Plotholes/ continuity errors/ anachronisms in the game (spoilers!)

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  • edited January 2011
    Krohn wrote: »
    First 1931 car I found: http://www.crossley-motors.org.uk/history/1930/golden/Golden.html

    You wil note that it's top speed is listed as 72mph, so driving at around 70 mph is possible at the time :)

    Interesting.
  • edited January 2011
    CVOLVO wrote: »
    Even if the opening sequence was Marty's dream, do we know the date, from the original movie that Einstein was sent?

    He was sent a minute into the future
  • edited January 2011
    linorn wrote: »
    He was sent a minute into the future

    More specifically, 1:21 AM, October 26, 1985. :p

    A friend of mine, who is over-anal about some details that no one in their right mind would care about, expressed concerns that the clothing in the 1931 Hill Valley is inaccurate to the times. Can anyone help me prove him wrong?
  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited January 2011
    More specifically, 1:21 AM, October 26, 1985. :p

    A friend of mine, who is over-anal about some details that no one in their right mind would care about, expressed concerns that the clothing in the 1931 Hill Valley is inaccurate to the times. Can anyone help me prove him wrong?

    No, I don't think either way could be "proven". The game doesn't offer enough detail to prove or disprove that it might be authentic 30's clothing.
  • edited January 2011
    Something I thought:

    Doc got sent back to January 1st, 1885 from November 12th, 1955. That's 70 years, 10 months and 12 days back (25,882 days, counting 16 leap years and that by 9:30-ish p.m., that day had almost ended), right?.

    Now, 70 years, 10 months and 12 days forward should be around September 22, 2026 (25882 days added to the time jump: Tuesday, September 22th, 2026, 19:00-ish, supossing time travel ocurred after 21:30 and before 22:00), shouldn't it?

    If the DeLorean is a "mirror" duplicate, shouldn't it appear on that date instead of 2025?

    So, either that's a plothole or Griff already made a trip back in time with a functional DeLorean Time Machine (either it arrived functional -not likely- from 1955 or someone else/duplicate-Doc fixed it).

    Another possibility: Could the time circuits had only taken the year to calculate fourth-dimensional coordinates before the microchip burned out, leaving everything else default, like 1885-01-01-0000/2025-01-01-0000?
  • edited January 2011
    Carlos85G wrote: »
    Another possibility: Could the time circuits had only taken the year to calculate fourth-dimensional coordinates before the microchip burned out, leaving everything else default, like 1885-01-01-0000/2025-01-01-0000?
    That was my thought. That he just ended up on January 1, 2025. I guess it's possible that the temporal duplication was based solely on the year, not the exact time. I think it's more likely, however, that Telltale either didn't think about the exact amount of time involved or they simplified it for the lay audience.
  • edited January 2011
    how do the AM and PM clocks actually work?
    i am from austria and we do have here the 24h time format.
    so it beginns with 0:00:00 and ends with 23:59:59.

    is 0:00:00 - midnight - >> 12:00pm? or >> 12:00am?

    am is "ante meridiem" and pm is "post meridiem"....
    pre-noon and after-noon... So midnight would be both: 12 hours before noon and 12 hours after noon...

    what about noon itself? it hardly can be pre or after... I thought it is 12:00am although that wouldn't make sense...

    Is that a huge problem for the time circuits because it would mean that you can not set the destination time to noon?
    Plus: as there is no "minus" on the keypad the earliest point in history you can travel to should be JAN-01-0000-12:00am. So no ancient egypt or dinosaurs or whatever....
    (I BET carlos will have an answer to all this!:D)
  • edited January 2011
    tope1983 wrote: »
    how do the AM and PM clocks actually work?

    12am is midnight and 12pm is noon. That's just how it works and we don't question it. :)
  • edited January 2011
    tope1983 wrote: »
    (I BET carlos will have an answer to all this!:D)

    Already answered by unicornfoal, but yes :o:

    00:00 (or 24:00) = 12:00 a.m. = Midnight, first minute of the day.

    12:00 = 12:00 p.m. = Noon.

    The next minute after 11:59 a.m. (morning) is 12:00 p.m. (noon).

    The next minute after 11:59 p.m. (late night) is 12:00 a.m. (midnight, early morning of a new day).

    Most likely, the date input format for the DeLorean uses military time:

    01-01-1885-0000 for January 1st, 1885, 12:00 a.m.

    11-12-1955-0600 for November 12th, 1955, 6:00 a.m.

    10-26-1985-2100 for October 26th, 1985, 9:00 p.m.


