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The Time Machine (2002 film)
Encyclopedia
The Time Machine is a 2002 American science fiction film
loosely adapted from the 1895 novel of the same name
by H. G. Wells
, and the 1960 film
screenplay by David Duncan. It was executive-produced by Arnold Leibovit
and directed by Simon Wells
, who is the great-grandson of the original author, and stars Guy Pearce
, Jeremy Irons
, Orlando Jones
, Samantha Mumba
, Mark Addy
, Sienna Guillory
, and Phyllida Law
with a cameo
by Alan Young
, who also appeared in the 1960 film adaptation.
The 2002 film is set in New York City instead of London and contains new story elements not present in the original novel, including a romantic backstory, a new scenario about how civilization was destroyed, and several new characters, such as an intelligent hologram played by Orlando Jones
and a Morlock leader played by Jeremy Irons
.
Director Gore Verbinski
was brought in to take over the last 18 days of shooting, as Wells was suffering from "extreme exhaustion". Wells returned for post-production.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 75th Academy Awards
; the film lost to Frida
.
) is a young inventor teaching at Columbia University
in New York City
. Unlike his conservative friend David Philby (Mark Addy
), Alexander would rather do pure research than work in the conformist
world of business, in which all men wear "identical bowler hat
s". After his sweetheart Emma (Sienna Guillory
) is killed by a robber, he devotes himself to building a time machine in order to save her. When the machine is completed four years later, he travels back to 1899 and prevents her murder, only to see her killed by a horseless carriage.
Seeing that one means of Emma's death has been replaced by another, Alexander goes to 2030 to find out whether her life can be saved. At the New York Public Library
, a holographic
AI
librarian/computer called Vox 114 (Jones
) insists that time travel
is impossible, so Alexander continues into the future until 2037, when the accidental destruction of the Moon
by space colonists
renders the Earth
virtually uninhabitable. When he restarts the time machine to avoid falling debris, he is knocked unconscious and travels to the year 802,701 before waking up and stopping the machine. At this point in time, human civilization has reverted to a primitive lifestyle. Some survivors, called "Eloi
", live on the sides of cliffs on what remains of Manhattan
. Alexander is nursed back to health by a woman named Mara (Samantha Mumba
), one of the few Eloi who speak English. One night, Alexander and Mara's young brother, Kalen (Omero Mumba), dream of a frightening, jagged-toothed face, and the next day, the Eloi are attacked and Mara is dragged underground by ape-like monsters called "Morlocks" that hunt the Eloi for food. In order to rescue her, Kalen leads Alexander to Vox 114, which is still functioning.
After learning from Vox how to find the Morlocks, Alexander enters their underground realm through an opening that resembles the face in his nightmare, but he is captured and thrown into an area where Mara sits in a cage. There he meets an intelligent, humanoid
Über-Morlock (Jeremy Irons
), who explains that Morlocks are the evolutionary descendants of the humans who stayed underground after the Moon broke apart, while Eloi are evolved from those who remained on the surface. Über-Morlocks are a caste
of telepaths
who rule the monsters that prey on Eloi. The Über-Morlock explains that Alexander cannot alter Emma's fate because her death is what drove him to build the time machine in the first place: saving her would create a temporal paradox
. Alexander gets into the machine, which the Morlocks have brought underground, and prepares to return home, but he suddenly pulls the Über-Morlock into the machine, which carries them into the future as they fight. The Über-Morlock dies by rapidly aging when Alexander pushes him outside of the machine's sphere of influence. Alexander then stops in the year 635,427,810, revealing a harsh, rust-colored sky over a wasteland of Morlock caves.
