Tuesday, 12 March 2002 10:50pm I n anticipation of the remake starring Guy Pierce, we rented the original 1960 movie version of The Time Machine a few weeks ago. Well, tonight, Leanne, Marissa, Cami, Jeff and myself went and saw the new version with the old one still pretty fresh in our minds. Overall, I think it was a fairly entertaining movie, and I found some aspects of it clearly superior to the old version, and oter aspects of it clearly inferior. Obviously, after 42 years of technological advances, the new version had better special effects, but that's not really what I'm talking about here. I felt that the new version's depiction of the Eloi was better, and more believable than the one of the 1960 version where 800,000 years in the future everyone is blonde, blue eyed, and completely stupid. I also thought it was clever introducing Orlando Jones' character earlier on in the movie, as later on, he was far more interesting as a historical reference than the spinning rings of the 1960's version. On the other hand, I found the traveling to the past to save a girl thing totally contrived and unbecoming of a scientist as brilliant as one who would invent a time machine would be. And the whole Jeremy Irons part was, to put it simply, lame. One aspect of the 1960's version that I felt was sorely missed in this remake was the fact that in the beginning, there was some experimentation with the machine. At first, he only took it a few years ahead, going only in small increments. Starting off first by going forward only a few hours. Then going just a year or two ahead, seeing what his lab looked like in the near future. Then a 20 years later meeting the son of his good friend Philby, before going further on into the future to see humankind destroy itself. The machine itself, and the idea of time travel played a much smaller role in the remake. Many of the philosphical aspects of the original were lost as well. I also liked the fact that in the 1960 version, he returns to his own time before deciding to stay in the future... I thought the fact that he returned to his own time made the decision of staying in the future that much more... meaningful. So yeah. It's made some improvements over the original, and then again, it's lost some of what the original had. I can't say it's really any better or worse overall, because there were some pretty horrible aspects about the original as well. But, it was worth $3.75, I think.