Screenwriting : Time Travel by Jerel Damon

Time Car - A young man gets a car that travels back in time.

Time Bicycle - A young girl gets a magical bicycle. Yes, it's true!!

Here you go!

“Okay,” roared Jules above the clattering and whirling noise of the machinery gyrating on the floor in front of him, “you’re going home in this reconditioned bathtub!”

He thumped the wheezing machinery with a length of metal piping, and followed this up with a hefty kick. “The barber’s chair went back to Jeremiah earlier in the week.”

Tarquin looked at the rusting, Victorian scroll-top tub in front of him, and gingerly stepped in. He clutched his knapsack to his chest, pulled his baseball cap firmly onto his head, put the tails of his frock coat into his lap, and settled down. He peered over the rim of the bath like a nervous bobsleigh rider on his first Cresta run.

“I’ve entered the coordinates for Cretins’ Copse.” Jules put a pair of Look-Sees over his eyes. “Jump arrival area clear!”

He gave an exaggerated thumbs-up and pushed several levers back and forth, apparently at random. “You’ll arrive back a few seconds after you left.”

Jules came across to the tub and gave it another good kick. Feeling like the clapper in a church bell, Tarquin gripped the sides.

“Not to worry,” said Jules, patting the iron bath affectionately[…]”

Excerpt From: Peter Ford. “Tarquin Jenkins and the Book of Dreams.” Apple Books.

Not sure how you re-invent the time travel genre. You can certainly have a different take. For example the new show LA BREA has people fall through a sinkhole and land in the same spot in L.A., but 10,000 years in the past. There are tons of different takes that you could easily make your own with a twist like LOOPER.

Riding my - ehh - overgrown lizard-- back to the future.

Tittle: REXY IN A BOTTLE

A young, lonely,bullied boy buys a magical lizard in a bottle.

The shopholder says "the adorable creature" is called "Rexy".

Back home, when he pets it 'three times' they both transport back to prehistoric times -- where the lizard transforms to his original form, and becomes a Thesaurus Rex.

Freed from his chackles, ehh,,,bottle, Rexy grands the boy three wishes.

The boy doesn't choose wise:

(1) "A" you "take "US" back to my own time."

(2) Give me world domination.

And "should you even ask THREE"?" -- Rexy.wants to know.

"It will come to me', the boy answers.

In his own tine line, it slowly hits the lad what it means to have the "wrong" friends when he looks at the BLOODY MASSACRE the world has become.

The boy tries to save his loving family to no avail. Finally he finds out he can only save his beloved ones while holding on to Rexy and making his LAST WISH: "Get back into your f***ing bottle -- NOW!!"

But Rexy doesn't want to be pet anymore!!

I think the biggest issue is the “why?” Marty in BTTF is “tricked” into going. Looper you’re not supposed to but if you do there are people to bring you back. Anything in space it’s usually indirect. Other films it’s a backstory plot point like Terminator. I have mulled it over but the “why” does my character need to go is where I stall out. We only want to go out of curiosity there’s no need for any human to go back in time. I don’t want my story to be abstract. Yet I don’t want the characters running around constantly contrasting the past and the present (cue the Gen Z character baffled at a VCR-phone booths-or late 80’s pc’s) BTTF pretty much nailed that coffin. The one idea I have would put time travel on a macro scale but connecting it to a personal motive still escapes me.

Well, I shared my ideas on this thread. But in the year 2027.

Yes tell us your original brilliant time travel ideas so better writers can take the gem of the idea and execute a screenplay.

Wow! I didn't expect that response. Thanks for all the input. Good questions. I ask that question because to do a time travel movie you automatically get compared to BTTF. I get that. It's the paramount of "time travel rules".... Now I said rules. But like time itself, let's bend them by using... real time travel. Military stuff. The Mandella Effect happening everyday. From a military source, "You can't change timelines with time travel tech. What happens here doesn't effect me. Even though I exist in another timeline." I asked puzzled, "What is it used for?" He smirks, as if I am about to never be the same again. "To get things."

