Would the DeLorean have ran completely out of fuel?

[Kirk Prime]

Maybe he can remember how to, maybe he can't. But maybe he also doesn't have time to source crude oil and to build the apparatus before Monday morning.

Given the man's extensive knowledge, it would be hard to imagine that he couldn't make gasoline. He made a giant refrigerator. The latter is a better explanation, though the movie was a bit unclear about that as well.

There was an interesting fan fic I once read that covered what happened to the Marty that grew up in the better timeline. We only saw him briefly. Clearly circumstances led him to Lone Pine Mall in a similar way that Twin Pines Mall Marty was led there. Probably Doc knew and arranged everything.

But in that story, instead of creating the better timeline, Marty went back in time and in 1955, created the timeline with Twin Pines Mall, thus making a circle.

 

[Trekker4747]

I had always heard in the altered timeline Doc sought out Marty and befriended him to ensure timeline continuity.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Build a scaled-down refinery to extract a usable hydrocarbon fraction from tar sands obtained from the Green River oil shale formation in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming?

Modify the engine to run on alcohol?

 

[Trekker4747]

Modify the engine to run on alcohol?

A) They tried that.

B) They had a few days, not even really a full week.

 

[Mytran]

I had always heard in the altered timeline Doc sought out Marty and befriended him to ensure timeline continuity.

This youtube video has my favourite theory

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[Tosk]

Care to encapsulate it for us?

 

[Mytran]

Care to encapsulate it for us?

I would need to rewatch it again to do it justice, but it involves at least a couple of timelines before we get to the sequence of events seen in BTTF.

 

[David cgc]

I would need to rewatch it again to do it justice, but it involves at least a couple of timelines before we get to the sequence of events seen in BTTF.

Sounds like my theory that in BTTF 1, there are two timelines ping-ponging back and forth, with Ending Marty creating and becoming trapped in Beginning Marty's timeline just as Beginning Marty had. Which implies the existence of an alternate version of Back to the Future where preppy rich-boy Marty ensures his conception but turns his dad into a milquetoast, his mom into a sad-sack, and Biff into a success and returns to a far more depressing version of home.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I had always heard in the altered timeline Doc sought out Marty and befriended him to ensure timeline continuity.

Could you imagine the stress that would entail ensuring timeline continuity? How would Doc know if he was buying the right DeLorean from the right dealership? What if he fueled up at a different gas station than original Doc? What if said gas station watered down their gas? How did new Doc know what font to use for the lettering of his business on the side of his white panel van? Is that even the same Einstein, or did Doc get him from a different pet store/shelter?

 

[Silvercrest]

Only if he didn't just shrug and say, "What the hell."

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I don't recall them reading that at all. I mean, it is what ends up happening, but there's nothing about his fate in the newspaper.

"However, this claim cannot be substantiated since precise records were not kept after Tannen shot a newspaper editor who printed an unfavorable story about him in 1884."

 

[Tosk]

"However, this claim cannot be substantiated since precise records were not kept after Tannen shot a newspaper editor who printed an unfavorable story about him in 1884."

Sorry, I must be missing the point. What does that have to do with the claim Gaith made that the newspaper specified that Buford was arrested for robbing the Pine City Stage?

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Which is also a plot hole, surely? Don't Marty and 1955 Doc read in the 1955 library that Buford is arrested for a stagecoach robbery on the day Doc is shot? So all Marty and 1885 Doc need to do is skip town for a week, and find gasoline elsewhere. (If Doc can build a barn-sized fridge, I imagine he could make a few gallons of gas...)

It's never mentioned in the paper that Mad Dog was arrested. Just that the claim that he had killed 12 men couldn't be substantiated. Marty pissing Buford off is why he ends up getting arrested, fighting Clint in downtown Hill Valley. In the "original" timeline (the one where Doc is in 1885 and not Marty) Doc isn't actually shot on September 7, he's actually shot during the clock tower dedication festival (that Marty prevents with the frisbee). So, Buford is long gone on September 7 and doesn't get busted for the Pine City Stage robbery.

 

[Gaith]

^ Ah. Thanks.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

It's never mentioned in the paper that Mad Dog was arrested. Just that the claim that he had killed 12 men couldn't be substantiated. Marty pissing Buford off is why he ends up getting arrested, fighting Clint in downtown Hill Valley. In the "original" timeline (the one where Doc is in 1885 and not Marty) Doc isn't actually shot on September 7, he's actually shot during the clock tower dedication festival (that Marty prevents with the frisbee). So, Buford is long gone on September 7 and doesn't get busted for the Pine City Stage robbery.

Exactly. Furthermore, even if Buford did still get arrested for robbing the Pine City Stage in the previous timeline, it sounds like a lot of Buford's history wasn't well organized by the record-keeping of the time given what happened to the unfortunate newspaper editor in 1884. So even if the arrest happened, it's unlikely that there would be a clear record of it that Marty could find in the library in 1955.

One thing that's bothered me about Part III-- When Marty suggests that they take Clara with them, Doc dismisses the idea out of hand, presumably because he doesn't want his personal desires to corrupt the timeline any more than they already have. However, given that Clara was originally supposed to die in 1885, wouldn't it be better to remove her from that point in history and take her to the future? Surely that would be the best way to minimize any changes that occurred when he saved her life before she fell into the ravine.

 

[Tosk]

Doc has never been completely clear-minded when it comes to the ramifications of time travel. After spending an entire movie lecturing Marty on not knowing the future, he gives it all up with a simple, "Well, I figured, what the hell?"

That said, Clara originally died falling into the ravine so it's not quite the same to have her mysteriously disappear days after that. They could conceivably have created problems whisking her away. But whatever changes it made, they don't seem to be major ones so what the hell.

 

[Trekker4747]

One thing that's bothered me about Part III-- When Marty suggests that they take Clara with them, Doc dismisses the idea out of hand, presumably because he doesn't want his personal desires to corrupt the timeline any more than they already have. However, given that Clara was originally supposed to die in 1885, wouldn't it be better to remove her from that point in history and take her to the future? Surely that would be the best way to minimize any changes that occurred when he saved her life before she fell into the ravine.

I always thought the same thing, removing Clara from the timeline by taking her with them is the best course of action since she's supposed to be dead anyway.

 

[Silvercrest]

Kirk wishes he'd thought of that with Edith Keeler.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Kirk wishes he'd thought of that with Edith Keeler.

That's the problem...he can't have his cake and Edith too.

 

[Mojochi]

I always wondered why they jumped to the assumption that they should try alcohol in the tank as a substitute. I mean sure, you can cut your gasoline with alcohol, (& we do with ethanol) but as a fuel in that type of engine on its own? Why would a time machine engineer who deliberately chose an internal combustion automobile not know that was a dumb move?

Wouldn't another oil based substance be a better fit, like Kerosene? It's fairly commonplace by 1885 as a lamp oil, and is essentially the beginnings of modern oil refinery. Standard kerosene isn't all that great a substitute either, mind you, but it's a much better idea that just dumping booze into the thing. Plus, I'd find it hard to believe that Doc would've been hanging around in 1885 for that length of time, experimenting with refrigeration & whatnot, & NOT also been doing some stuff with oil refinement in there.