That would mean that the time-continuum makes a lot of assumptions about various future events along the way. Throughout time a lot of seemingly minor events can coalesce together to create a major turn of events. In Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm says "A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine." When you change one thing, it has the capacity to change something else, which can change something else... there are a lot of assumptions to make about "the most likely outcome of events" and as the time-continuum itself is neither sentient nor capable of computing probability algorithms, I don't understand how it could be able to intelligently assume which choices over time would be the more likely to occur.
It sounds like you're saying that the time-continuum is capable of playing a highly elaborate guessing game. If this were true how does it assume that flying cars are practical to research and develop? How does it know which car companies would build which cars? If this were possible, would it then also be that if Doc had successfully finished the time-machine in 1955, if he travelled forward from then that the continuum's assumptions of the future he would see would be more like The Jetsons? What would the continuum assume the future would be like if someone travelled forward to 9999 A.D. using only probabilities known at 1985? How can the continuum possibly assume anything at all with so little information? The only reasonable answer at the very least pushes BTTF's interpretation of the future into the realm of intelligent design theory, which is another way of saying that Doc went forward to 2015 to witness God's Will for the universe before it actually happens. I never thought of the BTTF movies as touching on matters of spirituality, so it doesn't really fit.
Plus, how does the continuum itself decide what the "present" is? When Doc goes to 2015, since he is the first to visit it, his present at that time becomes 2015 and going back to 1985 then changes the past as he then knows it. It would be the same as if Doc had been cryogenically frozen for 30 years, reanimated and then time-travelled back to 1985. Doc travelling forward in time from 1985 to 2015 for the first time forces the continuum to lay out events, such that when Doc reaches 2015 they no longer will happen but already havehappened.
To say that Doc can visit a future that doesn't really exist yet, or merely a "projected destiny" as you put it, is to say that the time-continuum only becomes set as quickly as it takes for the fourth-dimension to march forward in time; that at the time of BTTF, whatever exists before 1985 is set and events that come afterward are only "projected" or "assumed" by the continuum even when someone goes into the future and gains significant amounts of experiences there; and that the continuum itself is capable of making intelligent choices however extraordinarily large or infinitesimally small, and is able to do so many millenia far into the future of what is considered the present, with incredibly little data to base such projections on.
Marty0 has not yet lived beyond 1985, and that projected destiny will not become reality until he actually lives through those experiences. Up until that moment arrives, any number of unprecedented events may occur that have the potential to alter destiny dramatically.
In short, Doc1 does not "know" what will happen to Marty0 and his son in 2015, he has only seen an extrapolated projection that he is convinced will become reality unless he takes drastic steps to intercept crucial events that precipitate it. If the future were in fact preordained, Doc1 would have seen a preview of his own successfully bungled attempt to thwart the dire fate of Marty's son, and the lurid newspaper reports would have always shown the arrest of Griff's gang. Doc1 would then know that it was his own preordained destiny to retrieve Marty0 from 1985 and faithfully reenact the future events he has already witnessed.
I never said BTTF should follow the mechanics of predestination. What I'm saying is that the future isn't written yet unless someone already knows what it is. When someone time-travels into the future for the first time, they essentially are removed from the fourth dimension until the continuum catches up to where their destination is. When they arrive, that future then can be considered their present. Then, if they return to the previous time they came from, variations in the timeline that occur as a result of their actions overwrite the events that were recorded on the timeline previously.
Einstein at the beginning of BTTF1 skipped forward in time and when he reappeared no second Einstein was there. Also, when Doc went to 2015 at the end of BTTF1, I believe he also appeared in a 2015 where no other Doc was there because the time-continuum recorded events that occurred in his absence. Those recorded events remained until events in that 2015's past were altered. So when Marty, Doc and Jennifer went to 2015, it was the 2015 that had no other Doc. If Marty and Doc had gone together to 2015 first, the future would have been laid out without either of them just as it was laid out for one minute with no Einstein at the beginning of BTTF1.
I understand that the message Doc gives at the end of BTTF3 is "the future is whatever you make it" and "your future hasn't been written yet, no one's has," but just because Doc says these things to Marty to encourage him, it doesn't mean that the time-continuum has to agree.
And I know you really really want the Marty at the end of BTTF3 to be the one original Marty0, but it just doesn't make sense for him to be. By the nature of being able to witness his own future first-hand, it means he can't be the first ever Marty since he never makes that choice. He essentially is learning from a mistake someone else already made... and that someone else is himself, only a previous version that has already made the choice.
Doc0 - builds the time machine on his own and gets shot in 1985.
Doc1 - this version sent Marty to 1985 from 1955 in BTTF1 and survives getting shot. All future versions also survive getting shot. Dies in 1885 after getting shot.
Doc2 - 1955 Doc in BTTF2. Interacts with Marty1 in 1955 after Marty0 leaves. Meets Marty in 1885 and saves Clara1 from dying.
As far as I see it, it's Doc1 in BTTF3 with whom Marty interacts in 1885 - Marty returns to the point in time when Doc1 HASN'T been killed yet, sent back by Doc2. That's why Doc1 is a bit angry that Marty's there and is shocked by the revelation of his future death - he doesn't remember doing all those things Doc2 did (finding Doc1's grave, sending Marty to 1885) because he actually never did them.
If we take this message seriously, it means that what Doc1 saw in his first visit to 2015 is not the preordained fate of Marty0. It is only a projection of his destiny extrapolated from the moment Doc1 left 1985.
That would mean that the time-continuum makes a lot of assumptions about various future events along the way...
It sounds like you're saying that the time-continuum is capable of playing a highly elaborate guessing game...
The only reasonable answer at the very least pushes BTTF's interpretation of the future into the realm of intelligent design theory, which is another way of saying that Doc went forward to 2015 to witness God's Will for the universe before it actually happens.
