The Time Travelers

Scientists activate their time-viewing device, despite its enormous power draw. Shadows flicker across the lab walls and the screen briefly displays a barren landscape. The team realizes something extraordinary is happening beyond a simple experiment.

Danny McKee is dispatched from the power plant to order an immediate shutdown. The portal screen continues to flicker as the device consumes more power. The team debates whether to pull back or push on with the risky test.

The portal stabilizes long enough for Danny to step through. The others desperately call him back through the shimmering gateway. Shadows haunt the lab screen as the portal abruptly destabilizes and vanishes.

The gateway closes, leaving the team stranded in a post-apocalyptic future. They are immediately hunted by hostile mutants and retreat into a nearby cave. The landscape hints at a civilization collapsing under nuclear war.

The cave system opens into an underground city where the last remnants of civilization and androids reside. The city’s leaders reveal the Earth above is uninhabitable and resources are scarce. The travelers must adapt to this new world while seeking a way home.

Dr. Varno explains the devastation and outlines a plan to escape to a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. Exploration shows no habitable planets remain in the Solar System. A transporter exists but cannot reach distant worlds, leaving a time-portal solution as their only option.

The mutants, once peaceful, become increasingly hostile as Earth's resources dwindle. They launch raids to seize the city’s food supply and disrupt preparations for space travel. Tensions rise as the future community braces for collapse.

The travelers are told they cannot join the voyage due to weight, space, and time constraints. They are allowed to try rebuilding the time portal to return home. Varno’s people pledge to assist in the portal reconstruction.

With Varno’s help, the group races to repair the portal while the city prepares liftoff of its spaceship. Mutants invade during the final boarding stages. The attempt to launch ends when the ship is destroyed.

Moments before the city is overrun, the travelers slip back through the portal, taking a few future inhabitants with them. To slow pursuit, they hurl objects back through the gateway, damaging the other side’s equipment. The mutants are left behind as the portal seals.

Back in the lab, the travelers’ past selves remain immobile inside their devices. The team realizes their calibration was off and they are experiencing time at an accelerated rate. They understand they will die of old age within the same day unless they escape.

They decide to leap to the date the portal had briefly been set to before it was switched to 2071. That date lies over 100,000 years in the future, with the screen dark and the outcome unknown. They step through, hoping for a chance at survival.

The portal opens to a sunlit clearing where Earth is habitable again. The travelers see trees and grass and notice the past events replaying at a normal pace within an accelerating sequence. Past selves repeat their actions in faster cycles, hinting at the time-loop mechanism. The film ends with a view of the Andromeda Galaxy.