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Back to the Future III Paradoxes
Being one of the few and proud who actually dared to brave the alleged
crowds out to see "Back to the Future, Part III" this weekend (its opening
weekend, Memorial Day weekend), I watched the movie, thoroughly enjoying
myself in the process. Being someone who loves to think about time travel,
however, I eagerly tried to spot some of the failings and apparent
contradictions (a.k.a. "paradoxes"), and then tried to explain them away.
Along the way, I also came up with a few unanswered questions that aren't
really paradoxes, but are still less than fully explained. This text file is
intended to document, more or less, what I saw of all that, and suggest
some explanations for them.
First, though, let me describe some guidelines used herein. First and
foremost, things are viewed from Marty McFly's point of view, unless
otherwise specified explicitly or implicitly, and, more importantly, that
they really did happen to him. Thus the notions that the writers goofed, or
that the director was too burnt out to notice mistakes, or anything similar
to these, are considered invalid for this discussion; after all, how can you,
for example, point to something sitting on your floor and say that it cannot
possibly exist or be there (it's THERE, for crying out loud). The assumption
here is that, somewhere in the multiverse, there is a fellow named Marty
McFly, to whom all the stuff we've seen in the three movies really did
happen.
The second guideline is less rigid. Unless it makes sense to discuss it,
the multi-universe theory of changing history is ignored (there will be at
least two exceptions to this, however). For those who might not be familiar
with this, this idea basically says that, whenever a decision is made
somewhere in time, the timeline splits, creating two parallel universes, one
in which the choice is "yes," the other where the choice is "no." This idea is
propagated by the fellow who's written two articles for Starlog describing
the various Marty McFly's that exist thanks to his/their time travelling
experiences; the first article, for example, describes the adventures of the
Marty that left the Lone Pine Mall (as seen at the end of "Back to the Future"
(hereafter called BttF to save my typing fingers) #1) and his return
(supposedly) to the universe that the Marty that left the Twin Pines Mall
(the one we've been seeing the entire time, I guess) was raised in, i.e. where
Lorraine McFly is a drunkard and George is a wimp working for Biff. Frankly,
I don't like this theory; it's confusing at best, and violates the law of
physics that says you can't get something from nothing at worst. As I said,
there will be SOME mention of it, mainly to help explain or not explain
what's going on, or to support or oppose the theory.
The third guideline is for ease of typing. When referring to the three
movies, "Back to the Future" will be called BttF, Part 2 will be called BttF2,
and Part 3 will be called BttF3.
With that in mind, let's look at the first item. It actually appears
throughout the whole story (i.e. all three movies), but gets really strange
for everybody but Marty. That is: if history gets changed, who remembers
what? To make life easier, let's first look at Marty. Apparently Marty
remembers everything we've seen in the three movies: he remembers his
father the wimp, his mom the drunk, his mom the slut, his father the
deceased, etc., even though, technically, they no longer exist, they never did
exist, and, so, Marty never knew them. Obviously time isn't quite as linear
as one would think. An easy explanation would be the parallel universe idea,
but that's too easy. One way out of this particular situation would be the
idea of a "personal timeline," where you have your own personal movement
through time (which would have to involve non-linear time) independent of
anyone else's. Thus Marty's parents were wimpy and drunk, even though
nobody else remembers them. Curiously enough, though, they can wipe
themselves out of existence, as seen in BttF. Thus a time traveller can
affect his own personal history, but not totally. Might this indicate a
timeless soul, where some memories reside? This would explain how time
travellers can remember everything that had once gone on, but can wipe out
their own physical existence.
