#274. The Time Travel Sequel

As a writer, I have been told flashbacks should be used sparingly to advance the plot. But what if the entire plot of your story is a flashback? What if your story is a prequel to your original material? The jury is still out on whether or not the “prequel” is the right way to go about establishing the foundational concepts for the first part of a story, but what if the next part of the franchise isn’t as much a prequel as it is a “time travel sequel?” Obviously, these time travel sequels will most often be part of a science fiction franchise that could allow for time travel in the first place. Still, in these cases, there is character development that builds upon the previous films but also explores the origins of the stories themselves. This week’s two films highlight the effectiveness of a “time travel sequel.”

                                                   Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Year: 1986
Rating: PG
Length: 119 minutes / 1.98 hours

Obviously, the franchises that revolve around time travel will have time travel sequels. The clearest example of this would be Back to the Future Part III (1990). A lot can change in 100 years, and this film merely hammers home the point (which it does in the previous two parts as well) that the timeline of history can be changed. But what if your story is based in the distant future? For the characters who live in the 23^rd century, going back in time by 300 years would essentially place them in the timeframe where we currently live. While we couldn’t know the impacts on the future that these 23^rd-century characters might make to their timeline, the more interesting element to this scenario (as it is in any time travel sequel) is to see the differences between two drastically different eras.

What do you do when a mysterious probe is causing electrical disturbances throughout the universe? If you’re the crew of the USS Enterprise, you identify that the signal the probe is sending out is identical to the call of an extinct animal. Of course, with the animal needed to stop the probe having been completely eradicated, the only option is to travel back in time to retrieve one of them while they were still alive. For the crew of the Enterprise, this animal was the humpback whale, thus prompting them to travel back to 1986 and retrieve a few of them from San Francisco. Of course, going back 300 years had its challenges, but now modifying the spaceship to take the humpback whales into the future is its own challenge. Finally victorious, the crew returns to the future to answer the call of the probe, causing it to cease its destructive march across the universe.

Men in Black 3
Year: 2012
Rating: PG-13
Length: 106 minutes / 1.76 hours

Sometimes, time travel sequels can be done in a flashback context. For instance, The Godfather: Part II (1974) is both a prequel and a sequel to The Godfather (1972), splitting half it’s time developing the story of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in the late 1950s while also paralleling it with the rise of his father, Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro), during the turn of the 20^th century. In a similar vein, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) switches between an apocalyptic and dystopian future and the events in the 1970s that eventually led to this bleak timeline. Perhaps this is what makes a time travel sequel different from a flashback sequel (like The Godfather: Part II): a time travel sequel attempts to change something or collect something in the past to help save the future. This is certainly the case in the third installment of the Men in Black franchise: Men in Black 3 (2012).

Escaping from his prison on the moon, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) sets out to take revenge on the agent who sent him there: Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) of the Men in Black. Because the events that led to his capture also prevented his species from invading Earth, Boris travels back in time to eliminate the younger K. K’s partner, Agent J (Will Smith), is now the only one who recognizes that something is amiss. He doesn’t understand why everyone has forgotten about K, which leads Agent O (Emma Thompson) to deduce that the timeline has changed. Traveling back to 1969, J teams up with the younger K (Josh Brolin) to stop both past and future Boris from enacting his plan. Not only does J have to prevent K from being killed, but he now has to attach a defense system to Apollo 11 that will protect Earth for decades to come.

2 sum it up: 2 films, 2 retro sequels

#273. Star Trek

One of the most defining television series of all time, Star Trek revolutionized science fiction on the small screen. While the original series has spawned several follow-on series, very few of them have been able to capitalize on the popularity of the crew like the group that appeared in the late 1960s. In fact, aside from a handful of films based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, practically all of Star Trek’s 13 movies are based on the original crew. After a film reboot (and two sequels) that angered many “Trekkies” due to its blasé attitude toward the source material canon, time will tell if the newfound popularity of Star Trek amongst non-Trekkies will carry on through the new television series that began this year. Still, Star Trek’s presence on the big screen is notable. This week’s two films highlight some of the gems of the Star Trek films.

                                                  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Year: 1982
Rating: PG
Length: 113 minutes / 1.88 hours

While today’s Hollywood will jump at an opportunity to adapt a television show into a major motion picture, this wasn’t always the case. One of the unique elements of the Star Trek films is the fact that the original cast from the TV show reprised their roles on the big screen. This was even though the show ended 10 years before the first film in the series. Appearing three years after its original, The Wrath of Khan proves to be a much better film due to a much-needed antagonist, which was missing from the first movie. In Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), most of the movie is spent watching the USS Enterprise panning across far-out space scenes and the reactions of the crew as they sit there and wait to find an abandoned satellite that was sending out menacing signals. A similar plot to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) was used for the reboot sequel, Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013).

What started as an episode entitled “Space Seed” 15 years prior, The Wrath of Khan sees the exiled villain, Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán), enacting his revenge on now-Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Khan infiltrates Starfleet via some mind-control creatures and is able to commandeer the USS Reliant, which he uses to attack the space station, Regula I. In doing so, he hopes to gain control of the “Genesis Device,” which he plans to use for his own, nefarious purposes. Receiving a distress signal from Regula I, the Enterprise comes to the rescue but falls into the Reliant’s ambush. While Kirk excels in space battles and cripples the Reliant, the Enterprise has been severely damaged and cannot escape. With Captain Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) sacrifice, the Enterprise is restored and able to get away.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Year: 1986
Rating: PG
Length: 119 minutes / 1.98 hours

It has been noted that, of the many Star Trek films, the “even” ones are the best. Perhaps the reason for this is because the second and fourth films are the bookends of the first “trilogy” in the Star Trek film franchise. After The Wrath of Khan, its direct sequel, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), carried on the storyline that reunited the crew after the tragic loss of one of its key members. What is also notable about the third and fourth films is that they were directed by none other than Leonard Nimoy (who portrays Spock in the television series and films). Perhaps it is this close tie to the source material that helped make Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) an entertaining film. In fact, of all the Star Trek films, The Voyage Home is perhaps the most comedic, as it shows the contrast between our world and the world of the future.

On their way back to Earth to face punishment for destroying the USS Enterprise, the crew of the former starship receives a distress signal from Starfleet warning them to not come to Earth because an unknown probe has been wreaking havoc nearby. The now-resurrected Spock (Leonard Nimoy) recognizes the sound of the probe as the call of the now-extinct humpback whale. Using their commandeered Klingon ship, the crew slingshots around the sun to travel back in time to 1984. Landing in San Francisco, the members of the crew break into smaller groups to repair the ship, obtain some humpback whales, and outfit the vessel to carry them to the future. Eventually, each group succeeds but not without a few comedic, cultural shocks along the way. Repeating the slingshot around the sun, the crew returns to the future and saves the Earth from the probe, now that its call has been answered.

2 sum it up: 2 films, 2 travels through the stars