By Owen Quinn author
II’ve always had a thing for Victorian London and its mysteries. It almost seems like a nexus in time where anything could happen. It was a double world, one of elegance yet beneath its surface, something dark and evil was lurking.
That is why when I created the Time Warriors, I had to have one of my adventures in Victorian London with all the trimmings. Hence The Time Warriors: he Volaox Horror was born and available now in paperback and kindle on Amazon. How could you resist? Jack the Ripper, the Time Machine, Time After time, Whitechapel and more, all spawned from this time and place that intrigues us so much.
So, when I first saw the movie the Time Machine, based on HG Wells book (you know he got all his ideas from the sixth Doctor in Timelash, don’t you?), I was hooked.
I would time travel in a heartbeat. Who wouldn’t want to see how the world looks years from now? In Rod Taylor’s character of George is man born in the wrong time. I have felt like that too. he hates the time he lives in because science is designing new weapons to help kill people faster. he believes that the world will be better in the future. he has faith that man will grow and bring about a world less savage than Victorian London. For those of us with no time machine, we can only hope a better world comes through in or children and descendants. George has the time machine so he can go whenever he wants and find a time that cements all his hopes and dreams. His friend Filby begs he destroy the machine before it destroys him. But George takes his fateful trip and what he finds destroys his faith.
This is a movie with deep themes. Would you travel in time if you got the chance? Should we do it even if we had that chance? Will man evolve and change the world to a paradise or will human nature simply roll on in cycles until he destroys the world he lives in. If you can’t settle in your own time, can you truly be content in another? What is man at its very core? The first thing I recall was how beautiful the time machine looked. It was no Tardis but a very simple concept. You simply sat in it and behind you the great wheel would rotate as you worked the brass and wooden controls. It stills stands as a favourite today even appearing in Gremlins.
The second thing that got me about this movie was the stop motion effects of George being able to see history change before his very eyes as he moved through time. He saw fashions change in shop window, vegetation grow and wither, cities expand watch snails race by like racehorses and flowers closing their eyes for the night. The faster he goes, the more things speed up and melt before him. The visuals are excellent and still stand as a beautiful example of visualising time travel, allowing the audience to travel with George. Not even Doctor Who has done that.
But he soon sees his idea of paradise is sadly wrecked as he encounters war. Man has not learned to stop killing; he has learned how to do it on a massive scale in more and more inventive ways. This is seen when he stops is 1917 and sees for himself the bombs falling in the Second World War. A nice touch is that George sees it all from his cellar. He is sitting in one space and the world is revolving about him. He meets Filby’s son and learns his dear friend was killed in the war. George’s legacy is that he is a mystery, a disappearance left to rumour of ghosts. That is a lovely touch of meeting those you knew and their descendants. This is cemented when he meets Filby from 1927 again as an old man. isn’t that a dangerous thing to know? I included that in the Time Warriors in the character of Varran. He is afraid of knowing what is to come and refuses to travel into the future.
He sees the labour of centuries gone in an instant TO atomic bombs. Mother Nature releases volcanos burning what is left of civilisation. Again, the effects here are stunning with the time machine barely escaping as lava flows. So, when George ends up in the same place thousands of years later, he finds what he hopes is his paradise.
The world has started anew and there are two tribes now. The simplistic, gentle Eloi and below the ground the animalistic Morlocks. Again, beautiful effects as he watches nature reclaim the Earth. He finds a Spinx like statue which is the entrance to the Morlock world, hinting some sort of civilised being at least, sculpted it.
The Morlocks terrified me as a kid and their design is simplistically effective to this day. Their dragging Eloi down into their underground world freaked me out. Somehow, they were human once so what happened to make them regress like this while the Eloi did not? He soon discovers that at the end of a great war, humanity decided to split. The Morlocks went underground and had a sort of industrialised primitive society. The Eloi were their flock to rear and take on reaching a certain age. Using an air raid siren, the Eloi are somehow possessed, maybe posthypnotic, and are summoned to the entrance of the Morlock lair. There some are taken while the rest return to their great building.
While exploring the ruins of a building where he finds tables with plates and cutlery, George would have made a good Doctor. His excitement and quick disappointment at seeing what man has become is very human. Indeed, his costume is something the Doctor would wear; elegant, practical and classic.
But the Eloi being even more questions as they sit by while one of their own, Weena (Yvette Mimieux) almost drowns. They are simplistic, play in the sun and eat the food from the land. Nor do they display any interest in who George is and why he is so different. They cannot write nor spell and knowledge is of no interest to them. There is no government or leadership. There is no law, nothing. They simply exist but as a species does not evolve or progress. They are literally a blank slate that could be shaped into anything. Or a flock that can picked off one at a time to feed the Morlocks. George is furious that books have been left to crumble to dust and mankind is at a standstill. Especially since they don’t even know what fire is.
I always remember how scared I was when George discovers his time machine has gone. Something about being stranded with no means home always unnerved me whether because of a childhood incident or not, I can’t say. But the notion terrified me. But of course, that is stories for you. The Morlocks have taken it into their world forcing George to stand and fight, not only for himself it seems but for the Eloi too, even if they are useless like living vegetables.
Given that the monstrous looking Morlocks give the humans their food and clothes, I can’t help but wonder, does George have a god complex as he sees himself as someone who can lead the Eloi into a new future where they can be human again. He takes three books with him when he returns to the future but we never know what they are. In the end, George cannot find his paradise anywhere in time, so decides to make it along with the Eloi. George is very much the saviour figure as he alone dares to enter the Morlock world and save the taken Eloi.
The taken Eloi are eaten by the Morlocks who, despite their industrialisation, degenerated into cannibals. It is only Weena’s bravery at leaving the great building at night to warn George of the threat of the Morlocks that gives George hope that they can be led to a better future. Indeed, in the battle with the Morlocks when it seems George will die under their hand, an Eloi strikes a Morlock with his fist, saving George. God cleanses by fire so when George encourages the Eloi to throw dead wood into the burning Morlock kingdom, he saves them from not only that threat but shows them they can forge ahead under their own steam. Taking away the Morlocks ensures that the Eloi have to fend for themselves. And maybe George sees that the cycle will begin again. But if he stays then he could help shape that future and stop history repeating itself.
The Time Machine is a classic that left an indelible impact on me as a kid. It is rich in themes that are generational but also make us wonder, is man doomed to repeat self destruction time and again, no matter what history teaches us? Maybe for George, it isn’t a god complex that drives him but the hope that man can finally rise above war and create paradise at last. And who better to do that than the man who has seen it happen time and again for himself. In the end, George wants to deliver the peace we all deserve.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 