I just finished watching Slaughterhouse-Five, the 1972 film adaptation
of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s novel (1969) of the same name. Back when I used to get DVDs from those mail
order clubs, this film was always prominently featured but I never ordered it. So it was nice to finally see it. The biggest thing that strikes me about
watching these older flicks is how many ideas that I once thought as unique in
more recent movies may actually have come from the older film. For instance, the scenes with Billy Pilgrim
in the dome being observed by the omni-present but unseen Tralfamadorians who
wanted the humans to perform made me think of The Truman Show by Peter Weir,
Andrew Niccol and Jim Carrey.
But the main concept
from Slaughterhouse that I wish to
explore is this idea that our main
character jumps through time but only within his own lifetime. For
Slaughterhouse-Five each time period is about the main character so it
is relevant that the time travel be limited to his lifetime. What I find interesting is that this concept
is also the main theme to Quantum Leap
by Donald Bellisario, Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, where Dr. Sam Beckett
jumps through time into other people's lives but only during his own
lifetime.
Why only during his own lifetime?
Another show that
comes to mind is Journeyman (2007) by
Kevin Falls and Kevin McKidd. This was a
short-lived TV show where the main character jumps through time but unlike Leap he is seen as himself from his native
time. However, similar to Quantum Leap the protagonists' objective is to
help someone.
Donnie Darko is a little different. This movie allows the viewer to witness parallel lifetimes
and most of the events occur within one of the timeframes of Donnie's life
but apparently events from this timeline can affect the other timeline. Or Donnie has a superpower.
I need to re-watch this again to really get a grasp on what
happens when. However, I'm not so sure that this film applies to the question that I
am attempting to address here.
There are plenty of
websites that categorize the different time travel rules that have been
established in Sci-Fi. Such as the timeline is fixed and nothing can change it (Terminator) or you can go back change
something that might erase your existence (Back to
the Future), etc. So I won't
attempt to define all the different theories of time travel here.
The
reason for this posting
I'm sure there are
other films and probably ten times the number of books with this common theme
of jumping through time with the caveat of the time frame being limited to one's own
lifetime. I'd be interested in hearing
from those who know better than I, what these other books and films are. I'm curious as to where the idea for this
limitation was conceived and how its been applied to help explain why this
limitation should or should not exist.
It'd be uninteresting
to find that this concept simply originated from Slaughterhouse-Five. I suspect that it may have been suggested in a Star Trek episode or an
even earlier sci-fi short story. I
suppose the immediate benefit of limiting travel to one's one lifetime is that
there's less chance of one person completely altering life on Earth as we know
it in the present, since one can only go back 20-60 years. Plus it limits the vast majority of
characters living in 2012, for instance, from going back to influence some
profoundly significant event like Pearl Harbor or the JFK assassination. Another benefit is that the traveler can
never be certain of when they die since they could only theoretically travel up
to that moment but not see beyond it to know for sure if that is when they ceased
to breath. Therefore, this limitation
reduces the chance that a character would become motivated to prevent their
demise .
