From When to Whenever: Mapping TV and Movie Time Travel

All the time in the world: detail from Timelines by David McCandless et al. (click image for complete version)

While thinking about retronovative technologies that warp cultural time, I was pleased to be pointed towards this remarkable infographic. The work of David McCandless, Dominic Busby, and Alice Cho at Information is Beautiful, it traces the routes of a variety of fictional time voyages, from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century to Planet of the Apes to the several temporal joyrides found throughout the Star Trek franchise. Click on the image for the creative-commons-licensed chart in full, as it was featured in McCandless’ 2009 book [amazon link=”0061748366″ title=”The Visual Miscellaneum“]. The image is available as a print as well.

For extra credit, click through to McCandless’ how-to post for a look at the exhaustive exploration of story, imagery, and the nature of time that he and his colleagues undertook in making the chart?a process reminiscent of the revealing analysis Paul Butler undertook in creating his recent global map of Facebook.

[thanks, Peggy!]

About Mohit

One comment

  1. That’s beautiful!!

    But there should be a tight little set of whorls in the 1990’s from the various travels in “Seven Days”!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *