What If?

One of my favorite aspects of Science Fiction is the speculative nature of the genre. For example, Star Trek, Firefly, Babylon 5, Space: Above and Beyond, and Battlestar Galactica all take place in the Earth's future, yet they are radically different in tone and content. The major differences, to my mind, are all based on assumptions about what happens between now and then. Change just a few key events, and the entire future changes.

Literature is full of such stories. What would have happened if Germany developed the atomic bomb first, or if Rome hadn't fallen? I heard recently about a video game in which it's assumed that Hitler was assassinated young—which opened the door for Stalin to take over Europe instead. It's fun to speculate how history would change if a single event came out differently.

I saw a movie recently that uses this approach in an unconventional genre, the romantic comedy. It's called Sliding Doors. To explain: A young London woman is fired from her job. On her way back home she rushes down the stairs to the Underground, only to miss her train by seconds. Then we see a rewind effect, and she comes back down the stairs and makes her train. At this point, time splits.

In one timeline, the train gets her home quickly, and she finds her live-in boyfriend in bed with another woman. She leaves him, meets someone else, and ends up starting her own business. In the other timeline, she leaves the train station and tries to hail a cab, only to get mugged in the process. Her emergency room visit keeps her from getting home in time to discover her lecherous boyfriend's affair, and her injury motivates him to pay more attention to her, at least in the short term. We watch the two stories unfold side by side, wondering which one is the real story. I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it, but I will say that the ending features a nice bit of symmetry that unites the two timelines.

In other words, it's basically a chick flick with sci-fi undertones. Something for everyone.