BTTF's concept of destiny does indeed touch on spiritual issues, but I think the mechanism of its projected destiny can find a prosaic explanation within the two-dimensional timescape theory I'm using to model it.
An important point I may not have made clear is that it is not Doc's invention of the time machine that brings the second axis of time into existence. For it to be consistent with BTTF, the two-dimenional timescape would have been present all along. Moreover, the timeline of the universe would have been steadily evolving since long before Doc and Marty began tweaking it in unprecedented ways.
There's even a plausible physical cause for the timeline of the universe to gradually evolve across a second time axis. On a subatomic level, electron-positron pairs have often been observed following paths that collide and annihilate both particles. In 1940, physicists John Wheeler and Richard Feynman proposed a theory that these subatomic collisions could in fact be reinterpreted as a single electron that at a certain point transformed itself into a positron, and preceded to move backward in time! This time reversal interpretation is nowadays accepted as completely equivalent to modern theories of subatomic interaction. A more detailed description can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Antimatter
Since positrons are extremely rare compared to electrons, the degree their reverse trajectories could potentially alter the past would be quite limited. Nevertheless, their cumulative effect could result in a gradual evolution of the subatomic history of the universe. If these microscopic alterations were recorded across an axis perpendicular to the timeline of the universe, it would generate that second dimension of time. We could regard the DeLorean as producing the same type of effects, but on an enormously magnified macroscopic scale that produces much more dramatic alterations in the evolution of the timeline.
Given a two-dimensional timescape, the events of the past of the current timeline are not the only source of information available for projecting destiny into the future from a point in the present. The evolution of the entire timeline is contained in the past of the second time dimension, and it would serve as the starting point for that projection. There would be no "guessing" or "intelligent design" involved, it would simply be a mechanical process of rippling the differences between the current timeline and the previous into the future.
This model is the foundation of my claim that the aged version of Marty in the projected destiny of 2015 was not Marty0, but was instead the last of his predecessors who failed to avoid the fateful traffic accident (which I described as a procession of "negative-numbered" Marty's). It was simply the latest version of the timeline that had evolved up to that point in Marty's destiny. By being the first of his kind to avoid the accident, Marty0 committed an unprecedented act that caused a dramatic change in his destiny, consigning his previous default destiny into the past history of the evolution of the timeline itself.
I never said BTTF should follow the mechanics of predestination. What I'm saying is that the future isn't written yet unless someone already knows what it is. When someone time-travels into the future for the first time, they essentially are removed from the fourth dimension until the continuum catches up to where their destination is. When they arrive, that future then can be considered their present. Then, if they return to the previous time they came from, variations in the timeline that occur as a result of their actions overwrite the events that were recorded on the timeline previously.
Einstein at the beginning of BTTF1 skipped forward in time and when he reappeared no second Einstein was there. Also, when Doc went to 2015 at the end of BTTF1, I believe he also appeared in a 2015 where no other Doc was there because the time-continuum recorded events that occurred in his absence. Those recorded events remained until events in that 2015's past were altered.
While I wouldn't call this theory implausible or inconsistent, I think it describes a different world than the one the screenwriters depicted and commented on in the BTTF trilogy DVD.
The reason there aren't two Einstein's is because we're not viewing a projection of the future, we're seeing the reality of the present in real-time along with the protagonist, Marty0. In addition, Einstein's trip was completely unprecedented and would not have been part of any projected destiny up until the point when it actually occurred in Doc0's timeline.
As for there being no Doc in 2015 because he was absent up until he appeared in the DeLorean, this is an apparent paradox that the screenwriters discussed in the DVD FAQ. They resolved it with their explanation of travel to the future as witnessing only a projected destiny, rather than actual preordained events.
By the nature of being able to witness his own future first-hand, it means [Marty0] can't be the first ever Marty since he never makes that choice. He essentially is learning from a mistake someone else already made... and that someone else is himself, only a previous version that has already made the choice.
As you can see from my previous post, I'd agree completely with this statement. However, I think my explanation of "negative-numbered" Marty's is consistent and adheres to the intent of the screenwriters more faithfully than your claim that Marty0 was fated to fail and be replaced by a subsequent Marty at some point in the trilogy.
I still say it's a big guessing game for the space-time continuum to predict in advance where everyone and everything in the universe will be and exactly what choices they will make no matter how small and before certain beings or generations of their ancestors even exist yet, which leaves extrapolations on their predispositions toward certain choices left entirely to genetic probabilities and blind luck.
I'm not trying to fit the BTTF universe into a box that the screenwriters say they may have originally intended. To be honest, I don't think the screenwriters probably put nearly as much thought into the actual science of it as we are.
What I'm trying to do is to fit the BTTF movies into a concept that makes logical sense on its own merit, and to say that the continuum can intelligently extrapolate past events into years, decades and even millenia worth of predictions before they occur just sounds too far fetched. By that reckoning, whole civilizations of individual people and the new and unforeseen inventions they may create can be extrapolated by the continuum before any of it ever exists or is even thought of. Life itself by its very nature is highly unpredictable, so I don't see how such complex sets of variables could be extrapolated so precisely.
Further, to be able to predict and anticipate events before they happen suggests intelligence, and I wouldn't think it logical for what can be considered as simply a law of the nature of the universe to be intelligent. No more could you say that a thunderstorm's movements are intelligent. For there to be an intelligent being that created such things, yes. But not attaching intelligence to the laws of time and space themselves.
I never said BTTF should follow the mechanics of predestination. What I'm saying is that the future isn't written yet unless someone already knows what it is. When someone time-travels into the future for the first time, they essentially are removed from the fourth dimension until the continuum catches up to where their destination is. When they arrive, that future then can be considered their present. Then, if they return to the previous time they came from, variations in the timeline that occur as a result of their actions overwrite the events that were recorded on the timeline previously.
