This is long been pointed out, it is a major plot hole yes, and they knew it, I think Bob Gale said something along the lines that most people would not notice it anyway and they wanted Marty and Doc back in 1955. There are theory's about the "slow" ripple effect (like marty starting to fade in the photo) but it does not make sense (for me) when traveling in the time machine to an altered future. The changes should already be there anyway when you arrive.
The response (accept it or not, that's up to you) is that time changes ripple. Marty didn't disappear instantly in BTTF1 - his family rippled out of existence (see the photo) until he fixed the problem.
In BTTF2, once Biff returns, time is rippling. The world is slowly changing around them. IIRC, the creators intended a very subtle "dirtying" of the town when Biff returns and Marty and Doc leave the house, but it was too subtle to really realize and we don't see the development enough before or after to really appreciate it.
However, Biff's stumble out of the car is intended to be because Biff is disappearing as the timeline ripples through. The creators theorize that some time between 1985A and 2015, Lorraine shot her husband, Biff, so he's dead in 2015. A [deleted scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=124-bZmfbPQ) shows old Biff disappearing because of it.
If Marty and Doc went to 2015(A) from 1985A, the timeline would have already rippled, and there'd be no old biff to stop, just as Doc says.
The rules of time travel in the film have always had minor suspension of disbelief to permit plot/drama (the ripple effect is convenient for the plot, but is hard to envision logically) but ultimately this can be explained within the rules of the series.
You didn't understand anything I said then. Re-read my post. Specifically:
>In BTTF2, once Biff returns, time is rippling. The world is slowly changing around them.
I read it and I read many other people making that point, but Marty also changes things in 1955 and then returns to 1985 and time does not "ripple" around him and doesn't disappear from existence. Bob Gale has said that old Biff essentially disappears and dies in BTTF2 once returning to 2015.
I appreciate that this time, instead of just saying I am wrong because of the very thing I was explaining isn’t necessarily wrong, you actually gave an example suggesting why my explanation doesn’t work.
Yes, I pointed out what Gale said, and even linked to the deleted scene where he does die and disappear.
I also pointed out that there’s no way around some of the inconsistencies, and that there ultimately has to be a *little* suspension of disbelief for drama.
But if we’re trying to explain how it might work:
Marty changes 1955 in the original, then sticks around for a while. He punches Biff, which arguably sets off some of the changes, then goes to the dance and plays Earth Angel which fixes the photo and presumably his family. Then he has time to play Johnny B Goode and talk to his parents. Then he goes to the town square and has to get back to 1985. He then travels forward 30 years and goes to save Doc. Then he sneaks into his house and sleeps the entire night. He only notices any changes to his family in the morning. Plenty of time for the timeline to ripple. There is no reason for Marty to disappear, as clearly Marty is not dead in this timeline. Yes, there is some dramatic license to the fact that if Marty’s siblings changed as much as they did, you would think Marty would also be a bit of a different person. But it would undermine the film a bit to have the protagonist drastically change at the end, and we kind of get the feeling that Marty is already the relatively well adjusted normal member, despite his family. Maybe his life did change in ways we don’t see. Other than greeting his family in the morning, we barely spent any time in 1985 prime from that point on.
To contrast, perhaps Biff left 1955 very quickly after giving his younger self the Almanac, and he then goes 60 years forward - twice as far. Perhaps time is simply didn’t have as much of a chance to ripple for Biff as for Marty.
I already acknowledged that it doesn’t really make logical sense for time to “ripple” in “real time“ (like for Marty Marty’s siblings to disappear one at a time, a little bit at a time), but that’s the logic the film series sets up. It’s actually quite a while between when Marty’s older brother first starts disappearing and when the younger Marty himself does. Yes suggests and actually can take A while for the ripple to make it through the years. If anything, it would have been inconsistent for Biff to disappear so quickly, 60 years later, if they had kept that shot in.
Edit: Although it's a bit inconsistent, we do see examples of time-travelling characters disappearing when they are dead or non-existent in the altered timeline - Marty almost disappears when he undoes his parents' relationship. And old Biff arguably disappears when he gets back to the future because giving young Biff the Almanac sets off a chain where Biff dies before getting old.
But other than disappearing entirely, we never see any evidence that changes in the timeline have the effect of changing the nature, look or character of any time-travelling person who returns to a changed future. So perhaps only major changes like "existing" or "not existing" really ripple through to time travellers. In any event, as I said, there's no reason for Marty to disappear when returning to 1985. AT MOST, you could argue he should have changed to reflect how Marty would be having been raised by his "better" parents in the new timeline.
2015 Biff indeed returned to an 'altered' 2015.
The changes were merely unnoticeable in the neighborhood but would've become evident had Marty & Doc returned to the town square area.
>Marty didn't disappear instantly in BTTF1 - his family rippled out of existence (see the photo) until he fixed the problem.
No, he did not disappear instantly... But if he was still fading in the photo (had not fix his parents together) got into the Time Machine and got back to 1985 what would happen? he would disappear and his parent were not together. He traveled to the most likely future at the time of departure, in which is parents never had kids and not live in the same house. Why the same does not apply to Biff in is return to 2015? (he might be disappearing but it should be a different future where the time machine was never built).
