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Time travel fiction · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:05
Speaker 1: So y'all probably know that I'm a big fan of
0:08
Speaker 1: science fiction. I watch science fiction movies TV. I read
0:11
Speaker 1: all sorts of science fiction books all the time. Send
0:14
Speaker 1: me your suggestions, please. But something that crops up all
0:17
Speaker 1: the time in science fiction, something those authors and those
0:20
Speaker 1: writers can't seem to resist, is time travel. The narrative
0:24
Speaker 1: opportunities opened up by being able to move your characters
0:27
Speaker 1: forward in time, or go back and meet themselves, or
0:30
Speaker 1: interfere with themselves, or jump on another timeline. You see
0:33
Speaker 1: it everywhere these days. But you know, science has rules
0:37
Speaker 1: to it, and so time travel opens up complications, not
0:40
Speaker 1: just opportunities. And so on today's show, we're going to
0:43
Speaker 1: be talking to authors and screenwriters about how they've dealt
0:47
Speaker 1: with the complications of time travel in their fiction. Welcome
0:52
Speaker 1: to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.
1:08
Speaker 2: I'm Kelly Wiener Smith, and I used to hold out
1:11
Speaker 2: hope for the kind of time travel you see in
1:13
Speaker 2: movies until I started spending.
1:15
Speaker 3: Time with Dan.
1:17
Speaker 4: Hi. I'm Daniel.
1:18
Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and I love crushing Kelly's dreams.
1:22
Speaker 3: When you're so good at it.
1:24
Speaker 4: It's not me, it's science.
1:25
Speaker 1: Science has been ruining everything delicious since fifteen forty seven
1:29
Speaker 1: or whatever.
1:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think you and I actually both pushed
1:32
Speaker 2: that agenda regularly.
1:33
Speaker 1: And though you know, while science does say that some
1:36
Speaker 1: things you always wanted to do are impossible, it also
1:39
Speaker 1: opens doors we never expected and reveals crazy truths about
1:43
Speaker 1: the world. So sometimes science is on the fun side
1:46
Speaker 1: of life.
1:47
Speaker 2: Well, and you know, we've got like all of human
1:48
Speaker 2: knowledge in a tiny little thing that fits in our pockets.
1:51
Speaker 3: Now, like, that's pretty sweet. I have no complaints.
1:57
Speaker 4: That's right.
1:57
Speaker 1: You are listening to us because of some science. Otherwise
2:01
Speaker 1: you'd have to travel to Virginia and California somehow simultaneously
2:04
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with us. So science has made
2:06
Speaker 1: this possible.
2:07
Speaker 2: And now you don't have to go to California. You're welcome. Sorry,
2:11
Speaker 2: you don't get to come to Virginia.
2:12
Speaker 5: Though.
2:15
Speaker 1: I don't think I agree that that's a benefit. But anyway,
2:18
Speaker 1: you are all auditorially transported to California.
2:22
Speaker 3: All right.
2:22
Speaker 2: Well, so today we are talking about time travel, and
2:25
Speaker 2: we're doing some incredible interviews with people who have written
2:28
Speaker 2: and made movies about time travel. So my question for you, Daniel,
2:33
Speaker 2: if you could go back in time and see anything,
2:36
Speaker 2: and you only had one place.
2:38
Speaker 3: You could go, You could only use the time machine once.
2:41
Speaker 3: What would you see?
2:42
Speaker 1: Oh wow, such a good question. So many things to see,
2:46
Speaker 1: you know. It frustrates me that there are facts out
2:48
Speaker 1: there about the universe which would change the entire way
2:52
Speaker 1: we see ourselves in the context of our lives if
2:54
Speaker 1: we knew them. You know, how life began on Earth,
2:57
Speaker 1: for example, or how humans evolve. All these things are
3:00
Speaker 1: so crucial. But if I only had one, I think
3:03
Speaker 1: I would want a universe sized reveal, and I would
3:07
Speaker 1: go back to thirteen point six billion years ago and
3:10
Speaker 1: see what happened just before the Big Bang, What was
3:13
Speaker 1: the state of the universe, what was going on there?
3:16
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, that would be my choice.
3:17
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting.
3:18
Speaker 2: So you are not only assuming that you can travel
3:20
Speaker 2: back in time, but you are also assuming that your
3:21
Speaker 2: body can survive under conditions that it probably couldn't survive in,
3:25
Speaker 2: like you would go back in time in like a safe,
3:27
Speaker 2: protective bubble or something.
3:30
Speaker 4: Well, who built this time machine?
3:31
Speaker 1: Because if I'm responsible for it, then no, I'm not
3:33
Speaker 1: trusting it in the Big Bang. But if you know
3:35
Speaker 1: somebody who actually knows what they're doing, like an engineer
3:37
Speaker 1: put this thing together. Then yeah, I'm going back to
3:39
Speaker 1: the Big Bang. And you know what, even if I perish,
3:43
Speaker 1: I would still like to go back and know because
3:45
Speaker 1: that knowledge would be so powerful, knowing how our universe began,
3:50
Speaker 1: the one true story of our universe. Wow, that would
3:53
Speaker 1: be incredible to know.
3:54
Speaker 2: Would you be okay with perishing even if it meant
3:57
Speaker 2: that the answer couldn't be transmitted back to the presence, Like,
4:00
Speaker 2: it's enough that just you know.
4:02
Speaker 1: Maybe I could somehow leave a message for the future,
4:05
Speaker 1: you know, like in the pattern of the cosmic microwave
4:07
Speaker 1: background radiation. That would be pretty cool. Wouldn't it be
4:10
Speaker 1: amazing to be doing research like that, to see photons
4:14
Speaker 1: in the night sky, to analyze the data, and then
4:17
Speaker 1: to see an awesome message in that data from somebody
4:20
Speaker 1: who had traveled back. Wow, that sounds like a great
4:21
Speaker 1: science fiction story.
4:23
Speaker 2: Daniel says, it's forty two, Okay, So this is clearly
4:27
Speaker 2: a lot of fun to think about. So it's no
4:29
Speaker 2: surprise that it shows up in a bunch of movies
4:32
Speaker 2: and TV shows. And I was just at Disney and
4:34
Speaker 2: it was in like The Guardians of the Galaxy ride,
4:37
Speaker 2: and my daughter was asking a bunch of questions about
4:39
Speaker 2: whether or not they were right about the Big Bang,
4:41
Speaker 2: and then she zoned out five seconds into the explanation.
4:43
Speaker 3: But I'll get there.
4:45
Speaker 2: But you follow a lot of instances where this happens
4:48
Speaker 2: in books and movies and stuff. And so we are
4:51
Speaker 2: chatting with some people you know who have written about this.
4:53
Speaker 2: For POPSI that's right.
4:55
Speaker 1: Time travel appears all over the place in science fiction,
4:58
Speaker 1: and so I'm always curious like how authors work the
5:01
Speaker 1: science of time travel into it, how they deal with
5:03
Speaker 1: the potential contradictions, you know, the mechanics of making a
5:06
Speaker 1: story work when you can basically make up the rules,
5:09
Speaker 1: and the rules don't always have to be self consistent.
5:12
Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk to two authors who
5:14
Speaker 1: have dealt with that in their books and in their movies.
5:17
Speaker 1: Books and movies I think are really fun and totally
5:20
Speaker 1: worth reading and watching. But first we're going to talk
5:23
Speaker 1: about the science of time travel, so that you can
5:25
Speaker 1: have in your head what's possible and what's nonsense.
5:29
Speaker 2: Let's play a game and let's see if from our
5:31
Speaker 2: conversations I can explain if time travel is possible.
5:35
Speaker 4: I'd love to hear that.
5:36
Speaker 2: Okay, So my understanding from our conversations is that time
5:40
Speaker 2: can curve a little bit, and I guess I'm not
5:42
Speaker 2: one hundred percent able to remember and articulate the reasons why,
5:46
Speaker 2: but time curves. It's possible you could go back in
5:48
Speaker 2: time a little maybe for short periods, but you couldn't
5:52
Speaker 2: do it ever if it broke causality. Did I remember
5:56
Speaker 2: those points? Your face tells me I didn't get it.