Einstein at the beginning of BTTF1 skipped forward in time and when he reappeared no second Einstein was there. Also, when Doc went to 2015 at the end of BTTF1, I believe he also appeared in a 2015 where no other Doc was there because the time-continuum recorded events that occurred in his absence. Those recorded events remained until events in that 2015's past were altered. So when Marty, Doc and Jennifer went to 2015, it was the 2015 that had no other Doc. If Marty and Doc had gone together to 2015 first, the future would have been laid out without either of them just as it was laid out for one minute with no Einstein at the beginning of BTTF1.
I understand that the message Doc gives at the end of BTTF3 is "the future is whatever you make it" and "your future hasn't been written yet, no one's has," but just because Doc says these things to Marty to encourage him, it doesn't mean that the time-continuum has to agree.
And I know you really really want the Marty at the end of BTTF3 to be the one original Marty0, but it just doesn't make sense for him to be. By the nature of being able to witness his own future first-hand, it means he can't be the first ever Marty since he never makes that choice. He essentially is learning from a mistake someone else already made... and that someone else is himself, only a previous version that has already made the choice.
Just to babble about it...
marty 0 is the one that had an accident with needle(flea) and never became a rockstar hurting his hand...
Doc 2 gets after the first movie just in time before he has the accident with jennifer. And also to save his kids, but he should be in a hurry because of martys accident.
Doc 2 goes to the end of the third movie an says "the future is what you make of it" because the ending of the 3 part sucks!!! jajajjajaa and they had to do it like a disney movie, where everybodys happy... but also because marty didnt race needles
In any statistical analysis wherein a sample is used to predict the future decisions of a population, there is a certain level of error to consider as a result of outlying factors. In this case, the further the continuum "projects" into the future, the more the errors taken from the sample will increase and compound on themselves until at some point the projected data is worthless. Basically, if I were able to sample the entire population of the world compounded since the invention of carbonated soft drinks, it would still be useless for me to try to predict the profit margin of specific products that may or may not be developed by the Cola-Cola company in 400 years. It's just too far away in time. So much more difficult would it be for the continuum itself to "project" exactly each and every action taken by each and every life in the universe and how they react with and respond to one another for every second of every day even for a time as close as the next 30 years.
This also essentially means that a time-traveller from the present would be able go forward into the far future and live an entire life worth of experiences that never really happen because they were based on inaccurately projected data.
It also would mean that in BTTF2, either the continuum itself is capable of creative inspiration, or that it is God's Will that Pepsi create a product called "Pepsi Perfect" by 2015.
edit: Now, considering that that sentence, if we were to say that God exists; that He is in control; that "projected destiny" is just another way of defining God's Will for our lives; and the continuum's continuous altering of said projected destiny as the present marches forward in time is a manifestation of how the effects our own free will to define our own destinies have on God's eternal plan... well, then that would completely solve the whole intelligence problem I mentioned and your explanation would then be acceptable.
Unfortunately, I foresee many people being offended by such a hypothesis, some of which who would say that the concepts of science and God contradict each other, and others who would say that the existence of God is nowhere addressed in BTTF and therefore has no place in such an explanation.
I still say it's a big guessing game for the space-time continuum to predict in advance where everyone and everything in the universe will be and exactly what choices they will make no matter how small and before certain beings or generations of their ancestors even exist yet, which leaves extrapolations on their predispositions toward certain choices left entirely to genetic probabilities and blind luck.
I'd agree with you on this point if BTTF's concept of projected destiny were simply a linear extrapolation of the present timeline indefinitely into the future. If that were the case, it would inevitably become more and more speculative the farther it extended from known events.
However, I think it becomes far more conceivable when you consider the implications of a two-dimensional timescape where the entire timeline of the universe is continually evolving. There are then two dimensions of past events to draw upon - past events of the current timeline projected into both past and future events of the preceding timeline. If the preceding timeline is used as a template for the projected destiny of the current timeline, the only mechanism required is not an intelligent one, but simply an updating process comparable to the BTTF "Ripple Effect". The projection would still become increasingly speculative the farther it extended from the present of the current timeline, but instead of being guesswork, it would be based on what actually occurred in preceding timelines.
What I think would actually occur in a two-dimensional timescape is somewhat more complex. If you pick any temporal starting point, conventional time would immediately begin to elapse in that timeline. As random electrons transformed into positrons and moved backward into the past of that timeline, it would cause the elapsed past of that timeline to evolve into increasingly altered versions sweeping into the second time dimension. But timeline evolution doesn't occur instantaneously, it progresses gradually as we've seen with the BTTF ripple effect. Thus, something like a "diagonal" wavefront of temporal progression would occur across the two-dimensional timescape. Preceding timelines would have developed farther into the future than the current timeline, but the closest of those timelines would only be slighty ahead of the present. This would provide an increasingly speculative foundation for projecting the destiny of the current timeline as you extended it farther into the future.
No, he wouldn't know, because Doc and Marty (and Old Biff) haven't gone back to 1955 a second time yet.
but marty told past doc that future doc was in the wild west, so in the new timeline doc should know he will get trapped in 1885, and that he will go to 1955 with marty because marty would of told him
I haven't watched it in a while, but I think Doc is only inspired to actually go pick her up (and subsequently save her) after having a conversation with Marty. In the pre-Marty timeline he may have been too late.
A more consistent (but sillier) plot hole has to do with the photo of the gravestone. The gravestone in the photo fades and disappears, but logically, the photo itself should vanish as well, since why would anybody take a picture of an empty space?
Doc and Marty are from a timeline where Clara died in the ravine and so the ravine was named clayton ravine. Doc going back in time changed that tho, he picked her up, not realizing he was changing the future. Look for clara while doc and marty are talking at the train station. If marty never came then doc would have picked her up, but with marty's intervention he never did pick her up so she hired a carriage, which happened in the original timeline, but marty and doc saved her, changing the future again, making the ravine eastwood ravine, probably after thinking clint eastwood died there.