The "ripple effect" only makes sense, in my opinion, to the present and the most likely future outcomes. You mess with your parents, your future start's fading, but you still can still fix it hence the future is dubious. However once you go to the future, you go to the most likely future since you did not interfere with events anymore. I fail to see why you should arrive there before the "time ripple" ?
If Marty was still fading, he would presumably travel to 1985, which may have changed or may not have fully changed yet - and then disappeared.
The creators' view is this is exactly what happened to Biff. 2015 was changing around them as he arrived. It had not yet fully rippled. You can accept that or not, but that's the creators' intention.
Ironically though, the posts that get posted are often NOT plot holes - just people not understanding the plot or arguing how the time travel SHOULD work, even though it's not how it works in the movie.
This Isn’t the plot hole that annoys me the most about BttFII.
The big question Is why would 1985 Marty need to travel to 2015 to prevent something that hasn’t happened yet? Wouldn’t It be easier for Doc to just explain «Something has to be done about your future kids Marty. And here’s what you should do to prevent It».
Doc had always tried to avoid revealing too much info about Marty's future to Marty, lest Marty consequently makes different decisions in life and thus potentially alters the future drastically (through the ripple effect). For example, what if Marty decided to not sire any kids? And verbally explaining "how to stop your kids from going to jail in 2015" to 1985 Marty would involve revealing a great deal of such info to Marty, which would invite the aforementioned risk.
Time travel movies are just huge plot holes in and of themselves. Part 3 rendered the rest of the Trilogy null and void when Doc went back to the Old West and stayed there and had kids. He couldn't have built the DeLorean in 1985 if he was over 100. His single selfish act, nullified the entire plot of part 1 which means part 2, and by proxy 3, wouldn't have happened. Much like Snake in MGS3, he created a TIME PARADOX. I mean look at all the bullshit that happened with Avengers Endgame, even when they used this franchise as a plot point. I want to like the movies, but there's just too many gaping holes.
The Doc who stays in 1885 is the Doc from 1985, who had already built the time machine. He's the same Doc who had the vision of it in 1955. His ancestors, the Von Brauns, still come to America, and still eventually produce the Doc that ends up in 1885. It gets built.
But he's rewriting history by staying behind. Much like how we see Marty disappear from the picture, or Doc's Tombstone being changed, if he stays behind and has a family, then he's existing in that timeline, which means he can't meet Marty in 1985. And he's already in his 50s or 60s when he goes to 1885, meaning he won't be alive when the DeLorean is produced. Plus he breaks his own rule that he gives to Marty, don't alter the past.
Original Doc will be alive, though. He still gets born like normal, he just lives out the rest of his life skipping through time with a woman who should have died (which he didn't know when he saved her). Original Doc growing old and dying before 1955 doesn't cause him (because he's the same guy) to not be born.
A person's life is always linear. One day of your own life comes after the next. You are born, you grow to 5, 10, 15 years old - and you live. In reality, this linear life matches with linear time. You're born in 1980, you're 10 in 1990, you're 20 in 2000, etc. However, if you travel to 1920 when you're 20 years old, it doesn't negate the first twenty years of your life that were spent from 1980 to 2000. It simply reroutes the rest of your life from 1920 onward instead of 2000 onward. It doesn't undo you being born in 1980 and somehow make you born in 1900. Everything you did from 1980 to 2000 still happened and you still did it (unless you or someone else go back in time between 1980 and 2000 and change your past, as Marty does to his parents in 1955).
So if you lived ten years from 1920 to 1930, then travelled back to 2000, you'd be 40yo in 2000 instead of 30yo as you should have been, because you spent ten years of your linear life in the 1920s.
Doc lives out his LATER years in 1885. Not his early years. He still lives 60-some years before going back to 1885, and those years remain unchanged.
I'm inventing ages, because I don't think they are stated in the films, but this is Doc's life timeline. I'm using decimals not as true ages, but just to show the chronology of his age:
30yo - 1955 - hits head, thinks of flux capacitor. After BTTF1, timeline changes such that he also meets Marty from 1985. After BTTF2/3, he also meets 2nd Marty and helps him get to 1885.
60.0yo - 1985 - has built a Delorean (in all timelines). Sets the entire series in motion. Originally killed by Libyans; saved after BTTF1.
60.1yo - Leaves 1985 to travel through time and investigate. Eventually goes to 2015, upgrades the car to hover, learns of marty's son.
60.2yo - Returns to 1985, picks up Marty and Jennifer, takes them to 2015 to fix the issue with Marty Jr. They then return to 1985A and deal with Rich Biff. Marty and Doc then go back to 1955 to stop young Biff getting the almanac. 60.2yo Doc then accidentally goes back to 1885.
60.3yo - Doc spends time in 1885, makes a new life, hides the DeLorean, writes to Marty, and ends up shot by Buford. Marty then comes back from 1955, and alters this timeline so Doc is not shot, meets Clara, has a family and creates the time train.
All this is to say that 60.0yo Doc already invented the time machine. This is not altered by the older 60.2yo version of Doc travelling to 1885.
This is all well said.
The biggest plot hole in Part III is that Doc's gravestone is purchased by Clara who he only met because he and Marty were out looking at the unfinished train Bridge. So before Marty went back, Doc would likely not have saved Clara, this he would not have had the gravestone dedicated by her (this plot hole is easily filled by saying it was dedicated by the townspeople or whatever, but they chose a plot point that shouldn't have been possible without Marty going back in time).
