Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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What happens if you meet yourself? Can I get frequent traveler miles? Why does my time machine smell like a urinal cake?

What would happen if you had the ability to experience time travel as a fan of the genre? Do you know all the rules and think you would be prepared? That’s what Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel hypothesizes as it takes three geeky young men and flings them forward and back in time.

First Impressions

The trailer looks like a crazy and very self-aware film. Three young men enter a pub and meet a woman who claims to be a time traveler. The bathroom has something that allows them to travel through time, duplicating themselves many times within the same location. Suddenly, they have leaped into futures with dead bodies, ice ages, or other strange things. The intertitles call it Dr. Who meets Shaun of the Dead, but you know it as Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

At the Star Ride attraction in the Fantastic World of Magic theme park, science-fiction fan Ray (Chris O’Dowd) becomes too intense with his Planetary Peace Corps character causing young kids on the ride to cry. He is subsequently fired and heads with his two mates, Toby (Marc Wootton) and Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) to see a movie, where afterward they discuss the poor state of Hollywood films. Toby, who is also a fan of SF (taking offense when it’s called sci-fi), keeps a notebook of brilliant ideas and composes a “letter to Hollywood” while they are at a pub. Pete, who doesn’t get the attraction of genre films, makes fun of them constantly, calling them ‘nerds.’

After discussing good and bad remakes of films at their pub, Ray goes next door to the snug where he is greeted by Cassie (Anna Faris). She says she is a time traveler who knows Ray from the future. She is here to plug time leaks, and to meet the “great Ray.” He plays along thinking his friends have set this meeting up for him. Upon returning to their table, his friends admit it was not them. Pete goes to the bathroom while singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” When he re-enters the pub, he sees an older, bearded version of himself dead on the floor along with everyone else in the pub. Jumping back into the bathroom and re-emerging seconds later, everything appears to be fine.

Pete drags Ray and Toby into the men’s, having them perform the same dance steps he did. They exit and find themselves 30 minutes in the past. They avoid their past selves by hiding in a cupboard under the stairs. Ray realizes Cassie is still in the snug, but when confronted she doesn’t believe him. She walks out of the pub and appears with a different hairdo seconds later. This is Cassie from six months into the future. She says she has patched the time leak and that all the trio has to do is wait out this loop when their past selves enter the bathroom. Having to take a leak again, the boys go into the ladies’ lavatory, emerging in a future where the pub is abandoned and demolished.

Pete has had enough of this nonsense and jumps into the men’s room, emerging seconds later disheveled and with a full beard. He is traumatized from spending two months stuck in the woods fighting for survival. The trio dons hoodies as they examine the apocalyptic frozen future. Pete is now paranoid about what may be coming for them, Toby is scared that time travel is not conforming to his fantasies, and Ray just wants to meet future people. They discover a mural of themselves on the side of the pub wearing the exact same hoodies they now have on. Toby thinks they’re famous for forming a band.

Returning to the bathroom they try to discover a way back, as the past versions of themselves enter together (for the first time), and the future trio hides in a stall. Pete tries to warn them not to do anything, but the other two stop him–not wanting to create a paradox. Pete runs after their past selves and they emerge into a theme party of people celebrating the trio, with each guest dressed as one of the trio in their hoodies. They meet Millie (Meredith MacNeill), another time traveler who offers to help them get “home,” where they discover that the back side of the paper they wrote their “letter to Hollywood” on contains an amazing idea that they become famous for.

Cassie returns after another six months for her and reveals that Millie is an Editor, a time traveler who edits the timeline by killing people shortly after they become famous. Ray tells Toby the only way to save themselves is to destroy the piece of paper. Millie arrives unleashing a blast that kills everyone–just as past Pete walks into the pub to see his dead body. Ray’s dying act is to knock a pint of beer onto the piece of paper, destroying the message. Time rewinds and all three are safe in their booth at the pub, but retaining their memories of everything that happened. They head out for a different pub when a portal opens and Cassie steps out. She reveals Ray and her have been dating for two years, and that spilling the pint caused problems in parallel universes. The three decide to join together and jump into the portal for another adventure.

“What about the rules? I mean there’s always rules in these things isn’t there?” – Pete

History in the Making

Sci-Fi Saturdays started this year with a pair of films about traveling in time (or time manipulation) and will end the year the same way. This week’s movie is Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel which deals with some of the more popular tropes of time travel. It has a great conceit for a genre film, which is that the characters are aware of the tropes and conventions of the sci-fi film that they’re in. This has been done with horror films, including Zombieland–where the main character lays out the rules for killing zombies as seen in nearly every zombie film up to that point, and The Final Girls–which is similar but replaces zombies with slasher films. This idea makes for a humorous and deeply rich film for fans of the genre, but might also be off-putting to viewers without as much insight.

The title of the film derives from the burgeoning online culture and a question-and-answer format called an FAQ, which stands for Frequently Asked Questions. Internet sites would often have a page devoted to these common questions complete with answers to avoid having visitors ask the same basic query over and over again. But the idea of an FAQ dates back to the mid-17th Century, according to Wikipedia, when The Discovery of Witches by Matthew Hopkins was published. It featured a similar format of questions and answers about how to identify witches and their magick. The film title Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel may stem from the fact that Ray and Toby are constantly having to explain the rules about time travel to Pete, such as not to touch yourself and not to tread on butterflies.

