Time After Time - SPOILER (1 Viewer)

[RobertR]

before everybody starts calling me senile

I have to smile when I see terms such as "senile" and "Altzheimer's patient" thrown around when talking about this subject. No such condition is meant or even implied, of course. It's simply an acknowledgement of the fact that any typical, clear thinking, rational person can have an imperfect memory. Objective evidence is known to contradict eyewitness testimony in court trials, for example. So there's no need to be so defensive about simply being human, which is all that people asking for objective evidence are saying.

 

[Randy B A]

Man, if we only had some type of machine that would let us go back in time to see this in the theater again.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

Man, if we only had some type of machine that would let us go back in time to see this in the theater again.

TIME AFTER TIME AFTER TIME...

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Objective evidence is known to contradict eyewitness testimony in court trials, for example.

In fact, eyewitness testimony is often the worst kind of evidence in a criminal investigation, and it tends to get worse as time goes on. There's a tendency to "fill in the blanks" when we try to remember things, especially things seen only in passing or when we were under stress. The classic example of this is the fact that fully half of the survivors of the Titanic reported that the ship sank in one piece, while almost exactly the same number reported that it broke in two on the surface before sliding beneath the waves. The same split appeared in the initial witness statements and in statements given weeks or months later at the inquests. Just about half of those witnesses had to be wrong, but the members of both groups were equally adament about what they "saw" and the matter wouldn't be settled until Ballard's expedition finally discovered the wreck. If not for that historians would still be unable to say definitievely what really happened. They'd simply have to report what people had said.
Similarly I think a lot of people who read the text coda and who later saw other, similar films have simply manufactured a memory of a shot that never appeared in the film. B5 fans once vocally attacked TNT on their website for cutting a wedding scene from the rerun of an episode. There was no wedding scene. There never had been. Not only was no such scene ever shot, no such scene was ever written - it wasn't in any of the drafts of the script. (The fact that a wedding had taken place off-screen was mentioned in the dialogue.) There were hundreds of such posts on the TNT B5 web forum, and this came up only about 8 months after the episode had its first run airing on broadcast TV. People described the scene in detail in their posts. (Although no two of those descriptions really matched.)
That's just how human memory works (or doesn't) sometimes.
Regards,
Joe

 

[Kevin M]

I personally am not suggesting that the "picture scene" is an absolutly a fact or, if indeed it ever did exist, that it was in the theatrical version. The only thing that I think it could possibly have been in was a Network airing (CBS-NBC-ABC) that included cut footage as they did with other films such as Aliens, Superman, Jaws or The Keep.

 

[Chris Dugger]

Jeff....

I can assure you that this "photo" ending never appeared on the 35mm theatrical release print.

I ran the film for 8 weeks straight and owned a 35mm print for ten years and viewed it often.

When this film was released in theatres, test screenings were not common, so I have to bedunk this claim that it appeared in theatres.

As for "broadcast" there is the possibility, as we all know that the networks made common practice to extend the runtimes to fit a time slot.

Dugger

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I was initially in the "picture yes" camp, but after the post on BTTF 3 I started thinking about it and I'm certain that's what I've transferred to Time After Time. Memory is a funny thing, and not at all to be relied upon.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The only thing that I think it could possibly have been in was a Network airing (CBS-NBC-ABC) that included cut footage

Except that this one still during the closing credits is hardly "footage". The films you cited re-instated scenes that were cut for pace or for time from the theatrical release (generally with good reason) to pad the film out to fit a given block of time. (The alternative would have been cutting the film to fit in a shorter window.) Sometimes such extra footage is put back in to make up for more objectionable stuff that has to be cut from the TV version. (I believe Blazing Saddles is an example.) Finally a theatrical film may have a few minutes added to its running time so that the TV networks can advertise something "new" when they air a film which - less face it - has already been released on DVD and/or VHS, seen on airplanes and in hotels, been on pay-per-view and aired on at least one premium pay-cable channel before it is ever broadcast.