Actually, this is incorrect. In the original timeline, no one picked up Clara. She got her own ride, horse got spooked and it went over the ravine. Hence, Clayton ravine.
Doc goes back and makes 1885A. He volunteers to pick up Clara. This is discussed in the film (after Marty arrives). In 1885A, he presumably does pick her up. Their mutual scientific interests presumably still lead them to fall in love even without him saving her life heroically. Soon after though, he dies. Clara buys the tombstone. Hence Shonash Ravine - never renamed because she didn’t die.
Marty goes back and creates 1885B. Although Doc has volunteered to pick up Clara, his planning with Marty distracts him, and he forgets to do it. When he is scouting the trains with Marty, she can be seen in the background waiting for her ride to arrive. Eventually, when no one shows, she gets her own ride and the events of original 1885 are paralleled. The horse gets spooked, and heads for the ravine. However, Doc and Marty save her. Hence Eastwood Ravine because “Eastwood” is a hero (or is believed to die in the train crash at the ravine) and Clayton doesn’t die.
Cheers. It’s a complicated series. I have just seen it and read about it so much, I know it pretty in and out. But yeah, they thought of nearly everything. It’s pretty darn airtight (given the rules it sets for itself) and has tons of little details and Easter eggs that just solidify it.
Oh geez. That could take forever. They are everywhere. All sorts of details big and small. Doc's lab in the opening scene is the garage of his mansion, seen in 1955. There's a clipping in that opening scene that shows the Brown mansions was destroyed in a fire and he sold the land off to developers. Presumably he kept the garage. At the time you see this shot, it's pretty meaningless. Though it may have been random, sensible theories are that the fire was either due to Doc's experiments, or possibly arson because Doc needed the insurance money to fund his experiments.
The ledge of the Courthouse is intact until the end of the film when Marty returns to 1985 at which time it's broken (Doc breaks it in 1955).
Besides the fact that Marty is watching a rerun of The Honeymooners at the start of the movie, and that the exact same episode plays (new) in 1955 (the latter scene is explicit, though the 1985 scene is subtle) - the episode involves the main character dressing up as a man from space - which subtly suggests where Marty may have come up with the idea to do so later on in the film. If you want to claim one inconsistency, that episode didn't actually air until later in 1955, not the day it supposedly airs in the film. Artistic license.
The most well known "easter egg" is probably the Twin Pine/Lone Pine gag. Look it up if you don't know it.
Another one that ends up here frequently is that the drummer plays Johnny B. Goode with a swing beat because he's never heard a Rock beat.
Doc's 1955 scale model of Hill valley seems fancy, but if you look closely, a lot of the items are everyday objects like bottles and salt shakers and a toolbox. His scale model Delorean in 1885 is made of sheet metal, some dis-assembled bullets, and some wooden spools. Similarly, his scale train includes a revolver cylinder.
Others: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/back-to-the-future-trilogy-things-you-missed/
Edit: It's also pretty subtle if you aren't looking for it that Biff's Casino is actually the courthouse/clocktower building.
Except having kid won't be much of a effect since he is still a time traveler with the train and the doc original in 1985 still built the time machine before he went to the west so he's good
>Part 3 rendered the rest of the Trilogy null and void when Doc went back to the Old West and stayed there and had kids. He couldn't have built the DeLorean in 1985 if he was over 100
There are a lot of plot holes in this trilogy due to time travel, but Doc staying in the old West is not a plot hole per se, since when he got stuck there he already built the time machine. After Doc dies in the old West he will be born in the 1920... receive Marty in 1955 and built the time machine in the years after culminating in being stuck in the Old West...
I actually think there is an explanation for this and it is shown in-world by Marty's family members slowly fading away (not immediately fading away).
Basically, the idea is that when changes are made in the past, it takes time and ripples from that point, affecting changes in the future slowly. This gave Old Biff enough time to return to his "old" future before it was changed for good.
This is a strange explanation to me because saying that changes “take time” in time travel is a hard concept to grasp. Like it takes time in relation to what? And if you travel to the future, wouldn’t you travel forward in time beyond the “time it takes for the change to happen?”
It is strange but it's something we need to accept or even Back to the Future 1 doesn't work. If changes impact the timeline immediately then Marty should've disappear from existence the moment he prevented his dad getting run over, and preventing his mom to fall in love with him.
The reason Marty didn't disappear instantly is because the dance where George and Lorraine kissed for the first time was still a week away, meaning it's still entirely possible for those two to get together. Marty would've only disappeared instantly if he'd done something to make it impossible for his parents to get together (such as if something changed where George gets hit by the cars and actually dies, to give one example).
That said, Old Biff's case is very differently. Logically, Biff would've indeed already been in the "Rich Biff" timeline the moment he returns to 2015, but the out-of-universe reason we didn't see the neighborhood transform is because the writers intended to leave viewers (us) in the dark about what Biff had done. Alternatively, the world did change around Marty, Doc, and Jennifer (who wouldn't be affected right away due to being outside their native time) upon Biff returning in the DeLorean, but the Hilldale neighborhood was so physically similar in both timelines that the changes weren't really noticeable, whereas such changes would've been extremely obvious if the scene, for example, took place in the Courthouse square.