5:59
Speaker 3: One hundred percent.
6:00
Speaker 1: No, that's the right spirit of it. There are a
6:02
Speaker 1: couple of technical issues there. You know, what do we
6:05
Speaker 1: mean when we say time curves. What we really mean
6:08
Speaker 1: is that clocks don't run the same for everybody. So
6:11
Speaker 1: for example, if you're near a black hole, I'll see
6:13
Speaker 1: your clock running slower and you'll see my clock running faster.
6:16
Speaker 1: So that's what we mean when we say, like time curves,
6:19
Speaker 1: it's really just time diletion. And you'll notice that in
6:21
Speaker 1: both those cases clocks.
6:23
Speaker 4: Are running forwards.
6:25
Speaker 1: So you can have weird things like I think this
6:28
Speaker 1: star blew up before that star, and you can think
6:30
Speaker 1: the opposite, that the order of events is different, But
6:33
Speaker 1: that's not exactly going back in time. That's just saying
6:36
Speaker 1: there is no universal clock in the universe, and people
6:39
Speaker 1: can disagree about how fast clocks are running and the
6:43
Speaker 1: order of events, so there is some flexibility there, But
6:46
Speaker 1: actually going back in time is a whole different thing.
6:50
Speaker 3: All right, well, it's good we've revisited this conversation. Then.
6:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, now I remember you talking about lights in the
6:55
Speaker 2: trolley and which one reaches the front, and that's all
6:58
Speaker 2: making sense now, Okay, So you would say going back
7:01
Speaker 2: in time is not possible, experiencing time at different speeds
7:05
Speaker 2: might be possible, as long as that experience doesn't break
7:08
Speaker 2: causality in any way.
7:10
Speaker 3: Is that a fair summary.
7:12
Speaker 1: That's a fair summary. But it's worth digging into the details,
7:14
Speaker 1: because there actually is one place in general relativity where
7:18
Speaker 1: time travel appears to maybe be possible, though most people
7:22
Speaker 1: think that's just another place where general relativity breaks down,
7:25
Speaker 1: like it does at the hearts of black holes. But
7:28
Speaker 1: let's start with the most vanilla thing, like why can't
7:31
Speaker 1: we just travel in time? I mean, in special relativity,
7:34
Speaker 1: we treat time like the fourth dimension. Right, we have
7:37
Speaker 1: three dimensions of space XYZ like forward, backwards, up, down, left, right,
7:42
Speaker 1: and in space we can move all around It would
7:45
Speaker 1: be ridiculous to have somebody say like, hey, you can
7:48
Speaker 1: be at home, and then you can never be at
7:50
Speaker 1: home again. You can't ever go back to that location.
7:52
Speaker 1: That would be weird, right, Because in space you can
7:55
Speaker 1: always go back to the location. It's no big deal.
7:58
Speaker 1: And if we say time is the fourth dimension like space,
8:02
Speaker 1: time is a four dimensional object, and we're grouping time
8:04
Speaker 1: together with the other bits of space, it's really weird
8:07
Speaker 1: to say, look, you can only slide forwards along this
8:10
Speaker 1: one weird special dimension we call time, and you can
8:13
Speaker 1: never go back, right. It's very weird to have one
8:16
Speaker 1: dimension be different from the other ones. And so I
8:20
Speaker 1: think it's tempting in physics even to say, like, hey,
8:23
Speaker 1: can't we find a way around this. Can't we bend
8:25
Speaker 1: these rules? Can we somehow slide our bed backwards along
8:29
Speaker 1: this one dimension the way we can the other three?
8:31
Speaker 4: Right?
8:32
Speaker 3: That would be beautiful. I want a beautiful equation that
8:34
Speaker 3: does that.
8:35
Speaker 1: And it would save us so much time. But the
8:37
Speaker 1: issue is the one you mentioned causality.
8:40
Speaker 4: Right.
8:41
Speaker 1: We think the universe has this property where the future
8:44
Speaker 1: is caused by the past, and that immediately makes time
8:48
Speaker 1: different from space because space doesn't have this requirement that
8:51
Speaker 1: like the left half of the universe causes the right
8:54
Speaker 1: half of the universe or something that would be really strange. Again,
8:57
Speaker 1: but this is something we see in the universe. The
8:59
Speaker 1: information flows forwards in time, and it flows through space
9:03
Speaker 1: at a certain speed. So, for example, anything I do
9:06
Speaker 1: right here right now can't influence things that are happening
9:10
Speaker 1: really far away right now, because there's no time for
9:13
Speaker 1: that information to get there. So if I shoot a
9:16
Speaker 1: laser at Alpha Centauri, it's some aliens. I can't kill
9:19
Speaker 1: them right now. I have to wait until that laser,
9:22
Speaker 1: that death ray gets to Alpha Centauri in three years,
9:26
Speaker 1: then I can kill them. So there's only part of
9:29
Speaker 1: the universe that I can even influence, and that part
9:32
Speaker 1: of the universe in space time we call a light cone.
9:35
Speaker 1: That's the region of the universe that I can influence,
9:38
Speaker 1: and that grows with time. Right if I shoot lasers
9:41
Speaker 1: and death rays in all directions right now, the portion
9:44
Speaker 1: of the universe that I could kill with my deathrays
9:47
Speaker 1: grows and grows and grows as those death rays.
9:49
Speaker 4: Fly out away from me.
9:50
Speaker 1: So imagine sort of a cone with a tip is me,
9:53
Speaker 1: and the cone is expanding out into space, and causality says,
9:57
Speaker 1: I can only influence things in that cone.
10:00
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me see if I'm understanding. So, like say,
10:04
Speaker 2: I'm a very boring time traveler, all right, And so
10:06
Speaker 2: I travel back in time five minutes and I turn
10:10
Speaker 2: the light in my office off and that's all I do,
10:14
Speaker 2: And then I travel back to the future. Why couldn't
10:17
Speaker 2: the light still be off when I jump forward five
10:19
Speaker 2: minutes again?
10:20
Speaker 1: So you go back in time and you turn off
10:22
Speaker 1: the light, right, And so the light was on and
10:26
Speaker 1: you turned.
10:26
Speaker 3: It off, and then I jump back to the present.
10:29
Speaker 1: But the you who turned the light off experienced the
10:33
Speaker 1: light being on in the present, right, and now the
10:36
Speaker 1: light is off in the present.
10:38
Speaker 4: So you have a contradiction.
10:40
Speaker 1: And does that you who thinks the light is off
10:42
Speaker 1: still go back in time to turn the light off
10:44
Speaker 1: when the light is already off?
10:46
Speaker 6: All right?
10:46
Speaker 3: So we can't even do boring things like flick light switches.
10:51
Speaker 1: And here we're really implying causality. We're imagining Kelly is
10:54
Speaker 1: doing things by reacting to her situation, and that she's
10:58
Speaker 1: making decisions about the future based on the past. You're
11:00
Speaker 1: like a little causal agent. You're like reacting to the
11:03
Speaker 1: information you have and making decisions and influencing the future. Right,
11:07
Speaker 1: And already we're stuck in some sort of contradictions, and
11:10
Speaker 1: that's because we're making this assumption that the universe is causal,
11:13
Speaker 1: that the future depends on the past only right, that
11:17
Speaker 1: no information from the future affects the past. Because we
11:20
Speaker 1: don't know how to make sense of that, Like we
11:21
Speaker 1: don't know how to build a theory of physics that
11:24
Speaker 1: involves causal loops like that. We don't know how that
11:27
Speaker 1: would work. It leads to contradictions all that kind of stuff,
11:30
Speaker 1: and so we assume causality in physics. It's just a
11:33
Speaker 1: base assumption. We don't know where that comes from. We
11:36
Speaker 1: don't know that the universe has to be causal. It
11:39
Speaker 1: might be that the universe is not actually causal.
11:42
Speaker 4: That this is.