Finally accepting that he cannot save Emma, Alexander travels back to rescue Mara. After freeing her, he starts the time machine and jams its gears, creating a violent distortion in time. Alexander and Mara escape to the surface as a huge explosion kills the Morlocks and destroys their caves. With the time machine gone, Alexander begins a new life with Mara and the Eloi. The film ends with two scenes in the same location displayed in parallel: while Alexander shows Mara and Kalen a field that was once his home, Philby and Alexander's housekeeper, Mrs. Watchit, sadly discuss his absence and Philby throws away his own bowler hat. Before leaving Alexander's lab, Mrs. Watchit says, "Godspeed, my fine lad. Godspeed."
and Warner Bros.
in association with Arnold Leibovit
Entertainment who obtained the rights to the George Pal original Time Machine 1960 and collectively negotiated the deal that made it possible for both Warner Brothers and DreamWorks to make the film.
created CGI
versions of the creatures.
Many of the time traveling scenes were entirely computer generated, including a 33-second shot in the workshop where the time machine is located. The camera pulls out, traveling through New York City and then into space, past the ISS
, and ends with a space plane landing at the moon to reveal earth's future lunar colonies. Plants and buildings are shown springing up and then being replaced by new growth in a constant cycle. In later shots, the effects team used an erosion algorithm to digitally simulate the Earth's landscape changing through the centuries.
For some of the lighting effects used for the digital time bubble around the time machine, ILM developed an extended-range color format, which they named rgbe (red, green blue, and an exponent channel) (See Paul E. Debevec and Jitendra Malik
, "Recovering High Dynamic Range Radiance Maps from Photographs, Siggraph Proceedings, 1997).
The warning sirens
used during the moon destruction sequence were later used in the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
for Hurricane Katrina
.
, with the recognizable theme being the track "I don't belong here", which was later used in the 2008 Discovery Channel Mini series "When We Left Earth".
, who was somewhat positive about the film, writes that it lacks some of the simplicity and charm of the 1960 George Pal film by adding characters such as Jeremy Irons' "uber-morlock." However, he praised actor Guy Pearce's "more eccentric" time traveler and his transition from an awkward intellectual to a man of action. Victoria Alexander of Filmsinreview.com wrote that "The Time Machine is a loopy love story with good special effects but a storyline that's logically incomprehensible," noting some "plot holes" having to deal with Hartdegen and his machine's cause-and-effect relationship with the outcome of the future. Other critics claimed that the film had (or had the potential for) an interesting, valuable social commentary, and preferred the revised version of the story presented in the new film. In a slightly more negative light, Jay Carr of the Boston Globe writes: "The truth is that Wells wasn't that penetrating a writer when it came to probing character or the human heart. His speculations and gimmicks were what propelled his books. The film, given the chance to deepen its source, instead falls back on its gadgets."
Some critics praised the special effects, declaring the film visually impressive and colorful, while others thought the effects were poor. Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
scorned the film, and found the Morlock animation cartoonish and unrealistic, due to their manner of leaping and running. However, Ebert notes the contrast in terms of the social/racial representation of the attractive Eloi between the two films... between the "dusky sun people" of this version and the Nordic race in the George Pal film. Aside from its vision of the future, the film's recreation of New York at the turn of the century won it some praise. Bruce Westbrook of the Houston Chronicle
writes "The far future may be awesome to consider, but from period detail to matters of the heart, this film is most transporting when it stays put in the past."
The film received a 29% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 148 critic reviews.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
loosely adapted from the 1895 novel of the same name
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...
by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
, and the 1960 film
The Time Machine (1960 film)
The Time Machine is a 1960 American science fiction film based on the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells in which a man in Victorian England constructs a time-travelling machine which he uses to travel to the future...
screenplay by David Duncan. It was executive-produced by Arnold Leibovit
Arnold Leibovit
Arnold Leibovit is an award-winning writer, producer, and director of feature films and musical productions. An acting member of the Producers Guild of America, he has written, directed, and produced several feature films, including The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal, a biopic of George Pal, and...
and directed by Simon Wells
Simon Wells
Simon Wells is an English-American film director of animation and live-action films. He is the great grandson of famous author, H. G. Wells.Born in Cambridge, he attended De Montfort University where he studied audio-visual design...
