Predestination paradoxes in film

A predestination paradox is a common literary device employed in many fictional and mythological works, dealing with various circumstances and paradoxes that can logically arise from time travel.

This page describes several examples of predestination paradox in literature. For more popular culture examples see Predestination paradoxes in popular culture, Predestination paradoxes in literature, Predestination paradoxes in television, Predestination paradoxes in video games, and Predestination paradoxes in comics, manga, and anime.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

• In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, the scene in which Bill and Ted break the "dudes from the past" out of jail relies on a series of actions that they have to remember to perform in the future. Notably, Bill and Ted are able to open the jail cells by deciding that they will afterwards go steal the keys from the past and plant them outside the police station before they get there. Ted's father's missing keys are mentioned at the beginning of the movie, before any of the time travel events occur, and Ted later remarks "So it was me that stole my dad's keys!" Additionally, after the dudes from the past have been freed, Ted encounters his father, who attempts to stop him. Ted closes his eyes and tells himself, "Remember the trash can," at which point a booby trap constructed by Ted's future self activates, causing a large trash can to fall on his father.
• When Bill and Ted are at the Circle K just after they meet Rufus and his time-travelling phone booth, another booth appears and future Bill and Ted step out. Later in the film Bill and Ted type a wrong number into the booth and travel back a day earlier than they intended. They arrive at the Circle K, see their past selves and end up doing and saying exactly the same things they saw their future selves doing when they were at the Circle K. This includes introducing their younger selves to Rufus, who never actually tells the duo his name.
• The sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, features a parody of this in its climax when the antagonist corners Bill and Ted at the Battle of the Bands. They mention that they will set up a cage trap to hold the villain; the villain counters by reminding himself to get a key and another gun. The gun turns out to be fake; Bill and Ted point out that only the winner of their battle could go back in time and set up the traps, and they had provided the fake gun and key for the villain as well.
• In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey the antagonist, unhappy with the future, sends evil robots back in time to kill Bill and Ted. When his robots are defeated, he goes back himself and takes control of the world's satellites so the whole world can see them defeated. Instead, the whole world watches them play their music, cementing their place in history. In Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure we see that the band could not have formed if not for Rufus appearing from the future to help them with their history project.

The Butterfly Effect

• In The Butterfly Effect, when his teacher asks him to draw what he wants to be when he grows up, seven-year-old Evan Treborn (Logan Lerman) draws a [...] standing over two corpses with a bloody knife. He quickly "blacks out" the memory of having drawn the picture and never sees the drawing afterwards. In response to the picture, Evan's mother takes him to a doctor, who suggests he write AbOUT the incident in a journal. As an adult, Evan (Ashton Kutcher) uses the journal to Return to the Past and draw the picture. Also, seven-year-old Evan visits his father Jason in a psychiatric hospital and "blacks out" the few minutes that lead Jason to attack Evan until a guard accidentally deals a lethal blow to Jason's head. Later, in order to speak to his dead father, Evan uses his journals to relive the visit, during which he provokes the attack.

Donnie Darko

• In the film Donnie Darko, the title character is lured out of bed during the night by a vision of a man in a bunny suit named Frank, right before a jet engine falls through the ceiling of Donnie's room. Frank then informs Donnie that in 28 days, the world will end. Over the next four weeks, Donnie is instructed through a series of visions to perform various acts, starting a chain reaction which ultimately causes the deaths of his girlfriend, sister, mother, and Frank himself. Through a book entitled Philosophy of Time Travel, Donnie realizes that the jet engine is an artifact from the future ripped off by a wormhole and sent back through time to kill him and complete a causal loop that will PReVENT the world from collapsing into a black hole. On the night of the 28th day, history repeats itself, but instead of leaving his house, Donnie remains in bed and accepts his fate, closing the loop and allowing himself to die.

