The
Reconstruction of Time Machine III
- the sequel to the Pal movie and book
Part I: The blueprint of Time Machine III
Why is George late to the dinner in January 5:th 1900 in the Pal movie The Time Machine? What happened to George and Weena and their newborn son after the book Time Machine II? Did George manage to rescue David Filby from the air-plane crash on the coast of France after the sequel in the documentary film The journey Back? And the most important question: what happened to the Time Machine itself?
I want to reconstruct the sequel "Time Machine III" of which fragments are existing as a movie sequel part in the below mentioned documentary film. This is going to be a very hard and painstaking work, since George Pal died in 1980 and David Duncan in 1999. I have these three important sources to work with:
Warning: the reconstruction of Time Machine
III can somewhat be a spoiler if you haven't read the book or seen the movie.
I will do the reconstruction in the honored memory of George
Pal and David Duncan, who
created one of my absolute favourite movies. Alas I did never know them personally
...
The 1960 movie The Time Machine ends that George Wells is travelling back to year 802 701 to meet Weena. This picture of George and Weena is from the time between the 1960 movie and the book Time Machine II, as also perhaps these ones. In the book there are two worlds parallel to each other, but in each of them George has a son with Weena. In the parallel world (red in the diagrams below), the son is named Christopher Jones by his adoptive parents, the other son in the original world (black in the diagrams below) is unnamed in the book. This unnamed son's most logical name must be "David", because George will certainly name him after his best friend. The parallel world has also no nuclear World War III in 1966 and therefore no world with eloi and morlocks.
How does the Time Machines travel through time? To understand my 5-dimensional diagrams below, look first at these roll-over pictures from the Lisberger movie Tron (1982). It is a game-grid with lightcycles which are building lightwalls behind when they move across the grid and they can't move through those walls. When one lightcycle is destroyed (when it crashes against a wall), then the entire lightwall it had made on the grid disappears. And one of the lightcycles crashes so violently against the grid wall that it makes a hole, through the other lightcycles can escape from the game grid. Remind this when you read about the Time Machine which crashes against a time barrier in the book Time Machine II.
Now look at the diagram below. The Time Machine in the Pal movie travels through its own 4:th dimension along a green timeline in the diagram. The dates at each green stop is familiar to everyone who saw the Pal movie. The date May 15 1916 and the date 1932 is taken from the sequel in the documentary film.
It is interesting to see that George had spent five days with the eloi in the future an when he travels back, he arrives five days later than the departure. Why does he not travel a little bit further back in time to rest, eat and drink, take a bath and then calmly wait for the dinner guests eight o'clock? My answer is: he can't.
He had spent five days in the future, ant this means that the Time Machine had existed for five days. And these five days are consumed from its date of its very first time-travel, because there can't be two time machines in the same place, if it's the only and same machine. Thus the duration of the Time Machine is creating a time-barrier (grey in the diagrams) in the past, which is impossible for it to pass through. That's why George is late for the eight o'clock dinner in January 5:th!
And then, there is a time-barrier in the date March 19:th 1941, against which George, the pregnant Weena and the Time Machine chrashes in the beginning of the book Time Machine II. There is no explanation in the book why this time-barrier is there, but the violent crash creates a passage into a parallel world, into who Georges son Christopher is born and grown up (shown by a thick orange timeline below), a world without the World War III in 1966. As quoted in the end of the book:
Perhaps this was not the world he had known but a rather different, a "parallel world" that existed in a mirror image of the universe whose time and history he had defied.
Cristopher makes his own Time Machine with the help of the found remains of the old Time Machine and the folder Specifications for a vehicle designed to travel through time. which belonged to his father George Wells. In April 28:th 1971 he takes off and travels to the past, but he also gets in the world parallel to his. Unlike the original Time Machine, this one has new, modern improvements which makes it possible to travel in the past, beyond the date of its creation. It also has a Time Radar, a scanning device that would indicate when an object is traveling through time in the same vicinity. This is how he then can travel forward to find his father and warn him not to travel back in time to 1941 (shown by a thin orange timeline below). When Christopher does this, the father's green timeline after his visit is beginning slowly to disappear.
Christopher's father George realises that Weena is pregnant, this must be before the end of year 802701, soon after Christopher's visit. As quoted in the book on page 165:
"I fear I owe you the courtesy of an explanation. You see, shortly after you left, I learned from Weena that she was carrying a child. And now we believe that you are indeed that child, son."
