Time Changer - A Belated Review

 

Those of you who visit here, or have looked at the books I have written, you’ll realize that I’m a sucker for time travel stories. I consider them to be fantasy because, by the definition that Bob Tucker, Bob Cornett and I agreed on decades ago, science fiction dealt with what was possible at some point but fantasy was, well, just that.

So, when I saw a movie called Time Changer that was described as a professor from the 1890s traveling into his future, which would be, of course, our present, I thought I would take a look at it. Time After Time, that Nick Meyer movie of decades ago had, sort of, the same thing going on.  There we had H.G. Wells traveling into modern San Francisco, though now, it was a couple of decades ago. The sense of wonder and the fish out of water aspect of that movie was part of the enjoyment.

Here, we are treated to a professor, Russell Carlisle (D. David Morin) as the time traveler. He has written a book dealing with modern morality, that is, that morality in 1890. He needs the approval of a committee at his college so that his book might be published. All by one, Norris Anderson (Gavin MacLeod), are on board, but Anderson objects.

His quibble is over a single paragraph that seemed to remove Jesus Christ from the discussion. Anderson believed that this was an important omission and refused to endorse the book without some modification. Here we delve into a rather protracted discussion of morality and the place that Christianity has in the discussion. By leaving that out, by calling on humanity to maintain moral standards, the importance of religion is ignored.

I thought the discussion went on longer than necessary, but then it was setting up the story because Anderson had a time machine. Anderson attempts to get Carlisle to visit him at home to carry on the discussion, but Carlisle doesn’t believe it will do any good.

As you can imagine, given the title of the movie, Carlisle does visit Andernson, and is eventually convinced that he needs to travel into the future. The trip is on with very little instruction from Anderson, although Anderson does provide Carlisle with some money from 1890 and suggests that he sell those coins to a coin dealer in the far future. While a good idea, it relies on the idea that all coins from more than 100 years ago would be extremely valuable, but you can find, today, many coins selling for twenty or thirty dollars. Rarity is important but it seems that no effort is made to find coins that would be worth a great deal based on rarity.

I’d go into greater detail with this problem, but it is just a small part of the movie. Carlisle, then moves around the modern world but there isn’t much in the way of a sense of wonder. He seems to understand television and cars and probably flight. True, in the 1890s these things were discussed or envisioned but he is just too comfortable with them

Then there is a scene that would have gotten him arrested. A little girl, what 10 or 12, steals his sandwich, and he is off, chasing her through the park. No one seems to worry about this adult male chasing a female child. No one makes an inquiry about it.

And then, we are treated to more philosophical discussions of religion and its importance in living our lives. It becomes ham-handed and it is clear that the message of this movie is that religion, or rather Christianity, is an important part of a good life.

This is where I break from the movie. While the earlier discussion sets up the reason for the time travel, now it is just tedious. I wanted to shout at the TV, “I’ve got it. Move on.”

Carlisle returns to his own time automatically and his view of the world altered by what he had seen. The preaching continued but it was not very subtle, unlike some of the other Hollywood productions in which the message is somewhat disguised, though Time Changer probably isn’t a standard Hollywood production.

I’m rather ambivalent about this movie. I don’t plan to watch it again and those movies I like, I tend to review them periodically. Who can’t watch The Thing from Another World with Ken Tobey or the original The Day the Earth Stood Still more than once? Time Changers isn’t one of those.

I suppose I’ll just say, if you have a couple of hours to waste, don’t waste them here. Find one of the classic, 1950s or 1960s science fiction films. They were well craft, well written and well-acted. This one just sort of hangs there with its flaws for everyone to see. As I say, I think I’d have avoided it had I known a little more about it.

For those who like these things, the movie was released in 2016 though seems to have a copyright date of 2002. It runs an hour and thirty-five minutes and had an estimated budget of $825,000. There are several actors, with minor roles, who are well known including Hal Linden and Jennifer O’Neill and the above mentioned Gavin MacLeod.