Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of television. I have been for years and probably always will be. This time of year is always one of the toughest as season and series finales happen. For those shows that aren't returning, you hopefully get closure that makes sense. But for those that are coming back in the fall, we should get a great cliffhanger. Tuesday night, we got a great season finale from The Flash. I'm late to the party when it comes to superheroes. Yeah, I've always known about them and have loved what I had seen, but I had never been a typical comic book nerd. I still don't buy comic books, but the influx of Marvel and DC information into popular culture has begun to feed the curiosity I've always had.
So, as I mentioned, this season finale was amazing. It had everything I had hoped for: an awesome superhero pitted against a fantastic super-villain, closure to a season-long story line, that aforementioned cliffhanger, and unexpected twists. But there was also time travel, another topic of which I've always had interest (see some of my previous blog posts). I always like to see how different authors, writers, etc... do interpretations of time travel. Because it's still all theoretical at this point (and some would say impossible), there is plenty of room for artistic license. Most of the time, I try to take the information and rationally prove or disprove it in my own mind. Tuesday night was no exception. In order to explain it, I'll have to give you a synopsis of this season.
Barry Allen is a forensic scientist for the Central City Police Department that was exposed to the effects of a particle collider malfunction at S.T.A.R. Labs. Dr. Harrison Wells, the scientist who founded the laboratory, nursed Barry back to health but discovered that the explosion gave him the power of super speed. During the season of catching other gifted "meta-humans" that turned to lives of crime, Barry moves fast enough to travel briefly back in time to not only see his mother's murder, which his father was blamed & jailed for supposedly doing, but finds that another speedster (which they dubbed the Reverse Flash) had been the actual murderer. **Please note that if you haven't watched the season and plan to, there will be spoilers in the rest of this synopsis.** Barry learns that Dr. Wells, his wheelchair-bound mentor, actually is Eobard Thawne, a criminal from the future that traveled back to the past to kill Barry's mother to demoralize him from becoming the Flash naturally. After killing Nora Allen, Thawne finds himself trapped in that time period with no way of getting home. He then arranges the death of the real Dr. Wells, assumes his full identity (complete with facial features), and sets up future events that result in the particle accelerator accident to help Barry become the Flash sooner than happened in his original timeline. Barry finally is able to capture Thawne, but is presented with a proposition. Another particle accelerator Thawne built is the key to Barry being able to return to the past once again. By running fast enough and colliding with the particle, it would open a wormhole that would allow a window of traveling to the past in order to prevent Nora Allen's murder. In exchange for this information, Thawne asks to be allowed to return to his own time. Barry finally agrees, creates the wormhole and returns to his childhood home. Instead of preventing the murder, though, and possibly changing his entire timeline, Barry uses the opportunity to say goodbye to his mom, then returns to present time to stop Thawne from returning home. A battle ensues with Thawne gaining the upper hand and is about to kill Barry, when an unexpected twist happens. One of Barry's friends and coworkers is Eddie Thawne, who also happens to be Eobard Thawne's ancestor. Just before Barry is about to be killed, Eddie shoots himself, causing Eobard to be erased from existence. As the show goes off the air, we see the Flash attempting to stop the wormhole from becoming a full-fledged singularity that destroys the entire Earth.
Confused? I hope not. Intrigued? I definitely hope so. Of all the events in that episode, the erasure from existence of Eobard Thawne was what piqued my curiosity. Follow me on this. If Eobard Thawne had never existed, the following items would have changed: Nora Allen would not have been murdered, Barry Allen might never have followed his guardian Joe West's footsteps in working with the police department, he possibly wouldn't have met Dr. Wells (the real one), a particle accelerator accident would never have occurred, Barry wouldn't have become the Flash until much later...the list goes on and on. But the only thing that seemingly changed was Eobard never existing. The rest of that current universe apparently continued on as if nothing had happened. My initial reaction was "this does not make sense". We should have seen immediate differences that would have reverted everything back to the way the timeline would have been had Eobard not existed. Then I started thinking about the situation with an emphasis on alternate universes. Eobard time traveling to kill Nora Allen set about a chain of events that changed major points along a timeline...or did they? Could the act of time travel have also been enough to jump to an alternate timeline, the points of which we saw played out this season? If so, did the blanking from existence of Eobard Thawne only affect him because he was from a different timeline? Only way I could see that happening was if somehow Eddie Thawne came from the same timeline as his descendant, Eobard, and his suicide would then have the effect we saw. In some time travel and alternate universe theories I've read, even the simple acts of making a decision (going left instead of right, eating a sandwich instead of soup, etc...) can be what causes alternate universes to be created. Theoretically, an infinite number of universes exist to cover every single possibility of events that could occur. So the act of killing Nora Allen could even have created this alternate timeline/universe.
