Corrected entry: When Doc is trying to fix the wire on the clock tower, its caught under the tree and doesn't reach. Yet then he twists it up twice and slides down it to fix the part on the ground. If it wouldn't reach when it was stuck under the tree, how on earth would it fit if it's wrapped twice around the arm on the clock?
Corrected entry: At the beginning of the movie the spilt second after the Amp blows up and Marty is jolted back, you can see the cable that is hooked to him.
Correction: This is probably just the cable that connects the guitar with the amp. Also, the speaker blows up, not the amp.
Corrected entry: In the beginning of the film Doc's address is 1646. When Marty is at Doc's house in 1955 his address is 1640. (00:05:35 - 00:47:25)
Correction: In the present Doc is living in his garage not his house. The garage is further down the street from where his house was, so the number is higher. Why? His house burned down. You can read about it during the opening scene, when we pan through Doc's garage.
Corrected entry: There is simply no way a VW bus (driven by the terrorists) would be able to keep up in a race with a DeLorean (driven by Marty).
Corrected entry: When George walks in to Lou's, he orders a chocolate milk. How could Lou have made a chocolate milk in less than three seconds?
Correction: George is a regular, so it's possible Lou knew what he wanted. I've walked into bars and before I can sit down, my beer of choice is sitting in front of me.
Correction: Some soda shops have milk machines (I had one at the cafeteria in the dorms at college), one side is regular milk, the other is chocolate. Lou probably made the batch of chocolate milk that morning, and all he had to do was push a lever and fill the glass.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Marty is playing "Johnny B. Good" there is an overhead view of the dance in the gymnasium. If you look quickly, you can spot the 3 point line on the gym court. The three point line did not come into existence until the late 1970s. (01:24:15)
Correction: Having just watched the scene in the gym three times, there is definitely NOT a three point line on the floor in any shot. In fact, it was intentionally supposed to be a VERY short basketball court. The top of the keys almost touched. There wasn't even room for a full center jump circle. (I have seen gyms like this even in the 80s.) Several shots show the floor and none of them shows a line that could be considered a three point line. It simply is not there and wouldn't be there since they didn't shooot the scene on an NBA gym which would be the only gym that would have one in 1984-1985 during the filming of this movie.
Corrected entry: When they're refilling the car with plutonium, after putting it in, Doc removes his helmet, and says "it's safe now, everything's lead lined". Fair enough, except he then takes the container the plutonium was in back to the box (which contains a lot more plutonium), flips the lid, and shoves it back in. If that process was safe, which bit of the reloading process was dangerous? (00:26:15)
Correction: The safety gear was in case anything went wrong when the plutonium was being sucked into the car, not for handling the plutonium.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Marty & Doc are watching the videotaped experiment, Doc picks up the camcorder to admire it. As he does, a wire that was connected to it falls off, yet the playback is unaffected. (00:52:45)
Correction: If the wire was the AC adapter, and the battery had charge left, playback wouldn't have been affected. Doc would have likely had the AC adapter and all the patch cables in his suitcase stored in the DeLorean's hood-trunk. Perfectly reasonable assumption, since hosehold-standard voltage hasn't changed for many decades, and it isn't likely to be changed in 2010 (Doc's original idea for his destination year).
Corrected entry: When Marty encounters Doc Brown for the first time in '55, Brown asks him who is now the president (in the future) and Marty responds "Ronald Reagan" (pronounced Raygen); then Brown says "Ronald Reagan the movie actor?" When Ronald Reagan was a movie actor, he pronounced his last name "Reegan" (he changed the pronunciation later when he got into politics), so Brown shouldn't have been able to make the association.
Corrected entry: When Marty first arrives in '55, he has to walk 2 miles into Hill Valley from where he leaves the car. But back in '85 he can get from downtown (crash near the movie theater) to the Mall in less than 10 minutes. Why need a skateboard when you can run that fast?
