TiMER

In all honesty, I did not enjoy the move TiMER at all. Although I think it is indicative of some characteristics of the science fiction genre, it’s value as far as an artistically well-done film is relatively low. My thoughts on this reside in the fact that the idea of a timer that reveals the moment you make eye contact with your “one” goes against anything I would want to have exist in real life. The process of falling in love is not one that can be boiled down to a formula, predicted, or anticipated: as is the case with anything in an individual’s life.

We see through the various experiences of the characters that the timers can have limiting effects, and seem to get in the way of what feels right. That is the key thing that the timer eliminates: feeling. The participation and awareness of the timer wearer is dulled in the midst of being completely absorbed in looking forward to a single moment in time. The greatest moments in our lives (or at least speaking from my own experience) happen when you are actively involved in the process of discovering what is the right path to take, and I know that I would be a much less interesting person if I felt like I was bobbing along a timeline towards a predestined finish.

This brings me to my general thoughts on how this movie relates to science fiction. My experience in watching this film made me think about all of the things that I would change within the extant society, as well as all of the reasons why it is best that science doesn’t meddle too much with such wild things like love. I believe that much of science fiction is meant to show us the dystopia within the potential changes that technology, or other variants, can cause within a civilization. This in turn causes us to reflect on the function and success (or failure I suppose) of our own existence.