Thrill Seekers (1999)

A reporter, learning of time travelers visiting 20th century disasters, tries to change the history they know by averting upcoming disasters.

Director:

Mario Azzopardi

Writers:

Kurt Inderbitzin, Gay Walch

Stars:

Casper Van Dien, Catherine Bell, Theresa Saldana

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Casper Van Dien	...	Tom Merrick
Catherine Bell	...	Elizabeth Wintern
Theresa Saldana	...	Cortez
Peter Outerbridge	...	Felder
Julian Richings	...	Murray Trevor
Lawrence Dane	...	FBI Agent Baker
Catherine Oxenberg	...	Thrill Seekers Spokesperson (as Catherine Van Dien)
Mimi Kuzyk	...	Eleanor Grayson
James Allodi	...	FBI Agent Stanton
Deborah Odell	...	Jen
Martin Sheen	...	Grifasi
Matthew Bennett	...	Captain Tyler
Marc Donato	...	Kevin
Stephen Bogaert	...	Steve
Sumela Kay	...	Girl on Plane

Storyline

A Strange passenger from the future seems to be witnessing all the great disasters of the century. Two reporters are trying to track this man down to see where he will show up next. The movie also works on the problem of the two reporters that want to prevent the next disaster from happening. Should they change the future when they know another disaster is going to strike?

---

Plot Keywords:

time travel | cellular phone | aircraft cockpit | disaster | reporter | 

---

Taglines:

If you could change the past would you?

---

Genres:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for violence and peril

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 October 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Thrill Seekers

Filming Locations:

Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Company Credits

Production Co:

Abandon Pictures, Avenue Pictures, Carlton America

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Mimi Kuzyk who played Eleanor Grayson was also Sam Beckett's wife in another time traveling series Quantum Leap (1989).

---

Goofs

If the subway driver was dead or disabled and thus couldn't operate the Dead man's handle, the train would actually stop.

---

Connections

References Quake III: Arena (1999)

User Reviews

Makes one think about the paradoxes of time travel

Zapping through the movie channels last evening, I came across: Next feature presentation: Thrill Seekers with Martin Sheen. I wonder if one could sue the channel for this kind of tendentious (but not factually wrong) publicity? Anyway, it made me decide to watch. Hardly any Martin Sheen, but entertaining for sure, and with surprisingly decent special effects for a TV movie. The plot is intelligent, and would be a good starting point to get people to discuss the paradoxes of time travel. Suppose you could go back and kill Hitler before he came to power, would you do it? But if you would, can you be certain nothing worse would happen? And how would it affect your own life? Would you still exist, even? (My parents met because of the war.) Or: if you go back to a time after you are born, can you meet yourself? All of this is hardly original, of course. SF writers in the golden age (which was sadly ended by Star Wars, shifting from intelligent writing to blockbuster special effects) frequently tackled the issue, for instance describing the butterfly effect: a firm organises time trips to the Jurassic, where thrill seeking (again!) hunters can kill a dinosaur a fraction of a moment before it would have died, thus not altering the time line. But one hunter stumbles and accidentally kills a butterfly. He gets back to his starting date, but the killed butterfly has changed the time line and this new line turns out to be the hunter's worst nightmare. Something similar happens in Thrill Seekers. But here the protagonist has the means to go back in time to change a future he has already experienced. This, of course, was already obvious from the moment they take the laptop from the disaster tourist. In fact, Merrick could have used that device to go back to before he boarded the plane and, using some kind of subterfuge, a bomb alarm for instance, avert the plane crash, and the subway crash, and the fire... But we wouldn't have had the same film then.

One question of logic though. If Merrick goes back into his original time line, the time guards would also be in there, but unaffected by what will happen later. In the film, they follow Merrick back from the future. The film does not explain this. But the question doesn't end there. If you go back to when you were 3 hours earlier, you would also not yet have any memories of what was going to happen those next 3 hours. Merrick and the time guards should not have had any knowledge of the disaster happening 3 hours in the future.

I also wonder how the title sequence relates to the film. I admit I wasn't paying a lot of attention, trying to figure out when Martin Sheen would be mentioned, but in retrospect I wonder if there wasn't any subtle message in the sequence?