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Temporal Anomalies

Main Page
Discussing Time Travel Theory
Miscellany
Conversation
Other Films
Perpetual Barbecue
About the Author
Contact the Author

See also entries under the
Temporal Anomalies/Time Travel
category of the
mark Joseph "young"
web log
elsewhere on this site.

Quick Jumps

Harry Potter
  and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Flight of the Navigator
Teenage Mutant Turtles III
The Last Mimzy
Other Films

Miscellaneous Articles
in original publication sequence except for indices inserted at correct points in the historic flow

Miscellany
Temporal Anomalies Classics
Temporal Anomalies Index 2009
Back to the Future Nationwide
  Theatrical Showing This Evening

People Magazine's Woman of the Year
  Sandra Bullock
    featured in time travel films

Temporal Anomalies Index 2010
Source Code Opens April 1, 2011
Future Time Travel Film Analyses--2011
Why Not Analyze
  Time Travel Television Shows?

Men in Black III Remakes History
Temporal Anomalies Index 2011
(Some of) The Best Time Travel Movies
  You Might Have Missed

Men in Black III May 25th U.S. debut
  midnight shows tonight

Future Time Travel Film Analyses--2012
Temporal Anomalies Index 2012
(Some of) The Best Time Travel Movies
  for Children

Films Currently Showing, November 2013
Upcoming Time Travel Films,
  from February 2014

(Some of) The Best Time Travel
  Romance Movies

Upcoming time travel films,
  from December 2014

Temporal Anomalies Index 2014
(Some of) The Best Time Travel Comedies
(Some of) The Best Time Travel Thrillers

Movies Analyzed
in order examined

Terminator
    Addendum to Terminator
    Terminator 3:  Rise of the Machines
    Terminator Recap
    Terminator Salvation
    Terminator Genisys
    Terminator:  Dark Fate
Back To The Future
Back To The Future II
Back To The Future III
Millennium
Star Trek Introduction
    Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
    Star Trek: Generations
    Star Trek: First Contact
    Star Trek (2009)
12 Monkeys
    Addendum to 12 Monkeys
Flight Of The Navigator
  Flight Of The Navigator Addendum
Army of Darkness
Lost In Space
Peggy Sue Got Married
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Frequency
Planet of the Apes
Kate and Leopold
Somewhere In Time
The Time Machine
Minority Report
Happy Accidents
The Final Countdown
Donnie Darko
  S. Darko
Harry Potter and
    the Prisoner of Azkaban

Deja Vu
Primer
    Primer Questions
Bender's Big Score
Popular Christmas Movies
The Butterfly Effect
  The Butterfly Effect 2
  The Butterfly Effect 3:  Revelations
The Last Mimzy
The Lake House
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Hot Tub Time Machine
Premonition
Los Cronocrimines a.k.a. TimeCrimes
Timeline
A Sound of Thundrer
Next
Frequently Asked Questions
    About Time Travel

Source Code
Warlock
Blackadder Back & Forth
Watchmen
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
11 Minutes Ago
Men in Black III
La Jetée
Triangle
Midnight in Paris
Meet the Robinsons
Looper
H. G. Wells' The Time Machine
The Jacket
Safety Not Guaranteed
The Philadelphia Experiment
    The Philadelphia Experiment II
Time After Time
TimeCop
About Time
Free Birds
X-Men:  Days of Future Past
Edge of Tomorrow
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Predestination
Project Almanac
41
Time Lapse
Synchronicity
Paradox
O Homem Do Futuro
    a.k.a. The Man from the Future

Abby Sen
When We First Met
See You Yesterday
Mirage
The History of Time Travel
Copyright Information

The temporal anomaly terminology used here is drawn from Appendix 11:  Temporal Anomalies of Multiverser from Valdron Inc, and is illustrated on the home page of this web site.  This site is part of M. J. Young Net.

Books by the Author.


The Book

Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies
presents
(Some of)
The Best Time Travel Movies for Children

We previously looked at (Some of) The best time travel movies you might have missed, and commented that there were many categories within the subject that might be included.  A list of time travel movies aimed at children seemed an appropriate addition, but it would have been unfair to create such a list before having seen Meet the Robinsons, as an entry into the field by Disney's Pixar might belong on such a list.  As it turns out, it is a disappointment as a time travel movie--a fun story, but laced with multiple and interlocking impossibilities.

"Children" is of course a very broad category, and there are undoubtedly films suitable for twelve-year-olds that are not suitable for six-year-olds, and similarly films which six-year-olds would greatly enjoy that would bore twelve-year-olds.  Indeed, individual children have different tastes and feelings.  Parents looking for movies for their children should screen them in advance.


Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

From a time travel perspective, the best surprisingly turns out to be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

This is surprising because the book made a critical temporal error which the movie fixed almost accidentally.  (Efforts to repair the book (a book entitled Time Travel and Harry Potter by Richard H. Jones, our review of which is apparently lost with the demise of Gaming Outpost) have not been successful.)  The major time travel incident is resolvable despite its apparent problems, once we recognize that Hermoine, not Harry, is the principle time traveler.

It is probably appropriate for children about the same age as the characters in the book (thirteen) and older.

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Flight of the Navigator

In a close second, Flight of the Navigator manages to tell a very clever and entertaining story of a boy taken to another planet for eight years and returned home to create quite a stir, all of which is resolved when he is returned to his own time.  It gives us the "AB" side of the anomaly, leaving us to reconstruct the "CD" side, and the possibility exists for some terrible disasters, but they also can be resolved relatively simply if the main characters take some simple steps to do so.  This is a more serious adventure story, reminiscent of such films as Cloak & Dagger or E.T., in which the story is serious and a bit frightening, but the heroes are kids.  The science is a bit off in some places, particularly when NASA tries to explain how Einstein says it would be possible to travel five hundred sixty light years in eight years.

This is suitable as a general family film.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, commonly known as Turtles in Time, is another fun movie, action packed but with a sort of cartoon violence in which no one really gets hurt except the villain.  The time travel elements are complex and difficult to resolve, but the problems are easily overlooked even if resolving them requires serious effort.

This again is probably a family film, suitable for the young, although the very young might be a bit bored by it.

It happens also to be the last project on which Jim Henson worked before his death, although it is not a Muppet movie by any means and his contribution was part of making the turtles come alive.

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The Last Mimzy

One of our fans called attention to The Last Mimzy, again a serious adventure in which kids are the heroes.  The problems, temporally, in this film are extremely challenging, and although they are not insurmountable the probability of time being preserved seems extremely low.  Otherwise it is an enjoyable film with some interesting ideas.  Some parents might be concerned at the film's efforts to explain aspects of mysticism and psychic ability with future science.

It is another family film.

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Other Films

Honorable mention goes to Disney's recent Jim Carrey version of A Christmas Carol.  Although it tells the serious and at times frightening traditional ghost story, it uses a realistic animation format to make it both more accessible and more entertaining for younger audiences while maintaining the story including much of the wonderful Dickensian dialogue.

There are other time travel films suitable for children, but none which have caught our attention as worth viewing.  It probably should be mentioned that despite being animated, Bender's Big Score is not suitable for children, being laced with the sort of adolescent humor that is offensive to intelligent adults, as well as being a (probably intentionally) disastrous time travel story.  If you are a time travel fan looking for films for your children, the others are a good place to start the introduction to the genre.  If you have a favorite time travel film I might have missed, please let me know by e-mail or in comments.

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