History Film / Timecop

* ArtisticLicenseBiology + ArtisticLicensePhysics: Another egregious scientific error has to do with the claim that "the same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time". Technically, of course, this is true, they physically ''can't''. If you touch yourself in the past, like if you touch any object, the atoms in your body and your other body will actually occupy the space next to each other. And also there's Pauli's exclusion principle which states that two identical fermions (what matter is made up of) cannot occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. But in the film, what this apparently means is "if you touch yourself in the past, your body will melt into a revolting mass". But this can't happen in reality, since the same matter is always going to occupy a different space anyway. And, of course, the body replaces much of the matter that it contains, such that two versions of someone from ten years apart will not have much of the same matter in their body anyway.

* RippleEffectProofMemory: It's implied that this is a constant phenomenon. The TEC has the technology to detect "ripples" well before they impact the present, but unless an agent is sent to investigate, they'll never know precisely what changed (though their intelligence branches still offer theories, such as the Iranians trying to assassinate a President, someone trying to buy up pre-development Beverly Hills, etc.) Likewise, it is common for agents returning from the past to need to be reminded about current events. When Walker returns after [[spoiler:failing to prevent [=McComb=] from killing one of his business partners]], Matuzak isn't at all bothered when he tells Walker that [=McComb=] has come to power [[spoiler:and has no idea who Walker is talking about when he asks about Fielding, his turncoat partner]]. On the other hand, after Walker returns from [[spoiler:killing [=McComb=]]], Matuzak is rather baffled that his star agent is asking about a public figure who's been missing for a ''decade.'' [[spoiler:Walker also has no memory of his life with Melissa after he stops her from being killed, including the entire life of their 9 year old son.]]

* TimeIsDangerous: The Timecop's method of time travel requires extremely high speed when they pass through the time travel field. There was one failure that just left two red spots on a heavy steel wall, which could have simply been averted by building a runway twice longer with runway brakes on the second half.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The 2012 sci-fi film ''Film/{{Looper}}'' is basically a PerspectiveFlip of this film; instead of cops policing time, it's about organized crime using time travel to make money.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology + ArtisticLicensePhysics: Another egregious scientific error has to do with the claim that "the same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time". Technically, of course, this is true, they physically ''can't''. If you touch yourself in the past, like if you touch any object, the atoms in your body and your other body will actually occupy the space next to each other. And also there's Pauli's exclusion principle which states that two identical fermions (what matter is made up of) cannot occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. But in the film, what this apparently means is "if you touch yourself in the past, your body will melt into a revolting mass". But this can't happen in reality, since the same matter is always going to occupy a different space anyway. And, of course, the body replaces much of the matter that it contains, such that two versions of someone from ten years apart will not have much of the same matter in their body anyway.

* TimePolice: Well, ''duh''. After all, some people find a way to abuse TimeTravel for fun and profit.

* RippleEffectProofMemory: It's implied that this is a constant phenomenon. The TEC has the technology to detect "ripples" well before they impact the present, but unless an agent is sent to investigate, they'll never know precisely what changed (though their intelligence branches still offer theories' such as the Iranians trying to assassinate a President, someone trying to buy up pre-development Beverly Hills, etc.) Likewise, it is common for agents returning from the past to need to be reminded about current events. When Walker returns after [[spoiler:failing to prevent [=McComb=] from killing one of his business partners]], Matuzak isn't at all bothered when he tells Walker that [=McComb=] has come to power [[spoiler:and has no idea who Walker is talking about when he asks about Fielding, his turncoat partner]]. On the other hand, after Walker returns from [[spoiler:killing [=McComb=]]], Matuzak is rather baffled that his star agent is asking about a public figure who's been missing for a ''decade.'' [[spoiler:Walker also has no memory of his life with Melissa after she was killed, including their9 year old son.]]

* RippleEffectProofMemory: It's implied that this is a constant phenomenon. The TEC has the technology to detect "ripples" well before they impact the present, but unless an agent is sent to investigate, they'll never know precisely what changed (though their intelligence branches still offer theories' such as the Iranians trying to assassinate a President, someone trying to buy up pre-development Beverly Hills, etc.) Likewise, it is common for agents returning from the past to need to be reminded about current events. When Walker returns after [[spoiler:failing to prevent [=McComb=] from killing one of his business partners]], Matuzak isn't at all bothered when he tells Walker that [=McComb=] has come to power [[spoiler:and has no idea who Walker is talking about when he asks about Fielding, his turncoat partner]]. On the other hand, after Walker returns from [[spoiler:killing [=McComb=]]], Matuzak is rather baffled that his star agent is asking about a public figure who's been missing for a ''decade.''

