time travel
2016 has become the year where audiences are openly questioning the onslaught of mainstream movies coming out, especially when it comes to unnecessary sequels. Some of the films this year that have made us think ‘did this really need a sequel?’ include Now You See Me 2, The Hunstman, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Independence Day 2, Zoolander 2 and even an Ice Age film set in space.
Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is focused on Time Travel films.
There are franchises that have their special days to commemorate their enduring legacy, usually ones which are directly implied from the films. Star Wars, for example, has its May 4th as a reference to the famous “may the Force be with you” quote, and the Back To The Future trilogy also has its own. As the series centres on time travel and that there are a number of dates which our heroes transport to, the one that arguably stands out as ‘Back To The Future Day’ is October 21st, 2015.
Sequels sell like hotcakes. Filmgoers cannot be faulted for summing up today’s film industry simply as that. We don’t really need to draw up any charts or statistics to figure out that half of the films in 2015 consist of sequels.
In some ways, the cinema is the closest thing we can experience to travelling through time – certainly the closest of any art form. In the dark room of a movie theatre, an audience can be transported to the distant past or spectacular visions of the future, and even in watching films from the 30’s and 40’s we can look at the lives and faces of people who died many years ago. Time travel became popular as a literary device with HG Well’s The Time Machine – published in 1895, the same year that the Lumière Brothers made Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.
Christopher Nolan has made a solid place for himself in the rank of modern filmmakers. His latest film, Interstellar, further establishes his stance. It is a wondrously beautiful movie, with intense sci-fi sequences, a solid and talented cast, and even some thought-provoking ideas.
Time travel can be a tricky plot device. Stories can defy their own time travel rules or become so convoluted that you struggle to follow it at all. With the hundreds of movies that feature different aspects of time travel, it can also be difficult to bring a fresh, original idea to the screen.
In Edge of Tomorrow, Earth is hit by a meteor infested with a strange and highly violent alien species called the Mimics. They immediately start to destroy the world, and everything the humans do is futile. The alien species is strong and fast, and more importantly, has control over time – though no one (aside from a very select few) is aware of it.
X-Men: First Class wasn’t necessarily designed to be part of the original trilogy’s continuity. X-Men: