Time After Time

With our film industry supersaturated with remakes and reboots, I always hoped that a project would be picked up that no one would know the source material to. It would actually be - somewhat - fresh content. Although I think there are some projects that fit that bill (anyone remember the TV show 21 Jump Street? It's a Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum movie to be re-released this summer), they're rare to say the least... and generally based off either shitty content or material too good/iconic to be remade (did Burton really need to redo Willy Wonka?). However, this is a film that I truly believe deserves a face lift.

Let me just give you a low-down on the premise here and ask yourself if you would see this - I'm assuming no one has seen this 1979 sci-fi flick. Alright, we open to London in the late 1800's where a prostitute has just been murdered by Jack the Ripper. Jack flees before the cops can arrive, and their search for him begins. Switch over to the home of H.G. Wells as he converses with all his highly educated colleges. He unveils to them his latest invention: the Time Machine. Just then police rap at the door believing Jack the Ripper to have fled to this house (I hope you see where this is going). Wells notices his friend, John Leslie Stevenson, is missing. He jogs downstairs into his lab to find his Time Machine missing! Luckily, Wells installed a safety switch that brings the machine back to its point of departure. Once it has returned Wells learns that his "friend" has traveled into the future (our present day). Now it's up to H.G. Wells to travel into the future to track down Jack the Ripper before he can strike again.

No doubt about it. I would drop $$$ to see this guy.

Of course, this film was made in the 70's and is extremely dated by our standards. I mean, the special effects of the Time Machine zipping through time is just... ugh. But inject at least $70 million into it budget and tack on some A-list stars (plus Bruce Campbell as Jack the Ripper... yeah, he could probably do a British accent) and you've got a movie people might respect.

The only glaring problem this movie has dealt with the fundamentals of time travel. I believe the original film adaptation for Well's actual novel illustrated how he believe a time machine to work. Essentially, the Time Machine would say in place as the world around him sped through time. Only in this movie, after Wells blasts 100 years into the future, he finds himself in an H.G. Wells museum exhibit in San Francisco. Apparently it looks as though his office and Time Machine just went untouched all this time even though it's already demonstrated earlier that when using the machine you disappear from those around you (Well's maid watches him depart and is astonished when the machine vanishes before her eyes). I mean, I'll suspend my disbelief here I guess.

The other big problem was Well's attitude with the future. In the beginning of the film he raves about striving for a Utopian society and believes the future would have hopefully achieved that. Once in San Fran, he's disappointed by the violence and sexuality on television and the general seedy, crime-ridden atmosphere the city holds. Really? Cars are not impressive? How about the advancement in communication - why didn't his mind blow when he saw a television? Instead, it depicts his astonishment with fast food. Yes, I guess that's something to take away from the future, right? McDick's is where it's at.

This film is a little too dated for me to give any recommendations on - I only finished it because I have my all-day couch marathon on Sunday - but maybe we'll see it re-released someday... IN THE FUTURE!