Time Keeps on Slipping... Into the Past.

July 8, 2015 7:20 PM

May I present One Minute Time Machine. It is the best 5 minute and 40 second time travel romance film that will ever have been made.
posted by Mad_Carew (23 comments total)

Fun! Though I personally prefer our own 5 minute edit window time machine for getting things just right.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:30 PM on July 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Hmm. Without spoiling 1MTM, I suggest that the edit window may not be as harmless as you think...
posted by Mad_Carew at 7:31 PM on July 8, 2015 [6 favorites]

uh oh.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:38 PM on July 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

That was really cute.
posted by COD at 7:47 PM on July 8, 2015

See also: Sure Thing by David Ives, and of course, this one
posted by How the runs scored at 7:58 PM on July 8, 2015 [5 favorites]

And Take a Mulligan, based on "Sure Thing".
posted by spaceman_spiff at 8:00 PM on July 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Something about Love... "You don't want to work it out. You want to be fooled."
posted by an animate objects at 8:12 PM on July 8, 2015

Is it wrong that I just watched that 16 times?
posted by alpheus at 8:46 PM on July 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've always imagined this sort of time travel resulting in one copy going to the past while the original sits there looking stupid with his hand on the button. Slowly the realization sinks in that he has to live with the consequences of his actions.

Death may be a mercy.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:01 PM on July 8, 2015 [9 favorites]

I loved that.
posted by not that girl at 9:35 PM on July 8, 2015

More, more ...
posted by anadem at 9:56 PM on July 8, 2015

Nice.

And now I'm off to watch Groundhog Day.
posted by vignettist at 10:33 PM on July 8, 2015

A previous version of the machine.
posted by doop at 11:44 PM on July 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Brian Dietzen plays Palmer the assistant ME on NCIS. He misspeaks, and is essentially the same character there.
posted by Cranberry at 12:08 AM on July 9, 2015

Boy meets girl, with a twist :)
posted by pharm at 1:48 AM on July 9, 2015

Should have starred Hugh Jackman.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 3:46 AM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

One of my favorite movies (from the fragments I've seen to date) is About Time.
posted by MikeWarot at 3:59 AM on July 9, 2015

Why does the button presser die, but not everyone else in the old universe?
posted by ymgve at 4:10 AM on July 9, 2015

Because otherwise there wouldn't be a story. But if it has to be justified, the death occurs because the original universe continues on. The time traveller's consciousness travels back in time, which means that it is no longer in the original universe. Hence, the traveller's body in the original universe dies.

I suppose this implies that there are technically two deaths. The time traveller's consciousness evicts the consciousness of their former self. What happens to it? Does it survive in a discorporate state? There's a great story there if someone cares to write it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:51 AM on July 9, 2015

I try to be discrete and then blow it again...
posted by jefflowrey at 5:27 AM on July 9, 2015

I think it's more like Hilbert's Hotel. There's no actual time travel, just consciousnesses moving between the infinite multiverses, so when a consciousness from a minute along the light cone pops back, it evicts the previous consciousness, but everything just gets shuffled along one. The 'Dead Body' is just because someone's been shuffled in from elsewhere who happens to be asleep at the time. They'll wake up because of all the screaming, and because everyone involved will end up fully cognisant of everyone's motives and desires, there will an infinite amount of sex as a result. Which should result in a significant uptick in people taking physics degrees.

Who knew you could hire rooms in Hilbert's Hotel by the hour?
posted by Devonian at 5:36 AM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]

I loved that way more than I expected to - thank you!

And I second the recommendation above for "About Time" - it's really a sweet movie, unlike your typical saccharine romantic comedy.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:47 PM on July 10, 2015

(Damn it, I meant to add that I love Groundhog Day, of course, and it is taking a tremendous amount of willpower not to click on the Red Button and rewrite the comment above.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:49 PM on July 10, 2015