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We're sending you back to the future!
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Why is time travel fun?
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Here we go.
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Because who doesn't wonder about the past?
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Who doesn't wonder about the future?
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Somebody comes back from the future to change what happened.
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Are we basically in a movie that's already been shot?
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I'll be back.
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Time travel stories embrace the potential
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that we might open up new timelines, new worlds,
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and new possibilities for ourselves as people.
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That kind of imagination which can see through everything.
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What are we always trying to do when we
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tell stories about time travel?
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What I'm always trying to do is to touch people
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in the heart.
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Today, I'm the age you were when you left.
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This would be a real good time for you to come back.
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If we can go any place we want in time,
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time is no longer our jailor.
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Every second of our past makes us who we are.
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And the idea that we could relive that or view it
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from another perspective
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is so human, and so spiritual, I think that it touches everyone.
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**
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**
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**
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You've basically covered just about
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every base in science fiction,
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from alien contact, monsters, space travel, everything,
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and you executive produced
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the "Back To The Future" series of films.
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Series. Yeah.
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Do you think time travel is possible?
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I asked Stephen Hawking that one day,
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when I worked with Errol Morris.
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How many people get to say that?
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But when I was working with Errol Morris
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as his executive producer on the documentary
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on Stephen Hawking's book, "A Brief History of Time."
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I asked Stephen Hawking that question
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because "Back To The Future" just came out.
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And Stephen Hawking said it's very possible
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to go into the future,
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but impossible to go back into the past.
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Hey, we're time traveling now at one minute per minute.
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So he kind of was eluding to the fact that everything in
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"Back To The Future" could never happen.
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Couldn't really happen.
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**
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The classical idea of a time machine in which
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you can go into it at one point in time
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and come back out the other side at some other point in time,
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it's almost certainly impossible.
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But what's beautiful about filmmaking
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is you don't have to listen to the physicist.
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Whether or not time travel exists,
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it speaks to that question of free will, essentially.
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That's the question we're playing with
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when we're playing with time travel.
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It opens up all sorts of fascinating
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thought experiments about how that might play out.
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In the summer of 1980,
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I discovered my father's high school yearbook
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and that was where the proverbial bolt
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of lightning struck.
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What if you could go to high school with your dad?
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And what if your mom went to the same high school?
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Don't I know you from somewhere?
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Yes, I'm your density...
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Who wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall
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on their parents' first date, right?
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So in "Back To The Future," a kid named Marty McFly
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accidentally goes back in time,
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and interferes with the event
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that made his parents meet and fall in love.
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So Marty has two problems.
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One -- he has to get back to 1985,
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but before he can do that he has to make sure
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that he puts the love affair between his father
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and his mother back on track.
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Everybody has that fantasy -- time travel --
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and I feel "Back To The Future" just makes it so rich
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with possibility, with a kid, this crazy guy, and a DeLorean!
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You know, I mean, it's just, my God!
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So there have been time travel stories in the past,
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such as Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol,"
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in which Scrooge travels by means of dream visions
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that allow him to visit the past and the present and the future.
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In Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court,"
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our protagonist is bonked on the head,
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and that's what returns him to medieval England.
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We never bought that stuff.
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We wanted it to be scientific.
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It's gotta be via a time machine of some sort.
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So, that would be some guy who invented time travel
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in his garage,
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and that of course is Dr. Emmett L. Brown.
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Doc?
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Don't say a word!
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I just loved this Doc who is feverishly trying to invent
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everything he could imagine inventing,
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and time travel of course would be the ultimate.
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When this baby hits 88 miles per hour,
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you're going to see some serious
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His excitement about achieving that is incredible.
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I loved it.
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Mark. Action!
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Movies like "Back to the Future"
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provide a kind of tutorial about how paradoxes
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are things you can play with.
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Prior to this point in time, somewhere in the past,
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the time line skewed into this tangent,
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creating an alternate 1985.
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It's necessary for Doc to say it,
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not just for the audience to be caught up with the story,
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but because he's gotta say --
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"I've got to do this because of this because if that happens,
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then you've got this going!"
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Marty, whatever happens,
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you must not let your other self see you.
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The consequences could be disastrous.
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Excuse me, sir?
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He's in total terror that one mistake of judgment
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and the whole cosmos could collapse.
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This is the thing that every writer always struggles with
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in time travel stories.
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If you go back in time and something that you do
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when you're back there,
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causes the death of your grandfather
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before he has impregnated your grandmother,
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and you therefore cease to exist.
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-Right.
-But if you cease to exist,
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then you weren't around
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to get in the time machine in the first place
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and to go back in time and do that.
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So what happens?
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They call it the grandfather paradox.
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Now remember, according to my theory
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you interfered with your parents first meeting.
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If they don't meet they won't fall in love,
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they won't get married, and they won't have kids.
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"Back To The Future" laid out its rules so clearly,
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it effectively taught the movie audience
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this is what happens when you change the past,
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this is what an alternate timeline might look like.
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There are also kind of creepy questions like
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what happens when your mom falls in love
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with you as a teenager...
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The most memorable piece
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is Marty's photograph of himself from the '80s,
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which he carries around with him back into the '50s
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and keeps looking at it to make sure he's still in the picture.
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Erased from existence.
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So the photograph itself is obviously
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incredibly paradoxical.
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Because why would his brother and sister be there
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if his parents had never met?
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And like, why would there even have been a photograph
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in the first place?
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But nobody ever stops to think about that,
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because we've set up this rule that says that
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when Marty disappears from this photo,
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he's going to fade out of existence.
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It's a perfect dramatization of the idea
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of erasing yourself from the timeline.
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Time travel movies sort of invent
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whatever device will create the best story.
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"Back To The Future" really set up a mousetrap
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to create the perfect kind of suspense.
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*...the vision of your happiness *
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* Whoa, oh-oh-oh
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* Earth angel, earth angel
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* Please be mine
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**
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Time travel opens up a lot of possibilities.
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So you can have an alternate history,
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you can have an alternate present.
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It allows us to change a lot of different weird things
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about our reality.
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And the possibilities are kind of limitless.
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Why is so much of our fantasy, you know our,
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our imagination in science fiction genre
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taken up with this idea of time travel?
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Because we can't do it.
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I think it is just wonderful to see it on the screen
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and imagine ourselves being in that situation.
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I would have loved to be able to time travel.
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I mean, imagine to go back and say,
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"I'm not going to do 'Hercules In New York.'"
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My name is Hercules.
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Hercules, Schmercules. Give me the dough!
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I mean, it's like, unbelievable.
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That's the thing you want to go back and do?
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Not meet Jesus, not kill Hitler.
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You want to go back and fix that one movie.
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This haunts you.
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To go to kill Hitler or to go and be back in the Roman days,
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wow, it would be really interesting
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to be able to time travel.
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But the question is,
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If you can move back and forth in time,
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do we have free will? Right.
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Because "The Terminator" movies are kind of about that.
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They're about free will.
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If somebody comes back from the future
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to change what happens down there,
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then are we just all puppets of a time line?
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I have total faith in you that you will figure it out.
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**
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There's an interesting theme in "The Terminator" about
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Can we change the past?
