Primer

Aside from causality loops, multiverses, and the Novikov self-consistency principle (which Primer does not follow) that come with time travel it seems like the main point of the film is about the human element involved with technology. On the one the humans love technology, but also have self doubts when these new discoveries give them extraordinary powers. In Primer the protagonists are able to travel back in time and change events in the past by seeing events over and over again or using future knowledge to take advantage of the past. The type of time travel in the film allows for Abe and Aaron to affect the past substantially and to effectively have “doubles” since there past and future self can be in the same place at the same time. With this newfound discovery, Aaron and Abe recognize that this power can have extreme effects on the past, as seen when they save Abe’s girlfriend, Rachel.

It is interesting that at the end Aaron and Abe decide that the time travel is not necessarily wrong, but that it is too dangerous for them to continue to use. This ending seems to imply that people view the weakest link in technologies like time travel is the human element. It is unlikely that scientific progress will be halted at any point in the near future from public opinion, but it is certainly worthwhile to think about how new technologies will certainly bring more questions regarding humanity.  Can we trust ourselves to make the “right” decisions? Or perhaps technology will become so advanced that it can self regulate itself so that humans cannot abuse it or harm themselves with it. In any case humanity will likely have to face difficult questions with how to use technology and whether we can trust ourselves with it in the future.

Infographic about time travel in Primer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Time_Travel_Method-2.svg

Infographic about time travel in movies (warning spoilers):

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-04/tangled-logic-time-travel-in-movies-infographic