P R O J E C T A L M A N A C
-----------------THE PARENT EDITION-------------------
Like I have said, these editions are for the parents. So, if it's not too much trouble, I would ask you parents to read the previous Project Almanac review post, and we'll pick up from there:
PREVIOUSLY ON PoC's Project Almanac:
But Quinn makes a really staggering remark: "Well didn't you guys see the video? I mean, I think we already built it." Oh shoot, right? If they already built it, that means that time is repeating itself. So this pops a question that isn't actually verbalized or even referenced, "Wait, so does that mean that their future is set?" I'll tell you the answer to that question... No.
So we pick up from here. No, the teen's fates are not set in stone, although it seems that way. So, in order to find out, Step 1: Build a Time Machine. It's not as easy as it sounds, though. You don't just snap some paper clips together for protection from the shock, make a 4 x 5 obsidian frame, ignite it with flint-and-steel,
scratch the date that you want to go to into the obsidian, and hop in. We all wish it was that easy, right?
Well, David's father left behind blueprints for how to build the machine. One of their first problems is the amount of hydrogen required. They need literally pounds of it in order to jump time. So where are they going to get that much hydrogen? The High School.
David, Adam, Quinn, and Christina all break into the High School and go into the store room that has boxes and shelves of hydrogen canisters. They grab about 20 or so and frantically run out of the school, going home to David's basement.
The next step is a source of energy that the machine can use. And it uses a whole ton. Translation: they need batteries. BIG batteries. Where else are you going to get batteries the size of your head? The Hardware Store. So the gang goes and spends money on huge batteries, and they are, for the most part, still doubting whether this can actually be pulled off.
And Christina, while videoing, goes up to a store employee and asks, "Excuse me, can you tell me where your Time Machine section is?" 'Crazy teenagers' is what was running through that guy's head probably. Time Machine? Hmm, must be living a crazy dream.
But guess what??? After months of hard work and equations and blueprint following and mapping and innovating and thinking, David, Adam, and Quinn, using an XBOX 360, build a time machine. And it's strong enough to jump back one minute.
"One minute??? I thought this was supposed to go back ten stinkin' years!!!" I know, hold your horses. They do test runs on a Barbie car, using a Honda's Hybrid Battery in order to power the machine to send the Barbie car back one minute in time. And it works. Although, the car ends up welded into the wall of the basement.
Oh, BTW, they use the battery of the car of a popular girl, Jessie, that happens to become a part of their gang. And it's at a party. So, yah. Kinda weird, but whatever. Oh! You're actually going to have to remember this party. Keep it in the back of your head, because it's one of the time frames that David will travel into solo on multiple occasions.
So what does that mean if the teens travel back in time??? Will they end up welded to a concrete wall, left to starve and die?!?! Thankfully, no. That never happens to them, although the machine will throw them
around quite a bit.
After that trial, they're ready to start human trials, the humans being themselves, of course. How eager, right? David is still cautious, and goes through formulas and equations to determine if they can jump back any farther themselves. And he comes to the conclusion that yes, they have the capability. But they can't be carrying a 25 pound time machine everywhere.
So David makes major modifications and improvements to the machine to make it more efficient in energy usage, and a whole lot lighter, weighing in at about only 10-12 pounds, and being able to fit inside of his school backpack with room to spare for school-related material. How cool is that?!?!
Then David and friends make the ultimate test... human trials. They jump back to yesterday, and find yesterday's Quinn, with present-day Quinn drawing on the back of his own neck. As he draws on yester-Quinn, the drawing appears on present-day Quinn.
They have succeeded. But yester-Quinn sees himself (present-Quinn) and vanishes. What the heck? They changed time. Then they jump back to the present day, and bring with them a dog. When they get back to present-day, there are signs everywhere for a lost dog... the dog they time-traveled with. Uh-oh, they changed the fabric of time... again.
They ignore this fact, but this is a fact you should not ignore. They begin to jump more. Their continuous jumping causes crazy rifts that change the world on an international scale. Then comes some of the complex things... the changes constantly made to "fix" things in the present.