11:43
Speaker 1: Something we impose on it to make sense of it
11:46
Speaker 1: because it's the way our brains work, and it's the
11:48
Speaker 1: way we tell stories, and it's just sort of natural
11:50
Speaker 1: and intuitive. It doesn't mean the universe has to read
11:53
Speaker 1: that way. It's just hard for us to make sense
11:56
Speaker 1: of anything else. And it's a base assumption in all
11:58
Speaker 1: of our theories. So if causality is not required in
12:02
Speaker 1: the universe, you got to throw everything out. So that
12:05
Speaker 1: would be a big deal. But you know the same
12:07
Speaker 1: way we used to assume that space was absolute and
12:10
Speaker 1: time was absolute. Those were assumptions we made at the
12:13
Speaker 1: bedrock of physics, and we did have to throw those
12:16
Speaker 1: out and we did start again, and now we have
12:18
Speaker 1: a better theory. So you know, I don't want to
12:20
Speaker 1: say forever this is going to be the bed rock
12:23
Speaker 1: of physics. It's just what we have right now.
12:25
Speaker 2: So if physicists are right right now, then you could
12:29
Speaker 2: never have any interesting space time fiction because the things
12:34
Speaker 2: you're allowed to do are so narrow. So everyone's going
12:37
Speaker 2: to have to break some of the rules of physics
12:38
Speaker 2: if they're gonna bend time.
12:40
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, okay, yes.
12:42
Speaker 1: With one exception, there is one place in general relativity
12:46
Speaker 1: where you can bend these light cones. So what happens
12:49
Speaker 1: to your light cone as your approach, for example, a
12:51
Speaker 1: black hole, Well, instead of your life cone just going
12:53
Speaker 1: forward in time, it starts to bend a little bit.
12:56
Speaker 1: It bends towards the black hole. And this is why
13:00
Speaker 1: we say, for example, when you enter a black hole,
13:02
Speaker 1: space and time get mixed up, and the spatial direction
13:05
Speaker 1: is the future. Like there's only one place you can go,
13:08
Speaker 1: and that's towards the center of the black hole. So
13:10
Speaker 1: your light cone bends towards the center of the black hole.
13:13
Speaker 1: That's just to give you intuition that when space gets bent,
13:15
Speaker 1: these like cones get really really weird. People have found
13:18
Speaker 1: arrangements of matter like weird ways you can put stuff
13:22
Speaker 1: together which create what they call a closed timelike curve.
13:27
Speaker 1: And this is the prediction that something would move in
13:30
Speaker 1: a loop in time. And these arrangements of matter are weird.
13:34
Speaker 1: They're like an infinite spinning cylinder of dust apparently creates
13:39
Speaker 1: this situation where the light cone is bent in such
13:41
Speaker 1: a way that something goes in a loop. And that
13:43
Speaker 1: means that it is its own cause, right, like its
13:46
Speaker 1: future is its past.
13:47
Speaker 4: It's very strange.
13:48
Speaker 3: Is this like Groundhog Day?
13:50
Speaker 2: How is this different than groundhog Day?
13:53
Speaker 1: Well, in groundhog Day, he remembers the other days. Right,
13:56
Speaker 1: this would have to be some arrangement where your memories
13:59
Speaker 1: never change, right, because it's always the same. Now, nobody
14:02
Speaker 1: takes this seriously as a physical prediction. It's even less
14:05
Speaker 1: seriously taken than like the prediction that there's a singularity
14:08
Speaker 1: inside a black hole, which everybody recognizes is like, this
14:12
Speaker 1: is probably a sign that general relativity is breaking down
14:14
Speaker 1: and needs to be replaced with another theory of quantum
14:17
Speaker 1: gravity that makes a more reasonable prediction. And most people
14:20
Speaker 1: suspect that when we do have a theory of quantum gravity,
14:23
Speaker 1: something that explains how gravity works and takes quantum mechanics
14:27
Speaker 1: into account, it will probably fix this problem.
14:29
Speaker 4: But today we don't know.
14:31
Speaker 1: So you know when people say our current theory is
14:33
Speaker 1: a physics out alot of time travel, and that's true
14:36
Speaker 1: except for this weird closed timelike curve which nobody really
14:39
Speaker 1: believes in, but technically is allowed according to theories of physics.
14:44
Speaker 1: So if you are an author out there and you
14:46
Speaker 1: want to write a really, really hard science fiction story
14:49
Speaker 1: by time travel, you can use close timeline curves until
14:53
Speaker 1: we come up with a theory of quantum gravity. But
14:55
Speaker 1: until then, everybody's got to deal with some way to
14:58
Speaker 1: handle this issue of getting information from the future and
15:02
Speaker 1: having information cause itself.
15:04
Speaker 3: And Daniel is available for consultation for.
15:06
Speaker 1: A fee, no absolutely, and for free. People send me
15:09
Speaker 1: your science fiction. I'd love to read it. And give
15:11
Speaker 1: you tips on it.
15:12
Speaker 2: All right, So on that note, let's introduce our first
15:15
Speaker 2: set of authors who had a teleporter in their amazing
15:19
Speaker 2: kids book.
15:36
Speaker 1: So it's my great pleasure to welcome to the podcast
15:39
Speaker 1: illustrator Mark Fearing and author and agent extraordinaire Seth Fishman.
15:44
Speaker 1: Seth and Mark, thanks very much for joining us today.
15:46
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us awesome, Thank you.
15:48
Speaker 1: These two are the pair behind the new book Brandon
15:51
Speaker 1: and the Totally Troublesome Time Machine, a kids book about
15:55
Speaker 1: time travel. So, guys, we ask a lot of folks
15:59
Speaker 1: on here to talk to us about the science in
16:01
Speaker 1: their science fiction. But before we dig into the book,
16:03
Speaker 1: we want to ask you a question that we ask
16:05
Speaker 1: all of our authors, which is about teleporters in Star Trek.
16:10
Speaker 1: Do you believe that teleporters actually move you from place
16:14
Speaker 1: to place or kill you, dismantling you and recreating you
16:17
Speaker 1: somewhere else. Are they teleporters or are they death machines?
16:21
Speaker 7: I think they're sort of both.
16:24
Speaker 8: I mean, I think that they do move you, take
16:26
Speaker 8: you apart, something you die, That's my take on it.
16:29
Speaker 8: You are fully separated and you come back together. But
16:31
Speaker 8: I don't know why you have to throw the death
16:33
Speaker 8: in there. It seems totally fine.
16:35
Speaker 3: You maybe don't know Daniel very well.
16:39
Speaker 5: This is a.
16:39
Speaker 9: Debate I remember having back in college, and I'm pretty
16:42
Speaker 9: sure you have to dismantle completely and rebuild from materials.
16:46
Speaker 9: So I think there is a death involved in a
16:49
Speaker 9: rebirth from fresh new materials at the quantum level.
16:53
Speaker 7: Okay, I'll give you new body.
16:55
Speaker 3: So then why don't we improve it?
16:57
Speaker 2: Like if you're going to get a new body anyway,
16:59
Speaker 2: why not, like, you know, always be a little bit
17:00
Speaker 2: younger when they transport you somewhere. I think there's a
17:03
Speaker 2: lot of opportunities that have not been explored in the
17:05
Speaker 2: Star Trek universe.
17:06
Speaker 8: No diseases, totally oh man, almost like they left open
17:10
Speaker 8: a lot of holes in this theory in Star Trek.
17:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a lot of things that could be happening.
17:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so let's get into the topic of
17:18
Speaker 1: your book instead of Star Trek. How did you guys
17:21
Speaker 1: end up writing a book about time travel?
17:24
Speaker 5: Yeah?
17:24
Speaker 8: Well, this is my seventh picture book, and I have
17:27
Speaker 8: discovered over time that picture book inspiration comes from my
17:33
Speaker 8: kids usually and from me just sort of staring at
17:36
Speaker 8: their room, you know, and seeing what's going on or
17:39
Speaker 8: something that they say, and in general for this book,
17:43
Speaker 8: you know, I think time travel is something that kids
17:44
Speaker 8: think about a lot. So this came out of a
17:46
Speaker 8: question my son asked that I don't even fully remember,
17:49
Speaker 8: so vague like, how does time travel kind of thing
17:51
Speaker 8: work to me? And then I went straight to my childhood.