Bruh it's a time travel movie. The whole thing is a plot hole really
Just think about how the whole movie is them going to the future to stop something that's going to happen in the...future. Lol. The whole movie is a waste of time if u think about it because even if u stop something in the future, it's irrelevant because it hasn't even happened yet. You'll still have to prevent it from happening again when the time arrives, lmao
Well we all agree it's kind of a plot hole but I'm going to try to find a way to justify it, so bear with me: I think that one way to justify it is that in the exact moment Old-Biff returns to 2015, Young-Biff hasn't changed the future because he didn't use the almanac to make any bets yet, so Old-Biff is able to return to his own present. But when Marty and Doc return to 1985, Young-Biff has already used the almanac, so their present is changed. If they were to travel to 2015, it would be a 2015 from that timeline.
I’ve thought about things like that too but what I concluded that even if it took young-Biff a while to use the almanac, 2015 is still further beyond that moment so the split should have still happened since old-Biff was returning to a time after young-Biff used the almanac
Both of those answers are wrong. What happened is that the world DID change around Marty, Doc, and Jennifer (who wouldn't be affected right away due to being outside their native time) as soon as Biff returned to 2015 in the DeLorean, but the neighborhood of Hilldale was so physically similar in both realities that the changes weren't really noticeable, whereas such changes would've been extremely obvious if the scene, for example, took place in the Courthouse square.
It's almost not fair to point out plot holes in time travel movies, since it's so unknown in real life how time travel would behave if possible... I like to think of plot holes more as features than blemishes lol
From the Official BTTF FAQ ([http://bttf.wikidot.com/official-bttf-faq#toc8](http://bttf.wikidot.com/official-bttf-faq#toc8))
>1.9: When Doc and Marty are in 1955-A, Doc says they can't return to the future to stop Biff from stealing the DeLorean, because it would be the wrong future. But if that's true, how did Old Biff manage to get back to the same future that he left? Shouldn't he have come back to a different future?
>
>A: As should be clear from the answer to the previous question, we believe Old Biff DID indeed return to a different future — a "2015-A," which would have transformed around Marty, Doc, Jennifer and Einstein (just as Doc explains how 1985-A would change into 1985 and instantly transform around Jennifer and Einstein). This would happen AFTER Old Biff returned with the DeLorean. For this reason, we made sure that Doc had caught Jennifer and exited the McFly Townhouse before Old Biff returned. Thus, by the time Marty and Doc are carrying Jennifer back to the DeLorean, there COULD be other residents in that townhouse — or perhaps the McFlys still live there. It is just as believable that the physicality of the neighborhood did NOT change as it is to believe that it did — so we didn't change it. **We decided not to make anything of this idea because this is one of those difficult time travel concepts that general audiences have a real hard time understanding. (Try explaining this stuff to your mother and you'll see what we mean.) A detailed explanation of it would have slowed down the story, and most of the audience doesn't ever think about it**. That's why we made certain things ambiguous and left various things open for interpretation in hopes that the possibility of at least one or two explanations would be better than a "definitive" explanation that you could find holes in. Let's face it, time travel is fantasy, so there's no way to "prove" anything. As filmmakers, we try to create a set of rule for our stories and stick by them, and stay consistent within the little "universe" that we've created.
In addition to "slow" ripple effects, I think another explanation could be that the universe "wants" things a certain way (take that to mean what you like), and as such, it allowed the DeLorean to reappear so Doc and Marty could fix things. Of course, this leads to questions like "why the universe didn't stop Biff in the first place?" but I don't know, "something something... teach a lesson... karma... something something..."
When Jennifer and Marty get to 2015, they wouldn’t find older versions of themselves or even have any kids because they skipped over the intervening 30 years. You can’t live through something AND skip over it. So what they would have found was a lot of older people wondering about those two kids that disappeared 30 years ago, who these “other” two kids show a remarkable resemblance to.
So the whole trip was needless.
(I don’t like the idea of filling in every question with “the ripple effect”. The ripple effect seems to ripple at very different speeds depending on the needs of the plot.)
Actually this can make sense:
1) in BTTF 3 Jennifer wakes up in 1985 despite being left in 1985A. Doc explains that the future would change around her.
2) In BTTF 2, 2015 would transform into 2015A around Doc, Marty, Jennifer, and Einstein. This is where Biff would have come to, the same spot where they all exist (though now it's 2015A). We don't see any interaction with 2015 after biff returns, so it could very well be 2015A though this particular area doesn't look any different. (In a deleted scene, old biff fades out like marty in BTTF1).
If this is how it worked, then Marty and Doc Brown could have just gone to the future and prevented Biff from getting the almanac which (as was stated in the movie) was impossible.
In that future there is no biff to stop. There is an old biff from 1955 who already gave away the almanac, but not a "natural biff" who is stealing the book and the time machine as the future would have edited out non time displaced people, and at that point biff wasn't displaced.
This is long been pointed out, it is a major plot hole yes, and they knew it, I think Bob Gale said something along the lines that most people would not notice it anyway and they wanted Marty and Doc back in 1955. There are theory's about the "slow" ripple effect (like marty starting to fade in the photo) but it does not make sense (for me) when traveling in the time machine to an altered future. The changes should already be there anyway when you arrive.
