On this weeks podcast the Geeks unveiled a List Of Truth™ about time travel movies. Ranking “some of the better” time travel movies. Who defined what were “some of the better”? I’ll agree that most of the list contains good to great movies (I would not include Men In Black III in those categories, and I haven’t seen Looper, I know, I know…), but it seems to contain some glaring omissions to me. Find them after the cut.
I don’t know how any ranking of movies about time travel can exclude Terminator or the first sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day. (I can see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines not making a top ten list. Same with Terminator: Genisys, even if Ryan and I really liked it and surprisingly Watson said it was clunky but fun. A description used by the majority of Watson’s dates.)
I’ll admit that I’m pretty biased as I’ve made it no secret that T2 is my favorite movie of all time. And Terminator is near the top of the list as well. So their exclusion really stood out to me. Which I was a little surprised at given Ryan’s participation, but really, the probable explanation here was Jenny.
For some reason, Jenny refuses to watch any of the Terminator movies. We all love Jenny, but this is unacceptable. Time travel, killer cyborgs, the birth (along with Jurassic Park) of truly amazing CGI effects, James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, nuclear Armageddon, dystopian futures…what more could a true geek want?
And Jenny, I know you are a fan of strong female leads…they don’t get much stronger or kick ass than Linda Hamilton in T2.
Another time travel film I love, that would likely not make either of the geeks list is Star Trek: First Contact. Star Trek: The Next Generation has always been my favorite of all the Trek TV Series. The two part Best of Both Worlds, where Captain Picard is assimilated by The Borg being among my favorite. So it’s not surprising that a film that is a sequel to those episodes would be right up my alley.
Even without all the background and setup, First Contact is just a kickass action movie. Almost Die Hard on a spaceship at times. (Though First Contact is not a Christmas movie.) I do wonder how approachable it is without having seen those Next Generation episodes. I feel like you would get a lot more out of it having seen them first, but I can’t really separate myself from the equation.
During the podcast, Watson made a point about there being two types of time travel movies. Time travel and time travel mechanics that are essential to the plot (think Back To The Future II) and time travel used just as a device to set up the movie (think Back To The Future III).
In the later category, a glaring omission that I’m sure Ryan and Tom will agree with, but I’m not sure about Watson…and pretty sure Jenny will have no idea what we are talking about is Army of Darkness.
The third of the Evil Dead movies (and sometimes marketed as Evil Dead III), the story picks up from the end of Evil Dead 2 that finds our hero Ashley J. Williams sent back to the 1300’s to continue his fight against demons and the Necronomicon .
What unfolds is 90 minutes of pure horror slapstick comedy gold and Bruce Campbell antics, with some of the greatest one liners in the history of cinema. Which I’m sure Jenny is all too familiar with given that Tom used them all the time in his letters to Gabbing Geek before he was hired.
Honorable mentions go out to Donnie Darko, Groundhog Day (I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned) and The Butterfly Effect.
And just to follow up on a point made by Watson, Eddie Van Halen did admit in 2012 that he plays on the cassette used in Back To The Future.
I’m not sure why this is such a surprise…it says “Edward Van Halen” right there on the tape’s label. 🙂
The song actually appeared a year earlier in the movie The Wild Life. Eddie wrote the entire musical score for the movie. You can hear the complete version here:
And surprisingly I have no comments on the lengthy Secret Wars discussion as I’ve shared thoughts many times on this site in all those posts that you skip over. My only comment is that Watson is a douche.
Gabbing Geek 