Time Travel
Dec. 14th, 2006 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teleidoplexWarning: Spoilers for Deja-Vu (the new Denzel Washington flick), Doctor Who, etc.
I've been reminded recently how much I love really well-done time travel narratives.
Anyone following this journal knows that I've been obsessing over Doctor Who recently, but for the most part I wouldn't qualify the Doctor Who stuff as a "good" time travel narrative. Sure, they travel all over time and space, but the nature of the show (long-running, multiple mediums, multiple writers with no Grant Morrison/Gail Simone/Etc. to act as a board of continuity editors, etc.) precludes the possibility of keeping a consistent time-travel paradigm. The fox and I agreed last night that "good" (by which I mean "internally consistent") time-travel narratives have a much better chance of being created in a controlled environment.
Last night I saw a "good" time-travel story. It made me think about the two styles out there, which I've mentally labeled closed-system and open-system (based on a quote from Ken Keysey's "Demon Box", where the main character is told something to the effect of "Entropy is only a problem in a closed system".) Closed-system time travel stories are the stories in which pre-determinism reigns, where what happens does happen because it did happen. They are closed time-loops. The time-travel story in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an extremely well-executed example of this. I have to admit that I tend to prefer these types of time-travel narratives.
Deja-Vu was an example of the other type. It was an open-system time-travel story, where an alternate universe/time-line is created due to the actions of the character in the 'original' timeline. Most of the time, I find stories like these to be very sloppily executed, but Deja Vu was abolutely brilliant!! I'm actually going to avoid describing in detail how they pull it off, but the internal consistency is amazing (as is the spiritual message). Go see it.
So, yeah. Mostly just a rambly post about how much I love time-travel stories. I got lasik just in case I might one day travel through time. All of this makes me hunger to play Rodomer Brambleshank again in some kind of venue. Best character I hardly ever got to play.
I've been reminded recently how much I love really well-done time travel narratives.
Anyone following this journal knows that I've been obsessing over Doctor Who recently, but for the most part I wouldn't qualify the Doctor Who stuff as a "good" time travel narrative. Sure, they travel all over time and space, but the nature of the show (long-running, multiple mediums, multiple writers with no Grant Morrison/Gail Simone/Etc. to act as a board of continuity editors, etc.) precludes the possibility of keeping a consistent time-travel paradigm. The fox and I agreed last night that "good" (by which I mean "internally consistent") time-travel narratives have a much better chance of being created in a controlled environment.
Last night I saw a "good" time-travel story. It made me think about the two styles out there, which I've mentally labeled closed-system and open-system (based on a quote from Ken Keysey's "Demon Box", where the main character is told something to the effect of "Entropy is only a problem in a closed system".) Closed-system time travel stories are the stories in which pre-determinism reigns, where what happens does happen because it did happen. They are closed time-loops. The time-travel story in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an extremely well-executed example of this. I have to admit that I tend to prefer these types of time-travel narratives.
Deja-Vu was an example of the other type. It was an open-system time-travel story, where an alternate universe/time-line is created due to the actions of the character in the 'original' timeline. Most of the time, I find stories like these to be very sloppily executed, but Deja Vu was abolutely brilliant!! I'm actually going to avoid describing in detail how they pull it off, but the internal consistency is amazing (as is the spiritual message). Go see it.
So, yeah. Mostly just a rambly post about how much I love time-travel stories. I got lasik just in case I might one day travel through time. All of this makes me hunger to play Rodomer Brambleshank again in some kind of venue. Best character I hardly ever got to play.
