Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann

Last updated

Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann
TimeRiderPoster.jpg
Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann theatrical poster
Directed by William Dear
Written by Michael Nesmith
William Dear
Produced byWilliam Dear
Starring Fred Ward
Peter Coyote
Belinda Bauer
Ed Lauter
Tracey Walter
L. Q. Jones
Richard Masur
Chris Mulkey
CinematographyLarry Pizer
Edited byR.J. Kizer
Music by Michael Nesmith
Production
company
Distributed by Jensen Farley Pictures
Twentieth Century Fox International Classics [1]
Release date
  • December 11, 1982 (1982-12-11)(premiere)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
Box office$3.6 million [2]

Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann is a 1982 science fiction Western film directed by William Dear and starring Fred Ward as Lyle Swann, a cross country dirt bike racer in the 1980s who is mistakenly sent back in time to 1877. [3] The film was scored, produced and co-written (with director William Dear) by Michael Nesmith. [4]

Contents

Plot

Lyle Swann is a well-known dirt bike motorcycle racer who is in the desert competing in the Baja 1000, a multiclass vehicle cross-country race. Swann has a reputation for being a great rider but is plagued by technical problems from the high-tech gadgetry he incorporates into his C and J framed XT500 Yamaha. When Swann accidentally goes far off course, he stumbles across a time travel experiment that utilizes "maser velocity acceleration" to send objects (in this case, a simian subject by the name of Esther G.) back in time.

Swann rides through the field and gets sent back to November 5, 1877. The scientists in charge of the experiment soon realize what has happened, but Swann rides off, unaware of what has happened to him, before he can be returned to the present. While taking a swim break in a local pond, he runs into a gang of outlaws led by Porter Reese, who becomes obsessed with stealing Swann's motorcycle, and the outlaws pursue Swann into the small village of San Marcos, but his red suit and dirtbike scare the local Mexicans, who think he is 'El Diablo' (Spanish for 'The Devil').

There, he meets a beautiful woman, Claire Cygne, who gives him a safe place to hide, and who severely wounds one of Reese's men Carl Dorsett. The village priest compels them to withdraw, but Reese continues to plot the capture of Swann's dirtbike. In the village, Swann is seduced by Claire (at gun point) and sleeps with her, but she is later kidnapped by Reese's henchman Claude Dorsett as revenge for her shooting and wounding his brother Carl.

They also manage to capture the dirtbike, leading to a series of hijinks, while Swann gets help from a posse of two U.S. Marshals, Potter and Daniels, who are trying to capture or kill the gang. Potter has a personal vendetta against Reese, for Reese killed Potter's son two years previously. Swann manages to retrieve his dirtbike and rescue Claire. Potter is killed by Reese in an ambush, and Daniels is mortally wounded and dies later.

In a final showdown, Reese's band of outlaws faces Swann, the last survivor of the posse, and Claire atop a plateau. When a helicopter shows up (sent by the builders of the time travel experiment to take Swann home), Reese's men run away in fear, but Reese stays behind and fires at the helicopter, killing or wounding one of the pilots. The helicopter begins spinning wildly as the co-pilot tries to maintain control, knocking the dirtbike off the side of the plateau. Reese is killed by the helicopter's tail rotor. The helicopter manages to land on the plateau and extract Swann.

Just as the helicopter pulls away, Claire snatches a pendant from Swann's neck that was handed down from his great-great-grandmother, who had stolen it from his great-great grandfather as a reminder of "one incredible night they had together." Swann realizes that he is his own great-great-grandfather.

Main cast

Production

Screenplay

The off-screen dialogue (narrated by Macon McCalman) heard over the opening credits explains the time travel experiment as having the goal of sending a rhesus monkey to the year 1862 (according to the inscription on the canister containing the monkey which Swann reads aloud, the experiment begins on November 4, 1982). After Swann stumbles into the experiment, the scientists in charge of the experiment determine that Swann and the monkey were sent to about "1875," then later pinpoint the date as being November 5, 1877. The screenplay's "time travel arrival day" of November 5 had first appeared in 1979's Time After Time; and was also the "time travel arrival day" in a later film, 1985's Back to the Future. As another plot clue, Claire's last name, Cygne, is the vocative singular form of "cygnus," Latin for "swan."

In addition to the grandfather paradox and the predestination paradox presented in the film, the necklace that Claire takes from Lyle presents an ontological paradox (i.e., an object with no creation point and continually in the time-loop), similar to the pocket watch in the 1980 time-travel film Somewhere in Time . These paradoxes were highlighted in the 2004 South Park episode "Goobacks," where various time-traveling techniques in movies are compared.

