Rating: 
Summary: Captivating 80's Sci-Fi!
Review: "Well... We've got our experiment now, don't we?" That's what the scientist at the Time Travel command center say's, after discovering that a Man on a motorcycle was thrown back in time. Fred ward and Bad Guy, Peter Coyote & Posse do a remarkably great job in this movie. The cast selected for this movie was Top Notch. The bonus is beautiful brunet Actress, Belinda Bauer, who plays a Hottie with brians & a gun! Michael Nesmith should be acknowledged for his contributions to the music. The Soundtrack is EXCELLENT! It was taylor-made for the movie and ads to the experience. You'll love the dialog, music and his cool gadgets! Open your mind and sit back... You'll enjoy it! (It also helps if you're not a stuck-up movie critic like Leonard Maltin, who gets paid to trash movies.) This movie is long overdue on DVD. I think they should have released a soundtrack too! !!REMEMBER, THIS MOVIE IS AN INDEPENDANT RELEASE... SUPPORT INDEPENDANT MOVIES!!...
Rating:
Summary: Captivating 80's Sci-Fi!
Review: "Well... We've got our experiment now, don't we?" That's what the scientist at the Time Travel command center say's, after discovering that a Man on a motorcycle was thrown back in time. Fred ward and Bad Guy, Peter Coyote & Posse do a remarkably great job in this movie. The cast selected for this movie was Top Notch. The bonus is beautiful brunet Actress, Belinda Bauer, who plays a Hottie with brians & a gun! Michael Nesmith should be acknowledged for his contributions to the music. The Soundtrack is EXCELLENT! It was taylor-made for the movie and ads to the experience. You'll love the dialog, music and his cool gadgets! Open your mind and sit back... You'll enjoy it! (It also helps if you're not a stuck-up movie critic like Leonard Maltin, who gets paid to trash movies.) This movie is long overdue on DVD. I think they should have released a soundtrack too! !!REMEMBER, THIS MOVIE IS AN INDEPENDANT RELEASE... SUPPORT INDEPENDANT MOVIES!! By the way, fans of this movie should check out Michael Nesmiths website: www.videoranch.com
Rating: 
Summary: Umm, Don't Think So ...
Review: Dated ridiculous camp about a biker who inadvertantly travels back into the days of the wild West.Take my word for it: there are better ways to spend two hours and twenty bucks.
Rating: 
Summary: This version has been HACKED!
Review: Don't waste your money on this DVD. The original movie was excellent, but this DVD version has had a crucial scene at the end altered. The scene of the villian's demise is inexplicably replaced by a scene of the villian ducking. If you listen closely, you can still hear the sound of the rotors shredding him, but the visual of his bloody boots is gone. There is therefore no payoff, it's like watching Star Wars and not having the Death Star explode at the end (my apologies if you're one of the 5 people who haven't seen Star Wars and I've just ruined the ending for you).
Rating: 
Summary: Motocross Western Style
Review: Fred Ward and Peter Coyote turn in good performances in this time travel movie. Ward is accidently thrown back to the Old West when riding his motocross bike in a race. He stumbles across a time travel experiament and ends up back in the late 1800s. Coyote wants his bike at any cost and it's a game of cat and mouse for Ward to keep it from him. And if that doesn't get your interest, he has sex with his great great grandmother. Talk about a paradox.
Rating:
Summary: Timerider: 3 Stars For Film, 1 Star for the Re-Edit Ending.
