Back to the Future questions and answers

Back to the Future (1985) - 25 questions

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

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Easter Eggs

Questions

I'm not going to list this as a mistake since apparently it didn't happen, but George obviously changed his, his wife's, and Biff's future (at least) when he knocked Biff out in 1955. Since right there the timeline would have changed, what are the odds that Marty would still have been in the parking lot driving from the Libyans and going back to 1955? Couldn't Marty have accidentally caused a paradox to destroy the universe? [Yes, he could have. But some theorize that the function of the universe itself cancels out paradoxes. For example, Larry Niven proposed that time travel can never be developed because by its nature it would constantly cause paradoxes, so natural accidents and twists of fate prevent time travel from being discovered. In this case, it's possible that Marty's life was rewritten to insure that he was in the right place at the right time to prevent a paradox.]

Time

I'm intrigued if anyone knows what the experiment was that Doc refers to at the start. He says "my experiment worked - all the clocks are exactly 25 minutes slow". The only thing I can think of is that Doc loaded them all into the time machine or something similar - is there any official answer, or is it just a random comment? [It's just a random comment, and I suppose is also an early indicator that Doc Brown is performing experiments involving time. Whatever, it's certainly nothing that bears any relevance to the rest of the film.]

Time

In the scene where Marty is being chased around Twin Pines mall by the Libyans why is Marty driving straight towards the 1hr Photo Booth? I'm assuming he doesn't realise the time circuits were on, as he accidentally engaged them when changing gear. If he DID know, why drive 88+ mph knowing you don't have enough plutonium to get back from 1955? [He could have been planning on veering aside at the last second, hoping the Libyans would crash. In any case, it provides a convenient solution to the problem of the Libyans threatening our heroes when Marty returns from the future. :)]

Time

When Marty arrives back from the past, but a bit earlier to try to save Doc's life he sees himself disappear into the past. So for a few minutes we have two Deloreans and two Martys. What happens to this Marty who obviously goes back to 1955? Is he going to relive the whole film? [Basically, yes. We never see the looping effect, but we have to assume that's what happens. The Bill and Ted argument of "time is always running" doesn't seem to apply in the BTTF films - the Marty who goes back to 1955 is about to do exactly what we've seen Marty do throughout the film.]

Answered by Jon Sandys Time

Right when Marty gets back to Doc before he goes back to 1985, he's praising his dad's actions of the night. One line that's bothered me ever since I can remember is "My dad laid out Biff. He's never stood up to Biff in his life." And then the Doc pauses for a second and gets a strange look on his face and says, "Never?" To that, Marty says, "No, why?" and the Doc shrugs it off saying, "Nevermind." What's Doc thinking? The best I can come up with is that he's wondering what effects it'll have on the future, but that's a rough guess. If anyone out there knows, I'd be happy to hear it. [I think that is *exactly* what he is thinking. He realizes that by standing up to Biff, George may have irrevocably changed his personal future, and therefore affected Marty's future as well. This is exactly the sort of thing Doc was so eager to prevent by refusing to hear any information about the future.]

Time

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