17:55
Speaker 8: The clear inspiration for me here was mainly Bill and
17:57
Speaker 8: Ted's excellent adventure a little Calvin and Hobbs nice. There
18:01
Speaker 8: is a scene that is very specific and Bill out
18:04
Speaker 8: and Ted's where towards the end when they realize that
18:08
Speaker 8: they can sort of communicate with themselves in the future
18:11
Speaker 8: without even having to go into a time machine, where
18:14
Speaker 8: Ted goes up remember the trash can and then sure
18:17
Speaker 8: enough a trash can like falls on his dad's head.
18:19
Speaker 7: But in order to make that.
18:20
Speaker 8: Work, that means okay, so he has to remember, and
18:24
Speaker 8: then a future one of him needs to set up
18:27
Speaker 8: the trash can back in the past such that it
18:30
Speaker 8: will release off a timer and at that very moment
18:32
Speaker 8: fall down on his dad's head. And that is such
18:36
Speaker 8: a powerful thing that you could just be there and say,
18:41
Speaker 8: remember the trash remember the There was also like a
18:43
Speaker 8: recording device and so I really thought that was just
18:47
Speaker 8: so fascinating, and so I was puzzling that over my head.
18:50
Speaker 7: So the book is.
18:51
Speaker 8: Built out of the idea of what about a kid
18:53
Speaker 8: being able to sort of call into being with the
18:56
Speaker 8: time machine the solutions to his problems. That's where it
18:59
Speaker 8: built for me. And then I was lucky enough to
19:01
Speaker 8: be able to work with Mark on this process. That's
19:03
Speaker 8: a perfect exploration of the medium via his art. So
19:06
Speaker 8: I'm super happy about it.
19:07
Speaker 2: When you all talk to other people, including set your kids,
19:09
Speaker 2: about how time travel works, are you all kind of
19:12
Speaker 2: on the same page or do you get a lot
19:14
Speaker 2: of different people with different ideas about time travel?
19:16
Speaker 9: I can say quickly there's a lot of debate about
19:19
Speaker 9: time travel. Ever since I was a kid. My dad
19:21
Speaker 9: read a lot, and I remember reading The Time Machine
19:24
Speaker 9: as a kid and trying to figure out how this
19:26
Speaker 9: could possibly work. And then you get older and you
19:29
Speaker 9: come like Slaughterhouse five, you know, and you start really
19:32
Speaker 9: thinking about space and time right travel, And so it's
19:36
Speaker 9: a great playground. And I think Seth just has a
19:39
Speaker 9: kid's take on it, which is not easy to do.
19:41
Speaker 9: This is complicated stuff, and I imagine I'm looking forward
19:45
Speaker 9: to reading it. I substitute teach primary school on occasion,
19:48
Speaker 9: and I look forward to reading the book one day
19:50
Speaker 9: and seeing how the kids take to it, because it's.
19:52
Speaker 5: A big idea, that's what's so fascinating about it.
19:54
Speaker 1: Well, do you think time travel is more complex for
19:57
Speaker 1: kids to understand or for adults? It's sort of mind
20:01
Speaker 1: bending and counterintuitive? But is that easier for kids who
20:04
Speaker 1: haven't like learned all the details of causality and physics
20:07
Speaker 1: so they don't have the objections? Does it make more
20:09
Speaker 1: sense to a kid's mind or to an adults?
20:11
Speaker 4: What do you think?
20:12
Speaker 8: I think that's exactly right, that it's easier because they
20:16
Speaker 8: don't have those what if moments or how about this
20:19
Speaker 8: moments at the same time. Isn't that like what these
20:23
Speaker 8: books are about, is like basically grabbing those moments when
20:26
Speaker 8: you're in high school.
20:27
Speaker 7: Thing like Grandfather Paradogs, and like, how do we do that?
20:32
Speaker 8: So there's a page in this book that also everything
20:34
Speaker 8: came out of this one joke that I started. So
20:37
Speaker 8: it's this page where past and future the main character's
20:41
Speaker 8: name is Brandon, are fighting each other and he decides
20:45
Speaker 8: that past brand is going to teach future Brandon a lesson.
20:48
Speaker 7: So before he goes to bed, he sets up a
20:51
Speaker 7: pie trap.
20:52
Speaker 8: And then the way I wrote it, it's just literally
20:54
Speaker 8: impossible to actually illustrate this way, which is what.
20:57
Speaker 7: Mark had the challenge is doing. And that's why I
20:59
Speaker 7: want to ask you this question was like how did
21:00
Speaker 7: you approach this?
21:01
Speaker 8: But the idea that I puzzled with is putting a
21:04
Speaker 8: pie He puts his pie trap, and then he gets
21:07
Speaker 8: into bed himself and he goes to sleep, and when
21:10
Speaker 8: he wakes up, that pie trap hits him in the face,
21:12
Speaker 8: so it's actually hitting future Brandon, but it's very much him.
21:15
Speaker 8: But future Brandon's like, ah, past Brandon, but he set
21:18
Speaker 8: it up, so it's his fault. And I wrote that
21:21
Speaker 8: in and every edit for the first like five rounds
21:23
Speaker 8: were like it's too confusing, and I was like, this
21:25
Speaker 8: is the reason why I wrote this book.
21:27
Speaker 7: It's going to be in there.
21:28
Speaker 8: And Mark's like he's shaking his head right now because
21:30
Speaker 8: it's like so hard to do. So Mark, tell me,
21:33
Speaker 8: like when you got here, like how did you get around?
21:35
Speaker 7: How did you figure it out?
21:36
Speaker 10: You know?
21:36
Speaker 5: In picture books are interesting.
21:38
Speaker 9: I've done about thirty of them now, and because of
21:40
Speaker 9: the media age we live in. A lot of authors
21:42
Speaker 9: tend to think in more animated terms, like jokes developing
21:46
Speaker 9: through time, and of course in a book, you are
21:48
Speaker 9: locked to a single image on a page. Those are
21:51
Speaker 9: difficult things to try to communicate, and I think a
21:54
Speaker 9: lot of it has to do with the style and
21:56
Speaker 9: sort of the tone that you bring to it and
21:59
Speaker 9: allowing read to bring their own meaning to it as
22:03
Speaker 9: they look at it, and they kind of fill in
22:05
Speaker 9: the frames like in a storyboard, I think, But those
22:08
Speaker 9: are difficult issues.
22:09
Speaker 5: There's a lot of very funny ideas.
22:12
Speaker 9: I'm working out a new book right now, and it's
22:13
Speaker 9: like they were totally inspired by The Simpsons because they
22:16
Speaker 9: want these cutaways to things which don't work as well
22:19
Speaker 9: in a picture book as they do in Family Guy
22:22
Speaker 9: or The Simpsons. So there's always a little bit of
22:25
Speaker 9: stress I think on that, and even in my own work,
22:27
Speaker 9: I write. So you just approach it and hope you
22:29
Speaker 9: can find the right tone and let the reader bring
22:33
Speaker 9: as much as possible in their mind to what's happening
22:36
Speaker 9: in between.
22:38
Speaker 8: That's like a form of time travel itself, because you're
22:40
Speaker 8: filling in the gaps between each panel, right.
22:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's narrative. Art is great at that.
22:44
Speaker 9: That's what we're asking you to do is fill in
22:46
Speaker 9: those panels, and if you can find the right way
22:48
Speaker 9: to do that, you bring motion to the reader.
22:51
Speaker 1: If I can fill up on that mark, I'd love
22:52
Speaker 1: to hear about how you made your illustration choices. When
22:55
Speaker 1: I was reading it, I was actually thinking Confidant Hobbes,
22:58
Speaker 1: the Transmographier box and all that stuff. Did you have
23:02
Speaker 1: a conversation with Seth about what was in his mind?
23:04
Speaker 1: Did this come just from your reading of the text?
23:06
Speaker 1: How does that all work?
23:07
Speaker 5: In picture books you tend never to speak to the author.
23:10
Speaker 9: In fact, it's kind of nice that Seth and I
23:12
Speaker 9: have been able to discuss this stuff and work together,
23:14
Speaker 9: because there's many books I've done that I've never talked
23:17
Speaker 9: to an author.
23:17
Speaker 5: Of at all.
