Time Travel Archives | Otaku No Culture

Bill & Ted Face the Music and Their Franchise Future

There’s some story to like in Bill and Ted Face the Music, but ultimately, it’s about the next generation and what they can do to help their dads.

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SPOILER ALERT

Bill and Ted still have an insurmountable task to accomplish in Face the Music. They still have to make that song to bring harmony to the universe. The pseudoscience and sociology behind being able to achieve that is hard to grasp as not even the Oa who created the Green Lantern Corps can promise universal peace. As cinema’s most lovable doofuses would say, being happy means being excellent to each other.

The story by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon is not too perplexing. Time travel stories often struggle with its own internal logic, and this film is no different.

The film is brilliant at realizing this mantra because the future shelves of Bill and Ted simply forget their own credo and need reminders. They are cruel to their past shelves. It’s sort of funny, but I can’t help but wonder when each future iteration decided to be nasty. Part of it has to do with how they failed as musicians. Sadly, the film doesn’t spend any time about them as family men. Their wives are concerned for their wellbeing and suggested couples therapy to “separate” them. Just why their kids adore their fathers is mind-boggling.

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Can Fate be Changed with Iceman 2: Time Traveller?

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Following up on the events of the last film, The Iceman 2: The Time Traveller (冰封侠: 时空行者) proves He-Ying is a tough nut to crack. His loyalty is never questioned, but yet his brothers-in-arms are easily corruptible. This Chinese production is coming to North America courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment with a video release on Feb 19th, 2019.

This film originally released in November 2018 to lacklustre box office results. When a lot of action-adventure Asian films are out to create that blockbuster experience ala Marvel Entertainment, director Raymond Yip tries his best and gives audiences Quantum Leap instead of Doctor Who. The lead is played by Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen (甄子丹).

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Crowdfunding Paradox Girl, a Lesson in Time-Travel — an Interview

While most of the content is lighthearted and whimsical, we’ll see what it’s like for Paradox Girl to struggle with timelessness and the lack of consequence. Loss, identity and regret are underlying themes of the character and while juggling that whimsy, we’ll deal with some of those deeper concepts.

Cayti Bourquin is the writer/creator of a new kind of heroine, codenamed: Paradox Girl, illustrated by Yishan Li. Together, both this duo and and Peter Bensley, editor of Hana Comics, are taking to crowdfunding on Kickstarter to help this comic book take off. They are well past their goal, and the team believes there’s a market for this special kind of independent hit.

This character is very different from the normal type of heroes found in print and the story looks at a problem found with stories involving time-travel — just how do you deal with altering anyone’s personal time stream? The television series Doctor Who dodges the issue and CW’s Legends of Tomorrow has yet to consider the bigger picture. The pilot episode already altered the timeline with how Professor Boardman passed on — or was the incident meant to be? Even in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 2012 animated series, the heroes in the half-shell went back in time to pretend they are Yokai only to save their sensei. The most craziest of situations was explored in Futurama, Bender’s Big Score. Just how these other properties addresses the issue of altering time-lines makes for great story-telling and Bourquin has a plan in mind for her Paradox Girl (PG). She may seem to be an ordinary hero, but there’s more to her than meets the eye, especially when she has to live with all her future selves.

At least the hit here is that issue #2 will happen. There’s still two weeks left to this campaign. Readers might want to take note of possible convention appearances as they get announced by Bensley. Artist Yishan Li will be attending Europen conventions with this product. Although shy, perhaps Cayti Bourquin can be encouraged to appear for autograph signings in a tour at shows in North America.

Otakunoculture spoke with Bensley and Bourquin about this product:

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[VFF’15] The Infinite Man Searches for Love, A Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Big budgets are not always needed to make a mixed-genre film successful. When Infinite Man searches for love across time, just what results is hilarious! This movie offers the best in what science fiction can look like using outdated 70’s technology, how romance crafted Aussie-style can become universal and where comedy can go with only three performers carrying the film.

To keep track of which version of Dean (Josh McConville) is whom is not all that difficult because this actor manages to nuance every iteration of himself with subtle differences to show the wisdom gained as he tries to figure out how to escape the mother of all Groundhog Day. Phil Connor never had it that difficult.

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Going Back in Time with X-Men: Days of Future Past, A Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

14 years feels like a long time for this Uncanny X-men fan to see a wickedly fun comic book film that satisfies in every frame projected to a screen. Not since Sam Rami’s Spider-Man 2 has there been a movie that manages to expand past its original premise developed in the comics. For once the themes explored in Days of Future Past are very telling for its time. Director Bryan Singer succeeds in recreating the pathos needed to drive this film forward and his momentum never slows in this movie that features all my favourite mutants slugging it out Terminator: Judgement Day style, knowing every move they make will have ramifications for how the future is shaped.

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