    There's no switch, light or readout in the DeLorean suggesting "B.C." time travel, so it remains a mistery.
  • minor goof: Marty eats soup in the game with his left hand but in the films, Marty is right-handed
  • edited January 2011
    minor goof: Marty eats soup in the game with his left hand but in the films, Marty is right-handed

    Ha, well spotted! xD Of course, something like that should be expected in animation, especially games, because often they have to cheat things or just don't notice things like that while animating. Just look at the Monkey Island games. I'm convinced Guybrush is ambidextrous considering how many times he switches his dominant hand! xD
  • Ha, well spotted! xD Of course, something like that should be expected in animation, especially games, because often they have to cheat things or just don't notice things like that while animating. Just look at the Monkey Island games. I'm convinced Guybrush is ambidextrous considering how many times he switches his dominant hand! xD

    Yeah truthfully I don't consider that sort of thing a goof in animation, you can probably assume most characters are ambedixtrous.
  • edited January 2011
    minor goof: Marty eats soup in the game with his left hand but in the films, Marty is right-handed

    Is that why he could only hit targets when using the colt with his left hand?
    (At the Colt stand in BTTF III)
  • edited January 2011
    Marty is right handed in the movies.
    And he only shoots the colt with his left hand once because the guy is being a smartass and wont let him use the right one.
  • edited January 2011
    Marty is right handed in the movies.
    And he only shoots the colt with his left hand once because the guy is being a smartass and wont let him use the right one.

    I read somewhere that the Colt was designed to be used with the non-dominant hand, which explains why the salesman pushed it into Marty's left... and whoever it was also added that Marty seemed to miss that shot as much from the recoil of a real gun as from using his "off hand" from endless hours of Wild Gunmen.
    I thought that was interesting, anyway. xD
  • I read somewhere that the Colt was designed to be used with the non-dominant hand, which explains why the salesman pushed it into Marty's left... and whoever it was also added that Marty seemed to miss that shot as much from the recoil of a real gun as from using his "off hand" from endless hours of Wild Gunmen.
    I thought that was interesting, anyway. xD

    Why would they do that?

    And yes I remember that scene fairly well; he puts the gun in marty's left hand. Marty moves his right hand towards the gun (probably to switch it to his proper hand) and the guy said "no no no" and pulls his right hand back and marty makes the bad shot. He then switches hands and starts firing properly.
  • edited January 2011
    Why would they do that?

    Something to do with using the gun while on a horse. I presume you'd be using your dominant hand to keep control of said horse while you were riding, leaving only the other one for firing a gun. *shrugs*
  • edited January 2011
    Something to do with using the gun while on a horse. I presume you'd be using your dominant hand to keep control of said horse while you were riding, leaving only the other one for firing a gun. *shrugs*

    Well no idea, I think on foot i would hold such a gun with my right and support it with my left.
    Never thought about how somebody would shoot while on a horse...

    I was never really sure about that scene anyway.
    The shot is so off that it always looked like he fired it by accident before even aiming to me.
    And Marty is right handed, he wrote the letter with his right hand in the first movie too.
  • Well no idea, I think on foot i would hold such a gun with my right and support it with my left.
    Never thought about how somebody would shoot while on a horse...

    And Marty is right handed, he wrote the letter with his right hand in the first movie too.

    Just so you know, that's not always a valid assumption. There are plenty of people who's dominant hand is not the same as their dominant arm. For instance Will Ferrell and Seth Rogen write and eat with their left hands but their right arm is stronger (they throw and use guns with the right). Sylvester stallone is the other way around.

    But Michael J Fox is completely right handed. We see him write with his right hand and in the next scene when he throws the frisbee at Buford, he does so right handed. He also uses the gun in part II right handed when playing the video game.

    This is just something i notice usually on people because I'm ambidextrous for hand writing and eating but strictly left handed for sports (left arm is stronger)
  • At the end of the episode it seems that Doc disappears as soon as they drive the delorean back to 1986 (good thing marty was driving although i guess it makes no difference). Given that we know doc is not dead, how on earth does this fit the rules of BTTF time travel? I'm assuming it happened because his timeline changed but we've now seen 2 instances of doc and marty returning to the present with an alternate timeline (part II and episode 2) and they did not disappear. And even if they are writing new rules, why did doc disappear and not Marty since his timeline would have to have changed as well?
  • edited February 2011
    I think it is because by travelling to the present, the fading out increases speed.

    Also, The new doc probably never evented the time machine. The only problem is why the new deLorean is unaffected.

    Also from the movie2 and episode2, why don't we ever see any alternate Marty? does he always become a time-traveller, no matter what the time-line, as long as he exists?

    You also have an issue of destiny. Maby marty is the speakeasy arsonist. If he is, he can't dissappear until he has blown up the speakeasy and planted the dinomite in in the second speakeasy.



