Hot Tub Time Machine

"It must be some kind of... hot tub time machine ." *stares intently at viewers*

—Nick Webber-Agnew

A 2010 film directed by Steve Pink (the guy who did Accepted). Three friends (Adam, Lou and Nick), and Adam's nephew Jacob take a trip to a ski resort where Adam, Lou and Nick used to hang out to relive good times after Lou attempts suicide. However, while getting drunk in a hot tub, Lou spills some Chernobly (a type of Russian Red Bull) onto the hot tub controls, turning it into a time machine. The hot tub sends the four back to 1986, where Adam, Lou and Nick have regained their youth and replaced their 1986 selves. (Jacob, for some reason, is not a zygote. This goes unexplained, though he occasionally goes static like a television image with poor reception.)

A hot-tub repairman (played by Chevy Chase), who may or may not be Mr. Exposition, occasionally drops by to have Cryptic Conversations about how to return to 2010 and the consequences of changing the past. This, however, doesn't stop the three from trying, much to the dismay of Jacob, who feels that their actions may put his very existence in jeopardy via the Butterfly Effect.

The last film to be distributed by MGM before its bankruptcy and reorganization as a pure producer and co-funder.

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Tropes used in Hot Tub Time Machine include:

• Actor Allusion: One scene features the line: "I want my two dollars!" which is a reference to Better Off Dead, one of Cusack's earliest films (which also took place at a ski resort). Also on seeing all the drugs in Adam's suitcase, Jacob says "What are you, Hunter S. Thompson?" to which Adam replies, "I thought I was." John Cusack was close friends with Thompson, and attended his funeral. On a more meta note, Cusack had also campaigned for the role of the Thompson equivilant in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a role that eventually went to Johnny Depp.
• Almighty Janitor: Ok, Almighty Hot Tub Repairman.
• Analogy Backfire:

Adam: By the way, where does it say in the fucking Friendship Handbook that you are the only one who's allowed any fucking problems?
Lou: I forgot that it says in the Asshole Handbook that you can just fuck over your friends whenever you want!
Adam: Actually, it would say that in the Asshole Handbook if it was, like, guidelines for being an asshole, that's what it would say.

• Artistic License History: Contrary to what the writers would have you believe, they had snowboards back in '86. Most ski resorts still didn't allow them, but being a ski patroller, Blaine could reasonably be expected to know what one is.
• Aside Glance: Nick, after the Title Drop.
• Bad Future: Inverted, as the movie starts out in one.
• Basement Dweller: Played straight as an arrow with Jacob.
• Biggus Dickus: Nick.
• Bloody Hilarious: The bellhop finally losing his arm.
• Calling the Old Man Out: "I always knew there was a reason I hated you!"
• Chekhov's Gunman: The squirrel Lou projectile vomits on later changes the original outcome of a football game Lou bet on.
• Cluster F-Bomb
• Coitus Uninterruptus
• Delayed Ripple Effect: Jacob.
• Dirty Communists: The time travelers are mistaken for these after Blaine and the ski patrol find their modern cell phones and MP3 players (which they think are spy gadgets), and their can of Chernobly.
• The Eighties: Where our protagonists end up. Everything's so exaggerated, you can't tell whether for comedic purposes or because the characters are travelling back to their half-forgotten youth.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: This movie is about a hot tub, which acts as a time machine.
• Eye Scream: Averted with Adam, who was stabbed in the eyebrow. Still, pretty close call.
• Fight Fur Your Right to Party: a guy in a bear suit suddenly appears during the Binge Montage.
• For Want of a Nail: Their very presence seems to have changed the outcome of an NFL playoff game.
• Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: Mötley Lüe, Lou's multi-platinum-selling band in which he rose to fame after deciding to stay in the past.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: On Lou:

Nick: You know how every group of friends has that one asshole? He's our asshole.

