History Recap / BackToTheFuture

Marty wakes up the next morning, convinced his time travel adventure was just a nightmare, but when he goes into the dining room for breakfast, he is amazed to discover the house is much more tastefully and expensively furnished, that Linda has so many prospective boyfriends that even she can't keep track of them, and that Dave has an office job. He is even more amazed to see George and Lorraine return from a tennis game looking fit and happy, and clearly still very much in love. Lorraine is now much more approving of Marty's relationship with Jennifer, but when Marty reminds her that the wrecked car has derailed his weekend plans with Jennifer, the family are shocked. George assures them that the car is just fine, and opens the door to reveal that not only is the [=McFly=] family car a brand new BMW, but Biff is outside waxing it in his capacity as an auto detailer. George even catches Biff in a fib about whether or not he has put on the two coats of wax for which George has paid him, revealing that now it is Biff who is afraid of George. Both George and Lorraine agree that for all his faults, Biff is the one who caused them to fall in love. Just then, Biff enters with a delivery box containing the proofs of George's first novel, a science-fiction story called ''A Match Made in Space''. George proudly echoes Marty's advice to him in 1955: "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything," advice he has taken to heart to become a successful writer. Biff also gives Marty his new keys, which he discovers are for the Toyota pickup he was admiring in the original timeline.

On October 25, 1985, Marty [=McFly=], a 17-year-old high school senior from Hill Valley, California, visits the home of his friend, eccentric local scientist Dr. Emmett L. "Doc" Brown. Finding Doc absent, Marty plugs his guitar into Doc's amplifier, but is blown across the room when its circuits overload. He then receives a call from Doc, telling to meet him at 1:15am at the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall. Their conversation is interrupted when Doc hears his clocks chiming 8:00 and excitedly tells Marty that they are exactly 25 minutes slow - which unfortunately means Marty is late for school. At school, Marty meets up with his girlfriend Jennifer Parker, and both are reprimanded for tardiness by school principal Mr. Strickland, who tells Marty that he is a "slacker" like his father, and sneers at the idea that his band are auditioning to play at the school dance, telling him that no [=McFly=] in the history of Hill Valley has ever amounted to anything. Marty defiantly tells Mr. Strickland that history is about to change.

Doc takes Marty to Hill Valley High (which is much cleaner than it is in 1985, although Mr. Strickland is still the school disciplinarian and was bald even then), explaining that he needs to make his parents fall in love before he can go back to 1985. Marty admits that his parents' relationship has never made sense to him, as they have nothing in common. He sees George in the hallway between classes and tries to introduce him to Lorraine; she, however, is too smitten by Marty to even notice George. At lunch, Marty is surprised to discover that George writes science fiction short stories, but has never let anyone read them or submitted them to publishers for fear of rejection. Marty tries to persuade George to ask Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, but George refuses for further fear of rejection and because she's probably already going with Biff, who is aggressively hitting on her. Marty pulls Biff off Lorraine, and only the timely appearance of Mr. Strickland stops Biff from beating him up in retaliation. After school, Marty chases after George, who is adamant that he is not going to the dance as he doesn't want to miss ''Science Fiction Theater'', and says "no one on the planet" can persuade him, which gives Marty an idea. That night, he dresses in his radiation suit, wakes George by putting headphones on his ears and blasting guitar music through them, then introduces himself as "Darth Vader... from the planet Vulcan" and threatens to fry George's brains if he doesn't ask Lorraine to the dance.

Marty joins the Starlighters on stage both to play guitar and to keep an eye on George and Lorraine, but during the first number, "Earth Angel", Mark Dixon, a student, cuts in between George and Lorraine. Lorraine tries to get George to intervene, but he has lost his confidence again, and Marty collapses on stage as he begins fading out of the photograph and out of existence, his hands becoming semi-transparent. Fortunately, George's crisis of confidence proves short-lived as he shoves Dixon to the floor and kisses Lorraine passionately. Marty springs to his feet and sees himself, Linda, and Dave re-appear in the photograph; overjoyed, he begins to play the guitar with renewed vigor. At the band's request, Marty plays one more song, "Johnny B. Goode." Marvin Berry calls his cousin, Music/{{Chuck|Berry}}, and tells that he found the "new sound" Chuck was looking for. Marty does Chuck Berry's trademark duck walk, and then gets carried away imitating other guitar heroes: windmilling his arm and kicking over his amplifier in imitation of Pete Townshend, lying on the stage kicking his legs in imitation of Angus Young, playing behind his head like Jimi Hendrix, and tapping in the style of Eddie Van Halen. In the face of uncomprehending stares from the audience, Marty says, "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

As William goes into the school, Marty panics as he fears the change of timeline. Doc reassures him there's nothing wrong, but as he's about to explain, Officer Parker stops in front of the [=DeLorean=], wondering that if this is a joke to send him to the nuthouse since he just saw Edna and the [=DeLorean=] vanish into thin air. A shocked Doc asks Marty if he remembers the time she jumped to, but Marty says that Edna's [=DeLorean=] is malfunctioning and could jump into any timeline. Doc panics and hopes that Edna has ended up in the future rather than the past, where she could cause irreparable damage. Just as Parker asks for an explanation, he vanishes, and soon the whole town vanishes around them, leaving them standing by a dirt road in the middle of the desert. Marty asks if they have just left Hill Valley; Doc replies, "Hill Valley has left US."