23:18
Speaker 1: Why what?
23:19
Speaker 4: Why not?
23:20
Speaker 9: Publishers are looking to combine a author's point of view
23:24
Speaker 9: and an artist's point of view to create something sort
23:27
Speaker 9: of greater than either of them.
23:29
Speaker 5: If Seth is an agent, you would know how to
23:31
Speaker 5: describe this better.
23:32
Speaker 7: Oh, I hate it. I think it's absurd.
23:34
Speaker 8: I think it's probably more built out of protectionism by
23:36
Speaker 8: a publisher of like whoever might be the bigger name person.
23:40
Speaker 8: If I'm really honest, the idea that there's not even
23:42
Speaker 8: like a form that I should fill out to like
23:45
Speaker 8: give some benchmarks. It's basically just the script an author
23:49
Speaker 8: can write in art direction and then it's totally up
23:52
Speaker 8: for the artists to do whatever they want with it,
23:54
Speaker 8: which is totally fine. But you know, I reached out
23:56
Speaker 8: to Mark because I wanted to say thank you.
23:59
Speaker 7: It was looking great.
24:00
Speaker 8: I usually like to wait for them to get their
24:02
Speaker 8: stamp on it, so that the stamp is in and
24:04
Speaker 8: then there's a conversation in my mind. I don't want
24:06
Speaker 8: to like it in there too early, but I find
24:07
Speaker 8: it crazy.
24:08
Speaker 9: It's a weird way, and I think finding the right
24:10
Speaker 9: tone I illustrate in a couple different ways. I'm not
24:13
Speaker 9: a one style. I wanted to find that cartoony that's fun,
24:16
Speaker 9: that's frivolous.
24:17
Speaker 5: That I think.
24:18
Speaker 9: One of the reviews called it retro, which bothered me
24:20
Speaker 9: for a week. I had to call my agent and say,
24:23
Speaker 9: am I retro?
24:23
Speaker 11: Now?
24:24
Speaker 5: Is this my career over? But I wanted that looseness.
24:28
Speaker 9: I wanted that sort of New Yorker style cartoon looseness
24:33
Speaker 9: to it. I didn't want it to be batten down
24:35
Speaker 9: and painted. So those are all just sort of art
24:37
Speaker 9: directions things that you come up with when you're working
24:40
Speaker 9: on it.
24:40
Speaker 5: And Seth was happy with it, which is great.
24:43
Speaker 9: I'm glad And it was a lot of fun to
24:45
Speaker 9: draw and be silly with it and creating the time
24:48
Speaker 9: machine in any way you know I wanted and being inspired.
24:52
Speaker 7: I loved your time Machine.
24:53
Speaker 5: Thanks. Yeah, it's a tone thing with art.
24:55
Speaker 2: Love with the Christmas lights and the shower curtain and
24:57
Speaker 2: it's like you can really imagine that a kid had
24:59
Speaker 2: a ton fun in there, and they were like little
25:02
Speaker 2: reading books in there. Also, in between traveling through time.
25:05
Speaker 5: It's a fort. Kelvin Hobbs really makes that clear.
25:07
Speaker 9: It's an adventure, it's a fort, it's an escape, and
25:10
Speaker 9: that's kind of what a time machine is in a way.
25:12
Speaker 3: So how much research goes into scenes.
25:14
Speaker 2: Like when he goes back in time to visit the dinosaurs.
25:17
Speaker 2: Did you have to do like a bunch of research
25:19
Speaker 2: on the current state of what we think dinosaurs looked
25:21
Speaker 2: like or was it more like you had a picture
25:23
Speaker 2: in your mind and that's what you went with.
25:25
Speaker 9: Yeah, some books demand a more encyclopedic approach if you
25:29
Speaker 9: are creating something, I wanted it to be more fun
25:32
Speaker 9: and a little more fantastic. And I do keep up
25:35
Speaker 9: on my palaeontology and archaeology.
25:37
Speaker 5: I'm a geek.
25:38
Speaker 9: I love watching the newest discoveries, you know, so I
25:42
Speaker 9: try to create something that sort of looks like you
25:45
Speaker 9: might imagine it more than being encyclopedic.
25:48
Speaker 7: With don't sell yourself short.
25:50
Speaker 8: For those of you who know I write nonfiction books too,
25:52
Speaker 8: those have a much higher level of you have fact checkers,
25:56
Speaker 8: reviews will rag on you if you say something that's metaphorical,
26:01
Speaker 8: you know, like you're in trouble here though there's a
26:03
Speaker 8: specific run of scenes, which is.
26:05
Speaker 7: What Mark was referring to. With dinosaurs.
26:07
Speaker 8: I gave sample art pieces or like links to places
26:11
Speaker 8: showing what I thought with each one, I mean, where
26:13
Speaker 8: they are from the science base.
26:14
Speaker 7: All I wanted was feathers on the dinosaur.
26:16
Speaker 8: Like that's really what I cared about, right, because I
26:18
Speaker 8: think that the idea if you ever see a dinosaur without.
26:20
Speaker 7: Feather on it. Now, most dinosaurs, I'm like, what are
26:23
Speaker 7: we doing?
26:23
Speaker 8: Like we're teaching our kids poorly, right, And then we
26:25
Speaker 8: had other ones like the Colossus of Rhodes.
26:27
Speaker 7: We went back and forth.
26:28
Speaker 8: We had to do research because I always thought the
26:30
Speaker 8: Colossus of Rhodes was straddling the harbor and the boats
26:33
Speaker 8: went under. But after some research, it seems like, whow
26:37
Speaker 8: we don't one hundred percent know. Most suggest that he'd
26:40
Speaker 8: be standing to one side. So we actually did do
26:42
Speaker 8: real research to try and play that in there. And
26:44
Speaker 8: sometimes it's me and the author, sometimes the artists, and
26:46
Speaker 8: sometimes actually a copy editor sneaks in there and is like,
26:49
Speaker 8: here's some stuff you didn't know. But so we did
26:51
Speaker 8: go back and forth.
26:52
Speaker 5: For sure.
26:53
Speaker 8: I was always curious about your portrayal Alexander Hamilton, because
26:57
Speaker 8: you know, now he's such an iconic figure, but it's
27:00
Speaker 8: also like lin Minwelm Morando, which is not what he
27:02
Speaker 8: looks like, of course, so I was like, oh, you know,
27:05
Speaker 8: in my head, it's all these different thoughts there.
27:08
Speaker 5: I try to look stuff up.
27:09
Speaker 9: Definitely, the Colossal Roads is interesting because I was an
27:11
Speaker 9: ancient art history major in undergrad What path haven't they
27:14
Speaker 9: gone down? So that stuff is fascinating to me, And
27:17
Speaker 9: there is a lot of debate there. It is still
27:20
Speaker 9: very much debatable about exactly what that was. There's contradictory information,
27:24
Speaker 9: and of course I'll take a shortcut to what's most
27:27
Speaker 9: visually interesting. At a certain point, I'm like, I don't care.
27:30
Speaker 9: This is a lot of fun to draw if we
27:32
Speaker 9: do this. So there's some back and forth where I
27:34
Speaker 9: would rather push it to be interesting visually than maybe
27:38
Speaker 9: what was actually constructed.
27:39
Speaker 5: But yeah, we did have some notes on that.
27:41
Speaker 9: But it's certainly not like a book where you're doing
27:43
Speaker 9: history of New York architecture or something where you're going
27:46
Speaker 9: to have people who are like, those are not the
27:47
Speaker 9: right size bricks and seventeen twenty they only you know.
27:51
Speaker 9: But it was fun, you know, kept it fun, and
27:52
Speaker 9: I appreciated the notes, that's right, I remember. And we
27:55
Speaker 9: did debate about the colossal roads. I remember looking that
27:58
Speaker 9: up myself in a couple of books online.
28:00
Speaker 1: Well, that really touches for me one of the exciting
28:02
Speaker 1: things about the possibility of time travel, because there are
28:05
Speaker 1: so many big questions about the universe whose answers are
28:08
Speaker 1: just facts, facts that are lost to history. You know,
28:10
Speaker 1: what did the dinosaurs look like? How did the universe begin?
