Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Biggles: Adventures in Time

 Biggles: Adventures in Time
type
TVTItem
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
label
Biggles: Adventures in Time
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
page
BigglesAdventuresInTime
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
comment
Biggles, re-released under the title Biggles: Adventures in Time, is a 1986 movie featuring the fictional flying ace Biggles. It stars Neil Dickson as Biggles and Alex Hyde-White as Jim Ferguson, a character created for the movie, with Peter Cushing appearing in his final feature film role as Biggles' commanding officer, Commodore Raymond.Inspired by the recent success of Back to the Future, and attempting to provide a hook for the American market, the film has a time travel plot in which Jim Ferguson, an inhabitant of present-day New York, is transported back to World War I and helps Biggles defeat a German superweapon.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
fetched
2023-08-18T03:30:03Z
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
parsed
2023-08-18T03:30:03Z
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
processingComment
Dropped link to TookAThirdOption: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
processingUnknown
TookAThirdOption
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_207c3447
type
Can't Take Anything with You
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_207c3447
comment
Can't Take Anything with You: Averted. Anything that Jim is holding when the time portal sends him back to 1917 is taken with him. This includes a towel, a razor, his fiancée and a Police Helicopter. It also works both ways, as one time Jim travels back to 1986 with Biggles' photograph and another firing a machine gun at the Germans, which doesn't help him when he arrives in the same spot he vanished from as he ends up accidentally firing it at the cops.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_207c3447
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_207c3447
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_207c3447
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_2dc3e97c
type
Ghost Town
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_2dc3e97c
comment
Ghost Town: The protagonists eventually come across a deserted French town that looks as if it has been bombed to hell. It turns out to be the testing site for the German sound weapon, which after repeated tests has scorched the entire town into nothing but charred ruins.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_2dc3e97c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_2dc3e97c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_2dc3e97c
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_3eee0728
type
Captain Obvious
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_3eee0728
comment
Captain Obvious: When Jim and Biggles take the police helicopter back to 1917 as they are flying over the thames, Jim announces to Biggles that they just went back in time. As if it wasn't obvious from how London had just disappeared and a French Battlefield was suddenly in its place.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_3eee0728
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_3eee0728
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_3eee0728
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_47fea76b
type
Butt-Monkey
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_47fea76b
comment
The summons, as well as the return trips, in general are mostly inconvenient for Jim, but NEVER Biggles.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_47fea76b
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_47fea76b
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_47fea76b
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_50f66629
type
Crazy-Prepared
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_50f66629
comment
Crazy-Prepared: Jim tries to be one of these at one point, spending the whole night attired in proper WWI-era fashion and carrying an Uzi, but the storm doesn't takes him that night and all he gets from it is scaring the living daylights out of a maid. When he goes to shower himself, that is when he is taken.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_50f66629
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_50f66629
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_50f66629
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56515a39
type
Artistic License – History
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56515a39
comment
Artistic License – History: The Germans didn't build a enormous sonic weapon, which got destroyed by a police helicopter. Of course, Some of the things they DID do makes something like this seem positively sane in comparison. The MP28/II appears in 1917, apparently used as a production stand in for the MP18. However, this would still not make any sense, as the gun didn't enter production until 1918, a year after when the WWI sections of the film take place.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56515a39
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56515a39
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56515a39
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56698261
type
Our Time Travel Is Different
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56698261
comment
