Huge flaw
-
bohdave — 19 years ago(June 03, 2006 04:06 AM)
I don't really understand how the ending of the movie works out. He saves his wife back in 1994 right and comes back to the future. He goes home and meets his 2004 wife and son (for the first time).
What about from their point of view? As far as they are concerned did he go to work as usual that morning? If so at what point did "their" Walker fuse together with the Walker we go through the film with? How does he explain that he's completely forgotten them? Would "our" Walker really look exactly the same as "their" Walker (hair style etc)? They didn't seem to think anything was amiss at the end of the movie.
Also I don't understand how it works when they return from a mission, the future having been changed. Take the final mission for example. Walker returns to a nice, happy 2004. McComb has been dead since 1994, Walkers wife and son are alive, so how does it work that Walker had just returned from the past when there would have been no need for him to go on the mission to begin with? When he returns he is greeted like he was just sent out on a mission, so why would he have gone out in the first place (from the 2004 personnels point of view)? It can't have been the alternative 2004's reason (to see if Fielding was in a hospital) because she would have been alive and well already in 2004 (as we see when Walker meets her in the corridor).
Ugh, why am I doing this to myself. It's just a fun action film
I may be a tiny chimney-sweep but I've got an enormous brush. -
KISSfan2001 — 19 years ago(June 09, 2006 08:30 AM)
I think that it was once mentioned in the movie that TEC cops could not alter their own future when going back (it's been a while since I've seen the movie). This is exemplified in the fact that Walker has no memory of his wife being alive after 1994 or that he has a son in 2004. Also there is never any mention of a report of the mission being filed since Walker was the only person who had any memory of the events that took place. If I remember correctly, Walker was greeted like he just got back form a mission, but there was no discussion about the specifics of the mission.
-
digitalboy72 — 17 years ago(July 17, 2008 01:16 PM)
To those who think that the
Back to the Future
films are perfect, see if you can track down a series of articles (there were three, one for each film upon their release) that Starlog magazine did years ago called
The Return of the Other Marty McFly
and you'll realize very quickly that you were sorely mistaken lol.
Those articles were mind boggling to read and a hell of a lot of fun. -
Spifflock_Holmes — 17 years ago(August 25, 2008 06:55 AM)
I don't really understand how the ending of the movie works out. He saves his wife back in 1994 right and comes back to the future. He goes home and meets his 2004 wife and son (for the first time).
What about from their point of view? As far as they are concerned did he go to work as usual that morning? If so at what point did "their" Walker fuse together with the Walker we go through the film with? How does he explain that he's completely forgotten them? Would "our" Walker really look exactly the same as "their" Walker (hair style etc)? They didn't seem to think anything was amiss at the end of the movie.
Yep, those are some of the biggest flaws in the film's time travel logic. Probably and arguably, either Max should have returned home with a full set of memories from that timeline, or he should have come back and found himself a stranger in a timeline that already had a Max Walker in it.The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
-
holtman-d — 17 years ago(August 28, 2008 10:37 AM)
"Why are they even policing time travel at all? How are people going back in time since according to the characters, there are only 2 machines in existence: the one they are using and the prototype in Calverton, Maryland. Metuzak even says it out loud: "how is the senator making these alleged trip into the past?"
What about machines made in the future sending travelers back past 1994? Perhaps they are policing against this. Although, I am not sure how they send these future time travelers back to their own time, as traveling in the future is not possible for the TimeCops.
Also, shouldn't time traveling be like Bill and Ted's Great Adventure? You return at almost the same time you left. -
hcadonis — 17 years ago(November 22, 2008 05:03 PM)
Also having spent the last 10 mins of the film talking to mellissa in 1994 when she got shot and he helped place her next to the young walkerwhen he travels back to 2004 and he goes home then Melissa should still have memories of that encounter as he was dressed in the uniform and looked like the walker she encountered in '94.right!?
Or does memory get wiped out during the lines of confluence or she just thought it was a dream?? -
Spifflock_Holmes — 17 years ago(November 22, 2008 05:20 PM)
Also having spent the last 10 mins of the film talking to mellissa in 1994 when she got shot and he helped place her next to the young walkerwhen he travels back to 2004 and he goes home then Melissa should still have memories of that encounter as he was dressed in the uniform and looked like the walker she encountered in '94.right!?
Well, the problem with that is that since Walker destroyed McComb's younger self, McComb is no longer around to go back and cause those events in the past. So as far as Melissa's memory is concerned, they never happened. She's in a timeline in which they never occurred (because there's no McComb), so there's no reason for her to remember them. The mystery (well, one of the mysteries) is why Max
does
remember them.The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
-
kimdealslover — 17 years ago(November 29, 2008 08:39 AM)
Yeah, this film has A LOT of flaws.
I mean, if history can be changed without people realising it (e.g. the agency gets shut down and nobody has ever heard of Walker), how the hell can they police time-travel in the first place?!
I know they get tip-off's every now and again with the technologybut if someone succeeds with a crime, like with McComb, it seems pretty redundant.