Clearly I've put too much thought into all of this and have spent more time on it than I probably should have, but these are the things that play out in my mind while I am performing other daily menial tasks. I look forward to seeing how the writers handle this, if they even do. They could just gloss over it with an "it is what it is" view. For the sake of entertainment, I'm okay with that but Analytical Me is having issues with it. Did any of you watch The Flash at all this season? If so, did you have similar thoughts? Or are you now reading about this for the first time and are gathering opinions? I'd love to hear your opinions on The Flash, time travel, alternate universes, superheroes...whatever thoughts this blog has stirred up inside you. As an extra bonus question: if you could go back in time to prevent a completely awful event in your life, knowing full-well that changing that event could alter everything else that happened to you after that (including even really great events), would you do it? Feel free to comment here or you can hit me up by e-mail, text, Twitter, or Facebook. The ways to reach me are almost as numerous as the number of alternate universes that may or may not exist.
Until my next blog, I wish all of you Godspeed. (Get it? The Flash? Speed? Very punny...)
Showing posts with label time travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time travel. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Don't Blame Doc Brown
Already I'm hearing comments on the Internet, and even in person, from people saying, "Back to the Future was full of crap! It's almost 2015 and nothing has come true like the movies". Did you ever stop to think that maybe it's for a good reason (other than "Back to the Future" is a movie)? I thought about this today (maybe for too long) and came up with a few answers as to why none of this has happened..and don't you dare blame Doc Brown.
First, anyone who is a sci-fi geek like I am can tell you that anything dealing with the future is an uncertainty from the word "go". While many theories exist of how time travel can occur, many agree that events that happen in the past directly affect how the future plays out. Anyone with foreknowledge of those events and means of time travel can affect the outcome. Even such a thing as killing a butterfly in the past can affect future events on a grand scale (see "the butterfly effect" on Wikipedia or elsewhere). It's very possible that Marty McFly's adventures in the future and past could have affected timelines and events so much that those displayed in the movie never occurred. Nothing shown there appears to be a "fixed point" in time, or something so pivotal to time itself that nothing can alter it. Still, not knowing how the years played out between 1985 and 2015, all of this technology could still develop sometime in the next three years. I still find it hard to believe, though, that fifteen more Jaws movies could happen between now and then. Please, for the love of Spielberg, don't let that happen.
Another theory that has just as much sci-fi goodness as the last one is that the "Back to the Future" trilogy occurred in an alternate universe. Although I don't claim to fully understand physics, some scientists are of the belief that there are universes just out of phase with our own, some with Earths having subtle differences, others having drastically different characteristics. For example, in one universe I'm writing this blog about "Back to the Future" starring Eric Stoltz (see Wikipedia info on the original screen tests). In yet another universe, I'm not writing a blog at all because electricity hasn't been invented. See how that works? Imagine a possible outcome and *BOOM* it's another universe. Want to really blow your mind? That universe both existed AND didn't exist until you thought of it. It was real AND not real simultaneously. Read up on Schroedinger's cat for more info on that bit of mind-screwing. So to recap this theory, somewhere in another universe, Marty McFly and Doc Brown are real people having real adventures.
Last, but not least, is an idea that my friend Kris thought of today, something that I hadn't considered. The technology in the movie is indeed possible RIGHT NOW, but the government doesn't want you to know about it. Yeah, I know...fit me for a straitjacket and lock me in a padded room with Fox Mulder and the Lone Gunmen (which, by the way, would be a kick-ass nerd band name). Call me a government conspirist, but I think this is totally possible. Think about it for a second with the biggest, most important technological advancement of the movies (other than time travel): FLYING CARS. Can you imagine the repercussions this would have? Citizens would all have to pass different exams to drive/fly a car. Different safety upgrades would be made for all new vehicles. Older cars would be retrofitted with this technology and THOSE cars would need to be upgraded for safety. Companies like those in the tire industry would have financial loss (why replace tires when you don't need them except for takeoff and landing?). Buildings would needed to be upgraded for safety, possibly with each including a member of Air Traffic Control, to navigate vehicles safely around them. We'd constantly have to be on the lookout for Jihadists trying to fly their explosive-laden cars into structures. Do you see the problems this causes? And that's just ONE upgrade and advancement in technology. The government probably has this stuff hidden in Area 51 with the rest of the alien technology it has captured over the years (again with the conspiracy!) but refuses to release it because of the myriad of issues that would ensue upon its release.
