Jon Sandys

Question: When Marty arrives back in 1985 in the first movie, he leaves the DeLorean behind near the clocktower to chase after the Libyans because it stalls on him. There are now two DeLoreans in 1985; the one at Lone Pines Mall that gets used for the rest of the series until its eventual destruction, and the one near the clocktower. What happens to the latter?

Answer: The Lone Pine Mall DeLorean goes to 1955, then returns to 1985 with Marty, and he leaves it at the clock tower, runs back to the mall and sees the point in time when he first went back to 1955. The "clocktower" DeLorean is then the one Doc takes to the future and gets converted to hover. So the DeLorean goes 1985 > 1955 > 1985 > 2015, in this movie. (And then in the subsequent films the "wrong" 1985, back to 1955, then to 1885, and returns to the "right" 1985 when it's destroyed by the train).

Jon Sandys

Question: If Marty goes back to the future and sees a duplicate of himself go back to the past, would the duplicate see the Marty that had just got back to the future watch him (the duplicate that goes to the past), thus 3 Deloreans and infinitely more Deloreans as it continues...and so on and so forth, or is that the the universe rewriting his timeline to prevent this time loop of paradoxical events?

Craig Celestin

Chosen answer: There wouldn't be infinitely more Deloreans, as versions of Marty would keep having to leave in order to appear at a different point in the timeline to watch himself. There's no real limit on how many there could be at once though - at one point on November 12th 1955 there are four Deloreans in Hill Valley at the same time (brought there by Marty from the first film, Marty from the second film, Biff from the second film, and the one Doc buried from 1885). They're all the same car, just travelling from different points in time.

Jon Sandys

Question: When Marty arrives back from the past, but a bit earlier to try to save Doc's life he sees himself disappear into the past. So for a few minutes we have two Deloreans and two Martys. What happens to this Marty who obviously goes back to 1955? Is he going to relive the whole film?

Answer: Basically, yes. We never see the looping effect, but we have to assume that's what happens. The Bill and Ted argument of "time is always running" doesn't seem to apply in the BTTF films - the Marty who goes back to 1955 is about to do exactly what we've seen Marty do throughout the film.

Jon Sandys

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