History WMG / BackToTheFuture

During the video call between Marty and Needles, "avid basketball fan" was listed as one of Needles' hobbies. Needles watching a game would be a nod to that.

[[WMG: January 1st, 1885 is the Deloreans [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time Unix Epoch.]] ]]
It's not like Doc had that date on speed dial or anything. The plan was to burn the book, {{Get Back To The Future}}, and destroy the time machine. There was no detour to the wild west in that schedule. Not only do the Time Circuits reset to this date before he gets struck by lightning, but also before making the trip back to 1955 (until Doc performs some {{Percussive Maintenance}} on it, which switches it back to the input time). It would make perfect sense if JAN / 1 / 1885 is 00:00:00. Depending on Docs programming, it might even be the furthest point backwards they could actually go.

[[WMG: The 2015 of ''Back to the Future Part II'' was erased.]]
Think about it! History was changed three times, once by Biff, a second time by Marty traveling back to 1955 to stop Biff, and again in 1885 by Marty and Doc in Back to the Future 3. The new 2015 that resulted is basically our timeline as it exists now. In 2015, a Back to the Future 4 will be released in which Marty Jr accidentally goes back to 1985.
* The last part is jossed. No fourth film was released. At best, VideoGame/LegoDimensions joked about [=BTTF's=] version of 2015.

[[WMG: The 2015 of ''Back to the Future Part II'' was erased by paradox.]]
A lot of them!
* Jennifer saw herself, Biff returned to a 2015 that by the new timeline he created in 1955 was impossible, and thus Biff got erased.
* Marty and Doc then traveled back in time using a time machine that should no longer exist in the timeline they exist in now, however old Biff's desire to return to 2015 results in a possible timeline where he does, simply by punching in "last time departed".
* In this possible timeline, Marty and Doc enter the time machine with the desire that they go to their 1985. However, Doc fails to notice that the time machine's "last date traveled" is set to 1955. The time machine's computer then calculates 1985 from the 1955 it created. This erased both Marty and Doc's 1985, but not, from the time machine's perspective, Marty and Doc. This also erases the 2015 they just left. By traveling back to 1955 from the alternate 1985, they rewrite history again, creating yet another alternate 1985, and another alternate 2015.
* The timeline was able to create a stable time loop where, because Doc died soon after coming to town, history was not sufficiently altered to erase Marty. Because of Doc's earlier paradox encountering his older self, forming a quantum entanglement if you will, it was drawn back to Marty in a self correcting loop. Since Marty failed to die, this self correcting time loop was erased, creating an alternate 1955, 1985, and 2015.
* The alternate 1985 of Eastwood Ravine was one of self-correcting paradoxes. Since Marty was successful, the stable time loop of 1955 was allowed to continue along a similar enough path that they still buried the time machine in 1885 for Marty to dig up in 1955, allowing Marty to go back to 1885. But again, 1985 is the 1985 that the time machine would calculate which is the most correct, however, the only evidence for the 2015 it's previously been to was destroyed, and thus it can't calculate its causality; all this leaves that 2015 open, as long as Marty doesn't use his knowledge of the future to change history. But Marty did, and didn't race Needles, and thus the 2015 of "Your Fired" is erased, but the paper isn't because the paper of 2015 was recycled from paper of 1985. A new 2015 is created because Marty and Jennifer reject the 2015 they left. Since the 2015 they left was still unstable from the triple paradox of Jennifer seeing herself, Old Biff using "last time departed", and Marty and Doc using the time machine to return to 1985, it was hit by waves of instability coming from a massively unstable 130 year long timeline with multiple self-correcting time loops. The final paradox, the straw that broke the universe's back, was Marty and Jennifer using their knowledge to prevent it from happening.
* Meanwhile at an earlier point in the same timeline, over many years, Doc buys a steam engine, uses his knowledge of nuclear physics to very carefully create plutonium in the 19th century, and hops into the time machine with his wife and kids. Since this took place before Marty and Jennifer decide to use future knowledge to prevent future events, thus splitting the Eastwood Ravine timeline, the steam engine would go to one of two 1985s, one where Marty and Jennifer get into the accident, and one where they don't. Since this is the one where they don't, that 2015 is rejected and thus erased, and this current 2010s is the one we'll get, not the exponentially more impossible 2015.
* The only X factor is, where will Doc go in his time train? Do we exist in the "Eastwood Ravine" timeline? Is that timeline erased by Doc's next destination? And if so, are we the timeline of that 2015, or one of the many 2015s that were erased?
* The highest statistical likelihood, stemming from the majority of time travel experiences described in the English language, is that we are now in the timeline created by the [[Series/DoctorWho Doctor]] when he showed up behind the scenes to save both the universe and the Milky Way galaxy (or Mutter's Spiral, if one prefers) from being destroyed by all these temporal causality paradoxes. As such, if the ravine is found, there is a strong possibility that it now reads "Smith Ravine".

[[WMG: Strickland thought George was a slacker because of his schoolwork arrangements with Biff.]]
Biff forces George to do his homework. Probably this means George has to do different assignments for himself, so that no one would think he was copying off Biff. These assignments would inevitably sometimes be not as good or even unfinished, hence the accusations of being a slacker.

[[WMG: In 1955, Biff doesn't live with his grandmother.]]
He lives with his step-mother, Edna. He just calls her "grandma" as an insult.
* This is in violation of the first rule of [=BTTF=] time travel: you can never see the effects of your own time travels before actually performing those time travels.
** The whole premise of ''Back To The Future Part II'' is a violation of this rule, because Marty and Jennifer see their children despite, from an external perspective, having just disappeared for 30 years. They should not be able to see their children because they haven't travelled back in time to 1985 yet, nor got old enough to finish school, get married and have those kids in the first place.
*** No No NO! That only applies if they had opted to stay in the future.
*** This is because the ripple effect takes subjective time on the time traveler's part to take effect. One can travel into the future and meet his future self, but if he stays long enough, his future self will fade away... that is, until the time traveler returns to the past.
** In what way does time travel have anything to do with whether or not Biff lives with his grandmother?
*** It has to do with the model of time travel featured in [=BTTF=], which states that someone can never see the effects of his or her time travels until he or she actually performs those time travels. Marty's time travels in the game, which resulted in Edna Strickland's marrying Kid Tannen, had not yet occurred.
*** If one actually paid attention to the sign on Biff's grandmother's house, one would see that her name is Gertrude Tannen.

[[WMG: The [=DeLorean=] door opening in Part II killed Biff.]]
In a deleted scene, we see old Biff dissappear after [[spoiler: changing the timeline]]. that's because in A 1985, The door opening killed A Biff, so ''Old biff didn't exist.''
* {{Jossed}} by WordOfGod: DVD special features for Part II state that Biff [[http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/1985A#Alternate_timeline_of_events was killed in 1996-A]], most likely by [[spoiler:Lorraine, who was sick and tired of the abusive marriage and may have found out [[MurderTheHypotenuse what happened to George]].]]

[[WMG: Doc's inventions created the futuristic 2015 of the movie.]]
The reason why the 2015 in the movie looks nothing like what the true year of 2015 will be is because we're in a reality with no Doc Brown. The man is a genius who is WAY ahead of his time and it's fairly likely that he'd be capable of many other inventions after mastering time travel. It's possible then that everything from hoverboards to hovercars and anything else you saw in that futuristic 2015 were all based on Doc Brown's prototypes. Still odd how cell phones or laptops don't exist in that reality though.
* Cell phones and laptops may very well be children's toys in that reality.
* In an alternate flow of technological development ushered in by Doc Brown the resources that would have gone into the things in the Prime timeline (ours, without Doc) that we take for granted were never invented. The financial resources that would have gone into developing cell phones instead went into developing hoverboards, etc. So while that universe seems to have technological advancements that would take our breath away, we also have technological advancements they would find amazing. There's always a karmic balance to messing with timelines.
* More radically : the laws of physics work differently in the [=BTTF=] universe. Remember they have Time Travel in 1985. Doc may be a genius, but that means Time Travel was easier to understand in their universe than in our own, where there isn't even any theory of how it should work, if it is possible at all.
* Even more so when you consider and include the events of the ''Back To The Future: The Ride'', where he founded the Institute of Future Technology, dedicated to creating tech that could shape the future. So, without Doc Brown, no Institute. No Institute, no 2015. Doc could have looked up what happened to him in the years between 1985 and 2015, discovering his achievements. Also, it would account for why he allowed Marty to bring the Hoverboard with him while chastising him for trying to take the Sports Almanac for financial gain, so he can reverse engineer it and start the ball rolling on hover tech and sending the world onto the path of the 2015 seen.