There may be more reasons that the "Back to the Future" trilogy hasn't come true, but I think these are three pretty good reasons why we don't see it happening in 2012 (or 2015 for that matter). I may not be able to fly my Honda Accord to work using the scraps from last night's dinner, take a leisurely ride through the park on my hoverboard, or take in a matinee of Jaws 19, but I take a minute to appreciate what I can do and what I do have. In the amount of time mankind has been living on this Earth, we've accomplished some great advancements. In an even shorter span of time those advancements have increased exponentially. If you think it hasn't, look at the smart phone you most likely carry on your hip or in your pocket. Such a thing wasn't even a reality for the general public ten short years ago. That should put some things in perspective.
So, please don't blame Doc Brown, Marty McFly, or any of the other characters (well, maybe Biff) for a near future that doesn't resemble the movie. Instead, be excited for what could possibly be even better than what the movie predicted. Look forward to what lies ahead down the road. Wait..."Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads." Yeah, that still may be a possibility :)
First, anyone who is a sci-fi geek like I am can tell you that anything dealing with the future is an uncertainty from the word "go". While many theories exist of how time travel can occur, many agree that events that happen in the past directly affect how the future plays out. Anyone with foreknowledge of those events and means of time travel can affect the outcome. Even such a thing as killing a butterfly in the past can affect future events on a grand scale (see "the butterfly effect" on Wikipedia or elsewhere). It's very possible that Marty McFly's adventures in the future and past could have affected timelines and events so much that those displayed in the movie never occurred. Nothing shown there appears to be a "fixed point" in time, or something so pivotal to time itself that nothing can alter it. Still, not knowing how the years played out between 1985 and 2015, all of this technology could still develop sometime in the next three years. I still find it hard to believe, though, that fifteen more Jaws movies could happen between now and then. Please, for the love of Spielberg, don't let that happen.
Another theory that has just as much sci-fi goodness as the last one is that the "Back to the Future" trilogy occurred in an alternate universe. Although I don't claim to fully understand physics, some scientists are of the belief that there are universes just out of phase with our own, some with Earths having subtle differences, others having drastically different characteristics. For example, in one universe I'm writing this blog about "Back to the Future" starring Eric Stoltz (see Wikipedia info on the original screen tests). In yet another universe, I'm not writing a blog at all because electricity hasn't been invented. See how that works? Imagine a possible outcome and *BOOM* it's another universe. Want to really blow your mind? That universe both existed AND didn't exist until you thought of it. It was real AND not real simultaneously. Read up on Schroedinger's cat for more info on that bit of mind-screwing. So to recap this theory, somewhere in another universe, Marty McFly and Doc Brown are real people having real adventures.
Last, but not least, is an idea that my friend Kris thought of today, something that I hadn't considered. The technology in the movie is indeed possible RIGHT NOW, but the government doesn't want you to know about it. Yeah, I know...fit me for a straitjacket and lock me in a padded room with Fox Mulder and the Lone Gunmen (which, by the way, would be a kick-ass nerd band name). Call me a government conspirist, but I think this is totally possible. Think about it for a second with the biggest, most important technological advancement of the movies (other than time travel): FLYING CARS. Can you imagine the repercussions this would have? Citizens would all have to pass different exams to drive/fly a car. Different safety upgrades would be made for all new vehicles. Older cars would be retrofitted with this technology and THOSE cars would need to be upgraded for safety. Companies like those in the tire industry would have financial loss (why replace tires when you don't need them except for takeoff and landing?). Buildings would needed to be upgraded for safety, possibly with each including a member of Air Traffic Control, to navigate vehicles safely around them. We'd constantly have to be on the lookout for Jihadists trying to fly their explosive-laden cars into structures. Do you see the problems this causes? And that's just ONE upgrade and advancement in technology. The government probably has this stuff hidden in Area 51 with the rest of the alien technology it has captured over the years (again with the conspiracy!) but refuses to release it because of the myriad of issues that would ensue upon its release.
There may be more reasons that the "Back to the Future" trilogy hasn't come true, but I think these are three pretty good reasons why we don't see it happening in 2012 (or 2015 for that matter). I may not be able to fly my Honda Accord to work using the scraps from last night's dinner, take a leisurely ride through the park on my hoverboard, or take in a matinee of Jaws 19, but I take a minute to appreciate what I can do and what I do have. In the amount of time mankind has been living on this Earth, we've accomplished some great advancements. In an even shorter span of time those advancements have increased exponentially. If you think it hasn't, look at the smart phone you most likely carry on your hip or in your pocket. Such a thing wasn't even a reality for the general public ten short years ago. That should put some things in perspective.
So, please don't blame Doc Brown, Marty McFly, or any of the other characters (well, maybe Biff) for a near future that doesn't resemble the movie. Instead, be excited for what could possibly be even better than what the movie predicted. Look forward to what lies ahead down the road. Wait..."Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads." Yeah, that still may be a possibility :)
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