28:13
Speaker 1: How did humans evolve? All these things we could just
28:15
Speaker 1: know the answers too. If we could just go back
28:17
Speaker 1: and watch, it'd be fascinating. So it's so tantalizing to
28:22
Speaker 1: imagine that you could actually get these answers. It really
28:25
Speaker 1: tickles that bone from me.
28:26
Speaker 2: So I feel like that's a great place to ask
28:28
Speaker 2: a final question, which is, if you could go back
28:31
Speaker 2: in time to anywhere, what would you go back and see.
28:34
Speaker 8: I'm going to take sort of the easy answer that's
28:37
Speaker 8: not checking anything in my own history, which I wanted
28:40
Speaker 8: my character to explore.
28:41
Speaker 7: But like you said, you're ancient art.
28:43
Speaker 8: I was an ancient Rome history major, and I've always
28:47
Speaker 8: wanted to see Rome at the height and get the
28:50
Speaker 8: walk around and see what that's like. So I'd probably
28:52
Speaker 8: wander through there and then you know, find out those
28:54
Speaker 8: answers and then tell the historians, and then tell them
28:57
Speaker 8: what their methods were wrong, and then what the revise everything?
29:00
Speaker 7: You know, That's what I want. No, I just want
29:01
Speaker 7: to go together at it.
29:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm very close.
29:03
Speaker 9: I think just hearing the Latin that was spoken, you know,
29:06
Speaker 9: what was being spoken in the streets of Rome in
29:09
Speaker 9: one hundred AD or fifty BC, would be fascinating because
29:12
Speaker 9: we have so many questions.
29:14
Speaker 5: I think I'd be tempted to go.
29:16
Speaker 9: Alexander the Great would be a real pull to see
29:18
Speaker 9: what exactly.
29:20
Speaker 5: Was going on, What was that? What was he?
29:22
Speaker 9: I'm always partial to Athens about for eighty BC or something.
29:26
Speaker 5: I'd love to see what was shaken.
29:29
Speaker 7: Mark looks like we have to do like a history
29:30
Speaker 7: book together.
29:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know where Alexander the Great ended up
29:35
Speaker 2: being buried, right, we do not.
29:37
Speaker 3: You could figure that out.
29:39
Speaker 5: That way if we could go to the end of it.
29:41
Speaker 5: We don't really know how he died.
29:42
Speaker 9: We don't know the mood of That's why I don't
29:44
Speaker 9: think time travel could exist, because what we have seen
29:48
Speaker 9: some people poking around these places by now in there.
29:51
Speaker 5: But I think Seth and.
29:52
Speaker 9: I are a lot closer than Yeah, I imagine, but
29:54
Speaker 9: that would be fascinating. Or to see Caesar and try
29:57
Speaker 9: to understand what was going on there, Oh, fascinating, fascinating?
30:01
Speaker 4: All right, thanks everybody.
30:01
Speaker 1: So the book is called Brandon and the Totally Troublesome
30:04
Speaker 1: Time Machine. It's a picture book for kids, but it
30:07
Speaker 1: touches on the kid inside all of us who wants
30:09
Speaker 1: to go back in time and get the answers to
30:11
Speaker 1: all of these deep questions. Seth and Mark, thanks very
30:13
Speaker 1: much for coming and talking to us.
30:14
Speaker 5: You're welcome, Thank you for having us on.
30:16
Speaker 11: Its for so fun guys.
30:33
Speaker 1: So it's my great pleasure to welcome to the podcast.
30:36
Speaker 1: My old friend Brad King. He runs a video gaming company.
30:40
Speaker 1: He writes science fiction, and he went to Los Alamos
30:43
Speaker 1: Middle School and high school with me. Brad Ley, So
30:45
Speaker 1: nice to see you again.
30:47
Speaker 10: It's so nice to see you, Daniel. I appreciate em
30:49
Speaker 10: sciting the word old there. I want to say, I'm
30:53
Speaker 10: very excited to see you again, and I'm excited to
30:55
Speaker 10: meet Kelly. Daniel was like a really he was in
30:57
Speaker 10: speech and debate. That's really where I think we got
30:59
Speaker 10: to know each other. And Daniel was, you're ahead of me,
31:02
Speaker 10: and I think really kind of a funny, wise grounding
31:06
Speaker 10: force in an otherwise kind of chaotic motley crew, you
31:09
Speaker 10: know of like very intelligent people but a little manic.
31:12
Speaker 10: So yeah, it's great to interact with you as an adult.
31:15
Speaker 3: Also, I didn't know you did speech and debate.
31:18
Speaker 1: Oh yes, absolutely, extemporaneous baloney and Lincoln Douglas's debate.
31:23
Speaker 4: It was a lot of fun.
31:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that brought you here.
31:25
Speaker 4: Dot here we are exactly.
31:28
Speaker 1: So before we talk about your exciting movie, we have
31:31
Speaker 1: a question that we ask all science fiction writers to
31:33
Speaker 1: sort of put them on the spectrum. In your opinion,
31:37
Speaker 1: what does a teleporter do in Star Trek? Does it
31:41
Speaker 1: actually move your atoms from here to there? Or does
31:43
Speaker 1: it disassemble you and we build you somewhere else? Is
31:46
Speaker 1: it a murder machine?
31:49
Speaker 10: This question? This is very contentious. I'm sure you're aware. Yeah,
31:53
Speaker 10: I'll answer it. But there's also an aspect of it
31:55
Speaker 10: that I feel like is more contentious that I usually
31:57
Speaker 10: get into. But I mean, I can't get the head
31:59
Speaker 10: of the writers exactly. I'm an optimist and I like
32:02
Speaker 10: the idea that they are actually being transported. However, I
32:06
Speaker 10: recognize that I think it's probably more likely that they're
32:08
Speaker 10: being disassembled and then just recreated. And when I get
32:11
Speaker 10: into this with scientist friends especially, there's one in particular
32:15
Speaker 10: who he says, it doesn't matter because even if you're
32:19
Speaker 10: murdered the fact that the copy of you is the
32:21
Speaker 10: exact same and moves forward for all intents and purposes,
32:25
Speaker 10: that means you live on. Of course my point of
32:28
Speaker 10: view as well, but the me prior to telportation is dead,
32:31
Speaker 10: like my story has completed and now there's a news story,
32:34
Speaker 10: and he'll argue very well that my point of view
32:37
Speaker 10: is invalid and that you know, it doesn't matter whether
32:39
Speaker 10: you get dissembled or not, it's the same.
32:42
Speaker 1: So does that mean you wouldn't step into a teleporter?
32:44
Speaker 1: But he would.
32:45
Speaker 10: I'm like a cat. I'm so curious. I would get in,
32:47
Speaker 10: you know, like I.
32:49
Speaker 6: Really yeah, I mean I assume hopefully that afterwards, whatever happened,
32:56
Speaker 6: I would either be blissfully unaware that I had been
32:58
Speaker 6: murdered or get to continue.
33:00
Speaker 2: So I hope the murder was quick and painless. Yeah,
33:02
Speaker 2: then who cares what happens after that?
33:04
Speaker 10: That's the hope. But if you guys figure something out
33:06
Speaker 10: otherwise in your field, please let me know before I.
33:08
Speaker 1: Get we'll call you up to be a guinea pig
33:10
Speaker 1: on our next experiment. Since you're so optimistic.
33:13
Speaker 2: Great, since you are totally willing to jump into these
33:17
Speaker 2: sci fi sort of pieces of technology. Were you always
33:21
Speaker 2: into sci fi or what got you into science fiction
33:23
Speaker 2: and movies?
33:24
Speaker 1: Oh?
33:24
Speaker 10: Thank you, that's a great question. You know, I grew
33:26
Speaker 10: up on Star Wars. I think, like a lot of
33:28
Speaker 10: us in that era, and I also was really into
33:31
Speaker 10: fantasy and play dungeons and dragons and you know all that.
33:34
Speaker 10: I think growing up in Los Alamos, of course I
33:36
Speaker 10: was around a lot of science, and I was hyper
33:38
Speaker 10: aware of science as a thing. I also recognized early
33:41
Speaker 10: on that I probably wasn't going to go into science.
