The Leap Back, Letter Theory

xjn

Project QL Intern
Jan 3, 2007
2
0
0
Hello all.

I recently watched The Leap Back and really enjoyed it, it had the story and the humor and obviously getting to see more of the project was great.
However something that has been bugging me over it was that they had the brilliant plan of postdating a letter, but why if they could do this does Sam not send himself a letter in the future saying "Don't go into the damn machine!".
I mean if he included personal details and stuff to make it authentic then theoretically the instant he posted it he would leap, or if not he could try a more convincing letter.
Thankfully for us he hasn't done this, but in this episode they attempt to retrieve him, so everyone including himself wants Sam back in 1999.

Hopefully I'm missing something that makes this impossible or maybe some kind person here can invent something to end the torment.

P.s: I imagine this may have been discussed before, but I couldn't find a decent Search String to find any similar posts. So my apologies if this already has been discussed.
 
One of the reasons could be that it would create a paradox in time. The only way the Sam stuck in time can send a letter to the Sam in the present warning him of what will happen if leaps is...if Sam leaps and gets stuck in time. I know that's overly simplistic and someone will probably be able to explain it more in depth.
 
This is actually a good argument for the concept that you really can't change the past because the future you were in that changed is no longer a reality. By that logic...everytime that Sam makes a change in time a new future is created. In a similar vein, the likely reason that the retrieval program wouldn't work is just that. The simple act of entering the timestream previous to the time you left would in itself create a new future in which you were at a time and place you weren't in the first time around.

Travel to the future isn't much better because now you know something that would occur if everything is left like it is (e.g. you obviously were supposed to jump to the future so the past didn't change when you left.) However, if you were then to try to return, you would be different because of your knowledge of the future and therefore the future you were in (that you saw) would no longer exist.

NOW...the new timeline that you are living in MIGHT be almost identical to the one that would have happened and so it SEEMS like the changes have been to the same timeline. This scenario could encompass multiple timelines that simutaneously exist (sort of a Sliders concept...or even the one in ST: TNG in that episode where the timelines converge) or it could be that a change causes the original to disappear and a new one to be rewritten.

FINALLY...one gets to the concept that each time we reach a crossroad, a decision, that the future timeline changes to incorporate whatever that decision was. Even within a single lifetime that would produce mutilple potential futures. Add to the fact that all of us are affecting the future in the same way and yet we are interconnected, so that not only do our decisions (and others) effect our personal timelines (yes...I meant effect and not affect) but the timelines in the intertwined existance we all call "reality."

This whole thing is rift with paradoxes and conceptual spagetti that doesn't take kindly to a simplified view of who, what, when, where, how, and espeically WHY we are. Hence the most profound statement in Mirror Image. Sometimes thats the way things are is the best answer.

Thinking about ideas and concepts is heady stuff and can sometimes cause a massive headache (athough...many great works of art and science (in all their myriad forms) have resulted from contemplating this very nature. What a wonderful universe (or multiverse as the case may be) that we live in.

To use a line from Mork..."Reality...what a concept!"
 
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They stress this throey or a simular one actually in the novel Angels Unaware.
Sam Leaps into a priest in 1993 like months away from when he leaps, and Ziggys thinks that the reason he leaped in so close to his leap out is because he is supposed to call himself and tell himself not to leap. Sam for a short time likes this idea because he wants to go home obviously, but his own brains and a little help from Al help him realize that is he hadn't leaped when he did, he never would have been able to help all the people he did, Al helps by strongly bringing a few of his leaps such as Samantha Stormer, and he reminds him of Jimmy with strong emotion (obviously because Al loves Jimmy because he reminds him of Trudy).

he (Al) later also makes a funny crack saying "What are you gonna say anyway, 'hey Sam, it's me Sam'"

haha, that made me shed a few chuckles when I read it.

Sam with his big heart obviously does not want to erase the blessings he brought to all those people, so he decides not to make the call even though they figured out long before that it wasn't as ziggy said the focus of the leap, it had still run through Sam's mind throughout the story.

