From - Miranda, USA
'Hollywood' seems to have a thing about H.G.Wells! First, we've had 'Hollow Man', which is obviously a take on Wells' "Invisible Man". Now we have 'Time Machine', which is, well, very loosely based on the Wells book of the same name. Unfortunately, as is often the way these days, this script manages to overlook - or is it ignore? - the highly critical social commentary Wells built his novel around.
At the time the book was written, the so-called upper and middle classes in England were getting ever richer, and embarking on a journey that would eventually have them become the 'idle' rich: pleasure seeking and self-indulgent. The working, or underclass, would remain forever downtrodden, becoming poorer and poorer - in his view - unless the upper classes were prepared to share their wealth more equitably. Wells, obviously trying to frighten his fellow countrymen into recognizing the dangers inherent in this fracturing of the social fabric - two societies, in essense, rather than one - developed this potential danger to the extreme, by having the idle class evolve into the Eloi - an indolent species, living among the ruins of a previous civilization, unable and/or unwilling to make repairs, or even save one of their number from drowning just a few feet from safety. The underclass, he had evolve into the Morlocks: hairy albinos, grotescuely muscled, living underground, running all manner of evil, thundering machines, and consuming the Eloi as 'human venison'.
The previous version of The Time Machine, staring Rod Taylor, was a little naive, perhaps, and slightly amateurish, but it stuck pretty closely to Wells' original story. Enter 'Hollywood'! Suddenly, if you go back in time, you can't change the future, so the girlfriend dies, if not one way, then another. Well, there goes Star Trek IV, Millennium, Time Cop and all the other, 'if he goes back and changes history, we may all never be born', movies. Second, the Eloi are now master builders, living in highly complex, woven half-baskets, hung perilously on the side of cliffs. As for the Morlocks? Well, they can run around in the daylight, looking a lot like 'An American Werewolf in London', and have an albino leader who is a wizard of sorts. Well, maybe? We never actually figured that one out. Couple this breathtaking misunderstanding of the message contained in the original story, with the fact that the time traveler can materialize in the middle of a nuclear war and leave his machine parked in full view, without anyone bothering to ask where he came from, and you have a recipe for disaster.
And what about the motivation of the traveler? In Wells' book, and the original film, the traveler was obsessed with time itself. This was his motivation, his obsession. In this version, he is tinkering around in his laboratory, until his girlfriend is shot by a mugger. Now he feverishly builds his machine, so he can attempt to prevent his girlfriend from being shot by the mugger. He succeeds, only to have her killed by a horse and carriage. 'You can't change the future,' he wails. Oh... puleeze! The best part is when the time machine itself blows up, destroys the set so they can't make a sequel, and they run the credits.!
Rating: Total Rubbish!
