Line #1 Film/TimeChanger


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Time_Changer_1407.jpg]]
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3	->''"A man on the screen just blasphemed the name of the Lord!"''
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5	Russell Carlisle, a liberal theologian at a seminary in the late 1800s, has written a book on morality. The oldest preacher on the campus is warning him that the book is wrong, but he's been acting crazy for a while. Others at the seminary want it out so much that they are changing the rules of the seminary from unanimous to majority vote so it can get a seal of approval from the place.
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7	It turns out that the oldest preacher on the campus has invented a time machine and seen the future; it's only since then that he's seemed crazy. He offers to send our protagonist forward. The rules are, the time traveler and his things can travel forward, but nothing from the future can travel back. Oh, and don't look up your own future (it's never spelled out why). There is a sending unit right there; after a set amount of time, he'll be retrieved.
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9	So our protagonist is sent forward to NextSundayAD, figuratively speaking--specifically, [[YearX 200X]]. He deals well enough with most of the technology, but the culture throws him--[[FridgeBrilliance though he is isolated even in his own time.]] Dress codes, the lack of respect for elders, and films and TV throw him. Even the Christians of his era find him a bit kooky...
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11	This film includes what may be the most creative way of showing corruption in film without ''showing'' it: church group enters theater; HardCut to protagonist running out shouting the page quote. You have to have an idea what blaspheming is, but if you do...
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13	----
14	!!Trope Changer:
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16	* AnachronismStew: Unless the main character was so cloistered that he [[CultureBlind didn't know anything]] about his own society (which is implied to be the case), his comments about the ubiquitousness of prostitution or the starving children on every street corner in the future ring false, since in his time they were ''worse''.
17	* AntiquatedLinguistics: Among other outdated speech patterns, Russell does not use contractions.
18	* AuthorFilibuster: Russell gets to give several monologues on his views about Christian morality, even quite literally preaching sermons to a church.
19	* CaughtUpInTheRapture: Gets a humorous reference. When Russell [[spoiler:vanishes to return to his own time, two onlookers worriedly speculate that they've just missed the Rapture]].
20	* CensorshipBureau: Moral codes, especially man-made moral codes, are a major theme of this film.
21	* CharacterFilibuster: Frequently. At least some of them are literal sermons.
22	* CorruptChurch: The modern-day church that Russell Carlisle attends, according to his view of Christian morality from his time period, as it has become more of a social club that is less concerned about having its members be exhorted to live holy and righteous lives before God.
23	* CultureBlind: The protagonist appears to be blissfully unaware of how society really works in both the past and the future.
24	* DeusExMachina: Perhaps literally.
25	* DiscretionShot: Don't expect to see any actual depictions of the modern immorality that shocks Russell Carlisle.
26	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: By the standards of his own time, Carlisle is very forward-thinking and progressive. By 21st-century standards, not so much.
27	* TheFundamentalist: The protagonist often comes across as one.
28	* TheFutureIsShocking: The entire purpose of the film is to have its protagonist, a 19th century theology professor, be shocked at how immoral the present day is.
29	* HardTruthAesop: Russell's original manuscript was actually rather progressive ([[TheFundamentalist for him]]), as it advocated being a good person and doing good deeds because it's the morally right thing to do, rather than doing so because of your religious faith. In the end, he's convinced by the "evil" future where people actually follow this and have become more non-religious as a result, that you can ''only'' be a good person if you accept Christianity.
30	* InsistentTerminology[=/=]SingleIssueWonk: The reason Russell's book couldn't get unanimous approval was that it advocated good morality but didn't insist that Jesus Christ be connected to it. To Anderson, this is worse than nothing because Jesus is the authority behind the moral code.
31	* ItsAWonderfulPlot: Russell Carlisle gets to see what the future would be like if he publishes his book: It's exactly like our time, which [[TheFutureIsShocking he finds horrifying]]. As a result, he decides to re-edit his book and not publish it after all. ....[[Mst3KMantra We should probably not overthink that]].
32	* JerkassHasAPoint: Russell complains to a store manager that a display of skimpily-dressed mannequins might tempt young people to lustful thoughts. The manager curtly replies that Russell is [[NobodyEverComplainedBefore the only person who has ever complained]]. We're presumably meant to take away that society has become callous to indecency. But from the manager's viewpoint, it's a pretty solid argument that the display is not really offensive if nobody has in fact been offended.
