H. G. Wells Week Part I: The Time Machine

 This is my first entry in a celebration of my first hero in the writing world, H. G. Wells.  When I graduated from Bugs Bunny kiddie books to reading at a higher level of comprehension, the first books I got into were science fiction.  I can't say for certain whether it was an H. G. Wells book, but I do know that from first grade on, I gravitated to science fiction over every other genre available to me. And time travel was always top in that genre.  (Maybe that's why I also ended up as a history major in college).

 

 

 

Whether or not it actually was The Time Machine that was my actual first foray into Wells, it was HIS first foray into writing novels.  He had previously published some short fiction, including a piece he wrote in college called The Chronic Argonauts, but this was his first real success.  And what a story to kick off your career.

In the novel the main character is simply referred to as The Time Traveler (note: I use the American spelling to avoid that annoying spell correct, but the original is spelled with two Ls, as is the British custom), although he would garner a name for obvious purposes in both radio and film adaptations.  The first person narrative of the story is such that we really have two first person narrators.  Of course, the bulk of the story is The Time Traveler relating his adventures as he used his time machine to travel to the far distant future. But we also get Mr. Hillyer, the character who remains in the background mostly as an observer during The Time Traveler's oration of his escapades.

Wells was an avowed socialist and much of his fiction is tinged with socialist ideology.  The story of that far distant future with the Eloi and the Morlocks is ostensibly a parable of what life would evolve into if the current state of affairs (i.e. non-socialist) was allowed to continue. (And note: I do not intend this or any other entry in my blog to espouse a socialist or any other political ideology.  I just note it for it's historical aspect.)

The Time Machine as a story has been adapted for the big screen twice (three times if you include Time After Time, but that was only the jumping off point for the movie, and after the initial idea of time travel is introduced, it goes off in a different direction.)It was also the subject of a made-for-TV film broadcast in 1978.

None of the adaptations include the final trip that the Time Traveler makes after escaping the Morlocks in 802,701.  Before heading back to his own time, the Time Traveler presses on to see how the world actually ends.  It is my guess that part of the reason it never made it to any of the films is that it's pretty much a downer.  Read the full length novel to get this, as I won't delve into it here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Time Machine (1960):

The first film version of The Time Machine was released in 1960 and featured Rod Taylor and Alan Young.  It was also the second H.G. Wells book to be turned into a film by legendary director George Pal.  (His first foray into Wells was in 1953 with a version of War of the Worlds).

Some interesting notes to begin:  The original Time Traveler in the Film was to have been Paul Scofield, but Pal went with Rod Taylor.  Also considered for the part were James Mason and (just imagine) David Niven. In the film all the characters in the novel were given actual names. As stated above, the author (as one of the visitors to the Time Traveler's house) only referred to the main character as "The Time Traveler, but he also only called the guests such names as "the Medical Man", "the Psychologist", "the Editor" etc. Only one character, minor in the novel, was identified: Filby.

In the film, the cast of visitors was reduced to a more manageable number of four.  The guests were Filby (Alan Young), Hillyer (Sebastian Cabot), Kemp (Whit Bissell) and Bridewell (Tom Helmore).  And the Time Traveler himself was given the name "George". His credit is actually as H. George wells, so he is supposed to be the author. 

 

 

 

George, at the beginning, is late for a dinner date with his companions.  He bursts into the room disheveled and begins to relate the story what has happened. To begin with he reminds them of the last week's encounter which he had introduced the concept of a machine that could travel through time, exhibiting a scale model which he causes to zip off into the future.

His friends are disbelieving of his claim that the model went off to the future, and leave.  But George actually has a full scale model in his laboratory which he proceeds to test out after his friends leave. He discovers on his first test that he has actually managed to jump ahead six hours.  Encouraged he goes forward in time, stopping briefly in 1917 and 1942.  (Right during World War I and World War II.)

Discouraged that man still wars with each other he jumps back into his machine, but violent events cause him to stop once again, this time in 1966 (5 years in the future from the time of the movie's production).  Once again, George is disappointed because the world is on the verge of war. In fact, air raid sirens are wailing calling people to hide in the fallout shelters.  George manages to get on his machine and escape just as nuclear weapons begin to fall.

He presses on, but finds his machine encased in a mountain.  (And how the machine manages to not be crushed by this, even though it is hurtling through time is best not to be dwelt upon...) Finally the mountain falls away and George stops the time machine.  He finds himself in a lush garden landscape in the year 802,701.  His machine stops outside a large sphinx-like structure.  George goes to investigate his new surroundings, absolutely sure that civilization must have survived over the centuries.

He finds them in the person of a race called the Eloi.  The eloi seem to live in an idyllic heaven, not having to work, but they are child-like.  They show no curiosity, and at one point, a girl is drowning in the river but only George has the wherewithal to jump in and save her.  His rescuee is Weena (Yvette Mimieux), but even she shows no curiosity in her situation.

