Hacker Cinema
Timeline
2003 · Film · 115 min
Directed by Richard Donner
ActionAdventureScience Fiction
A group of archaeological students become trapped in the past when they go there to retrieve their professor. The group must survive in 14th century France long enough to be rescued.
2 positive3 negative6 neutralfrom 11 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
Videos commenters linked
From YouTube links in the comments below. Most are clips and trailers; “Full” means the uploader says so.
12 comments on Hacker News
The worst archery bollocks I've ever seen in a film is in Timeline (2003)
The French are defending their castle at night from an English siege. They exchange volleys of arrows with their tips set on fire. Very cinematic.
Then the dastardly English commander calls for "night arrows". What are those? They're arrows whose tips aren't set on fire.
The French soldiers, knowing there's a pile of archers at their door, and knowing exactly where they are thanks to the attackers all carrying torches, stand waiting for the signal to loose their counter-volley, and are surprised by the "night arrows".
Such nonsense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcUVOlbNb30
Airframe (explains quite well how the corporate world deals with crisis or failures)
Micro (is a Honey I shrunk the kids story but with a much more jurassic park science vibe. Have no idea why its hasn't been made into a movie)
Timeline (has been made into a movie and is a cool time travel story)
It was pretty ok but not good imo. Too much emotional introspection by the narrating character, the captain. Not enough action or detail in the society building.
Never heard of the TV show. I'm sort of afraid of watching it, kinda like the Timeline movie based on the Crichton novel.
I did like the Timeline book as well, but I read it at around 13.
It did really change a lot of images I had of the period though. One thing that sticks out in my memory was a comment on how much distance the average serf could cover in a day from walking since it was their only mode of transportation.
The movie, though, is just completely middling. It's not bad enough to be fun but not good enough to be exciting. I watched it on a plane, which adds two points to any score I would give a movie, but if I was at home I would have probably turned it off after 45 minutes.
Prey and Timeline are two of my favorite. Micro (which was finished by another author after Crichton's death) is also very good an dissimilar to Prey.
Since I like Timeline so much it made watching the movie so painful.
You should definitely read Sphere and Prey if you haven't!
Also avoid the Timeline movie at all costs unless you are trapped on a flight.
I enjoyed the likes of Jurassic Park, Timeline, The First Great Train Robbery hugely. Found State of Fear too much like hard work.
I think I might be similarly disappointed with Fleming if he had held a well publicised stance about equality and women's rights through his career, and then put out James Bond. Course the Bond movies were very different to the books.
Disclosure! Yeah, the one that became the movie with Demi Moore and Michael Douglas. A man is sexually harassed by his female boss.
The book is kind of about that, but also about technology. It was published in 1994 and I would say it was futuristic, if not a bit misguided.
Crichton envisioned a virtual reality tool where -- if you wanted to find a certain file on your computer -- you would run down the halls of a huge virtual library, opening virtual filing cabinets and picking through files by hand. I think this was supposed to make finding your digital files "easier"... but seems hilarious now.
Who knows, maybe some version of that will still come true. It's been a while since I read it, so I might be mis-remembering.
Almost all of his books had some futuristic technology involved, including Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Timeline, etc.
You just described the librarian from the movie Timeline. I think the issue is that we still don't really have a technology or medium that doesn't degrade when unplugged or plugged. Chemical mediums such as most optical media fail, etching is searchable scratchable, etc. Records seem to be the most reliable but are of limited storage ability and require careful storage and switching.
This reminds me of the Michael Criton book "Timeline" which was also made into a movie in 2003.
Did they sue the creators of the movie Timeline also?
Most of his books appear as if they were written to be made into movies. Most of them were thoroughly enjoyable too - Jurassic Park, Congo, Timeline, Prey etc., though his recent works weren't as good as his older ones.
RIP