Correction: In 1955 Marty drives for a while from the future 'Twin pines/Lone Pine' mall spot to where he parked the car (the future Lyon Estates). It was dark when he started driving and daylight when the car gave out on him. Not knowing that he was in the past he probably tried to drive from downtown Hill Valley to his home. The mall is a lot closer to downtown Hill Valley. Maybe even in Hill Valley.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Doc is demonstrating the time machine for the first time, he enters several dates he could conceivably go to, one of which is the birth of Christ, which he enters as Dec. 25, 0000, but there is no year 0. It goes from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. (00:25:01)
Correction: Yeah, it's something Doc should have known, but he was simply demonstrating the circuits to Marty, so I dunno if this could be counted as a filming mistake. If Doc was that concerned with inputting the actual date, it would have been (according to historians) sometime in March or April of 4BC.
Corrected entry: Do you honestly think that Marty's parents wouldn't think it was the slightest bit odd that their son happens to look and talk and dress EXACTLY like the boy that hooked them up in high school?
Correction: Ever realized all of a sudden that someone you know bears a resemblance to someone you knew a long time ago? Sure - it happens... (either Marty's parents haven't reached that point yet, or they simply never noticed - it's been 18 years, remember...)
It's been 30 years and Marty was only around for a few days. Can you remember everyone you only saw for a few days 30 years ago? I've got a great memory and I have a hard time remembering someone I met even a few years ago.
True, I went to school for 7 years with one guy who was in all my classes but didn't recognise him when my mother pointed him out 5 years after we went to different secondary schools.
Corrected entry: The speedometer of a Delorean doesn't go past 85 mph. There is a Delorean shop in the town I live in with about twenty Deloreans behind a fence. I checked it out and none of them had a speedometer that goes past 85. Makes you wonder how it was any different in the car they used for the movie.
Correction: DeLoreans came with an option for a 165MPH speedometer.
Corrected entry: Doc uses plutonium in the DeLorean's flux capacitor via a container of liquid. Plutonium is typically formed in rods of packed pellets, not in a liquid form. (00:27:03)
Correction: The liquid just surrounds the little rod of plutonium in it. Watch when Doc refils the Delorean, he turns the cylinder and the little rod gets sucked down. That is one of the rods you are talking about.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Marty is trying to call Doc from the coffee shop, his digital watch beeps. He is never shown removing it and it's the last we see of the watch. Wouldn't Marty have used the digital watch as proof to Doc he was from 1985? Would it not have been more accurate for timing in the scene when Marty drives towards the clock tower (to go back to '85) than of the analog alarm clock?
Correction: We do see the watch two more times in the movie. When Marty and Doc are uncovering the car to get ready to send him back to 1985, Marty has the watch on, but when he drives the car down the street it is back off. Then we see it again when Marty gets back to 1985 and is at the mall watching himself getting chased by the Libyans.
Corrected entry: When the time machine comes back from its first ride with Einstein, the car spins and isn't icy. However, when a different angle is shown, the car has ice on it.
Corrected entry: When Marty finally goes back to 1985 they pan up to a shot of the clock tower, then at the bottom of the screen it suddenly says 1985. The shot is still on the clock tower but if you look at the trees and branches in the shot they have not changed for 30 years?
Correction: It doesn't pan up to it, it's a cut. There's nothing to suggest that the shot of the clock tower is meant to be in 1955.
Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: The DeLorean is an actual registered vehicle in California, with license plate 3CZV657.
Correction: Which one? There were 7 DeLoreans used in "Back to the Future."
Corrected entry: Plutonium is not a red liquid, it is a white-silver coloured metal. Even oxidised in solution it would be paler than shown.
Correction: It wouldn't be safe to use plutonium metal. Even with the suits on, both Marty and Doc would be subject to lethally high amounts of beta and gamma radiation. Chances are they used a dilute solution (possibly plutonium (IV) chloride as that is red in colour) and it is possible to deeper red is down to dye or impurities in the solution - the latter is possible as Doc acquired it from terrorists.
Correction: In the initial attempt, the wire is caught under the tree but still attached to another wire (the one the Delorean will hit). Doc then breaks that connection, so the wire moves and the connector at the end of it gets stuck to the tree. Even though the wire is still under the tree, he has more wire to wrap around the arm of the clock.