Real time travel isn't a straight line or a bowl of noodles. I break it down into "Hallways" or the barbershop mirror. Time, Space, Exist is this long never ending hallway a different numbered door on each side and you exist in each. Good and Evil are real. Let's say if you go South in the Hallway, you can find a version of you that you would hate. If you go North, you might find an angel. When I leave to go back 10 years. When the tech starts, a whole different topic, you basically create a whole new time line, I like to say you "Copy & Paste" 2021 for 2021.0 etc. You can create an infinite amount of timelines, there will never be limit. If I go back 10 years and find the "timeline 2" Jerel and kill him because I need a new kidney. Nothing happens when I come back to the original timeline that looks similar, a time thief. I won't be dead here. But here is the crossroads, "You will never come back to the same timeline ever. You will have a copy of what once was. So when you leave, that's it. Your life will be a copy." But to make things worse there is a divergence in terms of how far back, which is easier than going to the future. Because some of the future hasn't happened yet. But if you go back TOO FAR, birth of Christ stuff, you will SNAP back so hard that yes, "In my timeline... One tower blew up. Somethings are fate, kid. They will forever happen. But there is more than one trail to get to the top of a mountain." It dawned on me that the Military man had some personal loss to his statement. But he also talked about growth can come from chaos, bring us closer together. I felt like he had to no matter what had to stand by to... fates outcome. To try and change something bad, could be worse.

If you would like to know about the tech, it's a box. I don't know if you step in it or hold it. Also, time machines or tech are custom. It could fit in a car, one he said was a gas that swirled and you stepped in it, then a laser shot into it and POOF!!! Like Huey Lewis said you're "TRAVELING BACK IN TIME!!!" For my story I would to put it in a suitcase. But I heard they can weigh 500lbs up to something the size of a football stadium. Depends on the builder.

I better get writing. My Copy might be coming for my kidney.

Creating a unique "portal" may help. The DeLorean worked for Back to the Future because we had not seen that one before.

Please write this and invite us all to the premiere - this sounds amazing!

You travel back in time to fix the world.

You make a change, but it only partially fixes it.

You find your self in the new time line (Every time you travel you start a parallel).

You explain what is need to be fixed to the new you. They travel in time and fix the next bit.

This repeats until one of yourselves refuses. This is when the fun begins

Using the What If series as inspiration, there are infinite worlds that can result from a single choice made in the past, or infinite timelines at least. There are several ways to do this as well that would be able to be written out in detail

A phone booth where the first four digits dialed is year character ends up in, backwards or forwards in time. "Time In A Box."

Jerel, many ideas have been conflated into the "Time Travel" genre.

1. Time travel by inventions using Einstein's theories and complex math equations.

2. Time travel by quantum physics.

3 Time travel by "wormholes"

4. Time travel by DNA memory, ala Assasin's Creed

5. Time travel by mind manipulation, "Altered States"

But two that haven't been explored deeply, in my honest opinion, is -

6. Time travel by virtual reality, recreating events through simulation.

7. Time travel by creating multiple timelines involving the massive Hadron Collider, attempting to recreate the "Big Bang" searching for that elusive "God Particle"

I hope this helps jumpstart your creative mind to writing wondrous stories, my friend.

For sure! I actually wrote a tabletop RPG on some of the more far-reaching ideas I've had on the subject.

On another note, never be afraid of someone stealing your idea, there are thousands of ideas the same as the ones I've mentioned above. It all comes down to the execution of your idea into a story. How many movies had the same idea but were told or shown differently? Case in point, I wrote a treatment titled "Dark Ink" about five tattoo artists who uncovered an underground human trafficking slave market for Demons, and by using the Devil's blood they secretly stole, they could bring their tattoos to life to help fight and kill the Demons. Pretty far out there, huh? Wrong! There were 4 scripts floating around Hollywood with a similar premise. (Tattoo artists fighting the supernatural)

Most interesting concept I've stumbled so far is "source Code", mandatory read of the script for all wannabies in the genre

Aside, to answer your question, yes I do have an idea...but you'll gonna have to ask the future me ;)

Hot Tub Time Machine has already been done sadly. Something interesting to play with could be Stephen Hawking's time travel experiment, where he threw a party but to see if time travel existed he sent the invitations the day after it had happened. Nobody came to the party but imagine if they did?