33:43
Speaker 10: I just don't think I had the dedication, you know,
33:46
Speaker 10: or interest. And I really admired, you know, all the
33:49
Speaker 10: scientists and all the smart people around, and so it's
33:52
Speaker 10: very possible that that, you know, combined with my formative
33:55
Speaker 10: entertainment youth, sort of tilted me in the direction of
33:58
Speaker 10: science fiction. So I think, yeah, yeah, post high school,
34:00
Speaker 10: I was constantly sort of going back to science fiction
34:03
Speaker 10: as a genre.
34:04
Speaker 1: And so, what's the first piece of science fiction writing
34:06
Speaker 1: that you did?
34:07
Speaker 10: Oh my gosh, that's really hard. I have the first
34:09
Speaker 10: piece of fantasy writing I did because engaged in elementary school.
34:13
Speaker 10: They made us print a book, so I.
34:15
Speaker 4: Have that on the shelf.
34:16
Speaker 10: But sci fi, I'm not sure I have a fun
34:18
Speaker 10: answer to that. You know, I just started writing a
34:20
Speaker 10: little short stories, I remember in college.
34:22
Speaker 1: So then tell us how you decided to write a
34:24
Speaker 1: movie with sort of time travel and you know, seeing
34:28
Speaker 1: the future. This sint of aspects you sent me before
34:30
Speaker 1: we talked. This incredible spreadsheet you put together where you like,
34:33
Speaker 1: broke down the time travel motivations and mechanisms and all
34:36
Speaker 1: sorts of movies. You must have thought about this deeply
34:39
Speaker 1: before you got into it.
34:40
Speaker 10: I break down a lot of movies. I'm very interested in,
34:42
Speaker 10: sort of borderline obsessed with the patterns in storytelling, and
34:46
Speaker 10: so I will watch movies and I have a constantly
34:49
Speaker 10: shifting sort of template. We're all, you know, feed in
34:51
Speaker 10: all of the information, and I don't think it's it's
34:55
Speaker 10: useful of a guide for creating stories, but more maybe
34:58
Speaker 10: as a reflective or diagnostic tool afterwards or after an
35:01
Speaker 10: outline is say eh, you know, am I sort of
35:03
Speaker 10: in line with the satisfying entertainment? But I also want
35:06
Speaker 10: to ask for if there's a lot of soft data
35:07
Speaker 10: in that table. You know, a lot of it is conjecture,
35:10
Speaker 10: like you can say, oh, well, most sciences flyfi movies
35:12
Speaker 10: either look to the past or look to the future,
35:14
Speaker 10: but a lot of them do both, you know. Or
35:16
Speaker 10: they look to the past, but because the character's goals
35:18
Speaker 10: are to correct an impending disaster, they're also looking forward,
35:22
Speaker 10: so take all of it with the grain of salt.
35:23
Speaker 4: Obviously.
35:24
Speaker 2: I had a similar spreadsheet for zombie movies for a
35:26
Speaker 2: project I was working on once, and I actually found
35:29
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the movies more because I was thinking about
35:32
Speaker 2: them on like multiple levels and how they connected. Did
35:34
Speaker 2: it increase your joy or decrease your joy to be
35:37
Speaker 2: like filling in boxes as you were watching stuff?
35:40
Speaker 11: Yeah? Absolutely.
35:40
Speaker 10: I mean the first time I watch something, I try
35:42
Speaker 10: to just enjoy it, like I don't do this on
35:44
Speaker 10: first viewing, But yes, I think it enhances my enjoyment.
35:47
Speaker 10: And I think the discovery process of patterns again, it's
35:50
Speaker 10: like a drug to me. You know, when I observe
35:51
Speaker 10: a pattern, I get really excited. And so especially with
35:54
Speaker 10: time travel movies, which can be pretty complicated. You know,
35:57
Speaker 10: Primer is a really great example where the infinite sort
35:59
Speaker 10: of time bloopage, the diagrams they have online are really
36:02
Speaker 10: interesting to look at.
36:03
Speaker 1: And so how did you land on this particular sort
36:06
Speaker 1: of mechanism for your movie? This information from the future,
36:10
Speaker 1: these questions about can you avoid what you see happening
36:13
Speaker 1: in the future? What about those themes opens up news
36:16
Speaker 1: stories for you? Or what story that you wanted to
36:18
Speaker 1: tell with those sort of topics and mechanisms.
36:21
Speaker 10: I have a lot of anxiety, a lot of it
36:23
Speaker 10: focused on future. And I also was undiagnosed with ADHD
36:27
Speaker 10: for a very long time, so I have time blindness.
36:29
Speaker 7: You know.
36:29
Speaker 10: There's a lot of things around time that I think
36:31
Speaker 10: have sort of plagued me unconsciously, and sometimes I was
36:35
Speaker 10: working out through my art. But I would say I
36:38
Speaker 10: can't take credit for the initial idea. My co writer
36:42
Speaker 10: and producer BP Cooper, we were just sort of obsessing
36:45
Speaker 10: about my favorite time travel movie at the time, Time Crimes,
36:48
Speaker 10: which I don't know if you guys have seen that,
36:51
Speaker 10: it's amazing, you should see it. Yeah, incredible. And he
36:54
Speaker 10: had seen a movie called Timeline where I think they
36:56
Speaker 10: sent a camera back into the past to take a
36:58
Speaker 10: picture of the stars to ascertain the year that they
37:02
Speaker 10: were able to send something back at and he just said,
37:05
Speaker 10: you know, off the cuffe He's like, oh, what about
37:06
Speaker 10: a camera that.
37:06
Speaker 4: Takes picture of the future.
37:08
Speaker 10: And for some reason, my brain, you know, locked onto that,
37:10
Speaker 10: and I went away for a weekend and to sort
37:12
Speaker 10: of roughly outlined the whole movie, you know, and then
37:14
Speaker 10: came back in for the next two weeks we worked
37:16
Speaker 10: on it, but I struggle with anxiety about the future,
37:19
Speaker 10: and I also as an artist and constantly struggling with
37:21
Speaker 10: inspiration and wanting to, you know, somehow get ahead of
37:26
Speaker 10: the difficulty of not understanding where a piece of art
37:28
Speaker 10: work or a story is going to go. Even though
37:31
Speaker 10: that is you know, the satisfying part is the discovery
37:33
Speaker 10: and the you know, solving the puzzles, but it also
37:36
Speaker 10: carries a lot of emotional challenges along with it. So
37:39
Speaker 10: the idea of being able to see art ahead of
37:41
Speaker 10: time sounds you know, amazing to me.
37:43
Speaker 1: But in your movie, it doesn't exactly give them confidence
37:46
Speaker 1: or let them relax, or to causes tension in the movie.
37:50
Speaker 10: Yes, right, well, you know, I mean, it's cinema and
37:52
Speaker 10: it's a story, so we have to create as much
37:53
Speaker 10: conflict as possible. But I think all the themes that
37:57
Speaker 10: can be explored via time travel are very uh, hurtful
38:01
Speaker 10: and exciting. Yeah, it trolls me.
38:03
Speaker 1: So what are the challenges of writing a movie like
38:05
Speaker 1: this where the rules are a little bit fuzzy, where
38:07
Speaker 1: you get to basically make up the rules yourself instead
38:10
Speaker 1: of just like you know, a movie that happens in
38:12
Speaker 1: our universe according to our laws of physics, where you're
38:14
Speaker 1: already bound by rules.
38:16
Speaker 4: Everybody understands.
38:17
Speaker 10: That's a great question. I was a little nervous about
38:20
Speaker 10: getting on this podcast because I have friends who are into,
38:23
Speaker 10: you know, hard science fiction, right, so yeah, A day
38:25
Speaker 10: behind heard science fiction is that all the science is real,
38:28
Speaker 10: and if it's set in the future, that it's at
38:30
Speaker 10: least not violating any of the known laws of science
38:32
Speaker 10: right now. And I'm very obviously more of a soft
38:36
Speaker 10: science fiction writer. I almost treat it like fantasy. And
38:39
Speaker 10: I've had people say, well, why don't you just write fantasy?