, who is the great-grandson of the original author, and stars Guy Pearce
Guy Pearce
Guy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
, Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
, Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
, Samantha Mumba
Samantha Mumba
Samantha Tamania Anne Cecilia Mumba is an Irish singer and actress.Her first album was released in 2000. Her most notable role was Mara in the 2002 film The Time Machine. She has also appeared in a number of Irish independent films.-Early life, education and early career:Mumba was born in Dublin,...
, Mark Addy
Mark Addy
Mark Addy Johnson is an English actor, best known for his roles as Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the UK sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Dave in the British film The Full Monty, father Bill Miller in the U.S...
, Sienna Guillory
Sienna Guillory
Sienna Tiggy Guillory is an English actress, and former model. She is known for playing the title role in the TV miniseries, Helen of Troy, her portrayal of Jill Valentine in the science fiction action horror film Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and as elf princess Arya Dröttningu in fantasy-adventure...
, and Phyllida Law
Phyllida Law
-Personal life:Law was born in Glasgow, the daughter of William and Megsie Law, who divorced after World War II. She was married to Eric Thompson from 1957 until his death in 1982. Their two children Emma and Sophie Thompson are both actresses...
with a cameo
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
by Alan Young
Alan Young
Alan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
, who also appeared in the 1960 film adaptation.
The 2002 film is set in New York City instead of London and contains new story elements not present in the original novel, including a romantic backstory, a new scenario about how civilization was destroyed, and several new characters, such as an intelligent hologram played by Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
and a Morlock leader played by Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
.
Director Gore Verbinski
Gore Verbinski
Gregor "Gore" Verbinski is an American film director, writer and musician. He is best known for directing the films The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Rango.-Early life:...
was brought in to take over the last 18 days of shooting, as Wells was suffering from "extreme exhaustion". Wells returned for post-production.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 75th Academy Awards
75th Academy Awards
The 75th Academy Awards honored the best films of 2002, were held on March 23, 2003, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. It was produced by Gil Cates and hosted for the second time by Steve Martin....
; the film lost to Frida
Frida
Frida is a 2002 biographical film which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It stars Salma Hayek in her Academy Award nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera....
.
Plot
In the year 1899, Dr. Alexander Hartdegen (Guy PearceGuy Pearce
Guy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
) is a young inventor teaching at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Unlike his conservative friend David Philby (Mark Addy
Mark Addy
Mark Addy Johnson is an English actor, best known for his roles as Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the UK sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Dave in the British film The Full Monty, father Bill Miller in the U.S...
), Alexander would rather do pure research than work in the conformist
Conformity
Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
world of business, in which all men wear "identical bowler hat
Bowler hat
The bowler hat, also known as a coke hat, derby , billycock or bombin, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the English soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester...
s". After his sweetheart Emma (Sienna Guillory
Sienna Guillory
Sienna Tiggy Guillory is an English actress, and former model. She is known for playing the title role in the TV miniseries, Helen of Troy, her portrayal of Jill Valentine in the science fiction action horror film Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and as elf princess Arya Dröttningu in fantasy-adventure...
) is killed by a robber, he devotes himself to building a time machine in order to save her. When the machine is completed four years later, he travels back to 1899 and prevents her murder, only to see her killed by a horseless carriage.
Seeing that one means of Emma's death has been replaced by another, Alexander goes to 2030 to find out whether her life can be saved. At the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
, a holographic
Holography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...
AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
librarian/computer called Vox 114 (Jones
Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
) insists that time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
is impossible, so Alexander continues into the future until 2037, when the accidental destruction of the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
by space colonists
Colonization of the Moon
The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth. Recent indication that water might be present in noteworthy...
renders the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
virtually uninhabitable. When he restarts the time machine to avoid falling debris, he is knocked unconscious and travels to the year 802,701 before waking up and stopping the machine. At this point in time, human civilization has reverted to a primitive lifestyle. Some survivors, called "Eloi
Eloi
The Eloi are one of the two post-human races in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine.-In The Time Machine:By the year 802,701 AD, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks...
