Time Travel Movies Don't Get Better Than This

2 days ago 9

Dani Kessel Odom (they/them) is an autistic lead writer on the New TV team, focusing on writing and content planning for streaming shows. They often assist with Classic TV coverage, as well.

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Aside from working at Screen Rant, Dani has worked as a freelance editor and writer over the past decade, often in a ghostwriting capacity.

Many time-travel sci-fi movies exist, but they don’t get much better than an indie film from 2004. The idea of time travel has captivated audiences for millennia, with the first time-travel story written around 400 BCE. However, the popularity and mechanics of time travel have changed drastically in the last century or two as technology has advanced.

H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine popularized the idea that time travel is a science-fiction concept that involves a mechanical device rather than a religious or magical experience. That was really the seminal work for popular time travel movies. Hollywood has even adapted the H.G. Wells story multiple times.

While there are many time-travel movies to choose from, one of the masterpieces is the 2004 indie film Primer, which presents the idea of time travel in a very different way from many other stories. Every fan of the subgenre needs to give this gem a watch.

What Is Primer About?

Primer 2004 character with cupped hands standing over a device

The movie Primer follows a group of engineers who spend their nights doing external science projects in their garage. Aaron and Abe get excited about an experiment meant to reduce an object's mass by placing it in a mechanical box. The box removes the object from the effects of gravity with the help of superconductivity, palladium, and argon.

Shockingly, they discover that the objects being placed inside are traveling back and forth between Point A – the time they place it inside the box – and Point B – the time they take it out of the box. The Weeble couldn’t choose when to come out of the box. However, they quickly realize that if a sentient being were inside, they could choose to come out earlier than they entered.

On a bigger scale, the two of them could travel back in time. The earliest they could go back to was the moment the device was powered on. The two decide to use this to their advantage, going back in time to make money from the stock market.

However, things quickly get out of hand, as they haven’t considered all the potential ramifications of creating a time machine and going back in time. Any further explanations would spoil the movie, so I’ll end the description there.

What Makes Primer Better Than Most Time Travel Movies

A still from Primer (2004) by Shane Carruth

Primer was a weird, sci-fi arthouse film made on a $7,000 budget, and it doesn’t try to appeal to the mainstream. The script leans into hard sci-fi, providing scientific explanations for what they’re doing to engineer the box and how time travel works within the story.

At no point does the movie dumb itself down to reach the average audience. It trusts that viewers will either understand it or look up the science. The grounded, scientific approach of Primer really sets it apart from other time-travel movies or TV shows. It feels like it could have happened in real life at the time the movie was filmed, rather than feeling like some grand adventure in a removed reality.

On top of that, the cinematography is fascinating to look at. It’s clear that it was made on a very tiny budget, but it doesn’t necessarily suffer, leaning into the style. This furthers the script’s grounded approach. The fact that they film in real locations also allows the audience to feel like they’re inside the story with the characters.

The only thing that really makes this feel a little less grounded is the lighting. It changes frequently throughout the film between a blue tint that feels forboding, an orangey tint that feels detached from reality, and natural lighting that feels logical and real. These choices subtly guide the film's tone without feeling distracting. These small details feel more intentional and thought-out than most time-travel movies.

The other big strength of Primer over other time-travel movies is its clever use of voiceover. The movie starts with a phone call. There’s also a great mystery underlying the entire movie: who is making the voiceover phone call, and to whom are they speaking? This is drawn out until the final act of the film, but once it clicks, everything starts to fall into place.

Primer Is Made To Be Rewatched

Because of the mechanics of time travel in this movie, Primer has so many moving pieces that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with what is happening. There are multiple time travel boxes. There are multiple versions of the same characters existing in the same timeline. Some crucial events happen off-screen but influence the story.

Some viewers might find the experience of watching it for the first time frustrating and confusing. However, it’s very much like a complex puzzle that’s waiting to be solved. Patience pays off in this case. The more times you watch it, the more the story will make sense.

On top of that, there’s the mystery about who is on the phone and who’s on the receiving end. While it becomes pretty clear within the first watch who is on both sides, it recontextualizes much of the storyline. Many earlier Primer moments have a completely different meaning. This makes a second watch a positive experience.