Genre-fication

Sometimes science-fiction films don’t move the genre forward but comment on the state of the genre instead. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel appears to be one of those kinds of films. Its commentary looks at the preposterousness of time travel stories and attempts to critique and parody that sort of story by making a lighthearted version of a similar story. The logic in many films about time travel can get complex, with effect sometimes preceding cause. This story definitely has those complex types of circular moments. FAQ entertains a number of realities that the characters visit and teases a couple of others that are never seen–such as Cassie’s future and Pete’s two months spent in the woods. In the end, everything makes sense, at least from the internal rules that the story invokes. But where the film really shines is its references to time travel, science fiction, and famous pop culture films.

The biggest references are certainly to films that deal with time travel. Both The Terminator (in reference to Cassie’s time-traveling skeleton) and Doctor Who (in reference to Time Lords) are namechecked. Toby’s long and colorful scarf appears to also be a reference to Tom Baker’s Doctor. Back to the Future (and its sequels) are heartily referenced. Besides the characters encountering their past selves within the same frame, as Marty would do in Back to the Future Part II, both the posters for the original and Back to the Future Part III are homaged by characters checking their watches (with sunglasses on their forehead) whilst in the loo. The Ray Bradbury story (and film adaptation) of A Sound of Thunder is referenced by the butterfly effect rules that Pete thinks he knows. Something about not stepping on butterflies, he says. When the characters discover their mural on the side of the pub in the apocalyptic future, Toby thinks it may be because they “form a band,” an obvious nod to the time-traveling shenanigans from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The song played over the end credits is The Final Countdown, popularized in the 80s by the band Europe. But this could also be a sly reference to a 1980 military time travel film also called The Final Countdown, where a time storm transports a modern-era aircraft carrier back to the World War II battle at Pearl Harbor.

While not time travel related, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel also hits on some other famous films. The blue opening credits swoop in toward the camera as they did in the 1978 version of Superman. The opening moments of Ray working on the Star Ride are both a nod to the Star Wars-related ride at Disneyland called Star Tours, and Starship Troopers–with his militaristic armor. Later he aims his large gun at Millie shouting a key line from Sigourney Weaver in Aliens. The posters outside the theater advertise three films that are the original titles for three classic sci-fi films: Paradox (Back to the Future), Watch The Skies (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and A Boy’s Life (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial)–complete in the font for Blade Runner. When the trio look at the piece of paper with the idea that will make them famous, it casts a golden glow on their faces like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. Finally, when Cassie jumps out of the portal at the end, she tells Ray that they only have 14 hours to save the Earth, a classic nod to the same line by Melody Anderson in Flash Gordon. This film is definitely a love letter to science fiction films and the fans who love them.

Societal Commentary

Unlike a majority of science-fiction films reviewed in this series, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel does not have a lot of thematic gray matter. It doesn’t look at the world and imagine hearty themes about humanity. Instead, it’s much more granularly focused on individuals who are well-versed in pop culture and their place in the world. The film depicts Ray and Toby as two characters very much obsessed with all things science fiction-related. They are socially awkward, with Toby being much more so, and become insulted when Pete uses the word ‘nerd’ to describe them. “Didn’t we all agree to stop using the N-word?” Ray admonishes. Ray also takes offense at the use of the term “sci-fi,” preferring to call it science fiction, SF, or speculative fantasy. So much for getting him to read these posts! These characters fall squarely into the stereotypes for people who enjoy genre films of this type.

All three of the guys, who are presumably late 20s or early 30s, are still struggling to determine what to do with their lives. After being fired from his job at the amusement park, Ray is still thinking his best job would be as a Time Lord from Doctor Who. The other two are not much better off, working as costumed dinosaurs at the same amusement park, handing out fliers. The impetus of the film does prod them to examine what they’ve done with their lives, or what they’re going to do. Unfortunately, the answer becomes a more comedic version of living in a fantasy world. Even though the events of time travel are not as romantic as they might seem in films, Ray truly finds the woman of his dreams and his dream job of leaping through portals to save the universe.

The Science in The Fiction

Time travel films have presented a number of strange types of conveyances for their temporal transport, and Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is no different. Instead of a seated machine, a TARDIS, or a DeLorean, this film features a time leak in a loo. A comical synchronicity that is pointed out by the characters that the leak is in the toilet. So instead of a machine that controls the destination, FAQ presents a mysterious portal that exists in a location that ferries individuals forward and backward in the time stream. In this way, it’s more like the mysterious time storm in The Final Countdown, or the time bubble from the film adaptation of Lost In Space instead of any other man-made chronodevice.

To plug these leaks Cassie uses technology that is “hardwired into her bones” and controlled via her thoughts and a twitch of her neck. She is a glorified time plumber whose job is to close off any of these numerous leaks that appear to spring up with great regularity. The future of this world appears to have a large problem with time travel technology being available to anybody who wants it. Some characters, like Cassie, work for agencies that repair problems created by random, or by other time travelers referred to as Editors. These are people like Millie who travel back in time to kill artists (or others) immediately after their greatest work, so as not to diminish it. Ray uses the analogy of killing baby Hitler–a common time travel trope–but Cassie says it’s become more of a use for fans of pop culture to ensure that celebrities always go out on a high note.

The Final Frontier

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is a very fun film, especially for fans of the genre. While it provides a lot of inside jokes and references to knowledgeable viewers, it may be slightly too “inside baseball” for the average filmgoer. The cast all give entertaining and humorous takes on the real-world application of time travel to ordinary people, with Chris O’Dowd being the most enigmatic. This was unfortunately the first and last film by director Gareth Carrivick who passed away from leukemia a few months after this film’s release. It’s a shame, as his ability to capture this level of frenetic time travel without confusing the audience was a great asset and would have allowed him to make even stronger genre pictures had he survived.

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