So this is why as much as Sam wants to go home, he can't do it by reversing that he ever leaped in the first place.
 
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LOL Time Travel is an enigma. I remember thinking endlessly about such things.

As to the original poster's question you have to look at the letter within the context of the show's premise(SP?) of leaping one week saving the day then next week off to a new set of problems.
You answer your own question here. "Thankfully for us he hasn't done this," The Leap Back was a twist on the normal formual with Sam and Al switching between leaps. Since Al had the handlink the letter ends up being a gimick to solve the problem of what we the audience know about the handlink opening the chamber door. The letter solves this point and moves the story forward.
 
asearcher said:
This is actually a good argument for the concept that you really can't change the past because the future you were in that changed is no longer a reality. By that logic...everytime that Sam makes a change in time a new future is created. In a similar vein, the likely reason that the retrieval program wouldn't work is just that. The simple act of entering the timestream previous to the time you left would in itself create a new future in which you were at a time and place you weren't in the first time around.

Travel to the future isn't much better because now you know something that would occur if everything is left like it is (e.g. you obviously were supposed to jump to the future so the past didn't change when you left.) However, if you were then to try to return, you would be different because of your knowledge of the future and therefore the future you were in (that you saw) would no longer exist.

NOW...the new timeline that you are living in MIGHT be almost identical to the one that would have happened and so it SEEMS like the changes have been to the same timeline. This scenario could encompass multiple timelines that simutaneously exist (sort of a Sliders concept...or even the one in ST: TNG in that episode where the timelines converge) or it could be that a change causes the original to disappear and a new one to be rewritten.

FINALLY...one gets to the concept that each time we reach a crossroad, a decision, that the future timeline changes to incorporate whatever that decision was. Even within a single lifetime that would produce mutilple potential futures. Add to the fact that all of us are affecting the future in the same way and yet we are interconnected, so that not only do our decisions (and others) effect our personal timelines (yes...I meant effect and not affect) but the timelines in the intertwined existance we all call "reality."

This whole thing is rift with paradoxes and conceptual spagetti that doesn't take kindly to a simplified view of who, what, when, where, how, and espeically WHY we are. Hence the most profound statement in Mirror Image. Sometimes thats the way things are is the best answer.

Thinking about ideas and concepts is heady stuff and can sometimes cause a massive headache (athough...many great works of art and science (in all their myriad forms) have resulted from contemplating this very nature. What a wonderful universe (or multiverse as the case may be) that we live in.

To use a line from Mork..."Reality...what a concept!"

i think about this time travel stuff and alternate universe stuff quite a bit since i watch wayyy too many films on that kinda thing. eg donnie darko, butterfly effect, vanila sky, back to the future (which amazingly has 0 plot holes). i saw 1 recently called deja vu, and i got a bit confused afterwards because the things he did when he went back into the past would have made the future version of himself not go into the past to change the events ... so that confused me... but the thing you were saying about the future path adapting to the changes made makes sense because he left himself signs (like a note on the fridge) ... i recomend it if you havent seen it.

- tess
 
I can think of a plot hole in the Back To The Future movies...

part 2...

Old Biff (from 2015) takes the Delorian while Marty and Doc are trying to get young Jennifer back... and changes history.

Biff had to return the Delorian to 2015 to get home AFTER he'd changed history... But he returned to the ORIGINAL 2015, i.e. the timeline hadn't changed (so that Marty and Doc could get back home, to the "new" 1985.)

Shouldn't he have returned to his alternate 2015 and not the original???

And wouldn't that mean that Marty and Doc should have been stuck in the original 2015? OR shouldn't the timeline have changed around them???
 
naggindragon said:
I can think of a plot hole in the Back To The Future movies...

part 2...

Old Biff (from 2015) takes the Delorian while Marty and Doc are trying to get young Jennifer back... and changes history.

