Lit GIFs: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

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It’s winter here in Iowa, which makes my Floridian self wish for seasonal time travel.

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Unfortunately, the closest I’ve come to realizing this dream is watching Back to the Future and reading H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine.

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In The Time Machine, the Time Traveller makes a time machine and jets forward to the year 802,701 A.D.

Clip of a cartoon teenager saying "Dude, how'd we get here so fast?"

Basically he ends up in paradise with tiny human-ish creatures called the Eloi. They give him some fruit. Namaste.

Clip of a man from the Ellen show saying "For the first time in my life I feel alive."

He sets off to explore and when he comes back, he discovers his time machine is missing.

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He figures it’s hidden inside the pedestal of a sphinx statue. But he can’t get it out.

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At night he starts seeing white, ape-like creatures called Morlocks. They live underground and feed on the Eloi.

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After this discovery, he befriends an Eloi named Weena when he saves her from drowning. It’s pretty innocent.

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Then he finally gets brave enough to drop down a well into Morlock territory to try to find his machine.

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He fends the Morlocks off with matches, but they still chase him out, and he’s still without a time machine.

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The Time Traveller takes Weena to the Palace of Green Procelain—the remains of a museum—where, with the aid of matches and camphor, he fashions weapons to fight off the Morlocks.

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That night, while escaping through the woods, he accidentally sets a big fire. Oops.

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Between the fire and the ensuing battle, a ton of Morlocks are killed. Weena dies, too.

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Then the Time Traveller discovers that the pedestal’s open. It’s a trap set by the Morlocks, but before they can catch him, he hops in his machine and zips away.

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He hops around time and ends up on a beach where he’s attacked by giant crabs.

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After that he decides to check out the way-future: 30 million years in the future. Things are not good there.

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So he goes home. Time traveling is exhausting.

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But he leaves the next day never to return again.

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So it might be a good thing that I can’t actually travel through time. I’ll take winter over Morlocks anyday.

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