"Nowwhere was I?" -
sharkmanface — 17 years ago(December 01, 2008 03:13 PM)
The house was not rebuilt, after the two McCombs joined together that instanly got rid of the house blowing up and the wife dying in the timeline, it just didn't instanly happen at the point they were at so if Walker had stayed their and not gone make so quik he may have seen a rippel go over everything and putit back to normal.
Yes other countries did have time equipment. -
GameGeekRob — 17 years ago(December 25, 2008 08:56 PM)
They say in the film that matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time This makes no sense in explaining the results of a person touching themselves in the past/future. For one, because cells age and die technically, the future self would have different cells that those of the past self. Also, touching something dosn't mean you occupy the same space as it.
I also don't agree with the whole elimination of the two people, as well. I don't really consider anyone's physical existance unique to such ends because I believe that the Universe is vastly infinite, meaning there is an infinite amount of chances for an idividual to exist. This would mean that there could be another solar system exactly like ours in a galaxy exactly like ours on a planet exactly like ours in every circumstance. This is similar to the idea that if given until the end of time, a room full of monkeys on typewriters could produce Shakespeare. -
archento — 17 years ago(March 30, 2009 11:30 AM)
Good thoughts. But what happens to everyone else in point B? That's what I'm most curious abouthis boss, for example, Fielding, Ricky? Do Ricky's memories just get erased and replaced, or is he a whole new Ricky in point C? That makes sense, but what happens to Ricky in point B? Does Van Damme cease to exist in point B?
This is the only thing that makes sense. But say it isn't a new timeline (which it has to be!): how are everyone's memories erased? -
markkosberg — 16 years ago(August 05, 2009 11:33 PM)
Good thoughts. But what happens to everyone else in point B? That's what I'm most curious abouthis boss, for example, Fielding, Ricky? Do Ricky's memories just get erased and replaced, or is he a whole new Ricky in point C? That makes sense, but what happens to Ricky in point B? Does Van Damme cease to exist in point B?
This is the only thing that makes sense. But say it isn't a new timeline (which it has to be!): how are everyone's memories erased?
you have officially given this movie's plot more thought than the screenwriters -
jconn426 — 15 years ago(August 22, 2010 09:12 PM)
Greetings from the year 2010!
I watched Time Cop earlier this evening. When Walker enters the timeline where the agency is being shut down, the take I got was that Walker was now just another agent to the Commander, not a personal friend. Since McComb's company made time travel possible, he must have made sure the workplace rules prevented field agents from getting chummy with their superiors. (McComb's 1994 incarnation treated his own staff member like dirt, for example, when he asked her, "Have you ever seen the inside of the Presidential limousine?" When she said no, he replied that he'd send her a picture.) On the other hand, McComb exercised his tidy influence on the resident techno-geek who now dresses neatly, wears his long hair in a pony tail, and insists on being called Richard instead of Ricky.
One thing that really got to me was how in the world would they know there was a problem with time when every change in the past instantly rippled forward to the present and seemed natural? All of a sudden now, everyone would remember McComb having a scar on his cheek for the past 10 years, for example. In some time travel stories like ST-TOS's "City On The Edge Of Forever" the time machine itself creates a sort of protective enclosure for those standing around it. They are totally unaffected by changes in time, even changes that would have prevented them from being born, or at least from being there. Thus, Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhura, and the red shirts they brought with them were still there even after McCoy made the Allies lose WWII to an atomic bomb-equipped Germany and prevented the founding of the UFP. The Enterprise disappeared from orbit after McCoy jumped through the machine, but then reappeared as soon as Spock and Kirk brought him back. -
midflinx007 — 10 years ago(March 13, 2016 12:43 AM)
I imagine the TEC knew there were time travel violations because they could detect the ripples like a stone in a large lake. The ripples move forward through time, but once they pass they won't be seen again. The TEC gets one chance to detect them. Anyone they send back retains memories, and the reports that are filed are the primary evidence of ever sending people back. Though there could also be corroborating evidence like strange or improbable events recorded in newspapers that happened when fixing the timeline. The agent can point to those as well.
None of which changes the ending in which there are two Walkers. But hey, since one Walker never has enough time to satisfy a woman, maybe two Walkers can. -
avortac — 11 years ago(March 20, 2015 06:42 PM)
"George may eventually hook up with Marty's mom and have a son but it wouldn't be Marty anymore."
Flawed premise.
What you are is not dictated by what the inseminator of the physical body you use did in the past, any more than what you are is dictated by what the builder of your house did in the past. -
nielw — 12 years ago(November 09, 2013 06:21 PM)
Timecop is one of those movies that simply forgoes making sense in order to drive an action story. I think this has to be one of the biggest offenders I've ever seen. Who cares that there were plot holes all over the place due to time travel paradoxesthey had a story tell!
It doesn't have to make sense! It just has to make money!
The fact that Fielding is suddenly alive again, or that JCVD comes home to an intact house at the endor a bunch of other little problems They all just went away once the story was resolved, regardless of whether or not it made any sense.
Show me a movie worse than this one that breaks its own rules and makes no sense, in favor of driving the story I can't think of any
Mirror inspector is a job I could really see myself doing.