Groundhog Day (1993), Temporal Movies and Shows, and Stories That Revisit Themselves Over and Over.

I wouldn’t be looking for scientific accuracy when a movie suggests the way to stop a time loop is to be the perfect boyfriend.

4 Likes

Oh, I know, it’s just something to think about. Science geek that I am.

I did long ago realized that ghost stories and time travel stories are basically the same - they’re both about regret. You don’t have to believe in ghosts to enjoy a good ghost story, either.

4 Likes

Happy Death Day (2017) surely spruced the repeating loop to the slasher. Our heroine dies and dies till she figures out her murderer. Quite clever.

3 Likes

Happy Death Day 2 U (2019) pays homage to Back to the Future Part II (1989) in how it recasts its itself in a different light and discusses the substance behind it.

2 Likes

Good one Bruce! I forgot about Happy Death Day. Christopher Landon is definitely one filmmaker who is having a lot of fun with his movie genre mashups.

2 Likes

Oh, and I have a one that some that may know of it will scream in pain about, but it may be the most insane time loop to be mentioned.

Endless Eight.

For those that don’t know, it’s from the show “The Melancholy of Haruri Suzumiya”. All you need to know is the title character has reality warping powers but she doesn’t know she does.

The group in the story of Endless Eight ends up repeating some time in August before going back to school in a time loop which at first only one character is aware of. That character informs the others they’ve been going through the loop thousands of times already. All because Haruhi wanted to have the perfect summer together and made a thought of having more time (I think that’s what it was).

Anyway, in the light novels this story was only about one page long, but the anime decided to be slightly evil about it…and aired it as 8 episodes. Each episode mostly the same save for some clothing changes and some slight dialogue differences.

2 Likes

Cause and Effect. Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5. The Enterprise is stuck in a time loop where it explodes when it collides with the USS Bozeman and then the loop repeats. Kelsey Grammer costars as the Captain of the Bozeman. This predates Groundhog Day by a year.

3 Likes

Which underlines my assertion that time travel stories are about regret.

2 Likes

Gotta feel for the crew of the Bozeman. I mean, Starfleet so they know something like this is possible to happen, but to realize you’re decades past your normal time period…

Though in the novels the captain of the Bozeman had some hand in helping get the Enterprise-E up and running. Been a while since I read it to remember exactly how, but I do remember that he was there for it.

3 Likes

Kim Catrall to my Crow T Robot. :heart_eyes:
rachel mcadams GIF

3 Likes

I didn’t realize that it predates Groundhog Day. I totally thought it was a direct reaction to the movie.

But I absolutely love that episode. And the deja vu they begin to experience while playing poker. (And I love that the playing poker thing that comes up periodically throughout the series.)

2 Likes

@TeriG A tribute to Star Trek staying ahead of the curve.

2 Likes

This particular clip was rendered on a potato, but this is the gold standard:

2 Likes

I want to enter the first Terminator movie; and another Arnold film, Total Recall.

arnold schwarzenegger art GIF by haydiroket (Mert Keskin)

Then there’s Donnie Darko, but Memento is awesome.

Donnie Darko Rabbit Costume GIF

1 Like

Run Lola Run from 1998 is easily one of my favorite foreign films. I’ve always thought the atmosphere for the title character was similar to a video game, as Lola tries to learn from her mistakes from the past runs and correct them in the future.

2 Likes

One of my favourite time loop stories is the last stretch of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable. If you haven’t seen it, it’s heroes with powers but as the series went on, the powersets often got more convoluted so the creator could toy with them. Here, the main sticks a child with no powers in a time loop where if he tells anyone his true identity it will kill the person who learned and reset time one hour. The catch is the person will die the same way in the new time line even if the same action isn’t happening, making it seem like his enemies are spontaneously combusting, And as part of one of my favourite gimmicks in the show, the bad guy’s power also effects the opening titles

Regular:

Kira version:

1 Like