Shortly after the release of Bill and Ted Face the Music, Ed Solomon (who co-wrote the film with Chris Matheson) responded to a dismissal of the movie’s science by tagging quantum physicist Spiros Michalakis for confirmation that his portrayal of time travel checked out.

While Solomon found the exchange funny, in a Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall sort of way, it does raise a question: Does good time travel science make for a good time travel movie? While there are certainly hard science fans out there, and scientific discovery has always opened up storytelling possibilities, we don’t always place that demand on other types of stories. We don’t generally criticize superhero movies for failing to explain how the heroes’ powers work, for example. Explaining the Force in terms of microscopic living beings didn’t make Star Wars better.

Still, the question persists for time travel movies. So I’m going to solve it, once and for all.

[Read more]