Why we time travel

You have heard the legend before. The brilliant mechanic, the wanderlust dreamer or the unsuspecting explorer climbs into an apparatus and suddenly finds himself in a world where no living person has ever been: the world of the long-gone past or the world of the future. Dinosaurs may thump by the traveler or sleek cars may whiz through the smog-filled air. But in any of these peculiar expeditions, there is no question that time is bent in radical ways.

Ask anyone and they will tell you that time is a finicky concept. It is invisible, passing without consequence or notice, except in the instances when you urge time to move quickly. And though it is measured in highly specific increments, (seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks), it is remembered by events.

Yes, time is one of the most interesting but ambiguous forces we as humans encounter on a daily basis. And perhaps it is because of this ambiguity that authors, screenwriters and storytellers of all stripes are fixated on creating narratives about time alteration. Why then are authors continuously motivated to make these stories? And why do we as consumers continue to absorb them?

As humans we are constantly mesmerized by what we don’t understand. Just as the western United States captivated explorers Louis and Clark, time exploration is a fantasy shared by many. This fantasy has been immortalized in literature, sitcoms, music and of course, films, in countless ways.

Some critics say that all stories are recycled due to a lack of creativity from the people producing them. In cinema, this theory carries some validity. Just as trends are carried in fashion, movie genres weave in and out of style. Remember when every trailer involved some kind of superhero? And currently there is no denying that vampire stories are at the tail end of a long run. It is possible that films about time travel are simply going through a phase; they’re a flavor of the week to capitalize on popular story topics. But without a doubt, there is another reason why time travel films continue to reoccur in our entertainment media.

It was Frank Borman, NASA astronaut and engineer of the Apollo 8 mission, who said “Exploration is really the essence of human spirit.” In other words, people have an innate sense, an instinct, to research and ultimately discover the indefinite.

As far as we know, time travel is currently infeasible. And it is this impossibility that draws us to stories such as Ray Bradbury’s “The Sound of Thunder,” Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” “Back to the Future” and most recently, “Hot Tub Time Machine.” Through these tales, we can at the very least capture a glimpse of how time travel might work, and dream of a future where we have the power to re-organize the passage of time.