The Final Countdown

[Dogzero1 16]

The Final Countdown, a fantastic movie. Another thread inspired me to find this clip. It a great movie, if not a tad unbelievable and too far fetched..........I mean......how did that dog survive?

 

 

[Slartibartfast 153]

Who cares it was a great movie just take your brain out of the equation and just enjoy it...

[+Dave 2,319]

Loved that movie. Still do.

[FastCargo 412]

It was pretty cool to find out in the special features that I've flown with a couple of guys who did the flying scenes for that movie.

 

FC

[topcat II 6]

Cool movie indeed!!!

[Dogzero1 16]

Who cares it was a great movie just take your brain out of the equation and just enjoy it...

 

You mean the dog surviving was ok? Ho come on man.........

 

I actually think you need your brain in the equation to understand the ramifications of time travel.

 

I mean, think about it for a minute. The big boss of the company that built and designed the Nimitz knew that he must get it to go on exercise on that particular date and that particular area. He also knew that a younger version of himself was also needed to be on board (well he knew he would be on board becasue he was him) He also knew that he would get marroned ona desert island with a girl that would become his wife. So what if the big boss accidently killed his other young self before he could get on the Nimitz and get left behind in 1941? Would he cease to exist? What if the Nimitz captain decided to stay in 1941 and kick ten bells out of Germany and Japan and Russia?

 

The other paradox is this; it obviously keeps going around in circles because the date is 1980 when the Nimitz gets back but without the CAG, so that Cag is still on that desert island again? See what I mean. I think I need another drink.

[+Dave 2,319]

Its a fictional movie....who cares....

[JediMaster 451]

Time travel paradoxes are one reason why some scientists think time travel (backwards, that is) is impossible.

A separate school says paradoxes themselves are impossible because you will somehow always be prevented from changing things. The remake of the Time Machine, where he builds it to prevent his fiance's murder but instead witnesses her dying 100 different ways, is an example of this...since her death was the impetus for him to build the time machine, if she doesn't die he never devotes the time to create it, hence he can't go back and save her.

So try to kill your own grandfather and you would be unable to, maybe you can't find him, maybe you get killed yourself, whatever.

[Dogzero1 16]

Its a fictional movie....who cares....

 

What......it's fiction? You'll be telling me the Phillidelphia Experiment was fiction next.

[FastCargo 412]

Time travel paradoxes are one reason why some scientists think time travel (backwards, that is) is impossible.

A separate school says paradoxes themselves are impossible because you will somehow always be prevented from changing things. The remake of the Time Machine, where he builds it to prevent his fiance's murder but instead witnesses her dying 100 different ways, is an example of this...since her death was the impetus for him to build the time machine, if she doesn't die he never devotes the time to create it, hence he can't go back and save her.

So try to kill your own grandfather and you would be unable to, maybe you can't find him, maybe you get killed yourself, whatever.

 

It gets even more problematic with the law of unintended consequences. Suppose while you are stalking your grandfather, you bump into someone. The person is delayed enough that they miss their train. Their train derails...however, they weren't on it, and so they don't get killed as in the original history. Doesn't sound like much, unless they end up being pivotal in history later on through themselves or offspring...you don't really know. Even if time travel backward (forward is conceptually easy - one way) were ever possible, I don't think you would ever WANT to...at least in a physical, I could affect history, way. The lever of change would get HUGE the farther back you go. Read Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" for a conceptual example.

 

FC

[SayethWhaaaa 245]

Time travel paradoxes are one reason why some scientists think time travel (backwards, that is) is impossible.

A separate school says paradoxes themselves are impossible because you will somehow always be prevented from changing things. The remake of the Time Machine, where he builds it to prevent his fiance's murder but instead witnesses her dying 100 different ways, is an example of this...since her death was the impetus for him to build the time machine, if she doesn't die he never devotes the time to create it, hence he can't go back and save her.

So try to kill your own grandfather and you would be unable to, maybe you can't find him, maybe you get killed yourself, whatever.

 

It gets even more problematic with the law of unintended consequences. Suppose while you are stalking your grandfather, you bump into someone. The person is delayed enough that they miss their train. Their train derails...however, they weren't on it, and so they don't get killed as in the original history. Doesn't sound like much, unless they end up being pivotal in history later on through themselves or offspring...you don't really know. Even if time travel backward (forward is conceptually easy - one way) were ever possible, I don't think you would ever WANT to...at least in a physical, I could affect history, way. The lever of change would get HUGE the farther back you go. Read Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" for a conceptual example.

 

FC

 

All of this assumes that there is only one time line and that it's linear. From the POV of Multiverse theory, any changes made would simply branch from that originating time line into a new one.

[FastCargo 412]

I was thinking that as well (the multiverse scenario of time travel).

 

Of course, there's a version of me who was drinking beer instead...

 

FC

[Slartibartfast 153]

When they did time travel at school I was down the pub seemed a better idea at the time...

 

Either that or I was reading Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy...

Edited January 11, 2010 by Slartibartfast

[Rambler 1-1 9]

I enjoyed that movie. It was just plain old fun to watch. And it had TOMCATS fighting ZEROES! That just blew my mind.

 

"Where does Nimitz get off naming a ship after himself?"

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

I really enjoy an excellent Japanese manga serie called "Zipang", which follows nearly the same line, but in a very different optic. The serie is forecasted to include some 41 books, I've read it until N° 22 or 23 yet. A modern Japanese destroyer (this decade), the Mirai (=Future!), equipped with Aegis system, Harpoons, and some other ultra-modern technologies, is on her way to Pearl Harbour when a magnetic storm sends her back to... June 4, 1942, near Midway ! Volume 23 is about mid-1943.

