Most of what I wrote on Friday has followup news today, but there’s not much that’s new. I have been running pretty solidly since Friday, and was late to more than one engagement, but everything that needed to be done was done–some of it a bit less than smoothly.
The person I brought here Friday night for today’s meeting has tentatively decided to stay the night and return tomorrow, which saves me some driving since I have to make half the journey anyway, to get my mother-in-law to the store yet again. That complicates tomorrow’s work, but it simplifies tonight immensely.
Tonight I have to launch the new study in I Corinthians, but otherwise I’m in the winding down phase of the day.
On a subject that has not been mentioned for a while, I’ve suddenly got a stack of stuff for the Temporal Anomalies site. I have been struggling with Primer–a movie that I have thus far found very nearly unwatchable for how slowly it moves, although this might in part be because I’m always starting it sometime around midnight. I also have a copy of Lakehouse, provided at the same time by the same reader. Today I was handed two more films, Next with Nicholas Cage and Premonition with Sandra Bullock. I’m not certain whether either actually is a time travel movie, but one way or another I’ll watch them and reach some conclusion.
Speaking of conclusions, I’m hoping to reach one early tonight–that is, of my work for the day. I’ve a long drive tomorrow on top of a lot of work that normally hits on Monday, so I’d like an early night and an early start in the morning. Maybe I can get that.
–M. J. Young
October 15th, 2007 at 2:33 am
Mr. Young,
I got a copy of The Next Mimzy, and with your permission, I’d like to try to write that time-travel analysis of it. I’ve seen Primer. No, the movie drags. It has nothing to do with you watching it late. I have also seen Lake House, it’s sort of like Frequency, except it is letters instead of Ham radio calls. I think it ends in a huge infinity loop, but I could be mistaken.
Next and Premonition probably belong in the “Other movies” section. Neither of them is time travel in the sense that you conceive it. Next is about a man who can see 2 minutes into the future, and Premonition has Sandra Bullock bouncing around different days of a 2 week period. It does kind of include the Uncaused Cause, since the disaster she is trying to prevent is only caused by her intervention to stop it. I think you should put those 2 in the “Other Movies” section if you do anything with them at all. Just my two cents.
John “A1nut”
October 15th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
John, I would love to read your analysis of The Next Mimzy. I’ve not seen the movie, but you did an excellent job with http://www.mjyoung.net/time/countdow.html The Final Countdown, and I have confidence in your insight here. Of course, I’ll probably question you to death over it once I see the draft, but you know that already.
What you describe of Next and Premonition both suggest time travel–the former, that information is traveling from the future to the present (unless it winds up being like Minority Report, a “most probable future” scenario which is easily changed), the latter involving someone moving between points in time in a convoluted fashion that is going to require careful attention to detail. If Lake House is like Frequency (and I think it is from what I’ve been told) then it, too, is about the transfer of information from the future to the past, and will set up its own anomalies. However, at the moment I’m committed to doing Primer, and it’s taking me a lot of time to actually watch the whole film once, so it will be a while before I get anything else done there.
Thanks for tackling Mimzy.
–M. J. Young
October 15th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Actually, it’s The Last Mimzy. It was really late when I wrote that, and that was a typo.
Next is like Minority Report. He can change the future based on his knowledge of it. In one scene, he is being shot at, and you see his sight of it. If he steps to the left, he gets shot, so he steps to the right instead. If he goes forward, he get shot, so he goes differently instead. Really cool scene.