The Time Machine Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
0 to 800,000 years in 1.2 seconds.
Where Would You Go?
The Future Awaits
Jump-Start the Future
Be Careful What You Wish For
The greatest adventure THROUGH all time!
He was searching for the answer to his past. He became a hero for the future.
Based on the classic sci-fi novel by H.G. Wells, scientist and inventor, Alexander Hartdegen, is determined to prove that time travel is possible. His determination is turned to desperation by a personal tragedy that now drives him to want to change the past. Testing his theories with a time machine of his own invention, Hartdegen is hurtled 800,000 years into the future, where he discovers that mankind has divided into the hunter - and the hunted.
| Guy Pearce | Alexander Hartdegen |
| Samantha Mumba | Mara |
| Mark Addy | David Filby |
| Sienna Guillory | Emma |
| Phyllida Law | Mrs. Watchett |
| Alan Young | Flower Store Worker |
| Omero Mumba | Kalen |
| Yancey Arias | Toren |
| Orlando Jones | Vox |
| Jeremy Irons | Ãœber-Morlock |
| Laura Kirk | Flower Seller |
| Josh Stamberg | Motorist |
| John W. Momrow | Fifth Avenue Carriage Driver |
| Max Baker | Robber |
| Jeffrey M. Meyer | Central Park Carriage Driver |
| Simon Wells |
5.60 out of 10 (27949 votes)
Visitor Reviews
THE TIME MACHINE-OLD VS. NEW
posted on 04 Aug 2009I like the original Time Machine movie of 1960 much better than the new one because rod taylor doesnt just zip into the future like guy pearce who only stops to explore in 2030 ad. then breifly in 2037, taylor does some exploring in both 1917 AND 1966 and stops to examine a dress in a nearby shop and saying a world where everyone is a blue eyed blond causcasian is bad, well the new version where everybody is dark skinned is not an improvement, thats just going from one extreme to another from anglo american in 1960 to african american in 2002.
one of my fav movies
posted on 11 Jul 2009I realy love this movie.I can recall the first time i saw it as a kid.I thought it was brilliant at the time,and this movie stands the test of time.I didnt watch all of the new version of the movie,but what i did see i didnt like.I think a movie like this is hard to make a better version of.
The effects they used in the movie were alot different to the methods they use today.But were very effective and obviously it took alot of time to do.It was facinating the way they made the snail race by with time lapse pictures,amongst other things like the sun racing over.
Its the sort of fantasy movie i think anyone can relate to.I often think what would i do with such a machine.
Rod Taylor was brilliant in his role.Very convincing.
The age of this movie and how even the young genneration can be equally facinated by it,proves what a great movie this is.
There are very good extras with this DVD.
An inventor(Rod Taylor), builds a time machine and travels through time. He sees both WWI and WWII as well as 1968 during the Cold War in which he experiences a nuclear bomb. The movie really gets going when he travels far into the future to a time when people are ruled by Morlocks, cannibalistic creatures who basically breed humans so they can eat them. Seeing how horrible it is, the inventor tries to free them from the Morlocks.
If its an exciting movie you are after,get this.
A nice bit of historic Sci-Fi
posted on 29 Jun 2009The great thing about doing H.G. Wells novels as movies is that they stand up well over time. While 60s sci-fi movies tend to look hopelessly hokey now, this 19th century tale a a sort of timeless drawing room charm that hasn't been diminished by the years.
A lot more faithful than the new one
posted on 29 Jun 2009This version of The Time Machine is way more faithful to the book by H.G Wells' than the newer version by a relative of H.G Well's. It may be an old movie but still if you want to see a version that's more like the book then this is the one for you. Plus Rod Taylor gives a better performanace than Guy Pearce does in the newer version. The Morlocks may look better in the new one but at least this version doesn't give us a leader of the Morlocks when there was no leader in the book. The special effects are good for what they are though. Heck they're kind of incredible for an old movie. The new one looks good and is an entertaining movie eventhough it takes something good and totally hacks it up. If you want to see a version that's a lot more like the book then this is the one for you.
This is soooo good
posted on 17 Jun 2009Yes, this is the movie that I wanted to see all my life. A trip 1 million years into the future. And what a magnificent
future they´ve come up with. Man is slave to the creatures that lives under the surface. And the people (all kids) have nothing to fight the creatures with. Cause they don´t like...know that they are bad. They have no books, no nothing to tell them how the world was a million years ago. Very very good, guaranteed goosebumps. The Time Machine 10/10 in points.
The only sci-fi movie I have ever liked.
posted on 11 Jun 2009I was never into sci-fi. But I must admit the book was a little better than this movie. But this movie rocked anyway! It had awesome special effects, the best I have ever seen! The hero is George a misunderstood young scientist who wanted to travel into the fourth dimension by time traveling in hoping to find some paradise. His friends didn't believe him, but only David Filby had faith in him. Once he tries out his time machine, he's in for a big adventure! First he goes through WW1 and then WW2. And he even witnesses a nuclear war in 1966!
