Corrected entry: 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.
JC Fernandez
31st Mar 2011
Back to the Future (1985)
23rd Nov 2010
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
4th Nov 2010
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: "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").
20th Dec 2009
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: When Marty shows Doc the flyer from 1985 about saving the clock tower, this gives them the time that the clock will be struck by lightning, 10:04pm on that coming Saturday (11/12/55). However, the main problem here is that the time is only given in hours and minutes, and since lightning moves at the speed of light, an entire lightning strike lasts only fractions of a second. Doc and Marty have no clue as to what second the lightning will strike during that minute, and it isn't given a thought. In reality this would cause a tremendous dilemma if the Delorean had to pass at a precise second. And since the clock on the tower lacked a second hand, they would need a sychronized watch to determine the second the strike occurs, even if they knew it. In the movie it is assumed the strike occurs at 10:04:00, which is fine, but for more realism they could've added a second hand to the clock to eliminate this plot hole. It would have been stuck in place as the other hands after the lightning strike.
Correction: A second-hand isn't necessary. The second within the minute that the lightning strike occured could have been been determined by an examination of the inner workings of the clock (which stopped functioning after the strike). Such a noteworthy piece of trivia would likely have been included in the Hill Valley Preservation Society's flier. In fact, Doc states as much - that according to the flier the clock is struck at precisely 10:04pm.
Even if they examined the insides of the clock and reported the precise second of the lightning strike in the flier (which is itself improbable), they would only know the time down to the nearest second (and that's assuming the clock tower kept perfect time). 88 miles per hour is about 129 feet per second-at that speed, even being off by a few milliseconds would cause the lightning to miss the DeLorean entirely.
12th Jul 2009
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: "Back to the Future" was originally going to be called "Space Zombies from Pluto."
Correction: Untrue. There was an MCA entertainment exec, noted for his often odd studio notes, who suggested (during post-production) that this should be the title of the film (as this is the title of the comic young Peabody shows to his folks when Marty arrives in 1955). But it was never given serious consideration and was certainly never a used title.
10th Jul 2009
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie. From when Doc is shot by the terrorists to when Marty drives away to 1955, a few times the area where Marty is standing at the end of the movie (when he watches the scene again) is visible, yet "Marty" isn't standing there.
16th May 2006
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie when Marty's alarm goes off, it is 10:27 am. His brother and sister are at the dining room table eating breakfast. They are both dressed in business attire. It doesn't make sense that two business persons would be eating breakfast at home at 10:30am.
Correction: It's also Saturday. Dave may have had a weekend business meeting, so it wouldn't have required him to come in at his regular time.
1st Apr 2007
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: Towards the end of the movie when Marty is driving down the street in 1955 to go back to 1985, Doc is trying to get the electricity cables back together for the lightning needed to send Marty back to the future. Doc then slides down the cable to connect the cable to the other one over the street. As he's about to connect the cable, the lightning strikes. He then has at least half a second to connect the cable and he does. But the lightning takes at least two seconds to get from the tower to the car. This is way to slow for electricity. Electricity can move around the world four times in a second.
Correction: The velocity of electric current depends very much on the insulation of the wiring being used. For instance, in open air (such as lightning) electricity is very fast, but within rubber-insulated wiring, it is slower.
3rd Oct 2004
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: When Marty goes back to Nov. 5, 1955, the time is set for 8:30 AM. When he arrives he walks around a bit in amazement and then heads towards Hill Valley. The sign he passes says "Hill Valley 2 miles." When he gets there, look at the clock tower, the time is about 8:30 (give or take). He couldn't have run the two miles in under a minute even without hiding the DeLorean.
Correction: No such thing occurs. When he's being chased by the Libyans at the mall, the display reads the destination time at sometime during the 6 o'clock hour (the minutes are not visible). This is the last time we can see the precise time on the time circuit display until the night of the storm. Regardless, in the scene in question, the time circuits are out of power and malfunctioning so they could have given a false reading.
Which scene, the storm or the Libyan attack? Also, "the time circuits were out of power and malfunctioning"? I'm pretty sure they weren't properly failing until part II.
7th Jul 2006
Back to the Future (1985)
Corrected entry: When Marty is being chased by the terrorists, he disappears through time, and the terrorists crash their van into the photo-booth, which presumably stops them dead in their tracks. But really, how would trashing that small booth make the bad guys irrelevant from that point onward? They weren't killed. So realistically they'd all get out of their crashed van and proceed to wreak more havoc. Yet in the time it takes Marty & Doc Brown to gather up all their stuff and drive away in Doc's van, the terrorists don't lift a finger to chastise them or confiscate the remaining plutonium.
Correction: There are any number of explanations: 1. The Libyans may have been rendered unconscious in the crash, which while not explosive *did* knock the vehicle to its side and at least one Libyan was unrestrained. 2. The parking lot was the site of machine gun fire and multiple explosions, and the Libyans may have fled the scene before the police arrived.
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Correction: 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.
JC Fernandez