Fixing the Timeline SCI-FI: when a Hero must travel back through Time to Undo a Catastrophic Event, Fix a Time Paradox, or return a Broken timeline to its Normal Course. Even small changes in the past (known as “The Butterfly Effect”) can snowball into Dystopian Futures.
The City on the Edge of Forever (Star Trek TOS — 1967)
“The City on the Edge of Forever” is the twenty-eighth episode of the first season of Star Trek. It was written by Harlan Ellison; contributors to the script included Steven W. Carabatsos, D. C. Fontana and Gene L. Coon. Gene Roddenberry made the final re-write.
Storyline
As the USS Enterprise orbits a mysterious planet it is rocked by time distortions, causing Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy who is treating a near-death Lieutenant Sulu to accidentally inject himself with a huge dose of cordrazine, a dangerous drug. Driven into a mad frenzy, McCoy flees from the bridge and beams himself down to the planet. Captain James T. Kirk follows with a search party including first officer Mr. Spock, chief engineer Mr. Scott, and communications officer Lieutenant Uhura. On the planet’s surface, they come across an ancient glowing ring which turns out to be a sentient object called the “Guardian of Forever”, a portal capable of sending them to any time or place, and the cause of the distortions. The Guardian offers to send them back to Earth’s past, and plays images of historical events which Spock records on his tricorder for research purposes. Meanwhile, the still-frenzied Dr. McCoy is found, subdued, and while the others are distracted by the Guardian’s images, jumps through the portal. The landing party instantly loses contact with the Enterprise, and learn from the Guardian that McCoy has altered the past to such an extent that the Enterprise and the reality they knew no longer exists.
The Guardian says that it’s possible to fix the damage, so Kirk requests that it replay the historical period it was showing when McCoy passed through. He and Spock attempt to jump through at a point in time just before McCoy’s arrival and find themselves in New York City in 1930 during the Great Depression. They steal clothes from a fire escape to blend in, and while fleeing a policeman, hide in the basement of the 21st Street Mission. There they meet the soup kitchen’s operator, Edith Keeler. She senses something odd about the intruders but nevertheless offers to pay them to clean up the basement and to find them a place to stay. Later, Spock attempts to discover how McCoy changed history by accessing the recordings on his tricorder, a task made difficult by the available technology of 1930, which Spock likens to “stone knives and bearskins”. While Spock works on the engineering problem, Kirk pays their expenses by doing odd jobs at the mission and, learning of Keeler’s dreams of a future much like his own era, falls in love with her.
Unknown to Kirk and Spock, the still-frenzied McCoy finally arrives and stumbles into the mission, where Keeler nurses him back to health. Spock completes his work and discovers that Keeler was supposed to die in a traffic collision but was somehow saved by the arrival of McCoy, creating an altered timeline in which she founded a pacifist movement on the eve of World War II. It grew powerful enough to cause the United States to delay its entrance into the war, and allow Nazi Germany time to develop the first atomic bomb and use it to win the war instead of the Allies and conquer the world. Kirk is shaken by this revelation and admits his love for Keeler, and Spock responds that she must die so as to prevent millions of deaths and restore their future.
While walking to a Clark Gable movie with Kirk the following evening, Keeler casually mentions McCoy’s name. Shocked, Kirk tells Keeler to stay right there while he crosses the street back to the mission to inform Spock. McCoy emerges from the mission at the same time, and the trio reunite on the sidewalk. Observing this, Keeler begins to cross the street to join them and does not notice an oncoming truck. Kirk instinctively turns to save her, but a shout from Spock freezes him in his tracks and Kirk reluctantly grabs McCoy so he can’t save her either. Keeler is struck and killed, and a stunned McCoy asks Kirk if he knows what he just did, but it is Spock who replies, “He knows, Doctor. He knows.”
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy return through the Guardian and rejoin the landing party, where they find the Enterprise and their timeline is fully restored. Before they transport back to the ship, a grim-looking Kirk, ignoring questions about what happened and being told by the Guardian it can send them on more such journeys through time, replies simply, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
12 Monkeys — (1995)
12 Monkeys is an American SCI-FI thriller directed by Terry Gilliam from a screenplay by David Peoples and Janet Peoples, based on Chris Marker’s 1962 short film La Jetée. It stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer. .