[[WMG: Or the Doc knows that conventionally, 1 BC is followed by 1 AD, but doesn't care.]]
As a somewhat maverick scientist it would make far more sense to him for there to be a year zero and anything before then to be negative years, so instead of following convention he just makes his own.

It might on the other hand simply have made things easier when designing the time circuits (or programming their firmware) to have a year zero than to make the readout go from -1 to 1 (effectvely) or even bother with "negative years"; some offhand comment the Doc makes (I think) in the third film about going back too far and being burned as a witch, suggests he's not interested in travelling back too far for comfort and it makes no sense to design the machine to go back millennia.

[[WMG: The [[Series/{{Lost}} DHARMA Initiative]] hired the Libyans to assassinate Doc Brown]]
In a bizarre coincidence, the VW bus the Libyans drive is the ''exact same'' model and color as the kind DHARMA uses all over the island. Because rogue time travelers would cause DHARMA quite a few problems, they sent the Libyans to assassinate anyone who might time travel in hopes of stopping future problems.
* They attempted to steal back the plutonium because they feared it was the origin of the hydrogen bomb used on the island by the time travelers in 1977. Because the Others hid Jughead underground, DHARMA never knew where it came from, and thus assumed future time travelers Marty and Doc were the source of the nuclear material.
* The only problem is the CelebrityParadox: Back to the Future exists in Lost's universe; one episode has Hurley checking his hand to see if he's disappearing and he references the franchise's time travel rules.

[[WMG: Old Biff's reason for choosing November 12, 1955:]]
When Old Biff gave the TimelineAlteringMacGuffin to his younger self on the date of the lightning storm, it was no coincidence. Biff chose that date because he believed that ''that'' day was the day that his entire life changed. And it was. Getting decked by George turned him from a bully into a [[strike:relatively nice guy]] a wimp afraid of his former victim. Old Biff decided that that life sucked, and he still had a grudge against George [=McFly,=] and so he went back to the moment that things changed.
* There's a deleted scene from Part II where the Clock Tower Guy in 2015, Terry, reminds Old Biff of the date while shaking Marty down for money. Terry was the mechanic who told Biff it was 300 bucks for getting all that manure out of his car. Probably hearing about the manure helped remind Old Biff of all the other stuff, so yeah. Off to November 12th!
* That's the only date where Old Biff can remember exactly where he would have been in the past, so he knew he would be able to find himself.

[[WMG: Seamus and Maggie [=McFly=] are Lorraine's great-grandparents, not George's.]]
The surname is just a coincidence. One of them looks like Lorraine, the other looks like Marty -- not George, ''Marty.'' Marty didn't get his looks from his father's side, but from his mother's. (When you think about it, he looks more like her anyway.) This also explains why George and Lorraine are still happily married despite the implications of her having a son who looks exactly like her high-school boyfriend Calvin. She has photographic proof that that face runs in her family.
* It makes more sense that George has photographic proof that Marty's face runs in HIS family.
* See also the inbreeding theory above.
* Of course, there is William "good-looking guy" [=McFly=].
** Utterly and thoroughly Jossed in the Telltale games, where we meet an adult William and Arthur [=McFly=]; the former states that Seamus was his father and Arthur is his son. And George states that Arthur was his father (which, given that he's an [[IdenticalGrandson Identical Son]], didn't really need to be stated, but still...)

[[WMG:Doc got the time machine from the future.]]
He came up with the Flux Capacitor concept when he hit his head on the sink and was unconscious, right? Well, maybe Future Doc (or someone) came back and implanted the idea in his head using future neural technology, or old-fashioned hypnosis? The time machine has no origin, it just keeps going around and around...
* He must have enlisted the help of [[Film/{{Inception}} Leonardo Di Caprio]].
* The time machine still needs an origin.
** [[StableTimeLoop It doesn't.]]
* Consider that by the time Part III happened, Doc learned that the Flux Capacitor could actually work, he'd already had a week to study the original time machine, and even rebuilt the Time Circuit Control microchip with 1955 components. All that he really needed was to wait until 1981 (When the [=DeLorean=] DMC-12 was released) to start building it.

[[WMG:Marty's daughter is transgender]]
Yeah, Michael J. Fox played the part, but seriously, what woman has gams like that? It's never brought up on-screen because, well, it's the future, and such things are no longer an issue.
* Marty's kids are identical twins with one of them being transgender. The reason Marty is accepting of his kid being transgender is partially due to Doc blurting out to 1985 Marty about having a daughter.
* Possibly implied by Craig Shaw Gardner's novelization of ''Part II'':
--> ''The teenager shrugged her broad shoulders. She was built sort of huskily for a girl, Jennifer thought, probably one of those high school athletic types.''

[[WMG:The father of the family that lives in Marty's house in 1985-A is Creator/SamuelLJackson.]]
He looks (and sort of sounds) like he's played by Samuel L. Jackson, but he was played by Al White. Instead, the ''character'' (only listed as "Dad") is Samuel L. Jackson.

One of the effects of 1985-A is that Samuel L. Jackson's movie career was unsuccessful, probably due to Biff's influence over Hollywood. We know that Biff lobbied in the state capitol and was helping Richard Nixon get elected to a ''fifth'' term in office; it's reasonable that he also had some sway in Hollywood. Thus, Samuel L. Jackson settled into a quiet suburban life in Hill Valley.
* I always thought it was Goldie Wilson, who never got to be mayor due to Biff's influence.
** That would actually make some dramatic sense.
** If he was intended to be Goldie Wilson, they probably would have gotten the actor from the first film to play him, since he was already in the film as Goldie Wilson III.


[[WMG: 1985-A is the same 1985 that ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'' takes place during.]]
There is a lot of crime, and Nixon is president. And it would be cool.
* You think a being like Dr. Manhattan wouldn't have something to say about a figure like Biff using an object clearly not meant to be present in this stage in time?
** It may have something to do with Doc M being created some four years ''after'' Biff changed the future.
* But, the headline in 1985-A shows that the Vietnam War was still going on until at least 1983. Whereas in Watchmen, the war was resolved with a quick victory for America.
** Could be a different Vietnam War. In Watchmen, the US and Russia are implied to have extremely aggressive militaries.
* Doc's family did change their name some time in the past, but in one timeline it became Brown, in another it was Osterman. The split occurred when Manhattan went back and caused his family to settle in California instead of New York, in hopes of preventing his father from becoming a watchmaker.

[[WMG: Marty jumped to his death during 1985-A]]
When Biff traps Marty on the roof, Doc seems to be waiting for him rather conveniently. It seems likely that Marty died in one timeline, and then Doc heard about it and went back to save him.
* No, because Marty was ''expecting'' Doc to be waiting at the roof edge in the [=DeLorean=] in the first place -- when he hits the edge in anger after looking down it's not because of the height or lack of fire escape but because Doc isn't there. It's set up in the scene where Marty confronts Biff in the jacuzzi, when Biff asks "How did you get past my security downstairs?": Marty bypassed them completely by being dropped off on the roof by Doc. So it wasn't "convenient" that Doc was there -- Marty just had to wait for Doc to fly back before he could escape.
* Or maybe it was [[BatmanGambit Marty's plan all along.]]

[[WMG:Marty needed to create an "ideal" 1950s courtship for his parents in order to create an "ideal" 1980s family for himself.]]
An interesting theory described in [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160528205212/http://www.mts.net/~arphaxad/bttf.html this essay]].

[[WMG: Twin Pine George was hit by Lone Pine Marty, not by the car that hit Twin Pine Marty.]]
The Twin Pine version of the same car hit Lone Pine Marty, and Lorraine went all (misnomer-version) FlorenceNightingaleEffect. Instead of trying to get them together in a different way like Twin Pine Marty, LP Marty sets up a TrickedOutTime "Loop" (as far as he knows, and for real assuming this is the case, a [[TrickedOutTime Tricked Out]] [[StableTimeLoop TimeLoop]]) the direct way by stealing a car and running it into George. Since he's used to driving, unlike Twin Pine Marty, he expects to be able to stop in time to avoid severely injuring George (whether he manages to compensate for the lack of power brakes and difference in density or if his inability to compensate causes George to be injured enough that Lorraine forgets about Marty for him is up to individual opinion).
* Note: this theory is dependent on LP Marty being more resistant to RetGone than Twin Pine Marty, since he has to get to the clock tower moment with neither his parents meeting nor his getting too immaterial to drive to pull this off. Fortunately, ''that'' is already practically canon, seeing as he or another version of him lives through those exact events trying to protect Twin Pine Marty in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' and doesn't appear to fade out...

[[WMG: George thought he had been visited by a devil, and with proof that Hell exists, was more interested in living a full, enjoyable life with maybe a little pain than living an empty life followed by possibly being toasted on a spit for all eternity thanks to some DealWithTheDevil he might have accidentally made.]]
Dark Father from the planet of the fire god? I know Vulcan's the god of smithing, but that gives him dominion over forge fire and his name's in vulcanization and volcanoes. Punching Biff was keeping himself from committing a sin of omission, and publishing his novel was to make his years on earth more enjoyable since Heaven would become better (less stressful than life) and he might at least get some enjoyment out of life in case that's not where he went.

[[WMG: George figured out that "Calvin Klein" was a time-traveler, and eventually who he actually was]]
"I guess you guys aren't ready for that, yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

What a ''strange'' thing to say - but then, "Calvin" might have just thought he was a musical visionary.

However, "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan" left an indelible impression on George (judging by the cover art of his book, [[CoversAlwaysLie assuming you can]]). A SF geek would have avidly watched ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' during its initial run, and the evening of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amok_TTime September 15, 1967]] probably didn't pass without poor George yelping at the Vulcan salute. While he did tell Calvin about the event, an angry George would have easily found out that no "Calvin Klein" wrote for Paramount - and more research would have found out that the writer didn't know any Calvin Klein and had never heard of his experience. In fact, research wouldn't have turned up ''anything'' about a Calvin Klein who went to his school - just a rising fashion designer who looked nothing like his old friend.

Add to those details all the many little oddities of Calvin's behavior (and his weird "life preserver" outfit when he first arrived), and it would be a very small leap for George to realize that Calvin was from the future - and that he had probably been the "masked alien", as both of them had been very concerned about him getting together with Lorraine. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV:_A_New_Hope 1977]] would have clinched it if George had any doubt. Further pondering about just ''who'' would travel through time and care ''so'' much about him ending up with a particular girl would lead George to the conclusion that Calvin had to be a descendant of George and Lorraine.

Would he remember the "Dad...uh, daddy-o," slip? Would he dig up his old yearbook and see a picture of his son playing at the dance? Or would he just look at Marty one day and realize that Calvin had been a very ''immediate'' descendant of his?

Either way, he'd probably never tell Lorraine, if it could be avoided. That'd just be ''[[ParentalIncest weird]]'' for her.
* This also explains why he never brought it up. If he ''actually'' asked Lorraine on information about Calvin, she'd point him right in the direction of Doc Brown, who would probably tell George not to talk to Marty about it until October 27, 1985, lest it cause a temporal paradox.
* If I remember correctly, this was actually how the first movie ended in the first draft script (before being replaced by the "something's gotta be done about your kids!" cliffhanger). George sits down at his desk, and on impulse opens up a scrapbook containing a newspaper clipping about the dance, including a picture. He looks at the photo showing "Calvin" playing on stage, and he frowns slightly and says "No... couldn't be..."

* This is the most brilliant idea I've ever heard of in my entire life. I've stolen the idea, re-written and extrapolated from it.
As an avid sci-fi fan, after the premiere of "Star Trek", George [=McFly=] must have been distressed remembering his visit by someone from the planet Vulcan. Granted he may have been too disturbed by the guitar riffs melting his brain to retain the "live long and prosper" sign, but the fanbase and questioning Paramount doesn't reveal anyone named "Calvin Klein" connected with the show.

Then in 1977, he saw "Star Wars", whose main villain had the same name of the strange visitor he'd had back in 1955. What motive could Darth Vader have possibly had to set him up with Lorraine? When he asks Lorraine, all she knows is that Calvin was staying with that crazy scientist. She may even have mentioned how she knew his name was Calvin Klein, an up-and-coming fashion designer who looks nothing like his old high school chum.

Remember, George is an avid sci-fi fan, *and* a creative writer. Is it really too big a leap to suspect he might have figured out most of the truth on his own? Especially once his son Marty (born during the third season of "Star Trek", being 17 years old in 1985) shows an interest in skateboarding and playing guitar. Lorraine always wanted a kid named "Marty", and his sudden best friend in high school was obsessed with hooking the two of them up, just like Darth Vader. The more George looks at it, the more logical it gets. His son travelled through time. He doesn't know how or why, but a visit with Doc Brown might help. Just to, you know, discuss ideas for his next novel about an alien visitor sparking a love story.

We'll never know what Doc told him. He may have revealed as much as he could - cautioning that no one should know too much about their future - or clammed up entirely. My guess is the truth is somewhere in-between. George related his experience with Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan - Doc was presumably a fan of those series as well - to inquire about alien visitations, and Doc realized that George *knew* something.

It's likely that this encounter returned Doc's attention to that 'flux capacitor' idea from decades before. Realizing that he couldn't jeopardize the space-time continuum by working on other projects, he devoted himself towards the serious task of obtaining plutonium, which showed no signs of being available in corner drugstores anytime soon. This is also when he reconstructed the letter Marty had written.

He did tear the letter up, but obviously wouldn't throw it away. Why would he dispose of a souvenir written by the first time-traveler, in a machine Doc invented? Also, by the time of George's visit, time is getting short and whatever time travel research Doc has conducted since 1955 has demonstrated that the risks are less. There's also the 'what the hell?' factor. My guess is he kept every scrap of paper, so that on the night Marty went back in time, they would be able to discuss the letter and Doc could calculate the ramifications; he was wistful about having to wait thirty years to be able to discuss the last week.

It's possible that reconstructing the letter, discovering that he would be shot and killed, is what led him to the Libyans in the first place as a source for plutonium. Legitimate sources would want the benefits of his research, all he needs to do is find people who will kill him and figure out how to survive the encounter. But then, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, something he probably repeated to George during their interview. George wasn't paying much attention when Marty said it, so it's unlikely to have become a [=McFly=] family saying without reinforcement.

[[WMG: Marty actually DESTROYED Goldie Wilson's political career]]
Goldie managed to go from being a '50s black cleaning boy nobody gave a * beep* to Hill Valley's mayor in 30 years despite not studying when he was young, all by himself. Evidently, this convinced Goldie that he was able to achieve anything he wanted in his life, so he viewed the city hall as just a step before running for state governor and then US president.

Marty's intervention changed it. By travelling to 1955 and telling Goldie he would be mayor, he convinced Goldie he could ''only'' be mayor, something his 1955 self definitely saw as an ultimate goal in itself, but his (original) 1985 self wouldn't. The result was a Goldie actually ''less'' ambitious, that only aimed to be mayor and sticked in this charge once he achieved it, refusing to run for some higher post and failing to impress his issue into pursuing further political careers. From then on his descendants aimed lower and lower until Goldie's grandson came to feel himself fulfilled despite being just an used car salesman. Thus Marty destroyed both the apparition of an early Obama on the political stage and the emergence of a Black Kennedy-esque dynasty in Washington DC from the 90s onward.
** No, in 2015, Goldie Wilson III isn't quite old enough to be mayor, he's young like Goldie Wilson was in 1955. Also, Goldie Wilson III isn't a used-car salesman, he hover-converts older cars.
*** Indeed, if you look in the background of the 2015 scenes, there are signs that read "Re-Elect Mayor Goldie Wilson ''Jr.''"

[[WMG: Doc and Clara had been traveling with Marty for years before they picked him up at the train crossing.]]
They already knew everything he did, and were just stopping by to say "[[RuleOfCool Screw The Rules, I've Got An Awesome Time Machine And Know How To Avoid All The Problems I Was Worried About Before]], so I'll be picking you up any time you want a ride [[TitleDrop back... to the future]]!"
** They certainly had time to make two kids.