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Can we change the future?
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And what you see is the future coming back to destroy the past.
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The Terminator coming back to try to kill
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Sarah Connor also brings back Kyle Reese...
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Who becomes the father to John Connor
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and creates the leader of humanity.
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The time machine was a mechanism to put the Terminator
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and also Michael Biehn, the soldier, into the past.
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That character was sent by John Connor in the future
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to go back in time
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to protect this girl from the Terminator.
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Once they're there, then you have this chase,
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who's gonna rescue Sarah Connor or is she gonna get killed?
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Science fiction is a great place to ask is our destiny fixed?
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Or can we change it?
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I didn't do anything.
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No, but you will.
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The question is are we locked into one series of events?
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Like, by the end of the first film,
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you realize you're seeing the creation myth
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of the thing they've gone back to prevent in the first place.
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The 2nd film opens up the possibility
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and Sarah Connor speaks to it directly.
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Maybe that's not the universe we're stuck in.
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Maybe the future isn't written.
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Sarah sticks a knife in the table and says,
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"There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."
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She's been told that she can change the future.
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But is that just an illusion?
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Are we basically in a movie that's already been shot?
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It's already rolled up in the can someplace?
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That could be!
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You can play it forward and backward as much as you want,
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but the ending never changes?
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I think that we have control over ourselves
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and I think that we have the power to create changes.
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Your son gave me a message to give to you.
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"The future is not set.
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You must survive or I will never exist."
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The future is not set.
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You know, I mean that's -- that's kind of the line --
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the future's not set.
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And it can be altered.
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Should I tell you about your father?
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If you don't send Kyle, you can never be.
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The point that the film makes is that you can change history.
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You can escape the Terminator.
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But time travel is not about history
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and it's not about time travel,
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it's about accepting responsibility
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for all the possibilities in your own life.
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The idea of taking the wrong turn
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and making a correction later on,
266
00:12:28,620 --> 00:12:30,660
it's not a new idea in science fiction.
267
00:12:30,710 --> 00:12:33,360
It's not even a new idea in the movies.
268
00:12:36,020 --> 00:12:37,840
"Looper" is one where you're essentially trying
269
00:12:37,890 --> 00:12:39,240
to not change the world,
270
00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:42,280
but change your world, change your life.
271
00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:47,810
In "Looper," the time traveler is a hit man.
272
00:12:47,850 --> 00:12:50,420
Wouldn't you know?
273
00:12:50,470 --> 00:12:52,290
He's a hit man played both
274
00:12:52,340 --> 00:12:56,340
by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis.
275
00:12:56,380 --> 00:12:58,130
When you agree to be a Looper,
276
00:12:58,170 --> 00:12:59,520
it's not a long-term job.
277
00:12:59,560 --> 00:13:01,040
There's not much of a future in it.
278
00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:04,520
One day, you know that your future self
279
00:13:04,570 --> 00:13:09,090
is going to show up in front of you...
280
00:13:09,140 --> 00:13:12,840
and you're going to have to shoot it.
281
00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:14,840
That's gonna be his final hit.
282
00:13:14,880 --> 00:13:16,270
To kill himself.
283
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:20,100
And he, and all of the other loopers,
284
00:13:20,150 --> 00:13:21,540
enter into this bargain.
285
00:13:21,580 --> 00:13:23,020
And you have to do it.
286
00:13:23,060 --> 00:13:25,540
If you don't do it it's a really big problem.
287
00:13:28,590 --> 00:13:32,160
The older one, the Bruce Willis character,
288
00:13:32,200 --> 00:13:33,990
knows the whole story.
289
00:13:34,030 --> 00:13:36,640
But the younger one is learning for the first time what's --
290
00:13:36,690 --> 00:13:38,120
what's going on.
291
00:13:38,170 --> 00:13:40,120
And he naturally has a few questions.
292
00:13:40,170 --> 00:13:41,910
So do you know what's gonna happen?
293
00:13:41,950 --> 00:13:44,560
I don't wanna talk about time travel
294
00:13:44,610 --> 00:13:45,870
because if we start talking about it
295
00:13:45,910 --> 00:13:47,300
then we're gonna be here all day
296
00:13:47,350 --> 00:13:50,090
talking about it, making diagrams with straws.
297
00:13:50,130 --> 00:13:52,880
Talking about time travel.
298
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:55,700
It makes you go crazy.
299
00:13:55,750 --> 00:13:58,660
And the option of going through a conversation like that
300
00:13:58,710 --> 00:14:03,450
with you at a younger age would make you even crazier.
301
00:14:03,490 --> 00:14:05,240
Move, damnit.
302
00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:07,370
Time travel is a device that
303
00:14:07,410 --> 00:14:09,850
story is using to tell a story about human nature
304
00:14:09,890 --> 00:14:12,980
and how humans treat each other and why.
305
00:14:15,460 --> 00:14:17,250
Move.
306
00:14:17,290 --> 00:14:20,250
**
307
00:14:21,730 --> 00:14:23,560
Young Joe: Then I saw it.
308
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:26,870
If "Looper" is a story about how violence
309
00:14:26,910 --> 00:14:29,690
perpetuates more violence, to me, the lesson is
310
00:14:29,740 --> 00:14:32,920
that you just create more problems and worse problems.
311
00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:36,920
Young Joe: I saw it... and the path was a circle.
312
00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:39,920
It's kind of about changing your own destiny.
313
00:14:39,970 --> 00:14:43,060
And it's kind of about how your destiny
314
00:14:43,100 --> 00:14:47,150
is always being shaped by people more powerful than yourself.
315
00:14:47,190 --> 00:14:52,980
And how do you really get out of a dark cycle?
316
00:14:53,020 --> 00:14:57,420
The movie is pointing out another way to end that cycle.
317
00:14:57,460 --> 00:15:00,120
Young Joe: So I changed it.
318
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:01,900
It is an existential dilemma.
319
00:15:01,940 --> 00:15:05,820
A lot of time travel is very philosophical in that way.
320
00:15:05,860 --> 00:15:10,690
Joe finally takes control of his life by ending it.
321
00:15:13,090 --> 00:15:15,780
Why are we fascinated by time travel?
322
00:15:15,830 --> 00:15:17,920
Well, you know people very often ask me
323
00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:19,530
why am I interested in time, I say,
324
00:15:19,570 --> 00:15:20,920
"Well, because I've always lived in it."
325
00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:22,970
-Yeah, right.
-It's -- I'm -- we are.
326
00:15:23,010 --> 00:15:24,450
We feel very trapped in it.
327
00:15:24,490 --> 00:15:26,190
It's like, we try to hang on to the moment.
328
00:15:26,230 --> 00:15:28,710
We take photographs of everything, right?
329
00:15:28,750 --> 00:15:30,800
We desperately want to hang on to
330
00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:33,980
this reality and it recedes.
331
00:15:34,020 --> 00:15:35,850
What time travel allows us to do is to say,
332
00:15:35,890 --> 00:15:37,720
"Okay, but what if we could?
333
00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:39,760
What if we could preserve that moment.
334
00:15:39,810 --> 00:15:42,510
What if we could revisit that moment, genuinely?"
