User Reviews

Don't read this if you don't want to know the ending punch line of the film. You shouldn't read public reviews if you are touchy about spoilers. This review endeavors to answer a few questions about the movie details & ending. All of the following details were included in the dialogue, so this is not conjecture.

This movie requires close attention to the dialogue to catch the explanations & back stories. You can't play on the internet, text or have noise distractions during the movie without missing subtle details.

Although it has bland scenery and a slow pace, I found the ending quite haunting. It has one of the most unusual endings I've ever seen.

Some reviewers seem to be confused by the ending. Apparently, a few didn't catch on. There was no "lack of food" or "cannibalism" theme in this movie as a few stated. It was a lack of "FUEL" for their vehicles (which had been modified to use "people" for fuel).

If you remember the earlier dialogue, the time travelers described finding groups of mentally challenged, deaf and otherwise handicapped survivors in the future who mostly lived wild, grubbing for potatoes, roots and anything else they could find. They were simple-minded and childlike but friendly. In fact, the group had brought along one of these simple-minded girls they found during their trek.

These future simple-minded survivors were the sources of fuel being used by the elite future humans who tucked them inside the modified trunk (boot) of their car which converted them into fuel. Hence the scream when the car started. The child expressed concerned about what would they use for fuel when they ran out of the simpleminded or if they would then use each other (the elite) for fuel. The parents assured their child that since they had "just put one in, it would be quite a while until they would need another." (referring to the person they had just placed into the vehicle fuel compartment located in the trunk.)

Other areas of confusion in reviews were:

How far in the future: It was stated as 56 years (from 1973 when it was filmed or 2029). However, at the end, Karen adjusted the machine date settings prior to escaping her pursuers. When she emerged the last time, Arthur's body had completely decomposed; campsite gone; flagpole broken & the metal drink containers seriously eroded. Probably around the year 2100 at the end.

Government knowledge: They repeatedly mentioned the government was not informed of the time differential achieved by their project and only knew about the point to point material transference (without time travel.) However, having witnessed Karen's transference, they would have investigated further.

Removal of pants: They could not have any metal or heavy clothing on during transfer. Pants contain zippers, buttons, snaps, etc. No metal dental work. All metal items were stored in the material transfer compartment. Thin shirts and underwear were OK to wear during transfer. No nudity or revealing scenes.

No older time travelers: Over the age of 20, suffered from bleeding kidneys and died a few days later. This was the fate of Louis.

The screwdriver: When Karen escaped her pursuers, she had taken the screwdriver into the future with her (as a tool & weapon). It was in her possession when the family found her. The child looking at the screwdriver expressed concerns whether the girl was actually one of the simple-minded used for fuel.

Reproduction: The group learned that they were all sterile from the time transfer and informed Karen she could not be pregnant. In disbelief, she returned to the transfer point to inform Arthur of her perceived pregnancy by him.

Train: Ronald told Karen it was full of body bags presumably from the coastal region.

Apocalypse: When Isa drove Karen to see the lava beds, Isa mentioned they had traveled to other Idaho towns and found them abandoned. Also, no radio signals or air traffic and the project building torn down in the future.

Lava field: The lava field existed in both timelines but a physical displacement of 11 miles into the lava fields between timelines. Only the location varied. Karen's sister drove her to see the lava field in the present just before they gave the hitchhikers a ride. (the only hippies or hippie talk. Less than 1 minute of film.)

Ecology: No reference during the movie. There was only a vague mention of a calamity which decimated the population. Nuclear was a possible theory. The only real reference to shortages was the final scene where humans became the source of fuel for vehicles.

Deteriorating mentality: One reviewer suggested possible contaminants caused the simpleminded future inhabitants & may have afflicted Leslie & Karen. Leslie was also panicked at being trapped when she flipped. A lava bed is no place to find sustenance when supplies ran out. Karen also spent time in a clinic where she was raped. Plus her concussion and no food or water. Multiple time transfers could also be a factor.

Trapped: Many reviewers referenced the group trapped in the future. Yet, they were planning to stay in the future from the onset to escape the apocalypse. They were stocking & planning to bring more people. They rushed back in to escape as the Feds were shutting them down. They were escaping a holocaust & planning to restore the future. They did not know about their sterility until the very end. Leslie was the only one who changed her mind.

Regarding bad DVD copies: You can obtain a very clean DVD copy of this movie in one of those 100 sci-fi classic DVD movie packs on Amazon for very cheap. Be sure to check the list of movies on the movie pack to ensure you chose the correct set. There are several similar movie pack collections.

This is the kind of film I usually like and I went into it with reasonably high expectations. Boy, was I disappointed. I've read many of the other reviews posted here before I wrote this. The spare or minimalist quality that others mentioned is true, and I didn't mind it. But there's got to be some kind of narrative thread or tension to go with it. I didn't find one here. In fact, the running time (just under 90 mins) could easily have been 30 mins or 300 mins; it wouldn't have mattered. There was no plot, per se, and that's what's wrong with this film. It does have a vaguely hypnotic quality which is why a 5 hr running time wouldn't have changed my reaction much.

