8 Movie Characters Who Suffered The Most From Time Travel

Things are going to get timey-wimey.

Time Travellers
Universal Pictures/Paramount Pictures/TriStar Pictures/FilmDistrict

Wouldn't time travel be awesome? You could go back and kill Hitler. Or hang out with your parents when you were young. Or go forward and prove every sci-fi movie ever wrong. All you need is a Delorean/spaceship/complicated mesh of wires and plates and you're away. Awesome, right?

Well, not quite. Not only is time travel only scientifically possible in quantum physics, meaning to do any of this you'd have to split yourself apart at a sub-atomic level, but it is one of the most dangerous science fiction activities this side of ingesting black alien goo. You could step on a butterfly and cause an earthquake in Los Angeles or, even worse, discover that the entirety of existence is pre-determined and you're incapable of altering the flow of time.

Of course, all of this should be pretty obvious to you - it's not like cinema's hid the fact that time travel is a dangerous, scary, life-destroying exercise. To try and make sure you stay here in the present, and celebrate the impending home video release of time travel warning Project Almanac on 15th June, here are the eight people who have suffered most from travelling in time.

Honourable Mention - Quantum Leap

NBC

It's not a movie, but you can't talk about characters suffering from travelling in time without having a shout out to Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap. When an experiment goes wrong (isn't that always the case), Sam finds himself jumping constantly through time, thrust into other people's bodies where he proceeds to right the wrongs in their lives in a hope it'll eventually lead him back home.

Did he make it back? No, no he did not. For five seasons and almost 100 episodes Sam and his guide Al worked on returning him to his own body, but in the end Sam discovered his work saving people was more important than his own safety.

Contributor
Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.