“A Wrinkle in Time” is a book that explores the concept of space-folding and the concept of tesseracts. The story follows Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and friend Calvin O’Keefe on a journey through time and space to save their father from evil forces. Critics argue that the book denigrates Christian beliefs and removes them to avoid being challenged. The author, Madeleine L’Engle, an Episcopalian, imbued her novel with these ideas.
The book has been banned or challenged numerous times since its publication in 1962. The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association lists it among the top 100 banned or challenged books. The book and film transport readers into a dangerous space where only children can save the day.
The book’s protagonist, Ava DuVernay, never demonstrates powers of mind control but manipulates through illusion and fear, drawing out people’s darker sides. In A Wrinkle in Time, the fabric of space/time “wrinkles” onto itself, creating new paths for travel. This tesseract allows futuristic life forms to communicate with the human race using a fifth dimension, allowing them to travel through space without having to go the long way.
Mr. Film Theorist, also known as MatPat, describes Ava DuVernay’s film based on the Madeleine L’Engle novel as “The Wizard of Oz” with physics. However, Rebecca McLaughlin argues that “A Wrinkle in Time” is disappointingly flat for a film exploring multiple dimensions of time and space.
📹 Film Theory: Is PENNYWISE In A Wrinkle In Time? (Stephen King Connected Universe Theory)
Theorists, let me describe a story to you – see if you can guess what it is. There are psychic kids, celestial beings, time travel, and …
📹 A Wrinkle In Time: 10 Important Things You Totally Missed
A story that has been decades in the making has indeed been a much anticipated film. A Wrinkle In Time is one of the classical …
Hey matpat I have a theory for you! Are the food stunts in “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” actually plausible? I’ve posted this theory on you’re “Bee Movie” and “The Incredibles” articles and they’re going to be more detailed than this one. But to sum them up: Flint and the villagers pull off some impossible stunts throughout the film like using BREAD AS A BOAT last time I check bread gets soggy in a snap, grilled cheese form of not. And that based on their geographic location on the globe, creating an ice cream snow day on an island near the equator would lead to a melty soupy ice cream mess. One commenter on my theory/question also mentioned that all this food would cause destruction to the environment. I’m sure that fish aren’t too fond of Ben & Jerry’s Neapolitan ice cream entering their waters. The major builds a dam to hold the leftover food but wouldn’t it smell and how would you clean up melted ice cream? Please like so he can see this.
whenever people talk about the king multiverse sometimes they leave out the dark tower or kind of leave it as an afterthought or a supportive story, which doesn’t really make sense to me because the dark tower (both the books and the actual tower in them) is the connection point between every world, including every other king book
I think I can actually back up this theory. See, MatPat mentions how Todashing can make you get trapped in the void where monsters lurk if you’re not careful, and in the WIT movie, Meg at multiple points gets trapped in a strange dark place where she feels as if she’s going to die afterwards after Tesseracting, which sounds an awful lot like what would happen if you were trapped in a void full of monsters, and a similar thing happens in 1 of the WIT books I read where before appearing at her destination, Meg was trapped in nothing but a pure black void. And also remember how he said Charles has the Shine, well while losing a father wouldn’t exactly count as abuse, what happens after does. Meg, at multiple times in her life at school, gets bullied because of what happened to her father and bullied in general, Charles sometimes reads her minds during these experiences, meaning he is feeling and going through the abuse that Meg is at the same time she does, effectively making him in a way abused to the point of gaining a Shine. And I also realized something, Mrs. Who. Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit are 3 human-ish people who become stars just like Apon, Casseopeoia, and Lydia, who’s to say those 3 didn’t somehow become the 3 Mrs. And then there’s something else, the fact that the Black Thing is supposedly Pennywise, well while the Black Thing is just something from another planet and Pennywise is said to be from a different universe, that just proves they are 1 and the same. The Black Thing, knowing that others like the Mrs.
I’ve read the book before I saw the movie in theaters. My aunt got me the whole series and because the movie was based on the first book I tried to at least finish the first book. I did and I LOVED it. The movie was amazing, but I was let down a little. They left out sooo many good parts. I started to read the second book but got kinda bored so I started reading a different book. I tried to go back to it but couldn’t. If you also read the book please like this comment. Matt Pat, I love you articles, they are AMAZING. Keep up the AMAZING work. If you can please respond it would mean so much to me. I’m one of your biggest fans. I wish everyone an amazing day, afternoon, evening, or/and night. Have a FANTASTIC second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, life. (P.S. if I spelled your name wrong I’m so sorry I haven’t made a comment on your article including you name.)