33	* MadScientist: He's mad by the time we meet him, anyway.
34	* {{Masquerade}}: Russell Carlisle is told not to let anyone know when he's from.
35	* MoralGuardians: In what's likely a rare example, our protagonist is one. Russell is dismayed to find that his attempts at enforcing morality in the 2000s merely make him come across as an out-of-touch prude, since not everyone accepts the Fundamentalist Christian perspective for morality.
36	* MundaneFantastic: It's a time travel film, but the time travel is the only SciFi element there.
37	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Russell realizes what society would become -- and has become -- if he allowed his book to be published that advocated morality without Jesus Christ as its author and final authority.
38	* NewspaperDating: Upon landing in the early 2000s; Russell finds a newspaper and learns that he's successfully been transported to "two thousand and..." (as seen in the entry for NextSundayAD below; we don't get an exact year due to a car horn blowing)
39	* NobodyEverComplainedBefore: Russell gets this response from a store manager when complaining about a display of skimpily-dressed mannequins.
40	* NextSundayAD: The protagonist time travels into the future year of "two thousand([[SoundEffectBleep car horn honks]])."
41	* NewMediaAreEvil: The decline of civilization is blamed on UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode in films, because it made films seem okay when they weren't.
42	--> "I believe that secular entertainment is one of the biggest tools that Satan uses to mislead people."
43	* PoorMansPorn: Russell complains to a clothing store manager that a mannequin dressed in lingerie will "arouse impurity" among the customers. (We don't actually see the offending display, but the store looks a lot more like Sears than Victoria's Secret.)
44	* SchizoTech: Solar-powered time machine.
45	* ScienceIsBad: ZigZagged. Science ''itself'' isn't necessarily seen as bad, and Anderson's TimeMachine apparently works by scientific principles of some sort. But Russell Carlisle is stunned when a teacher takes issue with him preaching Christianity in a secular science classroom: "Scientific support of the Scripture [[AsTheGoodBookSays only means the science is true]]. Because we know that the Scripture already is." The thing is, even well before Russell's own time this would have been correctly seen as a ''theological'' claim with no bearing on UsefulNotes/TheScientificMethod either way. And Russell certainly wouldn't have had to leave the 1800s if he wanted to meet any scientists who disbelieved the Bible.
46	* SelectiveObliviousness: When the question is "will you try out the secret time machine?" Anderson simply will not take "no" for an answer.
47	* SeriousBusiness: Seminary approval. The book would have been published either way, but getting the approval is considered so critical that Carlisle doesn't want to send the manuscript in without it.
48	* TakeOurWordForIt: If it is evil and it can be shown entirely visually, it will ''not'' be shown -- even when that requires creative filming.
49	* TemporalMutability: Upon seeing how immoral the future would be if he publishes his forthcoming book, Russell Carlisle decides to revise his manuscript to prevent this future from taking place, becoming the titular "Time Changer." Given that the future he saw is more or less exactly like our present day, though, it may not be been sufficiently explored how he could have succeeded.
50	* TheThemeParkVersion: Because a fundamentalist Christian film ''can't'' show the full reality of modern (im)morality (nor that of 1890).
51	* TimeMachine: Solar-powered!
52	* TimeTravel
53	* YearX: When Russell Carlisle came in the future and looked at the newspaper, the last two years of 20xx were obscured and when he yelled the date out loud the 20xx was cut off by a car honk. Also, at [[{{stinger}} the end]] of the movie, they are attempting to send a Bible into the future but it will not go if the end of the world already happened by then, so he keeps on changing the date earlier to see when the end of the world takes place, and the movie cuts off somewhere in the 2000s.
54	* YeGoodeOldeDays: The film treats 1890 (and by extension, American society up to around 1930, when the Hays Code was introduced) as far better, as the time-traveling protagonist complains about rampant disobedient kids, alcohol abuse, crime, poverty and blasphemy. Of course, those things were common not only in 1890, but before and into the 1930s too (the alcohol problem is especially funny, as people took it so seriously this led to Prohibition). He would also have to be ''extremely'' sheltered if a film character blaspheming God's name sent him fleeing in shock from a theater.
55	* ValuesDissonance: The point of the trip through time, even InUniverse.

Context Film / TimeChanger