The Final Countdown

• In The Final Countdown, civilian contractor Warren Lasky reports to observe operations on board the aircraft carrier Nimitz. His reclusive and enigmatic employer, Mr. Tideman, who helped design the ship, drives up to see him off, but does not leave the limousine. At sea, the carrier is caught in a time storm and thrown back to December 6, 1941. Realizing their situation, Captain Matthew Yelland and his staff debate whether to intervene in the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor. Arguing against is Commander Richard Owen, who believes history cannot be changed. Two Japanese planes scouting ahead destroy a private yacht, from which the Nimitz rescues a powerful United States senator. Deciding to risk damaging history, Yelland orders the senator and his assistant, Laurel, to be taken to an outlying island where they would be safe while Nimitz squadrons engage the Japanese. The senator attempts to escape, destroying the helicopter and stranding Owens and Laurel alone. As the Nimitz forces approach the Japanese, the storm reappears, forcing Yelland to recall all aircraft. Back in the present, Lasky leaves the ship and is invited to meet Mr. and Mrs. Tideman in the limousine. He sees they're actually Owen and Laurel, 39 years older than when he last saw them.

Happy Accidents

• In Happy Accidents, Sam Deed (Vincent D'Onofrio) in 2470 falls in love with a woman, Ruby, in a photograph he finds. He travels back to 1999 to prevent her death. They fall in love and he eventually convinces her that he comes from the future, but she does not believe his warnings about her death. On the appointed day, Ruby is distracted as she looks at a photograph of herself and Sam at the beach; she is nearly run down by a car, but Sam manages to save her. It transpires that the out-of-focus picture is the one Sam finds in the future that inspired him to return to the past. However, in saving Ruby and breaking the loop, he CREATES an ontological paradox, as his knowledge of Ruby's accident in the original timeline no longer has an origin.

The Jacket

• The Jacket reverses the paradox by having a character travel to the future to affect someone else's future (not his own past), but he does lead himself to his death that he was trying to avoid.

Kate and Leopold

• In the film Kate & Leopold, Kate McKay (Meg Ryan) lives in the present day and falls in love with a time traveller from 1876, Leopold (Hugh Jackman). Leopold was brought into the year 2001 by Stuart (Liev Schreiber), Kate's ex-boyfriend. After Leopold returns to his time, Kate also travels to 1876 to marry Leopold and consequently becomes Stuart's great-great-great-grandmother.

Looper

• In Looper, Joe Simmons (Bruce Willis), a former Mafia hitman, travels from 2074 to 2044 in order to [...] the Rainmaker, a powerful mafia boss who caused the [...] of his wife, as a child. In doing so, he hopes to both stop his wife's [...] and prevent himself from ever traveling back in time in the first place, allowing him to return to the future. However, the younger version of Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) deduces the his future self's failed attempt to [...] the Rainmaker will directly result in the Rainmaker's rise to power, thus resulting in the [...] of Joe's wife and Joe's travel to the past. In order to prevent the causal loop, the young Joe commits [...], thus negating his future self's existence and preventing the events that led to the Rainmaker's rise.

Los Cronocrímenes

• Los Cronocrímenes

Meet the Robinsons

• At one point in the film, while pursuing Lewis, Bowler Hat Guy encounters the child version of himself who had lost a baseball game and was beaten up by the other teammates. As Goob (the child) says how he should let it go, BHG tells him to keep the rage and hatred inside, which would then lead to Goob becoming the Bowler Hat Guy in the future. When Lewis woke Goob during the game near the end, it can be assumed that BHG had vanished from the timeline.
• Another example would be how Wilbur takes Lewis back to see his mother drop him off at the orphanage - at the start of the film, you see that the mother hears a noise and puts the baby down on the step of the orphanage, then there is a sequence of knocking where the orphanage owner Mildred opens the door to find baby Lewis. Towards the end of the film where Wilbur takes Lewis back to see his mother, Lewis goes to touch his mother's arm, but decides against it. As he walks away, he slips, causing a noise. When he sees his mother run off, he chooses to knock the door - thus waking Mildred up to find baby Lewis on the step.

