ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

When it comes to time travel stories, this one wins the prize for the most intelligent exploration of how changes in the past will affect the present.

Back to the Future comes close, but Frequency is the king when it comes to temporal plot twists and unexpected consequences that result from that legendary butterfly / ripple effect we've all come to love. We don't get to see a sexy time machine in this movie, but the story takes our minds on the wildest ride this genre can devise.

And it excels in another way, too. In Back to the Future the story cleverly sidesteps the fact that if Marty changed the time line and woke up in his room at the end of the first film, he should have no memory of any of the things we saw him do. The memories of his life should have been consistent with his new, affluent, well-adjusted family — which means his shock at all the changes he suddenly discovers was completely illogical.



But it was completely appropriate for this fun sci-fi adventure. The average person never notices the "error", and the "thinking people" who do notice it just smile and nod and appreciate the cleverness of the writer and director for hiding the illogic behind all the entertainment.

Ah, but Frequency meets the challenge head on, and their approach is brilliant. Jim Caviezel's character straddles two time lines, caught smack in the middle of what-it-was and what-it-changed-to. And he remembers both!



This remarkable aspect of the story, along with the roller coaster plot, makes this science fiction classic one which will endure the test of time.

. . . so to speak.

_________________ Frequency (2000) - Trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pye-Rate]

A truly thoughtful and intense film.
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The road to tomorrow runs through yesterday.

[Custer]

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Check out Predestination (2014) an Australian film based upon Robert A. Heinlein's short story All You Zombies.

Even this one missed the mark in that it failed to show the old bartender as also being the main character!

Talk about confusing! The

Baby
Girl
Young Man
Time Travel Supervisor
Young Bartender

and

Old Bartender

are the same person!

"I know who I am; but who are all you zombies?"
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Custer]

In the special background features on the Predestination blu-ray, we discover that the main character, as well as being the hero, the heroine, the baby, the bartenders, and the time travel supervisor, was also the producer, director, and camera operator for the movie... oh, and the Best Boy too.

Or maybe I just dreamed that...?

[Krel]

There was an episode of the new outer limits where a woman time travels, I think to kill murderers before they can commit crimes. It is driving her crazy, and causing physical effects. She can remember both time lines because she is the cause of the split.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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This great movie only has 20 IMDB trivia items, which is definitely unjust, and might possibly be immoral!

Here's a few of the better ones (in blue text) for the benefit of the people who love this movie as much as I do, followed by several remarks from yours truly, guaranteed to educate and amuse.

Enjoy!
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Dennis Quaid received 16 stitches just above his hairline after being injured in the stunt where he slides down the construction funnels during the warehouse fire.

Note from me: So, Randy did that stunt himself! And it hurt. If he wasn't already my hero, this definitely cinches it!

In the warehouse fire scene, all the firefighters except Dennis Quaid, Peter MacNeill and Jordan Bridges, are real.

Note from me: How much does this fact make me respect the movie even more than I already did? This much! (Imagine me with my hands held really far apart.)

All of the World Series facts were true in this film. The Mets Cleon Jones really did get hit on the shoe with a pitched ball. At first the umpire didn't award him first base but when Mets Manager Gil Hodges showed him the shoe polish on the ball the umpire changed his call and awarded him first base. It became known as the "Shoe Polish Incident".

Note from me: Oh . . . my . . . God. This aspect of the plot is so appealing that I'd still love the movie even if it was totally made up. The fact that it's completely true just makes me want to watch this movie again right now!

On April 25, 2000, the New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds played a game wearing their 1969 uniforms to promote the film.

Note from me: I just love it when reality imitates art. And when reality [i]honors[/u] art by imitating it, I love it even more.

In 1997 Renny Harlin was going to direct the film with Sylvester Stallone playing the lead, but Stallone asked for too large a paycheck and eventually neither Stallone nor Harlin was involved in making the picture.

Note from me: Two words here: Thank God.

In the movie, Frank Sullivan was an FDNY firefighter, and the numerical address of the Sullivans' house is 343. One year after "Frequency" was released, 343 FDNY firefighters died in the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.

Note from me: This give me chills. What are the odds, eh?

The TV series Frequency (2016) is based on this movie, but there are several key difference in the TV show. Frank Sullivan is a police detective, instead of a firefighter. In the TV show he has a daughter named Raimy, instead of a son. Also Frank ends up separated from his wife, who ends up murdered, instead of still being happily married.

Note from me: I have all 17 epsiodes of this cancelled series on my DVR, but I haven't watched the last half of them yet. I liked the first half, but I was less enthusiastic about the second half, so I saved them, and then I heard if might be cancelled.

I'll get around to watching the rest of them one of these days.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

[Bogmeister]

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A Tale of Time Travel via communications equipment — specifically a ham radio. In 1999 a cop named John (Tim Caviezel) gets on his family's old ham radio and makes contact with his firefighter father Frank (Dennis Quaid) in 1969.

The two don't know, at first, who each is speaking to, but John quickly figures it out. In the original timeline, Frank had died in a fire the next day in 196. But thanks to John's brief warning, Frank survives by going left instead of his original instinct of going right.

However, there are new problems. In the altered timeline, Frank visits his wife (Elizabeth Mitchell) right after surviving the fire. She works as a nurse in a hospital, and she saves the life of a serial killer who was injured in the fire.

In the new timeline, she is one of numerous new victims of this killer, killed in less than a week's time in 1969, while Frank dies of lung cancer in 1989. John must now instruct his father on what he knows of this mysterious killer so that Frank can save the woman they both love.

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This was an inventive, clever thriller & sci-fi feature, though it couldn't retain all the consistencies required to make all the complex time travel changes viable.

At one point, a change in the past takes place, thereby changing all subsequent history, but John continues to sit in the exact same spot, speaking with the exact same two individuals that he had been speaking to before the change. I guess that the writers and filmmakers didn't adhere to the "Butterfly Effect" theory in time travel, which I always thought made sense.

BoG's Score: 7 out of 10



BoG
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