctUof-s

http://rupertpupkinspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-favorite-time-travel-films.html

1. BACK TO THE FUTURE(1985; Robert Zemeckis)
2. THE TERMINATOR(1984; James Cameron)
3. PLANET OF THE APES(1968; Franklin J. Schaffner)
4. PRIMER(2004; Shane Carruth)
5. TIME AFTER TIME(1979; Nicholas Meyer)
6. 12 MONKEYS(1995; Terry Gilliam)
7. DONNIE DARKO(2001; Richard Kelly)
8. TIMECRIMES(2007; Nacho Vigalando)
9. BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II(1989; Robert Zemeckis)
10. GROUNDHOG DAY(1993; Harold Ramis)
11. STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME(1986; Leonard Nimoy)
12.GRAND TOUR: A DISASTER IN TIME(1992; David Twohy)
13. 12:01(1993; Jack Sholder)
14. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT TIME TRAVEL(2009; Garreth Carrivick)
15. THE TIME TRAVELERS(1964; Ib Melchior)
16. THE TIME MACHINE(1960; George Pal)
17. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE(1972; George Roy Hill)
18. ARMY OF DARKNESS(1992; Sam Raimi)
19. BUTTERFLY EFFECT(2004; Eric Bress)
20. TIME TRAVELERS(1976; Alexander Singer)
21. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN(2004; Alfonso Cauron)
22. TRIANGLE(2009; Christopher Smith)
23. BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE(1989; Stepen Herek)
24. IDIOCRACY(2006; Mike Judge)
25. SOMEWHERE IN TIME(1980; Jeannot Szwarc)
26. HAPPY ACCIDENTS(2004; Brad Anderson)
27. TIMECOP(1994; Peter Hyams)
28. TRANCERS(1985; Charles Band)
29. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN(1980; Don Taylor)
30. RETROACTIVE(1997; Louis Mourneau)
31. THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT(1984; Stewart Raffill)
32. HOT TUB TIME MACHINE(2010; Steve Pink)
33. DEJA VU(2006; Tony Scott)
34. FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR(1986; Randall Kleiser)
35. TIMESTALKERS(1987; Michal Schultz)
36. FREEJACK(1992; Geoff Murphy)
37. MY SCIENCE PROJECT(1985; Jonathan R. Betuel)
38. TIMERIDER: THE ADVENTURE OF LYLE SWANN(1982; William Dear)
39. TIMELINE(2003; Richard Donner)
40. PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED(1986; Francis Ford Coppola)
41. TIME BANDITS(1981; Terry Gilliam)
42. WARLOCK(1989; Steve Miner)
43. ELIMINATORS(1986; Peter Manoogian)
44. TIME TRACKERS(1989; Howard R. Cohen)


Haven't seen yet, but might make the list I think:
JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME(1968; Alain Resnais)
IDAHO TRANSFER(1973; Peter Fonda)
BIGGLES: ADVENTURES IN TIME(1986; John Hough)
THE RETURN OF TOMMY TRICKER(1994; Michael Rubbo)
THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME(2006; Mamoru Hosoda)
BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER(1960; Edgar G. Ulmer)
TURN BACK THE CLOCK(1933; Edgar Selwyn)
THE AMAZING MR. BLUNDEN(1972; Lionel Jeffries)
THE COLD ROOM(1984; James Dearden)
THE TIME SHIFTERS(1999; Mario Azzopardi)
THE SPIRIT OF '76(1990; Lucas Reiner)
OUT OF TIME(1988; Robert Butler)
BRIDGE ACROSS TIME(1985; E.W. Swackhamer)
SKY PIRATES(1986; Colin Eggleston)
TIME RUNNER(1993; Michael Mazo)
THE NAVIGATOR: A MEDIAEVAL ODYSSEY(1988; VINCENT WARD)

Primer is a 2004 American science fiction drama film about the accidental discovery of a means of time travel. The film was written, directed, and produced by Shane Carruth and was completed on a budget of $7,000.[2] Carruth graduated from college with a degree in mathematics and is a former engineer.[3] Primer is of note for its extremely low budget, experimental plot structure, philosophical implications, and complex technical dialogue, which Carruth chose not to simplify for the sake of his audience. One reviewer said that "anybody who claims he fully understands what's going on in Primer after seeing it just once is either a savant or a liar."[4] The film collected the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2004 before securing a limited release in US cinemas, and has since gained a cult following.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_%28film%29

A few years ago, I watched an extraordinary independent science fiction film called PRIMER written, directed and starring a young man called Shane Caruth. I got word of the film in 2005, when it was the talk of the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, winning the Grand Jury Prize.