There was a Stephen king novel called ‘The Colorado Kid’ which was later adapted into a loosely based TV series called ‘Haven’. Haven is the name of a town also in main, and Derry is a town mentioned as a real place rather frequently. In this show, there are these afflictions creatively named ‘The Troubles’. The troubles were created by a woman who was from another universe. These troubles would cause people to have strange abilities, some of these include: Putting anyone you touch in extreme pain Not being able to feel anything Anything you touch turning to shreds (people included) Only being able to breathe underwater Controlling the weather Being a skin walker Telekenisis Reading minds Moving to fast for anyone to see you And more. These troubles when they were first created over a hundred years ago, would pass through generations of families. Something that’s significant is that emotional trauma is what brings them out. As punishment for creating these ‘Troubles’, the woman who created them was forced into a prison for 27 years, and when she returned to Haven she would have had her memory wiped and have the false memories of another woman given to her, and by the end of her stay there, she would have to return to her prison, and when she did, there would be a meteor shower called ‘The Hunter’ that only happened every 27 years when she went away and the Troubles would be temporarily gone and would come back 27 years later. I have a theory that Carrie could have had a Trouble.
Hey matpat this will probably get lost in this sea of comments but I would like to inform you that humans turning into Stars is actually something very common in older fantasy books one of the most popular books right now that contains a star becoming a human and vice versa is CS Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and another one that contains this is one of my favorite book series James A Owen’s The Chronicles of the Imaginarium geographica and from what I can tell it’s also in a few older folk tales from Europe based on Christian stories
HEY FILM THEORY I see a lot of websites do articles about Pennywise and they always say “IT comes from no place or world known” but the answer literally stares them in the face when they watch the movie called The Dark Tower 1. The theme park graveyard has a sign that literally has Pennywise written on it 2. The monsters from outside the universe look like a form used by Pennywise (mentioned in it 2) 3. These monsters can sense your weaknesses by getting into your head and use them against you in said movie 4. They are said to feed off of fear Would love to see you guys do an explainer on the topic Let’s face it: Pennywise is a Demon from outside the universe that probably got in past a weakness in the barrier when the tower was attacked at some point moving from world to world feeding upon humans
Do you think that maybe the chronicles of Narnia might happen in the Steven king universe too? For one, the kids are always pulled instantly from one world to another, and no matter how long they’re in Narnia, they always get back at the exact moment they left. For another, in Narnia, it is Canon that stars are people, and when they get old, they come back to earth. That would be such an awesome connection! But hey, that’s just a theory. A FILM theory! Thanks for reading.
Gotta part company with the “humans-as-stars” point when it comes to The Dark Tower. Roland was only reciting a parable about the stars used as navigation tools in Roland’s where/when. In A Wrinkle In Time, actual cosmic entities shared details of their lifetime. The similarity of concept is not confirmed.
I feel you had a bit of confirmation-bias for this theory, because there are a multitude of stories in science-fiction during time between WiT and IT that feature similar points. (Stars becoming living creatures, or travelling through Space-Time by specific means.) If I wanted to, I could apply the same thing to various Diana Wynne Jones’ books (i.e. Dogsbody, Fire & Hemlock, Chrestomancy Chronicles, etc.) I don’t think Stephen King would have based his universe on one sci-fi novel to the point one could declare they co-exist in the same universe. I think he took a variety of trends that WiT spawned in sci-fi and implemented them, to be sure, but I don’t think the evidence supports this theory enough.
“That’s a pretty unique concept. Stars that take human form and vice versa.” Is it really such a unique concept? It not only happened in the stories you mentioned, but I also remember it in The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan’s Curse. Not to mention The Blue Fairy in Pinnochio.
I was actually seriously concerned for MatPat’s health until I saw how old this was and realized he wasn’t dead, because I was wondering if he was running a heavy fever when it was made. Most of the connections are very common story tropes, the bit about the “people becoming stars” is only literal in Wrinkle In Time… in Dark Tower it’s a myth, and because that world is a twinner for a version of the ‘real’ world it’s basically based on the whole ‘people becoming constellations thing’ (heck, one of the names is a mangling of Cassiopeia, a real world constellation), which is about as old as surviving fiction itself. Saying it means people literally turn into stars in both worlds is like insisting Slenderman is real in ours because there are myths. And he straight up describes tesseracts and todash space as being two VERY different methods for crossing long distances (one bypasses by warping space time so you aren’t crossing ANY other space, the other is essentially making a shortcut through Cthulhu’s back yard) and then says they’re the same. That’s like saying X-Men’s Magik going through Limbo to teleport is identical to the Star Trek teleporter. There are no valid similarities here. Look, I even liked and saw valid points in the Sans/Ness theory, but this one… I think this was the first Game Theory ep I ever had to downvote.
