The Time Machine

Phillby:
A professor from Columbia University should not be corresponding with a crazy German book keeper.

Hartdegen:
He's a patent clerk, not a book keeper, and I think Mr. Einstein needs all the support I can give him.

Phillby:
[looking at a futuristic picture] I wonder if we'll ever go too far.

Hartdegen:
With what?

Phillby:
[pointing at the picture] With this. With all of this.

Hartdegen:
No such thing.

Phillby:
Nothing can change what happened.

Hartdegen:
No, you're wrong. Because I will change it.

Jogger (credited as such but actually a bicyclist):
Hey.

Hartdegen:
Hello.

Jogger:
Nice suit. Very retro.

Hartdegen:
Thank you.

Jogger:
Bet that makes a hell of a cappuccino. (Indicates the time machine) That thing.

Vox 144:
[an image of himself appears] How may I help you?

[Alexander Hartdegen looks behind Vox]

Vox 144:
Over here.

Vox 144:
Area of inquiry?

Hartdegen:
Do you know anything about physics?

Vox 144:
Ah! [opens a file] Accessing physics.

Hartdegen:
Mechanical engineering? Dimensional optics? Chronography? [Vox 144 opens files for each] Temporal causality? Temporal paradox?

Vox 144:
Time travel?

Hartdegen:
Yes.

Vox 144:
[sighs, looking annoyed] Accessing science fiction--

Hartdegen:
No, no, practical application! My question is, why can't one change the past?

Vox 144:
Because one cannot travel into the past.

Hartdegen:
What if one could?

Vox 144:
One cannot.

Hartdegen:
Excuse me, this... this is something you should trust me on!

Vox 144:
[opens more files, still annoyed] Accessing the writings of Isaac Asimov, H. G. Wells, Harlan Ellison, Alexander Hartdegen--

Hartdegen:
Oh! Tell me about him.

Vox 144:
Alexander Hartdegen, 1869 to 1903. American scientist given to eccentric postulation. Found writings include treatise on the creation of a time machine.

Hartdegen:
Tell me about the time machine.

Vox 144:
The Time Machine was written by H. G. Wells in 1894. It was later adapted to a motion picture by George Pal and a stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber...

Hartdegen:
[as Vox continues] No, no, that's not what I mean--

Vox 144:
Would you like to hear a selection from the score?

Hartdegen:
No!

Vox 144:
[singing to music] "There's a place called tomorrow! A place of joy, not of sorrow! Can't you see, it's a place for you and--"

Hartdegen:
Thank you, that's quite enough. [turns to leave the library]

Vox 144:
Will there be anything else?

Hartdegen:
Uh, no, no, I... I think I'll have better luck in a few hundred years.

Vox 144:
[sarcastically giving a Vulcan salute] Live long and prosper!

Hartdegen:
How did this happen?

Soldier #1:
The moon. Come on, move it.

Hartdegen:
That's impossible. What happened?

Soldier #1:
What, you been living under a rock?

Hartdegen:
Yes, I've been living under a rock! Now tell me...

Soldier #1:
The demolitions for the lunar colony screwed up the orbit, okay? The moon's breaking up, all right? Now, come on.

Hartdegen:
Can you tell me what's happenening here?

Vox 114:
Well, my sources are no longer fully annotated and my information has become somewhat anecdotal, but I believe what was once one race is now two; one above and one below. Two distinct species that have evolved.

Hartdegen:
And how do those below... survive?

Vox 114:
That is the real question, isn't it? [winks at Kalen] Baaaaa!

Vox 144:
[darkly] So, relic - you want to open Pandora's box, do you? See all the mysteries exposed?

Alexander:
Yes.

Vox 144:
And if the truth is so horrible that it will haunt your dreams for all time?

Alexander:
I'm used to that.

Uber-Morlock:
We bred ourselves into castes. Some to be our eyes and ears, others to be our muscles and sinews...

Hartdegen:
You mean your hunters?

Uber-Morlock:
Yes. Bred to be predators, but bred also to be controlled. You see, my caste concentrated on expanding our cerebral abilities.

Hartdegen:
You control their thoughts?

Uber-Morlock:
Not just theirs.

Hartdegen:
[realises] The Eloi. So it's not enough that you hunt them down like animals?

Uber-Morlock:
That's their role here.

Hartedegen:
To be your food?!

Uber-Morlock:
Yes. And for those who are suitable, to be breeding vessels for our other colonies. [indicates Mara in her cage] You see, I am just one of many.

Hartdegen:
I don't understand how you can sit there and speak so coldly about this. [the Uber-Morlock rises] Have you not considered the human cost of what it is your are doing?

Uber-Morlock:
We all pay a price...Alexander. [other Morlocks roar in the distance] Don't worry, you're safe. I control them. Without that control, they would exhaust the food supply in a matter of months.

Hartdegen:
Food supply?! They're human beings!

Uber-Morlock:
Who are you to question 800,000 years of evolution?

Hartdegen:
This is a perversion of every natural law!

Uber-Morlock:
[grabs him by the throat] And what is time travel... but your pathetic attempt to control the world around you?! Your futile effort to have a question answered?!

Alexander Hartdegen:
I could come back a thousand times... and see her die a thousand ways.

Alexander Hartdegen:
You were right, Phillby. We did go too far.

Alexander Hartdegen:
You're forgetting one thing. What if?

ÜBer-Morlock:
Come a little closer, I don't bite.

ÜBer-Morlock:
We weren't always like this. After the moon fell from the sky, the Earth could no longer sustain the species. Some managed to stay above; the rest of us escaped underground. Then centuries later, when we tried to re-emerge into the sun again, we couldn't.

ÜBer-Morlock:
Who are you, to question 800,000 years... of evolution?

ÜBer-Morlock:
And what is time travel, but your pathetic attempted to try to control the world around you?! Your futile effort to have a question answered?! You think I don't know you, Alexander? I can look inside your memories, your nightmares, your dreams. You're a man haunted by those two most terrible words: What if?

ÜBer-Morlock:
You built your time machine because of Emma's death. If she had lived, it would never have existed, so how could you use your machine to go back and save her? You are the inescapable result of your tragedy, just as I am the inescapable result of you.

ÜBer-Morlock:
We all have our time machines, don't we? Those that take us back are memories, and those that carry us forward are dreams.

Vox 144:
Can you even imagine what it's like to remember everything? I remember this six-year-old girl who asked me about dinosaurs 800,000 years ago. I remember the last book I recommended: Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. And yes, I even remember you. "Time travel, practical application."

Teacher:
If you do that again, I will re-sequence your DNA, so help me!

Phillby:
(on Hartdegen's disappearance) I'm glad, I'm glad he's gone. Maybe he's finally found some place where he can be happy, his home.

Mrs. Watchit:
(last lines of film) Godspeed, my fine lad. Godspeed.