Storyline
In 2035, twenty-nine years after a virus killed 99 percent of the global human population, James Cole is a prisoner in a compound underneath the ruins of Philadelphia. He is selected by scientists for a mission to travel to 1996 and collect information on the original strain of the virus so a cure can be developed. Cole experiences recurring dreams of a childhood experience in which he saw a man being shot in an airport terminal.
Upon being sent back in time, Cole arrives in Baltimore in 1990, not 1996 as planned. He is arrested and committed to a psychiatric hospital on the diagnosis of Dr. Kathryn Railly. He encounters fellow inmate Jeffrey Goines, an outspoken critic of consumerism. Cole tells the hospital doctors he is searching for the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, the group that unleashed the virus in 1996, which is the past. During an escape attempt aided by Jeffrey, Cole is abruptly returned to the future. The scientists attempt to send Cole back to 1996, but he briefly arrives on a World War I battlefield, where he encounters José, another inmate from the future, before being shot in the leg.
In 1996, Railly gives a lecture on the Cassandra Complex where she briefly encounters Dr. Peters, who mentions the destruction of the environment by humanity. She is kidnapped in her car and told to drive to Philadelphia. The kidnapper turns out to be Cole. Railly offers him medical help and extracts the bullet from his leg. His investigation leads them to Jeffrey, who they discover is the leader of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys and the son of renowned virologist Dr. Leland Goines. Cole is abruptly returned to the future. Railly is told by police that the bullet from Cole’s leg was from before the 1920s, which prompts her to identify Cole in a battlefield photograph from World War I that she’s gathered during her research. She urges Leland to secure his lab against access by his son. Leland shares his intention to improve the lab’s security with his assistant, Dr. Peters.
Cole arrives in 1996 again and finds Railly. He tells her he believes himself delusional, while she says she’s not sure any more. Railly leaves a voicemail on a number Cole says was given to him by the scientists. Cole tells her he has already heard her message, played to him by the scientists in the future. Cole and Railly decide to spend the following days together at the Florida Keys. On their way there, they learn that the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is an animal rights organization led by Jeffrey, and their graffiti “we did it” refers to liberating animals from the Philadelphia Zoo, not releasing the virus.
At the airport, Cole records a message on the voicemail number, saying the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is a false lead and that he’s not coming back. Railly comes across Dr. Peters at the airport and recognizes him through a newspaper photo alongside Leland. Cole comes across José, who tracked him down after his last message, and hands him a gun. Railly informs Cole of Peters, and Cole attempts to shoot him, but is shot dead by police. As Cole dies in Railly’s arms, she makes eye contact with a young boy witnessing the scene. Peters boards his flight and takes a seat beside Jones, one of the scientists who orchestrated Cole’s mission. Outside the airport, the young boy who observed the shooting, Cole, watches the airplane take off.
Source Code — (2011)
Source Code is a SCI-FI action thriller directed by Duncan Jones and written by Ben Ripley. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright.
Storyline
U.S. Army pilot Captain Colter Stevens wakes up on a Metra commuter train going into Chicago. He is disoriented, as his last memory was of flying a mission in Afghanistan. However, to the world around him – including his friend Christina Warren and his reflection in the train’s windows and mirrors – he appears to be a different man: a school teacher named Sean Fentress. As he expresses his confusion to Christina, the train explodes while passing another train, killing everyone aboard.
Stevens abruptly awakens in a dimly lit cockpit. Communicating through a video screen, Air Force Captain Colleen Goodwin verifies Stevens’ identity and tells him of his mission to find the train bomber before sending him back to the moment he awoke on the train. Believing he is being tested in a simulation, Stevens finds the bomb in a vent inside the lavatory but is unable to identify the bomber. Still thinking he is in a simulation, Stevens leaves the bomb and goes back down to the main cabin before the train explodes again.
Stevens again reawakens in his capsule and after demanding to be briefed, learns that the train explosion actually happened and that it was merely the first attack of a suspected series. He is sent back yet again, eight minutes before the explosion, to identify the bomber. This time, he disembarks from the train (with Christina) to follow a suspect. This turns out to be a dead end, the train still explodes in the distance, and Stevens is killed by a passing train after falling onto the tracks while interrogating the suspect.
