History Film / TheTimeMachine2002

* LostInImitation: Despite being directed by Wells' own great-grandson, this film ultimately seems to be a loose [[TheRemake remake]] of the 1960 film, which itself was a somewhat loose adaptation of the novel. The ending credits outright admit it with the (buried) credit, "based on the screenplay by David Duncan," who was the writer of the 1960 version. Most tellingly, the film includes numerous elements from the 1960 film, even hitting most of the same story beats, but doesn't really include anything from the book unless it's via the 1960 film. There are also some elements that might have been borrowed from the [[Film/TheTimeMachine1978 1978 TV version]].

%%* BareYourMidriff: Mara's outfit.

''The Time Machine'' is a 2002 science fiction film directed by Simon Wells, loosely adapted from the classic [[Literature/TheTimeMachine novel of the same name]] by his great-grandfather Creator/HGWells. More precisely, it's adapted from the [[Film/TheTimeMachine1960 1960 film adaptation]], with the writer of that version, David Duncan, even receiving a "based on the screenplay by" credit.

* MyNaymeIs: Filby is Philby.

%%* NubileSavage: Mara is certainly very pretty.

Administrivia/NeedsABetterDescription

* MightyWhitey: The film (probably inadvertently) has this effect by the Eloi all being AmbiguouslyBrown with Alex being the WhiteMaleLead, him rescuing them from the evil Morlocks who prey upom them, which they can't do (having been culled to stop any resistance).

* LargeHam: See OneSceneWonder.

* BareYourMidriff: Mara's outfit.

* NubileSavage: Mara is certainly very pretty.

* ReleasedToElsewhere: A strange case here: When Hartdegen asks Mara about her parents, she says only that "They have gone from this place", which Hartdegen interprets as a gentle euphemism for death. However, thanks to the manipulations of the Über-Morlock making people forget, it's possible that she genuinely does not know or remember what happens to the Eloi the Morlocks harvest.

* SlobsVersusSnobs: Morlocks and Eloi.

* VoodooShark: In the original film, it's never explained how the time traveller can understand what people are saying 800,000 years into the future. (In the novel, he had to learn the Eloi's language, but film versions don't seem to have the time for that.) This film does try to explain it by saying that the people speak a different language and that the 'stone language', or English, they learned from comes from broken signs and whatnot in Manhattan. Unfortunately that just raises questions on the logistics of how since a) only a tiny portion of all English vocabulary would be found on signs; b) knowing just the words don't help you in learning the language, you also need to know grammar, structure, etc. to form sentences. However, Mara does mention in dialogue that she was taught English, the "Stones" merely serve as learning aids as to what the letters look like.
* WhatTheHellHero: Four years after Emma's death, Philby tells Alex about how his frequent visits to Alex lessened until he stopped coming completely, and asks him if he even noticed.

* YouCantFightFate: Played straight and then possibly averted. Alex tries to save Emma but every time, she gets killed. The Über-Morlock later explains that the time machine cannot change the past in a way that prevents it from being built in the first place. Later in the movie, Alex goes to a BadFuture where the Morlocks have wiped out the Eloi, and then he goes back in time and wipes out the Morlocks. Either this means he successfully averted that bad future, or in the intervening several million years, the Morlocks from other areas will invade and wipe out the Eloi.

* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: The Über-Morlock. When first encountered, the audience could be forgiven for thinking that the shit has absolutely hit the fan for Alex, but that's not the case. While at first he makes it clear that he's not to be trifled with, but after that the Über-Morlock treats Alex civilly, prevents the other Morlocks from harming him, points out that the current predator/prey relationship between the Morlocks and the Eloi is simply the result of evolution, explains to him why he can't use the Time Machine to save Emma (Emma's death was the reason he built it in the first place, so he can't use the Time Machine in any way that would prevent its own existence), gives the Time Machine back to Alex and is perfectly content to let him leave, and even returns Alex's pocket watch to him. He only attacks Alex ''after'' Alex attacks him.