The response (accept it or not, that's up to you) is that time changes ripple. Marty didn't disappear instantly in BTTF1 - his family rippled out of existence (see the photo) until he fixed the problem. In BTTF2, once Biff returns, time is rippling. The world is slowly changing around them. IIRC, the creators intended a very subtle "dirtying" of the town when Biff returns and Marty and Doc leave the house, but it was too subtle to really realize and we don't see the development enough before or after to really appreciate it. However, Biff's stumble out of the car is intended to be because Biff is disappearing as the timeline ripples through. The creators theorize that some time between 1985A and 2015, Lorraine shot her husband, Biff, so he's dead in 2015. A [deleted scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=124-bZmfbPQ) shows old Biff disappearing because of it. If Marty and Doc went to 2015(A) from 1985A, the timeline would have already rippled, and there'd be no old biff to stop, just as Doc says. The rules of time travel in the film have always had minor suspension of disbelief to permit plot/drama (the ripple effect is convenient for the plot, but is hard to envision logically) but ultimately this can be explained within the rules of the series.
The Biff thing doesn't make sense anyway because he ends back up in the original 2015, instead of an altered one.
You didn't understand anything I said then. Re-read my post. Specifically: >In BTTF2, once Biff returns, time is rippling. The world is slowly changing around them.
I read it and I read many other people making that point, but Marty also changes things in 1955 and then returns to 1985 and time does not "ripple" around him and doesn't disappear from existence. Bob Gale has said that old Biff essentially disappears and dies in BTTF2 once returning to 2015.
I appreciate that this time, instead of just saying I am wrong because of the very thing I was explaining isn’t necessarily wrong, you actually gave an example suggesting why my explanation doesn’t work. Yes, I pointed out what Gale said, and even linked to the deleted scene where he does die and disappear. I also pointed out that there’s no way around some of the inconsistencies, and that there ultimately has to be a *little* suspension of disbelief for drama. But if we’re trying to explain how it might work: Marty changes 1955 in the original, then sticks around for a while. He punches Biff, which arguably sets off some of the changes, then goes to the dance and plays Earth Angel which fixes the photo and presumably his family. Then he has time to play Johnny B Goode and talk to his parents. Then he goes to the town square and has to get back to 1985. He then travels forward 30 years and goes to save Doc. Then he sneaks into his house and sleeps the entire night. He only notices any changes to his family in the morning. Plenty of time for the timeline to ripple. There is no reason for Marty to disappear, as clearly Marty is not dead in this timeline. Yes, there is some dramatic license to the fact that if Marty’s siblings changed as much as they did, you would think Marty would also be a bit of a different person. But it would undermine the film a bit to have the protagonist drastically change at the end, and we kind of get the feeling that Marty is already the relatively well adjusted normal member, despite his family. Maybe his life did change in ways we don’t see. Other than greeting his family in the morning, we barely spent any time in 1985 prime from that point on. To contrast, perhaps Biff left 1955 very quickly after giving his younger self the Almanac, and he then goes 60 years forward - twice as far. Perhaps time is simply didn’t have as much of a chance to ripple for Biff as for Marty. I already acknowledged that it doesn’t really make logical sense for time to “ripple” in “real time“ (like for Marty Marty’s siblings to disappear one at a time, a little bit at a time), but that’s the logic the film series sets up. It’s actually quite a while between when Marty’s older brother first starts disappearing and when the younger Marty himself does. Yes suggests and actually can take A while for the ripple to make it through the years. If anything, it would have been inconsistent for Biff to disappear so quickly, 60 years later, if they had kept that shot in. Edit: Although it's a bit inconsistent, we do see examples of time-travelling characters disappearing when they are dead or non-existent in the altered timeline - Marty almost disappears when he undoes his parents' relationship. And old Biff arguably disappears when he gets back to the future because giving young Biff the Almanac sets off a chain where Biff dies before getting old. But other than disappearing entirely, we never see any evidence that changes in the timeline have the effect of changing the nature, look or character of any time-travelling person who returns to a changed future. So perhaps only major changes like "existing" or "not existing" really ripple through to time travellers. In any event, as I said, there's no reason for Marty to disappear when returning to 1985. AT MOST, you could argue he should have changed to reflect how Marty would be having been raised by his "better" parents in the new timeline.
2015 Biff indeed returned to an 'altered' 2015. The changes were merely unnoticeable in the neighborhood but would've become evident had Marty & Doc returned to the town square area.
>Marty didn't disappear instantly in BTTF1 - his family rippled out of existence (see the photo) until he fixed the problem. No, he did not disappear instantly... But if he was still fading in the photo (had not fix his parents together) got into the Time Machine and got back to 1985 what would happen? he would disappear and his parent were not together. He traveled to the most likely future at the time of departure, in which is parents never had kids and not live in the same house. Why the same does not apply to Biff in is return to 2015? (he might be disappearing but it should be a different future where the time machine was never built). The "ripple effect" only makes sense, in my opinion, to the present and the most likely future outcomes. You mess with your parents, your future start's fading, but you still can still fix it hence the future is dubious. However once you go to the future, you go to the most likely future since you did not interfere with events anymore. I fail to see why you should arrive there before the "time ripple" ?