The capsule power supply malfunctions as Stevens reawakens. He claims to have saved Christina, but Dr. Rutledge, head of the project, tells him that she was saved only inside the “Source Code”. Rutledge explains that the Source Code is an experimental machine that reconstructs the past using the dead passengers’ residual collective memories of eight minutes before their deaths. Therefore, the only thing that matters is finding the bomber to prevent the upcoming second attack in Chicago.
On the next run, Stevens learns that he was reported as killed in action two months earlier. He confronts Goodwin, who reveals that he is missing most of his body, is on life support, and is hooked up to neural sensors. The capsule and his healthy body are “manifestations” made by his mind to make sense of the environment. Stevens is angry at this forced imprisonment. Rutledge offers to terminate him after the mission, and Stevens eventually accepts.
After numerous attempts, including being arrested by train security for trying to obtain a weapon, Stevens identifies the bomber through a fallen wallet as the nihilistic domestic terrorist Derek Frost. He memorizes Frost’s license and vehicle registration plates, and discovers a dirty bomb built inside a van owned by Frost; Christina follows him, and Frost shoots both of them dead.
Outside the Source Code, Stevens relays his knowledge to Goodwin, which helps the police arrest Frost and prevents the second attack. He is congratulated for completing his mission. Rutledge secretly reneges on his deal to let Stevens die, as he is still the only candidate able to enter the Source Code.
Being more sympathetic to his plight, Goodwin sends Stevens back one last time and promises to disconnect his life support after eight minutes. This time, he sets a date with Christina, defuses the bomb, apprehends Frost, and reports him to the police. He calls his father under the guise of a fellow soldier and reconciles with him, and sends Goodwin an email. After eight minutes, Goodwin terminates Stevens’s life support.
As the world around him continues to progress beyond eight minutes, Stevens confirms his suspicion that the Source Code is not merely a simulation, but rather a machine that allows the creation of alternate timelines. He and Christina leave the train and go on a date. In the same (alternate) reality, Goodwin receives Stevens’s message. He tells her of the Source Code’s true capability and asks her to help the alternate-reality version of him.
11.22.63 — (2016)
11.22.63 is an American SCI-FI TV thriller miniseries based on the 2011 novel 11/22/63 by Stephen King, and consisting of eight episodes. It stars James Franco, Chris Cooper and Daniel Webber.
Storyline
In 2011, Jake Epping, a divorced high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, is summoned by friend Al Templeton, the owner of a local diner. He finds Al is ill with terminal lung cancer, despite appearing perfectly healthy the night before. Al instructs Jake to step into the back of the diner’s pantry, where Jake finds a time slip leading to Lisbon Falls as it existed on September 9, 1958. After exploring the town, Jake returns to 2011 and learns that the portal leads to the same moment of the same day every time it is used, and that a visitor will always return to the present by a margin of two minutes.
Because the portal gives one the ability to alter the present by changing an event in the past, Al reveals that he had concocted a plan to prevent John F. Kennedy’s assassination, hoping that doing so would stop the Vietnam War and change history for the better. He spent four years in the past after entering the portal the previous night, travelling to Dallas, Texas, to track Lee Harvey Oswald, plotting to kill him during his attempted murder of General Edwin Walker. However, due to his cancer, Al is unable to continue his mission. He recruits a reluctant Jake to complete it.
As an experiment, Jake travels back to 1958 to save the family of learning disabled janitor Harry Dunning from being attacked by their father on Halloween. Using the alias “George Amberson”, Jake buys a car and travels to Harry’s hometown of Derry, Maine; he finds Harry’s father, Frank, and tracks his movements. After saving all but one of Harry’s siblings from Frank’s brutal assault, Jake returns to 2011, to find that he indirectly caused Harry to die in Vietnam. Al dies by suicide.
Resigned, Jake re-enters the portal, travels back to Derry, and kills Frank ahead of his rampage. Jake eventually settles in Jodie, Texas where he becomes a full-time English teacher at a local consolidated school. He spends several years establishing his identity. Jake winds up falling for school librarian Sadie and having a positive effect on the students of a local high school. Jake reveals to Sadie that he is from the future and his plans to prevent Kennedy’s assassination. Sadie is saved by Jake from her ex-husband, John. Ultimately, the pair rush to the Texas School Book Depository, where Jake interrupts Oswald. This saves Kennedy; however, Sadie is killed.