* DetonationMoon: In the year 2037, the moon breaks up due to attempts to demolish the lunar colony going horribly awry, causing an ApocalypseHow. In the year 802,701 AD, the moon's remains are still orbiitng the Earth, visible in the night sky.

* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: The Über-Morlock. When first encountered, the audience could be forgiven for thinking that the shit has absolutely hit the fan for Alex, but that's not the case. While at first he makes it clear that he's not to be trifled with, but after that the Über-Morlock treats Alex civilly, prevents the other Morlocks from harming him, points out that the current predator/prey relationship between the Morlocks and the Eloi is simply the result of evolution, explains to him why he can't use the Time Machine to save Emma (Emma's death was the reason he built it in the first place, so he can't use the Time Machine in any way that would prevent its' own existence), gives the Time Machine back to Alex and is perfectly content to let him leave, and even returns Alex's pocket watch to him. He only attacks Alex ''after'' Alex attacks him.

Here the Eloi are protrayed as Magical Native Americans, and lean very hard on AcceptableBreaksFromReality to be able to understand his language. Alex begins to make friends among the Eloi, including Mara (Samantha Mumba). Shortly thereafter Mara is kidnapped by the Morlocks, and with the Eloi too frightened to attempt a rescue he resolves to do so himself.

* TooDumbToLive: In 2030, someone apparently thought using nukes on the moon to make caves for future habitats was a good idea. Cue, a few years later, ApocalypseHow.

* EmergencyTemporalShift: After the cataclysm of the moon breaking up in 2037 Alex scrambles back into his machine and just keeps going forward to evade it, but as he's immediately knocked out he didn't get to stop it again until he comes to and pauses it in 802701.

* GoingNative: In the end, Alex must learn to live with and like the Eloi. Not like he really has a choice after his machine self-destructs and he's stranded in the future.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Alex briefly ends up in a very, very, ''very'' far future—''635 million years'' ahead—in which Morlocks have conquered the Eloi valley. Although neither they nor any surviving Eloi or any other species are shown up close, the strong implication is that they stayed largely the same (even their spiky skull-shaped outposts haven't changed). 635 million years is a ''vast'' geological TimeSkip; it's farther away from ThePresentDay than ThePresentDay is from the Cambrian, when all life was small, underwater and spineless. It is highly unlikely that so little biological evolution would've occurred in that vast timespan (hell, the Über Morlock evolved from human ancestors to have his brain grow out of his head and down his back in the space of just the prior 800,000 years).

* ElaborateUndergroundBase: The Morlock colony, whose only aboveground entrances are in the form of scary spiky skull-shaped bases. It's a veritable warren of dark, roughly-hewn tunnels and caverns with sparse and very "primitive"-looking machinery (and gruesome sharp tools presumably used for Eloi-butchering). Its great extent is implied when the glowing fallout from the time machine's final explosion lights up the entire underground base to the point of filtering aboveground, where Alex and all the Eloi can see it.

* ReleasedToElsewhere: A strange case here: When Hartdegan asks Mara about her parents, she says only that "They have gone from this place", which Hartdegan interprets as a gentle euphemism for death. However, thanks to the manipulations of the Über-Morlock making people forget, it's possible that she genuinely does not know or remember what happens to the Eloi the Morlocks harvest.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: An explosion on the Moon rains debris upon the Earth and leaves the Moon itself split into two large broken halves and a cloud of smaller rocks over a period of almost a million years, rather than either gravitationally attracting each other back into a single body or spreading themselves out into a ring system as they actually would have over that long an interval.

* YearOutsideHourInside: How the time machine time-travels; since it only go forward or backward at variable speeds on the sole "time stream", akin to rewinding or fast-forwarding a tape, years can pass outside in a matter of seconds inside—sometimes as fast as half a billion years in a few seconds.