So while it is indeed correct to say that each Marty arrives in 1955 at the same point in four-dimensional space-time, they nevertheless occupy separate positions along the second time axis, each secure within their distinct timelines. The only exception is Marty0, who by returning a second time to 1955, surreptitiously intercepts Marty1's timeline..
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just reading back through this (in a bid to understand some of the further conversation! )...but I'm lost at how we know Marty0 (in 1955 the second time around) intercepts Marty1's timeline? Why do we know it isn't Marty0's original timeline? Assuming your logic of multiple timelines in a five dimensional axis is no information available whatsoever to declare that the Marty who leaves the Lone Pine Mall is the same Marty that Marty0 finds in 1955 the second time around. Why couldn't it be Marty0 (just at the earlier stage of his personal perspective)? How have you extrapolated that it isn't his own point (on the fifth dimensional axis) he's viewing?
I'm lost at how we know Marty0 (in 1955 the second time around) intercepts Marty1's timeline? Why do we know it isn't Marty0's original timeline? Assuming your logic of multiple timelines in a five dimensional axis is no information available whatsoever to declare that the Marty who leaves the Lone Pine Mall is the same Marty that Marty0 finds in 1955 the second time around. Why couldn't it be Marty0 (just at the earlier stage of his personal perspective)? How have you extrapolated that it isn't his own point (on the fifth dimensional axis) he's viewing?
True.
At the very least I would posit that it is a different version of Marty than Marty0 himself, given that Marty0's presence affects the other Marty's actions in ways Marty0 doesn't remember them happening, albeit only slighly (such as having to step over Biff's goons after they are hit by sandbags.)
Whether or not this other Marty remembers Twin Pines Mall or Lone Pine Mall can't be proven though since the movie never gives enough evidence to support either hypothesis, so you're right. The only way to be able to tell would have been if Marty0 had overheard the other Marty telling Doc about how his dad got hit by his grandpa's car, but he didn't overhear it so we can't say for certain.
...and additionally, Marty1 wouldn't have known that George was supposed to have met and fallen in love with Lorraine when he got hit by the car, (as that's now not how they met at all and wouldn't have told Marty as such accordingly), but that George saved her from being attacked by Biff in the car park to the school. Would Marty(0+x) known that he should 'become' Calvin to save his dad and mum's relationship or would he still think he hadn't actually inteferred at all with them? Doc in 55 knew he'd inteferred by re-checking the photo, but that photo would always fade away for Doc(1+X) but he wouldn't know that Marty(0+x) had intefered in 'destiny' ...as as far as that and following Martys knew, they hadn't.
But Marty HAS to go back... otherwise he wouldn't warn Doc back in 1955, and the 1985-Doc would just lose the memory of being warned It would've caused a paradox, and we all know that those aren't always good.
But it would've been nice of Doc to say "Meet me at 1:00 at the Lone Pine Mall, bring my video camera and a bullet-proof vest"... now that he knows.
it wouldn't have caused a paradox if that marty never went back in time cause its a different marty with different memories, but there would have been 2 martys in the same time line, if it would have caused a paradox then old biff couldn't have gone back in time in the second movie, cause he wouldn't have needed to go back in time if he was rich, and he shouldn't have existed in 1955 if he succeeded cause the reason for going there in the first place would of been erased. That is a paradox.
But they have to catch the train!... of course, they could have also waited for the next one.
I've been thinking about this a lot. This moment doesn't seem to be the only scene were the need to really hurry is just faked. Remember the ending of part I/ beginning of part II? I thought that there's really no reason why Doc has to hurry so much. In fact, Doc seems to have put quite some time in research by collecting newspapers from different time periods and planning the whole thing before returning to 1985, why not just have a quiet slow little chat with Marty before going to 2015?
Or so I thought. In fact, at this time, Doc intercepts Marty only minutes before his Rolls Royce accident, so his mad hurry could in fact be the attempt to avoid quite a different catastrophe...
One other thing I don't get is, in 1885 why does the photograph of the tombstone change so that it shows a bare plot/unmarked grave? I understand that breaking the tombstone wouldn't remove the photo paper from existence, but why then wouldn't it remove the photo image on the paper leaving the paper completely blank?
The only "plot hole" which left me wondering is the fact that Marty's parents can't notice that Marty is the guy from the 50's.
Explanation that "they knew him for just couple of days" is really not enough, and unless they've gotten some sort of amnesia they would have surely notice the fact that their son turned to be that guy.
Of course, it's just a movie, but i like explanations. So, here's the three of them i've come up with:
1) More simple and more stupid explanation - Marty figured out that once he gets back to 80's his parents would notice it. So instead, what we're not shown is that he would simply travel back to 50's again and try to act so that the things take their turn of action but to stay unnoticed. Or disguised.
2) Same as above but it's done by Doc. He figures that Marty has interfered with the destiny and afraids of the paradox and the fact that Marty's parents would recognize Marty. So, again, we're not shown that Doc gets back and meets "Marty1".
3) More radical explanation - Marty's folks are aware of Marty, or Calvin, only while he is in the reality of '55. The moment he leaves for the future he's not relevant for the timeline of the past so he leaves their memory too.
I thought that the Delorean needs to be at a speed of 88 Mph to make a successful jump.
So why did Doc accidentally end up in 1885 as when he was hit by lightning the Delorean was hovering and almost not moving at all.
The only "plot hole" which left me wondering is the fact that Marty's parents can't notice that Marty is the guy from the 50's.
heck, probably they had already noticed how Calvin Klein and their son Marty look and sound the same. Maybe they've talked about it between them, what a strange coincidence that marty would turn out just like that guy and they might even have mentioned that to marty before, but i'm pretty sure they wouldn't come to the conclusion "our son went back in time and got us together".
I thought that the Delorean needs to be at a speed of 88 Mph to make a successful jump.
