Question: Two questions: something I have never understood about Marty traveling into the future to stop his kid from going to jail. In the first movie when Doc. puts his dog into the time machine and sends him 1 min into the future the car disappears for 1 min and arrives back with the dog in the car. Doc explains that as far as the dog is concerned the trip was instantaneous but to Marty and Doc the dog disappears for 1 min. The question is when Marty travels into the future shouldn't he have "disappeared" for 30 years and not had an older self. The second question is, why is it so important for them to travel 30 years into the future to stop his kid from getting arrested, couldn't he have just as easily told Marty "hey on this day and year, don't let your kid leave the house. You have 30 years to figure out a reason or break his leg."
Robert Waner
16th Jan 2017
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Chosen answer: To answer the first question, it's because Marty ultimately returns to the past and therefore does live his normal life for the next 30 years. Had Einstein traveled back that one minute, he would be there as well. As to the second question, Doc needs to be sure Marty's son doesn't go and can't leave it to chance that Marty will take take care of it after 30 years.
16th Nov 2015
The Terminator (1984)
Question: I've always wondered this even as a kid. I never read any of the novels associated with the movies so it might have been addressed there. If a computer system became self aware and a computer system is what launched all the nukes, then what created the first Terminator? I get how they're all made on an assembly line but someone or something had to make the machines and equipment that makes the Terminators.
Chosen answer: Skynet being an artificial intelligence, it could take control of existing machines to repurpose them. It doesn't become self aware until 1997, by which point robotic technology would be much more advanced than in 1984 (and it had already been somewhat self-reliant before that point, so presumably a degree of military fabrication was already set up to be controlled automatically). With its vastly accelerated rate of development and intelligence, it could use existing factories to create basic machines, use those to retool and create more complicated machines, etc. From what Kyle says the ultra-realistic Terminator model we see here is a relatively new development (he comes from 2029) so Skynet has had about 30 years to set up a series of self-improving machines and its own murderous infrastructure.
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Answer: In the film, that one event sets off a chain reaction that destroys Marty's family, so it's paramount that they stop it from ever happening. Too many things could go wrong just trying to prevent it. Since Marty Jr. looks like 1985 Marty, the plan is to have Marty Sr. Take his place, rather than try to get 2015 Marty Sr. To ground his son or something. Plus, Doc says it's important they don't know too much about their future, so that's why he can't just tell them what to do in 30 years because he could reveal too much. Of course, if you overthink it too much, you can make it all fall apart, or come up with different ways to accomplish the same thing.
Bishop73