[[folder:Back to the Future II]]

Cut to the Courthouse Square and the climax of the first film, with past Marty driving the [=DeLorean=] toward the contact point, and 1955 Doc sliding, zipline-style, down the cable from the clock tower to street level, where he re-attaches the cable seconds before the lightning strikes, sending the [=DeLorean=] back to 1985. He runs down the fire trail left by the departing car and laughs with delight at the success of his experiment... and is flabbergasted when Marty runs up behind him. He says he has just sent Marty back to the future, but Marty tells him he is now back ''from'' the future. Doc exclaims "Great Scott!" and faints. The words "TO BE CONCLUDED..." appear on the screen.

[[folder:Back to the Future III]]

Arriving back at October 27, 1985 in Eastwood Ravine (now named for Marty's alias since he is believed to have perished in the ravine), Marty has to quickly get out of the [=DeLorean=] as it is crushed into scrap metal by an oncoming train. Marty looks at the wreckage, knowing that Doc's wishes have been fulfilled but upset that he will never see him again. He checks in on his family, who are back to how they were at the end of the first film (while Biff is back to being an auto detailer instead of a corrupt casino owner), then drives in the Toyota pickup to where he left Jennifer. He wakes her with a kiss and takes her for a drive. As they reach Lone Pine Mall, Needles challenges Marty to a drag race. Jennifer realizes this is the incident she heard about that destroyed Marty's music career and with it, his life, and she pleads with him to ignore Needles. Needles seems to succeed in baiting Marty into racing by calling him "chicken", but once the traffic light turns green, Marty throws the truck into reverse, telling Jennifer he isn't "stupid enough" to race them. As he sees Needles nearly crash into a Rolls-Royce pulling out of a side road, he realizes that if he had taken part in the race, he would have crashed into the car. Jennifer checks the "YOU'RE FIRED" paper she got from 2015 and sees the words vanish.

Marty returns to the [=DeLorean=]'s wreckage site with Jennifer, depressed that he will never see Doc again. While Jennifer tries to comfort Marty, suddenly the railroad crossing lights activate with no train in sight. The two teens are pushed back by an explosion as a train appears out of nowhere. They are greeted by the driver, Doc, who tells them that this time machine train runs on steam with the Flux Capacitor located on the front. He is now married to Clara and they have two sons, Jules and Verne. He came back to let Marty know that he was all right, to pick up Einstein, and to present Marty with the framed photo of the two of them in front of the courthouse clock with the inscription "To Marty, Partner in Time. September 5th, 1885". Jennifer asks about the paper that she received from the future that just faded. Doc assures them that it means their future can be whatever they want it to be. "So make it a good one, both of you!" As the Browns prepare to leave, Marty asks if Doc is going back to the future; Doc tells him that he has already been there. The train takes off, just like the [=DeLorean=] at the end of the first movie, and vanishes into thin air.

The movie starts as Marty [=McFly=], Jennifer Parker, and Doc Brown leave Marty's house in 1985 and time travel to the year 2015 to stop Marty's kids from destroying their lives. However, Biff Tannen comes out of the house to show Marty one of the new Biff's Auto Detailing matchbooks he has had printed, and accidentally witnesses their departure. They arrive on October 21, 2015 where Doc is forced to tranquilize Jennifer when she asks too many questions about the future; Doc firmly believes that no one should be allowed to know too much about their own destiny or future. Doc lands the [=DeLorean=] in an alleyway adjacent to the Courthouse Square, and he and Marty lay the sleeping Jennifer next to the car. Doc explains that in the unaltered timeline, Marty Jr. was approached by the gang of Griff Tannen, Biff's grandson, and was asked (forced) to join in a robbery. The robbery failed, and Marty Jr. was used as a scapegoat, as recorded by a 2015 newspaper that Doc shows to Marty. His sister Marlene tried to break him out, only to cause more problems which led to the [=McFly=] family's downfall. Doc's plan is for Marty to impersonate his son and refuse Griff's order to take part in the robbery.

[[folder:Episode 1 - It's about time.]]

[[folder:Episode 2 - Get Tannen !]]

