The Time Traveler & Technology

• When compared, the two film clips help illuminate a key question for this course: How has our relationship to technology changed over time?  

So I just watched the first 15 or so minutes of the 1960 version and 2002 version of The Time Traveler. I found it interesting that the 1960 version focuses on technology for technology's sake or technology used for business or to make a profit where the 2002 version focuses on technology as a way to preserve relationships. In the 1960 version, Alexander seems to invent the time machine as a matter of curiosity, of a desire to see if it is possible to break the fourth dimension, but in the 2002 version, Alexander's entire need to invent and build the time machine comes from his desire to prevent his fiancee's death. The ways in which technology can be used seem bound up in the values placed on technology, although in both cases the usefulness of the machine is highlighted. In the 1960 version, the businessmen that Alexander invites to his home to see the prototype are more interested in its potential application for profit. In particular, they see a connection to military uses. On the other hand, the 2002 version, Alexander confides in no one that he is building the machine. His desire to use the machine is entirely for personal reasons. In each film, the motives behind invention come into play--why is technology created? for whom is it created?

• How has film technology changed?
• How have we changed as film viewers?
• How has our understanding of time evolved?
• How does fiction/science fiction impact our relationship to technology?

And of course, the ways in which technology can shape the future are interesting. The 1960's film does not touch on this in the 15-minutes that I saw, but the 2002 version suggests the changes that happen. As Dr. Pagnucci noted, a 2002 audience wants to see the time machine move through time, so the audience sees the passage of time in time-lapse photography (which probably wasn't available for the 1960's version). Not only is nature shown--a spider spinning a web, sunrises/sunsets, ivy budding and flowering--but rapid changes in technology appear too. Alexander (and the movie audience) watch as a warehouse is filled with Ford cars (horseless carriages), short buildings are destroyed to make way for skyscrapers, soon jumbo jets fill the air. The progress from 1899 to the present and into the future is all shown in about 5 minutes. Interestingly, some of the technology shown in the 2002 version would have been considered science fiction had it been shown in the 1960 version.

I love watching and reading science fiction, particularly stories that deal with time travel. It seems like many stories look at technology as a way to improve lives--the implication being that if only we have the right technology or a newer technology or a newer/different application of technology, then all problems can be solved--people don't have to die, wars can be prevented or shortened, etc. But as the 2002 version suggests, technology doesn't always work the way we want. All this reminds me some myths that Selber points out in his book Multiliteracies for a Digital Age where he suggests that sometimes we as a society often see technology as only a solution and not as a potential problem-creator.