In ‘The Time Machine’, Alexander looses his beloved Emma and begins his quest to build the machine to save her life. Every effort of his to save her always fails. This is a wonderful part of the script, that he could only invent the time machine because of her death. Therefore, the machine cannot possibly save her life. This creation paradox is ruined in the film when Alexander has this detail explained to him. It gives the audience nothing to figure out. This is a universal theme: either the time machine itself is a paradox or is an abomination that leads only to tragic events.
Correcting one tragedy may lead to something far worse, a Greek element of story-telling. In ‘The Time Machine’, Alexander’s best friend is Filby. Filby is the name for Aaron’s cat. (Listen carefully to the fountain scene.) Some people may say that Abe could have used Filby as the first living time traveler. It certainly is not part of the story though. Others theorize that the cat is a reference to a paradox theory known as ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’.
Filby is most likely a small tribute to the original book written by H.G. Wells in 1894. Without this early science fiction on time travel, Primer may never have been written.
As a side note on having a running fail-safe, it becomes useless to have it running for any length of time that is more than can be endured. If it is only large enough for four days worth of oxygen and water, then it becomes useless after four days and must be reset again. The only other option is to build a much larger box, one where more food, oxygen, and hopefully a toilet, can be placed within the box
