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Give a detailed critical analysis of a particular adaptation of a Wells text to the screen, comparing both themes and narrative/cinematic techniques Herbert George Wells, thefamously acclaimedFather of Science Fiction and realist of the fantastic is best known for his earliest scientific romance novel The Time Machine, published in 1895. Although Wells had not been the first writer to explore the concept of the fourth dimension in his works, it was his ingenious fictional invention of the time machine which was pivotal and indeed a game changer for the science fiction genre. Rather than being confined to narrative devices that only allowed movement forward in time such as the long sleeper (Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy and When the Sleeper Wakes by Wells himself ), or relying on dream-like fantasies to allow protagonists to return from the future (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court by Mark Twain and News from Nowhere by William Morris ), Wells had discovered a way to allow his protagonist to travel not only forwards, but backwards in time of his own free will. In addition to this, Wells had imaginatively invented a fictional machine which gave the idea of time travel a plausibility which had never been possible before. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this essay will explore the narrative techniques employed by Wells in his novella to bring to fruition his visualisation of time travel, as well as analyse and compare the cinematic techniques used in thesubsequent film adaptations of the same name by George Pal and Simon Wells. In particular, it will focus on the passage/scene in which the Time Traveller travels forwards through time. Furthermore, I will touch upon the idea that the themes which manifest themselves through the text and films are evocative of and echo the concerns of the time of their release, however due to the constraint of a word limit this idea will not be fleshed out as much as it could be. A narrative technique which is present in both Wells novel and Pals adaptation is that of the framed narrative a story-within-a-story . The nameless (at least until later on in the novel) frame narrator in the original text sets up the scene for the reader, providing context, and introduces the character of the Time Traveller so that he may convey his wondrous adventure to the dinner guests through the inset narrative. Similarly, Pal adopts this literary conceit, but instead utilises the character of David Filby (played by Alan Young) to frame the plot of the film, as he is the character who the audience sees first and last on the screen. The frame narrator in both the text and Pals film adaptation are there to oblige the same purposes. Firstly, the frame narrator is there to give credibility to the inventors inset narrative , as the addition of this hypo-diegetic level of diegesis gives the story a sense of impartialness and objectivity, proving that Wells is deserved of Conrads label as a realist of the fantastic. The other function which the framed narrative serves is that it helps ground the story in a reality with which the audience can identify before and after experiencing the
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Robert, Adam, Science Fiction (London; Routledge, 2000) p. 48 The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad in Williams, Keith, H. G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies (Liverpool; Liverpool University Press, 2007) p. 4 3 Lake, David, Darwin and Doom: H. G. Wells and The Time Machine, Babel Handbooks on Fantasy and SF Writers 1 (New Lambton; Nimrod Publications, 1997) p. 6 4 Ibid 5 Renzi, C. Thomas, H. G Wells: six scientific romances adapted for film 2nd edition (Lanham, Maryland; Toronto; Oxford; The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004) p. 2 6 Ibid

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wondrous trip in the time machine. This allows the audience to empathise with the character of the Time Traveller, as he too might start to wonder if his journey along the fourth dimension was all fantastical. Regardless of whether or not it was all a result of a fabrication or hallucination, the experiences which the Time Traveller was subjected to all elicit a strong emotion response in the audience/reader, providing for them a cathartic experience which above all else leaves an enduring impression.
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Not unlike his subsequent works, The Time Machine is characteristic of Wells in that it displays a visual self-consciousness
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indicative of the cinematic techniques which would later be

used in most science-fiction films. The most remarkable and inventive of these cinematic precursors is his visualisation of the specific effects of time travel, and as Williams points out, what makes Wells descriptions of the visual effects of time travel truly extraordinary is that he wrote them before he could possibly have seen a film . Wells description of time travel after the Time Traveller had flung [himself] into futurity
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is very suggestive of the stop motion animation and time-lapse photography

used even now to depict the passage of time on screen:

I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed melting and flowing under my eyes [] I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hill-side, and remain there without any wintry intermission. (TM, pp.19-20)