38:41
Speaker 10: Then you know why, I guess a general argument like
38:43
Speaker 10: why does soft sci fi even exist? But I don't know.
38:46
Speaker 10: I guess I do like fantasy also. But the rule
38:49
Speaker 10: I try to set for myself to really address your
38:51
Speaker 10: question is if I need science to do something that
38:54
Speaker 10: it can't currently, I try not to take an element
38:58
Speaker 10: from the periodic table and make it do something that
39:00
Speaker 10: we know it can't do. I would rather invent a
39:02
Speaker 10: new element. I just don't have a bunch of people
39:04
Speaker 10: from Los Almos eye rolling. You know.
39:10
Speaker 2: I love soft sci fi, and I feel like as
39:11
Speaker 2: long as you create a world and then you're consistent
39:13
Speaker 2: with the rules that you've created for that world. I'm
39:16
Speaker 2: just there to have fun. I'm not there to fact check.
39:18
Speaker 2: That's my personal philosophy.
39:19
Speaker 10: Kelly. I appreciate your support, and even.
39:22
Speaker 1: As particle physicists, we can enjoy soft science fiction. Also,
39:26
Speaker 1: just because I grew up in los Almost doesn't mean
39:28
Speaker 1: I roll my eyes when something weird happens in a movie.
39:31
Speaker 10: Oh. So much support here, so much solidarity.
39:34
Speaker 4: I really appreciate it.
39:34
Speaker 1: Hey, it's a positive vibe kind of podcast. We weren't
39:37
Speaker 1: going to ask you on the podcast and then, you know,
39:39
Speaker 1: quiz you on general relativity or anything.
39:42
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, all right, I would fail if we did that.
39:45
Speaker 3: Do you enjoy other time travel movies? So you've made
39:48
Speaker 3: that spreadsheet, so you've clearly watched a lot of them.
39:50
Speaker 2: Do you have like pet peeves for things that people
39:52
Speaker 2: do in time travel movies or things you really like?
39:55
Speaker 5: Yes?
39:56
Speaker 10: I should clarify this. Documents very hastily thrown together. I
39:58
Speaker 10: actually have hundreds of movie downs, and I meant to
40:01
Speaker 10: tackle this earlier in the week and give you guys
40:03
Speaker 10: something really comprehensive.
40:03
Speaker 4: I just did not have time.
40:04
Speaker 10: So this was me very hastily this morning, be like, oh,
40:07
Speaker 10: what can I get them?
40:08
Speaker 1: You just go into your time machine and go back
40:10
Speaker 1: and do it and then come.
40:10
Speaker 4: Back exactly extely. Yeah.
40:14
Speaker 10: I think, you know, depending on what's going on with me,
40:16
Speaker 10: I can either be more filled with regret or more
40:19
Speaker 10: obsessed with the future. And so that might color which
40:23
Speaker 10: time travel movies I'm you know, more interested in, you know,
40:26
Speaker 10: time loops I think are really fascinating. I'm interested in
40:29
Speaker 10: explore you know, so many time travel movies. Again it's like, oh,
40:34
Speaker 10: is it regretted with the past or are we looking
40:36
Speaker 10: at the future, And inevitably it brings the characters back
40:38
Speaker 10: ideally to this state of being more present in the
40:42
Speaker 10: moment and sort of you know, having acceptance basically, like
40:46
Speaker 10: that's correcting their false philosophy. But I think something that
40:48
Speaker 10: hasn't been explored that much in time travel is using
40:52
Speaker 10: time loops to explore the problem of confirmation bias, which
40:56
Speaker 10: seems like a really big problem, you know, our growing
40:58
Speaker 10: problem our society, right getting these echo chambers and they
41:01
Speaker 10: get obsessed, you know, they sort of form these like
41:04
Speaker 10: neural grooves, and I think I try to touch on
41:07
Speaker 10: that a little.
41:07
Speaker 4: Bit in my movie.
41:08
Speaker 10: It's almost a throwaway, but it's like the characters are
41:10
Speaker 10: certain they will die if they deviate from these photographs.
41:13
Speaker 10: But then the scientist shows up part way through and says,
41:16
Speaker 10: I don't think that's necessarily true, you know, and we
41:18
Speaker 10: never resolve that, which I like, But I would like
41:21
Speaker 10: to explore that more deeply because I feel like people
41:24
Speaker 10: seem to be getting more polarized into their little paths
41:26
Speaker 10: of confirmation bias, and it seems like a problem.
41:29
Speaker 1: So you've written a movie about time travel, but you're
41:31
Speaker 1: also just a natural storyteller. Tell me why do you
41:34
Speaker 1: think people are so drawn to movies about time travel.
41:37
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody's experienced it, so it's not something we
41:40
Speaker 1: all connect with or resonate with, and yet people seem
41:43
Speaker 1: to accept it. It's not like something weird and alien
41:46
Speaker 1: in stories. Why is it something that we find so
41:48
Speaker 1: easy to connect with when we've never had this kind
41:50
Speaker 1: of experience?
41:51
Speaker 10: Right Again, I don't want to hammer the regret or
41:54
Speaker 10: future worry thing, but I do think those are universal
41:57
Speaker 10: experiences and often define people's lives, you know, especially if
42:01
Speaker 10: something terrible is happened in the past or they're very
42:03
Speaker 10: concerned about something terrible upcoming. And so if I had
42:06
Speaker 10: to peg something, I would say probably Once people grasp
42:10
Speaker 10: the mechanics of the time travel movie, it's easy for
42:12
Speaker 10: them to get into those emotions, you know, and access
42:15
Speaker 10: their own anxiety in one direction or another.
42:17
Speaker 5: I think.
42:18
Speaker 1: So we feel like constrained by the mechanics of time
42:21
Speaker 1: in our universe and we want to break out of it.
42:23
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Theoretically attached to bred as
42:25
Speaker 10: a yearning to be able to go back and change
42:27
Speaker 10: what you did wrong, and the future worry attached to
42:30
Speaker 10: that as a desire to be able to go forward,
42:32
Speaker 10: and of course consciously logically we know we can't do that,
42:34
Speaker 10: but once you get put in a fantasy world where
42:37
Speaker 10: you can, I think it becomes compelling.
42:39
Speaker 1: So then let me ask you a personal question, which is,
42:42
Speaker 1: if I built a time machine that lets you go
42:44
Speaker 1: back in time and change something in your life, what
42:47
Speaker 1: would you do. Would you use it to go back
42:49
Speaker 1: and inform bradly about the consequences of decision, or would
42:52
Speaker 1: you like go deep into the past and learn something scientific.
42:55
Speaker 10: I'd like to think I've had enough therapy to say
42:57
Speaker 10: that I wouldn't go back to try to change anything.
42:59
Speaker 7: You know, It's like that.
43:00
Speaker 10: I appreciate how you know, my mistakes have formed me.
43:04
Speaker 10: I would say, in this moment, I'm in a very
43:05
Speaker 10: challenging phase, and so I would be more tempted to
43:08
Speaker 10: try to go back and change something.
43:09
Speaker 4: Although thanks to.
43:10
Speaker 10: Time travel movies and books, you know, we're all sort
43:12
Speaker 10: of hyper aware of the perils of going back and
43:15
Speaker 10: changing things. But by studying something, going back to any
43:19
Speaker 10: other era and just being able to sit there and observe,
43:21
Speaker 10: you know, I think would be from a nonfiction.
43:23
Speaker 4: Standpoint, obviously great.
43:24
Speaker 10: But from a fiction standpoint, you know, the verson militude
43:26
Speaker 10: that you could probably extract from some other era would
43:29
Speaker 10: just be gold, you know.
43:31
Speaker 1: All right, wonderful, Well, thanks very much for coming on
43:33
Speaker 1: the pod.
43:33
Speaker 4: Everybody.
43:34
Speaker 1: This is Bradley King and he's one of the writers
43:36
Speaker 1: and the director of Time Lapse Are a really fun
43:39
Speaker 1: movie you can all check out. And Bradley's working on
43:42
Speaker 1: several new projects, so we hope to hear more from
43:44
Speaker 1: you soon.
43:44
Speaker 10: Great, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
43:53
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio.
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