HEY what about this: The umbrella academy is connected to the Steven king + Wrinkle in time universe because is it weird that ms whatsit, ms who, and me which can travel through time and space just like five?!?! Also is it weird that like the book 11/22/63 season 2 takes place in 63? Also could Bethany be one of the 43 women to give birth to our children? I’m also going to be posting this on the subreddit (just because) and I know it sounds stupid, BUT THIS IS THE KIND OF THEORIES WE TACKLE!
You forgot one thing. Pennywise true form is somthing we can’t comprehend so we see it as a spider wile in the macro verse there is another counter part of IT and we see him/ her as a turtle that wants to help people but doesn’t want to step up to IT but wants to hide in the shadows till help. For instance in IT chapter 2 the turtle gave power to the loser club during their final fight with pennywise. And in the book a wrinkle in time the was a turtle that the brother and sister rode on with the three lady’s I believe that flying turtle is the same turtle from the Stephen king universe. And love you vids btw ❤
am I the only one who never read this book? like, I thought ‘wrinkle in time’ was an expression. maybe its because my elementary school really pushed going to the school library and finding your own books to read for Sustained Silent Reading? and summer reading was to pick from the years list of children’s book awards nominees. they did make us read Animal Farm aloud though – with completely zero context. let me tell you, Animal Farm without context is very confusing. “teacher why are the animals talking – are they like cartoon animals? Can they only understand each other? are they sentient? if they’re sentient why are they on a farm, that sounds illegal? teacher why- teacher stOP LAUGHING!”
Stephen King, like all good authors, borrows elements and ideas from past authors. Look at Richard Matheson, one of the authors who influence Stephen King. He drew inspiration for “I Am Legend” from a screening of Dracula and how the 1930s vampire film was still scared the hell out of people. H.P. Lovecraft, another influential writer King has cited, borrowed the idea of reanimating bodies for his short story set “Dr. Herbert West – Reanimator” from Mary Shelley’s classic “Frankenstein”. King is no different. He uses the poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” as the basis for his magna opus (you think that Dark Tower and a man name Roland just came out of nowhere?). King used “The Lord of The Rings” as the basis for his post-apocalyptic story “The Stand” (King has even said in interviews about how that story influenced his, him saying, “Instead of a Hobbit, I casted a Texan.”). He’s used the name The Space Cowboy in the novel “Gerald’s Game” (the Space Cowboy in particular being from the song “The Joker” by Steve Miller Band). King even borrowed the idea of the Phonies in his novel “Cell” from the zombie films of his best friend and collaborator, George A. Romero. Even his short story “Trucks” and his attempted adaptation of it, “Maximum Overdrive”, both borrow the idea of an animated killer vehicle from the story “Killdozer”. So, all you did was pointed out what anyone who have read his work already knew: King likes to borrow concepts and ideas from past works, often twisting them to fit whatever narrative he came up.
In preschool i was a huuuuge steven king fan, i was like in 3rd ir 4th grade when perusal the movies, i was always amazed by the movies and to me it was just normal that it is all in the same universe, like the shining and it was never a question and eather through the athmosphere of the wrinkles i like figured it out, finally after all these years i can proudly say: i was ducking right the whole time
My English class actually just started reading A Wrinkle in Time recently and are going to see it in theaters next week for a field trip. How convenient that you upload a theory at the same time I’m reading the book and about to see the movie. Also, at 2:41 you say between grades 4 and 7. My school seems to be a bit late on that, seeming that we’re only just reading it now, three quarters through 8th grade.
Another story that features travelling between worlds (with almost no time passing on Earth while away), stars that become human, and a Darkness that can take on different forms and read & affect minds: The Chronicles of Narnia – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (aka VDT), by C. S. Lewis. Many of the themes and elements are also present in other books in the series. (Mild Spoiler warning…) In particular, there are 2 Stars in VDT: Ramandu and his Daughter. There is also possibly a third in the form of Coriakin the magician. The darkness is represented by the Dark Island in VDT, as well as by the ‘god’ Tash in the book “The Last Battle”, who is depicted flying across the sky as a great dark bird.
