It might on the other hand simply have made things easier when designing the time circuits (or programming their firmware) to have a year zero than to make the readout go from -1 to 1 (effectvely) or even bother with "negative years"; some offhand comment the Doc makes (I think) in the third film about going back too far and being burned as a witch, suggests he's not interested in travelling back too far for comfort and it makes no sense to design the machine to go back millennia.
- They attempted to steal back the plutonium because they feared it was the origin of the hydrogen bomb used on the island by the time travelers in 1977. Because the Others hid Jughead underground, DHARMA never knew where it came from, and thus assumed future time travelers Marty and Doc were the source of the nuclear material.
- The only problem is the Celebrity Paradox: Back to the Future exists in Lost's universe; one episode has Hurley checking his hand to see if he's disappearing and he references the franchise's time travel rules.
.- Note: this theory is dependent on LP Marty being more resistant to Ret-Gone than Twin Pine Marty, since he has to get to the clock tower moment with neither his parents meeting nor his getting too immaterial to drive to pull this off. Fortunately, that is already practically canon, seeing as he or another version of him lives through those exact events trying to protect Twin Pine Marty in Back to the Future Part II and doesn't appear to fade out...
What a strange thing to say - but then, "Calvin" might have just thought he was a musical visionary.
However, "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan" left an indelible impression on George (judging by the cover art of his book, assuming you can). A SF geek would have avidly watched Star Trek during its initial run, and the evening of September 15, 1967 probably didn't pass without poor George yelping at the Vulcan salute. While he did tell Calvin about the event, an angry George would have easily found out that no "Calvin Klein" wrote for Paramount - and more research would have found out that the writer didn't know any Calvin Klein and had never heard of his experience. In fact, research wouldn't have turned up anything about a Calvin Klein who went to his school - just a rising fashion designer who looked nothing like his old friend.
Add to those details all the many little oddities of Calvin's behavior (and his weird "life preserver" outfit when he first arrived), and it would be a very small leap for George to realize that Calvin was from the future - and that he had probably been the "masked alien", as both of them had been very concerned about him getting together with Lorraine. 1977 would have clinched it if George had any doubt. Further pondering about just who would travel through time and care so much about him ending up with a particular girl would lead George to the conclusion that Calvin had to be a descendant of George and Lorraine.
Would he remember the "Dad...uh, daddy-o," slip? Would he dig up his old yearbook and see a picture of his son playing at the dance? Or would he just look at Marty one day and realize that Calvin had been a very immediate descendant of his?
Either way, he'd probably never tell Lorraine, if it could be avoided. That'd just be weird for her.
- This also explains why he never brought it up. If he actually asked Lorraine on information about Calvin, she'd point him right in the direction of Doc Brown, who would probably tell George not to talk to Marty about it until October 27, 1985, lest it cause a temporal paradox.
- If I remember correctly, this was actually how the first movie ended in the first draft script (before being replaced by the "something's gotta be done about your kids!" cliffhanger). George sits down at his desk, and on impulse opens up a scrapbook containing a newspaper clipping about the dance, including a picture. He looks at the photo showing "Calvin" playing on stage, and he frowns slightly and says "No... couldn't be..."
- This is the most brilliant idea I've ever heard of in my entire life. I've stolen the idea, re-written and extrapolated from it.
Then in 1977, he saw "Star Wars", whose main villain had the same name of the strange visitor he'd had back in 1955. What motive could Darth Vader have possibly had to set him up with Lorraine? When he asks Lorraine, all she knows is that Calvin was staying with that crazy scientist. She may even have mentioned how she knew his name was Calvin Klein, an up-and-coming fashion designer who looks nothing like his old high school chum.
Remember, George is an avid sci-fi fan, *and* a creative writer. Is it really too big a leap to suspect he might have figured out most of the truth on his own? Especially once his son Marty (born during the third season of "Star Trek", being 17 years old in 1985) shows an interest in skateboarding and playing guitar. Lorraine always wanted a kid named "Marty", and his sudden best friend in high school was obsessed with hooking the two of them up, just like Darth Vader. The more George looks at it, the more logical it gets. His son travelled through time. He doesn't know how or why, but a visit with Doc Brown might help. Just to, you know, discuss ideas for his next novel about an alien visitor sparking a love story.
We'll never know what Doc told him. He may have revealed as much as he could - cautioning that no one should know too much about their future - or clammed up entirely. My guess is the truth is somewhere in-between. George related his experience with Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan - Doc was presumably a fan of those series as well - to inquire about alien visitations, and Doc realized that George *knew* something.