[[WMG: Marty fading in the original film wasn't him being RetGone, it was just him being transferred back to the original timeline.]]
This also explains the difference between [=FirstMovie=] Marty and [=SecondMovie=] Marty pointed out in the "Changed To Fit The New Timeline" WMG above-- between films, the original and "new timeline" Marties exchanged places, going back to their respective universes.

[[WMG: Those weren't laserdiscs discarded in the alley in 2015; those were [=DVDs=].]]

[[TechnologyMarchesOn Technology would be marching on]] and some new technology would be replacing them by 2015. I say "would be" because of the WMG below...

[[WMG: Before his first trip to 2015, Doc had an undiagnosed cancer.]]
He says he got his colon and spleen replaced and his blood changed, and that treatment added 30 to 40 years to his life. Now, why would that treatment extend his life so much? The answer is: Doc used to have a colon tumor (more common in old people) that metastatized to his spleen, so the future doctors had to replace those organs to remove the tumoral masses. And they changed his blood to flush out the remaining tumoral cells that circulated through his body.

[[WMG: The 47-year-old Marty was one of the "tranqs" the two cops were talking about.]]
Assuming "tranqs" are people who are addicted to tranquillizers.
Evidence: he activates "lithium mode" on a panel, and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_pharmacology lithium being used as a tranquillizer]] is TruthInTelevision. The lithium mode he activated was probably lithium being added to their drinking water, which is what psychiatrist Peter Kramer proposed in reality in 2009 to reduce suicide rates.
* And 47-year-old Marty is pretty depressed.
* In a deleted scene, Old Marty discovers Old Jennifer passed out (after encountering her younger self). He mutters "She's tranqed ''again''...". So at least one member of the household is tranqing.
* Another possibility is that "Lithium" reffers to batteries. The Lithium Ion batteries we use to day wheren't around in TheEighties, but where known to be theoretically possible, hence a "SciFi" technology at the time. "Lithium mode" means that he has the house running on batteries rather than the grid to save money. Obviously the "damned kids" would switch to grid mode so they could have more power to use their electronics. Basically a "SciFi" twist on the classic "damn kids running up the power bill!" problem many fathers have to deal with.

[[WMG: The timeline would've corrected itself]]
Biff comes back out of the time machine in 2015 and disappears, but the neighborhood doesn't. Hilldale, for instance, was built in 1985 as a nice neighborhood. In 1985-A, it wouldn't have been built altogether. Furthermore, if Doc was committed, he would never have built the time machine, and never allowed Biff the opportunity. Marty and Doc were destined to succeed at saving the future.
* If Doc was committed, he would never have built the time machine, and never allowed Biff the opportunity. So he would have never changed the timeline and Doc would have succeeded in building the time machine and allowed Biff to travel to the past, causing Doc to be committed... and so on. This is what the movies call a paradox.
** That, however, is based on the unspoken assumption that the events would play out exactly the same way in every iteration of the timeline. There's no reason to assume that that would be the case. It could be that the "paradox" would simply be a recursive correcting agent, replaying the events over and over, slightly different each time, until a consistent timeline unfolded.
What does Biff have to do with Hillsdale's existence? There is never any indication that Biff is involved with Hillsdale's creation, the neighborhood itself developed independently from any of the happenings going on in the films (certain nuances would change, but as a whole, it would remain the same). If he disappeared but the neighborhood didn't, that's because he had nothing to do with it anyway. As for the second problem, where by having Doc committed and thus never creating the time machine and thus never acquiring a means to go back in time, I believe that was the idea. Remember that by going back in time and giving his younger self the Almanac, Biff created a new timeline where he is immensely rich and powerful, invalidating the original timeline and thus no longer necessitating the need for the time machine. Marty and Doc should have faded as well since they come from that timeline, but they still existed in spite of that change because the DelayedRippleEffect of the new timeline had yet to reach them in the future when they traveled to the altered 1985 (the time machine protects them and their [[RippleProofMemory memories]] of any events that occur because of their time-triapses).

[[WMG: In the original timeline, Chuck Berry didn't write "Johnny B. Goode"]]
All Marty says is that was an oldie where he comes from. Perhaps in the original timeline, it was a different artist's song, which Marty then gave Chuck Berry the idea for.
* We live in the "alternative" time line, i.e. the one in which Chuck Berry "wrote" Johnny B. Goode and George is successful.
* While in reality Chuck Berry did actually write Johnny B. Goode, he did take the distinctive guitar lick from an older song. His song Maybelline also began as a version of the old Bob Wills number Ida Red. So if Berry had heard Marty playing it at some high school dance and decided to take it for his own, it wouldn't actually be that unusual. This kind of stealing and borrowing was very common up until The Beatles made it really uncool to not write all their own material from scratch- and even then borrowing certain elements of other songs happened.

[[WMG: Biff decided to enter the auto detailing business because of the 1955 manure crash]]
We saw how outraged Biff was to be charged $300 to clean and detail his car after crashing into the manure truck in 1955. (Running that through an inflation calculator, it comes to over $2,300 in today's currency - no wonder he was so angry!) Obviously this experience stuck in his mind for a long time (he still remembers it when he travels back from 2015) and the fact that it was so expensive gave Biff the idea that detailing and repairing cars was a good way to make money.
** Especially because Biff had to have the car cleaned ''twice'' in the same week. And the detailer probably charged even more for the second time for Biff's stupidity.
** Biff probably had to do it himself the second time around (because he was out of money!) and that's what set him down the path to auto detailing.

[[WMG: Griff's gang in 2015 is made up of the grandkids of Biff's 1955 gang]]
Spike (the girl in Griff's gang) even has a slight physical resemblance to Biff's lackey Skinhead ("get a load of this guy's life preserver").
* So whose grandkid is Whitey (the Asian guy who says "Unless you've got powah!")?
** Any of them. Biff's gang (and Biff himself) would have been exactly the right age to serve in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, so it's certainly possible one of them came back with a Vietnamese wife, and if his kid married an Asian-American he could have easily ended up with an Asian looking grandson.
*** Biff was born in March 1937 (just subtract 21 years from the 'Hill Valley Man Wins Big at Races' headline date to calculate this). Therefore, he most likely would have been too old to fight in Vietnam and too young for WWII, but he could have fought in the Korean War.
*** Too old to be in the thick of Vietnam, yes, but the right age to be a ranking officer, yes.
*** But the Korean War went from 1950 to the armistice in 1953, so he'd still be too young.
*** US troops have been stationed in Korea since then. He could've easily served a tour of duty there during peacetime.
*** Or hooked up with any of the many women of East Asian descent already in the US without fighting a war.
*** Whitey's full name according to the newspaper is Chester Nogura, implying Japanese descent on his father's side. So presumably, his mother would be the daughter of one of Biff's gang members under this theory.
* On that matter, Needles' 1985 gang in ''Part III'' are probably made up of the descendants of the Tannen gang members throughout the trilogy. Needles' gang members were played by a member of each Tannen gang: J.J. Cohen, who was Skinhead in Biff's 1955 and 1985-A gang in ''Part I'' and ''II'', could be Skinhead's son. Ricky Dean Logan, who was Data in Griff's 2015 gang in ''Part II'', could be Data's father. And Christopher Wynne, who was Stubble in Buford's 1885 gang earlier in ''Part III'', could be his great-great-grandson.

[[WMG: Biff didn't have anything to do with Doc's institutionalization in the "Hell Valley" timeline]]
Even though Old Biff warns Young Biff about "a kid or crazy, wide-eyed scientist" when he gives him the TimelineAlteringMacGuffin, Doc actually went insane because of his inability to understand why the timeline was deviating so much from what Marty told him. Doc would be the only one in the know about how certain future events are meant to unfold.
* Wow...that adds alot of FridgeHorror to the Hell Valley timeline. Suddenly Doc's face in the paper says: I've lost every shred of faith. Please. Please, let me die.
** Oh it gets even worse: according to the IDW comic, it turns out that [[spoiler: 1985A Doc was ''lobotomized''.]] That's a mental image that'll scar you for life...