335
00:15:42,550 --> 00:15:44,030
Well, that's all science fiction is about -- What if?
336
00:15:44,070 --> 00:15:47,510
What if we could travel through space,
337
00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:50,430
what if we could travel through time?
338
00:15:50,470 --> 00:15:55,520
**
339
00:15:55,560 --> 00:15:57,960
What makes "Interstellar" so compelling
340
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,350
is that the filmmakers devised these turns of plot
341
00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:05,180
to create a real classic family story
342
00:16:05,230 --> 00:16:07,970
with the deepest possible emotions.
343
00:16:08,010 --> 00:16:09,750
Fundamentally, "Interstellar" is about
344
00:16:09,790 --> 00:16:11,800
the human cost of time travel.
345
00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:14,580
It's a deeply and intensely personal drama,
346
00:16:14,630 --> 00:16:16,370
and the story of what happens
347
00:16:16,410 --> 00:16:19,800
when a father is separated from his child.
348
00:16:19,850 --> 00:16:21,200
I said stay!
349
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:23,240
No, I'm coming back.
350
00:16:23,290 --> 00:16:24,590
When?
351
00:16:24,640 --> 00:16:26,290
Will he go and save humanity
352
00:16:26,330 --> 00:16:28,810
or will he stay with his daughter instead?
353
00:16:28,860 --> 00:16:30,210
I mean, by the time I get back, we --
354
00:16:30,250 --> 00:16:33,120
we might even be the same age.
355
00:16:33,170 --> 00:16:34,950
Ah, Murph.
356
00:16:34,990 --> 00:16:36,780
You have no idea when you're coming back?
357
00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:42,910
"Interstellar" projects us into a near future
358
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:45,740
in which the world has gone through
359
00:16:45,790 --> 00:16:49,490
an enormous global catastrophe.
360
00:16:49,530 --> 00:16:51,450
Nelson's torching his whole crop.
361
00:16:51,490 --> 00:16:52,920
Blight?
362
00:16:52,970 --> 00:16:55,750
They're saying it's the last harvest for okra.
363
00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:57,060
Ever.
364
00:16:57,100 --> 00:16:59,980
I play Cooper's father-in-law.
365
00:17:00,020 --> 00:17:03,460
Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a former astronaut,
366
00:17:03,500 --> 00:17:06,240
who by several turns of plot,
367
00:17:06,290 --> 00:17:09,420
goes shooting into outer space.
368
00:17:09,460 --> 00:17:13,290
We've got to move to another planet or we'll not survive.
369
00:17:13,340 --> 00:17:16,080
**
370
00:17:16,120 --> 00:17:18,690
"Interstellar" is an unusual time travel film
371
00:17:18,730 --> 00:17:21,040
because instead of building a literal time machine
372
00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:23,090
and having it be about an invention,
373
00:17:23,130 --> 00:17:25,440
it's about the way time works in space,
374
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:27,440
the way that it speeds up or slows down
375
00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:32,270
depending on wormholes and gravitational pull.
376
00:17:32,310 --> 00:17:33,920
I think there are all sorts of different ways
377
00:17:33,970 --> 00:17:35,490
of looking at time travel,
378
00:17:35,530 --> 00:17:37,580
and when I came to do "Interstellar,"
379
00:17:37,620 --> 00:17:41,360
which is not a time travel movie but has that element in it...
380
00:17:41,410 --> 00:17:43,930
It does fold time at the end. It does.
381
00:17:43,980 --> 00:17:46,500
You still approached it very rigorously. Yes.
382
00:17:46,540 --> 00:17:48,280
By going to some of the top experts.
383
00:17:48,330 --> 00:17:51,510
It was a really fascinating part of the process
384
00:17:51,550 --> 00:17:54,120
because Kip Thorne who was one of the original...
385
00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:55,640
-Caltech I think.
-Caltech.
386
00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:58,900
And Kip is one of the great minds in physics.
387
00:17:58,950 --> 00:18:02,430
What he taught me is that once you can grasp
388
00:18:02,470 --> 00:18:05,040
those physical concepts as concepts of astrophysics,
389
00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:08,910
they offer you this great launching pad
390
00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:10,390
for story possibilities
391
00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:12,130
to do with relativity and all these things.
392
00:18:12,180 --> 00:18:15,400
-Time dilation.
-Exactly.
393
00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:17,400
There are two forms of time travel.
394
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:19,660
There's the time travel that is probably impossible
395
00:18:19,710 --> 00:18:21,360
and that's going backwards.
396
00:18:21,400 --> 00:18:24,230
Then you have time travel, which is not only possible,
397
00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:27,930
but already a feature of our world,
398
00:18:27,980 --> 00:18:31,850
which is time dilation forwards.
399
00:18:31,890 --> 00:18:34,810
In science, there's this thing called the "twin paradox,"
400
00:18:34,850 --> 00:18:37,160
which basically says that if my twin gets in a spaceship
401
00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:39,730
and goes traveling at, near to the speed of light,
402
00:18:39,770 --> 00:18:41,560
and then returns to Earth,
403
00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:43,510
when my twin gets back to Earth, my twin
404
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:45,860
will be younger than I am.
405
00:18:45,910 --> 00:18:48,520
That's a form of time travel.
406
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:52,170
And that is actually brilliantly illustrated
407
00:18:52,220 --> 00:18:53,700
in the movie "Interstellar."
408
00:18:53,740 --> 00:18:55,740
Go, go, go, go, go.
409
00:18:55,790 --> 00:19:00,180
Seven years per hour here. Let's make it count.
410
00:19:00,230 --> 00:19:03,450
"Interstellar" explored, in the most advanced way,
411
00:19:03,490 --> 00:19:05,450
how time travel really might work.
412
00:19:05,490 --> 00:19:07,620
When they go to the water planet,
413
00:19:07,670 --> 00:19:11,110
time works differently.
414
00:19:11,150 --> 00:19:12,930
They come back to their ship,
415
00:19:12,980 --> 00:19:16,070
and the guy who stayed on the ship has grown old.
416
00:19:16,110 --> 00:19:18,850
I've waited years.
417
00:19:18,900 --> 00:19:22,420
How -- How many years?
418
00:19:22,470 --> 00:19:24,210
By now it must be...
419
00:19:24,250 --> 00:19:28,380
23 years, 4 months, 8 days.
420
00:19:28,430 --> 00:19:30,690
"Interstellar" suggests that time travel will always
421
00:19:30,730 --> 00:19:32,350
have a certain kind of tradeoff.
422
00:19:32,390 --> 00:19:35,220
So on the one hand, the scientist's ability
423
00:19:35,260 --> 00:19:39,530
to travel through space and time
is essential to saving humanity,
424
00:19:39,570 --> 00:19:41,480
but the fact that he has to go on this journey
425
00:19:41,530 --> 00:19:43,830
in the first place, and to be separated from his daughter
426
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:48,580
for most of her natural life, suggests the very real cost.
427
00:19:48,620 --> 00:19:52,190
Hey, Dad.
428
00:19:52,230 --> 00:19:53,930
Hey, Murph.