It's likely that this encounter returned Doc's attention to that 'flux capacitor' idea from decades before. Realizing that he couldn't jeopardize the space-time continuum by working on other projects, he devoted himself towards the serious task of obtaining plutonium, which showed no signs of being available in corner drugstores anytime soon. This is also when he reconstructed the letter Marty had written.
He did tear the letter up, but obviously wouldn't throw it away. Why would he dispose of a souvenir written by the first time-traveler, in a machine Doc invented? Also, by the time of George's visit, time is getting short and whatever time travel research Doc has conducted since 1955 has demonstrated that the risks are less. There's also the 'what the hell?' factor. My guess is he kept every scrap of paper, so that on the night Marty went back in time, they would be able to discuss the letter and Doc could calculate the ramifications; he was wistful about having to wait thirty years to be able to discuss the last week.
It's possible that reconstructing the letter, discovering that he would be shot and killed, is what led him to the Libyans in the first place as a source for plutonium. Legitimate sources would want the benefits of his research, all he needs to do is find people who will kill him and figure out how to survive the encounter. But then, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, something he probably repeated to George during their interview. George wasn't paying much attention when Marty said it, so it's unlikely to have become a McFly family saying without reinforcement.
Marty's intervention changed it. By travelling to 1955 and telling Goldie he would be mayor, he convinced Goldie he could only be mayor, something his 1955 self definitely saw as an ultimate goal in itself, but his (original) 1985 self wouldn't. The result was a Goldie actually less ambitious, that only aimed to be mayor and sticked in this charge once he achieved it, refusing to run for some higher post and failing to impress his issue into pursuing further political careers. From then on his descendants aimed lower and lower until Goldie's grandson came to feel himself fulfilled despite being just an used car salesman. Thus Marty destroyed both the apparition of an early Obama on the political stage and the emergence of a Black Kennedy-esque dynasty in Washington DC from the 90s onward.
- No, in 2015, Goldie Wilson III isn't quite old enough to be mayor, he's young like Goldie Wilson was in 1955. Also, Goldie Wilson III isn't a used-car salesman, he hover-converts older cars.
- Indeed, if you look in the background of the 2015 scenes, there are signs that read "Re-Elect Mayor Goldie Wilson Jr."
- No, in 2015, Goldie Wilson III isn't quite old enough to be mayor, he's young like Goldie Wilson was in 1955. Also, Goldie Wilson III isn't a used-car salesman, he hover-converts older cars.
- We live in the "alternative" time line, i.e. the one in which Chuck Berry "wrote" Johnny B. Goode and George is successful.
- While in reality Chuck Berry did actually write Johnny B. Goode, he did take the distinctive guitar lick from an older song. His song Maybelline also began as a version of the old Bob Wills number Ida Red. So if Berry had heard Marty playing it at some high school dance and decided to take it for his own, it wouldn't actually be that unusual. This kind of stealing and borrowing was very common up until The Beatles made it really uncool to not write all their own material from scratch- and even then borrowing certain elements of other songs happened.
- Especially because Biff had to have the car cleaned twice in the same week. And the detailer probably charged even more for the second time for Biff's stupidity.
- Biff probably had to do it himself the second time around (because he was out of money!) and that's what set him down the path to auto detailing.
- To avoid Lone Pine Marty messing up the time-stream, Doc put an additional slug of plutonium in the car so that Marty could come straight back again without ever meeting his parents or past-Doc. However, this means that Lone Pine Marty returns to the original timeline, where his family is dysfunctional (since he never encouraged his father to stand up to Biff) and Doc is dead (since he never got the warning about the Libyans). Still, at least both pine trees survived.
- But you can't possibly know what is considered slang from a different time, especially a future one. If someone from the future actually did come here to The Present, one could likely use words we've never even heard of before. Something like, "Boy, you get really skronlist in the future. Don't stinop so much." It just so happened that the times weren't far enough apart to cause too much confusion. But, rest assured that people from different times do talk completely differently, so I highly doubt that Doc wasn't being serious when Marty implied gravity fluctuations in the future.
- I'm sure people from 30 years ago would also find your way of speaking obnoxious. Languages change; get some perspective.
- When Lorraine's father (Marty's grandfather) hits Marty with the car, he complains that "another" teenager threw himself in front of the car. This has happened before. Lorraine met all of her previous boyfriends because they were trying to look through at her through her bedroom window and got hit by her father's car. This also helps explain why Lorraine is so taken with Marty: she assumes he was looking at her as she dressed (and apparently she doesn't find this creepy; maybe she even sets it up on purpose) and therefore she assumes that Marty is already attracted to her. In fact...we can further suppose that Lorraine's father suspects that this is the case. Therefore, he tends to hit these boys with his car on purpose (not too hard, mind you) as a way of saying "stop being a peeping tom". He further acts cold towards Marty at the dinner table, because he thinks Marty was peeping.
- Relatedly, just as Marty is leaving Lorraine happens to say "Marty...that's a nice name", which presumably inspires her to name her son Marty. But she named her first son Dave instead. Why? Because Dave was the name of her first boyfriend who she met due to her father hitting him with the car. Marty was next on the list.
The second time it malfunctions is just before the trip back to 1985. The timeline probably causes this because the timer is actually off slightly, and if Marty actually were able to start accelerating when the timer rang he would end up reaching the wire too early, which would cause innumerable problems.
The third time it malfunctions is just after Marty gets back to 1985. The timeline probably causes this to force Marty to go to the mall on foot, minimizing the chance that his earlier self could see him and potentially trigger a paradox. This also answers a Headscratcher question about why Marty only gives himself ten minutes of leeway: the timeline would ensure he couldn't interfere no matter how much time he gives himself. An hour of time, and the timeline might cause there to be a police patrol of the town square at 12:35 that morning. The property damage to the theater front, plus the fact that the DeLorean is not, strictly speaking, Marty's, would be enough for them to detain him at least until they can contact Doc and/or his parents, which would almost certainly be after the Libyan-shooting incident at 1:35. (It would probably take that long just for the paperwork, fingerprinting, etc., and that assumes Marty submits quietly which under the circumstances is not a guarantee.) He gives himself a day or more, and Doc informs him of the bulletproof vest and keeps him hidden until the event actually happens.
So the DeLorean was feeling suicidal at the end of the third film?
- No, the timeline deliberately destroyed the DeLorean because otherwise the DeLorean would have been impounded by the police, because Marty has no way of getting it off the railroad tracks. All it takes is one cop to look inside it and realize it's a time machine, because the dash itself claims it traveled from a specific day in 1885! He'd either handing it over to the government or using it for whatever purpose he wanted. And a quick look in the history book will demonstrate that someone with the improbably name of 'Clint Eastwood' stole a train and drove it into a canyon at that exact day and time, and a time machine with a broken gasoline engine shows up from that day and time, so even the 88 mph requirement shouldn't be that hard to figure out. ('Why would they be pushing it down the track?' 'Maybe it has to be moving to work?')
- And even without figuring out the time travel thing, it still has Mr. Fusion and a broken hover conversion, either of which could cause massive timeline changes. Basically, if the timestream doesn't destroy the DeLorean, there's going to be some major alterations to the timeline soon.
- How was he able to have a grandson then?
"You caused three hundred bucks' damage to my car, and I'm gonna take it out of your ass," he says, before throwing Marty to his flunkies. He built up the necessary rage and lust beforehand, with the Ooh La La magazine and booze, while he was planning on attacking Marty at the dance, but Lorraine (who he'd been pursuing for weeks) presented herself as a more preferable target.
- Not necessarily, it could be more in the sense of "I'm gonna whoop your ass", i.e. "beat you senseless", which is just as sensible. I think that's reading a little too much into that bit of dialogue, and probably is making too many assumptions about Biff's nature.
- Never mind that his bad future self married three times to three women and there is no indication whatsoever of him having any other orientation. Even his 2015 self asks about "Marty Jnr's" grandmother.
Look closely at the newspaper clippings at the start of the first film. We know that Doc is living in his garage and that the land was sold for a large sum of money. Doc claims to have spent the family fortune building the time machine. It's only reasonable to assume that he burned the house down and made an insurance claim. After that money ran out, then he sold the land to a property developer.
- Makes a lot of sense when you realise just how slippery a character the Doc is. not only does he rip already stolen plutonium (which he has no legal right to keep hold of) but in the outtakes of the first film, 1955 Doc is seen bribing the police officer who asks him about the "permit" for his "weather experiment". Insurance fraud in the pursuit of his dream experiment is not exactly much different.
- Part of his decision to destroy that 'infernal machine' is not only because of the damage it can cause to the space/time continuum but because of the death and theft it has already sown. In the end part of what drives him to love Clara and raise kids is that in the face of all the misery his machine has caused he wants to bring new life and happiness into the world. In the end he decides to rebuild the time machine because he realizes if he doesn't use it for good then all those lives and all that misery was for nothing, so the his ultimate redemption is to fly around in time with his loving family and right that which once went wrong to make up for his mistakes...but without disrupting the time/space continuum in doing so.
