Avengers: Endgame brought the concept of time travel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now, the Time Variance Authority (TVA) will be seen in Tom Hiddleston’s Disney+ series Loki. Time travel will be an important element in this particular series. In comparison to other time travel movies, Avengers: Endgame has its own rules and consequences of time travel. This can be seen in what Bruce Banner said:
“If you travel back into your own past, that destination becomes your future, and your former present becomes the past, which can’t now be changed by your new future.”
The explanation means that changing the past will not change the future. So, the Avengers used time travel to collect the Infinity Stones instead of stopping Thanos during the events of Avengers: Infinity War. But the conversation between the Ancient One and Banner about removing an Infinity Stone from a timeline explained how a “branch reality” can be created. The Ancient One explained what might happen if the Time Stone is removed from their reality and not returned:
“In this new branched reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world will be overrun. Millions will suffer.”
Towards the end of the film, Steve Rogers presumably returns the stones and no branched realities are formed. The 2012 version of Loki escapes with the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame. This forms a new reality where the events of Loki will now take place. It is a new type of time travel. But there have been other films and television shows that have used their own time travel logic. So, here are 5 Time Travel movies that you must watch before Disney+’s Loki:
1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
In the third installment of the Harry Potter franchise, Harry and Hermione use the Time-Turner to travel back in time. They realize that earlier in the day they were already there. This part serves as a logical form of time travel. This is because if they actually go back in time, they would have always been there. The closed-loop time travel concept used in the film is very much satisfying, mainly seeing Harry and Hermione from the future affecting the past.
2. Doctor Strange
In 2016’s Doctor Strange, the lead character used the Time Stone in two different ways. At first, he rewound the destruction of Hong Kong and the unleashing of the Dark Dimension. Time travel through the Time Stone can alter different sizes of items. Strange also trapped Dormammu in an endless loop of time. This use of time travel was different in comparison to other films.
3. Back to the Future
The Back to the Future trilogy packs one of the best Time Travel movies ever. It showed the flow of time running on one line and events of the past affecting the future. Marty McFly travels back to 1955 and alters the future where he crashed into Old Man Peabody’s barn. Marty also interfered with his mom and dad falling in love. He restored their romance. So, Back to The Future used time travel in a very iconic way. A scientist created a time machine and a teenager almost erased himself from existence since his mother falls in love with him rather than his father.
4. Interstellar
The concept of Interstellar can be called time dilation. It means time moves faster or slower depending on where you are. It includes elasticity of time and getting close to a black hole where gravitational field and time dilation is huge. While traveling to Miller’s planet near Gargantua, 1 hour on the planet corresponds to 7 years on Earth. 23 years pass away when Cooper and Brand return to the ship and we are introduced to an older Romilly and Murph. This cannot be specifically called time travel but we get a realistic look at traveling through time at different rates.
5. X-Men: Days of Future Past
In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Kitty Pryde sent Wolverine’s consciousness to the past for saving the world in the future. Here the concept of time travel is unique since Wolverine was out of time but he did not travel physically. The events of the past directly affected the future and there was a lot of pressure on Logan to fix the future. The film was successful in telling a story that covered two eras of X-Men.
According to Loki’s trailers, the TVA are the timekeepers of the MCU. Mobius M. Mobius is also an important part of the organization. In Endgame, Loki’s 2012 version escaped with the Tesseract and changed the timeline. Now he is being called a ‘Variant’. The TVA wants this Variant of Loki to fix the reality he broke with the use of Space Stone. It is unknown how TVA can travel through time, but Loki will explain it to us.
Loki messed with the flow of time and now he must restore reality. But Loki always has a trick in mind. He might not coordinate with the TVA unless his life becomes endangered. Mobius must revert the damage done by Loki to save the flow of time. Time might work differently in TVA and here they might pull anyone out of any time period that disturbs the flow of time. Overall, the multiverse-jumping and time-travel concept in Loki will be explored in depth. The series will prove how MCU’s Time Travel is different from other Time Travel movies.
Loki is scheduled to premiere on June 9, 2021. It will be a part of MCU’s Phase 4. Loki is directed by Kate Herron and features Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Wunmi Mosaku in the lead roles.
Are you excited about the show? Let us know in the comments.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter for more content.