Minority Report

In the movie Minority Report, murders are prevented through the efforts of three psychic mutants who can see crimes before they are committed. When police chief John Anderton is implicated in a [...]-to-be, he sets out on a crusade to figure out why he would kill a man he has yet to meet. Many of the signposts on his journey to meet fate were predicted exactly as they occur, and his search leads him inexorably to the scene of the crime, where he cannot stop himself from [...] the other man. In the end, the prediction itself is what had set the chain of events in motion.

Planet of the Apes series

1. Planet of the Apes (1968 film)-Three astronauts travel forward in time and find an Earth where the Apes govern and mankind are beasts.
2. Beneath the Planet of the Apes-astronaut going forward in time finds the only survivor of the #1 movie-the Earth is destroyed by a doomsday bomb worshiped by an underground-dwelling humans
3. Escape from the Planet of the Apes-two survivors from Ape Earth go back in time-helped by the shock wave of Earth's destruction- and give birth to child Milo
4. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes-the Apes overthrow the humans.
5. Battle for the Planet of the Apes-battle between the Apes and humans who are split into two societies-one aboveground and the other belowground. {the epilogue indicates that the supposed pre-destined future as seen in the first film never occurs as the humans and apes learned to live in cooperation and peace-although apparently in the future the above ground humans become little more than mute beasts of the field and the Ape Society becomes the dominant species for centuries until the arrival of the time-space ship in Movie #1}.

Premonition

• In Premonition, Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) learns that her husband was killed in a car accident. Over the next several days, she lives immediately before and after the accident, learning that her husband was having an affair, injuring her daughter and ending up taking psychological medication. Eventually she determines what is going on, and decides that she is having premonitions to give her a chance to save her husband. She follows him when he leaves on the day when he is supposed to die, reconciling with him on her cell phone and getting him to stop and come home. His decision to listen to her warning and turn around leads to him being killed by a fuel truck right in front of her.

Somewhere in Time

• In Somewhere in Time, young playwright Richard Collier is visited by an old woman who gives him an antique pocket watch and whispers, "Come back to me." Years later when his life is successful but unhappy, he goes on a road trip and happens upon the Grand Hotel. Wandering around one morning, he sees a framed photograph of a beautiful woman in the hotel's museum. Disappointed to find out that she was Elise McKenna, a stage actress from the early 20th century, he still becomes obsessed with her. He's stunned to find a picture of her that shows she's the old woman who gave him the watch. He finds out that she repeatedly read a book on time travel written by an old professor of his, who tells him of a possible means of time travel by self-hypnosis. Collier successfully uses the technique to return to 1912, where he wins the heart of the lonely actress. He's stymied by her overbearing manager but in the end, the two share a night in bed. Dining afterwards, she checks the time on his watch and he shows off his vintage suit. He finds a modern penny forgotten in one pocket and is thrust back into the present, leaving the watch and a heartbroken Elise behind. The watch thus becomes an ontological paradox.

Sphere

• In Sphere, the scientists are called upon to investigate a futuristic space vehicle that has been discovered beneath the ocean. In the process of doing this, they discover that it is, in fact, from the future, and had crashed about 200 years before they are currently investigating it. From the vehicle's logs, it records the "Unknown Event" as it happens AS an "unknown event". However, as they reasoned, why would the vehicle in the future not have any foreknowledge that it was going to encounter an "unknown event" and get thrown into the past, if they now have the knowledge that it is going to occur at a specific time in the future. In the end, they realize that since only they know about it, they have the choice not to remember or tell anyone about it. They have the power to forget, thereby electing NOT to create a time paradox and preserving the closed time loop as-is.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

• In the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, panels of ultra-thick acrylic glass were needed to construct water tanks within their ship's cargo bay for containing two humpback whales and tons of water. However, the Enterprise crew, without money appropriate to the period, found it necessary to barter for the required materials. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott exchanges the chemical formula for transparent aluminum for several sheets of the material from a manufacturer called Plexicorp. When Dr. Leonard McCoy informs Scott that giving Dr. Nichols the formula is altering the future, the engineer responds, "Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing?" (In the novelization of the film, Scott is aware that Dr. Marcus "Mark" Nichols (Alex Henteloff), the Plexicorp scientist with whom he and McCoy deal, was its "inventor," and concludes that his giving of the formula is a predestination paradox/bootstrap paradox.) The substance is described as being as transparent as glass while possessing the strength and density of high-grade aluminum. It was also mentioned in Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "In Theory."

Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith

• Anakin Skywalker joined the Sith to gain new knowledge to save his wife from death, which he sees visions of. By falling to the dark side however he causes his wife to lose the will to live and die in childbirth, causing Anakin's visions to become reality.

The Terminator

• Movies in the Terminator series deal with predestination paradoxes. In the first movie, Kyle Reese, the soldier sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor, the future mother of his commander John Connor, ends up fathering John Connor with her. Paralleling this, the Terminator cyborg sent back to kill Sarah is destroyed, but its components are salvaged to form the basis of the artificially intelligent computer network Skynet that will, in the future, send it back in time on its murderous mission. Although this second predestination paradox was established in the movie, the characters managed to destroy the components and prevent it. However, in the third movie, the Terminator reveals that the rise of Skynet is inevitable, and that the events of the second movie only postponed it (The U.S. military bought out the bankrupt Cyberdyne systems and acquired all their research). He turns out to be correct, as the movie ends with Skynet coming online.

The Time Machine

• In the 2002 remake of The Time Machine, the protagonist Alexander Hartdegen invents a time machine to go back in time to stop the death of the woman he loves, Emma. However, whenever he saves her, she dies in another way. He travels to the future to find out why and eventually meets the Übermorlock, a powerful psychic. He tells Alexander that the reason he cannot save Emma is because her death is what caused him to make the time machine in the first place. Because without her death, there can be no time machine, he therefore cannot go back in time to save her.

Timerider

• In Timerider, Lyle Swann (Fred Ward) accidentally gets sent back in time to the old west without him knowing it. There, he meets a beautiful woman in a small town and has [...] with her. By the end of the movie, it is evident that the beautiful woman is Lyle's great-great-grandmother and he is his own great-great-grandfather, as he was leaving by helicopter, the woman grabbed and stole from him a medallion that he learned his grandmother had stolen from his grandfather. This sets up the circumstances for his own birth and, therefore, sets up the circumstances for him to travel through time.

Twelve Monkeys

• In Twelve Monkeys, Bruce Willis' character James Cole is sent back in time in order to discover clues about the apocalyptic disease which wiped out most of the Earth's population. An attack is attributed to the elusive "Army of the Twelve Monkeys", which leads indirectly to the formation of the group. Throughout the film, he has a flashback-like dream to a vision of his childhood - he sees a man sprinting through an airport, only to fall and be embraced by a beautiful blonde. We eventually find out that this man is none other than the adult Willis, only disguised. The child is to grow up into the adult, destined to repeat the cycle. (The plot twist is taken from Chris Marker's La jetée, the short film that inspired Twelve Monkeys.)

The Two Worlds of Jenny Logan

• In a novel 'Second Sight', written by David Williams, and in the made for TV movie, 'The Two Worlds of Jenny Logan', both created earlier than 'Somewhere in Time', a similar predestination paradox occurs involving an antique dress. Jennie Logan (Lindsay Wagner) and her husband Michael (Alan Feinstein) are trying to resurrect their marriage after Jennie finds out about Michael's infidelity. They move into an old house, where Jennie finds an antique dress in the attic. When she wears it, she is transported to the year 1899, where she meets an artist David Reynolds (Marc Singer), grieving for his dead bride Pamela. Jennie keeps going back and forth between the two worlds by wearing the antique dress. Her husband Michael doesn't believe her when she reveals to him about her time travels and thinks that she is going crazy. He urges her to go a psychiatrist. She and David fall in love in 1899, but David's sister-in-law Elizabeth (Linda Gray) is also in love with him. However, her father disapproves of David and blames him for Pamela's accidental death. They enter a duel, and Jennie escapes from the present world to the past world to stop the duel and try to save David's life. The dress thus becomes an ontological paradox.