429
00:19:53,980 --> 00:19:55,930
You son of a bitch.
430
00:19:55,980 --> 00:20:02,110
There are moments when Matthew is allowed to see his daughter,
431
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:04,160
by, uh, video stream.
432
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:06,640
It's absolutely heartbreaking.
433
00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:08,990
You once told me that when you came back,
434
00:20:09,030 --> 00:20:12,650
we might be the same age.
435
00:20:12,690 --> 00:20:16,560
And today, I'm the age you were when you left.
436
00:20:18,650 --> 00:20:22,350
This might be a real good time for you to come back.
437
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:25,140
People talk about, "My kid was born, and I blinked,
438
00:20:25,180 --> 00:20:27,880
and then I sent them off to college."
439
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:30,010
The movie is literally about that.
440
00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:35,970
The sacrifices that go along with whatever it is
441
00:20:36,020 --> 00:20:38,370
that you've given your life to,
442
00:20:38,410 --> 00:20:41,720
at the expense of these moments with your family,
443
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:45,720
which I think is the very poetic part of "Interstellar."
444
00:20:45,770 --> 00:20:49,990
So if "Interstellar" explores the human cost of time travel,
445
00:20:50,030 --> 00:20:53,120
"Primer" does something very similar,
446
00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:55,650
but it does so in a different way.
447
00:20:55,690 --> 00:20:57,780
We have two everyday engineers
448
00:20:57,820 --> 00:21:01,350
who accidentally create time travel.
449
00:21:01,390 --> 00:21:03,610
Anything?
450
00:21:03,650 --> 00:21:05,700
-Is this normal?
-I don't know.
451
00:21:05,740 --> 00:21:08,960
Some people think it's the most credible,
452
00:21:09,010 --> 00:21:12,310
complicated, time travel movie.
453
00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:15,360
It's done on a very low budget.
454
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:17,970
Do you know who directed that?
455
00:21:18,020 --> 00:21:19,320
Shane Carruth.
456
00:21:19,370 --> 00:21:21,150
He's in it, he's lovely in it.
457
00:21:21,190 --> 00:21:23,930
-Wow.
-What's it doing?
458
00:21:23,980 --> 00:21:26,420
I don't know if I'm making it up...
459
00:21:26,460 --> 00:21:27,720
These two guys, Abe and Aaron,
460
00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:29,980
keep investigating this phenomenon.
461
00:21:30,030 --> 00:21:33,120
There's this weird anomaly that shows up.
462
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,210
What they finally realize is that they have
463
00:21:37,250 --> 00:21:39,520
created a space
464
00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:42,560
that you can travel through time in.
465
00:21:42,610 --> 00:21:45,960
So they take this, and create a bigger box,
466
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:50,000
big enough for a human to be in.
467
00:21:50,050 --> 00:21:52,220
When they do this, they use it for really mundane
468
00:21:52,270 --> 00:21:53,880
and very human purposes.
469
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,920
One uses it to play the stock market.
470
00:21:56,970 --> 00:21:59,230
And time travel ends up pulling the friends apart.
471
00:21:59,270 --> 00:22:00,670
I just want to know what box you used.
472
00:22:00,710 --> 00:22:02,360
You built the one for you, right? Just the one?
473
00:22:02,410 --> 00:22:03,840
Yeah. How many do you think I made?
474
00:22:03,890 --> 00:22:05,500
They are suspicious of each other
475
00:22:05,540 --> 00:22:06,930
and they're also deceiving each other
476
00:22:06,980 --> 00:22:09,280
because something about going back in time
477
00:22:09,330 --> 00:22:10,550
affects their brain,
478
00:22:10,590 --> 00:22:13,330
and they do start losing their minds.
479
00:22:16,290 --> 00:22:18,730
Like many other movies, "Primer" does indeed suggest
480
00:22:18,770 --> 00:22:20,690
that there is a cost to time travel,
481
00:22:20,730 --> 00:22:23,600
and in this case the cost is both emotional and physical.
482
00:22:23,650 --> 00:22:26,650
What's on your hand? Are you bleeding?
483
00:22:26,690 --> 00:22:29,220
So when we start seeing our characters show up,
484
00:22:29,260 --> 00:22:30,700
and they've got, you know, bloody ears,
485
00:22:30,740 --> 00:22:32,790
and they lose the ability to write,
486
00:22:32,830 --> 00:22:35,660
their right-handed writing looks like their left-handed writing,
487
00:22:35,700 --> 00:22:37,750
there's something going on mentally that
488
00:22:37,790 --> 00:22:40,230
they are paying the price with.
489
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:46,800
The time-travel story, it's a kind of Faustian tale.
490
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:48,930
The bargain with the devil.
491
00:22:48,980 --> 00:22:50,590
Everything is a barter.
492
00:22:50,630 --> 00:22:52,810
If you sell your soul to the devil,
493
00:22:52,850 --> 00:22:56,420
you can have everything you ever dreamed of.
494
00:22:56,460 --> 00:22:59,940
But eventually you pay the piper.
495
00:23:02,420 --> 00:23:04,690
Who doesn't wonder about the past?
496
00:23:04,730 --> 00:23:06,340
Who doesn't wonder about the future?
497
00:23:06,390 --> 00:23:08,650
How many times has that game been played, you know,
498
00:23:08,690 --> 00:23:11,910
if you could go back in time, where would you go?
499
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,310
Can you remember the first time you ever heard of time travel?
500
00:23:15,350 --> 00:23:17,790
"I think ancient Greeks must have had time travel.
501
00:23:17,830 --> 00:23:20,270
Isn't there some time travel thing in Shakespeare?"
502
00:23:20,310 --> 00:23:22,310
Right? But there isn't.
503
00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:27,140
Time travel is new. Time travel is a new idea.
504
00:23:27,190 --> 00:23:31,110
Before H.G. Wells, it didn't exist.
505
00:23:33,590 --> 00:23:37,020
What Wells gave the time travel story was the machine.
506
00:23:37,070 --> 00:23:38,770
The idea that somebody could build a machine
507
00:23:38,810 --> 00:23:42,200
that would do for time what rocket ships would do for space.
508
00:23:42,250 --> 00:23:44,470
And the idea was just irresistible.
509
00:23:44,510 --> 00:23:48,640
It's literally true that the words "time" and "travel"
510
00:23:48,690 --> 00:23:53,480
in English were never used together before H.G. Wells
511
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,700
invented this character that he called...
512
00:23:56,740 --> 00:23:58,920
The Time Traveller.
513
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:23,810
My grandfather, H.G. Wells, wrote that in 1895.
514
00:24:25,860 --> 00:24:30,510
This is a first edition of "The Time Machine."
515
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,170
Firstly, he was writing anything he could sell.
516
00:24:33,210 --> 00:24:34,820
The novels that we now know,
517
00:24:34,860 --> 00:24:36,740
which are these great science-fiction novels,
518
00:24:36,780 --> 00:24:39,700
came after he'd spent years writing as a journalist,
519
00:24:39,740 --> 00:24:43,130
but there was an enormous amount
of kind of revolutionary science
520
00:24:43,180 --> 00:24:44,740
going on at the time.
