If I found out when the original
Planet of the Apes was first broadcast on television in our region and went back in time to my childhood home to watch that airing, I would have the particular pleasure of seeing the look on my face when I first considered the concept of time travel. Let's say it was late 1970 and I was eight, just to use some sweet round numbers that are likely close.
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| Taylor realizes he is in Earth's future |
So, eight years old and my brain practically exploded. Here was "Bright Eyes" Taylor cursing all humankind for screwing up the world and our entire existence, and all I could think about was "Future? Future! He's in the future!" Now I was only eight or maybe ten and unaware of things like the Cold War, how we were polluting the planet, etc. Didn't know nary a single protest song. Time travel made the movie for me though; that is, to use the terminology of the times, it blew my mind. I have been fascinated by thinking about time travel ever since.
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| Kirk visits the 1930s |
I am not 100% certain, but I will pin the first time that I considered travel to the past on watching
The City on the Edge of Forever, which was the infamous
Star Trek episode where Kirk has to allow the lovely Joan Collins to die or otherwise wipe out all of the future that they come from. Trickier than future travel, past travel means you must consider consequences and that opens up a whole other brain storm of the magnitude of a tropical hurricane. Wonderful stuff. That episode first aired in 1967, but I would not have seen it for a few years as our household didn't watch the first runs of the original series.
And there you have it; that's what this blog will be about. Since I have not yet time traveled myself, it will have to be about time travel incidents in art. I won't restrict it to film because at the very least there are some wonderful songs about time travel out there too, and I may discover some other forms. So as I encounter or re-encounter the concept, I will check in here.
Kathleen Craig
currently stuck in a linear time sequence
