Back to the Future Part II (1989)
50 questions
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Christopher Lloyd, Elizabeth Shue, Lea Thompson, Michael J. Fox, Thomas F. Wilson
Question: In BTTF III, the 1955 Doc is worried about sending Marty back to a "populated area" in 1885, so he insists on using the drive-in, which is way out of town. However, in BTTF II Doc repeatedly travels back and forth from 1985 to 2015 to 1985 in plain view of any number of onlookers. What could've caused Doc to stop caring if people saw his time machine appear and disappear into and out of thin air?
Question: Just before eating the hydrated pizza, Marty says, "I missed that completely," and then nobody seems to want to take a bite. What did he mean by that, and why did nobody want to eat the pizza?
Matty BlastChosen answer: Bits and pieces were cut out of the dinner scene. When Marty says that, he's referring to a cut scene where Lorraine mentions that Uncle Joey was turned down for parole again. As for the pizza, no one does take a bite but it seems for reasonable enough reasons. Marty Sr appeared as if he was letting the pizza cool off, Marty Jr was trying to get fruit from the overhead fruit holder, and the daughter was answering the phone.
Answer: Claudia Wells, the actress who played Jennifer in the first film, dropped out of acting shortly after the film was made, apparently for unspecified medical reasons, only returning to acting in 1996. As such, she was simply not available to play the part.
Tailkinker
Question: In the scene where Marty's recently purchased sports almanac drops out of its plastic bag, Doc says that he did not invent the time machine for financial gain. In Back to the Future's first Twin Pines Mall scene, Doc says that he'll get to see who wins the next 25 World Series. Can we assume Doc would not have tried to profit from knowing those results in advance?
Answer: It seems that, yes, we can assume that. Doc's very clear on the dangers of meddling with the timeline - it's fair to say that he's intelligent enough not to risk it.
TailkinkerQuestion: When Marty came back to 1985 in the first movie, some things had changed. The name of the mall for example went from Twin Pines Mall to Lone Pine Mall. How come then when Biff comes back to 2015 after stealing the DeLorean, everything seems the same? Wouldn't they notice everything was different when they were flying over Hill Valley to go back, like Biff's casino perhaps?
Answer: When Marty returns to 1985, he leaves 1955 after those changes have been made, so he's now in a timeline where the effects of those changes exist. When old Biff went back, he simply gave his younger self the almanac, then returned to 2015 before the younger Biff did anything with it, i.e. before any changes had been made. Old Biff therefore returned to his original unchanged timeline - the timeline split caused by young Biff using the almanac came after his departure, so he didn't enter the altered timestream.
TailkinkerQuestion: Doc knows all the timeline details of Marty Jr's movements on the 2015 day. So I assume to get this detailed of information, he had to have watched/followed him on that day. How come you never see the "other" Doc and time machine anywhere from Docs previous 2015 visit?
Answer: Because the Doc we're following would be careful to stay away from the path of the other Doc.
K.C. SierraQuestion: I never really understood at the end of this film why exactly Doc Brown goes back to 1885. Doesn't the DeLorean have to be going 88 mph for it to activate the system? The Doc was just hovering over Marty, so why did the time circuits automatically kick in?
Answer: If you look carefully, Doc accidentally knocks the time circuits on when trying to keep the DeLorean stable. When Doc and Marty were leaving the alternate 1985, we see that the time circuits were failing/faulty. So when the lightning struck the DeLorean, the time circuits were already on and with the equipment faulty, Doc was sent back in time. The DeLorean flips (possibly due to the flight circuits being hit by lightning) and the car accelerates to 88 MPH.
XIIIAnswer: It's a plot hole. Biff couldn't have known or suspected the DeLorean's time-travel procedure, which necessarily included Biff setting the precise 1955 destination with no previous instruction. Biff just suddenly "knew" how to operate a time machine. He also changed the timeline by going back to 1955, so there's no way he could have returned to the "normal" 2015. But he does.
Charles Austin MillerIt's not totally impossible that Biff knew how to the time dial worked. He wasn't suspecting what it was, he knew it was a time travel machine and thus knew what the dial was for and possibly being technically educated knew how to use the time dial.
lionheadWe know from the first movie that Biff, by age 48, was waxing cars for a living in 1985. He hardly had a "technical education" and it's doubtful he acquired a technical education by age 78 in the year 2015. It was established in the first movie that he had become a timid underachiever.
Charles Austin MillerAlright I agree, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But he has lived for 78 years by then, till 2015. Even though he has no clue on how the flux capacitor works, he doesn't need to, all he needs to do is work the time circuits, a simple keypad system which even shows which display shows which time. For someone from 2015, it's not so hard to figure out.
lionheadChosen answer: He doesn't, but it's hardly difficult to work out - the date setting readout is pretty obvious. Biff presumably set the date, then just accelerated the car until the time circuits kicked in.
TailkinkerQuestion: What is the proposition that Needles offers Marty, which gets him into trouble with the boss?
Answer: The movie never states the details of the proposition. The audience is supposed to assume that Needles and Marty had previously talked about it off screen.
Brian C Friesner
Continuity mistake: Notice Marty's hair in the scene when he's playing "Johnny B. Goode." It's quite larger than when he says, some seconds later, "I guess that you're not ready for it yet." That's because when he says that, it's a recycled shot from the original BTTF, whereas most shots showing he's playing the guitar are newly made for BTTF2. However, Marty's hair is considerably longer in the new shots.
Biff: Go ahead, kid. Jump. A suicide will be nice and neat.
Marty: What if I don't?
Biff: [raising gun] Lead poisoning.
Marty: What about the police, Biff? They're gonna match up the bullet with that gun.
Biff: Kid, I own the police. Besides, they couldn't match up the bullet that killed your old man.
Marty: You son of a...
[Biff pulls back on the gun's hammer.]
Biff: Suppose it's poetic justice. Two McFlys with the same gun.
Trivia: In an interview, the director stated that hoverboards were real, but they weren't on the market because parents didn't like the idea of floating children. He said this as a joke, but this didn't stop mass hysteria as thousands of kids went from store to store looking for hoverboards.
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Answer: In 1985 and 2015 people would not have noticed a DeLorean on the streets, as they are used to seeing cars. By going to 1885, there was the added risk of people seeing a car decades before it was common, which would attract a great deal of attention and jeopardy to the time line.
Twotall