The film's screenplay was written by Michael Nesmith, a member of the band The Monkees. The movie is produced by Zoomo Production, which is a subsidiary of Michael Nesmith's Pacific Arts Corporation. The movie was also released by Pacific Arts Video, another entity of Nesmith's, who appears briefly as one of the Baja 1000 officials in the beginning of the film.

DVD release with alternate version

Two brief scenes were cut from the above theatrical version for the 2001 Anchor Bay Entertainment DVD release:

Shout! Factory released the film on Blu-ray on March 19, 2013. [5] It has since gone out-of-print.

Critical reception

Upon its theatrical release, Vincent Canby of The New York Times commented, "At the point at which I walked out, about 55 minutes into the story, there hadn't been a single characterization, situation, line of dialogue, camera angle or joke to indicate that anyone connected with Timerider had the remotest idea of what he was doing." [6]

Contemporary critics reviewed the film upon its 2001 DVD release:

Patrick Naugle of DVD Verdict said, "Timerider starts off a bit slow. It seems as if the first twenty minutes are taken up watching Swann ride his bike all over the dry desert plains. After that sluggish beginning, Timerider kicks into a funny and enjoyable fish-out-of-water story." [7]

Soundtrack

Nesmith also produced, wrote, and recorded the Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann soundtrack. Eighteen years after the soundtrack was recorded, it was finally released by Videoranch (the official website and another subsidiary of Nesmith's Pacific Arts).

Track listing

All music is composed by Michael Nesmith

No.TitleLength
1."The Baja 1000"3:13
2."Lost in the Weeds"1:43
3."Somewhere Around 1875"1:06
4."Scared to Death"0:58
5."Silks and Sixguns"0:57
6."Dead Man's Duds"1:28
7."Two Swanns at the Pond"2:20
8."I Want That Machine"0:51
9."Escape to San Marcos"2:24
10."Claire's Cabin"2:01
11."No Jurisdiction"0:54
12."Murder at Swallow's Camp"2:17
13."Claire's Rescue"1:54
14."Up the Hill to Nowhere"3:19
15."Out of Ammo"3:08
16."Reprise"3:31

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Nesmith</span> American musician, songwriter, and actor (1942–2021)

Robert Michael Nesmith, often known as Mike Nesmith, was an American musician, songwriter, and actor. He was best known as a member of the pop rock band the Monkees and co-star of their TV series of the same (1966–1968). His songwriting credits with the Monkees include "Mary, Mary", "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", "Tapioca Tundra", "Circle Sky" and "Listen to the Band". Additionally, his song "Different Drum" became a hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warwick Davis</span> English actor (born 1970)

Warwick Ashley Davis is an English actor and television presenter. He played the title character in Willow (1988) and the Leprechaun film series (1993–2003), several characters in the Star Wars film series (1983–2019), most notably the Ewok Wicket, and Professor Filius Flitwick and the goblin Griphook in the Harry Potter film series (2001–2011). Davis starred as a fictionalised version of himself in the sitcom Life's Too Short (2011–2013). He has also presented the ITV game shows Celebrity Squares (2014–2015) and Tenable (2016–present).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Masur</span> American actor

Richard Masur is an American character actor who has appeared in more than 80 films. From 1995 to 1999, he served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). He is best known for playing David Kane on One Day at a Time (1975–1976), Nick Lobo on Rhoda (1974–1977), Clark in The Thing (1982), Stanley Uris in the miniseries It (1990), and Edward L. L. Moore on Younger (2016–2018).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Ward</span> American actor (1942–2022)

Freddie Joe Ward was an American actor. Starting with a role in an Italian television movie in 1973, he appeared in such diverse films as Escape from Alcatraz, Southern Comfort, The Right Stuff, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, Tremors and Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Henry & June, The Player, Swing Shift, Short Cuts, and 30 Minutes or Less.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baja 1000</span> Off-road race that takes place on Mexicos Baja California Peninsula

The Baja 1000 is an annual Mexican off-road motorsport race held on the Baja California Peninsula. It is one of the most prestigious off-road races in the world, having attracted competitors from six continents. The race was founded by Ed Pearlman in 1967 and is sanctioned by SCORE International. The race is the final round of a four-race annual series, which also includes the San Felipe 250, the Baja 400 and the Baja 500. The 2017 Baja 1000 marked the 50th anniversary of the race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyle Reese</span> Fictional character in the Terminator franchise

Kyle Reese is a fictional character in the Terminator franchise, who serves as the protagonist of the first film and a supporting role in other works. The character is portrayed by Michael Biehn in The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jonathan Jackson in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009), Anton Yelchin in Terminator Salvation (2009), and Jai Courtney in Terminator Genisys (2015).