Jake returns to a dystopian, war-torn future brought about by his actions. He finds that after Kennedy served two terms, segregationist George Wallace was elected president in 1968. The Vietnam War not only still occurred, but escalated into World War III, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was never passed, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by the FBI, and the US is now fractured. Earth is also plagued by constant, devastating natural disasters, and the sky itself appears to be tearing. Jake discovers that each trip to the past causes a separate reality to be formed, and that his journey has caused time to begin falling apart. He realizes that he cannot save Kennedy for the good of the future, prompting him to return to the past to “reset” the results of his intervention. Jake finds that Sadie survived without his interference, and is being celebrated as a “Citizen of the Century” in Jodie, and he goes to the party being held.
See You Yesterday — (2019)
See You Yesterday is an American SCI-FI film directed by Stefon Bristol with a screenplay by Bristol and Fredrica Bailey, produced by Spike Lee. It stars Eden Duncan-Smith, Danté Crichlow, Marsha Stephanie Blake, and Brian “Stro” Bradley — with a special appearance by Michael J. Fox.
Storyline
C.J. Walker is an ambitious science prodigy who is working to build a time machine alongside her best friend, Sebastian “Bash” Thomas. Their first attempt fails shortly before the last day of school.
C.J. and Sebastian’s last class is with Mr. Lockhart (Fox), their science teacher. As the teens are hoping to present their class project at the science expo on the week of July 5, she asks him to raise their project grade to impress potential school scouts, so they can earn university scholarships. He invites her to contemplate the ethical and philosophical ramifications of time travel.
The pair’s second attempt succeeds, sending them back 24 hours. C.J. seeks revenge on her ex-boyfriend Jared by pranking him. He chases her and is hit by a car, breaking his arm. Sebastian criticizes C.J. before they nearly see their past selves and return to the present.
On July 4, C.J.’s older brother Calvin and his friend Dennis leave a party after Jared confronts him over C.J. As they are walking away, two other black men bump into them rushing down the street. Shortly after, a police car approaches and the officers are immediately suspicious of them. Mistaking them for the thieves they had been chasing, one of the officers kills Calvin.
After Calvin’s funeral, C.J. insists on going back a second time to save him. Sebastian expresses concern about the risk, but agrees to join her. They plan to reroute Calvin and Dennis before the shooting, but Jared spots and chases them for breaking his arm. The detour causes them to arrive too late to save Calvin.
They try a third time, enlisting their classmate Eduardo’s help and borrowing his highly resilient circuit boards. This time, C.J. tries to stop the convenience store robbery and avoid the police chase entirely by warning the shop owner. Past Sebastian sees present C.J. & is now in the middle of everything without knowing what’s going on. C.J. successfully warns the owner and he pulls a gun on the robbers. They pull one back on him and past Sebastian winds up being shot and killed. As C.J. follows him out of the shop, present day Sebastian catches sight of himself dying on the sidewalk and disappears as the past Sebastian dies.
C.J. goes back a fourth time to save both Sebastian and Calvin. They reach Calvin and Dennis in time, but she struggles to convince them of the situation. The officer who previously killed Calvin drives up to them, and Calvin says that he had nothing to do with the robbery. The officer subdues all four of them, and when Calvin realizes the others could get killed, he sacrifices himself as C.J. and Sebastian escape.
Back in the present, Sebastian confronts C.J. and demands to know how many times she has gone back. She admits that the previous attempt was the fourth time and that he had died on the third. He forbids her to try again, but she travels a fifth time.
Back in time and alone, C.J. breaks into a run.
Fixing the Timeline SCI-FI sends the Hero back in time on a mission to the exact moment when a Catastrophic Event (like Murder) changed history, in hopes of stopping the event — to save the Future. It may involve multiple attempts (showcasing the pitfalls of Time Travel) before the Hero finally “gets it right”.
According to some sources, Science has found a way to make Time Travel a reality. Presented with the choice, how many of us would go back — hoping to change the past — and make it a Better World? We know that in spite of good intentions, such efforts do not always succeed … because some things are simply “meant to be.”
Still, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to try.
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