Future Man - A Discussion. Part 1: Time-Travel Rules
Okay, I'll acknowledge that Future Man, a new show 'from the minds behind Sausage Party', is no masterpiece. However, I did enjoy it, as evidenced by me watching the whole thing in a week, and it had moments of laugh out loud humour. As of the time of writing, it hasn't yet been commissioned for a second season, but I am hoping they give the green light.
This blog isn't going to be a review. You'll find plenty of those on the net. Instead I'm going to focus on one of the show's strong points - it being a love letter to all things sci-fi, and in particular time-travel. The first part of the blog is going to explore the time-travel aspect of the show, in particular its rules and what that means to the story.
Warning - this blog will contain minor spoilers but I'll do my best to steers clear of major plot points.
The Rules
Every story about time-travel needs to have a set of rules, which remain consistent, even if it throws up paradox after paradox. For instance, 12 Monkeys had a past that couldn't be changed (although some argue it has multiple universes), while Back to the Future had the possibility of multiple timelines. Future Man is very much in the BTTF mold and there are a number of cues that indicate as much (including musical cues, taken straight out of BTTF). Josh and the gang change time pretty much every time they jump, although only significant actions have significant consequences.
The Times They Are a-Changin'
The big problem multiple-time line stories have is that they need to be selective with the consequences. Logically, every minor interaction between a time-traveler and anything from the past is going to have an affect on the future. Think about Marty in BTTF: the moment he gets hit by that car he's changed things. From that point on, what are the chances of his parents conceiving him when they do? A fraction out (maybe one thrust more...) and it's not him that's born. So to get around that, you need some artistic licence and so you build a world, like Future Man does, where only major actions have any consequence. Josh leaves his iPhone in the past and this leads to BlackApple, not Apple being the manufacturer. Similarly, like in Hot Tub Time Machine (which also shares the same rules), Google ends up being something similar but the creation of someone else.
The BlackApple Paradox
And now we come to possibly the biggest issue faced by flexible time-line narratives: the paradox. How could Josh have dropped an Apple iPhone if it never existed (or only existed as a BlackApple product)? Why does Josh exist if he changed the way his parents met? There are only two explanations in my mind:
The Multi-verse
This theory is demonstrated when Josh travels back to his present late in the first season, only to discover there's another copy of him. Spoiler-alert, this is the universe in which he lives out the rest of his life (assuming no second season is green-lit). This tells us that every time Josh changes something in the past, he creates a new time line. However, his original timeline still exists. This is never explicitly explained in the show, just as it isn't in BTTF, but Josh does talk about how difficult it would be to live the life of someone who wasn't you. In movies like BTTF, Hot Tub Time Machine, and The Butterfly Effect, the protagonist travels back to his present to discover everyone has changed but himself. What happened to the protagonist that lived in this universe? Did our Marty's consciousness take over black-truck owning Marty's consciousness? As far as I can recollect, Future Man is the only light-hearted story that explores the morality of that.
The Will of the Fates
This can be separate from the above theory or work alongside it. From the off, we are told this story is about fate. Although it becomes clear early on that Josh isn't the soldier that's going to help free their people, Tiger and Wolf soon realise he's fated to help them, as he works for the man that created the vaccine that led to... whatever their enemies were supposed to be (still don't really get it). In addition, we then see that all actions to change the past still end up with the creation of the vaccine. No matter what the heroes do, the future always ends up the same. On the last occasion, the changes they make actually speed up events. All of this leads us to fate, as though time itself is an entity that makes sure events happen the way it intended. Perhaps one of the most popular examples of this in media is in the Final Destination moves. The Reaper, or fate, goes out of it's way to make sure things happen as intended.
Maybe it's this that allows Paradoxes to happen. Josh was always meant to be born, so as long as he doesn't go back and kill his grandfather, he'll still be born. That raises further questions like, would fate allow you to kill your grandfather? Maybe you could but each time you did, that timeline disappeared, leaving only the time lines where you don't make life-changing choices... It's a shame this concept hasn't been explored in more time-travel movies as it would go part of the way to explain plot-holes.
