The triliogy is much needed in every library!
I thought Elizabeth Shue played the part of Michael J. Fox better then the first girl.
One thing I think dates the movie is where Marty shouts, “What the hell is a gigawatt?!” Because of today’s hard drives and processor speeds on computers, most people these days know that giga means “billion” (in the U.S.), but in 1985 this prefix was scarcely known to anyone outside the scientific community.
As with nearly any movie, the music played in it by current popular artists of the time will date it. Huey Lewis and the News is very much an 80’s-esque band.
I love the BTTF trilogy and it ranks as among my favorites. I plan to get the DVD set soon.
Whaddyamean the movies are dated? The Ayatollah video menu in 2015 could work for any Ayatollah.
Heck, by 2015, Ayatollah Razmada and his cadre of fanatics might have consolidated their power!
IMHO, “Back to the Future” is one of the most underrated movies ever made, primarily because it IS a lighthearted movie. It was a masterwork of cinema, and should have at least been nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. And yes, I am absolutely serious.
Parts II and III were decent movies, but the original was just a tremendous, tremendous film, perfectly made in every way.
Nah, the DVD explains that the writers realized Jennifer was unimportant to the plot for BTTF2, but they were “stuck” with her because she entered the DeLorean at the end of the first movie. Knocking her out was the simplest way to resolve the issue.
And I believe they went with Shue because Claudia Wells had committed suicide. 
The only immediately observable element–Marty’s existence–was common to both the original and the new timeline, so his instant return reflects a key element returning to normal. All of the other changes were the result of alteration of George and Lorraine’s relationship (and their individual attitudes), so the disturbance began propagating almost immediately after the kiss. That means that there was plenty of time between Marty witnessing the kiss and the time he observed the changed timeline for most of the effects to propagate. I wonder if the propagation delay is different for primary and secondary causes?
To recap the geekery, we currently have three main theories:
- All of the changes can be explained by a hysteresis effect on the propagation of change through a timeline. (There may be multiple timelines, but other timelines cannot be accessed by Doc Brown’s technology.) The propagation rate may diminish with increased separation from the primary disturbance. Effects from secondary changes (those caused by the initial disturbance, e.g. the erasure of Marty’s birth) only begin to propagate when the wave from the initial disturbance reaches them in the timeline. The propagation rate of secondary waves may differ from that of the primary. I don’t have enough data points to try to work out the math in detail. Another excuse to watch the movies obsessively, yay!
Question: How do we reconcile the differing propagation rates? When does the propagation begin?
- There are multiple timelines, each with a limited tolerance for anomalous people, objects, or events (i.e. phenomena not derived from the timeline’s history). When a time-traveller makes a change to history, he shifts himself into an alternate timeline in which the altered version of events occurred; his home timeline is unchanged. If the traveller’s presence in the new timeline is sufficiently anomalous, he will be erased from the new timeline. Since the memories of time-travellers apparently remain unaffected by the changes they introduce, we might suppose that the distinction is one of gross physics: no phenomenon that appears without having been created from existing matter or energy can persist. Thus, when Marty shifts to a timeline in which he was never born, he begins to vanish. There is still a delay involved, which may be proportional to the degree and size of the anomaly.
This is a depressing theory, as it means that all of the sucky timelines exist as well. Stopping Biff’s scheme didn’t fix anything in the timeline, it just moved the travellers into a more pleasant one. It also screws around with free will, which was a key theme of the trilogy.
- There is only one real timeline, and when a time-traveller goes back in time, he becomes a probabilistic superposition of all the possible futures that lie ahead of his current point in the time stream. The most probable outcomes are dominant. So, for example, when Marty first arrives in 1955, he is a superposition of futures in which:
a) Everything transpired as he remembers it. He is identical to the Marty who first got into the DeLorean.
b) His parents didn’t hook up at the dance, but did at some later date before his birth.
c) His parents got married too late to for him to be born on time. They had a different child instead.
d) His parents never married at all, and/or had no children.
e) Any of an infinite number of other possibilities less likely than any of those above.
