Wells' "The Time Machine" is a prophetic warning that mankind's blind insistence on control and over destiny will ultimately lead to its destruction. It is a critique of humanity's obsessive pursuit of science and progress, without any consideration for dire consequences and potential detriment to our species. Each of us are contributors in shaping the future, as our decisions hold more weight than we may realize. Every society and every human has a social responsibility to the future of our species. As such, Wells conveys that we must carefully evaluate our choices in the present, and not seek "progression" at the cost of irreparably harming our descendants. This is a recurring theme that occurs not only in Wells' book, but in much of contemporary media.
Wells lived in a Victorian society which championed invention and progression with little concern for their negative impacts. Although mindset of the time was one of hope and enthusiasm for the benefits of science and intellectualism, he was "unsure of what lay ahead for himself, much less the human race," because "the last decade of the nineteenth century was a time of danger and change" (Wells xiv). In the wake of World War I, Wells and his society witnessed the use of of products of science and progression for death and destruction. These inventions "were used and abused by incompetent, vicious, and even demented politicians and generals," (Wells xv) who were also members of the societal intellectual elite. The horrific decisions made by those in power affected Wells' outlook on the potential of humanity to use progression for evil. His portrayal of the future Eloi and Morlocks serves as a worst-case-scenario enactment of the gravity of each and every society's choices. These Victorian intellectuals, both real and fictional, champion science and the enthusiastic pursuit of progression. Yet in Wells' time they murdered tens of millions, and in his book they deem the Time Traveller's incredible invention to be an elaborate hoax. The upper class is not to be trusted, especially with the power of choice and the responsibility of humanity's future. Wells implies that responsibility for making the right decisions and ensuring the future of our species is on all of us, as his warning is readily available to anyone who should read his book.
The film "The Matrix" is similar to "The Time Machine," in that it depicts one of the most dystopian, twisted outcomes of human "progression." Human beings are manufactured by machines to be organic power sources, much like we produce Duracell batteries. We are harvested to power soulless robots in a world where we have destroyed the planet, the sun, and all other sources of energy. While Wells' future focuses on the death of "mankind" as we evolve into two different social-class-oriented species, the Matrix centers on the extermination and enslavement of mankind by their own mechanical creations. Both stories employ the idea of mankind being responsible for their own demises and serve as potential warnings to their respective audiences. Wells' Victorian society chose to abuse the working class in their blind quest for intellectual and elitist advancement, while the forefathers of the humans in "The Matrix" failed to realize the danger of pursuing artificial intelligence. Both societies are eventually destroyed by their desperate, rabid desire for advancement without regard for consequences. The two stories are also similar in that in the end, one side of each opposing faction survives by farming the other. Just as the Morlocks tend to and feed off of the Eloi like cattle, so do the Machines with the human bodies they have plugged into the matrix. The Morlocks clothe the Eloi and ensure that they breed, while the Machines feed their human livestock liquefied corpses and remove their willpower by plugging their brains into a virtual world.
This clip pertains to the inevitable destruction of mankind, as the Machines believe that it is simply human nature. The irony of this is that mankind invented the Machines, who have now overtaken and enslaved their creators. This is similar to how Wells' implies that the forefathers of the Eloi are responsible for creating the Morlocks, who now also feed on their "creators." When Agent Smith talks to Morpheus about the evolution and origins of the Matrix, he mentions humans' inability to live a life without conflict. He claims that no human mind would accept a perfect, "happy" world, so the Machines re-created the "peak of our civilization": a world with problems and conflict. This ensures a world in which humans thrive. This is the same sentiment that Wells evokes when he speaks of the world that created the useless, frail Eloi. Their forefathers eliminated every discomfort and imperfection in the world: disease, hunger, insects, cold weather, etc. They were so obsessed with the "progression" of humanity that they accomplished the opposite. They eliminated every valuable human attribute, like intelligence and curiosity, because they created a world where there was no need for them. Humans de-evolve to simpler species, the Eloi and Morlocks, because they live in a simpler world that was supposed to be perfect and better.
The film "The Terminator" deals with a similar theme: a distopian future founded on contemporary man's shortsightedness. Although it is a much more "Hollywood-esque" interpretation of Wells' ideas, it conveys the same message. Once again, in their quest for technological advancement, humanity has created the means of their own doom. However, it is not solely this inherent need to progress, discover, and create that is their downfall. It is that they lack any sense of social responsibility in doing so. They continuously fail to evaluate both the potential benefits and repercussions of their decisions before they make them. Humans fail to understand their own power to affect the world and their futures. Wells' conveys this in "The Time Machine" as a warning to his Victorian society, as he understands the gravity of the decisions it has, and can, make. In "The Terminator," time travel into the past is necessary to prevent similarly catastrophic decisions. SkyNet, the giant computer network which controls the murderous machines of the future, is a human creation and must be destroyed before it can advance. This idea of social responsibility, of "man to mankind," is mirrored in both stories to convey the weight our decisions hold. We must be responsible with our decisions and not pursue "advancement" at any cost, as it will lead to the destruction of our species.
