Por­tals, also known as the gate­ways to var­i­ous dimen­sions in time, have been used numer­ous amounts of times in Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tions. Their appeal lies in the intrigue of time travel — a con­cept that mankind wishes they had a grasp of. Yet as episodes of Outer Lim­its and The Simp­sons includ­ing movies like The But­ter­fly Effect sug­gest; chang­ing aspects of time will lead to a dra­matic cause and effect situation.

homertime.jpgIn the Simpson’s Tree­house of Hor­ror V plot­line, Homer Simp­son trav­els through time using noth­ing more than a com­mon house­hold toaster. What­ever he changes in the past has a direct effect on the future, includ­ing step­ping on pre­his­toric plants and ani­mals. This par­tic­u­lar episode shares a con­nec­tion with that of the Outer Lim­its, par­tic­u­larly an episode enti­tled ‘Stitch in Time’. In this plot­line a dis­turbed sci­en­tist invents a time machine to allow her the abil­ity to kill ser­ial killers before they com­mit their first crimes.

Other movies like Don­nie Darko and as men­tioned The But­ter­fly Effect strive for a more dis­turb­ing view of time travel as opposed to lighter come­dies like Back to the Future. In Darko, a teenager liv­ing in the mid-80s escapes a near-death encounter when a jet engine crashes into his room. Even­tu­ally a human-sized rab­bit vis­its his day­dreams, fore­telling the apoc­a­lypse. Don­nie is instructed by his rab­bit informer to wreak havoc on his town affect­ing mem­bers of the town’s population.

In But­ter­fly Effect a group of pre-teens are the cause behind a tragic event which changes their fate for­ever. That is until Evan Tre­born fig­ures out he can travel to var­i­ous points in time by read­ing entries in his jour­nal of that par­tic­u­lar event. Despite his attempts to fix the past, he ulti­mately causes more dam­age in the long run includ­ing caus­ing more dam­age to his cir­cle of friends.