Then he goes to the year 802,701 A.D. and finds a different world. He soon finds out that humanity was at war and has divided into two groups, The child-like and apathetic Eloi and The Morlocks who lived underground. He finds love with an Eloi woman named Weena. Their relationship blossomed into romance. But then he hears that the Eloi were enslaved by the Morlocks and they had all the techology and power. The Morlocks provided the Eloi with that weird looking fruit, clothes, and shelter but only so the Morlocks could eat the Eloi. The Morlocks were cannibals. The best part was where George was beating up on the Morlocks almost killing them all and saving the Eloi from their usual fate. The movie wasn't anything like the book, but then again any movie that based on a book really isn't. Instead of killing off Weena by dying in a fire, she simply pined away for George once he went back to his time. If you've never seen this flick before, rent it at your local video store, or read the book! But whatever you do, don't see that lame 1978 remake!
See this version instead!
CLASSIC
posted on 08 Jun 2009I watched this film as a youngster and remembered enjoying it then, I was reunited with it about 10 years later and I loved it even more so. Just everything about the way H.G Wells has dealt with time travel makes this film a great viewing. He has explored time travelling in a way that leaves you with many captivated thoughts after the film has ended. The monsters do however make the film look dated but this doesn't ruin the film at all it just shows its age and insures its classic authentity.I understand that a remake has been made and is on its way to the big screen, I do hope that they haven't ruined this masterpiece and I look forward too seeing it.
One of the Better Science-Fiction Films of Its Era
posted on 02 Jun 2009Science-fiction films from the fifties and early sixties, especially those made on a low budget, have a bad reputation today for ludicrous plots and inept special effects. Cheap B-movies such as "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman" and Ed Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" are often quoted (and deservedly so) as classics of badness, among the worst ever made. To see all science-fiction from this period as bad, however, would be wrong, as there were also some very fine works made in this genre, such as "Forbidden Planet", the British-made "Village of the Damned" and "The Time Machine".George, a late-Victorian scientist and inventor builds a machine which enables him to travel forward to the future. He witnesses the two world wars and another, fictitious, war in the mid-sixties, fought with nuclear weapons. He then speeds into the far-distant future, around 800,000 AD, when the human race has evolved into two distinct species, the gentle and beautiful but passive Eloi and the Morlocks, a race of brutal, subterranean, subhuman monsters who prey on the Eloi for food. George returns to his own time, but cannot forget the world of the future, especially Weena, the beautiful Eloi girl with whom he has fallen in love, and must decide whether to stay in 1900 or return to the future.There are a number of holes in the plot of the film; some of these are due to Wells, others to the scriptwriters. Although the Eloi have neither government nor laws, and presumably have not had for many thousands of years, they are well aware of what these concepts mean and so are able to tell George "We have no government. We have no laws". In reality, the passive Eloi, with no concept of social cohesiveness or altruism, and no means of either fleeing from the Morlocks or of defending themselves against them, would doubtless have been wiped out altogether. (It seems surprising that Wells, with his interest in Darwinism, ignored the point that a prey species which does not evolve some defence mechanism against its predators is doomed to extinction. Perhaps, like a number of nineteenth and early twentieth century "Darwinists", he was less interested in evolution as a biological mechanism than as evidence in support of his own political and social theories).These plot-holes do not, however, matter too much. The film is not intended as a "realistic" picture of what the distant future might be like. It rather uses its time-travel theme in order to make philosophical points about the nature of twentieth-century society. The film changes some of the concerns of the original novel on which it is based. The novel was written in the 1890s, during the earlier part of Wells's career, when the greatest threat to civilisation, at least from Wells's socialist viewpoint, seemed to be the gulf between the social classes. In the original, therefore, the Eloi are the descendants of the wealthy, leisured class and the Morlocks of the working class. In the 1960s, the greatest threat seemed to be nuclear war, and the film reflects the concerns of its age; the world to which George travels is the direct result of the wars of the twentieth century, with the Morlocks shown as the descendants of those who took refuge in underground shelters and the Eloi of those who somehow survived while remaining on the surface. Those who criticise the film for departing from Wells's vision should be aware that during the later part of his life he too came to see war as the greatest threat to mankind and wrote novels, such as "The Shape of Things to Come", which reflect this preoccupation. Had he rewritten "The Time Machine" in later life, the result might have resembled the plot of the film more closely.I would agree with the reviewer who said that the film does not entirely dispense with Wells's pessimism. The battle of the Eloi and the Morlocks is not one of good against evil. The film is not only warning us of the dangers of war, it is also warning us against the twin evils of bestial violence (symbolised by the Morlocks) and of apathetic passivity (symbolised by the Eloi). A significant episode is when Weena falls into a stream; George rescues her from drowning, but none of the other Eloi will lift a finger to help her. The Eloi may lack the vicious qualities of the Morlocks, but they do not actively possess any good ones. The only hope for their race lies in George, the figure who has come to help them from a more vigorous era in the remote past. There is more to virtue than mere non-violence; in Immanuel Kant's words, if men were as good-natured as sheep, they would still be good-naturedly grazing in the fields.One thing I did not like about the film was the Morlocks who, I felt, should have been more recognisably human, as they represent in symbolic terms negative human qualities. The hairy monsters we saw had an unfortunate whiff of the cheap B-movie about them. Apart from that, I found the film attractively photographed and designed, which well overcame the limitations of its budget. It was also well-acted, especially by Rod Taylor as the idealistic George and the lovely Yvette Mimieux as the innocent Weena. This is one of the better science-fiction films of this era. 7/10
I love this movie.
