# Would a kid be able to cope with everything Marty McFly went through? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2021, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397 "2021-09-26T22:19:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/1 "2021-09-26T22:19:34Z")
I don’t consider Marty McFly all that well adjusted. He has a problem with rejection and he loses his shit when someone calls him chicken. On top of that, his family is dysfunctional. His dad is a bullied wuss, his brother is a loser, his mom is an alcoholic, and his uncle is a felon. During the course of the trilogy he goes through a lot. Chased, shot at, hanged, almost erased from existence, etc… Adding up the continuation of the three flicks all that happens to him in just a few weeks time. Would a real life teenager be able to handle all that in such a short period of time or do you think they’d crack? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/2 "2021-09-26T22:22:07Z")
It seems to me that kids in real life go through far worse situations than Marty McFly found himself in and manage to cope. So I’m going to emphatically answer in the affirmative here. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/3 "2021-09-26T22:26:42Z")
Except real life kids that have shitty lives had them most if not all their life. While he has issues he still seems to have a steady middle class life. Would a kid like that having 3 weeks of danger thrust upon him be able to cope well afterwards? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/4 "2021-09-26T22:35:41Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Except real life kids that have shitty lives had them most if not all their life. While he has issues he still seems to have a steady middle class life. Would a kid like that having 3 weeks of danger thrust upon him be able to cope well afterwards? - That was resolved in _Back To The Future 4_, the one that didn’t come out in _this_ timeline. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/5 "2021-09-26T23:06:50Z")
Would the hero of just about any action movie be able to cope? About the only thing I liked about Iron Man 3 was that Tony Stark had PTSD. A tiny bit of realism. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/6 "2021-09-26T23:09:44Z")
Teenagers are sent to die in horrific wars all the time. Many are able to function afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/7 "2021-09-26T23:15:46Z")
Yeah. I liked that part of the movie too. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/8 "2021-09-26T23:22:42Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Except real life kids that have shitty lives had them most if not all their life. While he has issues he still seems to have a steady middle class life. Would a kid like that having 3 weeks of danger thrust upon him be able to cope well afterwards? Yes. People living happy lives sometimes have totally crummy traumatic things happen to them and they manage to cope. Marty McFly understood what was happening to him and has a great support network. He’s going to be okay. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/9 "2021-09-26T23:38:19Z")
Marty didn’t have a great life that was interrupted by some terrible events. He had an unpleasant life\*, went through a few days of intense danger and stress - and was rewarded with a much better life. \*He’s grown up in a house where his parents are bullied/harassed by a violent/dangerous adult, and has seen his parents and older siblings accept this as normal, and condition him to see that as normal. Other authority figures like the school principal treat him with extreme disrespect as well. His parents don’t seem to be very loving to each other either - they seem to ignore each other as much as possible. After his adventures are over, he’s in a much better place. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/10 "2021-09-26T23:48:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Would the hero of just about any action movie be able to cope? > About the only thing I liked about Iron Man 3 was that Tony Stark had PTSD. A tiny bit of realism. Of course, he survived being drowned, burned, subjected to violent explosions, such a serious traumatic brain injury that he was unconscious through the entire flight from Southern California to rural Tennessee, restrained and tortured, burned and contused some more, and having to deal with an obsessive fan replicating his hair and beard style in tattoo form, all of which without medical care or recovery. So…not too much realism. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Teenagers are sent to die in horrific wars all the time. Many are able to function afterwards. As…zombie supersoldiers who fight each other over barely remembered grievances? > [@Odesio](#): > > Yes. People living happy lives sometimes have totally crummy traumatic things happen to them and they manage to cope. Marty McFly understood what was happening to him and has a great support network. He’s going to be okay. Well…maybe. I mean, his “support system”, such as it is, are a couple of uninvolved parents (the “new” Lorraine may or may not be the drunk that the “old” one was, but all of his early childhood developmental experiences were in his past, not the new timeline), a toady friend of his father’s who once tried to rape his mother (and somehow, inexplicably doesn’t recognize Marty as the same guy who passed himself off as “Calvin Klein” in 1955), a girlfriend who he professes to be in undying love with even though he doesn’t notice that she changes appearance between movies and who he leaves lying around without care, and a mad “scientist” who if he is as good a therapist as he is at mechanical engineering will probably send Marty into a deep, unwavering psychosis. It is illustrative that the Future Marty of the _Back To The Future, Part 2_ timeline is a complete mess, easily goaded into an unethical trade that gets him fired, and whose children utterly disdain him, all because he got into a car accident and injured his hand Apparently this is all fixed by the end of the third film where he has learned not to respond to “chicken”, which is the kind of trivial life lesson that films present to fix all that ails you, but the reality is that Marty has some already problematic upbringing and anger issues in addition to his constant confusion about the things going on around him. And don’t get me started on what happened to the “other” Marty McFly. You know, the one that disappeared in the timestream to give the protagonist Marty McFly the chance to live a normal life. I’m sure that ‘Doc’ can fix tall of this with must a little more mangling of the timeline, and didn’t somehow alter the timestream to allow _Terminator 3_ to happen. Remember, kids, time travel is dangerous, messy, and prone to unexpected nonlinearities that propagate into catastrophic collapse of reality. Better to just stay in your own timeline and deal with things as they come. > [@running\_coach](#): > > That was resolved in _Back To The Future 4_ , the one that didn’t come out in _this_ timeline. I saw it (don’t ask how) and it confirmed that the _Back To The Future_ franchise follows the _Indiana Jones_ model (odd numbered films good, even numbers bad), rather than the _Star Trek_ model. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/11 "2021-09-27T01:31:21Z")
The Star Trek model being numbers divisible by 1 are bad? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/12 "2021-09-27T01:38:55Z")
I believe the thesis is that all odd-numbered _Star Trek_ films are bad. I personally don’t subscribe to the notion; _Star Trek III: The Search for Spock_ was entirely cromulent, if not the film that _Wrath of Khan_ was, and I really can’t stand _Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home_, which incorporates all of the worst tropes in one film (a Big Dumb Object, time travel, “fish out of water” comedy, and an existential threat that is resolved with a total _deus ex machina_) but it is widely beloved so I guess I’m just wrong about it. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/13 "2021-09-27T05:04:29Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I believe the thesis is that all odd-numbered _Star Trek_ films are bad. I personally don’t subscribe to the notion; _Star Trek III: The Search for Spock_ was entirely cromulent, if not the film that _Wrath of Khan_ was, and I really can’t stand _Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home_ , which incorporates all of the worst tropes in one film (a Big Dumb Object, time travel, “fish out of water” comedy, and an existential threat that is resolved with a total _deus ex machina_ ) but it is widely beloved so I guess I’m just wrong about it. I’m with you on The Search for Spock. But as whole I think the even/odd dichotomy holds up. The Motion Picture - Great idea but overall somewhat slow and boring. Wrath of Khan - One of the best Trek movies Search for Spock - Not bad. Voyage Home - Most people love this one. The Final Frontier - Most people dislike this one. The Undiscovered Country - This would have been a good high note to end the voyages of the original crew. Generations - Disappointing. First Contact - The best TNG movie. Insurrection - Not very good. Nemesis - Terribly bad. The two that break the theory are Search for Spock, which was decent, and Nemsis which was terrible despite being an even numbered movie. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/14 "2021-09-27T10:16:46Z")