[[WMG: When Doc Brown and family visit Marty and Jennifer at the end of Part 3, Doc originally intended to destroy the [=DeLorean=] and, if necessary, kill Marty.]]
He had not foreseen that the train would destroy the flux capacitor, and, knowing Marty's irresponsible nature, predicted Marty would sell the technology. Not able to bring himself to harm Marty, he put it off, knowing he could always go back and do it later. But just in case it didn't come to that, he prepared the 1885 photograph to give to Marty as a gift.
* Doc wouldn't partake in killing his best friend. Now, the idea that Marty would sell the technology ''is'' feasible, but I think that Doc knows that, considering how Marty essentially screwed over 1985 in "[=BTTF=] Part 2" with the sports almanac, which ended up in Old Biff's hands, Marty wouldn't do anything so stupid. Also, it was asked in Doc's letter from 1885 that when Marty returned back to 1985, he would DESTROY the time machine, and Marty (until it was revealed that Doc DIED in 1885) would honor his friend's wish. But then he had to go back to 1885 to get Doc, and he saw first hand that, thanks to the laws of time travel or some [[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner bull-honkey]], Doc had his chance at love crushed. So, with Doc decided to, out of grief, reinstate his desire to destroy the time machine, Marty would go along with it for his firend's sake. ...[[{{Metaphorgotten}} sorry about that rambling there.]] Bottom line, I don't think Doc would even CONSIDER killing Marty.
* Why would Doc take Clara ''and his sons'' on a mission to murder Marty? Not only would it be emotionally traumatizing, especially for the children--seeing their father kill someone ''and'' seeing what the future has in store, Doc knows from experience how easily things can go wrong in the future. That he's taking his wife and sons around in time like it's a vacation is probably evidence that he ''doesn't'' care about timelines getting crossed any more, not that he wants to keep them in strict order.
* Not to mention, if he cared about the timeline enough to kill Marty to keep it pure, he wouldn't have married Clara and had Jules and Verne. He'd have thrown her off a cliff. She's even more of a threat to the timeline than Marty.
* A fan fiction written by Mary Jean Holmes offers an explanation. Doc had selected that specific date and time (October 27, 1985 11 A.M.) because he knew that was when a local train would be on that particular stretch of track and intended for it to demolish the [=DeLorean=]. He was confident that Marty would get out in time based on the train's schedule (which he commented was always late for its pick-up). It was Marty and Jennifer that cleared the wreckage and Marty junking the remains of the [=DeLorean=] (while salvaging critical components) at a scrapyard. When Marty eventually finds out, he is (rightly) upset with Doc for keeping him out of the loop but understood why. It's even lampshaded by Marty in another fic that the police never show up to investigate the wreck and he never found out why they didn't.

[[WMG: Jennifer looking different in Part 3 is a side effect of the timeline getting changed around.]]

[[WMG: Doc Brown murdered Lone Pine Marty.]]
Doc Brown had met Twin Pines Marty and had his letter explaining what would happen. He knew sending the new, spoiled rich-kid Lone Pine Marty back into the past risked messing up the time-stream even more. Therefore, he rigged the car Lone Pine Marty drove in some way, probably to take that Marty to an isolated time period and explode. That second Marty seems to drop off the face of the Earth. There's no indication in the second movie that the Marty seen in the past isn't the original Twin Pines Marty.
** To avoid Lone Pine Marty messing up the time-stream, Doc put an additional slug of plutonium in the car so that Marty could come straight back again without ever meeting his parents or past-Doc. However, this means that Lone Pine Marty returns to the original timeline, where his family is dysfunctional (since he never encouraged his father to stand up to Biff) and Doc is dead (since he never got the warning about the Libyans). Still, at least both pine trees survived.

[[WMG: Griff is the illegitimate son of Biff's daughter Tiff, who is mentioned in the Telltale game.]]
This would explain Griff's surname.
** Or Tiff kept her original surname when she got married. That does happen.
*** Technically nobody ever mentions Griff's surname. Doc just calls him "a guy named Griff" and the end credits don't give his last name. The newspaper prop does identify him as Griff Tannen though.


[[WMG: When 1955 Doc asked Marty whether something had happened to the Earth's gravitational pull by 1985, he was just being sarcastic.]]
If some punk kid from thirty years in the future showed up on my doorstep and repeatedly used obnoxious future-slang (e.g., "this is heavy") at me, you'd better believe ''I'''d call him out on it.
* But you can't possibly know what is considered slang from a different time, especially a future one. If someone from the future actually did come here to The Present, one could likely use words we've never even heard of before. Something like, "Boy, you get really skronlist in the future. Don't stinop so much." It just so happened that the times weren't far enough apart to cause too much confusion. But, rest assured that people from different times do talk completely differently, so I highly doubt that Doc wasn't being serious when Marty implied gravity fluctuations in the future.
* I'm sure people from 30 years ago would also find your way of speaking obnoxious. Languages change; get some perspective.

[[WMG:2015 is a dystopia.]]
* Marty's son is sentenced to fifteen years prison two hours after he's arrested. Why? ''The justice system moves faster because all the lawyers have been eliminated.''
** [[EvilLawyerJoke And that is evidence of dystopia why...?]]
*** Lawyers serve a very important role in the legal system. Removing them is pretty much asking for trouble. It was probably a throwaway gag, but it certainly doesn't help given the {{Cyberpunk}}/TheFutureIsNoir feel the rest of 2015 has.
*** As a [[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice certain videogame]] has shown us, the presence of lawyers ensures fair and impartial trials. Remove them and good luck trying to prove yourself innocent against a potentially biased court.

[[WMG:The dog statue on alternate 1986's City Hall aren't of Einstein.]]
* They're of Copernicus, who he owned briefly in the fifties or thereabouts until [[spoiler:Edna found out about him.]]

[[WMG:Lorraine has an interesting way of meeting boyfriends...]]
* When Lorraine's father (Marty's grandfather) hits Marty with the car, he complains that ''"another"'' teenager threw himself in front of the car. This has happened before. Lorraine met all of her previous boyfriends because they were trying to look through at her through her bedroom window and got hit by her father's car. This also helps explain why Lorraine is so taken with Marty: she assumes he was looking at her as she dressed (and apparently she doesn't find this creepy; maybe she even sets it up on purpose) and therefore she assumes that Marty is already attracted to her. In fact...we can further suppose that Lorraine's father suspects that this is the case. Therefore, he tends to hit these boys with his car ''on purpose'' (not too hard, mind you) as a way of saying "stop being a peeping tom". He further acts cold towards Marty at the dinner table, because he thinks Marty was peeping.
* Relatedly, just as Marty is leaving Lorraine happens to say "Marty...that's a nice name", which presumably inspires her to name her son Marty. But she named her first son Dave instead. Why? Because Dave was the name of her first boyfriend who she met due to her father hitting him with the car. Marty was next on the list.

[[WMG:By the end of "Double Visions", everything will be fixed.]]
* It's simple logic, really: The promo at the end of "Citizen Brown" shows that [[spoiler: Citizen Brown ''might've'' resisted the mind control]]. And this had to have happened, because another chunk of the trailer shows that at least ''Marty'' (although in non-period accurate clothing) got to 1931, [[spoiler: meaning the [=DeLorean=] was fixed.]]. Besides, it seems the only two problems left are [[spoiler: making sure 1931 Doc and Edna break up AND that 1931 Doc has that "spectacular failure" at the Hill Valley Expo".]] Therefore, there's a chance that everything will be corrected by the end of episode 4.

...What? I forgot about episode 5? Well, that one is simple too; you see...

[[WMG:"OUTATIME" will be about Doc and Marty [[spoiler: trying to get back to 1986 in a malfunctioning [=DeLorean=].]]]]
* The only two pieces of evidence I can give to support this are two minor things and one FridgeLogic thing. Both minor things come from "It's About Time": First, we have the fact that the only thing preventing Marty to save Doc right away once the [=DeLorean=] appears [[spoiler: is that the "Last Time Departed" bar on the time circut readout is spazzing out]]. The second minor thing is that once Marty ''does'' get to 1931, the readout takes longer than usual to update itself, where it changes exactly when Officer Danny Parker begins shooting the [=DeLorean=].

Then comes the FridgeLogic thing: in order for Marty and Citizen Brown to fix the timeline in "Double Visions", Brown needs to fix the [=DeLorean=]. Using materials at his disposal. ...which means that the repairs he made to the [=DeLorean=] will no longer exist once the timeline is repaired, so... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero you see where I'm going with this]]?
** This depends on what those modifications count as. Inanimate objects carried through time are never erased by the alteration of history, only modified. If the modifications count as their own objects, they will survive the prevention of the dystopian 1986, but if they count as being part of the [=DeLorean=], they're on the same level as people in a photo, so it's glitch time.
** And where will our intrepid heroes go? Well, with the time circuits going berzerk, the [=DeLorean=] wouldn't be confined from the measly range of 0 to 9999 AD. A crossover with Telltale's upcoming Jurassic Park game may occur, courtesy of the actual Jurassic Period (continental drift notwithstanding). And, of course, as hinted in Episode 1, [[spoiler:2011]] may also be on the cards.
** Yeah, um... considering how my prediction for "Double Visions" is now {{Jossed}}, there's a good chance this is too.

[[WMG: The Doc set an explosive on a timer in his blacksmith shop so no one would learn any new technologies from it.]]
But, after saving Clara they got back right in time to defuse the bomb and get to work on their time machine.

[[WMG: Clara, building on Doc's explanation of the time travel circuit, was the one who figured out the principles they built the train on.]]
Doc couldn't have come up with it all on their own.

[[WMG: Clara and Doc built a one-shot time machine and used it to go to the future first.]]
They were able to make only one trip, so they went to 2015 and could get all the parts they needed.

[[WMG: Doc and Marty leaving at the end of "OUTATIME" had a ''better'' explanation.]]
At the end of "OUTATIME", Doc and Marty see [[spoiler: THREE Marties arriving from the future, ALL of them wanting their help. Such an event is just BEGGING to tear apart the time stream, according to Doc himself.]] So, what do they do? [[spoiler: Leave the three behind as they go time traveling without them.]] An actual logical reason isn't given as to why they leave them, but if you think about it, a reason isn't needed.

For you see, just like the audience, THEY don't understand what the {bleep} is going on so they decide to leave as soon as possible. They WILL sort this out... only after they collect themselves to better understand the situtation. And hey, ''they'' still have a [=DeLorean=] time machine, so...
* Conversely, [[spoiler: because the first of the three Marties from the future let himself be seen by his younger self, it caused the parallel future timeline that the second Marty would come from, which then caused the parallel future timeline that the third Marty would come from. It could be seen from the fact that the second Future Marty talks of the first Future Marty as if his timeline's been erased, and the third Future Marty is sick of the both of them. By ditching all three of them, the Doc and Marty of the Present hope to prevent the events that set the paradox in motion before a fourth Marty from a parallel future timeline shows up.]]
** This is FridgeBrilliance. FutureA Marty comes back for whatever reason, creating a timeline in which 1986B Marty apparently decides to eventually come back to that moment because things thereby eventually get screwed up (becoming FutureB Marty/"Evil Twin" Marty), which ''again'' screws things up for poor 1986C Marty, who comes back from the future to settle things as FutureC Marty. Hopefully, 1986 Marty just decides at that point never to revisit that moment in time...

[[WMG: The timeline itself caused the [=DeLorean=] to malfunction in Part I, every time it did so, in order to prevent paradoxes.]]
The first time it malfunctions is shortly after traveling to 1955, when it breaks down in front of what would later become the Lyon Estates housing development, which conveniently has a large sign to block the easy view of the car from a road, and being in an undeveloped area is highly unlikely to be traversed until Marty and Doc can move the car (as it's a weekend, not even the construction or survey crews will be there). Having the starter malfunction prevents Marty from driving the vehicle into 1955 Hill Valley proper, which would garner attention of the wrong sort (which might in turn make it impossible, in some way, for Marty to have access to the vehicle on the night he absolutely needs access to the vehicle - remember, there ''is'' plutonium in it!).

The second time it malfunctions is just before the trip back to 1985. The timeline probably causes this because the timer is actually off slightly, and if Marty actually were able to start accelerating when the timer rang he would end up reaching the wire ''too early,'' which would cause innumerable problems.

The third time it malfunctions is just ''after'' Marty gets back to 1985. The timeline probably causes this to force Marty to go to the mall on foot, minimizing the chance that his earlier self could see him and potentially trigger a paradox. This also answers a Headscratcher question about why Marty only gives himself ten minutes of leeway: the timeline would ensure he couldn't interfere no matter how much time he gives himself. An hour of time, and the timeline might cause there to be a police patrol of the town square at 12:35 that morning. The property damage to the theater front, plus the fact that the [=DeLorean=] is not, strictly speaking, Marty's, would be enough for them to detain him at least until they can contact Doc and/or his parents, which would almost certainly be ''after'' the Libyan-shooting incident at 1:35. (It would probably take that long just for the paperwork, fingerprinting, etc., and that assumes Marty submits quietly which under the circumstances is not a guarantee.) He gives himself a day or more, and Doc informs him of the bulletproof vest and keeps him hidden until the event actually happens.

So the [=DeLorean=] was [[UnfortunateImplications feeling suicidal]] at the end of the third film?

* No, the timeline deliberately destroyed the [=DeLorean=] because otherwise the [=DeLorean=] would have been impounded by the police, because Marty has no way of getting it off the railroad tracks. All it takes is one cop to look inside it and realize it's a time machine, because the dash itself claims it traveled from a specific day in 1885! He'd either handing it over to the government or using it for whatever purpose he wanted. And a quick look in the history book will demonstrate that someone with the improbably name of 'Clint Eastwood' stole a train and drove it into a canyon at that ''exact'' day and time, and a time machine with a broken gasoline engine shows up from that day and time, so even the 88 mph requirement shouldn't be that hard to figure out. ('Why would they be pushing it down the track?' 'Maybe it has to be moving to work?')

* And even without figuring out the time travel thing, it still has Mr. Fusion and a broken hover conversion, either of which could cause massive timeline changes. Basically, if the timestream doesn't destroy the [=DeLorean=], there's going to be some major alterations to the timeline soon.

[[WMG: In at least one timeline, a daughter (or son) of Marty will marry a son (or daughter) of Doc.]]
This would explain [[spoiler: the first Future Marty using the expression "'''our''' great-great-grandkids" when talking to ''Doc''. If one of Future Marty's k ds has kids with one of Doc's kids, their kids' kids (see what I did there? :-D ) will be both Marty's '''and''' Doc's great-great-grandkids.]]

[[WMG: In an eventual second season of the game, Marty and Doc will immediately return to 1931.]]
For two reasons. First, because it would be the cheapest possible cop-out, so it would be the most effective way to troll fans. Second, because Doc saying "The future can wait" means that they are going to the past again.
* As a corollary, the whole incident with [[spoiler: the three Future Martys]] will never be mentioned again, for the same reason: to troll fans and make them rage.
** And, of course, as previously established, Marty will never become any of those Marties because there's no way he'll become any of them at this point. Given enough time, they'll fade away, and Marty'll be fine with it because of Doc's 'you're the only real one, and the future is unwritten' philosophy.

[[WMG: Leather jacket future Marty is LP Marty.]]
See the headscratchers page for the TP /LP Marties confusion. LP Marty will be the new BigBad of season 2, trying to kill TP Marty for stealing his place in life. Future Marty #2 is the Marty of the current alternate present as of episode 5.

[[WMG: The Marties at the end of the game are from the different futures.]]
This is only speculation, but the three Future Marties are possibly from the Twin Pines Timeline, the Biff Future Timeline, and the Current Timeline, respectively. As for ''why'' they're all here... my guess is that thanks to all the time travel and frequent changes to the space-time continuum in such a short amount of time (relatively speaking), the timeline has become splintered several ways. If there's ever a second season, it will involve figuring out how to stabilize the fractured timeline.

[[WMG: The Telltale series will eventually end with Marty preventing Doc from inventing the flux capacitor.]]
The timeline will at some point become such a mess the only way to fix it is stop all of the time travelling from happening in the first place. If it's good enough for the card game...
* This will culminate in Marty discovering that the Flux Capacitor was destined to be invented, and Doc invented it a bit later and went through a different time-machine-making process, culminating in a new first experiment not long after his return to the present. The player is given the option of sabotaging it, letting Marty's history repeat itself, or changing Doc's time travel experience for the better.
* Jossed.

[[WMG: In the altered timeline that Marty creates through his trip to 1955, Biff has been castrated in the 30 years between then and the "good" future that the [=McFly=]s have]]
George [=McFly=] could have done this himself to get back at him for attempting to rape Lorraine, or this could have happened any way as a form of [[LaserGuidedKarma karmic justice]]. Some fans may say that this at least partially explain why Biff is somewhat less "manly" than in the original timeline. However, it definitely explains why Lorraine is (seemingly) okay with seeing her would-be rapist every day and with the fact that he also has keys to her house. She would (possibly) be cool with this because he is not only unable to even attempt this again, but he is also going to be reminded of this (and the fact that he works for his castrator if it was George who did it).