521
00:24:44,790 --> 00:24:47,880
Darwin was talking about the history of human life
522
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:52,840
in terms of millions and billions of years.
523
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,320
Archaeologists were doing the same thing.
524
00:24:55,360 --> 00:25:01,240
Humanity was developing a longer view of time than ever before.
525
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:02,540
When I speak of time, gentlemen,
526
00:25:02,590 --> 00:25:05,550
I'm referring to the fourth dimension.
527
00:25:05,590 --> 00:25:07,510
H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine,"
528
00:25:07,550 --> 00:25:10,120
his character goes forward in time,
529
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:12,690
no problem there.
530
00:25:12,730 --> 00:25:16,730
Going back in time -- entirely different thing.
531
00:25:16,780 --> 00:25:18,560
If you go back in time, then you start running
532
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,040
into all sorts of issues with causality.
533
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:24,740
And that's the view that's expressed in the phrase,
534
00:25:24,780 --> 00:25:26,530
the butterfly effect.
535
00:25:26,570 --> 00:25:30,750
A tiny change, a tiny perturbation in a complex system
536
00:25:30,790 --> 00:25:34,750
can have enormous and unpredictable consequences
537
00:25:34,790 --> 00:25:36,580
in a fairly short time.
538
00:25:36,620 --> 00:25:38,580
And it starts with
539
00:25:38,620 --> 00:25:41,240
"A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury.
540
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:45,670
The basic idea of the story is that you can
541
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:47,420
travel back in time, but you're going to be
542
00:25:47,460 --> 00:25:50,680
on this suspended platform and you can shoot a dinosaur
543
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:52,510
but it has to be one that was going to die anyway,
544
00:25:52,550 --> 00:25:55,290
so that you don't change anything in the future.
545
00:25:55,340 --> 00:25:59,600
And this fairly arrogant game hunter steps off
546
00:25:59,650 --> 00:26:03,340
and kills a butterfly...
547
00:26:03,390 --> 00:26:05,220
And comes back and his future has turned into
548
00:26:05,260 --> 00:26:08,000
this kind of dystopian version of his own world
549
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,400
that he barely recognizes.
550
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:13,960
Bradbury creates these deep metaphors
551
00:26:14,010 --> 00:26:15,790
that give shape to a lot of the way
552
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:17,580
I think people have subsequently
553
00:26:17,620 --> 00:26:19,530
understood ideas like time travel.
554
00:26:19,580 --> 00:26:23,320
Oh, if you change a butterfly in the past,
555
00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:26,670
the entire future might be different.
556
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:29,150
When writers of time travel stories
557
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:30,810
consider the logical implications
558
00:26:30,850 --> 00:26:32,290
of everything that happens,
559
00:26:32,330 --> 00:26:36,770
they get tied up in these paradoxes.
560
00:26:36,810 --> 00:26:40,640
Robert Heinlein is the first writer to get the pleasure
561
00:26:40,690 --> 00:26:43,120
and peculiarity of time travel paradoxes
562
00:26:43,170 --> 00:26:46,000
and how they can be exploited again and again and again.
563
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:48,610
He sees that the problem with time travel stories
564
00:26:48,650 --> 00:26:51,350
isn't a problem, it's an opportunity.
565
00:26:51,390 --> 00:26:53,480
He wrote stories like "All You Zombies,"
566
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:55,700
which has nothing to do with zombies, by the way,
567
00:26:55,740 --> 00:27:00,010
but it has to do with probably the most completely confusing
568
00:27:00,050 --> 00:27:04,800
and delightful science fiction time paradox story there is,
569
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,500
which was made into the film "Predestination."
570
00:27:07,540 --> 00:27:10,020
I can do this, I can change my past.
571
00:27:10,060 --> 00:27:12,630
Yes, you can.
572
00:27:12,670 --> 00:27:15,680
Have you ever thought about changing yours?
573
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:17,370
I never deviate from the mission.
574
00:27:17,420 --> 00:27:21,160
Predestination is about an intersex time traveler
575
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,210
who starts life as a woman --
576
00:27:24,250 --> 00:27:27,690
is forced into gender reassignment, becomes a man.
577
00:27:27,730 --> 00:27:31,040
That man then travels back in time,
578
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,910
falls in love with his female self,
579
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,090
that female self then has a child
580
00:27:37,130 --> 00:27:40,010
which ends up being the creation of themselves.
581
00:27:40,050 --> 00:27:42,700
So it's an intersex time-traveling
582
00:27:42,750 --> 00:27:47,320
incest love story.
583
00:27:47,360 --> 00:27:50,230
And in fact "Playboy" magazine rejected the story
584
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,280
because all the sex made the editor queasy,
585
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,410
the editor of "Playboy."
586
00:27:55,460 --> 00:27:57,940
Well, I think it had to do with the idea of having sex
587
00:27:57,980 --> 00:28:00,070
with yourself to create yourself,
588
00:28:00,110 --> 00:28:01,510
which is kind of crazy
589
00:28:01,550 --> 00:28:03,380
that "Playboy" would have an issue
590
00:28:03,420 --> 00:28:04,770
with something like that.
591
00:28:04,810 --> 00:28:07,470
But it was 1959.
592
00:28:10,120 --> 00:28:11,690
Well, it's the age-old question --
593
00:28:11,730 --> 00:28:14,080
which came first the chicken or the egg?
594
00:28:14,130 --> 00:28:15,610
Yeah. We say the rooster.
595
00:28:15,650 --> 00:28:17,910
Some things are predestined, right?
596
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,350
I made you who you are, you made me who I am,
597
00:28:20,390 --> 00:28:21,740
it's a paradox, right?
598
00:28:21,790 --> 00:28:25,010
But it can be para-doctored!
599
00:28:25,050 --> 00:28:28,400
We've had time travel in science fiction movies
600
00:28:28,450 --> 00:28:32,100
for most of the 20th century, so I guess the question is why?
601
00:28:32,150 --> 00:28:35,450
Well, because what you're doing is exploring possible futures.
602
00:28:35,500 --> 00:28:37,850
You're exploring the decisions that we make now.
603
00:28:37,890 --> 00:28:41,680
It enables us to imagine what the future will be like
604
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,550
or what the past would be like if we interacted with it.
605
00:28:44,590 --> 00:28:48,510
It's incredibly important way of exploring potential futures.
606
00:28:48,550 --> 00:28:51,560
The future is now.
607
00:28:54,780 --> 00:28:57,560
So many science fiction movies are about these brilliant
608
00:28:57,610 --> 00:29:03,350
scientists and astrophysicists, biologists.
609
00:29:03,390 --> 00:29:06,480
And "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure" is not.
610
00:29:06,530 --> 00:29:08,660
No way!
611
00:29:08,700 --> 00:29:10,270
Yes, way Ted!
612
00:29:10,310 --> 00:29:11,620
Whoa.
613
00:29:11,660 --> 00:29:14,490
In a way, "Bill & Ted" becomes important
614
00:29:14,540 --> 00:29:17,280
just because it's so different from everything else.