Inanimate objects, however, exhibit different tendencies, especially
objects that carry information, namely pictures. Objects survive changes in
their personal history, but the information carried changes. This is
completely opposite to what happens to people. Rather than memory
surviving, but physical matter potentially being destroyed, the material
entity survives, but the information carried by the entity is changed, even if
the events that caused the carrier to be created change such that there is no
good reason for it to exist. For example, the picture in BttF3 of the
graveyard outside of the mine changes throughout BttF3, winding up a
picture of an empty grave site. Why would anyone take a picture of an empty
grave site? It makes some sense to take a picture of a grave claiming that
a Hollywood film star died 100 years ago (i.e. the "Clint Eastwood"
gravestone), but why take a picture of the empty site? The common point
between this and Marty (and everybody else that got into the DeLorean) is
that they both travelled through time, that their history was changed after
their creation. The picture's survival may also depend on whether it
remains in contact with a time traveller; there isn't enough evidence in the
movies of anything that would support or deny this.
With all that having been said, a third wrinkle comes into view. Jennifer
participated in a time travelling adventure (indirectly) that caused her
personal history to change (BttF2), turning Hill Valley into "BiffTown" and
back again. Yet she is not affected. So far this is consistent with what
we've seen with Marty. The wrinkle comes in BttF3, where Marty wakes her
up, after recovering the "happy ending" version of 1985 (more on that later).
She had been left on the swing in "BiffTown," yet she is still there in "happy
ending." So far we can reach rather far and say that Jennifer and her family
are so stable that the different environments would never affect her. The
wrinkle, however, is that she's TOO consistent after the timeline reset; she
still has the "YOU'RE FIRED" printout, and she does remember the events that
transpired in 2015. She was not protected by being at the timeline change
"crossroads," like Marty and Doc were (BttF2). How did she survive, with
memory and FAX intact? This, by the way, causes problems with the
parallel universe theory, as there is no way for Jennifer to have moved
between the parallel universes (the DeLorean was elsewhen). The
"consistent memory" theory postulated above still works, as Jennifer's
personal history, from the time she left with Marty and Doc to 2015 (BttF2)
through the end of BttF3, had not changed, thus her memory is retained. One
of two things could have occurred here. The first is that history was
somehow changed such that the elder Biff never stole the DeLorean (BttF2)
and created "BiffTown," yet everything else still occurred, including Marty's
injury (which was nullified later) and eventual firing. The second is that,
somehow, the act of time travel protects the traveller, at least for a short
time. Assuming Marty, Doc, Jennifer, and Biff 2015 (and, of course,
Einstein) were the only ones to have travelled through time (excluding Clara,
Jules, and Verne at the end of BttF3), they would be protected, at least for a
short time, from changes in history. That could make for another set of
interesting stories.
A related wrinkle is, of course, Doc. Does he remember Marty back in
1955 (BttF)? Does he remember Marty coming back the second time
(BttF2)? This one can go either way. There is an indication that Doc
remembers the first incident, since he had the note Marty left him about the
Libyans back in 1955 (BttF). In this case Doc had never travelled through
time, so his personal time line changed right along with the rest of the
world. But what about the second time? BttF3 indicates that he doesn't, as
he was annoyed to see Marty back in 1885 and did not remember himself
dressing him up in the "atomic cowboy" outfit, nor discovering his death in
1885. This is consistent with what we've already seen, i.e. Doc's personal
time line did not change after his first trip through time. There is a
difficult point here, however, as his personal history DID change, in effect,
back in 1955. Did he, then, continue on developing the time machine,
knowing full well (more or less) the implications it would cause? In his
case, he probably did, since the repercussions of basically changing history
by changing the future (if he never created the flux capacitor, Marty could
never have come back to 1955 to, more or less, warn him not to build it; this
would change his personal history, which, without the evident protection
that time travel gives one, would create a real paradox, perhaps even an
oscillation in the time continuum) would be guessed and avoided; this is
supported by the end of BttF, which had events played out as they did at the
start, even though Doc knew about the Libyans and, thus, about some of the
results of the evening. The effect on Marty might be drastically different,
but, since he did all the time travelling anyhow, it doesn't appear to be
anything to worry about.
As of that weren't enough, a few paradoxes remain. For example, what
about the chasm that Clara was supposed to fall over to her death?