[[WMG: In the first film, Biff was planning on raping Marty.]]

"You caused three hundred bucks' damage to my car, and ''I'm gonna take it out of your ass''," he says, before throwing Marty to his flunkies. He built up the necessary rage and lust beforehand, with the ''Ooh La La'' magazine and booze, while he was planning on attacking Marty at the dance, but Lorraine (who he'd been pursuing for weeks) presented herself as a more preferable target.
* Not necessarily, it could be more in the sense of "I'm gonna whoop your ass", i.e. "beat you senseless", which is just as sensible. I think that's reading a little too much into that bit of dialogue, and probably is making too many assumptions about Biff's nature.
* Never mind that his bad future self married three times to three women and there is no indication whatsoever of him having any other orientation. Even his 2015 self asks about "Marty Jnr's" grandmother.

[[WMG: Doc burned down his house for the insurance money]]

Look closely at the newspaper clippings at the start of the first film. We know that Doc is living in his garage and that the land was sold for a large sum of money. Doc claims to have spent the family fortune building the time machine. It's only reasonable to assume that he burned the house down and made an insurance claim. After that money ran out, then he sold the land to a property developer.
* Makes a lot of sense when you realise just how slippery a character the Doc is. not only does he rip already stolen plutonium (which he has no legal right to keep hold of) but in the outtakes of the first film, 1955 Doc is seen bribing the police officer who asks him about the "permit" for his "weather experiment". Insurance fraud in the pursuit of his dream experiment is not exactly much different.

[[WMG: Doc Brown is travelling through time in his train in order to keep paradoxes and deaths from occurring.]]
It's been covered many times before how the 1950s have tons of Martys, the 1985 that Marty ends up in at the end of Part I is completely different from the one familiar to Marty and therefore everyone there would be strangers to him, and all the weird things that happen that should change the timeline in numerous catastrophic ways.
However, there's one way around all the headscratchers and fridge horror: Doc Brown traveled to various points in time to nudge things in various directions so the timeline Marty ends up in at the end of Part III is nearly identical to the one he started out in at the beginning of Part I, with minor changes in parts of history Marty would know little to nothing about. As far as Marty knows, the two timelines are exactly identical. Thus, Marty faces no problems with his memories not matching up with others' memories, and the moral Doc utters that Marty's destiny is only what he makes of it still rings true, as the only changes Marty can observe are those which me makes without the use of time travel. As far as Marty can tell, it's all mundane normality, but he knows about the other timelines and thus knows more about the possible consequences of his actions, good and bad. He's free to forge his own future, but with more insight as to the impacts of his actions.

[[WMG: Biff didn't kill off Doc in 1985-B because he, to an extent, realised the Almanac's origin.]]
At first, all Biff knew about the almanac was that "some relative" knew a guy who could see into the future. With millions of dollars and the years passing, Biff eventually became more intelligent and started to realise how his Gray Sports Almanac could tell the future-then he met the wild-eyed professor Doc Emerett Brown. After interrogating him, Biff put two and two together and figured out that a time machine brought back the Gray Sports Almanac, and that Doc Brown will one day build it. Wanting Doc Brown to not be a threat yet needing his genius, he had Doc Brown committed and looked after in a makeshift duplicate of his lab. His cronies gave Doc the technology to design the [=DeLorean=], and had this timeline progressed Biff would've used it to go back and give himself the Gray Sports Almanac. Anything he's saying to Marty-A is partly him playing dumb

[[WMG: At the end of the first movie, the Doc of that timeline sacrifices the Marty of that timeline to avoid a time paradox.]]
Let's call the timeline at the beginning of movie 1985-A, and the Marty we follow throughout the movie Marty-A. Marty-A travels back to 1955-A, but when saves George from being hit by a car, the timeline changes into 1955-B. At the end of the movie Marty-A travels back to the the future of this timeline, i.e. 1985-B. He then sees the Marty who grew up in this timeline, i.e. Marty-B, being sent back to the past. Now, remember that Marty-B's past is the timeline where Marty-A appeared in 1955. If the events of 1985-B played out exactly as those of 1985-A, Marty-B travels back to the ''same'' 1955 where Marty-A was. So they'd both be in Hill Valley at the same time, and Marty-B would probably try to get back to the future the same way Marty-A did (by asking Doc Brown of 1955 to help). However, this would mean that Marty-B had a high chance of meeting Marty-A, and Marty-B might also change the past so that 1985-B never happens. To put it short, the chances of Marty-B either causing a paradox or messing up the timeline are pretty high. Even if Marty-B somehow managed to avoid changing the timeline and managed to get back to 1985-B, that would mean Marty-A and Marty-B both now exist in 1985-B, which would be a pretty awful situation. (Since George and Lorraine are technically Marty-B's parents, and Jennifer is his girlfriend, Marty-A would probably have to create a new identity and move out of Hill Valley.) Now, Doc-B realizes all this could happen, so he has to come up with a plan to avoid it. His only option is to set the timer of the [=DeLorean=] to some ''other'' year than 1955, to either send Marty so far back in the past that he can't change the lives of his ancestors, or so far in the future that his future version has already died. If he sends Marty-B to the future, he probably has to sabotage the [=DeLorean=] too, so that Marty can't get it to work again in order to travel back to 1985-B. Now, this a pretty awful thing for the Doc to do, since he's known Marty-B for much longer than Marty-A, but it's still better than the alternative. (All the Doc can hope for is that Marty-B get to live decent life in the time period he sends him to.) Since Marty-B isn't seen in 1955, nor does he come back to 1985-B, it means the Doc's plan worked.

[[WMG: Her Majesty the Queen meets with an unfortunate car accident, not Princess Diana, in part II's 2015 timeline]]

After all, by 2015, Queen Elizabeth II would only be 89 by 2015, which given her mother's great age at her death, would mean she'd almost certainly be very much alive if she were eventually to die of natural causes. Only an accident would put Charles on the throne, and hence Diana as queen, so soon. (Of course how she survives her marriage to Charles is another matter- maybe he gives up on Camilla pretty quickly for the sake of fulfilling royal duty? Who knows...)

[[WMG: If Marty had disappeared, the timeline would eventually reset itself to the original anyway.]]
It's obvious that any changes made to the timeline will slowly begin to manifest themselves. Marty disappearing because he accidentally split up his parents represents an obvious change to the timeline- it's a reflection of the fact that he no longer exists. Since he can't then be around to split his parents up in the first place, this event will also eventualy be erased, and his parents meet up as normal.

[[WMG: The universe wouldn't be destroyed if Jennifer met herself.]]
It's just the Doc being paranoid, which has been seen to happen occasionally (like where he insists on not knowing anything about his own future, even when it will save his life, and later relenting. After all, this effect's possibility is only assumed because we might be inclined to take the Doc's word for it.

Or, he's simply referring to the disastrous effects on the timeline.

[[WMG: In the Biffhorrific timeline, the Internet as it is today does not exist.]]
Simply enough, most corporations that form the Internet are in California, which also turns out to be the state in which Biff Tannen and his heirs ravage. (This is implying that in the rest of [=BTTF2=], the Internet exists and is simply never seen, as it would require an entire scene.)

* This would only apply to the future of the timeline- for the bit we see in [=BTTF2=], it's 1985, when most people hadn't heard of the internet in reality.

[[WMG: The Marty and Doc of most of ''[=BTTF=] Pt 2'' are insane. Their delusions just happen to be right.]]
Given: Had Marty failed to make his parents fall in love, he would have endangered all existence by creating a paradoxical world where he was not born and could not have interfered with his parents falling in love.\\
Given: It is a remarkable coincidence that George and Lorraine had the same three kids with the same three names and substantial, but ultimately inconsequential, differences in their lives (i.e. Dave has a better job).\\
Given: We must eliminate the fact that Marty and Jennifer simply grew from age 17 to 47 and had two kids between 1985 and 2015 in the timeline in which Marty Sr poses as Marty Jr, because it is impossible, therefore another explanation--however improbable--made it possible for it to appear that they did.