One reviewer called it a cross between a brilliant masterpiece and an idiotic mess. The first is certainly far from true. I'd change the latter to "self-indulgent" or maybe "stoned" mess.

I'd love to get on board with this one, folks, but I simply can't. The three stars I awarded it are for the skin. I'm serious about this. This IS a time travel movie. It will take YOU back to the '70s and I found it delightful to see those gorgeous young women parading around, almost constantly, in the panties. Gratuitous, yes, but no complaints here.

To put the story into context, Peter Fonda's IDAHO TRANSFER is essentially a tale about intellectual free spirits(.."cerebral" hippies, I guess you could say)who use a time traveling device to enter the future, studying an area where no life seems to exist due perhaps to a nuclear holocaust. The only ones able to travel in time are young, around age twenty..it seems that if ones older than, say, thirty-ish suffer kidney problems which kill. It is established that the time traveling machine is a secret operation using government funds, and those who move forward in time(..most of them)consider remaining, hoping to perhaps make their own home elsewhere. The film focuses on Karen(Kelly Bohanon, in quite a fascinating performance), an oddball who desires to have a child, who loses her sister due to a series of accidents. Karen(..already affected by a rape)never quite recovers from the death of sister Isa(Caroline Hildebrand)and decides to remain in the future, falling in love with Arthur(Keith Carradine). Nerdy, but sweet Ronald(Kevin Hearst)becomes Karen's confident and friend, and they set out ahead of their commune to find Portland, awaiting the others who follow behind. Arthur and crippled Jennifer(Meredith Hull)remain with disturbed Leslie(Dale Hopkins)who seems to be slipping into madness due to the fact that the time traveling device's control mechanism seems inoperable with the idea of not returning to her own time too difficult a burden to bare. Along the way, though, Karen realizes she must return to Arthur, leaving the group out on her own which will yield devastating consequences.

Obviously, director Peter Fonda was speaking out regarding man's destroying mother earth to fuel the resources we need to survive. We rape and pillage the land and what's underneath it, leaving a barren wasteland. The climax, quite audacious, shows that mankind has become "energy cannibals", the supply for such resources coming from another source. Striking / gorgeous cinematography creating a spellbinding use of the location of Idaho. I think Fonda chooses certain beautiful natural locations to further his message that these places can remain this way if we quit ruining them with our desires for energy consumption. It's an ecological parable, through and through, with off-beat characters and an unpredictable story-line with quite a heady conclusion right out of left field. Karen is quite a multi-faceted character, full of differing emotions, and it's an interesting choice by Fonda to focus on her character instead of someone like Carradine's or Hearst's. She makes some questionable decisions which come back to haunt her, but Karen is a spontaneous kind of character who often follows her heart, even when it costs her dearly. The film is very much a fixture of it's time, but Fonda gives us quite a unusual contribution to the post-apocalypse genre.

I saw this in the movie theatres--it lasted an entire week. I see it as film that couldn't decide if it was telling a story or Sending A Message. On the plus side, Fonda got a lot out of a small budget and three locations. The time-travel scenes are simple but effective. Mountains of the Moon was an inspired choice. The lead actress was lovely... and little else. The acting in this film is remarkably uninspiring. But I am fairly demanding of science fiction films, and this one fails in crucial areas. For instance, the restriction of time travel to young people. Maybe this was explained in some plausible way, but I think I would have remembered it. It seems a plot add-on to Make A Statement About The Righteousness of the Youth Movement. The film drags once the time travelers get into the desert. And the ending... **Here comes the spoiler**. If food is so scarce that the future people have to resort to cannibalism, it seems mighty inconsistent to me that they still have the wherewithal to drive cars into the desert. Having cars implies a technological infrastructure, which in turn implies the presence of people smart enough to find a food source. I seriously doubt that everyone woke up one morning, realized all their food was gone, and suddenly decided to eat people. This movie is a prime example of what happens when Hollywood types think they know how to make a science fiction film.

I wouldn't say this is one of the all-time great sci-fi films, but it does very well with what it has.

The time travel machine (and the reasons for using it) is more plausible than any other I've seen in movies or TV, and the story, though not fast moving, does keep you interested.

However, I was disappointed by the "Soylent Green" type revelation at the end; it wasn't in character with the rest of the film (though it was cool in a creepy kind of way... I know that if I had seen this movie when I was a kid, that last scene would have stuck with me forever, though I probably would have forgotten the rest!)

