Review of 'Time Travelers'

Just caught this 30-minute short on Amazon Prime, listed as from 2012 on IMDB and 2017 on Amazon Prime. Well, it is about time travel.

Speaking of which -- this has to be about the worst title for a time travel movie -- short or long -- I've ever come across. What happened, the producers got tired?

But otherwise, it's pretty good. The scenario of two old friends in a conversation -- not old chronologically but rather old in length of friendship -- is a natural for time travel. In fact, although there's a bit of action in this story, the flavor of Time Travelers is a lot like Primer, a now classic time-travel movie in which talk was the main medium (other than the time travel itself).

And the story has some good meta elements, with mentions not only of time travel but H. G Wells and other writers of the human condition who didn't deal with time travel per se. That's because (at least) one of the two friends is a writer, a science fiction writer, in fact, and the two discuss the thorny issue of plagiarism -- thorny, that is, in its largest philosophical context, which is whether anything is really ever truly original.

Names of known and lesser-known works of science fiction are thrown into the conversion. I was happy to hear "Loose Ends" at least half a dozen times -- ok, it was just "loose ends," without the caps -- since "Loose Ends" was a triple-nominated 1997 novella of mine (for Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Awards), later expanded into a four-part novel.

And there's jealousy not only of writing but love, with one of the two sleeping with the other's wife, which provides a handy motive for murder. But, ok, I've said enough. See the short, try to forget about the title, and enjoy. There's good acting, by the way, by Elliot V. Kotek and Gabe Bettio.