About Time

Plot hole: They aren't able to travel before the birth of their children or their children become different. Despite that, he visits his father one last time before their third child is born. His Dad and he then travel back to when he was a kid, which would have changed his first 2 kids.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This is not necessarily inconsistent with the movie's time travel logic. Since Tim goes back in time to visit his father and inside that particular time travel, they use time travel to go back to a day where Tim was a child. Then, they return back to the original time travel where they're playing ping pong. At that moment, both of Tim's kids were already born. So, when he returns from the ping pong scene, there's no change regarding his kids.

Also, paraphrasing the Dad, he said they aren't going to change anything. It is more like reliving a memory than changing the future to get what you want. The Dad couldn't go back to not smoke before his kids were born because that was major and would have changed the course of his life; walking a bit differently on a secluded beach that you walked on in your younger days (as long as you spent the same amount of time - presumably) would not alter the trajectory of one's life.

The slightest change in 1 second of being on the beach would absolutely affect his kids. A man produces 1500 new sperm every minute. Altering the timeline and delaying every event that is going to happen by literally 1 second would most definitely alter which exact sperm was used when conceiving both of his first two children.

Plot hole: When Tim takes his sister Kit Kat back in time, she gets a sudden brain change as she realises she's now going out with his friend and finds him attractive in the changed timeline. However, Tim has no idea anything's different in his life until he gets home and discovers his daughter has become a son.

Jon Sandys

Plot hole: Assuming Tim can undo the change he has made in time (such as undoing his sister not hooking up with her bf at the party as to fix having a different child), why can't he do the same with his father? Meaning he can have as many convos as he wants with his father after the third baby is born, all he has to do is undo him having gone back and having that convo in the first place). We know he can remember the timelines he has undone, as he knows Kitkat would get along with his friend.

Plot hole: After Tim makes the mistake of getting his sister to never have hooked-up with her boyfriend at that party in the first place, how does he undo this? There is no point where he can go back to and redo that as the point where he brings his sister back in time has already happened and you cannot undo that as technically he never brought his sister back in time in the first place, as there was no need to after she found a good relationship.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I think he can as long as he is very targeted at what he's changing. They show it as 1 step, but it is a multi-step process. Step 1: travel back and never tell his sister about being able to time travel (this undoes her never dating Jimmy). BUT she hasn't learned a lesson yet. Step 2: travel back to his daughter's birthday party and not pick up Kitkat so that she has her accident. Step 3: talk to Mary and say that Kitkat needs to learn this valuable lesson, and we cannot leave until she does.

Plot hole: They aren't able to travel before the birth of their children or their children become different. Despite that, he visits his father one last time before their third child is born. His Dad and he then travel back to when he was a kid, which would have changed his first 2 kids.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This is not necessarily inconsistent with the movie's time travel logic. Since Tim goes back in time to visit his father and inside that particular time travel, they use time travel to go back to a day where Tim was a child. Then, they return back to the original time travel where they're playing ping pong. At that moment, both of Tim's kids were already born. So, when he returns from the ping pong scene, there's no change regarding his kids.

Also, paraphrasing the Dad, he said they aren't going to change anything. It is more like reliving a memory than changing the future to get what you want. The Dad couldn't go back to not smoke before his kids were born because that was major and would have changed the course of his life; walking a bit differently on a secluded beach that you walked on in your younger days (as long as you spent the same amount of time - presumably) would not alter the trajectory of one's life.

The slightest change in 1 second of being on the beach would absolutely affect his kids. A man produces 1500 new sperm every minute. Altering the timeline and delaying every event that is going to happen by literally 1 second would most definitely alter which exact sperm was used when conceiving both of his first two children.

More mistakes in About Time

Mary: I'm going to go into the bedroom and put on my new pyjamas, and in a minute you can come in and take them off.

More quotes from About Time
More trivia for About Time

Question: Whenever Tim goes back in time, his clothes change to whatever he was wearing at the time, but he always appears in the same spot that he left from. Both times he goes back to the NYE party he appears in the upstairs wardrobe. So what happened to the version of him that was already walking around at the party? Did that version of him just vanish?

Answer: This is one of the (many) time travel plot holes in the film, and unfortunately your question doesn't really have a definitive, or satisfying, answer. Richard Curtis has said he was less concerned with making an airtight time travel film than with the human story at its core, so he let things like this slide without explanation. However, since we don't see any "second" Tims around when he goes back in time, and no-one else seems to think of him as an "extra" Tim, we can safely assume that, yes, he replaces himself in the timeline when he travels back. (Of course, this doesn't explain what happens when he then returns FROM the past).

More questions & answers from About Time

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.