Biff had to return the Delorian to 2015 to get home AFTER he'd changed history... But he returned to the ORIGINAL 2015, i.e. the timeline hadn't changed (so that Marty and Doc could get back home, to the "new" 1985.)

Shouldn't he have returned to his alternate 2015 and not the original???

And wouldn't that mean that Marty and Doc should have been stuck in the original 2015? OR shouldn't the timeline have changed around them???

This is where the concept of the trickledown effect comes in. Basically, it says that time is like a river; it flows from one end to the other at a certain rate. If you change the past, it takes time for the changes to effect the future. The future hadn't yet changed when Biff returned to 2015 using this theory. This also would also explain how the Delorean was still there for them to travel back to Alternate 1985.

The extra footage on the BTTF2 DVD, however, shows what happens to Biff after he returns to 2015. Because he changed history in 1955, he basically caused himself (as he was in the original 2015) to not exist and Biff fades from time completely. This, of course, doesn't explain why Marty, Doc and the Delorean didn't also just fade from existence. These are probably the reasons this extra footage was cut from the film.

Kat
 
Sam Beckett Fan said:
They stress this throey or a simular one actually in the novel Angels Unaware.
Sam Leaps into a priest in 1993 like months away from when he leaps, and Ziggys thinks that the reason he leaped in so close to his leap out is because he is supposed to call himself and tell himself not to leap. Sam for a short time likes this idea because he wants to go home obviously, but his own brains and a little help from Al help him realize that is he hadn't leaped when he did, he never would have been able to help all the people he did, Al helps by strongly bringing a few of his leaps such as Samantha Stormer, and he reminds him of Jimmy with strong emotion (obviously because Al loves Jimmy because he reminds him of Trudy).

he (Al) later also makes a funny crack saying "What are you gonna say anyway, 'hey Sam, it's me Sam'"

haha, that made me shed a few chuckles when I read it.

Sam with his big heart obviously does not want to erase the blessings he brought to all those people, so he decides not to make the call even though they figured out long before that it wasn't as ziggy said the focus of the leap, it had still run through Sam's mind throughout the story.

So this is why as much as Sam wants to go home, he can't do it by reversing that he ever leaped in the first place.
I never thought of that (I haven't read the novels yet). I never realised that Sam getting home that way would spoil the rights he'd put wrong, 'cause this question's ran through my head a few times.
 
I don't know if this is off-topic or not (please forgive me if it is) but I remember an episode from Phil of the Future, where Phil's class in 2005 was making a time capsule that couldn't be opened until the 22nd century. While Phil's describing what they're going to put in it to his family, Mr. Diffy said he and Mrs. Diffy opened that same time capsule in the 22nd century. This led Mr. Diffy to write himself a letter, telling him not to rent the time machine so they wouldn't get trapped in the 21st century.

Mr. Diffy said as soon as Phil dropped the letter in the capsule, they'd be sent back to 2121, since they wouldn't have taken their vacation in the time machine. But, after Phil dropped the letter into the time capsule, they were still in the year 2005, because in the 22nd century, Mr. Diffy mistook the letter for a napkin and never read it, but used it to clean up a spill.
 
The point she is making is that even if Sam were to send a letter to himself or call himself on the phone, the letter might get lost in the mail or the call might get disconnected, etc. I believe it would create a paradox, because if Sam didn't travel into the past, he wouldn't be there to send a letter or call in the first place. Maybe God or time or fate is self-protective and doesn't allow paradoxes to take place (like Phil's dad not reading the letter in the future because it would create a paradox.)
 
natalie930 said:
The point she is making is that even if Sam were to send a letter to himself or call himself on the phone, the letter might get lost in the mail or the call might get disconnected, etc. I believe it would create a paradox, because if Sam didn't travel into the past, he wouldn't be there to send a letter or call in the first place. Maybe God or time or fate is self-protective and doesn't allow paradoxes to take place (like Phil's dad not reading the letter in the future because it would create a paradox.)

Yeah, that's about what I was trying to say. Sorry if I wasn't too clear. :eek: Thanks, natalie!