Part Two
In part two I'll look at the characters to explore why they are the way they are and why they do the things they do. I'll also explore minor plot points in an effort to explain why you see them time and time again in time-travel stories.
This blog isn't going to be a review. You'll find plenty of those on the net. Instead I'm going to focus on one of the show's strong points - it being a love letter to all things sci-fi, and in particular time-travel. The first part of the blog is going to explore the time-travel aspect of the show, in particular its rules and what that means to the story.
Warning - this blog will contain minor spoilers but I'll do my best to steers clear of major plot points.
The Rules
Every story about time-travel needs to have a set of rules, which remain consistent, even if it throws up paradox after paradox. For instance, 12 Monkeys had a past that couldn't be changed (although some argue it has multiple universes), while Back to the Future had the possibility of multiple timelines. Future Man is very much in the BTTF mold and there are a number of cues that indicate as much (including musical cues, taken straight out of BTTF). Josh and the gang change time pretty much every time they jump, although only significant actions have significant consequences.
The Times They Are a-Changin'
The big problem multiple-time line stories have is that they need to be selective with the consequences. Logically, every minor interaction between a time-traveler and anything from the past is going to have an affect on the future. Think about Marty in BTTF: the moment he gets hit by that car he's changed things. From that point on, what are the chances of his parents conceiving him when they do? A fraction out (maybe one thrust more...) and it's not him that's born. So to get around that, you need some artistic licence and so you build a world, like Future Man does, where only major actions have any consequence. Josh leaves his iPhone in the past and this leads to BlackApple, not Apple being the manufacturer. Similarly, like in Hot Tub Time Machine (which also shares the same rules), Google ends up being something similar but the creation of someone else.
The BlackApple Paradox
And now we come to possibly the biggest issue faced by flexible time-line narratives: the paradox. How could Josh have dropped an Apple iPhone if it never existed (or only existed as a BlackApple product)? Why does Josh exist if he changed the way his parents met? There are only two explanations in my mind:
The Multi-verse
This theory is demonstrated when Josh travels back to his present late in the first season, only to discover there's another copy of him. Spoiler-alert, this is the universe in which he lives out the rest of his life (assuming no second season is green-lit). This tells us that every time Josh changes something in the past, he creates a new time line. However, his original timeline still exists. This is never explicitly explained in the show, just as it isn't in BTTF, but Josh does talk about how difficult it would be to live the life of someone who wasn't you. In movies like BTTF, Hot Tub Time Machine, and The Butterfly Effect, the protagonist travels back to his present to discover everyone has changed but himself. What happened to the protagonist that lived in this universe? Did our Marty's consciousness take over black-truck owning Marty's consciousness? As far as I can recollect, Future Man is the only light-hearted story that explores the morality of that.
The Will of the Fates
This can be separate from the above theory or work alongside it. From the off, we are told this story is about fate. Although it becomes clear early on that Josh isn't the soldier that's going to help free their people, Tiger and Wolf soon realise he's fated to help them, as he works for the man that created the vaccine that led to... whatever their enemies were supposed to be (still don't really get it). In addition, we then see that all actions to change the past still end up with the creation of the vaccine. No matter what the heroes do, the future always ends up the same. On the last occasion, the changes they make actually speed up events. All of this leads us to fate, as though time itself is an entity that makes sure events happen the way it intended. Perhaps one of the most popular examples of this in media is in the Final Destination moves. The Reaper, or fate, goes out of it's way to make sure things happen as intended.
Maybe it's this that allows Paradoxes to happen. Josh was always meant to be born, so as long as he doesn't go back and kill his grandfather, he'll still be born. That raises further questions like, would fate allow you to kill your grandfather? Maybe you could but each time you did, that timeline disappeared, leaving only the time lines where you don't make life-changing choices... It's a shame this concept hasn't been explored in more time-travel movies as it would go part of the way to explain plot-holes.
Part Two
In part two I'll look at the characters to explore why they are the way they are and why they do the things they do. I'll also explore minor plot points in an effort to explain why you see them time and time again in time-travel stories.
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