#821:
Time Chasers

There was probably a period - perhaps back when Homo Erectus was giving way reluctantly to the more centered and erudite Neanderthals - when the idea of time travel really was just too, too fascinating. But isn't it about time for people who do things like make movies (and write Star Trek: Voyager for that matter) to move on to another basic plot device?

Anyway. In Vermont, in 1991, a lone healthy bike-riding science teacher named Nick develops time travel and sells it immediately to a transparently evil corporation. While traveling through time trying to impress his wildly wholesome love interest Lisa, Nick discovers that GenCorp plans to use time travel to destroy civilization. Mr. Robertson, the lanky CEO of GenCorp, refuses to not destroy civilization, so a couple Mr. Robertsons and several Nicks and any number of Lisas chase each other through time back to the Revolutionary War. One Lisa ends up dead, and one Nick, and one Mr. Robertson, but it doesn't matter because with time travel there's always equally uninteresting spares to take their place.

Nick and Lisa win out, no thanks to a handful of very dumpy patriots who wander around a field nearby, and Nick returns to 1991 and destroys the secret of time travel. At the end he and Lisa meet up in the produce section and fall into the lettuce and just go at it in the most passionate, sweaty, grinding manner, it's some of the hottest - well no they don't, but the clear implication is they will wholesomely produce some children at some point. We're left with the hope that perhaps the new generation will be the one with no interest in time travel.

Prologue: The 'bots trap Mike into playing Lost in Space
Segment One: Following instructions from Pearl, Mike docks the SOL next to the Widowmaker and leaves the 'bots with videos while he drifts over and chats with Pearl. It's a charming talk about her evil nature; Bobo's snoozing sounds are heard over a baby monitor.

Segment Two: Taking their cue from the film, Crow and Servo decide to send Crow back to the cheese factory where Mike worked in the mid-1980's and talk him out of taking the temp job with Deep 13 that resulted in him being shot into space. Young Mike is burnout, and doesn't quite get it. A blank-faced coworker looks on.

Segment Three: Crow succeeds in talking Mike into pursuing his musical career with his totally rocking band Sex Factory. Arriving back at the SOL, Crow is horrified to find the new reality features Mike's abusive brother Eddie. Servo is all obedient and sniveling.

Segment Four: Crow goes back in time and talks Crow out of talking Mike out of changing his life path. The stoner coworker (our own Patrick) says "Dude."
Segment Five: Crow and Servo try to trap Mike into playing Gilligan's Island, but Mike is wise to them. Mike and Pearl have another warm chat; Pearl points out that there now is apparently a spare Crow living in 1980's Wisconsin. Turns out she's right. Dude.

Stinger: Mr. Robertson, CEO of GenCorp, in his hick voice: "Matt, it's time for you to decide if you're going to be one of my team players or not."

Reflections:
The nice people who made this movie found out we were doing it and were very excited. We even talked to the guy who played GenCorp underling Matthew Paul on the phone, and got a definite sense that the whole project was undertaken by a group of well-adjusted people. That is certainly not true of most of our movies, and they're to be commended. And truth be told - and remember, I'm only saying this in order to be polite - this really isn't a horrible film.

There being a corporate exec in the film, we had at least one ISO 9001 Certification joke. Banners proclaiming such certification have been springing up around this strange land, this Eden Prairie industrial park world that Best Brains calls home; we've been curious about what it actually is. Turns out Company A can pay a good deal of money to have another company certify that Company A in fact does what it says it does. That's ISO 9001 Certification. So there are ISO 9001 Certifiers running around out there, and that's exactly the sort of job I suspect is the real substance of the American Growth Machine. Don't get me started.
- Paul Chaplin

Visit Edgwood Studios, the producers of Time Chasers...if you dare.


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