first time im not convinced at all A GIGANTIC universe of Stephen King that took in all the cliches and possible plot twists that a man can come up with has a few things in common with this super cliche kids book? Sure it will. Same parallels can be drawn between King’s universe and almost any cliche fantasy novel. Example: lets take Harry Potter. Series far from cliche, yet it checks 90% of the points Matt has made here. Voldemort can be seen as shape shifting (his rebirth and change of appearance as he divides his soul) depiction of pure evil (hes evil cause he is just evil, no clear motivation), he can easily get into Harry’s head (books 5-7) and is defeated by the power of love (ending of book 4) and Harry’s will (final battle, you can also draw it out to be a ritual of chud if you wanted to). You can also say that Harry and Voldemort can shine (God knows how many examples). Dumbledore also used to hide his intention to sacrifice Harry and revealed it only after both of them died, you can find some vague proof of Dumbledore being a star, but i’m a lazy ass. Don’t forget space and time travel in Harry Potter, which appeared since book 3; teleportation, time shifting and time wrinkling are all present. Does this all make Harry Potter a part of King’s multiverse? I don’t think so! I just did it of the top of my head without checking on any lore. Last time i’ve read the books was like 6-10 years ago. If you try you can connect literally any fictional story to King’s multiverse, I can do the same with Lord of the Rings or Terry Pratchett’s Flat World without stepping aside from Matt’s points and even expanding the concept further.
so i have a quick question about a wrinkle in time(not to sure if theirs a Netflix version but i watched it on Netflix) my question is in the possible Netflix version a wrinkle in time is that the father of the main characters jumps in a portal when he looks at his wife and children and discovers that love is how he opened the portal so why would he just jump in if he new or thought that itd never open again am i just being a idiot? or is there something there? mat pat (srry if i got ur name wrong im terrible with names) plz explain! also im not to sure if youve already made a article on this or not if u have then just ignore this comment
THEORY: The Tesseract from the wrinkle in Time is the same Tesseract from the Marvel Cinematic Universe aka the Space Stone. This would explain why it can be used to travel through Space very quickly. Idk I didn’t do any research or anything, I just heard “Tesseract” and being the nerd I am I thought of the MCU.
I really wanted you to convince me of this one, because I love both authors, but it fell pretty short for me. The “clincher” of humans-as-stars is a common folk tale/legend archetype, so its use in two books that both explore the classic good vs. evil trope is hardly surprising. Also, IT in WiT doesn’t transform into new shapes, it possesses other beings, unlike IT in King’s book which actually takes a physical form. I know you have to keep these things short and to-the-point, but not acknowledging these nuances makes me doubt your research. I know you can do better than this because I’ve seen you do it. =\\
Even though the monsters or “evil beings” were both called IT, they were still completely different. One just wanted absolute control over everything and didn’t care about fear while the other literally fed on terror. Also Stephen king probably just called the monster IT as a fear tactic, not because it’s the same monster in a wrinkle in time.
I’m from the distant future that is actually five minutes ago. Anyway… I am a 90’s kid that knew of A Wrinkle in Time but for a dumb reason. I never read the book, and thought the phrase A Wrinkle in Time referred not to a book but the phenomenon of your personal awareness of time not being accurate. Example; when you think a few hours have passed when really it’s only been a few minutes or vice versa.
I did not like the movie, it was confusing..however I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt.. in glad I did.. I still did not like how creepy it was and how it made me feel at times..but I think that was the purpose of it to shake us and leave a long lasting impression.. Absentee parents-working all the time Children growing up alone developing insecurities. Battling with negative influences that overtake them. Only the strongest children survive, those who know their inherently strong, loving, kind and secure can overcome the oppression. It takes almost loosing ourselves and our children to shake us from our stupor, hence the painful truth this movie is showing us! Only through love can we appreciate each other! The meaning of this movie is way deeper then many of us sadly care to explore!
I had been waiting for an accurate representation of this timely classic. The 2003 edition made me think it might never have been possible. And then it did. People can say what they want, but anyone who read the series should love the amount of dedication put into it. Because they captured the story as beautifully as in the novel: chaotic, always moving, and yes, even feeling rushed. That was how the novels were, and that worked perfectly in this movie. I very much loved it, and cannot wait to tesser into the next one!
I was underwhelmed by the movie, because I was so stoked to see it. However, change the protagonist to a young white boy, still hate it? Ever seen the Never Ending Story? A lot of similarities (unlikely hero, “the Nothing”, if you don’t pay attention, you won’t get it, bullying, etc.). Because she is a 13 year old physicist, and it’s about the universe, not some fantasy world, no one gets it. But that’s the point…
There were also the many things they got wrong from the book, like Veronica not even being there, the twins Sandy and Dennys not even being mentioned in the movie, and that the beach scene was actually in the white room, later on. However, it was a beautifully done movie, with accurate representations of the characters.
It’s hard to imagine that someone who loved this book, perhaps even loved it as much as I did, made such a disaster of a movie. I don’t mind most of the changes, including the emphasis on diversity and inclusion, but they have missed the entire point of the book to try to create a message that was more fitting with the Hollywood zeitgeist. In the process they missed the beauty and power of the original book and that’s a shame because it is a message we all need to hear.