History Film / TimeCop

* YouFailLawForever: The TEC has its own in-house courtroom with an always-on-call judge, but no attorneys arguing for the defense or even the ''prosecution'', let alone a jury. And they conduct their own executions by sending convicts into the past at great heights. It's inferred that they [[AllCrimesAreEqual execute every suspect they catch]] within minutes of their return, as they don't have holding cells on-site. They probably only haul suspects back to headquarters as a manner of paperwork. One could HandWave this as a top-secret agency working above the GodzillaThreshold to police time, but their inability to offer leniency means that they can't really investigate crimes occurring in the past, just execute everyone they can prove isn't indigenous to the timeline.

** It's also one of the few cases in which the subject knows that the Mob Boss will keep his word - If he'd testified, then erasing him would solve the entire problem at a loss, but if he kills himself, the boss will let his history remain intact so as to not erase his contributions to the organization.

->''Turn back the clock, and you're history.''

[[quoteright:228:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/timecop_2596.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:220:They killed his wife ten years ago... ''there's still time to save her''.]]

''Timecop'' is a 1994 movie starring Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme as Max Walker, a (wait for it) [[TimePolice Timecop]] who has to go back in time to prevent other people from going back in time and messing up history. Mia Sara was cast as his wife Melissa, [[TheLostLenore who dies in the opening act]], resulting in Walker's zealotry in his job:

%%* TimePolice

* NoOshaCompliance: A large number of clearly marked flammable barrels are ignited, yet no audible smoke or fire alarms go off. When emergency serives arrives, it's the police with guns drawn, not the fire department.

* RippleEffectProofMemory
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong

* TimePolice
* TimeTravel

* RecycledTheSeries

* TechnologyMarchesOn: When he's back in the 1920s, Max's ex-partner -- who comes from the early years of the twenty-first century -- listens to a portable music player. However, since the movie was made in 1994, it's a CD Walkman. Apparently, he never got around to updating to an iPod.

* AnachronismStew: Played for full effect in the opening scene where five Confederate cavalrymen guarding a gold wagon [[spoiler:are massacred by a single man, when he suddenly produces two laser-sighted TEC-9 submachine guns from under his coat.]]

* FutureMeScaresMe: The villain of the second movie scares his past self. So much that he may change his future.

** The second movie begins with the villain attempting to kill Hitler.

* KarmicDeath: The criminal buying Wall Street stock makes a joke about a stockbroker who threw himself out the window just before he arrived. After being caught and sentenced to death, he's sent back in time to Wall Street -- in mid-air, several hundred feet up.

* KissMeImVirtual: The tech guy at the time agency is caught by his boss as he's using the resident VR machine for a porn scenario.

** It is in a shiny futuristic silver case. Maybe it's tightly compressed making it a much larger amount of C4 than would normally be contained in it.

* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: The rule is that "two instances of the same matter cannot occupy the same space". So if lets say two different time-displaced counterparts of the same person (such as a Past Self and Future Self) ''do'' meet (or more specifically, touch), they end up canceling each other out. By that we mean [[spoiler:they fuse into a giant gushing fluid mass of body parts that dissolves out of existence in a matter of seconds]].
** Its a blatant violation of the laws of conservation of mass and energy, but hey, [[TimeCrash it could be worse]].
** In the sequel, however, this does not cause the person in question to melt out of existence, but results in them fusing into straight-up BodyHorror.

* TemporalParadox: Averted, changing the past makes a new present, but doesn't change you, thus if you went back and time and killed your father, you'd come back to find that you never existed, but you'd be fine.
** You can still receive new scars from injuries suffered by your younger self, though, as [=McComb=] learned when his younger self suffered a nasty cut on his cheek.

** The sequel uses a different method which can cause the time traveler to disintegrate upon departure, which is increasingly more probable if the same person goes through it repeatedly within a short period of time (from his/her point of view).

** The sequel plays with time travel much more than the first one. In the end, it is implied [[spoiler: that all the preceding events of the movie never happened because the villain accidentally changed his own past]].

* BeardOfSorrow: While '94 Max is clean-shaven, the Max of 2004 who's lost Melissa has notable PermaStubble.

It had a short-lived [[RecycledTheSeries spin off show]], ''Timecop: The Series'', which featured a brand new cast and lasted for one season of nine episodes. There was also a direct-to-DVD sequel ''Film/Timecop2TheBerlinDecision'' (2003), taking place 20 years following the original.

'''''Timecop''''' is a 1994 movie starring Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme as Max Walker, a (wait for it) [[TimePolice Time Cop]] who has to go back in time to prevent other people from going back in time and messing up history. Mia Sara was cast as his wife Melissa, [[TheLostLenore who dies in the opening act]], resulting in Walker's zealotry in his job:

The film was a modest box office hit, earning $101,646,581 in the worldwide market. With about 45 million earned it the United States market, it was its 30th most successful film that year. It had a short-lived [[RecycledTheSeries spin off show]], ''Timecop: The Series'', which featured a brand new cast and lasted for one season of nine episodes. There was also a direct-to-DVD sequel ''Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision'' (2003), taking place 20 years following the original.

* {{Zeerust}}: Remember back in 2004, when we all had those self-driving, voice-activated cars that looked like this spaceships? Good times, good times. We also evidently had some sort of cartridge music player instead of tapes or [=CDs=]. Widescreen TVs, too!

* {{Zeerust}}: Remember back in 2004, when we all had those self-driving, voice-activated cars that looked like this spaceships? Good times, good times. We also evidently had some sort of cartridge music player instead of tapes of [=CDs=]. Widescreen TVs, too!

* {{Zeerust}}: Remember back in 2004, when we all had those self-driving, voice-activated cars that looked like this spaceships? Good times, good times. We also evidently had some sort of cartridge music player instead of tapes of CDs. Widescreen TVs, too!

* {{Zeerust}}: Remember back in 2004, when we all had those self-driving, voice-activated cars that looked [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BffVRhsD5v0/SUVZvPzhvYI/AAAAAAAAA1c/Lliw5nSBfsU/s320/h-tcop-car12s.jpg like this]]? Good times, good times.

** [[spoiler: [=McComb=] insults Walker with a snide comment about the agent's "fancy kicking". Walker kills him in the climax by kicking [=McComb=] into his younger self.]]

'''''Timecop''''' is a 1994 movie starting JeanClaudeVanDamme as Max Walker, a (wait for it) [[TimePolice Time Cop]] who has to go back in time to prevent other people from going back in time and messing up history. Mia Sara was cast as his wife Melissa, [[TheLostLenore who dies in the opening act]], resulting in Walker's zealotry in his job:

** Its a blatant violation of the laws of conservation of mass and energy, hey, [[TimeCrash it could be worse]].

* UnscientificScience: The premise that you dared come into contact with your past self because "the same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time" is absurd. ''All the atoms'' in our bodies are replaced on a regular basis. In other words, not one single atom present in your body today was there five years ago. So what's causing the violation then?