posted on 27 May 2009This movie is truly a gem. There are problems with it when compared to H.G. Wells's original story, but many of the additions and changes actually are improvements, in my opinion. If there is one thing I WOULDN'T have changed, it was the part where the Time Traveler finally figures it all out: the Eloi are merely fatted cattle and the Morlocks are their "cowboys." In the book it comes through that the Eloi are not particularly good and the Morlocks aren't really evil- both groups are merely evolutionary products. Of course, theater audiences in 1960 wouldn't have accepted this.Back to the film: the story is touching and I liked the sets and model-work. I have the DVD and I have watched it multiple times. And THAT is an endorsement.
The Time Machine DVD Delivers
posted on 30 Apr 2009Like most people, I had only seen this classic science fiction movie on television. That never detracted from the story, which is one of the best that Wells wrote, but it didn't prepare me for how great this movie looks and sounds. The DVD provides brilliant color and a generally sharp picture with only a little, infrequent softness that I suspect is from the original film. I was surprised at how clean the transfer is. I did not see any scratches, dust or other defects. The movie is presented in its original, widescreen aspect ratio. The sound is also excellent. It has been remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 and it is an excellent job for a movie that is forty years old. As you would expect from such an old sound track, most of the action is in the center and front channels, but it uses the rear channels (especially noticable in key scenes, as when Rod Taylor is making echoes in the ruined dome building) and the subwoofer kicked in a few times, also. The disc provides more extras than you would expect from a Warner release of an old movie. It includes a trailer, filmographies for the three lead actors and George Pal, and a very good behind-the-scenes documentary. The documentary was produced by Bob Burns 32 years after the making of the movie and focuses on the important part the time machine prop played in the making of the movie and it's history since, with an interesting account of how Burns found and then restored the original prop. The documentary also features a scene in which Rod Taylor and Alan Young recreate their characters from the movie, acting out a scene that might have appeared in the movie but did not. The scene uses the restored time machine prop to good effect and it was rather touching to see these much older actors slip so comfortably into their roles. You could tell that this movie had been one of the high points of their careers and they remembered it fondly. Likewise, Whit Bissel recreates his character in a short monologue full of a sense of nostalgia. This old documentary was much more informative and interesting than a lot of the publicity puff pieces included on more recent films as extras. I highly recommend this DVD. It delivers far more than I ever expected and does this classic movie justice.
A classic and a Masterpiece.
posted on 09 Apr 2009I saw this movie when I was a kid and it stood with me ever since. I just love the film, the machine and the overall plot. It just keeps you glued to the screen wanting to know more as the movie unfold. The simple but yet clear scientifical explanation early on in the film is a great suspense setter. Overall: EXCELLENT.
A Timeless Classic!
posted on 06 Apr 2009I was very delighted to see Hollywood had saved this old film classic with Rod Taylor. I especially enjoyed the behind the scenes portion and learned allot about this film's history, since its making. I had even had the pleasure of working along side Mr. Bob Burns, while working as forman of Magic Mountain's Showcase Theatre, located in Valencia, California some 30 years ago. Mr. Burns was a interesting man to meet and be around; always full of new ideas and projects to pursue.
The packaging and DVD quality are just fine. No complaints. Delivery was excellent and delivered on time!