    Just remembered. In BttFI, past Doc comments on a stranger helping him help marty (I think he was fixing the DeLorean). Only in BttFII do we learn that it was future Doc that helped him. In the game, Doc can't do anything and makes sure he doesnt do anything to alter the timeline. Marty on the other hand seems to be helped in getting Kid to leave the speakeasy. Doc only helped free Einstien off the roof (which is why he never dissappeared when returning to 1986 at the beginning). Now I am about 80% sure Marty is the arsonist.
  • Kamagawa wrote: »
    I think it is because by travelling to the present, the fading out increases speed.

    Also, The new doc probably never evented the time machine. The only problem is why the new deLorean is unaffected.

    Also from the movie2 and episode2, why don't we ever see any alternate Marty? does he always become a time-traveller, no matter what the time-line, as long as he exists?

    It's never revealed but it seems the rules had been there can only be one of you in each timeline. At the end of part 1, he returns to an alternate timeline and there isn't 2 of him (well there is for 11 minutes but that is due to him returning before he left).

    But the point is that why is doc fading out at all? The only time this happens in the BTTF franchise is when you erease yourself from existance or change the timeline to die before your point in time (deleted biff scene). We know doc can't be dead. According to the rules of BTTF, doc should have been intact.
  • edited February 2011
    It's never revealed but it seems the rules had been there can only be one of you in each timeline. At the end of part 1, he returns to an alternate timeline and there isn't 2 of him (well there is for 11 minutes but that is due to him returning before he left).

    Perhaps the first point: only one per timeline, though that brings the question of BttF II, during which there were 2 Docs and Martys for half the movie.

    As for your second point, Maby Doc does die before his current age as a result of being a dictator-like figure.
  • edited February 2011
    "At the end of the episode it seems that Doc disappears as soon as they drive the delorean back to 1986 (good thing marty was driving although i guess it makes no difference)."

    I worried about this too, I did have a bit of a hunch that it meant something more sinister that would play out in the next episode... That is when I thought back to them both seeing the 'Frankenstein' movie.
  • edited February 2011
    But they both didn't SEE Frankenstein! Edna pulled Emmett away from the theater! She must have swayed his interests by swaying her...well, you know.

    The only question I have is why the DeLorean didn't disappear as well. This is why BTTF2 is so confusing to me in Alternate 1985. Because Doc was committed back in 1973, he never made the time machine, thus causing the events of BTTF1 and 2 to not happen.

    I spose the general answer to this is the same as in Movie2.....that it's a movie and for the sake of a movie (in this case, a game) you just gotta ROLL with it.
  • edited February 2011
    Good points. Hmm who knows then, its such a break from the logic of the films it seems like it may be something that is explained later on in the game series. Hopefully we'll find out a bit more next ep - and only another month to wait lol.
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2011
    We have very elaborate and headaching conversations in brainstorming meetings and conference calls with Bob Gale about these things.

    The mechanic here is that when they ditch 1931, the timeline in which Doc (and maybe Einstein, too) has gone through rejuvination in 2015 is gone. So, Doc, in this new timeline, has not lived a preternaturally long life. First instinct is to say, "ahah! But Doc would have been alive at age 72 by 1986!" And that's the case for Citizen Brown. But the Doc we have been spending time with has probably lived over a hundred years by now through various time travelling escapades with Claire and the kids. Without the rejuvination, he has ceased to exist. Being retroactively-dead comes with different rules than being uncreated.

    Ultimately... I don't think there is anything that we could do in a BttF story, constantly twisting and turning, that wouldn't have some sort of temporal ruleset violations. But we do the best we can to tell a good story.

    Ok... can I stop explaining this now? :P

    As for how all of this effects the characters and gets resolved... well... 3 more episodes to go!
  • Sinaz20 wrote: »
    We have very elaborate and headaching conversations in brainstorming meetings and conference calls with Bob Gale about these things.

    The mechanic here is that when they ditch 1931, the timeline in which Doc (and maybe Einstein, too) has gone through rejuvination in 2015 is gone. So, Doc, in this new timeline, has not lived a preternaturally long life. First instinct is to say, "ahah! But Doc would have been alive at age 72 by 1986!" And that's the case for Citizen Brown. But the Doc we have been spending time with has probably lived over a hundred years by now through various time travelling escapades with Claire and the kids. Without the rejuvination, he has ceased to exist. Being retroactively-dead comes with different rules than being uncreated.

    Ultimately... I don't think there is anything that we could do in a BttF story, constantly twisting and turning, that wouldn't have some sort of temporal ruleset violations. But we do the best we can to tell a good story.