Scenario a is dominant, so Marty looks and feels normal. Superimposed on him, however, are alternate versions in which he doesn’t exist, or is younger, or is a girl, or whatever. They’re too faint for him to notice, however, as they’re extremely improbable at this point. As he mucks about with history, he alters those probabilities so that scenario a becomes less probable. The nature of the changes makes d dominant, so Marty begins to fade away. His older siblings fade first because the probability of their existence is more heavily affected in scenarios b and c, so a greater percentage of the more probable futures would not include their births. If Marty had instead somehow caused George to go away for a few years after he and Lorraine fell for each other, we might have seen Marty morph into a different person instead of starting to vanish.
Question: Why did we never see any variants of our human reference points? Marty’s siblings just faded from the picture, and we’ve already concluded that the different rates at which they faded were the result of secondary probabilities. Should we not at some point have seen, say, a faint image of a younger David in the place where the older David vanished? It would be fairly obvious without the dominant original David there, particularly given how carefully Marty watched the picture for changes. What about a version of the picture without David, but with an older version of Marty’s sister?
BTW, Nightsky, I love this idea. I don’t think it’s the best retcon for the movies, but it could be used to great affect in an original (well, you know what I mean) time-travel story.
Are you sure? The IMDB lists her, and there is someone selling clothes who thinks she is the Claudia Wells who "played Jennifer Parker (Michael J. Fox’s present-day girlfriend) in the original "Back to the Future " ".
God I love the character of Doc Brown in this movie. Christopher Lloyd captured all the greatest things about what makes Science cool and packed them into a wild gesticulating, wide-eyed genius.
The mannerism cracked me up…the way when Marty and his teenage mom were talking in the Doc’s garage in the first one, Marty becomes flummoxed and leans against Doc, turns and caught Doc giving him a “do you really believe you are going get away with this bullshit?” look over his shoulder. Just cracked me up. I was so happy when he met someone in the 3rd one.
I so wanted to know a guy like “Doc Brown” and have the friendship he and Marty had. I made a promise to myself to be like the Doc when I get older.
Heh, that reminds me. Doc’s van says, “24-hour Scientist”. On the DVD commentary they say, “You know, in case the residents of Hill Valley should need a scientist at 3 AM.” I thought he was a great character.
“Ha! Look at me! I’m an old man!” and he looks exactly the same.
Me, too. I always wanted to have a best friend who was a Mad Scientist.
She also recently appeared at a huge BTTF anniversary convention. She sure ain’t dead. I think they changed because she asked for too much money. Something like that.
Whereas Crispin Glover was turned away because he’s a complete loon.
:mad: He’s not Mad! He’s just misunderstood. 
Yeah, he is. The fool wanted more money than offered, which shows hes not interested in being a part of the greatest Trilogy of movies (IMHO) ever, but making money.
Bet he wished he took the first offer now.
Anyways, they did a sneaky cool way of making 2 and 3 without him. (“Lorraine? Have you seen my other glasses?”)
The temporal signature theory doesn’t neccesarily imply that all timelines exist always. It could be possible that the flow of time can only ever be in one timeline, and they simply divert the river of time into different timelines, destroying the existance of the initial timeline. The timelines are all possible, but only one is real at a time. This could be the case without eliminating the temporal sig incompatibility problem.
Either way it is kind of depressing. If all timelines exist, than all the sucky ones exist. If only one can exist, then they destroy billions of lives every time they fire off the machine and switch timelines (which would only require interacting with a single particle in the past). It seems to me that time travel is pretty unethical either way. But just try to stop me from using one if I ever get my hands on it!!!
DaLovin’ Dj
I love the BTTF movies, and I’ve seen them all several times, and I have to admit I didn’t know Crispin Glover wasn’t technically “in” Part Two! What’s the deal? Doesn’t he hang upside down on that exercise machine or something? How was that archive footage?
Crispen wanted too much money, so they got someone else to play him as an inverted old man.
My goof on the Claudia Wells bit, apparently.
