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Quotes

Lorraine Baines: Our first television set. Dad just picked it up today. Do you have a television?

Marty McFly: Well, yeah! You know we have... two of them.

Milton Baines: Wow! You must be rich!

Stella Baines: Oh, honey, he's teasing you. Nobody has two television sets.

See more...

Mistakes

In 1955, when Doctor Brown is watching the video of himself, he sees himself saying that the Libyans are coming. You can hear a significant pause between "They found me" and "I don't know how but they found me." But in the beginning of the film he says the entire phrase without any pauses. See more...

Trivia

When Marty returned to 1985, Red was on a park bench that had the logo for California Raisins. The California Raisin Board paid the producers $50,000 for this product placement. However, since it was so dark and dirty, and since Red was covering up most of the logo, half their money was refunded. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

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Back to the Future (1985) - 122 corrections

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson, Michael J. Fox, Thomas F. Wilson (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Sci-fi

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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When Marty begins playing "Johnny B. Goode", the guitar tone is suddenly distorted whereas it was clean in the prior song without him ever adjusting the amp or the guitar's volume knob. The guitar also becomes more distorted during the guitar solo. [Turning a knob on a guitar takes almost no time at all. He could have easily turned it between shots, or when his back was turned toward the camera.]
Edit Corrected by MasterOfAll
In the original film Doc rips up Marty's letter and then sellotapes it back together at some point, however at the end of the second film Doc faints, so he wouldn't have picked up the letter and should be dead. [Doc never picks up the letter because he never let it go in the first place. He rips it up and *puts it in his pocket*. Presumably the pieces are still in the pocket when he faints and subsequently wakes up in his home.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
When Marty travels back to 1955 the DeLorean first strikes a scarecrow, then drives at high speed into a barn and finally crashes through the barn door to escape. Later, when it returns to 1985, it crashes into a movie theatre front before it can stop. After all this mayhem the DeLorean doesn't have as much as a scratch on its nose. [That's because the entire body of every DMC DeLorean is made out of stainless steel, not fiberglass.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
Mayor Red Thomas in the 1950s based on his picture, looks to be around age 50. However, in 1985, when he is a bum, he still looks about the same age, even though he should be around 80 years old now. Granted, some people age better than others, but it is doubtful that an old man living on the streets would even survive for very long, let alone age gracefully. [You are assuming Red has lived on the streets for a long time. We have absolutely no information about how long he has been a bum; he could just as well be a youngish-looking 80-year-old who just recently suffered a decline in fortune and became homeless as a result.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
After Marty changes things and returns to 1985, he finds his brother Dave is more successful and now has an office job. So why is Dave still living at home with his parents? [This has already been asked. He never says he lives there. He may be just having breakfast with his sister and parents on his way to the office. Also, if he's living with his parents, it wouldn't be a mistake. Many young adults continue to live with their parents, just because they don't have to spend extra money.]
Edit
When Marty first enters Lou's cafe in 1955, Lou is visibly angry at Marty just because he won't order something right away. However, he doesn't seem to care that one of his paying customers, George McFly, is being harassed by Biff and his gang and told never to come in there again. You would think Lou would tell Biff and Co. to knock it off or else be asked to leave. [George had already paid for his cereal, what does Lou care? Biff and Co. are paying customers on occasion too, he wouldn't want to alienate them either. Especially considering they're likely to vandalize his restaraunt in retaliation.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
Lorraine thinks Marty's name is Calvin Klein because she said it was written on his underwear. Actually, it's stitched on, which should tip her off that the underwear was made that way when it was manufactured, not written on. [Ever heard of embroidery? It's the process of using a needle and thread to put images or letters on cloth by hand. Lorraine undoubtedly assumed "Calvin's" mother had embroidered his underwear.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
After Marty returns to 1985, he discovers that he now has the new Toyota truck he wanted, while the rest of his family is forced to share one car. Why would Marty, the youngest of the siblings, who is still in high school, have his own brand new truck while his older siblings and both parents have to share one other vehicle? [We only see one vehicle other than the truck, this does not mean it is the only other vehicle. We only know that Marty's older brother uses the car to go to work.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
Marty gives Goldie Wilson the idea to run for mayor before Goldie thought of it himself. Suppose now that Goldie runs for mayor before he is supposed to and loses the election and it ends his political career, thereby disrupting history. [So what? Marty changes lots of things during his time in the past, ranging from the very minor - Twin Pines Mall becoming Lone Pine Mall - to the really quite major - his parents' entire personalities and futures. History's already disrupted to a significant degree, one more thing, particularly one that, as far as we know, didn't happen, is hardly mistake-worthy.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
The lightning bolt hitting the clock tower should not have stopped the clock because the clock is not electrical, it's mechanical. [Electricity arcing between metal parts can melt them.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