Review: Fred Ward stars in another film that emphasized the main character in the title. Ward was in a film called REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES. The original title when this film was released was called TIMERIDER: THE ADVENTURE OF LYLE SWAN. A motocross racer (Swan/Ward),circa 1980's, is caught in a time travel experiment with motorcycle in tow, and is unwittingly sent back to around the 1870's. Then he is chased down by gunslinging cowboys who want his 'machine'.This reviewer fondly remembers seeing this film 20 plus years ago and it seemed to be more fun and adventurous (probably because this reviewer was watching it with a bunch of drinking buddies). Seeing it again, it didn't hold up as it seemed to be slow and left a lot of things unexplained. Also, one of the other reviews on this page for TIMERIDER confirmed my suspicions. One of the memorable sequences is near the end when Peter Coyote's character, Reese, is decapitated by a helicopter and all that's left was was his upright empty boots on a cliff with blood and smoke coming out of them. The DVD version is totally different as Reese just stops shooting and is seen just ducking down to avoid the helicopter as Lyle Swan (Ward) escapes. It didn't make sense, and it took away from the whole atmosphere of the film. Otherwise, the rest of the film is a decent time travel story and with a slight social commentary of old world meeting new world in terms of technology and mechanization (i.e. Lyle Swan's motorcycle is perceived in the 1870's as an evil entity). The film is helped with a great support cast with Richard Masur (THE THING),TRACEY WALTER (BATMAN, CITY SLICKERS), Ed Lauter (THE LONGEST YARD),L.Q. Jones,Peter Coyote, and a sexy Belinda Bauer. Michael Nesmith (THE MONKEES) was the co-producer, co-screenwriter, and did the music score. He even makes a non-speaking cameo in the film (he's one of the spectators (in a close-up scene) watching Lyle Swan riding on his 'bike' in the desert motocycle racing sequences in the first part of the film.) Overall, a film that is a curiosity because Michael Nesmith was involved in its production. However, it doesn't hold up as an adventure film in terms of its popcorn action and its the filmaking techniques. Lastly, the re-edited ending with Peter Coyote's character living through the helicopter sequence was unnecessary.
Rating:
Summary: They blew it over 3 lousy seconds
Review: I give the movie 4 stars; the DVD, 2. I wish I had read the Amazon reviews before I picked this DVD up last night--but then, why would I have expected that anything had changed? I've been a fan of this flick since its theatrical release, so I was very happy to have TIMERIDER on DVD finally, and pleased with the transfer, but the TV/airline-version ending completely BITES. "Okay, here comes the tail rotor...and I can hear Reese (Coyote) screaming...and all those squishy sound effects...but...but...YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!" (Good thing I was home alone.) According to sources, the DVD was made from the "only usable negative available." Uh...sure. I find it impossible to believe that Michael "Mr. Video" Nesmith couldn't find a single viable source in his files for THREE WHOLE SECONDS of film. Laserdisc? How about digitally cleaning up a VHS tape? Unfreakinbelievable. Am I upset? You're darn tootin' I am. Sometimes "little" things matter A LOT.
Rating: 
Summary: They changed the ending?!?
Review: I haven't purchased the DVD yet either, but I saw "Timerider" in the theatre when it first came out and I also own a video version. It is one of my personal favorites, but I'm knocking a point off for the ending change that everyone has mentioned. That's a shame. My favorite aspect of the movie is how it never occurs to the residents of 1870's Mexico that Lyle is from the future and that Lyle never clues into the fact that he's been thrown back into the past. (If that makes him appear dense as one reviewer has pointed out, so be it. I'm sure that no one expects motorcycle racers to be rocket scientists.) Look for the Hitchcockian cameo by Michael Nesmith early in the movie. (Also recommended is Nesmith's Elephant Parts DVD--his extremely warped commentary alone is worth the price.)
Rating:
Summary: They changed the ending?!?
Review: I haven't purchased the DVD yet either, but I saw "Timerider" in the theatre when it first came out and I also own a video version. It is one of my personal favorites, but I'm knocking a point off for the ending change that everyone has mentioned. That's a shame. My favorite aspect of the movie is how it never occurs to the residents of 1870's Mexico that Lyle is from the future and that Lyle never clues into the fact that he's been thrown back into the past. (If that makes him appear dense as one reviewer has pointed out, so be it. I'm sure that no one expects motorcycle racers to be rocket scientists.) Look for the Hitchcockian cameo by Michael Nesmith early in the movie. (Also recommended is Nesmith's Elephant Parts DVD--his extremely warped commentary alone is worth the price.)