This is a fascinating thread and Balance , you are one smart dude. I haven’t spent as much time contemplating resolving the time paradoxes, I just like to enjoy the movies and what good movies these were.
However, I was always bothered by the scene just before the lightning in the first movie…
(1) The DeLorean takes forever to get up to 88 mph, yet in other parts of the movie it takes but a few seconds.
(2) As the car speeds up to 88, Doc has time to slide down the wire, untangle it, and then nearly make that connection.
(3) Doc seems to make the connection and drop it after the lightning strikes and as the electricity it surging down the wire.
(4) Doc was a competent scientist. Why didn’t he design in some amount of time that the DeLorean would be in contact with the wire? He could have put a spool of wire on the car that would unwind after the hook on the car caught the overhead wire. Instead, we need to believe that they timed it so that the car hook was within arcing distance of the overhead line at the precise instant of an event known to occur only to the nearest minute.
BobLibDem, those are excellent questions !!! You may have an extra Snickerdoodle during recess.
I just watched it last night with my son. His first viewing. Ahhh, he laughed. My take is that Doc Brown may have been brilliant, but c’mon. It WAS 1955 and while the exterior shots of his home, and his remarks early on in BTTF I about ’ spending the family’s fortune " hint at serious family money, his approaches were… a bit haphazard, to be generous.
If it were me ( and I frequently fantasize that is is ) I’d have rigged up a spool of the steel cabling. That way, when that cute copper shephard’s crook they fashioned into the Car’s Energy link to the lightning caught the cable, it would spool out and maintain contact for a while. But, what do I know?
My top five favorite non-verbal moments?
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When his Mom shows up at Doc Brown’s, admitting that she followed Marty back there from school. Doc is behind her as she speaks, and pulls such a wide-eyed googley-look that I busted up. He was scared of being caught out, but he also looked TOTALLY scared that a woman was in his lab !
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The look on Marvin Berry’s face after Marty hands his guitar back to him. He stares at the instrument, amazed that such a cacophany just issued from it.
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When all 4 doors fly open on the car where Marvin Berry’s band is smokin’ it up, and huge plumes of smoke gush out.
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That pathetic fatuous laugh with the belly slap that George McFly issues when he’s embarassed. It’s almost as good as the laugh he issues when watching the Honeymooners…both times.
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The first appearance of the car in the parking lot of the ( at that point ) Twin Pines Mall. Low dolly shot, and when the ‘D.M.C.’ logo tracks by the camera, ahhhhh. It tells the story. Inventor, madman, drug dealer, lost soul. All right there- now resurrected as a Time Machine.
Having freshly viewed it, I was disappointed to hear Doc Brown say in reference to the Deloran, " Besides, it’s steel skin is a good conductor " (sic). He doesn’t say it’s aluminum, even though my understanding is that the Delorean body was 100 % unpainted brushed aluminum, to save weight and add to the ease of maintenance. Besides, it looked really boss.
According to Delorean.org, the DMC-12’s body was stainless steel.
What I loved is how the time machine got more and more makeshift as the story went on. You had the time circuits and stuff added to the rear of the car in the 1980s. Then you had the lightning apparatus put on top in 1955. Then Mr. Fusion and the hover conversion were added at some time in the future. Then the car was stuffed in a mine for 70 years, excavated in 1955, and repaired with vacuum tubes or something covering the hood, and got some nice whitewall tires. Finally, in 1885, they punctured the gas tank, blew out the fuel injection manifold, and stripped off the tires to run on the railroad track. By the time it arrived back in 1985, it looked like a complete piece of junk.
Does anyone have a reliable cite for why Crispin Glover didn’t return for parts 2 and 3? I’ve heard three possible reasons:
- He wanted more money.
- He had gone totally mental, and the filmmakers wanted nothing to do with him.
- He had artistic differences with the filmmakers and opted out.
The third reason is the only one I’ve heard from a source directly involved in the movie – unfortunately that source was Glover himself (in an issue of Time I think), so I don’t know if we can call that “reliable” or not. :rolleyes: