Movies are often a common ground for people, with the subject being a great way to open up debate. No matter how thought-provoking they may be, movies that involve time travel or body swaps often leave people confused and thinking for days.
Time travel movies often give more thought to the science behind it. This logic usually begins and ends with the machine used to travel back and forth. After the plot concludes and the characters settle into their new lives, viewers are left wondering what happens afterwards.
As soon as characters time travel, they’re opening up alternate realities. One past choice means they’ll be traveling back to a different reality. In the movie “Hot Tub Time Machine,” once the characters travel back in time, they try their best to do things exactly as they were so they don’t change the future.
This attempt to preserve their reality is made easier by the fact that the main characters are transported back into their own bodies, a smart way to avoid making their situation even more confusing, given that most time travel movies feature multiple versions of the same character running around. As seen in other movies, this often leads to glitches in the matrix.
Though “Hot Tub Time Machine’s” version of time travel may not affect themselves or their world, it certainly affects those around them, in both the past and the future. To those in the past, the main characters suddenly begin acting differently one day, coming together for a goal that they were never interested in before. Many questions also arise about the memories saved from these experiences. While these questions go unanswered, personality differences are more pronounced in body-swap movies.
The trope of characters trapped in each other’s bodies typically leans away from scientific explanatio. Using an unanswered questions of the universe often serves as a cop-out instead. Though viewers may still be confused about how the characters got body-swapped in the first place, they’re more likely to understand the fact that an explanation just doesn’t exist, rather than one they don’t understand.
Some of these explanations include spells (“It’s a Boy Girl Thing”) and energy transfusion (“The Swap”). Both movies follow a similar premise, though the latter is more child-friendly, while the former leans into the awkward parts of the encounter, with the characters forced to live with their new bodies.
“It’s a Boy Girl Thing” also raises an interesting question: whose body would be the ideal one to be swapped into? While a lot of people have probably wondered what it would be like to switch bodies with the opposite sex for a day, this movie shows the pros and cons of this aspect. Given that the main characters hate each other, they revel in embarrassing one another… the only downside is that they get embarrassed in return.
With the characters in “The Swap,” Jack (Jacob Bertrand) and Ellie (Peyton List), being essentially strangers, their situation may seem ideal. The simple goal of reverting things to normal is the top priority. Though if you think about a stranger doing your business for you — including attending your important meetings — it gets a little more complicated. While some may hope “Freaky Friday” is the body swap situation they find themselves in — seeing as how your partner in crime is someone you’re close with — they may fail to see that that closeness may lead to awkwardness when nature calls.
And just like the time travel dilemma, to everyone else, it seems as if the main characters in question decided to switch their personalities for the fun of it. Only to switch back soon after.
The last of this specific genre — time loop movies — bring both the problems of personality switches and alternate realities. While the character is saved from their time prison in these other dimensions, they fail to learn their lesson.
In every time loop movie, there comes a day when they decide to do whatever they want. Given that there are alternate realities, there’s at least one where the main character is stuck dealing with the consequences.
Side characters see a different version of the main character, one that’s usually either suddenly unpleasant or incredibly wise. “Happy Death Day” follows Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), who tries different tactics to avoid dying over and over again. Considering that other characters’ lives go on, there are versions of Tree that meet her untimely end without ever making it out of her own personal Hell.
With all these questions being raised, the aftermath of the personal journeys would be beneficial towards the worldbuilding/multiverse building of these situations, even if it’s more character-driven than plot-driven.
And since these characters certainly don’t expect to find themselves in these situations, the influx of movies in our dimension may serve as a warning to establish a code word with someone, so that if we ever do find ourselves in these situations, we’ll be believed.
If that means having to say your code to your mortal enemy, so be it.