The Terminator Time Travel Logic and the Alternate Ending that Almost Was
Self-destruct mechanisms are a common plot device inscience fictionstories. The frequency of occurrence has caused it to become acliché, or an overused concept. Commonly, self-destructs in fiction are seen onmilitary installations,spaceshipsor thethemeof anartificial intelligencedestroying itself due tocognitive dissonance. Generally, after a time limit is reached, a large explosion will occur, detonating everything around the site.
-from wikipedia
Below is a humorous clip, from the parody movie "Spaceballs," about a form of self-destruction commonly used in modern science fiction media.
It's a very common belief, I have read some books recently that deal with the same ideas, especially with Moores Law and our exponential growth in computer science.
There are a lot of recent articles dealing with A.I., Nano technology, Stem-Cells, etc. with similar doomsday-esque outlooks.
I might also add some stuff about how Wells decision to build a device is a natural human anxiety of the unknown, be you a scientist or a farmer or something you will always ask "what if."
“As far as I’m concerned, the paradoxes that people talk about are only going to be resolved after we build the first time machine. Then we will know, rather free will enters into it, rather there are multiple universes, or rather the universe is determined. That’s going to have to be understood experimentally.”- Ronald L Mallett
Déjà vu turns into a science fiction time paradox film just like Time Machine. With actual facts they bring a real world of believability. “Déjà vu is accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity and strangeness.” (Wikipedia). Like the time traveler Déjà Vu actually uses standard time travel machine. Déjà vu demonstrates the attempt to right the wrongs of things that are beyond our control unlike the time traveler who choose to disrupt the future for his personal curiosity. In Déjà vu, Doug (protagonist) didn’t know if he was going to live if he traveled into the past, as we don’t know if the time traveler ever survived in his final journey through time. Doug faced the consequence of changing the future by traveling into the past, as the time traveler faced the chance of not surviving or changing his present time. Relating to the Time Machine, Doug in Déjà vu had a social responsibility to his people to rewind and change time in one dimension so people didn’t die, while the time traveler in Time Machine risked very many battles for his life’s journey.
The time traveler is not obligated to his Victorian society, rather he must answer to the future of Eloi and Morlocks.
Through The Time Machine“ Wells observed that each of his scientific romances pointed a moral and that The Time Machine was meant to suggest ‘the responsibility of men to mankind’” (83). Each person determines his or her own future and each person is a significant contributor to our nations future. None of us are merely observers. It is clear that the time traveler has taken responsibly towards the nation of the year 802,700. Through his determination, grief and concerns he seems to want to change the treatment of civilization with his humanitarianism. He wants their human race to value social development. The time traveler comes to this new age with many expectations of a new world’s glorious progress with incredible technology and perhaps a better understanding of mankind itself. His race did not meet his prospect at all meaning that civilization has turned towards the worst in a sense reversing itself back to “cave men” days caused by mankind almost obliterating their own life continuation. He didn’t experience the futuristic experience that he was hoping for but did encounter savages, and the destruction of man. He discovered a world that seemed nothing like his own.
After his journey to find his stolen time machine he hoped to change the Eloi and Morlocks well being and bring out the humanity that he knew was inside of them like there was in Weena. The traveler's humanitarian motivation is connected physically and mentally.
It is clear that the time traveler did not have a social responsibility to Victorian England but showed interest in our planets future society of the Eloi and Morlock, which was currently his present. It was not the time traveler’s job to change the future of society, but to focus on his own responsibly in the current mankind in year 802,700. His goal was to be in control of his own future, which was proven when feeling grief for the lack of care their nation had for one another and when he saved Weena, although he might have had the power to shape the future by going back to his present life, he chose to leave again and he never came back.
Is the Time Traveler obligated to his Victorian society to use his invention responsibly? He was not obligated to his Victorian society to use the invention responsibly. Past time has already occurred and future time will or has already occurred in the future. The time traveler traveled to a new dimension of time that seemed to impact the present and the future but the past has already occurred. No matter what the past seems to stay the same. We can’t impact the past. Where the time machine took the time traveler was not within his control. However he was in control of traveling or not traveling. He took the risk of traveling to the future without thinking of repercussions. He did not now what would happen such as his time machine being stolen or creating new friends or loosing some, or the possibility of human evolution. Curiosity killed the cat and in the end of this science fiction story we don’t know where the time traveler has ended up. “I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then.” (20)
Should the Time Traveler have traveled in time at all? It is open for the viewer to contemplate. He was traveling in a different dimension of time. Seemed to be traveling for his curiosity rather then for the Victorian society. Why he originally traveled into time is unknown besides curiosity, the end of the book is left up to precipitation. He could travel back to the same time period to save Weena from dyeing or he could have gone to any time period and died himself. No matter what he knew, “the sickness and confusion that comes with time travelling.” (100)
He knew that there would be server risks that he had to face. But his main downfall was he went in with the assumption that the people, hundreds of years into the future would be well equipped ahead of his current time with appliances, one being a time machine, but he discovered that technology wasn’t equivalent to knowledge. He wishes he had brought several different materials like a camera or tobacco.
And although his original goal might have been to examine the future he caused many things in the future to go wrong. He wanted to and he did kill some of his own descendants. He caused a fire that led to the cause of Weena’s death. He didn’t seem to have a strong social responsibly to either nation. It was more the responsibility that he took for himself and people he cared for around him.
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