Movie Substrate · Film
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
★ 6.8 · 1,608 ratings on TMDB
What would you go back for?
Three magazine employees head out on an assignment to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking a companion for time travel.
DirectorColin Trevorrow
The emergence reading
Safety Not Guaranteed keeps every mind human — it fights its subject at zero distance. The story fights on E8 of the E0–E14 reality ladder.
zero-distanceUS
⇄ Parameter shift — the dial this world turnsrigor: loose
E0timethe dial allows a localized device to move its occupants backward along the timeline, breaking ordinary causality (technology · personal)
Same rung, same subject
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
Same subject, different rung
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008)E13/E14 · Comedy, Romance
Men in Black (1997)E11/E13 · Comedy, Science Fiction
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)E11/E12 · Comedy, Science Fiction
Don't Look Up (2021)E14 · Comedy, Science Fiction
Robots (2005)E9/E10/E11 · Comedy, Science Fiction
Home (2015)E9/E10 · Comedy, Science FictionAlso bends a rule of reality
Other films that change a standing rule of their world — ranked first by those bending it at the same rung.
Doctor Strange (2016)alters at E0 · same rung · rigorous
The Matrix (1999)alters at E0 · same rung · rigorous
Back to the Future (1985)alters at E0 · same rung · loose
Avengers: Endgame (2019)alters at E0 · same rung · loose
Interstellar (2014)alters at E0 · same rung · rigorous
Twelve Monkeys (1995)alters at E0 · same rung · rigorous
