Sunday, August 2, 2009

Best Time Machines

Time Machines come from two places: Ebay and movies. They also come in two varieties: hat with wires and vehicle, depending on whether the trip is physical or metaphysical.

A notable exception is in the machine used in the TV show The Time Tunnel where the black and white spiral induces the effect of an acid trip to the extent that it doesn’t matter that it is neither a hat or a car.


This time machine looks suspiciously like an ordinary lathe.


If only Ebay worked as well as time machine, we might be able to see the original listing.


The two sources of time machines - Ebay and movies, come together brilliantly in the movie Napoleon Dynamite.


The whole look and feel of 12 monkeys owes a lot to the dystopian architecture of Lebbeus Woods. Enough so that a judge agreed.


Scientific American guide to time machines.


The idea of a time machine looking anachronistic in most settings, was cleverly done in Back to the Future, where the choice of the instantly obsolete De Lorean as the vehicle meant that it was anachronistic in any setting.


Serious time machines seem to consist of masks, hats, or anything that has wires and electrodes coming of of the head. The implication is that time travel is a mental thing, rather than a trip you take in a vehicle.

La Jetee is an excellent short film about time travel and was the inspiration for 12 Monkeys.



George Pal's classic 1960 movie version of the Time Machine, captured the Steam Punk style of the book, nowhere more so than in the design of the machine itself.


The time machine that was lovingly built for the 2002 movie, was the most expensive prop, ever made for a movie. And it didn't even work.


The makers of this time machine got into hot water on Ebay, for falsely describing their device, which is in fact a working mind reading hat - clearly.


The look and feel of the time travel device in the popular TV series The Time Tunnel had absolutely no connection with the contemporary popularity of psychoactive recreational drugs.


A desktop time machine conjured up by the tin foil hat brigade.


$345. Features of this time machine are the fact that the inventor often appears in color at monochrome events.

A miniature version of the time machine in the 60's classic version of The Time Machine, directed by George Pal


Lance Oldham has made a model of the Time Machine created by artist Lou Cameron for a 1956 issue of the comic book, Classics Illustrated.


Like many things in post war Britain, the Tardis time and space machine was a bit crap. As Doctor Who's time machine, it was disguised as a Police Box, and made the sound of a Soviet car's starter motor on a cold day. A Police Box, seems to have been a kind of sentry box for cops, a place for Bobbies to hang out and make tea, providing there were less than two of them.

The Tardis is also a New York Realtor's dream since it is the size of a large dog kennel, or medium sized Manhattan apartment, on the outside, and NASA's Vertical Assembly building on the inside.

Since there are approximately 'none at all' police boxes on the streets of Britain, the Tardis is the world's worst disguise for a time machine, unless you happen to be visiting Britain, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way, The Universe, between 1900 and 1950, local time.

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