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It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Simply put, even if it does lose some of Well's social commentary, this is THE best adaptation of the book ever. Skip the lame remake (especially the 70's TV version) and see this. It's available on Blu ray. From the energetic and Victorian explorer, to the blue skinned and hideous Morlocks to the innocent Eloi, as well as the loyal friend played by Alan Young, this film is just so beautiful. It speeds along, just entertaining all the way. A brilliant, wonderful movie by the great George Pal.

The special effects are a bit dated as you might expect from a movie made in 1960 but the story will live forever. One of my all-time favorite movies.

At the end, George takes three books to help recreate civilization. This is a Science Fiction discussion of long standing, although not clear how George Pal picked up on it. The problem is similar to the one posed in the movie: The Martian. What knowledge in an underdeveloped world do you need to survive and prosper?After eliminating books on religion, philosophy, politics, art, music and the like that aren't directly survival related, you narrow your choices down. Farming. Food Preparation. Basic Medicine or First Aid. Tool making. Wood working. Metal working. Stone Working. Animal husbandry. Basic language or reading. Basic Mathematics. Basic Physics, Chemistry, Geology and Astronomy. But how to condense all that or choose into just three books?

It must be said that one has to be ambitious to tackle a literary giant like H.G. Wells. This master has crafted works that persist as classics more than 50 years after his death. Never one to shy away from heavy themes, H.G. Wells' work is one that would unnerve me to explore on film. Nonetheless, The Time Machine (1960) directed by George Pal brings Well's words to life on screen. Tackling such heavies as class, society, and modernization, The Time Machine fails to disappoint in either format.The Time Machine starts out as another backwards tale, which I am quite partial to. We meet a group of friends in a dining hall when a disheveled scientist George (Rod Taylor) arrives with unkempt hair and tattered clothes. He is visibly shaken at first, and then begins to explain to his friends about his unique travels. Having met his friend Filby's (Alan Young) son on his travels, he is especially interested in telling him his stories. George didn't just take any trip, he traveled through time. As Filby and George previously discussed, George has a preoccupation with time. He believes he has been born to the wrong time, and because of this feeling, devotes his scientific research to trying to manipulate time. George hopes to discover a utopia in the future in which minds are celebrated and innovation encouraged. On the eve of the 20th century, his time machine finally works and George sets out, cautiously, to explore the future he will never know. After gingerly going hours then weeks in the future, George has made up his mind to travel hundreds of years. When he finally lands, many thousands of years into the future, George is greeted with a civilization of sheep, all following one another with no knowledge of how their government works or if they even have one. George is optimistic to find that war and famine are worries of the past, but disheartened when he is taken to the "library" of the civilization to see all the books being stored there crumbling to dust. George is devastated to learn that the utopia he was so sure to find is actually a dystopia. These people are called Eloi, and at first assumption look as though they lead care-free lives, once the city becomes dark however, we can see that is far from the truth. The Eloi actually live in constant fear of the Morlocks, a group that provides the Eloi with clothes and nourishment, as well as periodic population control. Blindly following the Morlocks' command, George is committed to showing the eloi that they needn't be under the Morlock's control, even if that means rescuing them himself.The Time Machine has been hailed for its use of special effects, which were way ahead of their time. It only makes sense that a film about traversing time would have effects that also superseded it. As George firsts experiments with his machine and is dancing through the hours and the days, we see the flowers in his garden rapidly grow and die again. Seeing the flowers blooming and retracting was a nice special effects tool for the audience to witness. We also see in George's travels, the earth succumbing to a fierce magma. I do not know how this magma was created, but its thickness and texture was incredibly realistic. When we see George pitted against the Morlocks we see that they all have beaming eyes. This effect was also interesting considering it was 1960. These effects today would all be easy to create, but considering this film was made almost 60 years ago, they were definitely ahead of their time.H.G. Wells was noted for his exploration of themes that concern the human condition. This film definitely fits into that category. Civilization is greatly explored, as George is certain that the future will only produce advancements for society. When he sees that the future society has devolved to such a great extent, he learns that advancement does not always produce a positive outcome. Modernization is also explored as we learn with George that production means are irrelevant if the human mind stops growing. Finally, the most blatant issue explored in The Time Machine is class. We are introduced to two classes, producers and consumers. The consumers are subservient and completely dependent upon the producers. The producers are shown to be ugly, nonhuman like creatures, while the consumers are beautiful, yet the exact same as one another. One can draw the conclusion that, as we see the producers coming up from underground in which they live that the production of society is the grunt work done only to preserve itself. Even though the Morlocks are hideous and primitive, the Eloi live in constant fear of them, yet completely dependent upon them for everything with which to sustain life. They also live in blissful ignorance about what they are missing out on, unrestricted life. Clearly, Wells reserves no love for the producers; even classifying them as cannibalistic. This film does wonders to show the dangers of submitting to a ruling class of producers and warns one to always maintain individuality.I quite enjoyed The Time Machine, and would recommend this version to anyone who enjoys any of H.G. Well's works. I also would recommend this film to fans of the sci-fi genre. It is interesting to see the early workings of such a prolific genre, and to see the special effects achieved by a film of this nature. Something about this film felt very nostalgic and comfortable for me. I am not sure why I felt a kinship to this film, as I have never before seen a film like it. For that reason alone, I would also recommend this movie as it exists as a cautionary tale of maintaining individuality.