• Heroic Bastard: Jacob, at least until Lou (who, it turns out, is Jacob's father) changes the past so that he and Adam's sister get married.)
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Martin Blank, Darrel, that one dude from The Daily Show and one of Dave Lizewski's friends travel to the 1980s and run into George McFly, Johnny Lawrence, Marlena Diamond and Clark Griswold.
  • Not to mention a memorable appearance by Megan Draper.
• Historical In-Joke: The Red Bull-like Russian beverage "Chernobly" made the time machine work and brought the gang back to 1986 at the height of ski season, mere weeks prior to the Chernobyl incident.
• I Choose to Stay: Lou. Adam also choses to stay behind, but ends up falling into the hot tub during the return trip. Lou was probably right to do so, since the other characters don't know about their exploits between 1986 and the present day.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Adam, Nick and Jacob walk in on Lou having sex with Adam's sister, meaning Jacob witnesses his own conception...sort of. When he tries to attack Lou, he disappears. Coitus Uninterruptus has to ensue to ensure Jacob lives.
• It's Not You, It's Me: Played straight, both when Adam originally broke up with his girlfriend, and again in the Alternate Timeline when she dumps him, which she was gonna do anyway.
• Knight Templar: Blaine and his ski patrol friends. They have a legitimate mission of maintaining law and order on the mountain, but they use this and the Red Scare as an excuse to be Jerkasses.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After Nick says, "It's some kind of hot tub-time machine".
• A Little Something We Call Hip-Hop - After performing his cover of Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl", Nick gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome and a Crowning Music of Awesome in one shot when he wows the audience with his rendition of "Let's Get it Started" by Black Eyed Peas
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: April.
• The Masochism Tango: Lou and Kelly. And loving it!
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is the Cryptic Conversation spouting repairman just a repairman and maybe a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander, or is he some sort of Time Police?
  • The deleted scenes indicate that he's also a time traveller.
• Mental Time Travel: For everyone but Jacob.
• Metalhead: Teenage Lou has long hair, a leather jacket, and an Iron Maiden t-shirt.
• Mistaken for Spies: See Dirty Communists.
• "Mister Sandman" Sequence: When the four walk into the ski lodge. Leg warmers, Reagan, Eighties Hair, Miami Vice T-shirts, cassette players, cell phones the size of bricks, MTV playing music videos, and more all set the mood.
• Narrating the Obvious: Lampshaded: "Do I really gotta be the asshole that says we got in this thing and went back in time?"
  • Also doubles as a Title Drop and a Crowning Moment of Funny: "It's some kind of ... Hot Tub Time Machine!" (Stare significantly at the audience)
• Never Trust a Trailer: Nick's best line in the trailer, re: his fetish for The Golden Girls, isn't in the movie.
• Noodle Incident: Cincinnati, and "Great white buffalo."
  • Based on the times its mentioned, it's hinted that "Great White Buffalo" is actually April, after she moved on, had kids, and let herself go.
• No Ontological Inertia: Played with with Jacob, who has perplexing ontological inertia.
• Obi Wan: Parodied with the repairman.
• The Obi-Wannabe: The repairman delivers lots of cryptic and ominous-sounding warning, from which the gang infers that doing anything differently will screw up the timeline in unpredictable ways. They end up defying him, and it turns out to be 100% BS!
• Orange-Blue Contrast: The whole movie has a deep teal and orange tint.
• Percussive Maintenance: Jacob, when he starts going static.
• Pretty in Mink: Being the 80s, and in ski country, several ladies of course wear some fur coats, including one woman wearing her fur jacket open, with a bikini top underneath.
• Revival by Commercialization: The song "Home Sweet Home" by Motley Crue received a brief boost in popularity following the release of this film.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: When the gang comes back to the future, they have no memory of Lougle or the success that they have enjoyed for the last few decades.
• Rule of Funny: The overriding principle in the name of which all errors mentioned herein can easily be excused.
• Running Gag: The bellhop repeatedly failing to lose his arm in situations where he should have.
  • In the deleted scenes, it's revealed that Miss Only-Does-Two-Guys-At-A-Time ensnared a significant percentage of the male cast during the night, but each time one of them running off.
• Screw Destiny
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: What the guys end up doing once they summon up the brass to defy the repairman and do things the way they wish they had.
• Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll: Check, check, and check!
• Shout-Out: A very subtle one to Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy. It's squirrels instead of mice, but there's clearly more than meets the eye going on with them.
  • Also, while Adam is talking with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the house they broke into, a quick "Okay, so you're a Time Lord, and this hot tub is your space ship."
    • This scene is also framed like the final scene of "Sixteen Candles."
  • As noted above, "I want my two dollars!" is a reference to Cusack's early film Better Off Dead. (it's even mentioned as a DVD subtitle).
  • When Lou finally snaps and beats up Blaine it's an obvious (shot-for-shot and punch-for-punch) reference to a similar scene in "A Christmas Story."
    • And just before that happens, someone in the room shouts "Get a body bag!"
• Spiritual Successor: From the Time Travel, to the "Mister Sandman" Sequence, to standing up to the bully and his toadies, to the A Little Something We Call Hip-Hop scene, to the search for the Applied Phlebotinum in order to get back, this is Back to The Future for a new generation... or more like the same generation, but inverted.
  • Not to mention a minor part played by Crispin Glover (AKA George McFly).
• The Stoner: Adam has enough illegal drugs in his briefcase to overdose an elephant.
• Strawman Political: You sort of get a sense of where the filmmakers' politics are at the point where it's implied that having to live through Reagan's presidency again would be worse than going to Hell. Luckily that's about the only time it's really brought up.
• Suck E. Cheese's: Adam's dad died after going to one of these.
• Technology Marches On: Pointed out in-universe.

Nick: Somethin's goin' on in here. Dude is rockin' a cassette player. !

• The Slow Path: Lou stays behind in the past to become rich and make sure that the events of this weekend propelled them into a Better Future. He suffers no ill effects because it is Mental Time Travel
• Time Travelers Are Spies: One of the medics at the ski resort believes the main characters are Russian spies.
• Time Travel for Fun and Profit: Lou, big time. To a lesser extent, all the time travelers, although they were not aware until they came back.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: The hot tub causes a Mental Time Travel effect for Lou, Adam and Nick, but physically transports Jacob into the past.
• Title Drop: So obvious it's Anvilicious.
  • And Lampshaded.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Depending on which trailer you saw, one of them shows Violator aboard the huge yacht he bought himself after inventing Lougle, therefore spoiling the fact that he stays in the past. Nice.
  • Another trailer showed Jacob seeing his mother in 1986, and then shows her in bed with Lou saying "I feel pregnant."
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: A particularly nasty one. For extra credit bonus points, it hits a squirrel.
• What Year Is This? = What color is Michael Jackson?
• Wild Mass Guessing: See the Time Lord category for details (one of the few of these that isn't incredibly contrived).
  • To be fair, Blaine isn't the brightest bulb on the tree, and a Deleted Scene has a skier tell Jacob that she's "never seen a real snowboard up close before."