Chris Pratt’s The Tomorrow War has its own time travel logic that relies on a technology called Jump Link.
WARNING: The following contains important spoilers for The war of tomorrow, now available on Amazon Prime.
Amazon Prime Videos The war of tomorrow is the latest in a long line of science fiction films that rely heavily on time travel as a plot tool. By doing Chris Pratt in the lead role Film, people from 2023 will be drafted to travel through 2051 and wage war against an army of alien invaders called White Spikes. The film’s time travel is based on a technology called jump-link that transports large numbers of recruits into the future for seven days before bringing them back. Here’s an explanation of how time travel works in The Tomorrow War, paradoxes and everything.
This is how the The Tomorrow War jump link works
At the beginning of Tomorrow War, Dan Forester (Pratt) is drafted into the war and given an armband. During a military briefing, Forester and the rest of the recruits are notified via the Jump-Link, an experimental time travel device that is attached to the recruits’ armbands. Using the metaphor of time flowing in one direction like a river, the soldiers explain that the jump link essentially places two rafts on the river that are nearly 30 years apart. The characters cannot travel at any time other than today and 2051, which prevents them from traveling into the early stages of the war and then overwhelming the White Spikes.
It later emerges that the recruits are all people dead by 2051, while the soldiers they train in 2022 are all not yet born. The reason for this is to avoid a time paradox – none of the recruits will push into their future self and none of the soldiers will push their past self.
The Jump-Link differs from other time travel devices in that it can transport a large number of people at the same time. If Forester and the rest of the recruits are sent into the future, they must all stand in rows in a large room. The soldiers then turn on the jump link device and open a portal that informs the recruits that the jump link should drop them five to three meters above the ground on the other side. The recruits are then sucked into the portal row by row.
Exactly seven days later, the jump link brings Forester and the rest of the recruits back to 2023. No matter where they are or what they are doing, they are sucked up into a portal and disappear, returning to their actual five to ten meter period above the ground. It is possible to go through the portals more than once since Forester’s comrade Dorian (Edwin Hodge) goes through the jump link for the third time. The White Spikes destroy the jump link in 2051 and prevent the characters from returning in the future.
How the time travel of Tomorrow War creates paradoxes and other pitfalls
As you’d expect, when it comes to time travel logic, there are some inconsistencies and drawbacks with The Tomorrow War’s jump link. One of the main problems with the jump link is the fact that the soldiers fall several feet above the ground. There is a risk of injury from falling (as shown when Forester and the recruits return to 2023 and making some hard landings) the bigger problem is that people can end up falling off a lot higher if there is a problem with the output coordinates. This happens to Forester and his fellow recruits, and they fall off an attic in the middle of town. While Forester ends up in a swimming pool, some of his comrades are not so lucky and fall to their deaths.
Another major inconsistency with the jump link comes from the fact that the soldiers are returning until 2023 at all. The fact that they can return from the future with all their memories and their knowledge from the war offers a great opportunity for a time paradox. Even the soldiers initially travel back to the year 2023 Making contact at all seems pretty risky considering they completely changed the timeline by letting the world know about the future war. The soldiers of Tomorrow War are very fortunate that their interference in time did not lead to the destruction of the world before the aliens.
Featuring Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, Sam Richardson, Betty Gilpin, JK Simmons and Edwin Hodge, The Tomorrow War is now available on Amazon Prime.
About the author
Matthew Sonneck
(7 articles published)
Matthew Sonnack is a freelance television / film writer for CBR.com. Matthew is a filmmaker and film lover who has worked on a variety of productions, from major feature films to independent shorts to international television. He recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BFA in Film, Video, Animation and New Genres.
