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Quotes

Young Biff: Manure! I HATE manure!

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Mistakes

During the dance hall scene, the first half of the guitar solo Marty plays (before the Eddie Van Halen section) is completely different to the one he plays in the original film. Whether this is just to give time for the jump sequence to take place or not is open to question, but all the same, although not many people would notice, it is a pretty obvious mistake. See more...

Trivia

When young Jennifer is in her future house, her daughter-to-be, Marlene, comes down the stairs. Marlene says, "Mom? Mom, is that you?" - the same quote used by Marty three times throughout the trilogy when he wakes up in bed, after being knocked out. See more...

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Back to the Future Part II (1989) - 96 corrections

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

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

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 confronts Biff in 2015 and asks when, where, and how he got the sports almanac, Biff retrieves it from a safe and a lock box and carefully shows it to Marty. Because the almanac contained results from sporting events through the end of the century (the year 2000), it would have been rendered worthless 15 years before and would therefore no longer need to be kept in a safe, if even at all. [No, this scene takes place in 1985, so the almanac still contains fifteen years' worth of future information.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Marty goes to the cemetery, it says his dad was born in 1930 and died in 1973. If the Enchantment Under the Sea dance [George's senior prom] was in 1955, that would have made him 25 at the time. [I just saw that scene it clearly reads born in 1938, making him 17 in 1955.]
Edit
When Old Biff hands Young Biff the Almanac, the book passes through the film split (the vertical bar that divides the windshield) perfectly because it was on a motorized rig. But the stand-in for Old Biff didn't hold his arm at the right height, so Old Biff's arm disappears into the bar that runs down the middle of the window while the book floats across to Young Biff. [No it doesn't. The arm is below the windshield, that is why it can't be seen. The tip of the hand is perfectly visible, with no missing parts.]
Edit Corrected by Sacha
Considering the sports almanac contains 50 years of statistics in all major sports, it is very small and thin, about the size of a magazine. This would work if it only contained major sporting event results (super bowl, world series) but obviously it doesn't. It has results from horse races in small towns like Hill Valley listed and regular season college football scores. The font size of the printing in the book would literally have to be microscopic in order to contain all the info it does. Even college football alone, listing just Division 1 teams, would require several hundred pages. [Based on the information in the film, we actually know very little about the almanac itself. It could just be a local or regional publication, and therefore focus on a limited range of scores/results. Granted, the font would have to be quite small, but not unmanageable (especially if there were no graphics).]
Edit Corrected by Xofer
When Marty buys the sports almanac, how does he get the money to do it? Considering a Pepsi costs 50 bucks, the almanac probably costs several hundred dollars. How many teens from the 1980's just happened to have that amount of money in their wallet at any given moment? He didn't get the money from Doc since Doc didn't even know he bought it until after the fact. [He doesn't need money in his wallet, he simply needs to trade some of the 1980's items he is carrying with him. His clothes, for instance, would not only be genuine, but with hardly any wear in them at all. They would be worth a lot to a vintage clothes store.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
When Marty's son walks by young Jennifer in the hallway of his home, he thinks is the older Jennifer and says "Hi mom, nice pants". Later at dinner, Marty Sr. and Lorraine are talking about how Jennifer is late coming home. Marty Jr. is sitting right there and doesn't even mention how he just saw his mom in the hallway. [He's a teenage boy. Not always the most observant or helpful.]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
In the year 2015, Marty's daughter Marlene is telling Lorraine that the reason the scenery channel isn't working is because the scene screen repairman called Marty a chicken and Marty threw him out of the house. Why would the repairman call Marty a chicken? Nothing at all makes sense about this, what could possibly provoke a repairman to call the owner of the home he was working in a chicken ? Even if Marty was rude to him, it would make more sense to just call him a jerk, not a chicken. Calling him a chicken likely means he was goading him into a fight and there is no logical reason for some repairman to want to pick a fight with someone he is servicing. [As we have no information regarding what happened, it is somewhat absurd to attempt to base a mistake on personal speculation regarding a trivial conversation that took place off-screen. It is unlikely, yes, that a repairman would call a client a chicken, however, as we are not made aware of any other details of the incident, it certainly cannot be said that it could not have happened.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
After Marty burns the sports almanac, it is only burning for a few moments before it begins to pour rain. There was not enough time to burn the whole book, considering he started the fire with some cheap matches and no gas or lighter fluid to make it burn faster. Some of the pages may have survived. There would have been water damage from the rain on the remaining pages for sure, but a few pages may have still survived and have been legible enough for a passerby (or maybe even the western union guy) to be able to read and use to make bets. [Yes, but since Marty and Doc see the timeline change in response, it was enough to do the job.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
In the scene where Doc lands the DeLorean in pouring rain in 2015, after a while the rain stops, and it is sunny and you can see the clock tower is in full light when Marty looks at the newspaper. But when Marty, after putting on his new clothes, walks on the street, it is cloudy again. [As the submitter mentions the rain stops suddenly and it's sunny. Apparently there are some rapidly-moving clouds in the area; altogether possible for it to be overcast again within a few seconds.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
The cooling vents on the back of the DeLorean change between silver and black throughout the film. A clear example of this is the first landing scene of the DeLorean in the alley in 2015. [It's not silver, it's frost. The car freezes whenever it goes forward in time.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