* TemporalParadox: Averted. Changing the past makes a new present, but doesn't change you, thus if you went back and time and killed your father, you'd come back to find that you never existed, but you'd be fine. You can still receive new scars from injuries suffered by your younger self, though, as [=McComb=] learned when his younger self suffered a nasty cut on his cheek.

* YouHaveFailedMe: Apparently, the reason why Atwood was trying to take advantage of the Stock Market Crash was because [=McComb=] threatened to kill his ancestors if he didn't or failed to do so.

* BattleInTheRain: The climax.
* BeardOfEvil: [=McComb=] has got one.

* BrickJoke: "I'm an ambitious Harvard-educated visionary who deserves to be the most powerful man in the world, and you, you're a fuckin' idiot who never figured out that the only way to make anything of all that fancy kicking is on Broadway." [[PreMortemOneLiner Right before killing the responsible for that line]], Max says "I'm still kicking. I must be on Broadway."

** It's also one of the few cases in which the subject knows that the Mob Boss will keep his word - If he'd testified, then erasing him would solve the entire problem at a loss, but if he kills himself or lets himself be executed by the TEC without naming a superior, the boss will let his history remain intact so as to not erase his contributions to the organization.
* EightiesHair: Hilariously enough, it's the 2004 Max Walker who wears a mullet (possibly justified; as a regular DC cop he'd have to keep to strict grooming standards, and after losing Melissa he cares a bit less about presentation in a top-secret government agency).

* ForeShadowing: Lyle warns Max that [=McComb=] "already owns most of the guys we work with" - [[spoiler: including Fielding as it turns out]].

* NoOSHACompliance: A large number of clearly marked flammable barrels are ignited, yet no audible smoke or fire alarms go off. When emergency services arrives, it's the police with guns drawn, not the fire department.

* RippleEffectProofMemory: It's implied that this is a constant phenomenon; The TEC has the technology to detect "ripples" well before they impact the present, but unless an agent is sent to investigate, they'll never know precisely what changed - though their intelligence branches will often offer theories such as the Iranians trying to assassinate a President, someone trying to buy up pre-development Beverly Hills, etc. Likewise, agents returning from the past are expected to need to be reminded about current events. When Walker returns after [[spoiler:failing to prevent [=McComb=] from killing one of his business partners]], Matuzak isn't at all bothered when he tells Walker that [=McComb=] has come to power [[spoiler:and has no idea who Walker is talking about when he asks about Fielding, his turncoat partner]]. On the other hand, after Walker returns from [[spoiler:killing [=McComb=]]], Matuzak is rather baffled that his star agent is asking about a public figure who's been missing for a ''decade.''

* ScrewTheRulesTheyBrokeThemFirst: [[{{Foreshadowing}} Foreshadowed well in advance.]] When Walker and Matuzak are talking about how [=McComb=] has been a [[KarmaHoudini slippery bastard]] so far at the very beginning, Walker growls out "if I can't go back in time to save my wife, there's no way I'm gonna let him go back in time to profit." [=McComb=] having achieved what he wanted in the second act, Walker goes back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, and sure enough [[TimeyWimeyBall destiny]] makes it necessary for him to save his wife's life as part of it.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Explicitly stated by Walker during his final confrontation with [=McComb=].
* SickbedSlaying: [[spoiler:The protagonist's partner]] is recruited by the bad guys as TheMole, but becomes a loose end after they alter history to secure their rise to power. When the hero goes back in time where he meets her in a hospital, she agrees to testify against [=McComb=] before Walker goes into the file room; when he returns, he finds out that she's already been murdered by an assassin and a nurse who walks in assumes that he's responsible.

* TemporalParadox: Averted, changing the past makes a new present, but doesn't change you, thus if you went back and time and killed your father, you'd come back to find that you never existed, but you'd be fine. You can still receive new scars from injuries suffered by your younger self, though, as [=McComb=] learned when his younger self suffered a nasty cut on his cheek.
* TerminatorTwosome: The Timecop's main job is to form half of one.

