The Time Machine (2002)
The Time Machine is a 2002 American post-apocalyptic science fiction action adventure film loosely adapted by John Logan from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells and the 1960 film of the same name by George Pal and David Duncan. The film is set in New York City instead of London. It contains new story elements not present in the original novel or the 1960 film adaptation, including a romantic subplot, a new scenario about how civilization was destroyed, and several new characters, such as an artificially intelligent hologram and a Morlock leader.
Plot:
In 1899, Dr. Alexander Hartdegen is an inventor teaching at Columbia University in New York. Unlike his friend David Philby, Alex would rather do pure research than work in the business world. After a mugger kills his fiancée Emma, he devotes himself to building a time machine that will allow him to travel back in time to save her. After completing the machine in 1903, he travels back to 1899 and prevents her murder, only to see her killed again when a carriage frightens the horses of another vehicle.
Alex realizes that any attempt to save Emma will result in her death through other circumstances. He travels to 2030 to discover whether science has discovered how to change the past. At the New York Public Library, holographic librarian Vox 114 insists time travel to the past is impossible. Alex travels to 2037 when the accidental destruction of the Moon by lunar colonists has begun rendering the Earth virtually uninhabitable. While restarting the machine, he is knocked unconscious by debris and travels forward 800,000 years to 16 July 802,701 before reawakening.
