Groovers and Mobsters Present Time Travel

I received an interesting mail about two weeks ago, it was from Andy at Fandago Groovers Movie Blog. He asked me whether I want to participate in Groovers & Mobsters Present, the theme is Time Travel. He gave me choices between Back to the Future and Terminator…I don’t have to think twice and jump at the opportunity to once again write about terminator. The Terminator is one of few movies I never get tired of, I can’t even remember how many times I have seen it.

Time travel has been told in many movies and books, some end up with happy ending while some with sad ending. Time travel is indeed a fun theme to explore. Wouldn’t you like to take the journey if you know how?

Without further introduction, here goes my part of time travel

The hardest thing is deciding what I should tell you and what not to. Well, anyway, I’ve got a while yet before you’re old enough to understand the tapes. They’re more for me at this point… to help get it all straight. Should I tell you about your father? That’s a tough one. Will it change your decision to send him here… knowing? But if you don’t send Kyle, you could never be. God, you can go crazy thinking about all this… I suppose I’ll tell you… I owe him that. And maybe it’ll be enough if you know that in the few hours we had together we loved a lifetime’s worth (Sarah Connor)

A human being, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), and a terminator suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Their presence was followed with bolt of high electric current…and they were naked. From Reese explanation we learned that only living organism can be transported by the time machine and for that reason they had to travel naked. I have seen and read some time travel stories and Terminator is the only one that let the traveler goes butt naked. For a ten years old girl in the 80s, it was quite a surprise to see that scene. The rationalization of that scene made sense at that time, I doubt it a little now. The Cyborg was mostly composed of metal, in other word dead things. It was a bit unusual for it to travel with the transporting machine even though it was covered with living tissue, wouldn’t the machine be like those machine in airport that can see through?

The time traveler in The Terminator and all terminator series can only travel one way, there was no returning home. The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) knew perfectly well that it could never return and will do everything to eliminate the mother of the future leader who will relentlessly fight the domination of machines over human. The Leader, John Connor, knew the danger that will come to his mother in the past sent his to-be-father knowing he would never see him again.

And here comes the paradox of time traveling!

I deliberately chose the quotes from Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) to her future son because it shows how difficult a time traveling could be. The future and the past are connected in a way we can’t explain. John gave Sarah’s picture to one of his subordinates knowing that that man will become his father, but at the same time how can John be born before his father was even born? What happened to John if Reese didn’t meet Sarah in the past or somehow Reese changed the past? As we could see in Terminator 2, Sarah tried to change the future. I guess this paradox is what makes Time Travel a good story to explore.

I will close this with a quote from Kyle Reese

John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn’t know why at the time. It was very old – torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have

You can read more about this Time Travel in Movie Mobsters. Thank you for asking me, Andy.

I also wrote a post about all 4 Terminator Movies back in May 2009.