<i>Pray for the Wildcats</i> 1974 television film

Pray for the Wildcats is a 1974 American made-for-television thriller film about a psychopathic business executive chasing his workers on dirtbikes through the desert after he killed a young man. The film was directed by Robert Michael Lewis and starred William Shatner and Andy Griffith, Robert Reed, Marjoe Gortner, Angie Dickinson, and Lorraine Gary. It originally aired as an ABC Movie of the Week on January 23, 1974.

<i>Island of Terror</i> 1966 British film

Island of Terror, also known as Night of the Silicates, is a 1966 British horror film released by Planet Film Productions. The film was released in the United States by Universal Studios on a double bill with The Projected Man (1967).

<i>The Video Dead</i> 1987 film by Robert Falcon Scott

The Video Dead is a 1987 horror film written and directed by Robert Scott and starring Roxanna Augesen. The screenplay concerns a paranormal television that causes zombies from a never-ending film to enter the real world. The film was released direct-to-video and has been re-released several times since then.

<i>Babar</i> (TV series) Animated TV series

Babar is an animated television series produced in Canada by Nelvana Limited and The Clifford Ross Company. It premiered in 1989 on CBC in Canada, and on HBO in the United States. The series is based on Jean de Brunhoff's original Babar books, and was Nelvana's first international co-production. The show has been dubbed in 30 languages in over 150 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Gordon (American actor)</span> American actor

Bruce Gordon was an American actor best known for playing gangster Frank Nitti in the ABC television series The Untouchables. His acting career ranged over a half century and included stage, movies, and a varied number of roles on the small screen.

Fatty and George is an Australian children's sci-fi television series from 1981 produced by the Tasmanian Film Corporation for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The series consisted of 10 episodes of 25-minute duration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Arts Corporation</span> American media company

The Pacific Arts Corporation, Inc. is a company formed by Michael Nesmith circa 1974 to manage and develop media projects.

<i>Slade in Flame</i> 1975 British film

Slade in Flame is a 1975 film starring the British rock band Slade. It was directed by Richard Loncraine and written by Andrew Birkin with additional dialogue by Dave Humphries. The film includes supporting roles by Tom Conti, Alan Lake and Johnny Shannon. In November 1974, the band's soundtrack album of the same name was released prior to the film.

There have been various accounts of persons who allegedly travelled through time reported by the press or circulated on the Internet. These reports have turned out either to be hoaxes or to be based on incorrect assumptions, incomplete information, or interpretation of fiction as fact, many being now recognized as urban legends.

<i>The Sparticle Mystery</i> British television series

The Sparticle Mystery is a British science fiction television series written and created by Alison Hume and produced by Sparticles Productions for CBBC. The series follows a group of ten children within modern Britain, where an experiment at a Large Hadron Collider-like facility, the Sparticle Project, goes wrong, sending anybody aged 15 and over into a parallel dimension at exactly 11:11 am. The children travel to the Sparticle Project in an attempt to bring back the adults and re-align the two dimensions.

<i>The Baytown Outlaws</i> 2012 American film

The Baytown Outlaws is a 2012 action comedy film directed by Barry Battles in his directorial debut, and written by Battles and Griffin Hood. The film stars Andre Braugher, Clayne Crawford, Daniel Cudmore, Travis Fimmel, Eva Longoria, Paul Wesley, and Billy Bob Thornton. The film follows the Oodie brothers - Brick, Lincoln and McQueen - who act as vigilante killers for the local sheriff. When the trio accept a job to rescue a young boy from his godfather, plans quickly fall apart as the brothers aim to deliver the boy to safety while pursued by groups of assassins.

<i>Dear Eleanor</i> 2016 American film

Dear Eleanor is a 2016 American film, directed by Kevin Connolly, and starring Isabelle Fuhrman, Josh Lucas, Liana Liberato, and Jessica Alba. Written by Cecilia Contreras and Amy Garcia, it is a coming of age story about two best friends traveling across the U.S. in 1962 to meet their childhood hero, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Manson International was an independent American film production company and distributor. The name was derived from the founders' surnames. Initially a distributor of foreign films, it became one of the pioneer film sales agencies in the country.

References

  1. "Timerider (1983)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films . Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  2. Donahue, Suzanne Mary (1987). American film distribution : the changing marketplace. UMI Research Press. p. 294. ISBN   9780835717762. Please note figures are for rentals in US and Canada
  3. Murray, Noel (March 20, 2013). "Tinerider". The A.V. Club. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  4. The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:Timerider
  5. Sluss, Justin (December 7, 2012). "1982 film Timerider starring Fred Ward is coming to Blu-ray March 2013". High Def Disc News.
  6. Vincent Canby (January 21, 1983). "Biking Timerider". The New York Times . Retrieved February 28, 2011.
  7. Patrick Naugle (October 25, 2001). "Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann". DVD Verdict. Archived from the original on July 10, 2011. Retrieved February 28, 2011.