The difference between these films and Time After Time is that there is a compelling reason to add several minutes of previously cut footage. There is no similar reason to add a few seconds of a still photograph to the closing credits of Time After Time. It simply doesn't make any sense for anyone to take the trouble (and spend the money) to insert that single shot which in no way improves the film as a piece of network television programming or helps it fit more neatly into a 2 hour or 3 hour broadcast window. (Which is why the other films were altered for broadcast.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Johnny Angell]

I just googled Nicholas Meyer hoping to find some contact info to email him. I found a site with a plot synopsis with the following quote:

H.G. removes a device (the vaporizing equalizer) from the exterior of the machine's cabin, which causes the Ripper to vanish into infinity without the machine. H.G. and Amy then board the machine themselves and return to Wells' own time, after which (actual) history records that the two marry.

What history records that the two marry? I can only think of the photo.
BTW, here's the link for that site.

 

[Dave Mack]

Gotta go with Joseph on this. Why would they go to the trouble for one shot?
Also, even if people had never seen BTTF3, they might have easily seen a promo, preview for it with Steenburgen and that might have planted a false memory.
I think everyone who remembers it should type in a description of the photo using the spoiler feature and then we can objectively compare. What outfits? Hats on or off? Standing or sitting? Right or left?
Might be enlightening?
d

 

[RobertR]

What history records that the two marry?

The text shown on the screen at the end of the film. It states that they were married, and describes some of the “predictions” that Wells made that came true.

 

[Johnny Angell]

The text shown on the screen at the end of the film.

Its been a while, guess I need to watch the film again.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

What history records that the two marry? I can only think of the photo.

Obviously no "history" records the marriage of the two fictional characters in the film about the non-existent time machine.
But the fact is that Wells married a woman named Amy Catherine Robbins (who was generally known as either "Jane" or "Catherine" rather than "Amy".) She was a student of his during one of his brief forrays into academe, and they moved in together in 1893, while Wells was still married to his first wife. After his divorce they married in 1895 and had two sons. Wells also had children with two other women during their marriage, though it is hard to tell how much Amy Catherine objected to this. The free-love, proto-feminist heroines of two of his novels are said to have been based on both Catherine Wells and Rebecca West, the journalist and novelist who bore Wells third son, novelist Anthony West. (The other child was a daughter, the result of Wells's scandalous affair with Amber Reeves, a young Fabian just out of college.) Catherine Wells died in 1927.
Obviously the film-makers had a bit of revisionist fun by making their heroine the woman the historical Wells did marry. (And there was a genuine connection between Amy Catherine and The Time Machine. The material that eventually became Wells first successful novel originally appeared as short stories and sketches in several English newspapers and magazines of the late 1880s. But around the time Wells was preparing to move in with Amy, a publisher urged Wells to recast the early pieces as a novel. The book was published with the text that we now know in 1885, the same year the pair married.)
For more on Wells, see this link.
Regards,
Joe

 

[Jeff Willis]

Does anyone know for certain that the upcoming (09/02/08) release of "Time After Time" will be an anamorphic release? I thought I recalled reading that over at the Digital Bits but I haven't seen any pre-order info on the anamorphic issue. This one's not showing up on DVDTalk or DVDBeaver release calendars.

 

[BillyFeldman]

The original DVD release is anamorphic - why would this one not be (if there is indeed a new version coming). It's Warners - they certainly don't do non-anamorphic transfers, at least they haven't since the advent of DVD.

Reading through this thread has provided a lot of laughs. The scene never existed anywhere - not in theatrical prints, TV, cable, VHS, laserdisc, or DVD. It's all bad memory or the mind creating something that never existed, just, as someone points out, the thousands of people who stomped their feet and swore there was a "To Be Continued" card in the theatrical prints of Back To The Future - and after Zemeckis came out and stated that these people were all incorrect, they still swore they saw it. How do you explain that? The same way you explain this.

 

[cafink]

I'm reminded of all those claims about the "brain" scene being trimmed on the Hannibal DVD.

 

[soop.spoon]

The upcoming release is just a re-packaging using atrocious new cover art. I normally upgrade snappers to keepcases, but this new cover is SO bad, I'm going to have to stick with the snapper.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

It IS an atrocious cover.

See?

 

[PaulDA]

I'll wait for the Blu-ray, then.

 

[Ensign Eddie]

It's Warners - they certainly don't do non-anamorphic transfers, at least they haven't since the advent of DVD.

A bunch of "Birds of Prey" fans would tell you a different story.