Re: Time Machine revised?

In article <1178098075.266672.51040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Girish <girishbhat6620@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 2, 12:00 pm, "Mike Dworetsky"
<platinum...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The Project Gutenberg version also lacks the 20th/21st century "adventure".
I can recall this being included in a 1960s film of the novel, but the
original book version did not have it. Possibly the film is the source of
your memory.

You are right, my memory is not from reading the original novella.
Full disclosure:
There used to be an <cough, cough> series of illustrated children's
classics with a page of prose alternating with a full page
illustration. It was in this "adapted" work that the 20/21st/22nd
century adventure took place. Still, those guys were supposed to stick
closely to the original source material!




Can you remember any of the *plot* of the 20th-century segment of
what you read? Did it have anything to do with a war?

See, every writer who's dealt with _The Time Machine_, beginning
with Wells himself, projected his own priorities onto the story.
Wells was a socialist, and he saw the class struggle as the
most important feature of history. His Eloi were the descendants
of the upper classes who had stayed above with the sunshine and
flowers while pushing the poor oppressed working classes down
into the dark underground [think of the workers' scenes in
_Metropolis_), whence they eventually came back. I live near
Berkeley, where I still see the occasional bumper sticker reading
"Eat the Rich." Well, that's what the Morlocks did.

The George Pal version, released in 1960, was informed by Pal's
memories of World War II in London and contemporary worries about
World War III. Thus the Time Traveler visits London in the
middle of World War I, in the middle of a blitz in World War II,
and just before the Big One drops in World War III, which Pal
sets in 1966. When the Traveler arrives in the far future, he
finds the Eloi as the descendants of the last few World War N
survivors who took their chances on the ruined surface, while
those of the Morlocks stayed in the safety of the shelters.

The latest film version, which I haven't seen, apparently
motivates the Traveler's journey by an attempt to go back in time
to save his girlfriend from being killed. He can't --- Fritz
Leiber's Change War soldiers could have told him so --- and I
don't know how the Eloi and Morlocks get into it at all. Here
the theme appears to be neither socialism nor war jitters but a
Hollywoodian conviction that only sex, disguised as Twoo Wuv,
will sell movie tickets. I found it disappointing that s/TW was
considered *necessary* to motivate the Traveller into travelling,
which is why I never saw it.

Goodness knows what the next version will use for themes and
motivations.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx
.