", live on the sides of cliffs on what remains of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. Alexander is nursed back to health by a woman named Mara (Samantha Mumba
Samantha Mumba
Samantha Tamania Anne Cecilia Mumba is an Irish singer and actress.Her first album was released in 2000. Her most notable role was Mara in the 2002 film The Time Machine. She has also appeared in a number of Irish independent films.-Early life, education and early career:Mumba was born in Dublin,...
), one of the few Eloi who speak English. One night, Alexander and Mara's young brother, Kalen (Omero Mumba), dream of a frightening, jagged-toothed face, and the next day, the Eloi are attacked and Mara is dragged underground by ape-like monsters called "Morlocks" that hunt the Eloi for food. In order to rescue her, Kalen leads Alexander to Vox 114, which is still functioning.
After learning from Vox how to find the Morlocks, Alexander enters their underground realm through an opening that resembles the face in his nightmare, but he is captured and thrown into an area where Mara sits in a cage. There he meets an intelligent, humanoid
Humanoid
A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...
Über-Morlock (Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
), who explains that Morlocks are the evolutionary descendants of the humans who stayed underground after the Moon broke apart, while Eloi are evolved from those who remained on the surface. Über-Morlocks are a caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
of telepaths
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
who rule the monsters that prey on Eloi. The Über-Morlock explains that Alexander cannot alter Emma's fate because her death is what drove him to build the time machine in the first place: saving her would create a temporal paradox
Temporal paradox
Temporal paradox is a theoretical paradoxical situation that happens because of time travel. A time traveler goes to the past, and does something that would prevent him from time travel in the first place...
. Alexander gets into the machine, which the Morlocks have brought underground, and prepares to return home, but he suddenly pulls the Über-Morlock into the machine, which carries them into the future as they fight. The Über-Morlock dies by rapidly aging when Alexander pushes him outside of the machine's sphere of influence. Alexander then stops in the year 635,427,810, revealing a harsh, rust-colored sky over a wasteland of Morlock caves.
Finally accepting that he cannot save Emma, Alexander travels back to rescue Mara. After freeing her, he starts the time machine and jams its gears, creating a violent distortion in time. Alexander and Mara escape to the surface as a huge explosion kills the Morlocks and destroys their caves. With the time machine gone, Alexander begins a new life with Mara and the Eloi. The film ends with two scenes in the same location displayed in parallel: while Alexander shows Mara and Kalen a field that was once his home, Philby and Alexander's housekeeper, Mrs. Watchit, sadly discuss his absence and Philby throws away his own bowler hat. Before leaving Alexander's lab, Mrs. Watchit says, "Godspeed, my fine lad. Godspeed."
Cast
- Guy PearceGuy PearceGuy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
as Dr. Alexander Hartdegen, associate professor of applied mechanicsApplied mechanicsApplied mechanics is a branch of the physical sciences and the practical application of mechanics. Applied mechanics examines the response of bodies or systems of bodies to external forces...
& engineeringEngineeringEngineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
at Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He is cared for by his housekeeper Mrs. Watchit (LawPhyllida Law-Personal life:Law was born in Glasgow, the daughter of William and Megsie Law, who divorced after World War II. She was married to Eric Thompson from 1957 until his death in 1982. Their two children Emma and Sophie Thompson are both actresses...