So why did Doc accidentally end up in 1885 as when he was hit by lightning the Delorean was hovering and almost not moving at all.
Thats "answered" in the FAQs in the DVD/BlueRay-Edition.
"The sudden rotation of the DeLorean from the lightning hit accelerates it to 88mph when
it spins"
(Thats also the reason why the fire trails look like backwards 9's)
Explanation that "they knew him for just couple of days" is really not enough
Why not? If you hung out with someone for just a week thirty years ago with no pictures or audio of them, even someone really important to you, would you remember exactly what they looked and sounded like?
You also need to remember that they've watched Marty grow up, and probably still see him as their little boy. When you watch someone grow up, you just get used to seeing them in a certain light. Their perception of who Marty is would be shaped by seeing him as a young boy, and during the first ten years (at least), he wouldn't even remotely resemble Calvin Klein. By the time he did start to look and act more like he does at age seventeen, they still see him based on how they saw him as a child.
I'm not sure if that makes as much sense written out as it does in my head, but hopefully you see where I'm going with this.
I have an explanation: there are limits to people's imaginations. Somehow, I doubt that they would ever even consciously realize that their son grew up to look, dress and sound exactly like that guy they met in the 50's.
The only "plot hole" which left me wondering is the fact that Marty's parents can't notice that Marty is the guy from the 50's.
Did you not notice the first post in this thread, the "only thing that doesn't add up" from the thread title, is the same issue that you're bringing up again six pages in? I might not expect everybody to read all of it but you might want to check the first post of a thread just to see what it's about
Did you not notice the first post in this thread, the "only thing that doesn't add up" from the thread title, is the same issue that you're bringing up again six pages in? I might not expect everybody to read all of it but you might want to check the first post of a thread just to see what it's about
Yes, of course i read the first post and all the posts in the thread. Do you think i just bump into thread which says "The only thing that doesn't add up" and write things without knowing what it is about?
And then, even it was asked in the first post it wasn't the reason for me not to state my take on it. So by that, i supported the original poster, and said what i think about "General BttF plotholes" in what this thread has evolved to, because i wasn't satisfied with the replies, nor do i think that my theories are the ones that should be taken as something that doesn't need further debating.
I think it makes perfect sense, I press you to notice someone who you met 30 years ago for about a week to your child you've seen grow up over 16 years.
I watched the BTTF movies this weekend, and something struck me as rather odd.
Maybe the writers of the movies had a brainfart or something, but...
We establish that Old Biff goes back in time from 2015 to 1955 with Gray's Sports Almanac and gives it to Young Biff, thereby changing the timeline.
Then he goes back to the SAME 2015 and has what appears to be a heart attack as he exits the DeLorean.
HOW is that possible? According to Doc later in the movie, they should have been "overwritten" by the new timeline wherein Biff is pretty much King of the US.
Old Biff should have "returned" to a different future.
Already been talked about somewhere, I'm sure the moderator or a more attentive forummer will point it out and give a link.
I will just say that by the time Biff comes back to 2015, Marty and Doc are already out of their house with Jennifer - we can't tell if anything has changed, and most likely it did, though not much with the area they were in at the moment.
I will just say that by the time Biff comes back to 2015, Marty and Doc are already out of their house with Jennifer - we can't tell if anything has changed, and most likely it did, though not much with the area they were in at the moment.
It's called the ripple effect. Basically what it means is that it takes some time for changes to complete.
Like how in BttF Dave and Linda would slowly disappear in the picture.
Otherwise Marty woud have disappeared the instance he stopped his parents from falling in love with eachother.
Yeah, I rewatched the FAQ and saw it too now. Must have missed it the first time.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Nah, they just traveled back to add that and the ripple effect only just have caught up with you.
But since I already post.
Why is it that everyone thinks that avoiding the accident made Marty a rock star?
For all we know his musical career could be more typical and generate as low an income as his original life had.
So all that really changed, is that Needles no longer can get him fired by calling him a chicken.
(And a few lines of dialogue will run differently in the future when Doc gets Jennifer, but otherwise the plot will unfold the same)
I think the biggest "mistake" in all the films, is the fading part. If something is created, it stays the same, unless you hit it with a hammer, burn it or something like that. So, if a photograph is taken, it stays as it is. The object has a timeline of itself, so if a photo is taken, the subject of the photo exists in the timeline of the photo. Same goes with fading Marty in Bttf1: the guy has his own personal timeline, and once he is born, he is born. It doesn't matter after that point if his parents never met in his future (we have to think years as places here: one day you are in Tokyo, next day in New York, or, one day you are in 1985, next day in 1955). So what George and Lorraine did after Bttf1, was to give a birth to another Marty McFly. A different person with a different timeline. If this Marty2 would have never been born, it would have meant nothing to original Marty's existance.
I think the biggest "mistake" in all the films, is the fading part. If something is created, it stays the same, unless you hit it with a hammer, burn it or something like that. So, if a photograph is taken, it stays as it is. The object has a timeline of itself, so if a photo is taken, the subject of the photo exists in the timeline of the photo. Same goes with fading Marty in Bttf1: the guy has his own personal timeline, and once he is born, he is born. It doesn't matter after that point if his parents never met in his future (we have to think years as places here: one day you are in Tokyo, next day in New York, or, one day you are in 1985, next day in 1955). So what George and Lorraine did after Bttf1, was to give a birth to another Marty McFly. A different person with a different timeline. If this Marty2 would have never been born, it would have meant nothing to original Marty's existance.
That's simply not how Time Travel works in the Back to the Future universe. We can say with some certainty that your way "makes more sense," but since there's basically no such thing as time travel in the real world, fiction writers are allowed to make up their own rules...
