Question: Why does the bartender tell Doc "you know what happened last 4 of July" when he offered him a shot of whiskey if he's only been there 1 week?
Bishop73
20th May 2023
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
12th Aug 2021
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: Doc seemed hell-bent on destroying the DeLorean. So why did he go to the future and get a hover conversion done on the train? Why didn't he just build the train, return to his own time and then destroy the train?
Answer: He didn't return to the Old West, both of them had a desire to go to the final frontier. Their favorite author is Jules Verne, who wrote "From Earth to the Moon."
Answer: Doc was happy living in the Old West but returned to the future to collect his dog, Einstein, and he didn't want Marty to worry about him. He probably also wanted to make sure that Marty had made it safely back to his own time, to properly say goodbye, and make sure the DeLorean was never used again. He never indicated he would destroy the train, only the DeLorean. The hover conversion on the train would have been done in the Old West, not in the future.
I doubt he was able to make the train hover in the old west, whilst he could easily go to the future with it and do it there, like he did with the DeLorean. He did say he has been to the future with it, so it's logical to assume that's where he upgraded it.
Doc never says he went further into the future with the train or did the hover conversion there. If he could build a time-traveling locomotive in the 1880s, then he could create a hovering one, as he had the knowledge. Marty asks if he's going back to the future, and Doc says no because he's already been there. That could be interpreted a number of ways. It's a sci-fi movie, and there is a lot of suspension of disbelief employed here.
While the movie isn't explicit about when or where the Time Train was built, other sources do indicate its hoverconversion was done in the future. While Doc could invent a machine that was capable of time travel (the mechanics of which aren't really discussed), he had to travel to the future to convert the DeLorean and couldn't even fix the DeLorean in the past.
What 'other sources' indicate Doc travelled to the future for the hover conversion? Any fan speculation is invalid. I also don't get the argument. While Doc was unable to fix the DeLorean when Marty was in the Old West, he could, and did, in later years, build the time-travel train in the past. He could not otherwise have gone anywhere into the future to do anything. Time-travelling without the hover ability would be extremely difficult as a locomotive would be noticeable and require taking off and landing on empty train tracks. Doc would have to hide the locomotive while converting it. He would also have to know before time-travelling that the railroad tracks he took off on still existed in the future, as he could possibly arrive smashing into what became an urban development. This should be considered as both a deliberate plot hole and a plot device using "suspension of disbelief" solely intended to give the series a spectacular finale.
The comics reveal that Doc Brown traveled to 2017 in a prototype time machine and purchased materials which he brought back with him to the 1890s to use on the Time Train.
19th Feb 2021
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: Just before Doc shows his plan with the DeLorean and the train Marty checks the walkie-talkies and Doc confirms it that they work. How are they able to get the walkie-talkies to work in 1885? I'm thinking Doc invented something so Doc and Marty can communicate with each other with them.
Answer: Given Doc's scientific ability (and some suspension of disbelief) it would be easy enough to rig up a makeshift battery that would last long enough. Or indeed they've just got lucky and the walkie-talkies' batteries still have enough life in them. They're not mobile phones, they don't need masts or any infrastructure, they just connect directly to each other.
Like you said, walkie-talkies work independently of any infrastructure, which is what I think the question was more about. However, the battery was invented way before 1885 with the first lead acid rechargeable battery being invented in 1859 with pasted electrode batteries being invented in the 1880's. So it's less about Doc rigging up a battery and just using what's already available or charging the batteries it came with (if we are assuming the batteries ran out of power).
The best batteries they had in those days were crude, wet batteries made out of earthenware and filled with sulphuric acid. They were cumbersome, dangerous and didn't have a lot of voltage or low current. Hardly suitable for a walkie-talkie that needs at least 9 volts. But I suppose it's possible Doc had some charged self-made batteries sitting at home to keep them going.
Definitely not "crude", certainly not as advanced as today, but the lead acid battery is the same technology a lot of batteries use today. They even had electric vehicles prior to 1885. My point was Doc didn't have to invent technology that didn't exist (as opposed to what some say he would have to do to get an 80's camcorder to play on a 50's TV). They had rechargeable batteries back then so it wouldn't be a stretch that Doc could recharge the batteries he had.
Answer: 1955 Doc got him some new batteries ("Just in case, fresh batteries for your walkie talkie. Oh what about that floating device?") They only used them on the train so the batteries would still be charged. In regards to how they work, they don't rely on phone masts, satellites, WiFi etc as they send radio waves to each other and not to any sort of base station.
16th Dec 2020
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: I have a question, I don't know if it's true or not but I have heard about this for years after Part III was released. Had Crispin Glover decided to do the sequels, would he have had the role of Shamus McFly in Part III, or once Glover turned down the sequels, then it was decided that Michael J. Fox would play the part of Sheamus once Part III was greenlit? Or was it always going to be Fox playing the role of Sheamus regardless if Glover came back for the sequels or not?
