The Origins Of The Time Loop In Film & TV
Time loop plot lines in movies have become more and more popular in recent years. Audiences hace seen horror heroines living their death day on repeat, Joseph Gordon Levitt grappling with his conscience and his older Bruce Willis self, and even Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme creating a time loop to save the world. Once a niche plot device for sci-fi films, the time loop has crept its way into more and more mainstream offerings.
With that being said, where did the time loop trope come from in media? With roots in earlier literature than may be expected, how did time loops come to be portrayed in the motion picture? This article aims to answer those questions, and explore how the use of time loops has evolved since their first use.
RELATED: Movies That Use Time Loops (Other Than Groundhog Day)
Groundhog Day is obviously one of the best-known examples of time loops in film. Released in 1993, Bill Murray stars as a less-than-pleasant weatherman who is covering the annual Groundhog Day ceremony, surrounding a superstition where a small rodents' shadow and its visibility supposedly predict the weather for the coming spring. The loop comes when Murray's character wakes up the day after Groundhog Day, and it's still Groundhog Day. Now he's trapped reliving the same day, and has to work out what he can do differently in order to escape.
That was nearly 30 years ago, and it was by no means the first time a looping plot had been used in fiction. As early as 1922, the concept of a time loop appeared in literature in The Worm Ouroboros by E.R Eddison. In this book, at the end of a war, the victors choose to begin the battle again anew as they lament the loss of heroes and purpose. In film, the earliest example of a time loop appears to be the
Read more on gamerant.com