Comments
It sounds like you're saying that the time-continuum is capable of playing a highly elaborate guessing game. If this were true how does it assume that flying cars are practical to research and develop? How does it know which car companies would build which cars? If this were possible, would it then also be that if Doc had successfully finished the time-machine in 1955, if he travelled forward from then that the continuum's assumptions of the future he would see would be more like The Jetsons? What would the continuum assume the future would be like if someone travelled forward to 9999 A.D. using only probabilities known at 1985? How can the continuum possibly assume anything at all with so little information? The only reasonable answer at the very least pushes BTTF's interpretation of the future into the realm of intelligent design theory, which is another way of saying that Doc went forward to 2015 to witness God's Will for the universe before it actually happens. I never thought of the BTTF movies as touching on matters of spirituality, so it doesn't really fit.
Plus, how does the continuum itself decide what the "present" is? When Doc goes to 2015, since he is the first to visit it, his present at that time becomes 2015 and going back to 1985 then changes the past as he then knows it. It would be the same as if Doc had been cryogenically frozen for 30 years, reanimated and then time-travelled back to 1985. Doc travelling forward in time from 1985 to 2015 for the first time forces the continuum to lay out events, such that when Doc reaches 2015 they no longer will happen but already have happened.
To say that Doc can visit a future that doesn't really exist yet, or merely a "projected destiny" as you put it, is to say that the time-continuum only becomes set as quickly as it takes for the fourth-dimension to march forward in time; that at the time of BTTF, whatever exists before 1985 is set and events that come afterward are only "projected" or "assumed" by the continuum even when someone goes into the future and gains significant amounts of experiences there; and that the continuum itself is capable of making intelligent choices however extraordinarily large or infinitesimally small, and is able to do so many millenia far into the future of what is considered the present, with incredibly little data to base such projections on.
I never said BTTF should follow the mechanics of predestination. What I'm saying is that the future isn't written yet unless someone already knows what it is. When someone time-travels into the future for the first time, they essentially are removed from the fourth dimension until the continuum catches up to where their destination is. When they arrive, that future then can be considered their present. Then, if they return to the previous time they came from, variations in the timeline that occur as a result of their actions overwrite the events that were recorded on the timeline previously.
Einstein at the beginning of BTTF1 skipped forward in time and when he reappeared no second Einstein was there. Also, when Doc went to 2015 at the end of BTTF1, I believe he also appeared in a 2015 where no other Doc was there because the time-continuum recorded events that occurred in his absence. Those recorded events remained until events in that 2015's past were altered. So when Marty, Doc and Jennifer went to 2015, it was the 2015 that had no other Doc. If Marty and Doc had gone together to 2015 first, the future would have been laid out without either of them just as it was laid out for one minute with no Einstein at the beginning of BTTF1.
I understand that the message Doc gives at the end of BTTF3 is "the future is whatever you make it" and "your future hasn't been written yet, no one's has," but just because Doc says these things to Marty to encourage him, it doesn't mean that the time-continuum has to agree.
And I know you really really want the Marty at the end of BTTF3 to be the one original Marty0, but it just doesn't make sense for him to be. By the nature of being able to witness his own future first-hand, it means he can't be the first ever Marty since he never makes that choice. He essentially is learning from a mistake someone else already made... and that someone else is himself, only a previous version that has already made the choice.
As far as I see it, it's Doc1 in BTTF3 with whom Marty interacts in 1885 - Marty returns to the point in time when Doc1 HASN'T been killed yet, sent back by Doc2. That's why Doc1 is a bit angry that Marty's there and is shocked by the revelation of his future death - he doesn't remember doing all those things Doc2 did (finding Doc1's grave, sending Marty to 1885) because he actually never did them.
An important point I may not have made clear is that it is not Doc's invention of the time machine that brings the second axis of time into existence. For it to be consistent with BTTF, the two-dimenional timescape would have been present all along. Moreover, the timeline of the universe would have been steadily evolving since long before Doc and Marty began tweaking it in unprecedented ways.
There's even a plausible physical cause for the timeline of the universe to gradually evolve across a second time axis. On a subatomic level, electron-positron pairs have often been observed following paths that collide and annihilate both particles. In 1940, physicists John Wheeler and Richard Feynman proposed a theory that these subatomic collisions could in fact be reinterpreted as a single electron that at a certain point transformed itself into a positron, and preceded to move backward in time! This time reversal interpretation is nowadays accepted as completely equivalent to modern theories of subatomic interaction. A more detailed description can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Antimatter
Since positrons are extremely rare compared to electrons, the degree their reverse trajectories could potentially alter the past would be quite limited. Nevertheless, their cumulative effect could result in a gradual evolution of the subatomic history of the universe. If these microscopic alterations were recorded across an axis perpendicular to the timeline of the universe, it would generate that second dimension of time. We could regard the DeLorean as producing the same type of effects, but on an enormously magnified macroscopic scale that produces much more dramatic alterations in the evolution of the timeline.
Given a two-dimensional timescape, the events of the past of the current timeline are not the only source of information available for projecting destiny into the future from a point in the present. The evolution of the entire timeline is contained in the past of the second time dimension, and it would serve as the starting point for that projection. There would be no "guessing" or "intelligent design" involved, it would simply be a mechanical process of rippling the differences between the current timeline and the previous into the future.
This model is the foundation of my claim that the aged version of Marty in the projected destiny of 2015 was not Marty0, but was instead the last of his predecessors who failed to avoid the fateful traffic accident (which I described as a procession of "negative-numbered" Marty's). It was simply the latest version of the timeline that had evolved up to that point in Marty's destiny. By being the first of his kind to avoid the accident, Marty0 committed an unprecedented act that caused a dramatic change in his destiny, consigning his previous default destiny into the past history of the evolution of the timeline itself.
The reason there aren't two Einstein's is because we're not viewing a projection of the future, we're seeing the reality of the present in real-time along with the protagonist, Marty0. In addition, Einstein's trip was completely unprecedented and would not have been part of any projected destiny up until the point when it actually occurred in Doc0's timeline.