* NotSoDifferent: [=McComb=] attempts to invoke this on Walker in the climax, [[ShutUpHannibal but Walker points out that unlike [=McComb=]]], he was trying to set the timeline right.

%% * TimePolice: Well, ''duh''.
%% * TimeTravel: ...Well, duh.

* SickbedSlaying: [[spoiler:The protagonist's partner]] is recruited by the bad guys as TheMole, but becomes a loose end after they alter history to secure their rise to power. When the hero goes back in time where he left her in a hospital, he finds out that she's already been murdered by an assassin and a nurse who walks in assumes that he's responsible.

''Timecop'' is a 1994 movie based on a one-shot comic published by Creator/DarkHorseComics, starring Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme as Max Walker, a (wait for it) [[TimePolice Timecop]] who has to go back in time to prevent other people from going back in time and messing up history. Creator/MiaSara was cast as his wife Melissa, [[TheLostLenore who dies in the opening act]], resulting in Walker's zealotry in his job:

* AnachronismStew: Played for full effect in the opening scene where five Confederate cavalrymen guarding a gold wagon [[spoiler:are massacred by a single man, when he suddenly produces two laser-sighted [=M91S=] submachine guns from under his coat.]]

* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: The rule is that "two instances of the same matter cannot occupy the same space". So if lets say two different time-displaced counterparts of the same person (such as a Past Self and Future Self) ''do'' meet (or more specifically, touch), they end up canceling each other out. By that we mean [[spoiler:they fuse into a giant gushing fluid mass of body parts that dissolves out of existence in a matter of seconds]]. It's a blatant violation of the laws of conservation of mass and energy, but hey, [[TimeCrash it could be worse]].

* NoOshaCompliance: A large number of clearly marked flammable barrels are ignited, yet no audible smoke or fire alarms go off. When emergency services arrives, it's the police with guns drawn, not the fire department.

-->'''Officer''' (after seeing Lyle do a CarCushion) Poor lad. [[{{Irony}} Tomorrow woudl have been a brighter day]].

* ScrewTheRulesTheyBrokeThemFirst: [[{{Foreshadowing}} Foreshadowed well in advance]]. When Walker and Matuzak are talking about how [=McComb=] has been a [[KarmaHoudini slippery bastard]] so far at the very beginning, Walker growls out "if I can't go back in time to save my wife, there's no way I'm gonna let him go back in time to profit." [=McComb=] having achieved what he wanted in the second act, Walker goes back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, and sure enough [[TimeyWimeyBall destiny]] makes it necessary for him to save his wife's life as part of it.

* TheMobBossIsScarier: one of [=McComb=]'s accomplices refuses to talk to the TimePolice, because the worst they'll do to him is execute him as he is now, while [=McComb=] can and will have him and his whole family RetGone if he talks.

* UnscientificScience: The premise that you daren't come into contact with your past self because "the same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time" is absurd. ''All the atoms'' in our bodies are replaced on a regular basis. In other words, not one single atom present in your body today was there five years ago. So what's causing the violation then?

* RippleEffectIndicator: In a fight in 1994, Walker kicks the 1994 version of [=MComb=] across the face, opening up a huge cut. Instantly, a scar materializes on the face of the 2004 [=MComb=] who's standing nearby.

* ScrewTheRulesTheyBrokeThemFirst: [[{{Foreshadowing}} Foreshadowed well in advance]]. When Walker and Matuzak are talking about how [=McComb=] has been a [[KarmaHoudini slippery bastard]] so far at the very beginning, Walker growls out "if I can't go back in time to save my wife, there's no way I'm gonna let him go back in time to profit." [=McComb=] having achieved what we wanted in the second act, Walker goes back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, and sure enough [[TimeyWimeyBall destiny]] makes it necessary for him to save his wife's life as part of it.

* ScrewTheRulesTheyBrokeThemFirst: [[{{Foreshadowing}} Foreshadowed well in advance]]. When Walker and Matuzak are talking about how [=McComb=] has been a [[KarmaHoudini slippery bastard]] so far at the very beginning, Walker growls out "if I can't go back in time to save my wife, there's no way I'm gonna let him go back in time to profit." [=McComb=] having achieved what we wanted in the second act, Walker goes back in time to MakeRightWhatOnceWentWrong, and sure enough [[TimeyWimeyBall destiny]] makes it necessary for him to save his wife's life as part of it.