Timequest is a 2000 science-fiction Alternate History film written and directed by Robert Dyke, about a man (Ralph Waite) who travels back to November 22, 1963 to save the life of John F. Kennedy (Victor Slezak).
Also in the cast are Caprice Benedetti as Jacqueline Kennedy, Vince Grant as Robert F. Kennedy, Barry Corbin as Lyndon Johnson, Larry Drake as J. Edgar Hoover, and Bruce Campbell as an Oliver Stone-type filmmaker.
This story provides examples of:
- Alternate History: The Time Traveler goes back to November 22, 1963 to prevent the assassination of JFK.
- Alternate Timeline: JFK/RFK lives, the CIA is taken down, Jack Ruby is shot dead, Oswald lives to be incarcerated, RFK becomes President with MLK as Vice President), JFK and Jackie have another son
- The Future Will Be Better: America’s extended involvement in The Vietnam War doesn't happen, as JFK decides to pull out even before his re-election. The Civil Rights Act is still enacted and Martin Luther King Jr. becomes Bobby Kennedy's Vice President (which is unrealistic for those times even had RFK lived). The CIA is disbanded and J. Edgar Hoover is forced to resign when Bobby threatens to release photos that prove rumors that Hoover is a homosexual.
- Just in Time: The Time Traveler decides to go to the date of the assassination so that the authorities can catch the assassins in the act. Unlike other time-travel flics, where is the assassination is typically prevented just as Kennedy is riding through the streets of Dallas, the Time Traveler comes to JFK in his hotel room at Fort Worth.
- The Mistress: A flashback, and audio recording, of JFK's relationship with Marilyn Monroe is shown.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Subverted. The Time Traveler disappears once the new timeline is solidified. However, having already been born on November 22, 1963, he does survive.
- Prevent the War: With Kennedy still alive, there is no Vietnam War. 58,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese live.
- Rubber-Band History: Averted. Unlike most time-traveling, past-alternating stories, there never arises a need to fix the broken "fabric of time".
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The murder of Kennedy was a horrific wrong that the Time Traveler fixes.
- Tantrum Throwing: Vice President Lyndon Johnson has a fit when he learns Kennedy is planning to pull out of Vietnam before winning the 1964 election. He tells JFK that he'll be seen as a "communist appeaser". JFK replies "I Really Don't Give a Shit". In reality, Kennedy was actually planning to pull out of Vietnam gradually, but after being re-elected in 1964.
- Time Crash: Completely averted.
- Time Travel: It's in the movie title basically.
- Who Shot JFK? : The film has Lee Harvey Oswald arrested and implicated by two men in custody of being involved in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Around the same time, Secret Service Agent Clint Hill goes to the grassy knoll fence and he kills two gunmen. Spoiler alert, in reality, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in an effort to make sure his name was never forgotten.