As for there being no Doc in 2015 because he was absent up until he appeared in the DeLorean, this is an apparent paradox that the screenwriters discussed in the DVD FAQ. They resolved it with their explanation of travel to the future as witnessing only a projected destiny, rather than actual preordained events.
As you can see from my previous post, I'd agree completely with this statement. However, I think my explanation of "negative-numbered" Marty's is consistent and adheres to the intent of the screenwriters more faithfully than your claim that Marty0 was fated to fail and be replaced by a subsequent Marty at some point in the trilogy.
I'm not trying to fit the BTTF universe into a box that the screenwriters say they may have originally intended. To be honest, I don't think the screenwriters probably put nearly as much thought into the actual science of it as we are.
What I'm trying to do is to fit the BTTF movies into a concept that makes logical sense on its own merit, and to say that the continuum can intelligently extrapolate past events into years, decades and even millenia worth of predictions before they occur just sounds too far fetched. By that reckoning, whole civilizations of individual people and the new and unforeseen inventions they may create can be extrapolated by the continuum before any of it ever exists or is even thought of. Life itself by its very nature is highly unpredictable, so I don't see how such complex sets of variables could be extrapolated so precisely.
Further, to be able to predict and anticipate events before they happen suggests intelligence, and I wouldn't think it logical for what can be considered as simply a law of the nature of the universe to be intelligent. No more could you say that a thunderstorm's movements are intelligent. For there to be an intelligent being that created such things, yes. But not attaching intelligence to the laws of time and space themselves.
Just to babble about it...
marty 0 is the one that had an accident with needle(flea) and never became a rockstar hurting his hand...
Doc 2 gets after the first movie just in time before he has the accident with jennifer. And also to save his kids, but he should be in a hurry because of martys accident.
Doc 2 goes to the end of the third movie an says "the future is what you make of it" because the ending of the 3 part sucks!!! jajajjajaa and they had to do it like a disney movie, where everybodys happy... but also because marty didnt race needles
In any statistical analysis wherein a sample is used to predict the future decisions of a population, there is a certain level of error to consider as a result of outlying factors. In this case, the further the continuum "projects" into the future, the more the errors taken from the sample will increase and compound on themselves until at some point the projected data is worthless. Basically, if I were able to sample the entire population of the world compounded since the invention of carbonated soft drinks, it would still be useless for me to try to predict the profit margin of specific products that may or may not be developed by the Cola-Cola company in 400 years. It's just too far away in time. So much more difficult would it be for the continuum itself to "project" exactly each and every action taken by each and every life in the universe and how they react with and respond to one another for every second of every day even for a time as close as the next 30 years.
This also essentially means that a time-traveller from the present would be able go forward into the far future and live an entire life worth of experiences that never really happen because they were based on inaccurately projected data.
It also would mean that in BTTF2, either the continuum itself is capable of creative inspiration, or that it is God's Will that Pepsi create a product called "Pepsi Perfect" by 2015.
edit: Now, considering that that sentence, if we were to say that God exists; that He is in control; that "projected destiny" is just another way of defining God's Will for our lives; and the continuum's continuous altering of said projected destiny as the present marches forward in time is a manifestation of how the effects our own free will to define our own destinies have on God's eternal plan... well, then that would completely solve the whole intelligence problem I mentioned and your explanation would then be acceptable.
Unfortunately, I foresee many people being offended by such a hypothesis, some of which who would say that the concepts of science and God contradict each other, and others who would say that the existence of God is nowhere addressed in BTTF and therefore has no place in such an explanation.
However, I think it becomes far more conceivable when you consider the implications of a two-dimensional timescape where the entire timeline of the universe is continually evolving. There are then two dimensions of past events to draw upon - past events of the current timeline projected into both past and future events of the preceding timeline. If the preceding timeline is used as a template for the projected destiny of the current timeline, the only mechanism required is not an intelligent one, but simply an updating process comparable to the BTTF "Ripple Effect". The projection would still become increasingly speculative the farther it extended from the present of the current timeline, but instead of being guesswork, it would be based on what actually occurred in preceding timelines.
What I think would actually occur in a two-dimensional timescape is somewhat more complex. If you pick any temporal starting point, conventional time would immediately begin to elapse in that timeline. As random electrons transformed into positrons and moved backward into the past of that timeline, it would cause the elapsed past of that timeline to evolve into increasingly altered versions sweeping into the second time dimension. But timeline evolution doesn't occur instantaneously, it progresses gradually as we've seen with the BTTF ripple effect. Thus, something like a "diagonal" wavefront of temporal progression would occur across the two-dimensional timescape. Preceding timelines would have developed farther into the future than the current timeline, but the closest of those timelines would only be slighty ahead of the present. This would provide an increasingly speculative foundation for projecting the destiny of the current timeline as you extended it farther into the future.
but marty told past doc that future doc was in the wild west, so in the new timeline doc should know he will get trapped in 1885, and that he will go to 1955 with marty because marty would of told him
Doc and Marty are from a timeline where Clara died in the ravine and so the ravine was named clayton ravine. Doc going back in time changed that tho, he picked her up, not realizing he was changing the future. Look for clara while doc and marty are talking at the train station. If marty never came then doc would have picked her up, but with marty's intervention he never did pick her up so she hired a carriage, which happened in the original timeline, but marty and doc saved her, changing the future again, making the ravine eastwood ravine, probably after thinking clint eastwood died there.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just reading back through this (in a bid to understand some of the further conversation!
True.
At the very least I would posit that it is a different version of Marty than Marty0 himself, given that Marty0's presence affects the other Marty's actions in ways Marty0 doesn't remember them happening, albeit only slighly (such as having to step over Biff's goons after they are hit by sandbags.)