One of their jumps allows them to find out the numbers to the lottery and they win the jackpot, therefore allowing David to give his mom the funds to pay for his college and to keep the house. Yay, right? Wrong. Another jump causes the teens to go back to a concert three months previously and they change the time continuum again, but without them winning the lottery.
His mom is still selling the house when they get back. And he screwed up with the Jessie, and she won't talk to him. So what does he do??? He jumps alone. And that was one of the rules they made: DO NOT jump alone. Yea... not so with David. He changes what he did with Jessie, and then he comes back to the present day where she is in his house in his room.
She just gets out of the shower and she's in a towel. "Hey David." Okay, hey, this is one of the parts where it is suggestive. David asks if they had sex, and she confirms. He asks if under the towel she's naked, and she confirms, letting him touch her body... behind the towel of course.
So... yea. But then as a result of David jumping, Adam is hurt. Badly. He's been hospitalized for almost a week now, and David goes to his basement to set up a series of maps and timelines. He figures out the event that started the entire chain reaction of events gone wrong... the party where they first tested the time machine. Uh-oh.
David is about to jump when Jessie comes down and asks what the heck is going on. David says that he needs to go back and save Adam, so that he can undo a lot of what he's done. "Wait, you're jumping alone? You can't do that! How many times have you done it?" More times than he can count, and not all of them are shown in the movie.
So since the jump is in progress, Jessie and David go back to the party and then David tackles a popular
kid out of the way of a car coming, therefore saving Adam. Now David needs to get back before Jessie and him are seen by their past selves, or things could go terribly wrong. Now remember when Jessie's car was used to power the time machine? Yea well, remember the ballerina car keys??? Those are Jessie's. If I didn't mention them, sorry, but that's one of the things David is carrying in the frozen frame of him at his seventh b-day party.
Okay, Jessie starts freaking out at David about him jumping alone, and David is trying to calm her down so that they can jump back to the present. But guess what happens? Past-Jessie sees herself, and then present-Jessie starts to time out, and she disappears.
She drops her ballerina car keys and David picks them up before jumping again. He jumps to the present-day where his mom is still in debt with the house, and his friends and him haven't won the lottery. But when he jumps back, the police are looking for him. Why? They think he kidnapped Jessie. And he's on the run.
But he's a kid. They can easily trace him. So he's gotta move, and fast. And he knows exactly where he's going. He sets the time machine to jump back ten years, however many days, hours, and minutes, and presses the jump button. There's a power-up sound, and then a failure sigh from the machine. Out of hydrogen.
David books it (with caution) to the High School and breaks into the gym. He finds the hydrogen shelves and gets a tank, popping it open and putting it into the machine. I think in the process of going to the school he
gets shot. I can't remember. But David hurriedly punches in all of the numbers for the jump and initiates the process.
The police in the mean time, have caught up with him and are making their way into the building, and just as he's about to complete the jump, the police burst in, and he yells out, "DON'T SHOOT!!!" I'm not sure if they do, but the force of the jump throws the officers back, and there's a slight discrepancy in the videoing. David slowly gets up, and grabs his camera.
He begins to walk through his school in 2004, and all of the students are looking at him like he's some freak, which makes sense since he's all bloodied up. He makes his way to his house, and slowly creeps in. He gets to the point where he is in the mirror of his seventh birthday party and is reaching behind the wall to turn off the light switch. David then makes his way down into the basement, following his father.
He comes up behind his dad, and his dad says, "You figured it out! You did it! Oh my god, I have so many questions-" David basically shuts him up and says that they need to get rid of the blueprints and everything about the time machine. He puts everything in a tin can, and then sits on the bench.
Wind starts to kick up around David, the lights begin to flicker, and David starts to time out, until finally, he disappears. The video feed runs out, and the screen goes blue.
Fast forward ten years and David is in the same predicament, looking for a way to make everything with his tuition and whatnot better. Christina finds the original camera, but David pulls out the one from the previous time, and that's the one that has everything on it. They watch it all... the jumping, the intimate relationships, the partying, the lottery, all of it.
And David takes Jessie her bag just like previously. Jessie routinely says, "How did you know I was going to say that?" David leans in, looks around, and says, "I think that we're about to change the world."
