Spike Lee will co-write and direct an adaptation of Ronald Mallett’s memoir Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality. Spike Lee describes Time Traveler as a “fantastic story on many levels (and) also a father and son saga of loss and love.” Kirkus Reviews called the book a “hokey but inspiring blend of personal narrative and scientific exploration.” Basically, it’s a time travel movie without the time travel.
Mallett (pictured right with a model from the movie The Time Machine) is actually a very interesting living subject for a feature film. Co-written by best-selling author Bruce Henderson, the memoir tells a story of Mallett’s rise from poverty to becoming a distinguished academic, one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D in theoretical physics. As a child, he became obsessed with developing a working time machine after reading a comic-book version of H.G. Wells’s science-fiction classic, The Time Machine. His goal was to travel back in time to save his father who died prematurely when he was 10-years old.
And he is still trying at age 63, working as a professor of physics in the University of Connecticut, while raising funding for his Space-time Twisting by Light project. His time travel research has been featured in an hour-long TV special, “The World’s First Time Machine,” as well as publications as diverse as The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, New Scientist, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe and Pravda. Mallett’s time machine concept uses a ring laser and the theory of relativity. Check out the illustration below.
source: Variety
June 17th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
This is awesome, but I’m pretty baked right now, so I don’t know how much this is relying of current uncertainty in physics versus my ability to find it sweet. Michio Kaku might have a problem with this. I’m pretty sure time travel is impossible.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
lol@beam me up scotty.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I am very intrigued.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
like my man clint said, spike should just shut his face. but i am big enough to admit this sounds like a cool idea…and yes, for the rest of my blogging life i will bash spike for his ignorant shot at clint.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:02 am
i heard this story on this american life, check it out
this has allot of potential
might get him an oscar
best director or picture
im calling it
June 18th, 2008 at 1:09 am
OC,
Who cares? Clint is a big boy with his own pull-ups now.
He can fight his own battles.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:23 am
I seen this bloke on TV in the UK and he was about to try and see if it would work in a few months, and it seems to be a cleaver idea and a great film.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:46 am
I can only hope that all the white aspiring Trime Travelers are equally represented in this “film”
June 18th, 2008 at 6:53 am
I would like to go back to 1984 please.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I wonder if we can send Spike Lee back.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Alright Spike. Cool concept.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Very cool. I’m a sucker for time travel films. Even the indie film Primer. Spike Lee usually doesn’t make movies that I would be interested in. But, this looks good.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I bet Primer will still be the better time travel movie after this comes out…
June 18th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I haven’t seen a good Spike Lee movie in many years. But I want to read more about the time travel theory…
June 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Spike is a douche. Looks like another lame movie… probably relying on the race card.. again.