The movie The Time Machine starts off in 19th century NYC. Dr. Alexander, an Applied Mechanics professor at Columbia University proposes to his sweetheart Emma. The happy moment is short-lived as she is killed by a mugger. Stricken by grief, Alex works on time travel equations for many years and builds a time machine. Using it he goes back to the past many times, but isn’t able to save Emma from her imminent demise. Not able to find out how to save her life, he travels to the future hoping the answer can be found there. He arrives in 2030 A.D., finds that humans are exploring the Moon, but no, they don’t know the answer to his question. Humans are trying lunar mining and it goes bad. The moon explodes, showering onto Earth. Alex escapes and travels forward to 800K A.D. There he finds that most species have been wiped out due to the lunar explosions. Humans have evolved into 2 distinct species — the higher species called Morlocks mind-control and hunt the lower species called Eloi. Alex meets the head of a Morlock tribe and finally gets the answer to his question. He can’t save Emma due to a temporal paradox. It was Emma’s death which caused his creation of the time machine. He can’t use it without her demise. Alex escapes, destroys the Morlocks using his time machine as a time bomb and lives with the Eloi.
I saw the 2002 version of the movie. This is a remake of a similar movie released in 1960. Both of them are based on the epic book by H. G. Wells. Though there has been so much discussion about time travel, I still found the movie’s time travel exploits engaging. While the story stays in the 19th century, the movie is a real treat to watch. However, the future world story isn’t that great, infact it is boring. The effects are good, the casting and acting aren’t. Just a decent watch.