Big errors in this movie
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jconn426 — 15 years ago(October 06, 2010 08:24 PM)
Nopers. Like most time travel stories, TIME COP keeps things coherent for the audience by allowing Jean-Claude to remember only one version of events, presumably the first version, and then having him (and us) learn what has changed from the gang back in the control room. This plays merry hell with the plot, though, since the only one who can remember the original timeline is the TEC agent at the center of the change.
Since TEC's job is to track illegal time travel activity and then send someone back to arrest and retrieve the criminal, let's explore the following possibility:
1.) I go back in time to 1994 and tell my young self to stop contributing to my 401k and buy gold instead.
2.) In 2004 the energy signature of my time machine is detected. Fair enough.
3.) In 1994 my 2004 self is caught and taken back to 2004.
Now, what happens if that goes a little differently?
3.) The TEC agent kicks my 1994 self in the face when he attempts to grab and use the TEC agent's gun.
4.) I go blind.
5.) I never time travel back to 1994 to tell myself to buy gold.
There, the whole reason for Jean-Claude to be in 1994 has disappeared. How does he explain his arrival back in 2004 when he had no reason to go back to 1994?????? -
jconn426 — 15 years ago(January 07, 2011 09:31 AM)
As I believe someone else already pointed out, the movie should have immediately shifted back to 2004 once McComb was destroyed. He was the one who initiated this whole chain of events starting in the year 2004. If he mysteriously disappeared in 1994 (as Van Damme's boss points out), then no one would have hired or blackmailed anyone to go back in time from 2004 to steal money or kill Van Damme '94, and therefore Van Damme 2004, the hired guns, and the bomb shouldn't be there after McComb goes "poof".
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horrorgasm — 15 years ago(February 14, 2011 01:26 AM)
there's also the fun paradoxes like if his wife hadn't been killed by time altering designed to stop Walker from interfering, Walker probably never would never have interfered in the first place and really McComb should have just won immediately without anyone ever knowing, because angry wifeless interfering Walker should never have existed to begin with.
or if McComb only dies in 1994 because of the influence and "space sharing" of his 2004 selfthen how can he live until 2004 to influence and kill himself in 1994? (in fact if everything was erased who called 1994 McComb and told him to come over to Walker's house?) so then wouldn't he either just suddenly be alive again? or would reality just explode because of the sheer lack of sense? who knows -
solitaire40 — 12 years ago(September 09, 2013 03:06 AM)
Yes I was thinking the same thing. When McComb goes poof I kept waiting for the bomb to just disappear along with the bad guys. His wife should also not have a bullet wound. But the house explodes anyway and then reappears with the same crappy paint job in 2004 at the end.
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sanddragon939 — 11 years ago(April 19, 2014 10:33 PM)
There are clearly inconsistencies in how time travel is supposed to work in this movie. Apparently, changing the past doesn't affect the time-traveler from the future(which is why Max always remembers the original history), and yet, when younger McComb gets hit, the older McComb instantly gets a scar.
Its also unclear if altering history such that the time-traveler never went back undoes all his changes to the past or not.
For instance, consider the ending. So, because Aaron McComb 'disappeared' ten years ago, no one heard of him as a Presidential candidate. But we also see that name 'Parker Datalink' when Max returns. But technically, McComb killed Parker BEFORE the events in the house when Max killed him and his younger self. So shouldn't Parker have still been dead? Unless preventing McComb from time-traveling erases all his incursions into the pastin which case, why does Max remember what happened?
In any case, here's a nice series of articles analyzing the time-travel issues with this movie. Its still a work in progress-
http://www.mjyoung.net/time/examiner.html#timecop -
crockett_john — 11 years ago(August 14, 2014 09:55 PM)
I remember that thing about the same matter existing in two times being an issue in the Dean Koontz book, "Lightning." In that book, people could ony travel to the future and could never visit the same time twice. When you write a book or a movie about time travel, you get to make up the rules and rewrite the laws of physics, but it helps if they make them understandable to the audience.
My bio isn't blank.