When Marty is hit by Lorraine's dad, it is right in front of the Baines house. If he was right in front of his house, then why was he driving so fast? He should have been slowing down to pull into the driveway or park, but he appears to still be going at a pretty good speed. [There's any number of reasons. Maybe he's just a reckless driver, maybe he was headed to the store after work to pick something up and his house happened to be between the store and his job. Just because you don't know why something happened does not make it a mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
After Marty reunites his parents, he and his siblings all reappear in the photo and all is well. However, in order for Marty and his brother and sister to exist again, it would mean that Marty's parents would have to have sex at the exact same moment all three times to conceive them. Even if they were a few seconds off, it wouldn't be the exact same three kids. Similar maybe, but not exact. Now that George is more successful, he will be doing many things differently in his life so the chances of him and Lorraine having sex at the exact same millisecond all three times to have those exact three kids is beyond astronomical. [This is purely speculative. There is no way anyone (other than the filmmakers) can say what "should" have happened in the altered timeline. The odds may be astronomical, but the odds are certainly better than the odds of a plutonium-powered, time-travelling Delorean being invented.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
When Marty is trying to prove to Doc that he is from the future, he shows him his driver's license and the photo of himself and his siblings. Doc immediately dismisses them both. Doesn't Doc notice that the quality of the color in the photos is much better than any color film that existed in the 1950's? Wouldn't that grab his attention? [If he actually took the time to examine it, maybe. Think about it, if someone walked up and told you he was from the future and showed you a document to prove it, would you believe him and examine it or humor the weirdo and get away as quick as you could?]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
When older Lorraine is talking about when she first met Marty's dad, the words VODKA on the vodka bottle are reversed therefore the shot was flipped. ["VODKA" (at the bottom of the label) is not spelled backwards. I think you're confusing it with the brand of vodka, POPOV. Only the last few letters are visible in the shot. ("-OV").]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
When Doc is having the DeLorean do the burn out to get the car up to speed, the car is spinning its wheels up to 65 mph and Doc releases the brake. Now the car takes off, but the car would lose most of the speed the tires had built up as it is starting from essentially a dead stop even though the speedometer still shows 65 mph. Think of it this way, the back tires may be moving at 65 mph but the front tires are not. There is no physically possible way for a car to jump from 0 to 65 mph instantaneously using only its tires no matter how fast they were rotating. Even an F/A-18 needs a catapult to get that kind of speed so quickly. [If the speedometer was hooked up in such a way as to show 65MPH as the speed before the brake was released, it would still show it afterward. The car was never going 65, true, but the tires were telling the speedometer it was. For whatever reason this is how Doc wired it all together. The tires wouldn't slow down suddenly just because the brake was let up, they'd continue to skid until the car's speed matched their own.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius Time
When Loraine tries to kiss Marty in the car and he pulls away, she asks if something is wrong, but instead of calling him "Calvin" (as in Calvin Klein) she calls him "Marty." [When Marty first met her, and she thought his name was Calvin Klein, he told her his friends called him Marty. She referred to him as Calvin and then Marty in the scene in Doc's garage, and she calls him Marty in their last scene before he goes back to 1985. Clearly she's getting used to calling him Marty.]
Edit Corrected by Madstunts
If everything that happens in the past, determines what happens in the future,and there in between, then wouldn't it make more sense for the picture of the family, when it starts to come back, to have them dressed differently? Such is the case when they are in the new family scene, when they come back. [This is a question, not a mistake. There's no reason why they couldn't be wearing the same clothes in the altered timeline.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Marty is plugging his guitar in to the mega amp, the amplifier end of the cable is stereo (like you would use for headphones) and the guitar end is the correct mono connector. [This is obviously something Doc Brown built himself, not an "off-the-shelf" item. For whatever reason he wanted, needed, or settled on a stereo connection in the amp.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
The camera that Doc Brown used was a JVC GR-C1, (produced in March 1984) (Also, this particular camcorder was the first built in camera also to feature a tape deck built in). [A perfectly legitimate camera for someone to have in the year 1985.]
Edit Corrected by Greenman37
When Doc is on the clock tower attempting to reconnect the cable, he pulls it and disconnects the other end (indicating the cable has just enough slack to touch the ground from point A and then be inches short of point B). Doc then connects the cable and then ties the cable around the clock hands. The other end of the cable is only held by a fallen branch, if he were to really propel down the cable, he would have gone completely vertical down. When he lands, the cable would have been shorter due to him tying it to the clock hands. Also a shock of 1.21 gigawatts would have landed him in the hospital if not the funeral home. [Several "mistakes" in one entry, that alone should have gotten this entry rejected. The cable is more than long enough in a more or less straight shot from one end to the other. The branch is keeping from being a straight shot. That's why, even though it's wrapped arond the clock hand, it's still long enough after Doc disentangles it form the branch. If all of Doc's weight, and whatever more leverage he gained by pulling against the clock hand, wasn't enough to move the branch, him rapelling down the cable wouldn't have moved it either. It was stuck in place. The jolt he got wasn't a full 1.21 gigawatts either. The cable was surely insulated and he was wearing gloves, also certainly insulated, if I remember that small bit correctly.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius

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