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The Time Travel Paradoxes of Back To the Future
brumgrunt sent in a fun little piece to get your brain going on a cloudy monday morning. Despite countless viewings of BTTF I still never thought of a few of these. "Throughout Back To The Future Part III, there has to be two Deloreans in 1885. Also, why don't George and Lorraine recognize their son? Why doesn't the time machine disappear in the alternative 1985? These and more Back To The Future paradoxes explored..."
If you travel back in time to the exact same spot, just in a different time, then (unless you're REALLY precise on the exact time of day and year), you'll most likely end up floating in space. People who make time travel movies don't seem to realize that the earth moves around its axis and around the sun. The spot I'm standing on right now will be vaccum in just a few minutes.
If Marty had went back to a different time of year without a space suit, Biff would have been the least of his worries.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"Despite countless viewings of BTTF I still never through of a few of these. "
Did you the whole thing?
The cool thing is that at one point there are FOUR DeLoreans for a few hours in 1955, Marty I, Cowboy Doc, Marty 2 (with Doc) and Biff's.
Doc probably could have MacGuyvered a distillation setup to make gasoline out of petroleum, but he quickly figured that it would take him much longer than it would take for him to get murdered and so other options were needed. He just didn't bore Marty with the details and called it impossible, adding the words "in what little time we have" in his own head.
Repeat to yourself: It's just a show, I should really just relax.
Regarding Jennifer's surprise at seeing herself, the older Jennifer is surprised because they see each other at the same time. Up to the point young Jennifer sees old Jennifer, old Jennifer can't remember seeing young Jennifer because it's not a done deal yet. Time is still in the process of being changed. The movie is pretty clear that changes to the timeline are not predetermined. Old Jennifer cannot remember seeing young Jennifer until it actually happens, thus being a surprise for both parties.
I picture a lone Delorean, forever floating through empty space at 88 miles per hour.
I don't understand why you post first about a frame of reference problem and then joke about 88 miles per hour ... in reference to what? In the movies the DeLorean is traveling at 88 miles per hour as would be seen by an observer standing on Earth's surface. But to someone standing perfectly still in reference to the absolute center of the solar system -- as you seem to imply time machines are initially calibrated to -- then the velocity of the DeLorean would change with the velocity of the Earth around the Sun. Why are you only referencing the solar system and not galaxy or nebula or universe? So ... yeah, 88 miles per hour for those of us still on Earth many miles away. But your own post suffers the same problem that the movie suffers which is a frame of reference to the velocity and position.
... Or maybe claim that you machine is anchored to Earth's gravity well to simplify things a bit more?
...
Basically for new writers who write a science fiction time travel story you gotta make sure you mention briefly that you solved the orbit/rotation/surface problem and have calibrated your time machine to account for the ever changing topography of the Earth as well as its orbit and rotation
They were fun movies and nothing more. It might be fun to dissect them but if this is news, stand back in awe for my dissection of about a hundred other movies
My work here is dung.
Can be found in a "Rocky and Bullwinkle" episode from long ago.
Boris Badenof has just cut the rope on a large treasure chest that dangles over a cliff. Of course he is standing on the treasure chest at the time so they both fall together. In typical comic form the treasure chest inverts as it falls, so Boris is underneath it as it crashes to the ground.
Natasha cries out, "Oh Boris are you okay?"
Boris says in response: "Don't worry, tis only cartoon".
There are many different ways time travel can be presented in fiction, with many different sets of "rules." In my opinion, BTTF actually sticks pretty close to its own rules, except when a) absolutely necessary for the story, or b) good for a laugh (see a).
The reason future versions of people don't know what's going on right now in their being-rewritten past is because they're in a different line on Doc's chalkboard. So when Doc in 1885 writes the note to Marty, he is from a future where (when?) he didn't know he was going to be killed by Mad Dog Tannen. So he couldn't possibly know that Marty was going to need to come back and rescue him, and would need gasoline to do it.
As for why Marty's parents don't recognize him, I would say they've had years to forget the details of what Calvin Klein looked like, and years of seeing their son every day as he grew up to look like someone they haven't seen in 30 years. Think of someone you know and see often. Now look at a picture of them from a long time ago. In your mind, they may seem like they haven't changed, but they have. It's like how I still picture my dad looking like he did a while back, when I saw him more often, and am now shocked to see that he has turned into Rush Limbaugh (not literally, but eerily similar-looking).
The one good question posed by this article is about whether Marty and Jennifer would exist in 2015, after they have just gone off in the time machine w/ Doc Brown in 1985. At that point, we might think they should be removed from any future time line until they return safely to 1985. I can only surmise that when traveling to the future, the Delorean travels along the future time line it is leaving, without regard for any changes it may introduce by doing so.
Perhaps a better overall question is: what happens to all the versions of people stuck on those time lines that are then cancelled out by Doc and Marty's travels? Do they zap out of existence? Do the time lines continue on, with fake-boob Lorraine married to Biff and all the other unpleasantness? Should we be happy that everything worked out for "our" Marty, because he's the only character who is the same person we met at the beginning of the first movie?
It's quite funny how many paradoxes there are in BTTF, and still they managed to put in some truly obscure consistency: http://www.thevrabec.com/2010/07/12/back-to-the-future-you-certainly-havent-noticed-this/
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
You mean to tell me that in the movie about the time travelling, flying delorean, that runs variously on a fusion engine and stolen libyan plutonium, that there's something unrealistic about the plot of that movie? NOOOO!
haha.
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I don't believe that there is any possible frame of reference that contains an intersection of "being discrete" and "take the Delorean."
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
The article states: "Even appreciating that they didn't know 'Calvin Klein' for long, his impact upon them was such that they'd still have an idea what he looks like, many years later."
I think the author overestimates how much visual memory is likely to fade after 30 years. I just saw some high school classmates after 25 years and looked over some old HS photos. I could barely recall the linking between HS photos and names of the people I saw daily for over three years - including some I lusted after with all the strength of a stereotypical adolescent. Without photographic backup (did Marty get in any photos at the dance?) I doubt they could remember his look very well after only knowing him for a week or so. Combining this with later knowing Marty's face since birth and gradual growth, I do not find it at all implausible that they wouldn't recognize his as a teenager as looking like "Calvin".
When Doc is talking to himself in 1955, I am pretty sure he created a pair of docs.
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