    Ok... can I stop explaining this now? :P

    As for how all of this effects the characters and gets resolved... well... 3 more episodes to go!

    Okay I think I get where you're coming from. Let's just assume the following timeframes (which I am making up, just doing so for example purposes)
    Doc is born in 1913 making him 72 in 1985
    to make it easy, lets say Doc spends 28 years on his varous time travels meaning at this point in the game, he's lived for 100 years.
    In the newest timeline (citizen brown) he does no time travelling and dies somewhere between 1986 and 2013 (or ages 73 and 100) hence why the 100 year old doc disappears?

    That would make sense to me and I appreciate your explanation.

    And church you are right that Doc indicates that Frankenstein had a profound effect on his life so no surprise not seeing it changes his future whether he remains with edna or not.
  • edited February 2011
    I appreciate that explanation also, and I realize that this series makes its own rules.... I guess I'm still confused. If Doc never gets the rejuvenation that means he also never goes to the old west, the Delorean doesn't get struck by lightning, he doesn't build the time train, doesn't marry Clara, doesn't travel back to 2015 to "rescue" the new Delorean, and Marty never does anything...ever. This is actually still assuming that the events of BttF1 still transpire, which in this explanation (and the way episode 3 starts) makes it seem like they wouldn't. If they didn't happen either than there is no original Delorean or time traveling to 1955, in which case none of the events portrayed in any movie or episode would ever happen.
  • edited February 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    We have very elaborate and headaching conversations in brainstorming meetings and conference calls with Bob Gale about these things.

    The mechanic here is that when they ditch 1931, the timeline in which Doc (and maybe Einstein, too) has gone through rejuvination in 2015 is gone. So, Doc, in this new timeline, has not lived a preternaturally long life. First instinct is to say, "ahah! But Doc would have been alive at age 72 by 1986!" And that's the case for Citizen Brown. But the Doc we have been spending time with has probably lived over a hundred years by now through various time travelling escapades with Claire and the kids. Without the rejuvination, he has ceased to exist. Being retroactively-dead comes with different rules than being uncreated.

    Ultimately... I don't think there is anything that we could do in a BttF story, constantly twisting and turning, that wouldn't have some sort of temporal ruleset violations. But we do the best we can to tell a good story.

    Ok... can I stop explaining this now? :P

    As for how all of this effects the characters and gets resolved... well... 3 more episodes to go!



    Seems feesable only error is you called Clara "Claire"
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2011
    Seems feesable only error is you called Clara "Claire"

    That's because I can type faster than I think.
  • edited February 2011
    Yeah that works for me, Thanks! :D
  • edited February 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    We have very elaborate and headaching conversations in brainstorming meetings and conference calls with Bob Gale about these things.

    The mechanic here is that when they ditch 1931, the timeline in which Doc (and maybe Einstein, too) has gone through rejuvination in 2015 is gone. So, Doc, in this new timeline, has not lived a preternaturally long life. First instinct is to say, "ahah! But Doc would have been alive at age 72 by 1986!" And that's the case for Citizen Brown. But the Doc we have been spending time with has probably lived over a hundred years by now through various time travelling escapades with Claire and the kids. Without the rejuvination, he has ceased to exist. Being retroactively-dead comes with different rules than being uncreated.

    Ultimately... I don't think there is anything that we could do in a BttF story, constantly twisting and turning, that wouldn't have some sort of temporal ruleset violations. But we do the best we can to tell a good story.

    Ok... can I stop explaining this now? :P

    As for how all of this effects the characters and gets resolved... well... 3 more episodes to go!

    only problem now is:
    church1138 wrote: »
    The only question I have is why the DeLorean didn't disappear as well. This is why BTTF2 is so confusing to me in Alternate 1985. Because Doc was committed back in 1973, he never made the time machine, thus causing the events of BTTF1 and 2 to not happen.

    So if the the sitiation is Doc not living till about 100, then how does that not appply in BttF II? They do say it was because they jumped to the present and over the affects of old Biff changing time. Why is moving forward in time different to moving backward in time?
  • Kamagawa wrote: »
    only problem now is:



    So if the the sitiation is Doc not living till about 100, then how does that not appply in BttF II? They do say it was because they jumped to the present and over the affects of old Biff changing time. Why is moving forward in time different to moving backward in time?

    Because in both timelines, doc still lives to the age of 72 (let's assume for the sake of the argument he doesn't spend that much time travelling prior to the 2015 trip). According to Sinaz, doc has a shorter life in the citizen brown timeline and thus disappears. If you consider the deleted scene real, Biff disappears from 2015 upon his return because he does not live this long in the alternate timeline.