615
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:19,410
It makes you think what is wrong with us,
616
00:29:19,450 --> 00:29:21,760
the people writing these films, if we can't imagine
617
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:23,890
the future as anything but awful?
618
00:29:23,940 --> 00:29:26,290
Two dudes can be the heroes, man.
619
00:29:26,330 --> 00:29:27,590
Ready Ted?
620
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:29,330
Ready Bill?
621
00:29:29,380 --> 00:29:31,900
Let's go back into history!
622
00:29:31,940 --> 00:29:36,820
Alex Winter and I became Bill and Ted.
623
00:29:36,860 --> 00:29:41,080
Bill S. Preston, Esquire, Ted Theodore Logan.
624
00:29:41,130 --> 00:29:43,390
Excellent!
625
00:29:43,430 --> 00:29:45,170
Bill and Ted are idiots.
626
00:29:45,220 --> 00:29:47,790
And our teacher tells us that if we don't pass our history exam
627
00:29:47,830 --> 00:29:49,830
we're going to fail out of school.
628
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:51,400
The lady in that car over there said
629
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:55,010
that Marco Polo was in the year 1275.
630
00:29:55,050 --> 00:29:57,450
So it's not just a water sport. I knew it.
631
00:29:57,490 --> 00:30:00,670
If they fail Ted's dad is going to send him to military school,
632
00:30:00,710 --> 00:30:02,150
and if they're separated their band
633
00:30:02,190 --> 00:30:05,410
will never form and save the world.
634
00:30:06,980 --> 00:30:08,760
Someone from the future shows up and says,
635
00:30:08,810 --> 00:30:10,110
"We're going to help you."
636
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,850
Do you know when the Mongols ruled China?
637
00:30:12,900 --> 00:30:15,250
Perhaps we can ask them.
638
00:30:17,470 --> 00:30:19,640
Bill and Ted of course can accept everything.
639
00:30:19,690 --> 00:30:22,340
Dudes, you guys are going to go back in time!
640
00:30:22,390 --> 00:30:24,040
-Yeah!
-They're kind of like
641
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:29,830
these modern fools, of kind of an eternal optimism.
642
00:30:29,870 --> 00:30:32,090
We had a funny moment, Chris Matheson and I,
643
00:30:32,130 --> 00:30:34,750
when we wrote it we were not involved
644
00:30:34,790 --> 00:30:36,230
in the casting of the film,
645
00:30:36,270 --> 00:30:40,060
and didn't know who would play Bill and Ted.
646
00:30:40,100 --> 00:30:42,100
We had flown to Arizona where we were shooting the movie
647
00:30:42,140 --> 00:30:44,800
and we were at a McDonald's in line,
648
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:46,890
and we saw a couple of kids in front of us
649
00:30:46,930 --> 00:30:48,760
and goofing off and we were like,
650
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:50,200
"Those are the guys,
651
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:52,070
that's who should be playing Bill and Ted!"
652
00:30:52,110 --> 00:30:55,720
And later on that day we met Keanu and Alex
653
00:30:55,770 --> 00:30:57,420
and those were the guys that were in front of us
654
00:30:57,460 --> 00:31:01,770
at McDonald's and we were like, "That's perfect."
655
00:31:01,820 --> 00:31:03,770
And you know of course we are bequeathed
656
00:31:03,820 --> 00:31:06,600
a time traveling phone booth by George Carlin
657
00:31:06,650 --> 00:31:09,910
and set upon a mission through spacetime.
658
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:12,000
We collect all the various characters from history
659
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:13,700
because that would be the most awesome report
660
00:31:13,740 --> 00:31:15,570
you could have would be to actually have the real
661
00:31:15,610 --> 00:31:17,700
people there.
662
00:31:17,750 --> 00:31:19,620
We love toying with all these paradoxes.
663
00:31:19,660 --> 00:31:23,270
And one of my favorite parts of the "Bill & Ted" movie
664
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,100
is when all the historical figures are in jail
665
00:31:26,150 --> 00:31:27,450
and they can't get out.
666
00:31:27,490 --> 00:31:29,150
Can we get your dad's keys?
667
00:31:29,190 --> 00:31:31,540
Could steal 'em!Good thinking dude!
668
00:31:31,590 --> 00:31:34,330
After the report we'll time travel back to two days ago,
669
00:31:34,370 --> 00:31:38,680
steal your dad's keys and leave them here.
670
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:39,990
See?!
671
00:31:40,030 --> 00:31:41,600
-Whoa!
-Yeah!
672
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:43,420
So after the report we can't forget to do this
673
00:31:43,470 --> 00:31:44,990
otherwise it won't happen.
674
00:31:45,030 --> 00:31:47,950
Ted is like connecting to his future self
675
00:31:47,990 --> 00:31:49,560
through his present self to know
676
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,470
where his future self will want to hide the keys
677
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,480
because the future self already knows what the past self did,
678
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,440
but the past self doesn't know what the future self did,
679
00:31:57,480 --> 00:31:59,350
but he knows the character.
680
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:00,880
Come on, Ted.
681
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,310
We've got some historical figures to rescue.
682
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:05,580
And it perfectly encapsulates the absurdity
683
00:32:05,620 --> 00:32:07,360
of the time travel paradox.
684
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:09,320
You just have to remind yourself to have done them in the past
685
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:10,670
and they will be done in the future.
686
00:32:10,710 --> 00:32:13,190
And I just thought that was terrific.
687
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:17,150
It just says, yeah, don't worry about it.
688
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,890
It's pretty fascinating honestly how rare
689
00:32:19,940 --> 00:32:21,200
"Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure"
690
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:23,680
is in the grand history of sci-fi films.
691
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,600
To have a sci-fi film that says, "Eh! This is just fun!"
692
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:30,340
is an incredible strange relief.
693
00:32:30,380 --> 00:32:32,520
No way!
694
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:34,340
It's not the only science fiction film
695
00:32:34,390 --> 00:32:36,080
to have fun with time travel.
696
00:32:36,130 --> 00:32:39,310
In fact, this comedy was the first to popularize
697
00:32:39,350 --> 00:32:43,270
a particular form of time travel called the time loop.
698
00:32:43,310 --> 00:32:48,360
Rita, I'm re-living the same day over and over.
699
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,620
Groundhog Day. Today.
700
00:32:50,660 --> 00:32:53,100
"Groundhog Day" uses the device of a time loop
701
00:32:53,150 --> 00:32:56,060
as a way to explore ways you need to work on yourself
702
00:32:56,100 --> 00:32:58,410
before you can grow up and have meaningful
703
00:32:58,450 --> 00:33:01,330
relationships with other people.
704
00:33:01,370 --> 00:33:03,850
When I was first brainstorming ideas,
705
00:33:03,890 --> 00:33:06,030
I actually wrote on the little index card,
706
00:33:06,070 --> 00:33:07,680
"time machine."
707
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:10,640
But I didn't really know what was going to be involved
708
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:12,900
or how it was going to work.
709
00:33:12,950 --> 00:33:16,120
Phil? Phil?! Phil Connors?
710
00:33:16,170 --> 00:33:17,690
Phil Connors, I thought that was you.
711
00:33:17,730 --> 00:33:19,300
Hey, how are you?