Answer: In an interview, actor Jeffrey Weissman (the actor who replaced Glover as George McFly) mentioned Glover was slated to play Shamus since Lea Thompson, who played Lorraine (Marty's mom) also played Maggie (Shamus' wife). So it made sense the Mom and Dad would play the great-Grandparents. However, without the heavy makeup and prosthetics to look like Glover, the film makers thought having Weissman playing the role would look too unrecognizable that the audience wouldn't know who he was. In a side note, the scene of elderly George hanging upside down in BTTF 2 was written with Crispin Glover in mind as payback.
12th Mar 2020
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: Doc is quite a resourceful and clever guy. Why didn't he set to work on repairing the flying circuits which would have enabled them to use Mr Fusion to reach 88mph, instead of the engine?
Answer: Mr fusion only powers the flux capacitor. The engine is needed to get the car up to 88mph whether flying or not and the only way to get the car any power is by the use of petrol, which didn't exist in 1885.
At the beginning of the movie, when 1955 Doc reads the letter that 1985 Doc sent to Marty, he reads that the lightning bolt activated the time circuits and at the same time destroyed the flying circuits. Because of this, the Delorean will never fly again.
These answers are correct. Plus, to the original question: as clever as Doc is, keep in mind he got the flying conversion done in 2015. Definitely no way he would have been able to repair something so futuristic with 1885 tools at his disposal. He couldn't even get gas.
Yet just a few years later he had built from scratch a flying time-traveling locomotive, all with 1885 tools and parts.
There's no indication he built the flying train in 1885. It's suggested he had been time traveling with his wife and kids and says he's already been to the future. Whether this is in the DeLorean or the train it's not clear, but the dialogue suggests he's been to the future in his train with the family and could have modified his train to fly with future technology.
19th Aug 2019
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: Back in 1885 why doesn't Doc change the letter he sent to Marty, asking him to bring a can of gas?
Answer: When Marty received the letter from Doc in 1955, as seen in the second movie, Doc wrote down that he didn't want Marty to go to 1885 to rescue him because he was happy living in the past. Instead, he wanted Marty to take the Delorean straight back to 1985 and then destroy it so it could never be used for personal gain again.
But once Marty appears in the past Doc could easily change the letter, changing things such that Marty would bring gas with him.
Answer: This would create a different timeline, not the timeline they are in.
Answer: That would not be possible as in 1885, Doc sent the letter on September 1st, and 1955 Doc sent Marty to 1885 on September 2nd so it was a day later and on the 1st, Doc was not expecting Marty to turn up. However, one CAN ask why Marty and Doc didn't go to the local Western Union office and change it (or write a new one) there since it was in their possession per the gentleman in part 2.
Changing the letter while Marty is in 1885 with Doc would accomplish nothing, because it doesn't it instantly travel to the future. Marty at the end of Part II, for his part, may receive the letter almost immediately, but the letter itself had to wait 70 years to be delivered to him.
I mean, there's no solid rules to time traveling, but just for argument's sake it seems like the letter idea could work... in the franchise, when something is set in motion, the effects usually take place immediately. Take for instance when George and Lorraine kissed at the dance in Part 1. The picture of Marty and his siblings went right back to normal, even though the kids had not been born yet. Doc and Marty changing the Western Union letter "could" have had an immediate effect and a gas can could have materialized in the Delorean, much like we've seen newspaper headlines change before our very eyes, disappearing gravestones, etc.
In your examples, the changes occur to future events. The items that changes, like the picture and newspaper, are from the future themselves. They can't change the past by changing events in the future (like they do in Bill and Ted's). This is why Doc and Marty couldn't go back to 2015 to stop old Biff from taking the DeLorean.
1st Aug 2009
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: When the 1985 Doc is suddenly transported back to 1885 at the end of BTTF 2 and Marty discovers that he has been murdered, because there is a Doc in 1955 that has already been born after the 1985 Doc has died in the West, why did he go to the trouble of going all the way back to 1885 when Doc was still alive? Is there any actual legitimate time travel reason for this, or did he just do it out of instinct to help his close friend?
Answer: Technically when Doc got transported to 1885, he should not have existed in 1955 because he died. This is the problem I'm having with part 3. The movie should not have happened this way. It should have been where doc did not exist nor the time machine. Part 3 should've never happened.
That's not how most time travel (if any) stories work. Just because someone dies in the past doesn't prevent them from being born since they were already born and alive before going to the past. Think of it this way, if instead of 1885 he travelled to 2085 and died, would that prevent him from being born? The only reason Marty was in danger of disappearing and not existing (i.e. being born) was because his parents were in danger of never getting together.
It was the 1985 Doc that went back to 1885 so he would still be alive in 1955.
The Doc that got sent to 1885 was the Doc from 1985 so therefore it wouldn't have affected 1955 Doc at all.
The one in 1955 hasn't done anything 1985 Doc did.
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Answer: In the letter Marty gets, Doc says he's been living in 1885 for the past 8 months. It's dated September 1. Marty in 1955 finds out that Doc dies one week after he wrote the letter (Sept 7th), not one week after he got to 1885. Marty then goes to Sept 2, 1855, one day after Doc wrote the letter.
Bishop73