) and lends a helping hand to the young patent clerk Mr. EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
. - Samantha MumbaSamantha MumbaSamantha Tamania Anne Cecilia Mumba is an Irish singer and actress.Her first album was released in 2000. Her most notable role was Mara in the 2002 film The Time Machine. She has also appeared in a number of Irish independent films.-Early life, education and early career:Mumba was born in Dublin,...
as Mara, a young Eloi woman who speaks English and nurses Alexander back to health - Mark AddyMark AddyMark Addy Johnson is an English actor, best known for his roles as Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the UK sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Dave in the British film The Full Monty, father Bill Miller in the U.S...
as David Philby, Alexander's good friend and conservative colleague - Sienna GuillorySienna GuillorySienna Tiggy Guillory is an English actress, and former model. She is known for playing the title role in the TV miniseries, Helen of Troy, her portrayal of Jill Valentine in the science fiction action horror film Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and as elf princess Arya Dröttningu in fantasy-adventure...
as Emma, Alexander's sweetheart in 1899 - Phyllida LawPhyllida Law-Personal life:Law was born in Glasgow, the daughter of William and Megsie Law, who divorced after World War II. She was married to Eric Thompson from 1957 until his death in 1982. Their two children Emma and Sophie Thompson are both actresses...
as Mrs. Watchit, Alexander's housekeeper in New York - Alan YoungAlan YoungAlan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
as Flower store worker - Orlando JonesOrlando JonesOrlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
as Vox 114, a holographic artificial-intelligence librarian at the New York City public library in the year 2030 and afterward, who tends to be very sarcastic. - Jeremy IronsJeremy IronsJeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
as Über-Morlock, a member of the telepathic ruling class of the Morlock world and the main antagonistAntagonistAn antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
of the film. Unlike any Morlock, he looks more humanHumanHumans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
like. - Omero Mumba (Samantha's younger brother) as Kalen, Mara's young brother
- Yancey AriasYancey AriasYancey Arias is an American actor, perhaps most noted for his work on television crime dramas, particularly his roles as Miguel Cadena in the NBC series Kingpin and as Gabriel Williams in the FX series Thief.-Life and career:...
as Toren - Laura KirkLaura KirkLaura Ellen Kirk is an American actress.Kirk is best known to fans as Lisa Picard from the 2000 movie Lisa Picard is Famous having co-written the story with friend Nat DeWolf....
as Flower seller - Josh StambergJosh StambergJoshua Collins "Josh" Stamberg is an American actor.Stamberg was born in Washington, D.C., the son of journalist Susan Stamberg and Louis C. Stamberg, a retired State Department employee...
as Motorist - John W. Momrow as Fifth Avenue carriage driver
- Max Baker as Robber who kills Emma
- Jeffrey M. Meyer as Central ParkCentral ParkCentral Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
carriage driver
Production
The film was a co-production of DreamWorksDreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
in association with Arnold Leibovit
Arnold Leibovit
Arnold Leibovit is an award-winning writer, producer, and director of feature films and musical productions. An acting member of the Producers Guild of America, he has written, directed, and produced several feature films, including The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal, a biopic of George Pal, and...
Entertainment who obtained the rights to the George Pal original Time Machine 1960 and collectively negotiated the deal that made it possible for both Warner Brothers and DreamWorks to make the film.
Special effects
The Morlocks (in the story, semi-humanoid creatures that dwell in the future) were depicted using actors in costumes wearing animatronic masks. For scenes in which they run on all fours faster than humanly possible, Industrial Light and MagicIndustrial Light and Magic
Industrial Light & Magic is an Academy Award-winning motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and is owned by Lucasfilm. Lucas created the company when he discovered that the special effects department at 20th Century Fox was shut down after he was given...
created CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
versions of the creatures.
Many of the time traveling scenes were entirely computer generated, including a 33-second shot in the workshop where the time machine is located. The camera pulls out, traveling through New York City and then into space, past the ISS
ISS
The ISS is the International Space Station.ISS may also refer to:* I See Stars, an American electronic rock band* ISS A/S, a Danish service company* Idea Star Singer, a Malayalam music reality show by Asianet TV...
, and ends with a space plane landing at the moon to reveal earth's future lunar colonies. Plants and buildings are shown springing up and then being replaced by new growth in a constant cycle. In later shots, the effects team used an erosion algorithm to digitally simulate the Earth's landscape changing through the centuries.
