Things to Come (1936)

It’s difficult to judge a great movie.  Some are able to prove themselves relevant decades after their release while others have a social impact around the time release only to fade off into obscurity months or years later.  The movies my parents or grandparents liked or thought were great may seem quaint by the time the next generation comes of age.

Movies predicting technological or social advances tend to be problematic for this reason.  Sure, computers will get faster and smaller and will probably be much more useful in ten years.  It’s nearly impossible to predict their exact form.  For everything that Star Trek predicted, there are still things that haven’t come to pass or went in another direction altogether.  We have VR headsets rather than holodecks.  3D printing is sort of like a replicator, but I’m still waiting on something that can dispense something edible.

Things to Come was based on a story by H.G. Wells.  It stars in a place called Everytown on Christmas Day, 1940.  The threat of war looms, making it difficult for John Cabal to enjoy himself.  One friend, Harding, agrees.  Another friend, Pippa Passworthy, doesn’t.  Even if war does come to pass, it can’t help but stimulate the economy.

Well, war does come to pass that night, leading to decades of fighting with an unnamed adversary.  The Walking Plague kills half of humanity, leaving the rest in ruins.  Society degrades to the point where little, if any, technology still exists.  On May Day, 1970, an airplane lands outside the ruins of Everytown.  The pilot, none other than John Cabal, announces that the few remaining people with technical skill have banded together to reestablish society.  They’ve outlawed independent nations and have ended war.  Their new society is called Wings Over the World.

The Chief of Everytown wants none of that.  He’s not going to give up power so easily.  Wings Over the World is able to liberate John and the town, thus bringing them into the fold.  A series of images shows technology progressing and a new Everytown being built, this time underground.  Humans can produce their own air and sunlight as needed.  Everyone seems to live in peace.

Trouble doesn’t begin to stir until plans for a launch to the moon.  One segment of society doesn’t like the unending progress that humanity has made, instead preferring to maybe give it a rest for a while.  A space launch is dangerous, with lunar landings having proven fatal.  Why not hold off for a while?

Oswald Cabal and Maurice Passworthy are talking of sending another manned mission to the moon.  This time, it’s going to be a lunar orbit.  Their respective children make a case for going on the mission themselves.  A mob of angry people, not wanting the launch to proceed, force the launch ahead of schedule.  In the final scene, Cabal and Passworthy talk about the future of humanity.  What if we don’t progress?  What then?

I’m not sure how to judge Things to Come.  It has a strong anti-war message.  This makes sense in context.  At the time, war wasn’t far off.  This is something that the movie’s audience would have responded to.  Conflict is shown as destroying civilization whereas cooperation brings about progress.  However, progress isn’t perfect; unfettered progress can bring about conflict.

I’m not sure how much of an accurate prediction of the future the movie was supposed to be.  We have since landed on the moon, even doing a test orbit before putting someone on the lunar surface.  Some things were predicted with some degree of accuracy.  However, some things seem way off.  The final scenes take place in 2036.  I’m not sure we’ll be living underground in 20 years’ time.

I look at some of the predictions, like living underground, and wonder where they were going with this.  Underground cities might have some advantage, but it seems strange given the way that humanity actually went.  Predicting the end of civilization might seem a bit extreme, given that we’ve been able to survive two world wars.  However, World War II saw the destruction of cities and the deaths of millions of people.  The evens of this movie might not be that farfetched.

My biggest qualm with the movie is the quality.  From what I’ve read, several versions are still in existence and are of varying qualities.  I saw this movie as part of a nine-movie set; it contained the 97-minute version.  There were several parts that were of very poor audio and video quality.  I was able to make out most of the conversations, but I missed words here and there.  I wasn’t able to use captioning, which didn’t seem to come with the movie.

It’s also worth noting that the copyright lapsed in the United States, but has since been restored.  This may make finding the movie more difficult, as it’s no longer in the pubic domain.  I wouldn’t go out of your way to find it.  If you can see it on television or through Netflix, you can give it a shot, but I wouldn’t expect to make it the entire way through on the first try.

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The Time Machine (1960)

With any time-travel story, there’s always the question of the Earth moving around the Sun and the Sun moving through the galaxy, which is itself in motion.  This is usually ignored in the narrative, as I’m sure most authors don’t think of it.  When you’re writing a story, you’re probably trying to focus on other aspects of the plot.  Plus, I’d like to think that anyone smart enough to build a time machine would be smart enough take this into account.  What a shame it would be to go through all the trouble of building a time machine only to get lost in the void of space.

In the book by H. G. Wells, an unnamed person builds such a machine and visits Earth in the distant future.  It’s supposed to be more a commentary on class division, with the Evil Morlocks taking advantage of the peaceful Eloi.  This movie, released in 1960, takes many of the same plot points.  The ultimate destination is still 802701.  The story is still set in England.  You still have the Eloi and the Morlocks.  A few details have changed, though.

