Space and Environment: Cinematic Spaces Research The Time Machine by H.

G Wells The Time Machine is a British novel by English author; H.G Wells. The original book was published by William Heinemann in 1895 and is arguably one of the first and most popular science fiction novels of its time. The book explores the possibilities of time travel, what will happen in the future and the main question; if technology will ever go too far. Wells was clearly very interested in space and time travel himself. The famous novel of its time has been adapted into two feature films, as well as two television versions, and a number of comic book adaptations as well.

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Synopsis: A Victorian scientist/inventor shows a huge interest in the future and the fourth dimension and has a real passion for the possibility of time travel. Sure enough the ambitious scientist invents the first ever Time Machine and explorers the future of the world in which he lives but due to a series of events, much to his surprise he ends up travelling 800,000 years into the future where technology is not as advanced as you would think and mankind have degenerated into simple human life forms that just reside in the sun in a peaceful atmosphere (the Eloi). But not all is what it seems; the curious scientist soon finds out there are other life forms below which are descendants of humans but by no means look like them, feeding on the life forms above but cannot come out into the day light (the Morlocks). Influences: The book has a strong relationship to a previous novel of Wells called The Chronic Argonauts, which also shows the notion of time travel and was the foundations of The Time Machine. He was originally going to use his material in a series of articles for the Pall Mall Gazette evening newspaper but was instead asked by the publisher to write a serial novel with the same theme. Wells agreed and was paid 100 when published by Heinemann in 1895. The story reflects the contemporary angst about industrial relations, Wells view on life and abundance and his own socialist political views. As well as this it is also heavily influenced by Ray Lankesters theories about social degeneration. Science fiction works of the period dealt with similar themes and relations such as, Metropolis and the earlier Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. The Author: Herbert George Wells was born in 1866 in Bromley England. His love for reading and writing is said to have aroused when he was 8 years old when he had an accident where he broke his leg and as a result he was immobile for quite sometime and so read many books to

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pass the time. Today we consider his novels to be the first in science fiction genre however he said his stories were scientific romances. His most famous novels include The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man and The Time Machine.

Wells married a couple of times and had four children with three different women. A number of women he had close relations to became models for his characters in his novels. Adaptations: Over the years there have been two film adaptations of the book; the first one, made in 1960 and directed by George Pal (Figure 3). The second one made in 2002 and directed by Simon Wells (Figure 4). The films were published over 40 years apart so there was an obvious difference in technology and effects when the two were compared.

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Simon Wells version has got a huge upper hand when it comes to visual effects, motion graphics and CGI. One of the best scenes that show this aspect off is the famous scene of the time travel experience in motion, here we see Alexander Hartdegen (played by Guy Pearce) sit himself in the saddle and ignite the machine. As the dial turns forward we see a view of a spider making its web 20 times faster than usual, a flash of day and night through the window until it is just a streak of the sun passing by every second. We soon start to see the natural decay of the travellers house and the evolution of motorised vehicles and womens fashion by looking at a manikin in a window. Suddenly the camera zooms out and we see the world changing before eyes, buildings remade and getting taller and the gradual improving of air travel as we became able to fly in higher air space with new and improved models until we eventually see the moon and the first rocket landing on its surface. Hartdegen then stops when he sees a notice saying THE FUTURE IS NOW.

Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQEXt1P0OkI

Now in George Pals adaptation we see a similar sequence but in the 19th Century this was definitely a more ground breaking scene, it displays a great use of old time visual effects such as the not so widely used nowadays, stopmotion. In this scene the mannequin we see a glimpse of in the 2002 scene is used more predominantly as an icon to show Pals depiction of evolution of womens clothes, the traveller also grows a certain relationship with the mannequin as like him she didnt age. Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRy1aCC37Fs

However what George Pals version lacks in visual effects and out-dated motion graphics it certainly doesnt disappoint when it comes to the story line itself. The film is a superb adaptation of the book and follows the novel perfectly with the narration, same character names, very similar environments that have been described in the book, as well as the correct motive as to why he wishes to time travel. In the book, the traveller is generally interested in the possibilities of time travel and makes it his goal to be the first man to travel through time. Pals version shows this very well whereas Wells decided to put a different spin on things; instead the travellers fianc dies and then he spends years making a time machine in order to travel BACK in time and get her back but he finds out

that no matter how many times he goes back, he will always see her die. Frankly this is too predictable and was quite disappointing for someone whos read the book and seen the 1960 film. In the original book the characters name is never given and is just referred to as the time traveller. In Pals version the time traveller is cleverly referred to as George as in Wells (Herbert George Wells) middle name, showing a possibility of Wells actually writing the book as himself being the character. As said above Wells version has completely different names and the protagonist is called Alexander Hartdegen.

Bibliography: LearnOutLoud, 2005. H.G Wells Audio. [Online] Available at: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Resources/Authors-and-Narrators/H.G.Wells/236 [Accessed 8th October 2012] The Literature Network, 2000. H.G Wells. [Online] Available at: http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/ [Accessed 8th October 2012] Mike Jay, Man of the year Million. [Online] Available at: http://mikejay.net/articles/man-of-the-year-million/ [Accessed 8th October 2012] Shmoop, 2012. The Time Machine. [Online] Available at: http://www.shmoop.com/time-machine-hg-wells/ [Accessed 8th October 2012] Bibliography Images: Figure 1: http://specficpick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/michael-k-rose-presents-classicscience.html Figure 2: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jwells.htm Figure 3: http://dvdmoviemaniac.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/time-machine-dvd-report.html

Figure 4: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/ Videos: Youtube: Fly0High, 2010. The Time Machine Time passing sequences. [Video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQEXt1P0OkI [Accessed on 8th October 2012] Youtube: Rob Byrne, 2007. The Time Machine. [Video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRy1aCC37Fs [Accessed on 9th October 2012]