When Marty and Doc successfully save Marty's son from going to prison in 2015, the USA Today headline spontaneously changes while Marty holds it. If this is possible, then, when Biff steals the DeLorean to deliver the almanac to his younger self, Marty and Doc's memories would be instantly replaced by those of the alternate 1985 - which would mean that Marty would not be baffled by bars on his windows or locks on his gate when he arrives back home there. In fact, they wouldn't have returned to that house at all. [Throughout the course of the three films physical objects change but Doc and Marty retain the bulk of their memories from alternate time lines, apparently protected from time line changes. Since it's all science fiction we'll have to assume it works the way it is shown in the film.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
After Biff steals the DeLorean and travels back to 1955 with the Sports Almanac the movie states that he creates an alternate time line. Doc Brown does a good job of illustrating this on a chalk board. So if, as Doc Brown states, Biff created an alternate time line, then when he travels back to 2015 it would be the year 2015 on the alternate time line. [It would be if he traveled back to the year 2015, but they didn't. Doc and Marty traveled to 1955 when Biff originally received the almanac. They then obtained the almanac and burned it, in doing so it changed the future back to the way it was before the alternate universe was created.]
Edit Corrected by liljojo79
When Marty goes to the new 1985 and goes into the house he thinks is his, a Dirty Dancing poster can be seen on the girl's bedroom wall. Dirty Dancing was not released until 1987. [This is a very altered version of 1985, so it doesn't have to conform to the original timestream. For instance, Biff may now be responsible for providing the funding that gets the movie made earlier.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
Towards the beginning, when Marty returns to 1985 and walks up to Biff's hotel he runs into the town drunk and refers to him as "Red." Red was the mayor in 1955, shown in the first movie when a campaign van is driving around the town square saying "Re-elect Mayor Red Wilson". [This is not trivia, this is part of the plot.]
Edit Corrected by Greenman37
How did 2015 Biff know how to operate the time machine well enough to get himself back to see 1955 Biff? He learns about the existence of the time machine from an overheard conversation, which does not include any details of how to set the time circuits nor the requirement to accelerate the car to 88 mph in order to start the time jump. [This is a question, not a mistake. Given that the time circuits are not that complicated (it's a keypad with a display clearly marked DESTINATION) and that Biff also saw the time machine in use in 1985, it might not have taken him very long to figure out: 1. Punch in numbers and 2. Go fast. Not that he needed a short amount of time to figure out. This is a time machine, after all. He could have stolen the Delorean and then spent weeks figuring it out, with Doc and Marty none the wiser as long as he returned it to a time moments after he stole it. Not to mention that Doc may have left materials (like the videotape of the Delorean's test run from the first film) in the car that could have facilitated Biff's figuring it out.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
After Marty gets a crack shot on wild gunman, the screen is black. But when you see the arcade machine, just before Marty Jr. says, "Griff, guys, hey," you see the screen is on. [There are twenty seconds between the two shots in question. The 30+-year-old machine could simply have been resetting itself after Marty had scored his "crack shot."]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
When the "old Biff" steals the time machine in 2015, as Doc and Marty attempt to retrieve Jennifer, it shouldn't be possible for Biff to return to the world that exists around him, as he gets out of the car back in 2015. Doc, Marty, Jennifer, and the world around them ALL should no longer exist, while still trying to escape from 2015. An alternate time line should have been created the moment "old Biff" left 1955. (Thus, Doc's explanation to Marty via the chalkboard explaining an "Alternate Reality"). This all started in 1985, and one result of old Biff's ventures, we learn that Doc is committed to an institution and couldn't even invent, or at least complete, the time machine by October 26th, 1985, which is the starting date of the initial film. [Incorrect. A timeline split would only occur once an action was taken differently from the original course of events. Young Biff being given the almanac by his older counterpart does nothing to the timeline - he has additional information about the future, true, but until he acts on that information by placing a bet, the timeline remains unchanged. Old Biff came back in time, gave young Biff the book and left immediately, before any action had been taken. As a result, he left before any split had occurred, and thus returned to his original unchanged timeline.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
In the scene in 2015 where the future Lorraine and George McFly come to eat dinner at Marty and Jennifer's house, Lorraine cooks a pizza in a toaster oven. After cooking for 3-4 seconds, Lorraine removes the pizza, which is sizzling hot. However, Lorraine removes the hot pizza with her bare hands without burning herself. [This is the future. The technology must exist to create a pan that doesn't absorb heat in the hydrator (not toaster oven).]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
Doc puts Jennifer to sleep because she was asking too many questions about her future, and according to him, no-one should know too much about their future. But when they have landed in 2015, Doc doesn't see anything wrong with telling Marty, at length, what is going to happen to Marty in his future. [Character decision, not a movie mistake. Marty is already completely informed about the time machine. Doc is taking a calculated risk that the 1985 Marty can fix this one event (that ruins his kid's lives) without severely disrupting the existing time line (from 1985 to 2015). Doc does not disclose any information to Marty about his future, only about the future of Marty's kids. Putting Jennifer to sleep with the hopes of making her think it was all a dream would ensure that she does nothing to disrupt the time line.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
In Back to the Future 1 after Marty goes to 1955, you see a sign that says "Hill Valley 2 Miles". Later in the movie, Marty talks to George and Lorraine then walks out the door. The next scene you see Marty with Doc in his 1985 explaining that he needed to change his clothes, and than there is the whole sequence where Marty goes back to 1985. In 1955, in Back to the Future 2, Marty is standing outside the gym when Biff approaches him. Marty is knocked down by his earlier self, and Biff steals the Almanac. Then Marty steals the Almanac, burns it, sees Doc get struck by lightning, receives the telaeraph, runs 2 miles back to Hill Valley, just to meet Doc after his previous self goes back to 1985. How is it possible for on Marty to do the thing previously stated, while the other one dresses and drives to the Clock Tower, taking up the same amount of time? [You explained the nit yourself. We don't know how long it took for Marty to change into his 1985 clothes in Part 1... we only know that according to Doc, Marty was late in meeting him. Marty may have gone back to Doc's house to get his clothes, adding some time.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez

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