Could a teenager deal with everything Marty went through while it’s happening? Yes, it’s possible. It’s _afterwards_ that he’s going to be particularly messed up, especially given: > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > And don’t get me started on what happened to the “other” Marty McFly. You know, the one that disappeared in the timestream to give the protagonist Marty McFly the chance to live a normal life. Marty McFly at the end of the third film will have memories of multiple pasts that no longer exist and no memories of the one in which he’s living. Between that and the PTSD from all the stuff he went through, he’s going to be a basket case in short order. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/15 "2021-09-27T12:49:17Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Marty McFly at the end of the third film will have memories of multiple pasts that no longer exist and no memories of the one in which he’s living. This is what I came in to say. No matter how objectively ‘better’ his transformed home life is, with a now happy, successful family, it’s still not ‘his’ life, and adjusting to it would be difficult and traumatic. It’s vanishingly unlikely Marty would even exist in that timeline; it would be a billion-to-one shot that that particular sperm and egg would get together again. His parents would be all like “who the hell are you?” ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/16 "2021-09-27T13:00:26Z")
I figure there’s a “boundary condition” constraint - though Marty doesn’t realize it, his departure from 1985 is a fixed point. The universe is constrained to have a “Marty McFly” and a DeLorean at that point in time - other details are flexible, though ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/17 "2021-09-27T14:15:46Z")
Except it isn’t. Marty’s siblings disappear from a picture because he prevents his father from being hit by the car, and Marty himself starts to fade out because some jerk cuts between Lorraine and George at the dance. Why all of these changes don’t happen immediately, and particularly why Marty last so long, are questions better left unanswered. The films have very intricate plotting with elaborate setups and callbacks, but travelling back into one’s own timeline, i.e. anywhere in the lightcone of one’s own experience, creates inherent contradictions unless you assume absolute predestination where all time loops have/will always occur and no alteration is possible, which would negate the entire conflict of the films. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/18 "2021-09-27T14:28:01Z")
True. I keep trying to work around the problems though. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/19 "2021-09-27T16:38:56Z")
Marty taking over “other Marty’s” life always bugged me. Not only is it not his life (and Jennifer isn’t “his” girl), but there’s so much he doesn’t know. Important things. Like where his truck keys are, how many times he’s had sex with Jennifer, what his brother does for a living, and a million little details that probably changed (do the Beatles still exist?🙂 ) I just assume Other Marty created his own new timeline, and when he came BTTF, the differences were small enough he didn’t notice. He probably knew how to drive offroad and didn’t ruin old man Peabody’s pine trees. And the Other Other Marty…went somewhere. Maybe it’s a hall of mirrors of Other Martys going to infinity. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Why all of these changes don’t happen immediately, and particularly why Marty last so long, are questions better left unanswered. I’ll answer it. Quantum reality. Reality is shaped by human consciousness. Marty’s siblings disappeared from the picture slowly as a graphic representation of the probabilities involved. The longer he doesn’t take the correct action, the less likely the timeline can be restored. The divergence began as soon as Marty arrived in 1955, and continued to get worse as more choices, more divergent points, occurred. A strong-willed person might not have seen the photo fade as fast, for example, because he would be more confident of repairing the damage. Thoughts create reality (in the BTTF world.) And it doesn’t change all at once because at every point in the movie the timeline can still be (mostly) repaired. No one understands though that reality HAS already changed, that they are in a different timeline already, and that everything Marty knew is…gone. It’s been “never–existed” out of reality. The filmmakers missed an opportunity by not making subtle differences in the photo after George and Lorraine kissed. > [@markn\_1](#): > > The Star Trek model being numbers divisible by 1 are bad? My model says 2 and 8 are good and the rest are crap. Like Star Wars movies, we all wish they were better than they are, so we ignore that the franchises as a total both suck. And that’s not even counting the JJ Abrams corruption. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397/20 "2021-09-27T16:45:47Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > The filmmakers missed an opportunity by not making subtle differences in the photo after George and Lorraine kissed. If I recall correctly, Doc gives the photo a funny look when Marty shows it to him after the dance - maybe they planned to have some subtle differences that Doc was noticing? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-kid-be-able-to-cope-with-everything-marty-mcfly-went-through/951397.md?page=2)