History Main / GetBackToTheFuture

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E54TheOdysseyOfFlight33 The Odyssey of Flight 33]]", Flight 33 is sent millions of years back in time after breaking the sound barrier. The crew try to return it to 1961 by reversing the process. However, they do not travel far enough forward in time as they arrive over New York City in 1939. Another attempt is made but Flight 33 is running low on fuel so there is no guarantee of success.

* The traveler accidentally [[ForWantOfANail screws up the past]], and the time machine won't work properly until the traveler [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong Sets Right What Once Went Wrong.]]

* Downplayed in the Soviet campaign of ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge]]'', in which the time machine gets too much power and takes the player and all nearby Soviet units to {{Prehistoria}}; to return to the recent past like [[MissionControl Zofia]] had originally intended, you only have to survive against the dinosaurs for a couple of minutes while the time machine recharges.

** This is the plot of ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' (also the TropeNamer), where Marty is stranded without plutonium in 1955 and needs to [[LightningCanDoAnything harness lightning]] in order to get home. The 3rd point makes several appearances in the series as well, including Marty messing up his parents relationship in the first movie and the TimelineAlteringMacGuffin scenario in the second.

* In ''Webcomic/ThePackrat'', the titular character invents a keytar with a built-in [[Film/BackToTheFuture flux capacitor]]. What Packrat doesn't know at first is that it ''does'' work as a time machine. It promptly sends him to 1939. When he tries to travel back, he ends up in 1955 where it is discovered that the keytar burns up one voltage-controlled oscillator per year jumped, now all 88 [=VCOs=] are fried, and Packrat has to get new oscillators to Get Back To The Future. As it's impossible to obtain 56 [=VCOs=] in a time where the synthesizer is just being invented, Packrat has to jump smaller amounts of years through the history of synthesizers. He meets a lot of famous people on his way, not all of whom are actually helpful.

* The beginning of Season 9 of ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' cartoon show has seventeen Smurfs accidentally traveling to the prehistoric era to deliver a baby dinosaur back home, but as they attempt to create the temporal whirlwind that takes them back home, the ruby key that controls the time crystals is lost within a boiling lava crater, and the Smurfs end up spending an additional episode in the past with Papa Smurf trying to arrange the crystals so that they can possibly travel back to their own time. Unfortunately, FailureIsTheOnlyOption as the time crystals instead carry the Smurfs from one time period (and/or geographical location) to another through that season's episodes, and [[CutShort that's how the series ended]].

* Inverted in ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'', where Joe travels to the future in [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation]] and tries to find a time machine to return to the past. [[spoiler: Turns out said "Time Machine" was a simple ride, going through a [[FutureImperfect horribly incorrect history]].]]

** "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Is_Yesterday Tomorrow Is Yesterday]]": While breaking away from a black hole, the Enterprise is flung back in time to the year 1969. They must find a way to [[NowDoItAgainBackwards reverse the effect]] to return to their own time.
** "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Our_Yesterdays_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series) All Our Yesterdays]]": Kirk, Spock and [=McCoy=] are sent back in time to earlier eras of the planet Sarpeidon and must find the doorway(s) that will take them back.

* The ''Anime/CodeGeass'' fanfiction ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7180443/1/My-Mirror-Sword-and-Shield My Mirror, Sword, and Shield]]'', which is based on ''Back to the Future''. Suzaku goes back to the time of Emperor Lelouch, the supposed demonic tyrant who was assassinated before Suzaku was born.

Compare TrappedInThePast, where the character simply lives in the past instead of trying to return.

* The beginning of Season 9 of ''WesternAnimationTheSmurfs'' cartoon show has seventeen Smurfs accidentally traveling to the prehistoric era to deliver a baby dinosaur back home, but as they attempt to create the temporal whirlwind that takes them back home, the ruby key that controls the time crystals is lost within a boiling lava crater, and the Smurfs end up spending an additional episode in the past with Papa Smurf trying to arrange the crystals so that they can possibly travel back to their own time. Unfortunately, FailureIsTheOnlyOption as the time crystals instead carry the Smurfs from one time period (and/or geographical location) to another through that season's episodes, and [[CutShort that's how the series ended]].

* In ''Webcomic/ThePackrat'', the titular character invents a keytar with a built-in [[Film/BackToTheFuture flux capacitor]]. What Packrat doesn't know at first is that it ''does'' work as a time machine. It promptly sends him to 1939. When he tries to travel back, he ends up in 1955 where it is discovered that the keytar burns up one voltage-controlled oscillator per year jumped, now all 88 [=VCOs=] are fried, and Packrat has to get new oscillators to GetBackToTheFuture. As it's impossible to obtain 56 [=VCOs=] in a time where the synthesizer is just being invented, Packrat has to jump smaller amounts of years through the history of synthesizers. He meets a lot of famous people on his way, not all of whom are actually helpful.

* The beginning of Season 9 of ''TheSmurfs'' cartoon show has seventeen Smurfs accidentally traveling to the prehistoric era to deliver a baby dinosaur back home, but as they attempt to create the temporal whirlwind that takes them back home, the ruby key that controls the time crystals is lost within a boiling lava crater, and the Smurfs end up spending an additional episode in the past with Papa Smurf trying to arrange the crystals so that they can possibly travel back to their own time. Unfortunately, FailureIsTheOnlyOption as the time crystals instead carry the Smurfs from one time period (and/or geographical location) to another through that season's episodes, and [[CutShort that's how the series ended]].

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* In ''Literature/JohnnyAndTheBomb'', Wobbler finds himself unable to travel forward in time from the Second World War after he inadvertently [[GrandfatherParadox causes the death of his own grandfather]], leading to a timeline where he stays in the past and uses his foreknowledge to become the richest man in the world. His friends go back to save Wobbler's grandfather and restore the timeline.
* A central element to the plot of ''Literature/MagusRex'' involves the asymmetry in magic-based time travel: in the very distant future generations of mages have spent millennia cultivating the world to generate massive matrices of ambient power. While time travel does require a basic technical mastery of magic, with that it's easy enough to tap enough power to go back to any place and time within human history. But once there in a mana-starved Earth going back again would require a level of strength and experience few have ever attained... or a willingness to take TheSlowPath and spend months setting up hops of a decade at a time. And as halting human aging ''also'' requires considerable amounts of power at hand, the explanation for the scarcity of time travelers becomes evident.
* The main plot of ''Literature/SeptimusHeap: Physik'' involves him trying to find back to his time after having been kidnapped 500 years in the past.
* In ''Literature/TimeScout'', uptimers occasionally get into scrapes downtime and have to work hard to get back to the future. This usually involves escaping from angry downtimers and their prisons, and getting past the hidden security that's been set up around the gate. Oh, and the gates go at intervals, so you have to get there at the right time.
* In ''Literature/DoomsdayBook'' and ''Literature/{{Blackout}}''/''All Clear'' by Creator/ConnieWillis, time travelers are stranded in the past, the former during the Black Death and the latter during the second World War.

An [[AccidentallyTimeTravel accident involving time travel]] strands someone in the past and has to figure out how to get back to their own time. The accident can take at least three forms:

An accident involving time travel strands someone in the past and has to figure out how to get back to their own time. The accident can take at least three forms:

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'': After Diana, Etta, ComicBook/{{Steve|Trevor}}, and the air pirates they were fighting get tossed back in time by a combination of {{Clock Roach|es}} and Paula's Space Transformer they work to fight their way back to the present, with those that arrived via Palua's machine having gone back specifically to try and help Diana make her way back to her own time.