Peter Spierig: On Predestination And Robert Heinlein

"The inspiration came from a short story by one of the genre's greats. What drew us in was Robert Heinlein... the quality of Heinlein's storytelling. What's good about a short story, as opposed to a novel, is that you're able to keep the framework for something and then expand upon it.... ... in a novel, what you tend to do is just extract the core and .... remove so much to make it work. The interesting thing about Heinlein's short story is that so much of it is brilliantly constructed. ... it's rare that you can go to a movie, especially these days, and just really see something different and unique. We feel that Predestination is that film. It's something that's very different from any time-travel science fiction film you may have seen before, and I think it's a better viewing once you've seen it twice."

-Peter Spierig, SciFi Now #100, p.72-3-

Happening upon a brief article on Predestination (2014), a film this writer covered (visual spoilers) here, gave me the opportunity to shine a light on it one more time. It's a time travel film so fittingly why not travel, in this case, back in time. Predestination is a time travel classic. It's a special film in the time travel subgenre within the genre of science fiction and is worthy of your time and investigation.

I took the opportunity to have a look at a small selection of time travel sci-fi cinema (sequels not included). Some are amazing and some are some real duds. These are a handful in retrospect.

The Time Machine (1960). 12 Monkeys (1995). Frequency (2000). Planet Of The Apes (1968). Time After Time (1979). Somewhere In Time (1980). Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988). Back To The Future (1985). The Terminator (1984). Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). The Time Bandits (1981). Looper (2012). Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah (1991). A Sound Of Thunder (2005). The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006). Land Of The Lost (2009). Source Code (2011). X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014). Edge Of Tomorrow (2014). Interstellar (2015). Predestination (2014).

The list of film attempts at the time travel game are endless.

Episodically, science fiction television has tried its hand at it too with stand alone episodes or as a component of the series itself.

The Time Tunnel (1966-1967). Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007). Stargate Universe (2009-2011). Star Trek: The Original Series. Star Trek: The Next Generation and other Star Trek iterations. Land Of The Lost (1974-1976). Lost (2004-2010). Outlander (2014-present). Continuum (2012-2015). 12 Monkeys (2015-2018). Terra Nova (2011). Fringe (2008-2012). Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-2009). Odyssey 5 (2002-2004). Travelers (2016-2018). Life On Mars (2006-2007). Doctor Who (1963-present). Babylon 5 (1993-1998). The Man In The High Castle (2015-2019).