Timeline

Timeline is a 2003 science fiction adventure film directed by Richard Donner and starring Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, and Anna Friel. Based on Michael Crichton's 1999 novel of the same name, the screenplay concerns a team of present-day archaeology and history students who are sent back in time to medieval France to rescue their professor from the middle of a battle. Jerry Goldsmith composed the original score, which would have been his last before his death in 2004 (his actual last score was Looney Tunes: Back in Action), but it was replaced with a new score by Brian Tyler, after the first cut was re-edited and Goldsmith's increasing health problems prevented him from continuing. The film was poorly received by critics and bombed at the box office, losing an estimated $49 million. Plot Professor Edward Johnston leads an archaeological study of the village of Castlegard, near LaRoque Castle in Dordogne, France, the site of the 1357 hanging of Lady Claire, sister to Arnaut de Cervole. Her martyrdom led France to win the Hundred Years War against the English. Johnston's team includes Scottish archaeologist André Marek; Johnston's students Kate Erickson, Josh Stern, and François Dontelle; and his son Chris who is infatuated with Kate. While excavating a nearby monastery, they find a sarcophagus containing the remains of a French knight with a lopped ear, holding the hand of his lady, an unheard-of practice for the time.