This 28-minute photo montage with about 1,200 words of narration has a nice seed of an idea, but I find it insulting to other talented filmmakers that Time magazine ranked this sketch of a film as #1 in their 2010 list of best time travel movies.
The story has a kind of reverse grandfather paradox: [spoiler Lucy and Jamie’s great-great-grandparents are Sara and Tom (a boy who died trying to save Sara and George). So, initially, Lucy and Jamie actually have no grandparents (at least not on that side), and it’s only by Lucy and Jamie going back in time to save Sara and George (as well as Tom) that Sara and Tom live long enough to have offspring. So where did Lucy and Jamie come from initially in order to be able to go back in time and create the conditions so that they will be born? This is almost a single nonbranching, static timeline, except for the fact that initially, Sara, Georgie, and Tom did die (as evinced by what Lucy and Jamie see and hear in the graveyar), so Lucy and Jamie did change things. I think we need a new name for it, perhaps the grandchild paradox.[/spoiler]
“Oh, I don’t understand it,” said Jamie cheerfully, “but then I don’t understand television either. But when you’ve seen it working, you can’t help believing in it.”
This is Janet’s favorite time-travel novel, in which Finney elaborates on themes that were set in earlier stories such as “Double Take.”
Wayne Winsett, owner of Time Warp Comics, tells me that this is his favorite time travel movie. Wayne is not alone in his assessment of Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, as the film now enjoys a mild cult following.
The actress Naka Riisa has another connection to time-leaping girls: In the first sequel to the original novel, , a 2006 anime adaptation, Riisa voiced the lead character, Makoto, who was Kazuko’s niece. So if I have this right: The original leaper is Kazuko; Kazuko’s niece Makoto is the leaper in the 2006 anime; and Kazuko’s daughter Akari is the leaper in the 2010 live-action movie. So in some sense, Riisa is her own cousin.
By the end of the first season, one principal character has seemingly been trapped in the 2043, and Cole is stuck in 2015, having just gone against fate in a major way, but with a third principal character poised to spread the virus via a jet plane.
P.S. Whatever you do, whether in narrative time or elsewhen, don’t bring up this adaptation as dinnertime conversation with Terry Gilliam (but do watch it if you can set aside angst over a lack of a consistent model and just go with Cole’s flow).
—from “Splinter” [s01e01]