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viking-fjord_90 — 10 years ago(September 11, 2015 07:01 PM)
They can go back to the future since the future they come from is their past/presentit's only the future for the 1994-versions of the same peoplei.e. van Damme wouldn't be able to bring back his 1994-self to his own present.
However, what I do find silly is the fact that they could go back in time to an era where the time machine didn't exist. Any change in the timeline before the time machine was invented would be impossible, because the changes could prevent the creation of the time machine itself. If the time machine is never created, the person would never go back in time in order to make the changes to eliminate the time machinethis paradox is better known as "The Grandfather Paradox".
So, if they really could go back in time they would be like ghosts. They wouldn't be able to interact with any people or surroundings that would change the course of history. Where does this leave us? Well, from the day timetravel was made possible, they would have to wait 10 years in order to go back 10 years (the same date as the machine was created)or they could actually just use the machine and skip those 10 years instantly, though it wouldn't be smart when you don't know what you're going to (imagine skipping 10 years and the entire planet is a wasteland from nuclear war and you succumb to radiation, heat, cold or whatever before being able to escape back in time.
To summarize: It would be more logical being able to travel to the future able to contain the consequences of the time machine already invented, rather than going back to the past before the machine was invented. Though the safest thing would be to just live normally in the present, into the future, and then travel back to whatever time after the invention was made. -
FlyingPie — 10 years ago(September 11, 2015 07:33 PM)
However, what I do find silly is the fact that they could go back in time to an era where the time machine didn't exist. Any change in the timeline before the time machine was invented would be impossible, because the changes could prevent the creation of the time machine itself.
Not necessarily - I think it depends on what they do in the past. Not everything they do in the past would necessarily interfere with the creation of the time machine. For instance, they could travel into the past and go on vacation in Jamaica.. That (and many other things they could potentially do) should have no bearing on the creation of the time machine.We have clearance, Clarence.
Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor? -
viking-fjord_90 — 10 years ago(September 12, 2015 02:44 PM)
Well, if you went back in time to go to Jamaica, you'd change the course of time simply by occupying the seat of a person in the original timelinethis could be very disastrous, unless you disregard "Back to the Future"-time travel and look more in the direction of "Lost"-timetravelwhere the seat was never stolen from someone in the original timeline..the original timeline was always affected by timetravel, and the passenger was always the guy who traveled back in timehe just didn't know it until the past became his present.
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midflinx007 — 10 years ago(March 13, 2016 01:26 AM)
As Q says to Captain Picard after taking them back in time in the episode "Tapestry": "Please! Spare me your egotistical musings on your pivotal role in history. Nothing you do here will cause the Federation to collapse or galaxies to explode. To be blunt, you're not that important."
Going to Jamaica on a flight that once had 20 empty seats and now has 19 empty seats might change history very little if the time traveler keeps a low profile and interacts very little and in a very ordinary way. -
viking-fjord_90 — 10 years ago(September 12, 2015 03:10 PM)
In "Lost"-timetravel you wouldn't be able to change the future at all by going back in time, because what happened happened, and nothing can change the original timeline. I.e. you go back and meet yourself as a kid, and suddenly you realize that you are wearing the same clothes and have the same looks as a mysterious adult you met when you were a kid. If so, the premise of this film wouldn't work as it's based on "Back to the Future"-timetravel.
If you're following the theory used in BTTF, even a slightest event would change something drastically in the present/future. Such timetravel would not be allowed IMO if it were possible to travel back, as paradoxes would be disastrous. In such an event, you'd be a "ghost" unable to interact with anything, and for all we know ghosts could be just that. A glimpse of a timetraveller, unable to interact with anything except really minor stuff, unexplained events which are tiny accidents small enough to be allowed since it wouldn't endanger the future and the creation of the time machine (occurences we consider supernatural). -
DracTarashV — 10 years ago(October 19, 2015 08:12 AM)
For a supposedly silly movie, Timecop certainly sparks some interesting discussions. More interesting than the movie itself? Some will undoubtedly say yes. I do think it is better than most give it credit for, though.
Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!