How many alternate timelines exists in the Back to the Future universe?

Cafe Society
1

Yes, another BTTF thread (it’s 2015…just accept it!). A marathon was on last weekend, and I caught the last half of it, for the umpteenth time. Spoiler alert: There’s an alternate timeline created in the 2nd movie when Biff steals the almanac.

Which got my to thinking, and there’s actually many timelines created by the time traveling.

First, there’s the timeline Marty grows up in, where his father is a nerd who lives under Biff’s thumb (#1).

Then there’s the chain of events that Marty lives through in 1985, which creates a timeline where Marty’s dad knocks Biff out, turning Biff into a clown (#2).

Then, at the end of the first move, we are introduced to a future timeline, where Marty’s kids grow up to be arrested (#3).

Marty jumps ahead to 2015 to stop that timeline, saving his son from arrest and instead butting Griff Tannen in jail (#4).

While there, though, Biff steals the almanac and created the alternate Biff timeline, where Biff is the luckiest gambler alive (#5).

This requires Marty to go back to 1955 to steal the almanac and deftly avoid himself from the first move (#6).

At the end of the second movie, though, Doc jumps pack to 1885, creating a timeline where he lived for about 8 months before being shot by Mad Dog Tannen (#7).

So, Marty has to race back to 1885 and save Doc (#8).

Which teaches him a lesson, or something, because he decides not to race Flee from the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the end of the third move, which means his music career isn’t destroyed, he isn’t fired in 2015, and he has some alternate, unknown future (#9).

Did I miss any?

And when Marty first went to 1955, and played Johnny Be Goode (#2), is Marty already climbing above him with the retrieved sports almanac (#6)? Did I overcount?

And, when Marty’s dad, George, grows up being a dork (#1), was it an offshoot of the timeline where Marty already went back to 1885 (#8), and met Shamus? Did that same 1885 (#8) also form the genesis for cool George (#2)?

Surely something changed in George (and Marty’s) life when he created a new timeline by meeting his ancestors…

I’m beginning to suspect that the writers didn’t really think this franchise through.

2

Ya think? :slight_smile:

I only recognize the first movie, and I still worry about “alternate Marty”, the one who grew up with cool George and has a 4X4 in his garage. Where’d he go? Did he just poof out of existence? Did he return and demand his life back? Or did he create a new timeline that the movies forgot about? One that wiped out everything in II and II?

3

I think you have covered all the “on screen” time lines but there are implications that Doc traveled through time a whole bunch both in the Delorean (after he leaves Marty near the end of the first movie and then comes back to get Marty and Jennifer) and in the Train time machine with his family. In theory any or all of those could have created new time lines.

4

There’s a fan theory that that Marty was sent to the far future or far past to die to preserve the timeline, either with his knowledge (making him a hero Martyr) or without (making Doc quite the dark character).

5

And I always feel bad for the Marty we see (who ends up with the successful family again at the end of III); sure, he has a great life. But he has no memory of his childhood!

[QUOTE=Quimby]
There’s a fan theory that that Marty was sent to the far future or far past to die to preserve the timeline, either with his knowledge (making him a hero Martyr) or without (making Doc quite the dark character).
[/QUOTE]

I recently read a theory that Marty dies multiple times throughout the moves (usually when pulling off the more harrowing stunts, like jumping off the roof of Biff’s casino onto the flying Delorean), and that Doc has to keep going back in time to try again until they get the timing right

6

#3 isn’t a separate timeline; it’s still just #2, only thirty years later.

7

But #2 includes an event, in 1985, when Doc comes to Marty and warns him about his kids, says “we don’t need roads”, and stops Marty, Jr. from committing the crime.

So, you’ll say, #4 is just a continuation of #2, only 30 years later.

But #4 includes Biff stealing the almanac, which necessities #5,#6,#7,#8 and, most importantly, #9, which makes #3-#9 unnecessary, and probably means that Marty and Jennifer may not even up having kids at all, so why is Doc warning Marty about them in 1985?.

Hence, my confusion.

[QUOTE=Quimby]
there are implications that Doc traveled through time a whole bunch both in the Delorean (after he leaves Marty near the end of the first movie and then comes back to get Marty and Jennifer) and in the Train time machine with his family. In theory any or all of those could have created new time lines.
[/QUOTE]

I think this makes the most sense. The answer to my question is, “it depends on when you ask”

8

“I do remember. I just remember differently.”

I think he’d have a hard time fitting in. There’s a huge number of minor things he doesn’t know about the current timeline, or “his” own past, right down to what he had for breakfast. He won’t “remember” the first time his kissed Jennifer.

9

Corroborating evidence(not Back to the Future, but still)

10

In BttF-verse, each time you time travel back in time, you are creating a new timeline, slightly different from the one you left. Your current and future time traveling is not a part of that timeline yet. (in other words, Marty from BttF2 was not above the stage during BttF1. That was new.)

As for alternate Marty, he would have been sent back in time by Doc the previous night, from the parking lot of the Lone Pine Mall. Doc would have wanted to preserve the current timeline, after all. Then, since he is a different Marty, he might have behaved differently in 1955 and created another separate timeline. That could get hairy, I suppose, so we’ll just stop there.

11

This is complicated by the fact that changes to the timeline take “time” to go into effect. In the first movie, Marty’s changes slowly propagate forward in the timeline. In part 2, old Biff steals the almanac, takes it to himself in 1955, and then is able to return to the same 2015 timeline. So when Doc tells Marty about his kids and takes him to 2015, the 2015 they arrive in hasn’t yet been changed.

Or something. :slight_smile:

12

The really confusing one, to me, is the Terminator-verse. So Reese goes back in time and sires John Conner. That actually works OK if the universe is fixed and no changes can be made during time travel. But then the whole Skynet plan is doomed from the beginning. They can’t kill John Conner in the past because he exists in the present. Even if they’re able to create a parallel universe, they just fixed the future for some other skynet. The current version of skynet is still blown up and dead.

BUT

Apparently changes can be made. All of the sequels demonstrate that. But if change is possible, then there must be a pre-change reality, and in that reality, is there a John Conner? Is Reese his father? Can’t be. There must have been a pre-John reality where the humans still managed to fight back and force Skynet to send back a Terminator, and the humans sent back Kyle Reese to create the first John. Which kind of undermines the whole John-Conner-is-so-important theme of the entire franchise. Ah well.

13

Or he just shifted over to ones which already existed.

14

I was talking about this in a recent Terminator thread.

I have often imagined it is something like this:

1 - Skynet is built and becomes self-aware. Judgement Day happens.
2 - Humanity (without John Connor) fight back and win.
3 - Skynet as a last ditch effort sends a terminator back in time to change things but not to kill Sarah Connor.
4 - Kyle Reese is sent back in time to prevent the change.

2…4 happens N times and that it is possible that although Skynet isn’t winning post-Judgement Day, perhaps things are improving for Skynet. It might be getting closer to winning.

5 - At N+1, Kyle Reese sires John Connor just as a matter of coincidence.
6 - The post-Judgement Day war is a disaster for Skynet this time around. It realizes that it absolutely must ensure no John Connor.
7 - The events of “The Terminator” and subsequent movies happen.

15

I’m figuring they don’t much bother showing the first time around in #2: when Doc doesn’t warn Marty about how Something’s GOTTA Be Done About Yer KIDS, and Marty gets into a car crash we hear about but don’t get to see, and Marty Jr commits a crime we hear about but don’t get to see, and Marlene attempts a jailbreak we hear about but don’t get to see – it sounds interesting, but mostly secondhand.

So that would’ve been Timeline #2 – the one we see the USA TODAY from.

And what you call Timeline #4 – I figure that’s the one Doc does show up to say Something’s GOTTA Be Done About Yer KIDS, and Marty Jr doesn’t commit a crime, and neither does Marlene, though Griff gets arrested.

If so, then I don’t figure there is a Timeline #3: until old Biff steals the DeLorean, I figure every event you can name either occurs in Timeline #1, or Timeline #2, or what you call Timeline #4. (And, of course, some events occur in two or three of 'em.)

16

You forgot the time line where Jennifer turns into an entirely different person!

17

Come to think of it, don’t we kinda sorta need to hypothesize a Timeline 1.5 for the history where Marty’s brother and sister weren’t in the photograph?

18

There’s also a theory where the Marty who grew up with successful parents is much more savvy about time travel, since his father was a sci-fi guru. This Marty deliberately avoids running into his father in 1955, so George gets hit by the car and the timeline resets itself. The successful Marty makes it back to 1985 and wonders what the hell he could have done to mess up the timeline so his parents are not successful.

19

According to the commentary on the DVD for Part 2, old Biff didn’t return to the 2015 he left. He went to the alternate 2015 he created when he gave his younger self the sports almanac in 1955. In that timeline, Biff was shot by Lorraine (in the year 1987, I believe), whom he had married. Since Biff died in that timeline, he faded out of existence as soon as he returned to 2015.

20

Ever since I first saw BTTF Part 2 some 25 years ago I’ve wondered about this. Old Biff clearly seems to be in some kind of distress when he gets back to 2015. I just saw it the other day on TV and although they try to make it look like he merely hit himself in the chest pulling his stuck cane out of the car, there still seemed to be more to it. I guess maybe they had the option of showing him disappear in a flashback in III or something, but decided against it…