Wells description of buildings which rise up and then pass like dreamsis visually realised in Pals adaptation through these aforementioned techniques of stop-motion and time-lapse (fig. 2), and in Simon Wells version through the use of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) (fig. 1). Wells describes these buildings in the text as melting and flowing which emphasises their transient nature in the face of this temporal condensation , and both film adaptations capture this evanescence through their cinematic techniques. It is arguable, however, that the 2002 adaptation more acutely realises this, as the buildings genuinely look as if they are melting and flowing under our eyes. Wells not only implies the technique of time-lapse through his description of the buildings made of glimmer and mist, but also through his depiction of the accelerated mobility of a common snail The slowest snail that ever
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Renzi, p. 2 Ibid This question of whether or not films can provide a legitimate cathartic experience to the audience was explored in Christopher Nolans blockbuster Inception (2010). Through the metaphorical conceit of dreams, Nolan argues the point that fantasy is just as powerful (if not more so) than reality 10 Williams, Keith, Optical Speculations in the Early Writings: The Time Machine and the Short Stories, H. G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies (Liverpool; Liverpool University Press, 2007) p. 24 11 Ibid, p. 27 12 Wells, H. G., The Time Machine (London, New York, Toronto; Penguin Classics, 2005) p. 20 Note: All further quotations will be from this edition and will be henceforth indicated by its page number in parenthesis 13 Williams, p. 25

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crawled dashed by too fast for me (TM, p. 19). Pals adaptation directly references this line of the text, showing a snail dart across the screen (fig. 3), whereas the 2002 adaptation shows an accelerated spider spinning her web (fig. 4), opting to reference the text more loosely by exemplifying accelerated mobility through a different animal. Wells plays around with the visualisation of time travel, and flips all ideas of space and temporality on its head:

Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous colour like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space (TM, p. 19)

Williams notes here that paradoxically, time is spatialised, while space deliquesces into temporality . Day and night become more and more indistinct, and the line between what is constant and what is not is literally blurred. The amalgamation of the suns path across the sky is handled differently in both of the film adaptations. The 2002 adaptation does so through the use of rapid cutting at first, visualising the line from the original textThe night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow (TM, pp. 19-20), but eventually the sun becomes one streak of fire across the sky, and the sky becomes a shade of continuous greyness (fig. 5).Pals adaptation, on the other hand, visualises the passage of time only through a series of rapid cuts between the dark night sky and blue sky during the day (fig. 6), which if anything is more disconcerting than the almost comforting solidification of the suns track in Simon Wells version. It can be safe to assume, however, that this omission of the streak of fire from Pals version would certainly not have happened had Pal had at his disposal the same special effects as Simon Wells, as Williams remarks that Pal was primarily attracted to TM for the opportunities it provided for state-ofthe-art special effects
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One major addition to both films which is not present in the original text is the famous mannequin in Filbys drapers window opposite the Time Travellers home (figs. 7 & 8). Although in both films it serves as a cinematic technique to represent the passage of time through the changing fashion of womens clothing through the generations, it is Pals version that is most notable for illuminating further the theme of changing gender roles in the original text, whereas Simon Wells envisioning, whilst still relevant and also a clever intertextual reference to the Pal adaptation, is undercut by the grandeur of the special effects. Although this theme of gender is shared by all three of the narratives, they each differ substantially in terms of subtext the underlying message which each tries to convey to its audience/reader. Wells original text is ripe with Darwinian ideology, as Wells himself was a strict Darwinist
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at a time when the theory of natural selection was in denial because

of its implications towards the exclusion of God in evolution. As Lake notes, Wells took a gleeful
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Williams, p. 25 Ibid, p. 131 16 Lake, p. 4