Rating:
Summary: A reasonably enjoyable (albeit a bit bumpy) TimeRide
Review: I remember going to see this at the local 'plex with a friend when it first came out, and I rather enjoyed the experience. Now, after seeing it again for the first time in almost two decades, I found it to be a fairly standard western/time-travel adventure with a smidge of romance, and a dollop of fish-out-of-water comedy thrown in for good measure. Our hero (Fred Ward), a famous Baja racing motocross biker testing out a few high-tech tchochkes (well, they tried to make the tchochkes look high-tech, anyway, but like the "futuristic" gadgetry seen in the original "Star Trek" show, they ended up kinda dated), somehow manages to stumble into some time-traveling experiment out in a remote part of the desert, and gets transported back to the old west. All the while he never seems to know that he's gone back in time, despite several cues & clues thrown at him during his stay. The aforementioned fish-out-of-water comedic elements are occasionally amusing, but most of 'em are a bit too subtle or are not pulled off quite as effectively as they could have been (the director acknowledges this problem in the commentary track). Fortunately, the main heavy and his two bumbling henchmen pick up the levity as they set out to take the "futuristic" dirt bike for themselves. In the meantime, the hero manages to get a little action with a surprisingly assertive woman, which sets up the tried-and-true travel movie gimmick known as... well, that's be givin' away too much if ya ain't seen this yet, so I won't discuss this particular point any further. All in all, I found "TimeRider" a not-half-bad waste of an hour and a half, with the nostalgic angle enhanced by the early 80s adventure film rock music soundtrack that relied heavily on synthesizer keyboard melodies. Even the old west scenes have this kinda music, only more old west-y in sound... if that makes any sorta sense. It ain't no "Back to the Future", but it'll do in a pinch... But wait, there's more: what is a movie DVD without the obligatory theatrical trailer or two? In this instance, they threw two trailers in as well as several TV spots. BTW it was the TV spots that got my seven-year-old brain thinkin' to myself, "Hey, that movie looks kinda cool! Maybe I can harangue my older friend who lives a cross the street to go see it with me at the local multiplex!" Which is what I eventually did... Then there was the big surprise: a feature-length commentary track by the movie's director! Never in a million years did I ever think "TimeRider" would have a commentary track devoted to it, but there ya have it. Anyhoo, he goes over the usual technical stuff, talks about certain scenes and moments he felt could've been done a little better, and shows his penchant for nepotism by pointing out the various relatives he used as extras in some of the scenes. He also discusses the lessons he learned shooting the movie, which was his first feature film as a director. Ya know, the kinda stuff you usually hear in a commentary track... Now I'm gonna go off on a tangent for a moment here, but... I had a bear of a time trying to find this on video OR DVD anywhere! I went to just about every online store looking for it, and failed to get any results whatsoever on their search engines. Fortunately, I caught sight of the DVD at an "old-fashioned" brick-and-mortar setup, and found out why my searches were unsuccessful: I was typing the movie's title into the online stores' search engines as two separate words (Time Rider), rather than as one compound word (TimeRider)! I guess none of the online stores I checked out could be bothered to have their search keywords set up to where both "Time Rider" and "TimeRider" would lead to a hit for this movie... And on another tangent: I coulda' sworn there was a scene near the end where one of the bad guys got blown up by a stick of dynamite or something off-camera, and after the explosion the camera cuts to a pair of bloody, tattered boots hitting the ground. Am I thinkin' of a different movie here? I could have sworn it was here where I saw that scene. If anybody knows which flick I'm talkin' about where this moment appears, drop me an e-mail, willya? Thanks. BTW I know it's not "Raising Arizona"... Anyhoo, I gotta skate. I'm gonna go watch my other fave Fred Ward action/adventure movie that I haven't seen in a long time: "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins"! I tell ya, I'm so excited to finally see that flick again, I'm havin' trouble maintainin' bladder control... 'Late!
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