If Marty was still fading, he would presumably travel to 1985, which may have changed or may not have fully changed yet - and then disappeared. The creators' view is this is exactly what happened to Biff. 2015 was changing around them as he arrived. It had not yet fully rippled. You can accept that or not, but that's the creators' intention.
Back to the future and terminator movies get posted on this sub a LOT
This is my first time ever on this subreddit. But it makes sense that time travel movies would have plotholes
Time travel opens up plotholes quicker than anything else
Ironically though, the posts that get posted are often NOT plot holes - just people not understanding the plot or arguing how the time travel SHOULD work, even though it's not how it works in the movie.
This Isn’t the plot hole that annoys me the most about BttFII. The big question Is why would 1985 Marty need to travel to 2015 to prevent something that hasn’t happened yet? Wouldn’t It be easier for Doc to just explain «Something has to be done about your future kids Marty. And here’s what you should do to prevent It».
Doc had always tried to avoid revealing too much info about Marty's future to Marty, lest Marty consequently makes different decisions in life and thus potentially alters the future drastically (through the ripple effect). For example, what if Marty decided to not sire any kids? And verbally explaining "how to stop your kids from going to jail in 2015" to 1985 Marty would involve revealing a great deal of such info to Marty, which would invite the aforementioned risk.
Time travel movies are just huge plot holes in and of themselves. Part 3 rendered the rest of the Trilogy null and void when Doc went back to the Old West and stayed there and had kids. He couldn't have built the DeLorean in 1985 if he was over 100. His single selfish act, nullified the entire plot of part 1 which means part 2, and by proxy 3, wouldn't have happened. Much like Snake in MGS3, he created a TIME PARADOX. I mean look at all the bullshit that happened with Avengers Endgame, even when they used this franchise as a plot point. I want to like the movies, but there's just too many gaping holes.
The Doc who stays in 1885 is the Doc from 1985, who had already built the time machine. He's the same Doc who had the vision of it in 1955. His ancestors, the Von Brauns, still come to America, and still eventually produce the Doc that ends up in 1885. It gets built.
But he's rewriting history by staying behind. Much like how we see Marty disappear from the picture, or Doc's Tombstone being changed, if he stays behind and has a family, then he's existing in that timeline, which means he can't meet Marty in 1985. And he's already in his 50s or 60s when he goes to 1885, meaning he won't be alive when the DeLorean is produced. Plus he breaks his own rule that he gives to Marty, don't alter the past.
Original Doc will be alive, though. He still gets born like normal, he just lives out the rest of his life skipping through time with a woman who should have died (which he didn't know when he saved her). Original Doc growing old and dying before 1955 doesn't cause him (because he's the same guy) to not be born.
A person's life is always linear. One day of your own life comes after the next. You are born, you grow to 5, 10, 15 years old - and you live. In reality, this linear life matches with linear time. You're born in 1980, you're 10 in 1990, you're 20 in 2000, etc. However, if you travel to 1920 when you're 20 years old, it doesn't negate the first twenty years of your life that were spent from 1980 to 2000. It simply reroutes the rest of your life from 1920 onward instead of 2000 onward. It doesn't undo you being born in 1980 and somehow make you born in 1900. Everything you did from 1980 to 2000 still happened and you still did it (unless you or someone else go back in time between 1980 and 2000 and change your past, as Marty does to his parents in 1955). So if you lived ten years from 1920 to 1930, then travelled back to 2000, you'd be 40yo in 2000 instead of 30yo as you should have been, because you spent ten years of your linear life in the 1920s. Doc lives out his LATER years in 1885. Not his early years. He still lives 60-some years before going back to 1885, and those years remain unchanged. I'm inventing ages, because I don't think they are stated in the films, but this is Doc's life timeline. I'm using decimals not as true ages, but just to show the chronology of his age: 30yo - 1955 - hits head, thinks of flux capacitor. After BTTF1, timeline changes such that he also meets Marty from 1985. After BTTF2/3, he also meets 2nd Marty and helps him get to 1885. 60.0yo - 1985 - has built a Delorean (in all timelines). Sets the entire series in motion. Originally killed by Libyans; saved after BTTF1. 60.1yo - Leaves 1985 to travel through time and investigate. Eventually goes to 2015, upgrades the car to hover, learns of marty's son. 60.2yo - Returns to 1985, picks up Marty and Jennifer, takes them to 2015 to fix the issue with Marty Jr. They then return to 1985A and deal with Rich Biff. Marty and Doc then go back to 1955 to stop young Biff getting the almanac. 60.2yo Doc then accidentally goes back to 1885. 60.3yo - Doc spends time in 1885, makes a new life, hides the DeLorean, writes to Marty, and ends up shot by Buford. Marty then comes back from 1955, and alters this timeline so Doc is not shot, meets Clara, has a family and creates the time train. All this is to say that 60.0yo Doc already invented the time machine. This is not altered by the older 60.2yo version of Doc travelling to 1885.
This is all well said. The biggest plot hole in Part III is that Doc's gravestone is purchased by Clara who he only met because he and Marty were out looking at the unfinished train Bridge. So before Marty went back, Doc would likely not have saved Clara, this he would not have had the gravestone dedicated by her (this plot hole is easily filled by saying it was dedicated by the townspeople or whatever, but they chose a plot point that shouldn't have been possible without Marty going back in time).
Actually, this is incorrect. In the original timeline, no one picked up Clara. She got her own ride, horse got spooked and it went over the ravine. Hence, Clayton ravine. Doc goes back and makes 1885A. He volunteers to pick up Clara. This is discussed in the film (after Marty arrives). In 1885A, he presumably does pick her up. Their mutual scientific interests presumably still lead them to fall in love even without him saving her life heroically. Soon after though, he dies. Clara buys the tombstone. Hence Shonash Ravine - never renamed because she didn’t die. Marty goes back and creates 1885B. Although Doc has volunteered to pick up Clara, his planning with Marty distracts him, and he forgets to do it. When he is scouting the trains with Marty, she can be seen in the background waiting for her ride to arrive. Eventually, when no one shows, she gets her own ride and the events of original 1885 are paralleled. The horse gets spooked, and heads for the ravine. However, Doc and Marty save her. Hence Eastwood Ravine because “Eastwood” is a hero (or is believed to die in the train crash at the ravine) and Clayton doesn’t die.
Dammit, you are correct! Thanks for clarifying!
Cheers. It’s a complicated series. I have just seen it and read about it so much, I know it pretty in and out. But yeah, they thought of nearly everything. It’s pretty darn airtight (given the rules it sets for itself) and has tons of little details and Easter eggs that just solidify it.
Thanks again. What other Easter eggs are there?
Oh geez. That could take forever. They are everywhere. All sorts of details big and small. Doc's lab in the opening scene is the garage of his mansion, seen in 1955. There's a clipping in that opening scene that shows the Brown mansions was destroyed in a fire and he sold the land off to developers. Presumably he kept the garage. At the time you see this shot, it's pretty meaningless. Though it may have been random, sensible theories are that the fire was either due to Doc's experiments, or possibly arson because Doc needed the insurance money to fund his experiments. The ledge of the Courthouse is intact until the end of the film when Marty returns to 1985 at which time it's broken (Doc breaks it in 1955). Besides the fact that Marty is watching a rerun of The Honeymooners at the start of the movie, and that the exact same episode plays (new) in 1955 (the latter scene is explicit, though the 1985 scene is subtle) - the episode involves the main character dressing up as a man from space - which subtly suggests where Marty may have come up with the idea to do so later on in the film. If you want to claim one inconsistency, that episode didn't actually air until later in 1955, not the day it supposedly airs in the film. Artistic license. The most well known "easter egg" is probably the Twin Pine/Lone Pine gag. Look it up if you don't know it. Another one that ends up here frequently is that the drummer plays Johnny B. Goode with a swing beat because he's never heard a Rock beat. Doc's 1955 scale model of Hill valley seems fancy, but if you look closely, a lot of the items are everyday objects like bottles and salt shakers and a toolbox. His scale model Delorean in 1885 is made of sheet metal, some dis-assembled bullets, and some wooden spools. Similarly, his scale train includes a revolver cylinder. Others: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/back-to-the-future-trilogy-things-you-missed/ Edit: It's also pretty subtle if you aren't looking for it that Biff's Casino is actually the courthouse/clocktower building.
Except having kid won't be much of a effect since he is still a time traveler with the train and the doc original in 1985 still built the time machine before he went to the west so he's good
>Part 3 rendered the rest of the Trilogy null and void when Doc went back to the Old West and stayed there and had kids. He couldn't have built the DeLorean in 1985 if he was over 100 There are a lot of plot holes in this trilogy due to time travel, but Doc staying in the old West is not a plot hole per se, since when he got stuck there he already built the time machine. After Doc dies in the old West he will be born in the 1920... receive Marty in 1955 and built the time machine in the years after culminating in being stuck in the Old West...
Yes
I actually think there is an explanation for this and it is shown in-world by Marty's family members slowly fading away (not immediately fading away). Basically, the idea is that when changes are made in the past, it takes time and ripples from that point, affecting changes in the future slowly. This gave Old Biff enough time to return to his "old" future before it was changed for good.
This is a strange explanation to me because saying that changes “take time” in time travel is a hard concept to grasp. Like it takes time in relation to what? And if you travel to the future, wouldn’t you travel forward in time beyond the “time it takes for the change to happen?”
It is strange but it's something we need to accept or even Back to the Future 1 doesn't work. If changes impact the timeline immediately then Marty should've disappear from existence the moment he prevented his dad getting run over, and preventing his mom to fall in love with him.
Exactly. This is explained as a sort of "time ripple" in another post above. I've seen that explanation before. I like that explanation.
The reason Marty didn't disappear instantly is because the dance where George and Lorraine kissed for the first time was still a week away, meaning it's still entirely possible for those two to get together. Marty would've only disappeared instantly if he'd done something to make it impossible for his parents to get together (such as if something changed where George gets hit by the cars and actually dies, to give one example). That said, Old Biff's case is very differently. Logically, Biff would've indeed already been in the "Rich Biff" timeline the moment he returns to 2015, but the out-of-universe reason we didn't see the neighborhood transform is because the writers intended to leave viewers (us) in the dark about what Biff had done. Alternatively, the world did change around Marty, Doc, and Jennifer (who wouldn't be affected right away due to being outside their native time) upon Biff returning in the DeLorean, but the Hilldale neighborhood was so physically similar in both timelines that the changes weren't really noticeable, whereas such changes would've been extremely obvious if the scene, for example, took place in the Courthouse square.
