[Da Bilge Troll]

Hmmm... I saw a movie once - can't remember the name - where the hero receives a pocket watch from an old lady. He then travels back in time, meets the lady as a young woman and gives her the watch, which she then returns to him many years later.

So, my question was (and I was told I was "nit picking"): Who made the watch?

The most famous one though is, of course, The Terminator, in which if the Terminator is successful, there would be no reason to send him back in time...

[Bratch]

Hmmm... I saw a movie once - can't remember the name - where the hero receives a pocket watch from an old lady. He then travels back in time, meets the lady as a young woman and gives her the watch, which she then returns to him many years later.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

I think that was Somewhere In Time, with Christopher Reeve. The guy basically hypnotizes himself to go back in time by wearing period clothing and telling himself it's year whatever over and over again...the Twilight Zone-like twist at the end is when he finds a present-day quarter in his pocket and gets sent back to his own time.

I think the terminator films are the best representation of a "Closed loop," where you can only do what you're allowed to do, along with the Planet of the Apes movies, where Taylor inadverdantly creates the future by giving Zira and Cornelius a way to go back in time...thus giving birth to Caesar, who leads the ape rebellion that results in the world Taylor finds 2,000 years later...