[[folder:Episode 4 - Double Vision]]

Six months have passed since Doctor Emmett "Doc" Brown disappeared with his family and Time Travel Train in ''Back to the Future III''. After a very vivid dream about Doc being erased from existence, Marty wakes up in his room. His mother realizes he is awake and reminds him that the estate sale of Doc's belongings has already started and that he should join his father, George, to pick up some of his stuff before everything is sold. Realizing he's late, he quickly goes to Doc's garage to stop it, but is too late to prevent some of Doc's stuff from being sold. Since Doc has been missing for so long, the city wants to sell his house and turn it into a parking lot; George volunteers to supervise the sale to ensure that Doc's stuff will be treated with respect. Luckily, Marty manages to take back Doc's notebook before Biff, unaware of its significance but sensing its importance to Marty, can take it back home. Suddenly, he hears a familiar sound from outside and is surprised to find the time-traveling [=DeLorean=] showing up with Einstein as its only passenger. Doc's faithful dog is accompanied by an unknown shoe and a tape recorder. Marty plays the tape and hears Doc explain that he had built a safety device which automatically returned the car to the present, presuming he might get into trouble in the past or future and trusting Marty to save him. Unfortunately, Marty cannot obey Doc's instructions to go to the 'Last Time Departed' as indicated on the console, as it suddenly malfunctions when Marty checks it. With the unknown shoe as the only clue, he asks Einstein to find its owner.

The two time travellers head back to 1876 to stop Edna from burning down the saloon. Marty sneaks past the back of the saloon while Doc confronts Edna before she can light the fire. However, the commotion wakes Beauregard Tannen, who plans to shoot both of them for trespassing. Doc tells them that they're at a stalemate since if Beauregard shoots Edna, she'll drop the torch she is holding and set fire to the saloon, while if Edna sets fire to the saloon, Beauregard will shoot her before she can escape; irrespective of which one acts first, they both lose. Thanks to Marty's wits, Beauregard and Edna are disarmed at the same time, and Marty distracts Beauregard for long enough for Doc to knock him out. However, Edna escapes in her defective [=DeLorean=], and Marty and Doc chase after her. Doc reassures Marty that the road in 1876 isn't smooth enough to reach 88mph so they have a chance to sync each other's [=DeLorean=] and send her back to 1931 by placing some radars onto the [=DeLorean=]'s flux emitters, put there by Citizen Brown. With the aid of the hoverboard Marty picked up in 2015, they are able to attach the radars and send both [=DeLoreans=] back to 1931.

# [[Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E7TimeWaitsForNoFrogEinsteinsAdventure Time Waits for No Frog / Einstein's Adventure]]

# [[Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E2PutOnYourThinkingCapsKidsItsTimeForMrWisdom Put On Your Thinking Caps, Kids! It's Time for Mr Wisdom!]]

When Marty gets home, he finds that the family car, a 1979 Chevrolet Nova, has been wrecked by his father George's supervisor, Biff Tannen, who is berating George for not telling him about the car's 'blind spot' (the fact that Biff was drinking beer while driving may have been the real cause of the accident). He bullies George into doing his reports for him and dismisses Marty as a 'butthead' before leaving. At night the family are having dinner, and we learn that Marty's older brother Dave works at a Burger King (and has to ride the bus to work), while his sister Linda has no love life because their alcoholic mother Lorraine disapproves of girls chasing boys. Lorraine remarks that fate brought her and George together when her father hit George with his car after he mysteriously fell from a tree in front of her house. George then kissed her at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, and that was when she decided to spend the rest of her life with him. Her nostalgic but dull tone as she tells the story makes it clear the romance has long since gone out of their marriage; George doesn't notice as he is too busy laughing awkwardly at the television like a dweeb.

Picking up from the last movie, 1955 Doc wakes up on his couch on November 13, 1955, and makes an audio recording in which he says that he managed to send Marty back to 1985 and dreamt he came back. Marty wakes up and comes up behind him, who turns around and screams in shock. Marty tells him that he is indeed back from the future due to the events of the last movie. Doc doesn't believe it until Marty shows him the letter from his future self; it turns out that 1985 Doc was struck by a lightning bolt and accidentally sent back to 1885. The letter reveals that the [=DeLorean=] is hidden in an abandoned gold mine; the lightning destroyed its flight capabilities, but the letter has instructions which 1955 Doc can use to repair it to the point that Marty can use it to return to 1985 (whereupon he is told to destroy the time machine, which confuses 1955 Doc, but Marty tells him not to think so much). Doc's letter tells Marty not to pick him up; he's perfectly happy in 1885 and has accepted his new life as a blacksmith in the Old West, fearing the consequences of time traveling. He asks Marty to take care of Einstein. Marty and 1955 Doc retrieve the [=DeLorean=], but are shocked to discover a gravestone in nearby Boot Hill Cemetery revealing that 1985 Doc dies on September 7, 1885, a few days after he wrote the letter, shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of eighty dollars. The gravestone is said to be erected by "his beloved Clara", a name Doc and Marty do not recognize.