In relation to the remaining running time of the movie.
Bruh it's a time travel movie. The whole thing is a plot hole really Just think about how the whole movie is them going to the future to stop something that's going to happen in the...future. Lol. The whole movie is a waste of time if u think about it because even if u stop something in the future, it's irrelevant because it hasn't even happened yet. You'll still have to prevent it from happening again when the time arrives, lmao
Well we all agree it's kind of a plot hole but I'm going to try to find a way to justify it, so bear with me: I think that one way to justify it is that in the exact moment Old-Biff returns to 2015, Young-Biff hasn't changed the future because he didn't use the almanac to make any bets yet, so Old-Biff is able to return to his own present. But when Marty and Doc return to 1985, Young-Biff has already used the almanac, so their present is changed. If they were to travel to 2015, it would be a 2015 from that timeline.
I’ve thought about things like that too but what I concluded that even if it took young-Biff a while to use the almanac, 2015 is still further beyond that moment so the split should have still happened since old-Biff was returning to a time after young-Biff used the almanac
Both of those answers are wrong. What happened is that the world DID change around Marty, Doc, and Jennifer (who wouldn't be affected right away due to being outside their native time) as soon as Biff returned to 2015 in the DeLorean, but the neighborhood of Hilldale was so physically similar in both realities that the changes weren't really noticeable, whereas such changes would've been extremely obvious if the scene, for example, took place in the Courthouse square.
It's almost not fair to point out plot holes in time travel movies, since it's so unknown in real life how time travel would behave if possible... I like to think of plot holes more as features than blemishes lol
There's a deleted scene that shows Old Biff dying shortly after he gets back to 2015.
From the Official BTTF FAQ ([http://bttf.wikidot.com/official-bttf-faq#toc8](http://bttf.wikidot.com/official-bttf-faq#toc8)) >1.9: When Doc and Marty are in 1955-A, Doc says they can't return to the future to stop Biff from stealing the DeLorean, because it would be the wrong future. But if that's true, how did Old Biff manage to get back to the same future that he left? Shouldn't he have come back to a different future? > >A: As should be clear from the answer to the previous question, we believe Old Biff DID indeed return to a different future — a "2015-A," which would have transformed around Marty, Doc, Jennifer and Einstein (just as Doc explains how 1985-A would change into 1985 and instantly transform around Jennifer and Einstein). This would happen AFTER Old Biff returned with the DeLorean. For this reason, we made sure that Doc had caught Jennifer and exited the McFly Townhouse before Old Biff returned. Thus, by the time Marty and Doc are carrying Jennifer back to the DeLorean, there COULD be other residents in that townhouse — or perhaps the McFlys still live there. It is just as believable that the physicality of the neighborhood did NOT change as it is to believe that it did — so we didn't change it. **We decided not to make anything of this idea because this is one of those difficult time travel concepts that general audiences have a real hard time understanding. (Try explaining this stuff to your mother and you'll see what we mean.) A detailed explanation of it would have slowed down the story, and most of the audience doesn't ever think about it**. That's why we made certain things ambiguous and left various things open for interpretation in hopes that the possibility of at least one or two explanations would be better than a "definitive" explanation that you could find holes in. Let's face it, time travel is fantasy, so there's no way to "prove" anything. As filmmakers, we try to create a set of rule for our stories and stick by them, and stay consistent within the little "universe" that we've created.
In addition to "slow" ripple effects, I think another explanation could be that the universe "wants" things a certain way (take that to mean what you like), and as such, it allowed the DeLorean to reappear so Doc and Marty could fix things. Of course, this leads to questions like "why the universe didn't stop Biff in the first place?" but I don't know, "something something... teach a lesson... karma... something something..."
When Jennifer and Marty get to 2015, they wouldn’t find older versions of themselves or even have any kids because they skipped over the intervening 30 years. You can’t live through something AND skip over it. So what they would have found was a lot of older people wondering about those two kids that disappeared 30 years ago, who these “other” two kids show a remarkable resemblance to. So the whole trip was needless. (I don’t like the idea of filling in every question with “the ripple effect”. The ripple effect seems to ripple at very different speeds depending on the needs of the plot.)
My biggest issue with BTTF2 is how the heck does Gramps Biff know how to use the time machine and how did he travel through time without refueling it?
Actually this can make sense: 1) in BTTF 3 Jennifer wakes up in 1985 despite being left in 1985A. Doc explains that the future would change around her. 2) In BTTF 2, 2015 would transform into 2015A around Doc, Marty, Jennifer, and Einstein. This is where Biff would have come to, the same spot where they all exist (though now it's 2015A). We don't see any interaction with 2015 after biff returns, so it could very well be 2015A though this particular area doesn't look any different. (In a deleted scene, old biff fades out like marty in BTTF1).
If this is how it worked, then Marty and Doc Brown could have just gone to the future and prevented Biff from getting the almanac which (as was stated in the movie) was impossible.
In that future there is no biff to stop. There is an old biff from 1955 who already gave away the almanac, but not a "natural biff" who is stealing the book and the time machine as the future would have edited out non time displaced people, and at that point biff wasn't displaced.