Idaho Transfer is one of those odd little movies you run into just when you think you've finally seen all the obscure 70's youth themed sci-fi flicks- I blundered into it by accident when I bought a $10 for 10 DVD pack of bad apocalypse-themed flicks. It involves a group of young researchers who are projected forwards into time 56 years at a super-secret government lab in a remote area of Idaho. Their landing zone/base camp is in a desolate lava field some miles away; and in this future, there's no apparent sign of human civilization to be found, as an apparent catastrophe has wiped it out! When suspicious government officials shut the project down, the youths flee into this unknown future... Like any number of films made during this time period, there's a bit of a token anti-establishment vibe in places; among other things, it is indicated that time traveling is fatal for those who are 'much over 20' (the one guy who tries it does indeed die, thus polishing off all 'good' adult characters before the movie is halfway over) and the 'government officials' who close the facility are the standard suit-wearing guys with bad haircuts, no wisdom, and no lines. The kids get trapped in the future and vent all the appropriate 'heavy thoughts' about how maybe the end of the human race is a good thing (they run into some apparently degenerate human descendants who are deaf, mute, and retarded and the kids make a point of mentioning several times how 'kind' and 'happy' they are, for example) and then it all degenerates into some Lord of The Flies style violence between two of the gals before the ending, which is so utterly cheesy that I refuse to try and ruin it for you. Trust me- it will disappoint you on so many levels. However, there are some things the movie gets right. The idea it starts out with is a compelling one, and the choice of scenery (the Craters Of The Moon national monument) is right-on. This is a low-budget movie, but the most unsettling feeling was squeezed from every dollar. Even the time machine itself, with its low-key brushed steel panels and dymo labeled warning to deposit all metal objects in the tray (apparently wearing metal while being 'transferred' can cause injury) looks somehow more 'real' than ones costing millions in later films. I can't write this one off, just wonder if there's an alternate future in which a decent script was written for it...

This is not a movie for folks who don't like to think. Though the reason for the future crisis is not given, nor the fate of party headed for the coast, the few clues dropped on what is going on is interesting.

There are also hints of WWII treatment of the Jews with people in cattle cars and the retarded turned out into the wilderness to die or be used. Not to mention the blonde future girl - images of the perfect 'master race'.

Also mentioned was that the lab was torn down and they didn't know why. Add the images of the military taking over and them witnessing Karen using the transfer machine, makes the watcher wonder if the device was dismantled and put somewhere else and the idea born to use people as energy instead of fossil fuels.

Though the film has many plot holes, the over all concept is interesting with its many literary touches mixed with Science Fiction elements. It is also a haunting film that sticks in the mind.

I ran across this version, titled 'Idaho Transfer', in a pack of films titled 'Nightmare Worlds', (mentioned by another commenter), expecting something useful to put me to sleep at night. The movie is indeed spare, low budget and not the best acted I've ever seen, but it is haunting, perhaps because of the many unanswered questions the plot raises and never answers (not necessarily a bad thing), or maybe because of the shocking ending.

The female lead is attractive, and it's not a hardship to watch her 'time travel' scenes, but her acting is pretty amateurish, though not out of line with other 70s grade B movie actresses, and perhaps explainable by the considerable shocks she experiences throughout the film, including her sister's death, and a revelation of a physical effect the time travel has had on all the travelers.

The concept of a team of naive young researchers trying to save what they can of mankind, and coming to a bad end, kind of makes this movie a 70s cinematic version of the medieval 'Children's Crusades', which had equally poor results for the participants.

There DOES seem to be confusion here as to what role, exactly, the female protagonist 'Karen' is to play at the end, though - fossil fuel, or dinner?

Actually, the above summary may be a little harsh: although Fonda's direction will have you on the edge of your seat only if you consider walking (which takes up at least 60% of this movie) the height of excitement, equally, if not more, responsible for this catastrophic failure is the script, which manages to completely botch a potentially cool idea. The result is an incomprehensible mishmash which plays more like a hippie road movie than a sci-fi/post-apocalyptic tale. The obvious lack of a decent budget certainly does not help, but it's not the main detriment here. One of the worst movies I have watched in the last few months. 0.5 out of 4 stars.

I like films that don't tell you everything. Unfortunately, this film tells you nothing. Once you get passed the main premise, nothing is explained, apart from "Do humans survive in the end?" and "Is there going to be a gratuitous boob-shot?". SPOILER QUESTIONS: What's the deal with the girl's father, why are the government investigating, why doesn't the government use the machine, were there bodies in the train, what happened to the other people who transferred, why didn't they bury a huge store of food and supplies so they could use it in the future, why didn't they ever try going to another time..? It is also nice to have a film that contains elements that aren't essential to the plot, and this film has them in spades, but a little more explanation would have been nice.

The film is pretty well directed, and some of the main actors are okay (others are bad). The ending is really bad. It is like they wanted something really profound, but ended up with something very cheesy and almost nonsensical.

Overall, I'd say the film is pretty interesting. It is a quiet builder. I got it as part of a 50 DVD pack called Nightmare Worlds.