Obviously the 1985 that Marty finally wound up in is not quite the same one
that he left with Jennifer to "do something" about their kids (BttF & BttF2);
if nothing else, the name of the chasm is different. Hopefully, though, the
only effect of this will be problems on Marty's local history tests in school
(which he'll probably have anyhow now).
Then there's Jules and Verne. Did any of their offspring survive? Will
Marty meet them? Or will they take the time locomotive and move into the
future that they would've been in had Doc and Clara met in the "normal" flow
of time, i.e. if they had met in 1985? Would they run into Doc around 1955
and make sure he makes sure the events go on as they "did," prohibiting
further disruption in the time stream?
Since Marty never ran into that Rolls Royce, he didn't have the concussion
that, in 2015, would keep him sensitive to being called chicken.
"Waitaminnit," you might say. "If he learned his lesson about being afraid of
being called afraid, why did the concussion have to bring that back?" If that
lesson were the important factor, then the paper in Jennifer's hand would've
been blank when Marty got back to her. It changed ONLY after Marty avoided
the final goad, avoiding the accident. Thus, given Jennifer's history at that
time (whether it is the one we saw or not), Marty would still react
negatively to being called "chicken," as THAT was what got him fired. Thus
Marty would've "unlearned" that lesson somewhere along the way, probably
as a result of the accident, as that, according to Jennifer 2015 (BttF2),
changed the way he acted. This also implies that the Marty we see in 2015
had been through everything we've seen in the trilogy, or at least the Marty
we would see if we were to see into 2015 "now" (or, rather, after the events
of BttF3, up to the Rolls Royce incident) would be indistinguishable from the
version we saw in BttF2.
Another question I had involved the DeLorean. Is there a duplicate
DeLorean out there somewhere? As far as I can remember, the only time
when more than one DeLorean existed was in the 1955 period. In 1954 there
was the one buried in the mine by Doc in 1885. When Marty arrived as a
result of fleeing the Libyans (BttF), the second DeLorean arrived in 1955.
When the elder Biff arrived from 2015, there were 3. Finally, Marty's
second arrival with Doc produces 4 DeLoreans simultaneously in 1955. Of
course, that presumes that Biff would still steal it in 2015 even after Doc
leave it in the mine in 1885; if not, that eliminates all but the first one, as
Marty and Doc wouldn't have been forced to return to 1955 to correct the
situation, and the DeLorean from 1885 wouldn't be in the mine, since it
never got hit by lightning in the first place. Certainly in BttF this is what
had happened, since Marty's personal history did not include the trip to
2015. No matter which actually happened in the history of the 1985 that
Marty now calls home in BttF3, though, the only DeLorean there is the one
that was smashed by the train, as, out of the 4 DeLoreans in 1955, one went
back to 1885 and then back to 1985, the second was hurled back to 1885 by
lightning, the third was returned by Biff to 2015, and the fourth was sent
back by the lightning storm hitting the clock tower to 1985, which "sourced"
the other 3. Indeed, the order I just listed them, each DeLorean had to leave
in order for the one(s) before it to have entered 1955 in the first place. I
should also mention that there was an hour in 1985 where there were two
DeLoreans; one was parked next to the clock tower, where it stalled, and the
other was in the Lone Pine Mall parking lot, which was thrown back to 1955
in the first place.
Relating to that incident, is it possible that the Lone Pine Mall incident
would cause an oscillation in the time continuum, since it started out as the
Twin Pines Mall? Evidently this is not the case, because the only shown
effect the destruction of the second pine in 1955 had was to change the
name of the mall. There's no reason to assume that there weren't two pines
in 1955, nor is there any reason to assume that Marty's path changed such
that he didn't run over and kill the second pine (in fact, in both cases he was
heading for the Fotomat kiosk when the flux capacitor kicked in, more than
likely he did plow into it).
This is all the questions, paradoxes, etc. that I can think of. All in all a
lot of questions were answered by the third movie, but it also left quite a
few others for us to chew on. Hopefully this answers some more of them
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