Time travel gives me a headache

[Katsuro]

As much as i love this show, does anyone else ever get a little bit upset when they seem to be inconsistent with time travel. Maybe i just think about it too much, but I cant help notice certain things. (Skip the next three paragraphs if you dont wanna read me ranting about other movies)

Silly time travel rules always ruin things for me. Back to the Future was a comedy, so I'm pretty much okay with it, but I always found it ridiculous how Doc keeps going on about changing things and making a paradox, yet Marty changes a whole lot anyways.

And the movie Deja Vu was ruined by the end. They keep making it seem like changing the past works like a loop, where whatever you think you changed is what already happened. Like when he sends the note back it gets his partner killed, but that's how the partner had died the first time around anyways. Yet at the end, he's somehow able to change it, even though other stuff didn't change. If you've seen the movie you know what i'm talking about. It makes no sense.

Or the Terminator movies. Great movies, but time travel is inconsistent. In some parts, theres the looping effect. The Terminator travels back in time, is killed, and it's that same Terminator's chip that's used the create Skynet in the first place. Or the picture, he gives Reese the picture of his mom, and when we see the picture taken at the end, the way she looks is an obvious result of her adventure with Reese (she's on the run and whatnot). And yet if that's how it works, then why bother going back to change the past at all? If it cycles through like that, how could you change anything?

Heroes isn't too bad, but it does have a couple of things that are confusing me. For example, in the beginning of the series, Hiro travels five weeks into the future. From the phone call with Ando, we learn that Hiro was basically absent from the timeline for the five weeks. He blinked out of the timeline, and appeared 5 weeks later. However, when Hiro recently went 5 years in the future, why didn't that happen? Why was there a future version of Hiro, when there wasn't one the first time?

Or when he meets Charlie. The first time he meets her, she mentions getting a Japanese phrase book from a friend for her birthday. When he goes back in time, it's Hiro who gives her the book. Why didn't she remember Hiro?

I know there's a lot more, but I cant think of them right now. I figure this would be a good thread for discussing all time travel-related questions/theories. Isaac's future-paintings could also fit here.

 

[GL1]

I think Isaac's paintings are bit more stable... it's not like he looks into the future... he paints things and THEN they happen... It'd different...

As for Hiro, from early production quotes I inferred that they were coming up with their own rules for Time travel. That's what I would do If I were writing something... come up with something NEW that still makes sense.

I think the online comic referred to it as a "network" or a "product of lives" in which case, Hiro's life was disconnected during his 5 week jump, thus it was missing. Hiro's life was very much intertwined with others during his 5 year jump, thusly, his return was detectable even to the unaltered timeline.

In the 3 month jump with Charlie, HE did not appear, however he was able to affect pictures instantly with his time jump, even though, again, there was no Hiro there who had been staying at the diner for weeks dating Charlie.

If your life is inconsequential, or cookie-cutter, or hermit-like then time doesn't need you as it shifts. The 'new timeline' is unhindered by you missing. If however, you are deeply connected with the lives of others, and affect their lives, then the timeline is compromised by you being missing.

That's my theory at this point...