The Time Machine (2002)

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Movie
German title The Time Machine
Original title The Time Machine
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2002
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Simon Wells
script David Duncan
novel based on: HG Wells
production Walter F. Parkes
John Logan
music Klaus Badelt
camera David E. Diano
cut Joanne Trotta
Nicole Small
occupation

The Time Machine is a science fiction - film from 2002. It is based loosely on the novel by HG Wells and is adjacent to the film The Time Machine from 1960, another film adaptation of the substance. The film, the original title of which was also untranslated for the German dubbed version, was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Make-Up in 2003 . Director Simon Wells is a great-grandson of HG Wells.

content

prehistory

New York in 1899. Dr. Alexander Hartdegen is the prototype of an absent-minded professor. He almost forgets his date with Emma while teaching at New York University until he is reminded of it by colleague David Philby. On the way to his date, Hartdegen almost forgets the engagement ring with a moonstone. He forgets the promised flowers because he sees an automobile and during a conversation with the driver, by boldly pulling the handbrake, prevents the car from driving off on its own.

During these first film scenes, Alexander's friend David Philby raised the question of whether people would at some point go too far with their inventions.

Alexander meets with Emma and takes her to a park to propose to her. This is observed by a man who then approaches the couple to rob them and first steals Alexander's wallet. During the scramble for the engagement ring, a shot from the robber's revolver goes off, killing Emma.

Driven by the idea of ​​reversing what has happened, he withdraws completely and works obsessively on his new invention. Four years later, Alexander succeeded: he reveals his time machine, which he had hidden behind a curtain, and travels with it four years to save Emma from death.

However, he does not succeed in this, although this time he avoids the park and goes into town with Emma, ​​she is run over by a carriage and dies. Ironically, the horses in this carriage are made shy of the automobile, which this time really starts rolling on its own.

Alex concludes that there is nothing he can do to prevent Emma's death. To find an answer, instead of going back to the past, he decides to travel to the future.

Stopovers in the 21st century

On his journey through time, Alex sees how the world is changing and stops in 2030, where he learns about a planned “lunar luxury park” on the moon, for which a few more explosions are necessary. Alex is received in a public library by the "VOX system", a holographic android that is connected to all databases on earth. When Alex wanted to know more about time travel, he was told that this was not possible. Instead, the Android shows him some science fiction books - including "The Time Machine" by HG Wells - and a scene from a time travel musical.

After a short onward journey, Alex stops in 2037 when he hears a shock. The unsuccessful demolition for the lunar luxury park turns out to be the cause. This causes the moon to shatter into pieces, which now fall to earth. When the police want to bring him to safety, Alex is able to free himself and run to his machine. He continued to flee into the future, but was knocked unconscious at the “start” due to a subsequent shock. The geological changes of the next centuries and millennia of the place that was once New York City are only vaguely perceived.

The future

When Alex comes to and stops the machine, he is in the year 802,701. He finds himself in a primitive and new type of dwelling. Like all apartments here, it clings to steep rock faces and is connected by bridges and rope ladders. Alex has trouble talking to people. He can only communicate with Mara and her brother Kalen, who still speak the “stone language”. When Alex indicates that he came from the past, Mara translates to her people, the Eloi , that he was just a homeless idiot who fell on his head when he fell. In the evening Alex realizes that Philby was right (see prehistory ) when he looks at the moon, which has crumbled into pieces.

During the night Alex has a nightmare: he is walking through a jungle and comes across a large steel skull that calls out his name and snaps at him. Mara tells him that everyone in the village has this dream.

The next day, Mara and Alex go to the classroom, which is surrounded by fragments of old New York and has become the Eloi funeral memorial. Alex wants to take the opportunity to check on his machine in the forest beyond. Seeing the strange device, Mara now believes that he comes from the past, so she asks him to go back in time and take Kalen with him. Suddenly they hear screams and rush back to the memorial. The people there are in a panic and are seized by long-haired figures emerging from the ground and dragged underground, including Mara. After calm has returned, Alex asks why the people are not defending themselves and goes with Kalen to the "place where the spirits are".

This is the dilapidated remainder of the library that Alex visited in 2030. The VOX system is partly still intact and can remember Alex. It tells him that after the crash of the moon, humanity split into two types: the Eloi who lived above ground and the Morlocks who lived underground . On the way back Alex and Kalen come to the skull they know from dreams in the jungle. Alex decides to go on alone and climbs into the hole on which the skull is standing. He comes to a room where dead Eloi are kept as food for the Morlocks. When he is discovered, he is taken to Uber-Morlock, the leader of the Morlocks. There he discovers Mara locked in a cage. The time machine was also dragged into this room. The Uber-Morlock explains that time travel is just an attempt to control the world. The time machine would not have existed if Emma hadn't died. Alex cannot bring Emma back to life because this would create a time paradox. He asks Alex to travel back in time. Alex sits in the machine and begins a fight with the Uber-Morlock as the machine sets off towards the distant future. He throws the over-Morlock out of the time ball. This ages very quickly and finally crumbles to dust.

After that, Alex finds himself in the year 635,427,810. There he sees a dark and martial world. The forest has completely disappeared and there are steel skulls everywhere in the devastated landscape, in which flames rise. The Morlocks appear to have spread and dominated the earth.

Alex now knows that he cannot change the past, but he can change the future. He travels back to 802,701 to free Mara. While the Morlocks are looking for food again, Alex starts the time machine and hangs his pocket watch on a cogwheel, it gets between two cogwheels and blocks the machine, causing it to explode and destroy the Morlocks and their accommodation. Alex and Mara can escape the cave system in time and watch the world of their tormentors collapse.

epilogue

Due to the loss of the machine, Alex cannot go back to his age and stays with Mara and the Eloi. While the VOX system reads the Eloi from Tom Sawyer to the children , Alexander leads Mara and Kalen to where his time machine (and thus his house) was. At the same time, the year 1903 is shown, the same place where Hartdegen is in 802.701: his housekeeper is talking to Philby about the disappearance of Hartdegen, who has been gone for over a week. Philby expresses his hope that Alex has finally found a place "where he can be happy".

Reviews

"The remake neither achieves the lightness of the previous film nor the philosophical depth of the novel and is limited to superficial tension and a few gags."

- Lexicon of International Films

“The further the plot feels its way into the future, the more stupid it becomes. [...] What at HG Wells was still the descendants of a working class living underground, mutated here into horror film staff. Any social criticism and everything that might make you think will be cleanly erased from this new version for the popcorn age. "

- Wolfgang Jeschke and Sascha Mamczak

Others

The film opened in German cinemas on March 21, 2002. The Time Machine was first seen on German free TV on October 22, 2004 at 8:15 p.m. on RTL II . On December 12, 2005, ZDF broadcast a film in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound format for the first time with this film .

Alan Young made a cameo in the film as a staff member at the flower shop and is the only actor who can be seen in both this film adaptation and the original The Time Machine from 1960.

Awards

literature

  • HG Wells : The time machine. Novel (Original title: The Time Machine ). German by Annie Reney and Alexandra Auer. Complete edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag (dtv), Munich 1996, 148 pp., ISBN 3-423-12234-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Time Machine. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 29, 2017 . Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Cf. Das Science Fiction Jahr 2003 , ed. by Wolfgang Jeschke and Sascha Mamczak, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag Munich, p. 334.