 

While this story is clearly inspired from "The final countdown", I find it much more interesting. Unlike the powerful, overconfident, somehow arrogant US Navy (We have the power, we therefore have the right), the Japanese Jieitai is clearly oriented towards non-intervention. It's a force of self-defense only, tied by the 1946 Japanese Constitution, and totally prohibited to do anything without an order from the civilian chain of command. All of the officers and seamen were hardly trained in this way of thinking. It involves severe matters of conscience. The difference is also tangible between the 1940s Japs, tough and obedient, and the modern Japanese, educated to think by themselves, fond of democracy (with internal debates even leading to mutiny), welfare, and respect of life. But when meeting, both deeply feel to be the same Japanese people, whereas the American touch the modern Japanese display disturbs their ancestors.

 

When forced to defend herself, or later engaging alongside the Imperial Japanese Navy (under first harsh, then more lenient conditions), the ship comes to sink the carrier USS Wasp, then the battleship USS North Carolina, using Harpoons. It's also amazing to see how easy the way such a modern ship can reduce to burning dust an entire carrier air wing fool enough to attack her, by ripple-firing missiles and radar-pointing Gatling guns. By volume 23, some ten of her crewmen have lost their lives.

 

Of course, the long presence of this alien ship contributes to change history. A third party man, then group, tries to take advantage of what he has learnt about the future by visiting the Mirai's archives, to build an alternate future ("Zipang" is the name Marco Polo gave to a dreamed, mythical Japan - not the Fascist Empire of their time, neither the Americanized Japan of the forecasted future). Their acts involve Emperor Pu-Yi's assassination, Hitler's attempt of assassination (failed), and especially, an attempt to build a secret A-Bomb before the States and have it detonate in New York (from the idea that the country who shall be the first to develop the Bomb should also be the first to experience the nuclear fire, to never be tempted to use it against someone else).

 

An excellent reading, my advice is. To read after watching "The final countdown", for example.

[MAKO69 186]

It was pretty cool to find out in the special features that I've flown with a couple of guys who did the flying scenes for that movie.

 

FC

 

 

Dude your dating yourself.

[MAKO69 186]

It gets even more problematic with the law of unintended consequences. Suppose while you are stalking your grandfather, you bump into someone. The person is delayed enough that they miss their train. Their train derails...however, they weren't on it, and so they don't get killed as in the original history. Doesn't sound like much, unless they end up being pivotal in history later on through themselves or offspring...you don't really know. Even if time travel backward (forward is conceptually easy - one way) were ever possible, I don't think you would ever WANT to...at least in a physical, I could affect history, way. The lever of change would get HUGE the farther back you go. Read Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" for a conceptual example.

 

FC

 

One of the Simpson's episode deals with time travel, probably one of the funniest. Raining donuts and the family has lizard toungues at the end Homer says "Close enough".

[Silverbolt 104]

I'm with Capitaine Vengeur....Zipang is awesome.

 

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Edited January 12, 2010 by Silverbolt

[JediMaster 451]

It gets even more problematic with the law of unintended consequences. Suppose while you are stalking your grandfather, you bump into someone. The person is delayed enough that they miss their train. Their train derails...however, they weren't on it, and so they don't get killed as in the original history. Doesn't sound like much, unless they end up being pivotal in history later on through themselves or offspring...you don't really know.

FC

 

Ah yes, ST:TOS "City on the Edge of Forever." McCoy prevents a woman from dying, her peace movement delays US entry into WWII, which rages on for over 2 decades, eventually changing the future enough that the Federation isn't formed. Kirk and Spock go back to get McCoy and make sure the woman dies...even though Kirk falls in love her.

[+Dave 2,319]

Ah yes, ST:TOS "City on the Edge of Forever." McCoy prevents a woman from dying, her peace movement delays US entry into WWII, which rages on for over 2 decades, eventually changing the future enough that the Federation isn't formed. Kirk and Spock go back to get McCoy and make sure the woman dies...even though Kirk falls in love her.

 

Good point.

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

It gets even more problematic with the law of unintended consequences. Suppose while you are stalking your grandfather, you bump into someone. The person is delayed enough that they miss their train. Their train derails...however, they weren't on it, and so they don't get killed as in the original history. Doesn't sound like much, unless they end up being pivotal in history later on through themselves or offspring...you don't really know. Even if time travel backward (forward is conceptually easy - one way) were ever possible, I don't think you would ever WANT to...at least in a physical, I could affect history, way. The lever of change would get HUGE the farther back you go. Read Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" for a conceptual example.

 

FC

 

 

There's a French Comics outstanding and popular enough to have been edited in English by Marvel (rare enough for a Euro Comics): "UW1 - Universal War One". It deals with time dilation, time and space travels, multiverses, theory of wormholes... The instant time and space travels is made possible by creating a vortex, by overdriving anti-gravitational modules (first accidentally, then in a planified mode). All of the schools of thinking about time travel and time paradox are successively explored, then refuted by the desoriented characters, following their experiences. The conclusion is in an often quoted sentence: "The present is the sum of all the time travels that have taken place, or that will take place."

[JediMaster 451]

BTW, to return to the original start of the thread, the shot down Japanese pilot was played by a Korean actor, as often happens in Hollywood. Soon Tek Oh has also been in many other things over the years, including playing an alien on Babylon 5 (the Mutai!), a Mongolian in Stargate SG-1, a Chinese cop in Man with the Golden Gun, and a North Vietnamese general in a few episodes of Magnum P.I.