Sound of Thunder: How To Fix a Mess When Everyone Forgot About It
In Part 6 of my continuing review of the 2005 sci-fi classic, we look at efforts to go back in time and fix the disastrous timewave problem
After our heroes, Travis Ryer and Dr. Rand, escape a horrible CGI beetle attack by leaping out of a building, they make their way to the lab to speak with the Time Safari crew about how to undo the alterations in time. The government bureaucrat, Derris, takes some convincing but, through the efforts of Hatton, he soon allows the crew to turn TAMMY, the AI time machine, back on.
Rewinding time again
The first plan is to have Ryer travel to a few minutes before their past selves arrive. That way he can turn them back before there’s a problem. However, when they try this, for some reason, Ryer ends up in a “Wild West” and is almost run over by a band of oversized natives. I say oversized because these natives are clearly a part of some cheesy b-roll that was probably projected on a screen behind the actor, and the effect looks terrible. This crew really needed a bigger budget. After Ryer narrowly avoids being trampled, he looks and sees another timewave fast approaching. He runs back through the wormhole created by TAMMY and warns the others about it. The wave washes over the crew, and the situation quickly escalates. The power dies, but thankfully, there’s a backup generator, so the crew is still in business, at least for now.
Dr. Rand eventually realizes that they can no longer travel directly to the botched Time Safari because the waves are somehow making it impossible for TAMMY to travel directly through them. Dr. Rand begins to work on a plan, while the rest of the crew tries to figure out what went wrong the first time. They confirm that either Middleton or Eckles stepped off the path by checking their weight immediately after the safari. It turns out that Hatton and Derris secretly turned off TAMMY’s biofilter to save money. However, there just isn’t much time to be angry because another wave could approach at any moment.
Risky new solutions
Remember that twenty-four-hour cycle Dr. Rand mentioned? Well, forget it. It never comes up again. But speaking of Dr. Rand, she does come up with a solution to work around the timewaves. She says that all she needs to do is move Ryer to a year before the botched time safari, then move him to about fifteen to twenty seconds before whatever happened took place. Frankly, the work around for the timewave problem is ad hoc. If TAMMY can’t move past the next approaching wave, why would traveling deeper into the past fix the problem?
Regardless, with a plan in place, the crew, save for Derris and Hatton, set off to find Middleton and Eckles. The crew knows they stepped on something; the question is when and on what. They decide to first find Eckles, who was the more cowardly of the two. If I were them, I would’ve decided to split, since time is of the essence.
But it turns out staying together is a good call because the movie instantly switches genres the moment they set off to find the two businessmen. A Sound of Thunder randomly turns into a horror flick because the second they leave the lab, they find a blood trail, indicating that somebody was dragged off by a large predator. Thankfully, Marcus gives them all guns, and they set off on their mini-quest anyway.
While walking through the desolated city, which has now turned into an Amazonian nightmare, they come across a random hedge maze in a park. Then when they hear a strange cry, Marcus panics and tries to run home. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, he tries to run through the maze and is grabbed by some writhing vines. These vines have poisonous thorns that sting Marcus, and he immediately begins to feel the toxin’s effects. The crew tries to drag Marcus along, but then the source of the terrifying cry attacks, grabbing another crew member named Lucas. Ryer chases after the beast, and the B-movie’s monster is revealed:
Here, I have to give the writers credit. If nothing else, this creature is one of the more imaginative monsters I’ve seen. The only way to describe this beast is as a gorilla/raptor hybrid. I have decided to call this creature Gorzilla. The Gorzilla hovers over Lucas like a lion protecting its kill, although Lucas is still very much alive.
Ryer tries to shoot it several times, but the scales on its backside repel the bullets. Thankfully, the Gorzilla reveals its underside to Ryer, and he shoots it in the throat. Ryer later says that they must shoot the throat to kill it, but I think the CGI department’s idea was that the entire underside was vulnerable. Either way, Ryer kills the beast and rescues Lucas. However, a whole horde of Gorzillas is not far behind.
A noble sacrifice
The crew runs to a bridge, but then Marcus realizes that he’s about to die and decides that the bridge would be an appropriate place for a noble sacrifice. He tells Ryer to leave him behind, and Ryer promises Marcus that he’s going to fix this mess. Everyone leaves, but Ryer stays long enough to see what happens. Poor Marcus tries to defend his friends but is only able to fire a few useless shots before beginning to hallucinate. By the time the Gorzillas overwhelm him, he doesn’t even know they’re there.
But now, time travel presents a tricky new problem
Ryer leaves once he’s certain Marcus is dead and meets up with the rest of the crew. The conversation that follows raises a frightening subject. Ryer and Dr. Rand discuss a tricky problem: Even if they are somehow able to reset the timeline, they’ll have no way of warning their future selves that this incident ever happened. So, they have to find a way not only to stop whatever happened during the botched safari but also to prove that this incident took place. And this also implies that their current selves are, for all practical purposes, going to die.
Call me sentimental, but I did admire the fact that the writers didn’t waste the audience’s time with some random subplot where one of the characters decides to continue to exist for a time instead of saving the world. These characters are noble if nothing else. It was the right thing for these characters to do, and it kept the plot focused, which I really appreciated. We’ll cover what happens when the crew finds Eckles next time.