You know, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this subject – probably too much time as a retiree thinking about fictitious time machines. Time travel in science fiction has experienced a significant change in direction over the last few decades, and as a person who has spent nearly 40 years designing real spacecraft while reading about imaginary ones, I find the changes both interesting — and a little disheartening.
Time travel in science fiction in the 1980s when I was developing satellite propulsion systems was primarily an adventure ride that had a science-y coating. For example, Back to the Future — although the physics were utterly absurd (and don’t even get me started on the 1.21 gigawatt nonsense), it was not attempting to be a physics textbook. It was simply posing a basic question: what would happen if you could go back in time and correct your parents‘ mistake(s)? Marty McFly inadvertently messes up his parents’ date, spends 90 minutes correcting the mistake, and voila! Happy ending. The DeLorean was merely a neat looking vehicle to serve as the plot device.
I remember viewing that movie with my children many years ago and they were laughing at the skateboard chase scenes while I was mentally computing whether a vehicle the size of a car could generate enough energy to facilitate temporal displacement. (Spoiler: it can’t; not even close). However, that was okay! The movie obviously knew it was silly, and accepted that aspect of it. The science was merely the backdrop for the story about family and growing up.
In contrast, the Terminator (also released in 1984) took a darker approach to the concept of time travel, but again, the story was relatively uncomplicated. A killer robot from the future travels back in time to prevent the birth of the leader of the human resistance. Clear premise, clear stakes. The time travel element served merely as a means to deliver an action movie, not as the central theme of the movie. As an engineer, I liked the fact that they at least acknowledged there would likely be some consequences — specifically the notion of “no fate but what we make” seemed to suggest they understood the concept of cause and effect, even if their own time travel mechanism was never defined.
As I entered the 1990s and early 2000s, I began to notice science fiction becoming more… complicated. While they weren’t necessarily more scientifically accurate, they were more psychologically complex. Movies such as 12 Monkeys, turned the concept of time travel into a claustrophobic exploration of insanity and predetermination. Rather than the classic “let’s go back in time and fix things,” the story evolved into “possibly no matter how hard we try, we cannot fix things and we’re all bound to our fate.”
The Butterfly Effect really hit me where I live — it was like watching someone debug code — you fix one problem, but you create three new ones. As someone who has spent the vast majority of their professional career debugging complex systems, that was actually a more realistic portrayal than the simplistic solutions depicted in the earlier movies, but also very disturbing.
What really irks me however — somewhere along the line, time travel stories ceased to be about the technology involved, and became about trauma. Take Netflix’s Dark, which my wife and I binge watched during lockdown. (My wife kept a journal to follow the various family connections since the show is essentially a temporal family tree from hell). Dark is not really about time travel at all — it’s about cycles of abuse, family secrets, and how the pain of the past continues to affect the present — the time travel is merely a metaphor for the way the past continues to taint the present.
From an engineering standpoint, I do appreciate that modern stories portray time travel as coming with a cost. All real–world technology come with trade-offs, unintended consequences, and maintenance requirements. However, I miss the sense of wonder that the earlier stories portrayed. When did time travel stop being a source of wonder and excitement, and start being a source of despair?
Take Arrival — which technically is not time travel, but uses a non-linear view of time. It is based upon a Ted Chiang short story, and Chiang actually does his research scientifically. The linguistics-based approach to temporal perception is genuine scientific speculation. However, the emotional centre of the movie is about accepting loss, and accepting the fact that your life will include heartache. It is beautiful, and devastating, and unlike the adventure stories I grew up reading.
I think a large part of what is occurring is we have lost faith in the notion that problems can be solved cleanly. The 1980s time travel stories represented the can-do attitude of the space race era I grew up in. We put men on the moon! We can solve any problem if we just apply enough technology and determination! Modern time travel stories are written by people who have grown up and lived through decades of unintended consequences — environmental catastrophes, technological disruptions, and the realization that every solution generates new problems.
Another reason is that the science itself has become more sophisticated, which creates additional challenges for storytellers. In the 1980s, most people did not have sufficient knowledge of physics to identify obvious flaws, so writers could willy-nilly hand-wave whatever they desired. Now that everyone has access to Wikipedia, and YouTube physics channels, if you are going to engage in time travel, you either have to work a lot harder on the science (as was done in Primer) or completely dismiss any pretenses of scientific accuracy, and go full-on space fantasy.
What bothers me as an engineer is that we have ended up with stories that are scientifically inaccurate, but emotionally accurate, when I would prefer to see the opposite — or preferably, both. Provide me with time travel that acknowledges thermodynamics AND presents an optimistic story of humanity’s ability to improve themselves. Greg Egan does this in his novels, but unfortunately, none of them ever get produced into movies due to their high level of intellectual demand.
I was discussing this topic with a retired colleague of mine recently — another retired aerospace engineer who reads too much science fiction — and he presented a good point. He stated that modern time travel stories are actually about information theory and quantum mechanics, not classical physics. The idea that the universe may split into multiple timelines, that observation effects reality, that the past and future are not as rigidly defined as previously thought. From that angle, shows like Dark are actually more scientifically informed than the straightforward causal chain of events depicted in Back to the Future.
Perhaps he is right. Perhaps I am simply nostalgic for a less complicated time when time travel was about adventure rather than existential despair. Regardless, I believe we have lost something valuable in the process. Science fiction is supposed to elicit a sense of wonder, correct? It is supposed to make us excited about possibilities, not convince us that every possibility will lead to suffering.
Do not misunderstand, I appreciate the sophistication of modern storytelling. The character development in contemporary time travel stories is truly excellent. The way Looper examines identity by causing Joseph Gordon-Levitt to interact with his older self is psychologically interesting. The multi-generational trauma cycles depicted in Dark are beautifully developed. These are well-constructed stories that utilize time travel to examine deeper aspects of human nature.
However, occasionally I would like to simply view someone jumping into a time machine, and experiencing an adventure without having to confront the inherent futility of existence, you know? Am I asking too much?
Ultimately, I believe what I am lamenting is the disappearance of optimistic speculation. The best science fiction has always provided a balance between scientific plausibility and human optimism. We need stories that recognise complexity, but simultaneously provide evidence that human intellect, and human initiative, can make things better. Time travel stories used to do this — they indicated that the future is not predetermined, that individual actions can alter outcomes, and that problems can be resolved — even if those resolutions require effort and creative thinking.
Modern time travel stories generally indicate that time is a flat circle and we are destined to continue repeating our mistakes ad infinitum. While this may be a more philosophical view, it is ultimately disheartening. And, as someone who has dedicated their career to attempting to build the future, this trend is both troubling — and personally disconcerting.
Perhaps the next generation of time travel stories will be able to find a method to be both scientifically accurate, and genuinely positive. Until that day arrives, I’ll continue re-watching Back to the Future and attempt to ignore the physics. Sometimes a DeLorean is simply a DeLorean.
John spent forty years designing real spacecraft before turning his attention to fictional ones. Writing from Oregon, he brings a scientist’s curiosity to sci-fi—separating good speculation from bad physics while keeping his sense of wonder firmly intact.