712
00:33:19,350 --> 00:33:21,910
I just thought, "Okay, whatever it is the rule is,
713
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,130
he can remember, but nobody else can remember.
714
00:33:24,180 --> 00:33:27,530
So for them it's just the same day.
715
00:33:27,570 --> 00:33:32,400
And for him it's part of a long, long, long repetition of days."
716
00:33:32,450 --> 00:33:34,620
And the audience learns to expect that,
717
00:33:34,660 --> 00:33:37,930
and can begin to sort of map the day along with the character
718
00:33:37,970 --> 00:33:39,970
and see if they can figure out
719
00:33:40,020 --> 00:33:44,590
how to get out of this time loop before he does.
720
00:33:44,630 --> 00:33:47,200
The real time travel machine, is your brain.
721
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:49,850
In here, we're constantly recoiling
722
00:33:49,900 --> 00:33:53,940
through different versions of ourselves, memories,
723
00:33:53,990 --> 00:33:56,160
and daydreams, alternate paths,
724
00:33:56,210 --> 00:33:58,170
where we might end up somewhere different.
725
00:33:58,210 --> 00:34:00,650
Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?
726
00:34:00,690 --> 00:34:02,910
I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen?
727
00:34:02,950 --> 00:34:06,910
And this is what the time travel story crystallizes for us.
728
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:08,700
It's a model of consciousness,
729
00:34:08,740 --> 00:34:12,090
which is constantly reeling with ultimate freedom through time,
730
00:34:12,140 --> 00:34:16,790
and then finding itself stuck, once again, in the real world.
731
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:20,280
In the first stretch of "Groundhog Day,"
732
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,800
Bill Murray knows everything that's gonna happen to him,
733
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,110
he can make that work to his advantage.
734
00:34:25,150 --> 00:34:27,460
And he does it in the way an adolescent would,
735
00:34:27,500 --> 00:34:31,810
just having fun and also becoming kind of sociopathic.
736
00:34:31,850 --> 00:34:33,290
You don't really care about the other people.
737
00:34:33,330 --> 00:34:35,810
They are objects in your life.
738
00:34:35,860 --> 00:34:37,990
And then it moves on to a depression
739
00:34:38,030 --> 00:34:40,470
where he finally decides to kill himself.
740
00:34:40,510 --> 00:34:45,130
And he finds that he cannot even do that.
741
00:34:45,170 --> 00:34:46,560
This is Tom, he worked in the coal mine
742
00:34:46,610 --> 00:34:47,820
until they closed it down.
743
00:34:47,870 --> 00:34:49,830
This is where he, for the first time
744
00:34:49,870 --> 00:34:52,480
starts to notice other people,
745
00:34:52,530 --> 00:34:55,660
and realizes that they have lives, too,
746
00:34:55,700 --> 00:34:57,790
and that he's part of a community
747
00:34:57,830 --> 00:35:00,010
and by seeing himself differently,
748
00:35:00,050 --> 00:35:03,230
he actually opens up a whole new world to himself.
749
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:07,280
Hello, father, let's get you someplace warm.
750
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,720
The wonderful thing about being stuck in a time loop,
751
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:12,850
it makes us look at our lives in a fresh way
752
00:35:12,890 --> 00:35:14,940
which is one of the great things that movies can do,
753
00:35:14,980 --> 00:35:16,330
and especially science fiction,
754
00:35:16,380 --> 00:35:19,030
because it can so immediately place you
755
00:35:19,070 --> 00:35:22,160
in a different time and place.
756
00:35:22,210 --> 00:35:24,170
Maybe we all do need a time travel movie
757
00:35:24,210 --> 00:35:25,690
to make us a better version of ourselves,
758
00:35:25,730 --> 00:35:29,260
but I hope that we're not stuck as long as he is.
759
00:35:29,300 --> 00:35:32,300
Anything different is good.
760
00:35:34,310 --> 00:35:35,960
My name is Doctor Who.
761
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:37,180
It's not, is it?
762
00:35:37,220 --> 00:35:38,700
I like it.
763
00:35:38,750 --> 00:35:40,310
You don't know it yet.
764
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,580
But in a short time, you will trust me with your life.
765
00:35:43,620 --> 00:35:48,060
"Doctor Who" is a very British, slightly eccentric
766
00:35:48,100 --> 00:35:49,800
extraordinary series
767
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,020
that's been running for more than 50 years now.
768
00:35:52,060 --> 00:35:56,760
And it involves a charming, peculiar Time Lord.
769
00:35:56,810 --> 00:36:01,200
We're time travelers. We tread softly.
770
00:36:01,250 --> 00:36:03,810
He's an alien who has come down to protect us
771
00:36:03,860 --> 00:36:06,770
from the rest of the universe by traveling through time
772
00:36:06,820 --> 00:36:09,430
and by interacting with real historical events
773
00:36:09,470 --> 00:36:11,470
in both the past and the future.
774
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:13,080
We're unarmed.
775
00:36:13,130 --> 00:36:16,390
You wouldn't open fire on an unarmed civilians would you?
776
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,260
It wouldn't be the first time.
777
00:36:19,310 --> 00:36:21,220
Chuggles, now!
778
00:36:23,700 --> 00:36:26,580
Oh, I love "Doctor Who."
779
00:36:26,620 --> 00:36:29,230
Over the past 50 years there have been a total
780
00:36:29,270 --> 00:36:30,710
of 12 Doctor Whos.
781
00:36:30,750 --> 00:36:33,370
Each new performer brings his own thing to it.
782
00:36:33,410 --> 00:36:35,850
I've seen literally every episode of "Doctor Who"
783
00:36:35,890 --> 00:36:38,940
that's ever been made from "An Unearthly Child,"
784
00:36:38,980 --> 00:36:40,940
which was made in 1963,
785
00:36:40,980 --> 00:36:45,550
all the way up to the current Peter Capaldi Doctor Whos.
786
00:36:45,590 --> 00:36:48,820
You are the dark side, you are an enemy of the Daleks.
787
00:36:48,860 --> 00:36:50,250
Oh, yes, I am.
788
00:36:50,300 --> 00:36:52,990
Exterminate!
789
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:54,520
I grew up with the show.
790
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,040
I lived in a tenement in Glasgow in Scotland,
791
00:36:58,090 --> 00:37:01,960
and through these flickering little blue images
792
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,310
I'd be taken to other planets with strange creatures
793
00:37:06,350 --> 00:37:09,100
with wonderful imaginative designs.
794
00:37:09,140 --> 00:37:12,230
Do you think you're the first to try and kill me?
795
00:37:12,270 --> 00:37:15,540
And also there has always been a kind of B-movie element
796
00:37:15,580 --> 00:37:18,980
to it, which I've always loved.
797
00:37:19,020 --> 00:37:21,940
Is everything out here evil?
Hardly anything is evil.
798
00:37:21,980 --> 00:37:23,590
But most things are hungry.
799
00:37:23,630 --> 00:37:25,810
Hunger looks very like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery
800
00:37:25,850 --> 00:37:28,990
or do you think that your bacon sandwich loves you back?