When the DVD was released, I grabbed a US NTSC copy, which over the last 4 years, I must have viewed a dozen times, and with each viewing, I get another perspective of what I just viewed, and what it meant. What makes it even more interesting is that it allegedly cost $7,000 to make and Caruth refused to pander to the lowest common denominator – making it a truly complex and thought provoking viewing experience.

With its theme of ‘time travel’ underpinning the framework of two friends and their relationship that disintegrates when they start using their ‘machine’; Primer not only entertains, but also provokes very deep thought about our various reflections of the reality that confront us.

On New Year’s Eve, my son and brother-in-law watched it with me, and it certainly made them think. Of course the instant reaction was – “We need to watch this again” – and they remarked, “You love watching weird things” which made me proud.

I guarantee if you watch the first ten minutes of Primer; listening hard to the creepy and surreal narration that opens the film – you’ll be hooked. The weird thing is that Caruth’s main co-actor is David Sullivan who noticed my twittering about Primer and replied back, which freaked me out a little that night.

I also noticed that the whole movie is available to view or download at Google Video Here and the trailer is below -

I would however point out that repeated viewings are essential and ethically you should buy a copy here on DVD.

Trust me, PRIMER will alter the way you view what surrounds you; what we commonly label as ‘reality’ – you have been warned.

If you don’t trust my judgment, then read Roger Ebert’s analysis of Primer –

"Primer" is a puzzle film that will leave you wondering about paradoxes, loopholes, loose ends, events without explanation, chronologies that don't seem to fit. Abe and Aaron wonder, too, and what seems at first like a perfectly straightforward method for using the machine turns out to be alarmingly complicated; various generations of themselves and their actions prove impossible to keep straight. Carruth handles the problems in an admirably understated way; when one of the characters begins to bleed a little from an ear, what does that mean? Will he be injured in a past he has not yet visited? In that case, is he the double? What happened to the being who arrived at this moment the old-fashioned way, before having traveled back?The movie delights me with its cocky confidence that the audience can keep up.

"Primer" is a film for nerds, geeks, brainiacs, Academic Decathlon winners, programmers, philosophers and the kinds of people who have made it this far into the review. It will surely be hated by those who "go to the movies to be entertained," and embraced and debated by others, who will find it entertains the parts the others do not reach. It is maddening, fascinating and completely successful

Note: Carruth wrote, directed and edited the movie, composed the score, and starred in it. The budget was reportedly around $7,000, but that was enough: The movie never looks cheap, because every shot looks as it must look. In a New York Times interview, Carruth said he filmed largely in his own garage, and at times he was no more sure what he was creating than his characters were. "Primer" won the award for best drama at Sundance 2004.

http://existentialistman.blogspot.com/2010/01/primer-extraordinary-science-fiction.html

Time Travel In The '60s

Compared to the action-packed super-realism of time travel films like the Terminator series and 12 Monkeys, the black-and-white video technology of The Star Wagon, a 1966 television play, written by Maxwell Anderson and directed by Karl Genus, is archaic. But Genus’ direction and the relaxed and intimate acting of a cast that includes Orson Bean, Joan Lorring, Eileen Brennan and Dustin Hoffman make The Star Wagon one of the most entertaining attempts to use the idea of time travel to dramatize the tension between free will and destiny I’ve seen.

http://annalsofthehive.blogspot.com/2011/02/time-travel-in-60s.html

Déjà Vu is a 2006 American crime action thriller with elements of science fiction, directed by Tony Scott, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and co-written by Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio. The film stars Denzel Washington, Bruce Greenwood, Matt Craven, Jim Caviezel, and Paula Patton as the main characters, but also includes actors Val Kilmer and Adam Goldberg. Déjà Vu involves ATF agent Douglas Carlin, who travels back in time in attempts to prevent a domestic terrorist attack that takes place in New Orleans and to save a woman with whom he falls in love, Claire Kuchever. Filming took place throughout post-Katrina New Orleans.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_Vu_%282006_film%29

Time-travel physics seems stranger than fiction
Physicists say future tests could tell whether we can change the past

That time-honored standby of science fiction — traveling back in time — has come back into fashion in Hollywood, on the big screen ( "Deja Vu," premiering Wednesday) as well as the small screen ( "Day Break," which made its debut last Wednesday on ABC).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15817394/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/time-travel-physics-seems-stranger-fiction/#.TvjqPNUof-s