Fourth Time Was A Charm: A Thought-Provoking Film That Looks Better Than Ever On DVD
posted on 22 Mar 2009Boy, did a nice DVD transfer of this not only mak me appreciate the visuals in here more but made the story seem better, too, for some reason. I only acquired the DVD as a memento, so to speak. I had to have at least one movie which had the woman I had a crush on back in the early '60s: Yvettte Mimieux. She still looks great, too. The main thing, however, is how I now viewed this story and how much more I wound up liking it than in the past. This was my fourth look at this movie over a 45-year span and I enjoyed it the most this last time. Since time travel stories always fascinate me, my favorite part of the film is when "George" (Rod Taylor) is actually in his time machine and experiments with it, slowing it down here and then and then stopping it a couple of times to observe World War I and then WWII. Then, he stops in 1966 when supposedly there was a nuclear attack. (Apparently, scare-mongers back in '60 thought that was a short-term likelihood.)Anyway, when "George" (H.G. Wells, the author of this story) finally stops, in the year 200,000-something, the story loses some of its momentum. However, it's a fairly interesting study of a group of ultra-passive people being dominated by others who live underground and then literally eat the good people. Taylor is astounded that mankind has not progressed as he had figured but seemed to have regressed.The message I got on this last look is that man is still man, meaning sinful and capable of anything bad as well as good, and to put one's faith totally in man is a mistake. It's only going to lead to disappointments as "George" found out on each of his stops. (Notice he never stopped during a peaceful, progressive period.) Yet, "George" is still an optimist and wants to be one to help initiate change for the better. There's always hope for a better world and people like George, with his idealism put to action, can make a difference.Overall, an entertaining and thought-provoking film.
England in the year 802701
posted on 22 Mar 2009This is the first and undoubtedly the best adaptation of HG Wells' famous novel. George Pal's movie is a studied mix of poetry and cruelty (the Morlocks). Rod Taylor is very convincing in the role of the Time Explorer and restores perfectly his personality. Moreover, splendid sceneries, a shimmering photography and awesome special effects at the time contribute to the success of this movie. The only thing that the movie neglected is the significant pessimism in Wells' work.
Love them Morlocks!
posted on 13 Mar 2009I'm a big fan of George Pal's work. Regardless of his actors' performances, there's a pleasing earnestness about When World's Collide, The War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine that breathes life into them.With that said, after watching The Time Machine for the first time in close to twenty years (and twenty-six years after seeing Time After Time with Malcolm MacDowell and Mary Steenburgen), I think you'll find that the Pal magic is about run out. Although it's a childlike and imaginative movie wherein the H.G. Wells character (here only known as George; remember Steenburgen in the 1979 sort-of remake cooing "Herbert" to MacDowell and making you want to change your name?) wants to escape the killing fields of Victorian-era Earth and constructs a time machine to go in search of something better (shades of George Taylor in Planet of the Apes). He travels to the future and, to quote Dr. Zaius from POTA, "He finds his destiny." The trouble with The Time Machine--if you watch too closely or are a hopelessly irritating movie critic like me--is that the technology of 2006 and the technology of 1960 are both ganging up on the story to defeat it. Unlike the dazzle of the aliens in War of the Worlds, you get stuck chuckling at the trick photography in TTM. The special effects and the message of George's trip must work together or George will really get lost in the fourth dimension.Oh, well. I'm thinking a 46 year old movie to death, here. I have a feeling that 10 year olds who aren't too terribly jaded by the modern world will find The Time Machine entertaining.Sometimes, that's all that really matters with a movie.
A great classic sci-fi tale
posted on 04 Mar 2009Awesome tale and very good acting by the lead actor Rod Taylor about a man who travels into a far distant future where all signs of a normal civilized society has been completely wipe out. I'm pretty sure this movie can be remade with the special effects of today and make a better design of the the time machine and costumes/makeup etc. but they will probably fail in delivering the goods. Solid acting especially in a sci-fi film. With that said it will still be worth a look at a remake's future version.
I like it but it may be scary for kids
posted on 05 Feb 2009The Morlocks(sp) are pretty horrible but Rod Taylor is a likable scientist, I wish the philosophy of time travel was explored more deeply like a description of how the machine works. Like the Dr's description in Event Horizon the machine that folds space etc... You might as well buy it! After all it's solid entertainment.
DVD version will blow your mind!
posted on 13 Aug 2009I've had the Time Machine on VHS forever it seems. Taped it off the TV years ago. But when I saw this DVD, it blew me away! I had NO IDEA! Never have I seen every colour in his jacket, every grain of dirt, every hair on his head with such clarity. The time machine absolutely shines with beauty too. I sat with my jaw hanging open and goose bumps on my arms even as soon as the opening credits when I heard the surround sound kick in. My VHS copy always had a really bad audio track, but on the DVD, you can actually hear the faint electrical buzz of the machine running in the lab before he hits that crystal lever. I saw and heard things I never knew existed in this movie. And it has a fabulous documentary with it, hosted by Rod Taylor, that explains everything we always wondered like what happened to that little model of the machine that he put the cigar in, and the full scale machine itself has a story that you won't believe! All in all, it's a wonderful movie, and everything a DVD should be. Brilliant, vibrant, with gut vibrating audio. (and still better than the remake that was just in theatres) Fantastic!