When Marty gets home, he finds that the family car, a 1979 Chevrolet Nova, has been wrecked by his father George's supervisor, Biff Tannen, who is berating George for not telling him about the car's 'blind spot' (the fact that Biff was drinking beer while driving may have been the real cause of the accident). He bullies George into doing his reports for him and dismisses Marty as a 'butthead' before leaving. At night the family are having dinner, and we learn that Marty's older brother Dave works at a Burger King (and has to ride the bus to work), while his sister Linda has no love life because their alcoholic mother Lorraine disapproves of girls chasing boys. Lorraine remarks that fate brought her and George together when her father hit George with his car after he mysteriously fell from a tree in front of her house. Her tone as she tells the story makes it clear the romance has long since gone out of their marriage; Marty, tired of hearing the same story regularly for years, abruptly leaves the table.

Picking up from the last movie, 1955 Doc wakes up in his bed on November 13, 1955, and makes an audio recording in which he says that he managed to send Marty back to 1985 and dreamt he came back. He is shocked to see Marty waking up on one of his sofas, his feet resting on the hoverboard from 2015. Marty passes Doc the letter from his future self; it turns out that 1985 Doc was struck by a lightning bolt and accidentally sent back to 1885. The letter reveals that the [=DeLorean=] is hidden in an abandoned gold mine; the lightning destroyed its flight capabilities, but the letter has instructions which 1955 Doc can use to repair it to the point that Marty can use it to return to 1985 (whereupon he is told to destroy the time machine, which confuses 1955 Doc, but Marty tells him not to think so much). Doc's letter tells Marty not to pick him up; he's perfectly happy in 1885 and has accepted his new life as a blacksmith in the Old West, fearing the consequences of time traveling. He asks Marty to take care of Einstein. Marty and 1955 Doc retrieve the [=DeLorean=], but are shocked to discover a gravestone in nearby Boot Hill Cemetery revealing that 1985 Doc dies on September 7, 1885, a few days after he wrote the letter, shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of eighty dollars. The gravestone is said to be erected by "his beloved Clara", a name Doc and Marty do not recognize.

# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E1Brothers
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E2AFamilyVacation
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E3ForwardToThePast
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E4Witchcraft
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E5RomanHoliday
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E6GoFlyAKite

# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E8BatterUp

# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E11GoneFishin

# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E13ClarasFolks

# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E1MacTheBlack
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E2PutOnYourThinkingCapsKidsItsTimeForMrWisdom
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E3AFriendInDeed
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E4MartyMcFlyPFC
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E5VernesNewFriend
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E6BravelordAndTheDemonMonstrux
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E7TheMoneyTree
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E8AVerneByAnyOtherName
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E9HillValleyBrownOut
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E10MyPopsAnAlien
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E11SuperDoc
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E12StLouisBlues
# Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E13VerneHatchesAnEgg

! This page, as well as the folders below, contains unmarked spoilers. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.

! This page, as well as the folders below, contain unmarked spoilers. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.

! ''Unmarked spoilers'' are present throughout the subpages as well as some of the synopses below. Please read at your own risk.

Doc decides that after returning back to 1985, he is going to destroy the [=DeLorean=], as the consequences of altering the timeline could be disastrous if the machine fell into the wrong hands, much as he would like to go back to the Old West. Back in 1985, Marty and Doc leave Jennifer on her porch swing, thinking little of the fact that her house now has security bars on the windows and the car parked in the driveway is a wreck. They also don't register the graffiti on the sign for Lyon Estates, the subdivision where Marty and his family live, or the stray dogs roaming the streets. However, Marty becomes suspicious when he is unable to open the back gate to get back into the house, and things get even worse when he inadvertently enters what he thinks is his bedroom and finds a young black girl sleeping there. As she wakes up and screams "Rape!", Marty is forced to flee from the girl's enraged, baseball bat-wielding father. Rushing through the streets, he sees wrecked cars and chalk outlines of dead bodies, and hears the sound of gunfire and police sirens. He initially thinks he has gone back to the wrong year, but he finds a newspaper on a doorstep with the date October 26, 1985. Suddenly he is confronted by the house's owner, Mr. Strickland, who is wearing a bulletproof vest and pointing a gun at him. Mr. Strickland does not recognize Marty, and when Marty tries to remind him that he gave him detention last week, Strickland says the school burned down six years ago. A gang driving past his house opens fire on his plant pots; as Strickland returns fire, Marty flees again.