- Simmer down, it's not that bad. The news broadcast at the start of the movie mentions that the site that the plutonium was stolen from was officially denying that it was stolen, and the missing plutonium wasn't missing at all, it was a clerical error. If anyone had been killed or any serious damage had been done, the paperwork story wouldn't even work as a coverup; chances are that if Doc did personally steal the plutonium (which he probably didn't, because if he could do that, he wouldn't need to be involved with the Libyans in the first place, he could have just stolen the plutonium and been done with it), he's smart enough to have done it without disruptive violence; the clerical error may have actually been Doc's method in the first place, he just fudged the inventory and walked out with the plutonium, easy as you please.
Meanwhile, Emmett Brown is perched on his toilet, hanging a clock. The porcelain is slightly wet. Suddenly the phone rings, startling Doc and causing him to slip. He conks his head and is knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile, at the diner, a frustrated Marty can't get anyone to answer and hangs up the phone.
A few hours later, Doc comes to. He has a vision...
- The IDW Comics state that Marty was close with his Uncle Joey, maybe that was because he was the only one from Lorraine's family who bothered to visit?
- His opinion of Marty as an idiot was based more on his behavior such as making reference to things that hadn’t happened yet and generally feeling disoriented and wanting to get out which was a result of him being a Fish out of Temporal Water, which wouldn’t apply when he was growing up in his own time. Plus, in any case, Sam was probably being hyperbolic, since he would have to be a massive jerk that to disown his daughter based on the behavior of her son when he was presumably a very young child, if the theory is suggesting that he disowned her as soon as Marty was born, given that Linda is only about three years older. As for why he’s never seen in the present day, the McFly family is only seen over the course of a few minutes total in all versions of 1985, where they're first having dinner, then meeting Marty in the morning, and then going out to brunch, so there's no reason why Sam, who doesn't live with them, would appear or come up in conversation outside of Lorraine referencing something (George getting hit by his car) that he was directly involved with.
- When Mr. Baines hits Marty with his car, he claims that this isn't the first time this happened. Imagine that Biff was peeping on Lorraine the same way that George was, fell out of the tree the same way, and Mr. Baines hit him and they brought him into the house to recover. After being taken care of by Lorraine Biff became obsessed with her, while she was turned off by his jerkass personality (knowing Biff, he'd try to immediately get her to sleep with him). This would explain why he's so determined to have her as his girl.
- What exactly WAS Doc's experiment with the clocks all being 25 minutes slow? Well, remember how Einstein's watch was 1 minute slow because he'd been sent one minute into the future? Doc might be crazy, but he wouldn't put his beloved dog in danger by only testing the time-travel science on him alone. The clocks must have been some prior experiment, possibly testing the time-travel abilities of the Flux Capacitor itself, or maybe just testing sending inorganic matter through time and having it arrive unharmed. It's possible that the Delorean was more of the final stage of the project, when everything was guaranteed to work. He does seem pretty certain that the Delorean won't hit Marty and himself at the mall.
- Of course, the theory that the Doc somehow sent his whole lab through time does run into Fridge Logic: how did he reach 88MPH in a garage? This is a fundamental law of Back to the Future time travel and seeing as we have established that even a 1 minute jump requires 88 MPH, the idea that a 25 minute jump somehow wouldn't is a pretty problematic leap in credulity.
- Seeing that Doc created the system, it's safe to say that the 88 MPH was a setting he made. In the second film, when struck by lightning, the DeLorean ended up traveling back in time without having to travel to 88 MPH to do so. That means that the time travel system could have been tested at the lab before Doc finally installed it into the car (this also explains why the case of plutonium was in the lab under the bed: Doc used it for the experimentation).
- Nobody said the entire lab was travelling. The Doc could have just put a single clock inside the Delorean to test it first, then tested it several more times until every clock was 25 minutes slow, at the exact same time. Think of it as calibration to make sure the machine is actually working properly, after all, how many times have we seen someone travel through time by mistaking one measurement of time for another?
- Of course, the theory that the Doc somehow sent his whole lab through time does run into Fridge Logic: how did he reach 88MPH in a garage? This is a fundamental law of Back to the Future time travel and seeing as we have established that even a 1 minute jump requires 88 MPH, the idea that a 25 minute jump somehow wouldn't is a pretty problematic leap in credulity.