    By the way Sinaz thanks for giving such a comprehensive answer to my question. I know a lot of people here are bashing telltale for release dates, things they don't like and what not but this is the only game I've played in which the creators will actually come on message boards and interact with the users so great communication on telltales part. This is the first game I've ever played of telltales but this has been a great experience so far.
  • edited February 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    We have very elaborate and headaching conversations in brainstorming meetings and conference calls with Bob Gale about these things.

    The mechanic here is that when they ditch 1931, the timeline in which Doc (and maybe Einstein, too) has gone through rejuvination in 2015 is gone. So, Doc, in this new timeline, has not lived a preternaturally long life. First instinct is to say, "ahah! But Doc would have been alive at age 72 by 1986!" And that's the case for Citizen Brown. But the Doc we have been spending time with has probably lived over a hundred years by now through various time travelling escapades with Claire and the kids. Without the rejuvination, he has ceased to exist. Being retroactively-dead comes with different rules than being uncreated.

    This....somewhat makes sense.

    I'm just trying to break my brain thinking about it.

    So I suppose, when time travellers enter a foreign "alternate" timeline than the one they came from, they do not do not dissapear because it's not so much as an alternate timeline as it is an alternate "universe", or "reality" as Doc calls it. And they're not assimilated into it, but accommodated into it. Just "visitors," i suppose. Until you threaten the integrity of your family's bloodline, then you should be fine. Hence, why Doc and Marty didn't disappear in 85A.

    That doesn't explain the DeLorean though.
  • church1138 wrote: »
    This....somewhat makes sense.

    I'm just trying to break my brain thinking about it.

    So I suppose, when time travellers enter a foreign "alternate" timeline than the one they came from, they do not do not dissapear because it's not so much as an alternate timeline as it is an alternate "universe", or "reality" as Doc calls it. And they're not assimilated into it, but accommodated into it. Just "visitors," i suppose. Until you threaten the integrity of your family's bloodline, then you should be fine. Hence, why Doc and Marty didn't disappear in 85A.

    That doesn't explain the DeLorean though.

    Basically if you are still alive at your current age in the timeline, you stay. If you're not, you disappear. So look at it this way; i'll be 28 this year. If I start travelling through time, the ONLY way I would start fading or disappear is if I do something which prevents me from either being born or living to the age of 28. Let's say I travel back in time and do something which prevents me to live to my current age. I'd start fading. But according to the rules of BTTF, if i travel forward in time, i should disappear immediately. If I travel backwards in time from there, I would not disappear. This is why both times marty jeopardizes his timeline (part I and episodes 1 and 2), he starts fading but doesn't fade out because he does not go forward in time while he's fading. But Biff (in part II) and Doc (in episode 2) disappear completely because they both jeopardize their timelines and then go forward in time and fade out.
  • As far as the delorean, i guess it doesn't disappar because it's not living. And as far as we know, at no point in BTTF has the invention of the delorean been compromised. John DeLorean still helped found DMC and thus that car itself should still exist although admittedly the time circuits, flux capacitor, and hover conversions should not be on it at that point. Similar concept to the picture of Doc's tombstone in part III. When the tombstone breaks, it disappears from the photo but the photograph itself still remains as that photo would still exist.
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2011
    Ultimately, we look at these paradoxes that our characters get themselves into. We look at the props they have on hand and how they communicate their current conundrum.

    We devil's advocate each other on every plot point, and make the same exact arguments you all make on the forums.

    When we hit these moments where we can't rewind back to episodes and moments already produced and make a change to accommodate the story we want to tell, we ask ourselves, "what's more important? Getting this story arc into the game or ditching it in favor of 'correct' science."

    The story almost always wins this contest.

    We go through so many iterations until we find the story we really really want to tell.
  • edited February 2011
    Hi Sinaz, first of all, thanks for explaining your logic. I don't think we should abuse your patience though. (If the writers had to answer every plot mistake on forums I think there would be no game, right ?)

    So maybe I can answer it for you.

    If there still is a Delorean, it's because of WHAT it is. A time dupplicate. Maybe rules are actually different (since there also obviously was no time dupplicate of Doc in the future, with the Delorean) for things like this that were never meant to be. They're out of time from start so maybe they actually can't get affected by it too.

    I mean, obviously the real Delorean just doesn't exist in this present, so the only difference with the real one and the game one is that.
  • edited February 2011
    It's never been established there can only be one version of an individual per timeline. Note that in both Part II AND Episode 2 they specifically mentioned this alternate timeline's Marty is elsewhere (boarding school and not in town, respectively). So we don't KNOW what the rules are with this issue.
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