 

 

 

The Eloi are basically unhelpful to George in trying to find out what has happened.  Frustrated, George demands an explanation and is led to a library where all the books are in such disrepair that they fall apart.  Disgusted George claims he is going back to his own time. But as it turns out, the Morlocks, a race that lives underground,  have moved his time machine inside the Sphinx and no one in the Eloi seems to have any care.

It also comes to light that the Eloi are being raised and cultivated like cattle to feed the Morlocks. It is up to George to save the round of new "livestock" the Morlocks enticed into their underground facilities, which include his new found friend, Weena.  And in the process retrieve his time machine.

As stated above, when George escapes the Morlocks he does not travel on further into the future but instead returns to his own time and is in the process of relating his adventures to the guests seen at the beginning of the film.

The film received mixed reviews upon it's release (mainly for content, not for the acting ability of it's two main stars).  It did get an Academy Award for Best Special Effects at Oscar time. (And George Pal was a wizard at special effects. Several of his previous films had garnered this prestigious award, including one for War of the Worlds (coming later in this H.G.Wells Week blog party.)

 

 

 

The Time Machine (2002): 

In the early part of the 21st century Wells' book got another stab at the big screen.  This time it was directed by Simon Wells, who just happened to be the great-grandson of H. G. Wells himself.  (And maybe there was some back room wheeling and dealing to get that to happen.  Although Simon had directed a few animated features this was, and so far is, his only foray into live action film.)

The connection to Wells' book is tenuous, at best, with this output.  About the only things that coincide with the original novel is that a guy does indeed create a time machine, and the main character does indeed end up in the future, eventually, at the year 802,701.  And of course the races in the future do consist of the Eloi and the Morlocks.  But the parallels deviate quite dramatically from the book after that.

The main character, Dr. Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) is a professor who spends more time doing pure research than devoting his life to making a profit from his endeavors.  His one love, aside from research, is Emma (Sienna Guillory), a woman who he is determined to make his wife.  He is going to meet her to propose.  But during the proposal they are accosted by a mugger who accidentally shoots and kills Emma.

 

 

 

Distraught, Alexander spends the next few years trying to develop a time machine.  The only motive and the only goal is to go back to that point in time and try to prevent the events that lead to Emma's death from happening. And, having created his machine (a triumph of technology and far more impressive than the contraption Rod Taylor's Time Traveler made in the 1960 film), Alexander proceeds back to try to prevent the death of his enamorata.

 

 

 

But, to his disappointment, although she is not killed by the mugger, a happenstance accident still causes her death.

So Alexander decides there must be some way to discover how to save her by traveling to the future.  He stops off first in 2030 (and even at this date 20 years after the movie, a lot of the "future" still has yet to happen, including a highly interactive AI named Vox (played by Orlando Jones) who tries to help Alexander).  In 2030 we hear a news broadcast that there are plans to blast the moon with bombs in order to create a living space for people to move and live on the moon.

But when Alexander goes forward another 7 years, the project that was only in planning stages in 2030 had devastating effects.  It destroyed the moon, and the result was that the Earth became virtually uninhabitable too.  So he progresses further into the future and through the magic of CGI we see the Earth basically transformed into a new planet. Finally, he stops the machine in 802701.

He is hurt during his landing and is rescued by Mara (Samantha Mumba) who nurses him back to health.  The race of Eloi live above ground (Literally. They live in dwellings on the face of a cliff.) 

 

 

 The Morlocks, who live underground, venture above ground periodically to capture Eloi, and on this occasion capture, among others, Mara.  

Her brother, Kalen (played, coincidentally, by Omera Mumba, Samantha's real brother) helps Alexander by leading him to the ruins of a library where he encounters, once again, Vox, who tells him how to find the underground dwelling of the Morlocks.

He is captured by the Morlocks and meets up again with Mara.  He also meets with a bigwig Morlock (Jeremy Irons).

 

 

 

 The Uber-Morlock, as he is called in the credits, finally tells him a fact that should have been obvious if Alexander had been the genius he was supposed to be.  The reason he can't change the past and save Emma is because if he did, then he would never have invented the time machine to try to save her, the ultimate "grandfather" paradox in new form.  (And here I will explain the grandfather paradox for those of you unfamiliar with it.  What if you created a time machine and went back in time and in the process accidentally killed your grandfather before he met your grandmother?  You would not have existed, and therefore you would not have created the time machine in the first place,)

The final minutes of the film involve Alexander fighting off the Morlocks and ultimately creating a new society. 

This movie is not nearly as cohesive as the first one, nor is it really as good.  But it is entertaining in its own right, and the special effects are good in their own right.

 As a footnote I will say that The Time Machine .did inspire another time travel movie that came from the same concept,Time After Time. I won't delve into that one here, saving it for a future review, but suffice to say H. G. Wells himself ends up chasing Jack the Ripper into the future to prevent him from committing his atrocities in another time period.