The father arrives with Weena who is very pregnant. The earliest time, when Weena possibly can be pregnant with George's child, is October 17:th 802701 when he does the second visit to the future. From this time it must pass nine months. The conclusion is that George started to travel first in July 802702 to beg for apology. Why?
Because George had no Time Radar. He must first construct one, or slowly travel through time several times in search of Christophers Time Machine. So George had intented to travel several months before, but he didn't reach the goal until the time when Weena was in her ninth month. When he does it, the disappearance of Cristopher's time line is slowly reaching Christopher himself, and both he and his Time Machine disappears in a - for this epoch - natural way. It is now in the both worlds if he and his Time Machine never had existed at all, the ultimate Nirvana.
But Weena is still carrying a baby. George and she is travelling back in time
- more carefully this time - and stop before the disastruous barrier in the
year 1941. They stop in May 4:th 1945 and the book ends with a newborn, healthy
son of George Wells and Weena. This son is - unlike Christopher - born in the
original timeline, where the World War III is existing. This is the beginning
of Time Machine III and is in the diagram below shown as a blue timeline. It
is in this timeline he will try to rescue David Filby from his disastruous fate
on the coast of France.
In the original world Filby is determined to crash an air-plane on the coast of France. But when George travels back to rescue him, he must pass the obstacle in March 19:th 1941. He travels very slow through this but he can feel the Time Machine shaking violently when he passes the date. What he does not feel, is that the barrier is still there, but this time pushing him into the parallel world. In the alternate world there is a possibility to save David Filby. How did I come to this conclusion?
In the documentary film, Walter Kemp is saying that it was 32 years ago since he saw George, and that since then (1900), no one saw him. This means that Walter Kemp is interwieved in the year 1932 and George will return 13 years later with the pregnant Weena. But George stopped already in 1916 and was seen by David Filby who didn't recognize him. And when he will rescues David Filby, he will take him in the future of the parallel world, the world without World War III.
But why is George saying that there isn't much time? Because George and the Time Machine has existed in sixteen years, five months and tvelve days. The time barrier in the past is very close, and George has only one more chance before the May 15:th and that is the May 14:th. Also, George can't go back to the places he and his Time Machine already visited.
Look at the dialogue below, taken from the documentary film.
David: Oh, let me
look at you. Oh no! One more day and I would have missed you. I am here because
I fly to France in the morning.
George: Yes
...
David: Yeah
... I was just locking the place up for the duration, but -
George: Duration
of the war! It's the war that will be known as World War I.
David: Will
there be others?
George: Many,
many others, David. Anyway, I am here because of this one.
David: What
... what about this war?
George: D-david,
David! War is fruitless! It's a senseless tragic venture!! And there are no
victors, only victims! ... I am sorry, I ... I can go on for a lifetime telling
you about the wars I have seen.
The documentary film ends with that George is going to return in the dawn of May 14:th, and try once more to rescue David Filby from his fate. This means that the date George meets David in the laboratory in the documentary film must be May 13:th, and also that George runs to Filby's house before David departures to the military headquarters.
George meets David Filby in May 13:th 1916, but as you can see in the dialogue below, he does not mention his son in the movie part in the documentary film. Why?
David: I've got to
ask you: did you go back to her?
George: Weena? ... Yes we spent many wonderful years together, David.
We helped build a whole new world of peace, for that time anyway.
David: Many years eh ... ?
In the parallel world George has a chance to save David Filby, because the guy who vill crash the plane on the coast of France instead of Filby, must be the same guy who is involved in the start of World War III in 1966. But why doesn't George mention his son to Filby? Because it's gonna be a great surprise! He simply travels back to the future to get David and present him to Filby! And with the help of David George can persuade Filby to come with him in the Time Machine - Filby is a reasonable man, he knows that the most valuable thing for a husband is his wife an for a father his son - and a father wouldn't take his own son in dangerous trips ...
This I have made here is only the structure, the blueprint of Time Machine III. The next task is to give life to this structure by writing a synopsis and later a movie script. That synopsis and the script will answer the questions What happened to David, the son of George? What happened to the world of Eloi? What happened after George's rescue of David Filby? And what happened to the Time Machine itself? That is gonna be even harder to do than this ...
Why have I made this? Because stories with
qualities will live on forever, and I want the Time Machine to live forever
...
This blueprint was made in the memory of George Pal and David Duncan.
If you want to ask me things about
this article or if you find errors in it,
here is my e-mail.
Sandra Petojevic, Master of Arts, February 12, 2006 (updated August 27, 2006)