For some of the lighting effects used for the digital time bubble around the time machine, ILM developed an extended-range color format, which they named rgbe (red, green blue, and an exponent channel) (See Paul E. Debevec and Jitendra Malik
Jitendra Malik
Jitendra Malik is a researcher in computer vision, the Arthur J. Chick Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley....
, "Recovering High Dynamic Range Radiance Maps from Photographs, Siggraph Proceedings, 1997).
The warning sirens
Civil defense siren
A civil defense siren is a mechanical or electronic device for generating sound to...
used during the moon destruction sequence were later used in the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (film)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 American fantasy-drama film directed by David Fincher. The screenplay by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord is loosely based on the 1922 short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald...
for Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
.
Soundtrack
A full score was written by Klaus BadeltKlaus Badelt
Klaus Badelt is an award-winning German composer, best known for composing film scores.-Life and career:Badelt was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He started his musical career composing for many successful movies and commercials in his homeland...
, with the recognizable theme being the track "I don't belong here", which was later used in the 2008 Discovery Channel Mini series "When We Left Earth".
Deleted scenes
- A scene was removed from the opening of the film, showing a practical experiment by Alexander Hartdegen explaining thermals; the scene led to a brief conversation between Hartdegen and the Dean of Columbia University. Evidence of the removed scene can be seen in cast members looking directly at the camera (originally intended to represent the point of view of the Dean) and a collection of coats left in Hartdegen's classroom. Part of the scene is also intact in the film's theatrical trailer.
- A scene that was scripted, but abandoned as it was considered inappropriate in light of the then recent events of September 11, 2001, was to have shown sections of the shattered moon crashing into the futuristic skyscrapers of 2037 New York City. This led to a 3 month delay of the film's theatrical release. The concept, however, of the moon breaking up was kept in, as well as one of the shots of the moon breaking up over Manhattan.
- The scenes of college life and of Hartdegen as a professor, which were cut from the film, were shot at Vassar CollegeVassar CollegeVassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
.
Continuity
In the beginning of the film when Alexander is writing on the chalkboard the math changes between shots.Critical reception
Many critics preferred the earlier film and the original novel, implying that the story lacked the heart of its previous conceptions. William Arnold of the Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
, who was somewhat positive about the film, writes that it lacks some of the simplicity and charm of the 1960 George Pal film by adding characters such as Jeremy Irons' "uber-morlock." However, he praised actor Guy Pearce's "more eccentric" time traveler and his transition from an awkward intellectual to a man of action. Victoria Alexander of Filmsinreview.com wrote that "The Time Machine is a loopy love story with good special effects but a storyline that's logically incomprehensible," noting some "plot holes" having to deal with Hartdegen and his machine's cause-and-effect relationship with the outcome of the future. Other critics claimed that the film had (or had the potential for) an interesting, valuable social commentary, and preferred the revised version of the story presented in the new film. In a slightly more negative light, Jay Carr of the Boston Globe writes: "The truth is that Wells wasn't that penetrating a writer when it came to probing character or the human heart. His speculations and gimmicks were what propelled his books. The film, given the chance to deepen its source, instead falls back on its gadgets."
Some critics praised the special effects, declaring the film visually impressive and colorful, while others thought the effects were poor. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
scorned the film, and found the Morlock animation cartoonish and unrealistic, due to their manner of leaping and running. However, Ebert notes the contrast in terms of the social/racial representation of the attractive Eloi between the two films... between the "dusky sun people" of this version and the Nordic race in the George Pal film. Aside from its vision of the future, the film's recreation of New York at the turn of the century won it some praise. Bruce Westbrook of the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
writes "The far future may be awesome to consider, but from period detail to matters of the heart, this film is most transporting when it stays put in the past."
The film received a 29% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 148 critic reviews.