801
00:37:29,030 --> 00:37:31,160
I think one of the things that's appealing
802
00:37:31,210 --> 00:37:34,080
about "Doctor Who," is there's a tradition of English humor
803
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,120
which suggests that the future is all a joke.
804
00:37:37,170 --> 00:37:38,600
He's a Time Lord, yes.
805
00:37:38,650 --> 00:37:40,300
And he can travel back and forth in time,
806
00:37:40,350 --> 00:37:42,390
and he does it in absurd ways.
807
00:37:42,430 --> 00:37:46,920
Time And Relative Dimension In Space.
808
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,400
TARDIS for short.
809
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:52,400
The Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS,
810
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:56,450
is one of the best ever because it invokes
811
00:37:56,490 --> 00:37:59,320
the playing with physics
812
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:02,500
that is going to be necessary to travel through time and space
813
00:38:02,540 --> 00:38:05,670
because his machine is bigger on the inside
814
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:07,550
than it is on the outside.
815
00:38:07,590 --> 00:38:10,510
So your box can move.
816
00:38:10,550 --> 00:38:12,730
We can go anywhere we like.
817
00:38:12,770 --> 00:38:14,640
He always has a human companion.
818
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:16,030
And he brings that companion
819
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:17,820
along with him on his adventures.
820
00:38:17,860 --> 00:38:20,600
-Where are we?
-The end of the road.
821
00:38:20,650 --> 00:38:22,210
The last planet.
822
00:38:22,260 --> 00:38:25,430
He seems to have a special place in his heart for humans.
823
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,310
Picking individual ordinary people
824
00:38:28,350 --> 00:38:31,440
and showing them all of time and space
825
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,490
and giving them a broader view on life.
826
00:38:34,530 --> 00:38:36,840
He's the Doctor. What do doctors do?
827
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:39,880
They heal sick situations, sick people.
828
00:38:39,930 --> 00:38:41,620
But why do you have to destroy?
829
00:38:41,670 --> 00:38:42,890
Can't you use your brains?
830
00:38:42,930 --> 00:38:45,540
Only one race can survive.
831
00:38:45,580 --> 00:38:49,070
This senseless evil killing.
832
00:38:49,110 --> 00:38:52,940
The first actor, the wonderful William Hartnell, became ill
833
00:38:52,980 --> 00:38:54,810
and couldn't carry on with the show.
834
00:38:54,850 --> 00:38:57,420
So they came up with this rather brilliant idea,
835
00:38:57,470 --> 00:39:03,690
which is that the Doctor has the
ability to reconstitute himself.
836
00:39:03,730 --> 00:39:10,520
**
837
00:39:10,570 --> 00:39:13,050
This has allowed this show to last
838
00:39:13,090 --> 00:39:17,440
because we change the lead actor every three or four years,
839
00:39:17,490 --> 00:39:21,400
which no other show does.
840
00:39:21,450 --> 00:39:25,800
It has all these other levels of philosophical
841
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:28,670
and reflective nature
842
00:39:28,710 --> 00:39:33,110
that make it very, very rich.
843
00:39:35,240 --> 00:39:36,640
Oh!
844
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,250
People always ask me what is it about the show
845
00:39:39,290 --> 00:39:41,940
that appeals so broadly?
846
00:39:41,990 --> 00:39:44,120
The answer I would like to give
847
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:46,210
and which I'm discouraged from giving,
848
00:39:46,250 --> 00:39:51,080
because it is not useful in the promotion of a brand,
849
00:39:51,130 --> 00:39:53,780
is that it's about death.
850
00:39:53,830 --> 00:39:58,400
And it has a very, very powerful death motif in it.
851
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,140
which is that the central character dies.
852
00:40:01,180 --> 00:40:04,490
Doctor, let it go.
853
00:40:07,450 --> 00:40:09,450
Time enough.
854
00:40:09,490 --> 00:40:13,110
And I think that is one of its most potent mysteries.
855
00:40:13,150 --> 00:40:14,980
Because somewhere in that,
856
00:40:15,020 --> 00:40:17,980
people see that that's what happens in life.
857
00:40:18,020 --> 00:40:23,550
You have loved ones, and then they go,
858
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,640
but you must carry on.
859
00:40:26,690 --> 00:40:30,210
There are a lot of ways in which time travel stories
860
00:40:30,250 --> 00:40:33,820
sneakily are about eluding death.
861
00:40:33,870 --> 00:40:35,650
Time is what kills us, after all.
862
00:40:35,690 --> 00:40:38,570
Time is a bastard.
863
00:40:38,610 --> 00:40:44,310
**
864
00:40:44,350 --> 00:40:47,010
There's something that speaks to our souls about time travel
865
00:40:47,050 --> 00:40:51,060
where there's a fatalism involved
866
00:40:51,100 --> 00:40:52,710
that is reassuring somehow.
867
00:40:52,750 --> 00:40:54,630
Right. Because it tells you that the mistakes
868
00:40:54,670 --> 00:40:56,500
were always gonna happen.Yeah.
869
00:40:56,540 --> 00:40:58,280
I mean, one of the fascinating things --
870
00:40:58,330 --> 00:41:00,410
I was explaining to my kids the other day --
871
00:41:00,460 --> 00:41:02,500
that if you look at the idea of a telescope.
872
00:41:02,550 --> 00:41:04,110
Telescope is a way of looking back in time,
873
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:05,510
and not just space.It's a time machine.
874
00:41:05,550 --> 00:41:06,940
It's a time machine.
875
00:41:06,990 --> 00:41:08,510
And you look at the smallest star, the further away,
876
00:41:08,550 --> 00:41:10,250
the further back in time you're looking.
877
00:41:10,290 --> 00:41:12,380
And theoretically you could make more
878
00:41:12,430 --> 00:41:13,910
and more powerful telescopes,
879
00:41:13,950 --> 00:41:16,080
and you can look further and further back in time.
880
00:41:16,130 --> 00:41:18,390
It's just a mind-boggling concept.
881
00:41:18,430 --> 00:41:20,260
Theoretically the sun could have gone out
882
00:41:20,300 --> 00:41:22,700
seven and a half minutes ago and we just don't know yet
883
00:41:22,740 --> 00:41:24,350
'cause it takes light a while to get here.
884
00:41:24,390 --> 00:41:26,530
Exactly. Let's hope not.
885
00:41:26,570 --> 00:41:28,880
But that idea of looking back in time
886
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:30,310
as you look out into the world,
887
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:32,360
the fact that everything we see in this room
888
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:34,710
when you look around, you're looking back in time.
889
00:41:34,750 --> 00:41:38,410
I think the potential is limitless
890
00:41:38,450 --> 00:41:39,980
for time travel stories...
891
00:41:40,020 --> 00:41:41,190
Chris, thanks for doing this.
892
00:41:41,240 --> 00:41:42,540
No, thank you for having me.
893
00:41:42,590 --> 00:41:44,890
It's exciting to talk about.Okay. Good.
894
00:41:44,940 --> 00:41:46,110
All right, give us a cut then.
895
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,330
I'll give you a cut. Done.
896
00:41:48,380 --> 00:41:49,680
-Going home.
-Done.
69460
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