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delight

in attacking the Victorian belief of Optimist Evolution, and through The Time Machine he
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entertains the notion that if Darwins theory of evolution proved to be true, then if circumstances are right, the stupids and the nasties will inherit the earth. Wells critique on the social hierarchy of the time is therefore brought to fruition through these Darwinian ideas of evolution, as the once-human inhabitants of the dystopian future have (d)evolved into two different species the Eloi, stemming from the upper-middle-class (or elite), and the Morlocks, descendants of the working class. Through these two very divided species, Wells points to and criticises the class divisions and segregation present in his society, as well as playing on his own fears of being dragged down to the level of the underclass. Wells also plays on the fears of the people at the turn of the 19 century in The Time Machine, as it was believed that according to Kelvins Second Law of Thermodynamics the sun would burn out in less than six million years. This fear of an earth that was no longer perpetual is exploited by Wells in The Time Machine when the Time Traveller journeys far enough into the future to witness the end of the world. When adapting The Time Machine to film, Williams submits that the directors are faced with a thematic choice: to treat it like a period piece, for faithful reproduction in every detail [...] or as a critical template for each subsequent social era to see its own conflicted image reflected in the future it imagines for itself . This is indeed the case with the 1960 and 2002 film adaptation, as they are both extrapolations of the basic ethical thesis
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of the novel, but repurposed to reflect their topical

and thematic contexts. Both films therefore make significant changes to the exposition of the narrative in that both George and Hartdegen stop at different points in their respective futures. Simon Wells version has Pearces Time Traveller stop in the year 2030, in which man has made the first step towards the final frontier and colonised the moon, which is established in the film through a huge pan out from the Time Travellers perspective until eventually, using CGI technology we are given a shot of the colonised Luna as it looms over the oblivious and unthreatening Earth (fig. 10). This is followed by a point-of-view shot back in the Time Travellers perspective of a futuristic looking billboard which ironically states The Future Is Now (fig. 11). In this future, Hartdegen witnesses the moon start to break apart and crash into the Earth, and this exposition sets up the explanation between the division between the Eloi and the Morlocks, which Hartdegen learns is a result of simple geography rather than social standing. The 2002 adaptation can therefore be seen as a warning to humanity of the dangers of disregarding Mother Nature for technological advancement, and the Eloi, who have regressed to a primitive state, are an embodiment of living in harmony with nature emphasised by the fact that they live on the side of a cliff in the film (fig. 9).Similarly, Pals Time Traveller stops the time machine before reaching the year 802,701. Unlike Hartdegen, George stops three times, however, each time at a different pivotal moment in humanitys history: The Great War in 1914; the blitz of 1940; and finally the hypothetical yet all too possible nuclear war of 1966. Pals critique is
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17 18 19

Ibid Lake, p. 4 Ibid, p. 10 20 Williams, p. 130 21 Ibid, p. 131 22 It could be argued that at the metafilm level, Simon Wells The Time Machine is, as Williams puts it, a measure of cinemas technical advancement since 1960 (Williams, p. 136)

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therefore not of human progress, but of humanitys disposition towards destruction which hinders its own progress, and reflects the Cold War anxieties of the time. Although Pals film ultimately warns of the impending doom of nuclear warfare and criticises the militaristic ideals in retrospective view of the two World Wars, Renzi points out that the romantic assumption that George has returned to Weena to help her people rebuild their world
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gives the film a sense of hopefulness not present in Wells

novel, one of cyclical destruction and rebirth, noting that humanity, in time will always emerge to reconstruct civilization for itself .However, Pals adaptation ultimately comes at a loss to the very conflicts that define Wells work , as the Morlocks are cast as allegorical Soviets evoke the same sympathetic emotions as the Wellsian Morlocks.
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and do not

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Renzi, p. 13 Ibid 25 Williams, p. 133 26 Ibid 27 This point could be argued to be more so the case for the Morlocks in the 2002 adaptation, as they are depicted as hideous monsters (made possible through animatronics and prosthetics) that prey on the human-like Eloi

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Filmography The Time Machine (George Pal; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; U.S, 1960) The Time Machine (Simon Wells; DreamWorks, Warner Bros., U.S, 2002)

Bibliography Lake, David, Darwin and Doom: H. G. Wells and The Time Machine, Babel Handbooks on Fantasy and SF Writers 1 (New Lambton; Nimrod Publications, 1997) Renzi, C. Thomas, H. G Wells: six scientific romances adapted for film 2 edition (Lanham, Maryland; Toronto; Oxford; The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004) Roberts, Adam, Science Fiction (London; Routledge, 2000) <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/dundee/docDetail.action?docID=10054086> Wells, H. G., The Time Machine (London, New York, Toronto; Penguin Classics, 2005) Williams, Keith, H. G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies (Liverpool; Liverpool University Press, 2007)
nd

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