Whether or not this other Marty remembers Twin Pines Mall or Lone Pine Mall can't be proven though since the movie never gives enough evidence to support either hypothesis, so you're right. The only way to be able to tell would have been if Marty0 had overheard the other Marty telling Doc about how his dad got hit by his grandpa's car, but he didn't overhear it so we can't say for certain.
it wouldn't have caused a paradox if that marty never went back in time cause its a different marty with different memories, but there would have been 2 martys in the same time line, if it would have caused a paradox then old biff couldn't have gone back in time in the second movie, cause he wouldn't have needed to go back in time if he was rich, and he shouldn't have existed in 1955 if he succeeded cause the reason for going there in the first place would of been erased. That is a paradox.
I've been thinking about this a lot. This moment doesn't seem to be the only scene were the need to really hurry is just faked. Remember the ending of part I/ beginning of part II? I thought that there's really no reason why Doc has to hurry so much. In fact, Doc seems to have put quite some time in research by collecting newspapers from different time periods and planning the whole thing before returning to 1985, why not just have a quiet slow little chat with Marty before going to 2015?
Or so I thought. In fact, at this time, Doc intercepts Marty only minutes before his Rolls Royce accident, so his mad hurry could in fact be the attempt to avoid quite a different catastrophe...
Explanation that "they knew him for just couple of days" is really not enough, and unless they've gotten some sort of amnesia they would have surely notice the fact that their son turned to be that guy.
Of course, it's just a movie, but i like explanations. So, here's the three of them i've come up with:
1) More simple and more stupid explanation - Marty figured out that once he gets back to 80's his parents would notice it. So instead, what we're not shown is that he would simply travel back to 50's again and try to act so that the things take their turn of action but to stay unnoticed. Or disguised.
2) Same as above but it's done by Doc. He figures that Marty has interfered with the destiny and afraids of the paradox and the fact that Marty's parents would recognize Marty. So, again, we're not shown that Doc gets back and meets "Marty1".
3) More radical explanation - Marty's folks are aware of Marty, or Calvin, only while he is in the reality of '55. The moment he leaves for the future he's not relevant for the timeline of the past so he leaves their memory too.
I thought that the Delorean needs to be at a speed of 88 Mph to make a successful jump.
So why did Doc accidentally end up in 1885 as when he was hit by lightning the Delorean was hovering and almost not moving at all.
heck, probably they had already noticed how Calvin Klein and their son Marty look and sound the same. Maybe they've talked about it between them, what a strange coincidence that marty would turn out just like that guy and they might even have mentioned that to marty before, but i'm pretty sure they wouldn't come to the conclusion "our son went back in time and got us together".
Thats "answered" in the FAQs in the DVD/BlueRay-Edition.
"The sudden rotation of the DeLorean from the lightning hit accelerates it to 88mph when
it spins"
(Thats also the reason why the fire trails look like backwards 9's)
Why not? If you hung out with someone for just a week thirty years ago with no pictures or audio of them, even someone really important to you, would you remember exactly what they looked and sounded like?
You also need to remember that they've watched Marty grow up, and probably still see him as their little boy. When you watch someone grow up, you just get used to seeing them in a certain light. Their perception of who Marty is would be shaped by seeing him as a young boy, and during the first ten years (at least), he wouldn't even remotely resemble Calvin Klein. By the time he did start to look and act more like he does at age seventeen, they still see him based on how they saw him as a child.
I'm not sure if that makes as much sense written out as it does in my head, but hopefully you see where I'm going with this.
Yeah, I rewatched the FAQ and saw it too now. Must have missed it the first time.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Did you not notice the first post in this thread, the "only thing that doesn't add up" from the thread title, is the same issue that you're bringing up again six pages in? I might not expect everybody to read all of it but you might want to check the first post of a thread just to see what it's about
Hahah that was funny.
Well...the only thing that didn't add up for me was the fact that the 'healthy' George McFly looked 20 years older than the 'unhealtlhy one'.
But as someone explained. The original George was insecure and dyed his hair.
I buy that.
Yes, of course i read the first post and all the posts in the thread. Do you think i just bump into thread which says "The only thing that doesn't add up" and write things without knowing what it is about?
And then, even it was asked in the first post it wasn't the reason for me not to state my take on it. So by that, i supported the original poster, and said what i think about "General BttF plotholes" in what this thread has evolved to, because i wasn't satisfied with the replies, nor do i think that my theories are the ones that should be taken as something that doesn't need further debating.
Anyway I already posted my thoughts on that issue so I won't repeat them
Maybe the writers of the movies had a brainfart or something, but...
We establish that Old Biff goes back in time from 2015 to 1955 with Gray's Sports Almanac and gives it to Young Biff, thereby changing the timeline.
Then he goes back to the SAME 2015 and has what appears to be a heart attack as he exits the DeLorean.
HOW is that possible? According to Doc later in the movie, they should have been "overwritten" by the new timeline wherein Biff is pretty much King of the US.
Old Biff should have "returned" to a different future.
Can someone explain this to me?
I will just say that by the time Biff comes back to 2015, Marty and Doc are already out of their house with Jennifer - we can't tell if anything has changed, and most likely it did, though not much with the area they were in at the moment.
Even better. I merged the threads.
But, Book, don't be a one-time poster! And welcome to the forums!
It's called the ripple effect. Basically what it means is that it takes some time for changes to complete.
Like how in BttF Dave and Linda would slowly disappear in the picture.
Otherwise Marty woud have disappeared the instance he stopped his parents from falling in love with eachother.
A lot can be acounted to the ripple-effect too.
It just takes time for the changes to kick in.
Nah, they just traveled back to add that and the ripple effect only just have caught up with you.
But since I already post.
Why is it that everyone thinks that avoiding the accident made Marty a rock star?
For all we know his musical career could be more typical and generate as low an income as his original life had.
So all that really changed, is that Needles no longer can get him fired by calling him a chicken.
(And a few lines of dialogue will run differently in the future when Doc gets Jennifer, but otherwise the plot will unfold the same)
But then the animated series did a lot of crazy things.