The movie starts on January 5, 1900.  Four men have gathered at the house of a friend named George.  George is absent, which they consider somewhat rude, as George is the one that invited them all for dinner.  At least George was kind enough to leave worth to let them start without him.  (Dinner has already been prepared by George’s housekeeper, Mrs. Watchett.)  Just as they’re about to begin, George stumbles in, looking like he’s been through a war.  As in the book, he recounts his tale.

It begins a few days earlier, on December 31, 1899.  All five men are gathered together in George’s house, where he’s telling them about a time machine that he’s built.  He plans to go ahead to see what becomes of humans.  His friends don’t believe him, even though he has a scale model that he sends into the future.  Shortly after the friends leave, so does George.  He goes a few hours into the future, then a few years.  He goes to 1917 and 1940, both years that England is at war.   He then goes to 1966, where he witnesses the destruction of his immediate area by lava.

He narrowly escapes to the distant future of 802701.  He hasn’t moved from his original spot, but everything is different.  Humans seem to have regressed to a group that lives off the land.  They don’t have a care in the world, even when one of their own falls into a river. George saves and befriends the woman, who gives her name as Weena.  She tells George that her people are called the Eloi

When everyone gathers to eat, George joins them.  He asks all sorts of questions that the Eloi seem to regard as strange.  They have no sense of history or any desire to plan for the future.  They play and eat.  That’s about it.  It isn’t until that night that George finds the Morlocks, who use air-raid sirens to get the Eloi to go into a building, never to return.

George discovers that humanity has branched into two groups.  The Morlocks are what became of the industrial people.  They control the machinery and make clothing for the Eloi.  The Eloi descended from those that stayed above ground.  With no technology, they’re dependant on the Morlocks, which comes at a very high cost.

George is dismayed at what he has found.  Humanity hasn’t progressed.  We’ve let buildings deteriorate.  We’ve let books turn to dust.  There’s nothing left that George recognizes as human any more.   We’ve evolved, but that isn’t always a good thing.  Evolution doesn’t go in one direction.

He’d return to 1900, but George has had his time machine stolen.  (Fortunately, he held on to a key component.)  He’s stuck in a paradise run by monsters.  Since the movie started with George telling his story, we can assume that he found a way to get back to his own time.   It’s simply a question of whether or not he’ll save the future in the process.

Having read the book there are a few differences I noticed.  Some involve major plot points that I don’t want to give away.  The rest are minor, such as leaving out a few scenes.  (In the book, the time traveler goes beyond 802701, well into the future.  The movie skips that.)  I suppose it’s natural to have to make modifications.  You’re trying to tell a story in a different medium.  Not everything translates well.  Not everything can make it due to technological constraints.  The director and writer are also going to take certain liberties.  You can end up with two different products.  This is especially evident that the movie was made about 60 years after the book was written.  The movie has access to history that the book didn’t.

There are a few things that always get me, such as the Eloi speaking English.  Consider that English as we know it didn’t exist 1,000 years ago.  Imagine what people will speak 800,000 years from now.  For that matter, consider what they’d look like.  All of the Eloi are basically short, blonde white people.  I’d like to think we’d look different than that after 800 millennia.

Another thing that’s always struck me while watching the movie was the bubble that formed as George was going into the future.  He was pretty lucky that that happened.  He could have been killed.  (On that note, it wasn’t mentioned what it would look like to an outside observer.  Did people see a bubble form in a mountain or was it solely for George’s benefit?)  I don’t suppose there’s any good way to test the machine.  Today, we could probably automate the process.  With Victorian-era technology, George just had to risk it.

This was one of those movies I’d always catch on TV growing up.  There’s no cursing.  There’s also very little violence.  The Morlocks would probably scare small children, as would the fighting towards the end.  The effects look like what I’d expect from a 1960’s movie, so I can forgive this aspect of the movie.  A lot of the scenes are done in miniature.  It’s obvious to someone who has grown up on CGI.  (I’ve always wondered if it was as obvious to audiences of 1960.   Then again, I also wonder what modern effects will seem obvious 60 years from now.)

Ultimately, it’s a product made 60 years ago based on a story that was published 60 years prior.  We’ve had all manner of time-travel books and movies.  There are all manner of visions of what our future might look like.  There are all manner of great and not-so-great stories about going to the future and to the past.  We have everything from Back to the Future and Doctor Who to Time Changer and Future War.

This is one of those movies that has a certain nostalgia factor for me.  As I mentioned, I grew up watching the movie.  I’m not sure most people will feel the same way.  It may come off as overly cheesy to younger audiences.  I would recommend at least reading the book.  Your local library should have it.  I’m sure Amazon has a few dozen versions of it.  If you can’t get this movie streaming, your library may also have a copy of it if you’re interested in checking it out.


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