Movie could've beens and what-ifs.

[Trekker4747]

What-if in Back to the Future Part 2 when Biff's goons, in the 50s' are preparing to "jump" Marty when he leaves the stage -thinking he's the "future" Marty who just ambushed them. "Future" Marty radios ths dilema to Doc who strongly suggests he stops the ambush, lest if "past" Marty is stalled from getting to the DeLorean it may cause a paradox.

What if... Past Marty did get stalled by Biff's goons? What if, then, "future" Marty took his place at the Clock Tower and then "past" Marty was rejoined with "future" Doc and continued the hunt for the book and went into the 19th century in the next movie?

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Hmm interesting and future Marty would still cease to exist? Actually I'm already confused

 

[Trekker4747]

It's actually my theory that there's a problem with the presence of that Marty who, for the sake of argument, we'll say is the Marty that we see travel back at the end of the first movie.

The last sequences of the first movie that are set in 1985 is a 1985 based on Marty's travel to the past. The ledge of the clock tower is broken (from Doc's standing there), his father is a confident writer, his mom a thinner less drunk version of herself, his siblings better and more successful versions of themsselves and Biff is the sniveing yes-man working as an auto-detailer. All of this is in the past when "our" Marty arrives in 1985.

So he watches that 1985's Marty travel back in time. Consider for a moment how that Marty's present life came to be , it was because of our Marty's interference in 1955. That means in that Marty's past Marty was already there.

So one of two things have to happen when he travels back in time. Either he vanishes and goes nowhere, disappearing into space-time or when he arrives in 1955 he'd crash into himself! He'll he arrive ontop of himself. Because according to the movie series' own time-travel theories it should be possible for Marty to go back into 1955 and witness these events, as he does in the second movie.

So there's one of three things that have to happen here.

1. When that Marty leaves 1985 he simply arrives nowhere and disappears.

2. When he arrives in 1955 he displaces "our" Marty into nothingness and things continue as they're supposed to be.

3. He arrives in 1955, materializing within his "other self" which won't be pretty or fun to anyone to clean-up. This, of course, would cause the original time-line to re-assert itself as Marty would never interfere with his parents' meeting and the "altered" 1985 would never happen, resulting in everything that happens in the first movie to happen all over again which would then cause this ending to all hapen and.... arghhh. It's a loop.

Time-travel is fun to discuss.

And confusing.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

 

[Mistral]

My head hurts-I need to lie down.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

This is always my issue with taking a movie like this and over analyzing it (much like the ever on going debate of how there has to be a pre-Kyle timeline in the Terminator franchise). It's made pretty clear of the way the family speaks to Marty at the end of part one, that for all intents and purposes his life was the same, just wasn't as dumpy. Everyone's comment to him upon seeing him the next morning was to him either being out late or sleeping in late.

Seems to me that the idea behind this, is that while some things can and did get changed, not everything did, Marty was still dating Jennifer, Marty was obviously still into that Truck (and ended up with it), Marty still met and hung around Doc Brown, etc... There's a cycle in it. The dumpy life was pre interference, and the improved life is post interference. After the change, the cycle kicked in (with some details and history changing obviously) to Marty going back in time to ENSURE history happens the way everyone remembers it.

Some thing's being the same, as I said comes down to the family living in the same hours, Marty still having been out (and probably not the first time he's done it) late, Marty dating Jennifer, Marty and Jennifer going up to the lake, the picture Marty had of him, his brother and his sister, and so forth.

I'm just going to guess that for years, Marty heard the story of Calvin Klein getting George to stand up to Biff, only to eventually realize he's Calvin Klein.

That's how I see it anyway, but I base this on how the timeline did change, with some details clearly not changing (Another one, the Mall was still there, except that it was now the Lone Pine Mall, not the Twin Pine mall).

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

First of all, The Terminator is a totally separate debate. The is no pre-Kyle Reese timeline; never was. It's a predestination paradox. How does that happen? I don't know. That's why it's a paradox!

Anyhoo...

One wonders about the butterfly effect Marty's presence in 1955 had, that it somehow redirected Mr. Parker's sperm in its trip to the uterus, causing Jennifer Parker to change from Claudia Wells to Elizabeth Shue.

Perhaps, taking a Stargate/Star Trek (2009) approach to the time travel here... no, wait, that wouldn't work. Never mind. Dammit, Lone Pine Marty always confuses me so.

I've always been similarly confused about the alternate 1985 in Part II where Marty is supposed to be at a boarding school in Switzerland and Doc is supposed to be in a mental institution. What happened to those guys? Are they still there or did they vanish when the other Marty & Doc arrived?

 

[DonIago]

^Regarding your last part...if there's a singular timeline then they vanished. If there's multiple timelines then they're still there.