Our Time Travel Is Different: Time travel in this film is depicted as an unnatural lightning storm that sends a person either backward or forward in time whenever they are randomly struck by a bolt. Going somewhere requires getting hit by the lightning and takes a few moments, whilst going back appears instantaneous, and while many hours can be spent in another time, when the traveller returns home, they will appear where they vanished with only a few seconds having passed. For some reason, it also appears to only happen to select people in different time periods who are apparently connected somehow, and appropriately sends them to help out whenever one or the other is in trouble (or soon will be.) Throughout the film, Jim repeatedly finds himself being sent back to 1917, whilst Biggles travels to 1986 on one occasion to save Jim from the police.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56698261
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56698261
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_56698261
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_6293c185
type
Sequel Hook
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_6293c185
comment
Sequel Hook: Ends with Jim being zapped back in time again to aid Biggles out of another jam.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_6293c185
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_6293c185
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_6293c185
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_716c0b1b
type
And the Adventure Continues
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_716c0b1b
comment
And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the film, Jim is once again sent back in time (during his own wedding no less) to save Biggles and his team before they are eaten by cannibals in New Guinea. The film ends as they make their escape from the cave they're in with the cannibals in hot pursuit, with Jim asking Biggles where they're going.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_716c0b1b
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_716c0b1b
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_716c0b1b
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_7d152a2d
type
Agent Mulder
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_7d152a2d
comment
Agent Mulder: Averted. Debbie initially claims to believe Jim's story about travelling through time to World War One, only to immediately go back on this claim a minute later and turn into:
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_7d152a2d
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_7d152a2d
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_7d152a2d
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_8658cd14
type
Agent Scully
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_8658cd14
comment
Agent Scully: After actually being sent back to 1917 with Jim, Debbie keeps trying to find ways to convince herself that what she's experiencing isn't real and that there's a rational, logical explanation, despite evidence to the contrary literally being all around her. She even demands that a German soldier call the US Embassy at one point.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_8658cd14
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_8658cd14
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_8658cd14
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_86b21114
type
Badass Boast
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_86b21114
comment
Badass Boast: As Jim protests Biggles getting in the pilot seat of a Metropolitan Police Bell Jetranger helicopter:
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_86b21114
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_86b21114
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_86b21114
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_91a7d252
type
Fake in the Hole
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_91a7d252
comment
Fake in the Hole: Jim holds off a group of German troops by turning on his cordless razor and throwing it, yelling "GRENADE!"
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_91a7d252
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_91a7d252
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_91a7d252
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_964ea66c
type
A-Team Firing
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_964ea66c
comment
A-Team Firing: Subverted. Toward the end of the film, Hauptmann von Stalhein makes a pass at the protagonists in his plane, and opens up with machine gun fire with everyone taking cover on the ground. After he passes over, everyone stands up and it seems that, despite him peppering the entire area with gunfire, he somehow missed all of his shots. Only he didn't; Biggles' lover Marie was actually hit and seriously injured. She survives however.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_964ea66c
featureApplicability
-0.3
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_964ea66c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_964ea66c
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_a9de87d2
type
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_a9de87d2
comment
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Debbie. While she doesn't appear to be unintelligent in any capacity, when she's sent back in time, she turns rather ditzy as she refuses to believe that yes, she has gone back to WWI, with proof of this fact being all around her. However, when the group are captured by Germans, she manages to create a much needed distraction when she maces a German officer in the face, kicks him to the floor and fires off his gun, which allows the others to overpower their captors before they can finish tying them up.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_a9de87d2
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_a9de87d2
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_a9de87d2
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ad1db87c
type
Oh, Crap!