Do you guys think Last Action Hero is a time travel movie? It has the same rules. Just not tech but magic. Kid goes into a cinematic universe is an interesting twist. It's not a parallel universe as in identical but a heightened reality, almost inception like because it's someone else's imagination. Which the cinematic universe you enter is the a parody of the "action genre", Arnold making fun of himself. So I am thinking about, "What if Michael Mann or Chis Nolan made Last Action Hero, their version?" while I listen to "Angry Again" by Megadeth. What I had in mind was more, "Inception meets BTTF" I had an idea of the flux capacitor inside a suitcase in the future and the in the past the first time machine is the size of a football stadium, have a little Contact and Akira influence. To add more to the arc of the idea about "different types/ways of time travel" and like we've seen in real life, things just get smaller, lighter, (suitcase starts HUMMING) faster. Maybe the suitcase time machine can be called "The Golden Ticket"?

I've always wanted to see a story where a guy reasons out the paradox of time traveling to change a tragic event so he has to convince another person to invent time travel without creating a paradox so he can travel time using the method invented by someone else.

Trying to crack the time paradox with an uncommon female action hero. I was thinking the least blasphemous version of my Pope’s Hitlist ,loglines -- that feels like:

“Constantine” meets “Back to the Future” in an “Evil Death 2” world.

THE POPE'S Hit LIST

“2033, After the Pope is killed -- just before the Vatican falls to Satanists -- Warrior-Pope Joan (855-857) is summoned from the past and sent back to 854 AD to seduce and kill the Horde's demon leaders, hopefully preventing a future religious catastrophe.”

I love the concept of Last Action Hero. But I don't think it would be considered time travel. A multiverse strand or parallel reality for sure. But time travel would imply that at some point the world Arnold comes from would be the same world as the one the kid lives in. Then again, everything depends on your conception of time. Linear, or circular...

My script "Silverbeard" uses the multiverse/parallel reality like "Kate and Leopold," -- think of it as the ultimate "Time Share" rental.

My dad was a sci-fi nerd and had an initial premise for a screenplay that goes something like this - an archeologist unearths an Egyptian tomb only to find a nice, fancy cell phone in a box next to the sarcophagus. Do with it what you will. I get 10%!

5%

Deal

Time travel fiction is usually about the past, and how the future can be altered by small decisions. The focus is often put on preserving it - I suggest turning that around. Write a story in which the character(s) destroy or rewrite the past, or better yet, history all together.

If you found a time-travel app on your phone, how would you use it, and what kind of trouble might it get you into?

Time Travel Ideas

Using genres

Action

Comedy

Drama

Fantasy

Romance

Sci Fi

Thriller

Combining genres

You really made it simply. Combine. Easy stuff. That's it!

I have this script concept where its like a revolving door, where Fallon Accidentally opened it in the inventors show.. and kept it back stage, then wayne and garth go into it.. and go like.. a few years ahead at the time of the sema show.. they end up staying like a month, then using the same machine, go back to the day they got there.. so its got this circle.. then add to all the ideas, and change what people are doing.. after getting involved for a year in the show.. so then its like.. over an over they circle.. till they decide to go back.. so like a way to create a bunch of next level tech, for a tv show was the idea. I have a bunch of new product ideas is why i came to it. It became the "Librarians Tv Show" Revolving Door in their Show. That was a stolen thing from that pitch. You could also do like a Watch on a person, like thing. Where a person can individually move thru time, the watch the time machine.. it could have elements of seeing your vapor trail where you just were.. as others stand still.. where the person can change things around them, in real time stopping on starting time. ? It could have almost hurt bad, and quick button back a few minutes. But dont wear that out at one amount of time.. have it where after hitting the button, you can adjust how long its stopped, or speed its backing up. You could then have them build a empire, back in time.. where we see how they make moves and become emperor of rome.. and things like that. Then they could go ahead of us.. like a year.. and i think, run for office, with all the cures and things that could be fixed easy, pointed out in the show. Like Daffodil and Plant Lectins Cure WHAT???

. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20413914/

include those. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29623820/

There was a scene in the 2nd Jumanji movie that piqued me, when the characters realize that Nick Jonas is still in-tune with the 90's, sticking out due to the several decades difference. They realize this because of how lame / aged he sounds "getting jiggy with it".

If somebody from the past time-travelled into this post-Trump world, what would they think of our society? What if somebody of our Trump-Generation traveled to a future where the status quo is Utopian? How would the interaction go?