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ad1db87c
comment
Oh, Crap!: A few moments of this throughout the film. The Germans and the nuns share a collective one when Jim throws his electric razor to pretend it's a grenade. Everybody dives for cover. Jim when he hears the telltale thunder that indicates he's about to be sent back again. He even says "aw shit" aloud. Debbie when she comes face to face with a German soldier in the cave system. Biggles and company have one when they realise they're about to be used as test subjects for the German superweapon, and then the Germans after they're overpowered and locked out of their own protective bunker. Jim has a minor one when the time hole sends him back to 1986 whilst in the middle of firing at a squad of Germans, and doesn't immediately realise that he's now firing at London Police officers. When he finally does, he instantly drops the gun and books it. von Stalhein has a major one when he sees the Metropolitan Police Helicopter flying over the battlefields of France. His reaction is justified as he has never seen anything like it before.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ad1db87c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ad1db87c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ad1db87c
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_b40f5b51
type
Secret Weapon
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_b40f5b51
comment
Secret Weapon: The Germans have developed a sound-based super weapon that is the main driving force of the plot. Raymond fears that it may be used by the Germans to win the war and change history. It appears to transmit high energy soundwaves that creates an affect similar to ionising radiation, and can destroy almost anything, from human bodies to artillery guns. Biggles and Jim manage to blow it up at the end of the film by using the speaker system mounted on the side of their helicopter to bounce the high frequency sound it creates right back at the transmitter dish, causing an overload that eventually destroys it.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_b40f5b51
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_b40f5b51
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_b40f5b51
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c5249b29
type
Nice Guy
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c5249b29
comment
Nice Guy: Biggles. Despite the unusual circumstances, he quickly befriends Jim after the latter saves his life, patiently explains what's going on, and gets along well with him and his fellow soldiers.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c5249b29
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c5249b29
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c5249b29
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c66245e9
type
Inconvenient Summons
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c66245e9
comment
Inconvenient Summons: The second time Jim is drawn back in time, he has just taken a shower and is clad in only a towel. The summons, as well as the return trips, in general are mostly inconvenient for Jim, but NEVER Biggles.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c66245e9
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c66245e9
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_c66245e9
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ca9e3345
type
Temporal Mutability
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ca9e3345
comment
Temporal Mutability: Varies. Mostly is a case of You Already Changed the Past, but any item which could cause a major change to history as we see it is summarily and rapidly lost or destroyed with prejudice as soon as it's served its purpose.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ca9e3345
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ca9e3345
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_ca9e3345
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_dd797c1c
type
Universal Driver's License
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_dd797c1c
comment
Universal Driver's License: Biggles, transported in time from World War I to the late twentieth century, is able to work out how to fly a helicopter after a few minutes experimentation. He even says, without apparent irony, "If you can fly a Sopwith Camel, you can fly anything!" The Camel was renowned for the remarkable torque of its rotary engine, to the point where you didn't make a 90 degree left turn; it was easier AND FASTER to go 270 degrees to the right. For Biggles, his first attempt to lift off in the helo would have been like trying to fly his Camel straight upwards. He'd have understood what was happening better than most.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_dd797c1c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_dd797c1c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_dd797c1c
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_df582b0b
type
Continuity Snarl
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_df582b0b
comment
Continuity Snarl: Making this film fit into the timeline of the books is pretty much impossible. In the books Biggles didn't meet Marie until a few weeks before the end of the war, and her betrayal and apparent death left him traumatised, drinking heavily, and possibly suicidal to the point where his commanding officer tried to have him posted back to Britain — definitely not in a state to carry out secret missions. Not to mention the fact that he didn't meet Bertie and Ginger until after the war. It's probably best to just assume that this is a completely different timeline.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_df582b0b
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_df582b0b
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_df582b0b
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_f10a1faf
type
ReluctantHero
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_f10a1faf
comment
Reluctant Hero: Jim, at first. He initially doesn't want anything to do with Biggles, Raymond or World War One, and wants the random time travelling to stop so that he can carry on with his normal life. He eventually warms up to Biggles and decides to help him stop the Germans from turning the tide of the war.
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_f10a1faf
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_f10a1faf
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_f10a1faf
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_name
type
ItemName
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_name
comment
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_name
featureApplicability
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_name
featureConfidence
1.0
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_name
 Biggles: Adventures in Time / int_name
itemName
Biggles: Adventures in Time

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
And the Adventure Continues / int_d581c58e
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Fake in the Hole / int_d581c58e
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Improbable Piloting Skills / int_d581c58e
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Inconvenient Summons / int_d581c58e
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Time Travel Tales / int_d581c58e
 Biggles: Adventures in Time
hasFeature
Universal Driver's License / int_d581c58e