When Marty and Doc travel back in time to 1985, they find themselves in an alternate reality where Hill Valley is a miserable Hell Hole. Okay, but how on Earth did Marty & Doc get ahold of a flying car time machine in the first place? How could they remember a past that Biff had already erased? Why were they in 2015 to begin with?

Remember that the "alternate" 1985 was the product of an alternate 1955 created by Biff. An alternate 1955 by which Doc Brown had still conceived of the Flux Capacitor, and in which George and Lorraine had still been fixed up by "Calvin Klein," followed by an alternate 1968 in which Marty and Jennifer were still born and an alternate 1972 in which George was murdered and Doc was committed. It just, for some reason, involved traveling to 2015 where Marty & Doc were dragging Jennifer into the time machine he piloted.

In this history, suppose Doc was released from the mental hospital at some point prior to 1985 and that Marty's hatred of his stepfather (perhaps even his suspicion that he'd killed his real father) had driven him into a mental state that was fragile, but that Biff--being a jerkass--simply would have just seen as lazy and stupid. It's consistent with Marty sending Biff to Switzerland. A neutral country where people have bank-accounts to avoid taxes or however it works. Maybe Doc would flee there to avoid a stigma he might have in the U.S. but not there. Perhaps his brilliance would permit him to work in a fancy private school and Marty is his student.

That may sound farfetched, but the films aren't exactly clear on the circumstances in which Marty & Doc met in the first place anyway.

Okay, so Doc builds a version of the time machine because he has this strange delusion that Biff somehow got his paws on an almanac from the future that helps him win bets. After-all, if you look closely, there's a picture of him where he's got an almanac from the future tucked away in his pants. Doc learns of Marty's connection to Biff and influences him to buy into his "crazy" theory.

This involves building a time-machine identical to the one we all know and love, complete with the flying. Okay, but how? I dunno, they somehow manage to get aboard a plane with falsified documents. Remember, this is taking place over a period of time prior to October 21, 1985. They could have met as early as 1982 if Marty started the private school at age 14. Anyway, they arrive at Doc's dilapidated mansion, buy a [=DeLorean=] and build the thing using his old designs for the FC. The important thing is that the have it completed by October 21, 1985 and take their journey on that day (otherwise, their decision to return on that day becomes a little arbitrary and Biff doesn't end up traveling back in time on that date anyway). Oh, and they've somehow convinced (or forced) Jennifer along. Why? Part of Doc's delusion. How? I don't know. She could also be a troubled youth. Now, at this point, the story of Marty trying to save Marty Jr from joining Griff's gang doesn't matter. ALL that matters is that Griff ends up with the almanac on that day, and decides to go back in time on that day to that very day of November 5, 1955 (a day during which, Marty and Doc's delusions lead them to believe that Marty is supposed to take Lorraine to the dance, etc) and Marty must blame himself for having the idea to make money off of the almanac. In fact, driven crazy by all the crazy stuff going on, maybe Doc's managed to convince Marty that George is still alive. Almost forgot: it's also important that Biff lives until 2015. So when he leaves the [=DeLorean=] in pain, and he's fading away? Um... yeah, aliens got him.

So anyway, on October 21, 2015, they find that Biff is frequenting the Café '80s (or whatever it might be called) and he overhears them talking about the time machine. They're talking blatantly so that he can hear them. By this point, Marty had bought the almanac. Here's the disturbing part: they've tied Jennifer up in such a way that it'll be easy for her to escape once they get to the Lyon Estate. They leave the [=DeLorean=] open for Biff to steal after she's escaped and once she escapes to a nearby house, they flog her and bring her back. Why? I don't know, but there's UnfortunateImplications. Remember, though, it doesn't even have to be the [=McFly=] house.

So Biff steals the car and gives it to himself, leaving the time loop mostly the same. The emotions he's feeling might be different, but his actions while he's there are almost identical. The timeline up to Oct 21 is virtually identical to what I described. Marty & Doc's delusions are the same. They head back and Marty is genuinely surprised by the world around him, not because he remembers it first hand, but because Doc had been working him. Making him think he remembered it. Not through some gizmo that changes peoples' minds, but because he's just that manipulative.

Marty and Doc go through everything we see in the movie with Marty's delusions and Doc's influence on him. Everything we see in the film happens, which means that once they end up in 1955, they create--yes--a new timeline in which the stage was set for the history established by the end of the first film. Their delusions become true. Marty really was raised by George from 1968 to 1985. He really did have a girlfriend named Jennifer. What he thought he knew, he really did know and so the film was compiled from three different timelines.

[[WMG: In the Franchise/BackToTheFuture universe, or at least the 2015 timeline shown in the second film, Laserdiscs achieved mainstream popularity in America.]]
Contrary to another WMG above, the discs shown trash-compacted in the back alley definitely include Laserdiscs. In RealLife they were very much a niche market product in the West, but for them to be thrown away in such significant quantities would imply they would have to have a popularity at least akin to VHS (notoriously difficult to get rid of in RealLife) if not greater. So, either they were popular to begin with (we just never see the fact on-screen) or the experienced a sudden jump in popularity in the 1990s.

[[WMG: In 2015, Jennifer is a shoplifter.]]
When she returns home, she looks around as if to make sure nobody is looking as she carries shopping bags.

[[WMG: Or, she's a compulsive shopper.]]
Which would produce a similar reaction- she's hiding her addiction from her family.

[[WMG: Marty and Jennifer's kids are clones.]]
Jennifer was unable to have kids, so they used future technology to clone Marty. Technology was not advanced enough to combine genes of two people, so the daughter was a [[OppositeSexClone Marty clone with its gender changed]]. Jennifer did not want a clone because she believed that she would faint if she ever saw someone who looked exactly like her.

[[WMG: [=CusCo=] is [=SkyNet=] in an alternate timeline.]]

When Ito T. Fujitsu tells Marty, "You are Terminated!" he really means that a Terminator is on its way to kill Marty. In the timeline of ''Terminator Salvation,'' there are T-600s by 2016, so maybe that is what would have been sent.

[[WMG: Doc ''did'' awaken the dead with that blast.]]
The sound of the blast itself was sent into the future where it awoke ''Franchise/TheWalkingDead'', thus changing the 21st century.

[[WMG: Marty's new personality in the altered timeline was responsible for his kids.]]
In alternate 1985 Marty is the son of rich, successful, cool parents. This causes Marty himself to become stuck up and spoiled, which is why he now can't stand being called chicken. Being a spoiled kid he expects life to cater to him and hand him all his shit on a silver platter. Then he gets in the car crash and breaks his hand and grows up to become a shlub. Now bitter and resentful he does what a lot of bitter and resentful parents do, he berates and belittles his kids. This causes his son to grow up to become a wimp he is bullied by Griff into committing a crime, Marty Jr. is thinking about doing it mainly to prove his dad wrong.

[[WMG: Um Doc worked with terrorists to steal nuclear material...and we the audience just gloss over the implications of that.]]
Did any people get killed to get the plutonium? Did he have to work his way up the terrorist underground by helping them with other, successful, acts to gain their trust and support? The implications of this can be all over the place and paint a dark, dark picture of 'at what cost' the time machine. HOWEVER in Doc's mind I'm sure it was all morally justified because, TIME MACHINE! No matter what he did, no matter how much was stolen, no matter how many people died, he just kept telling himself, 'once my time machine is made I'll just go back and fix it'. Doc Brown may have been actually crazy, driven slightly mad by the guilt and anxiety of what he had done, betting it all on faith that his invention would work. Heavy.
* Part of his decision to destroy that 'infernal machine' is not only because of the damage it can cause to the space/time continuum but because of the death and theft it has already sown. In the end part of what drives him to love Clara and raise kids is that in the face of all the misery his machine has caused he wants to bring new life and happiness into the world. In the end he decides to rebuild the time machine because he realizes if he doesn't use it for good then all those lives and all that misery was for nothing, so the his ultimate redemption is to fly around in time with his loving family and right that which once went wrong to make up for his mistakes...but without disrupting the time/space continuum in doing so.
* Simmer down, it's not that bad. The news broadcast at the start of the movie mentions that the site that the plutonium was stolen from was officially denying that it was stolen, and the missing plutonium wasn't missing at all, it was a clerical error. If anyone had been killed or any serious damage had been done, the paperwork story wouldn't even work as a coverup; chances are that if Doc ''did'' personally steal the plutonium (which he probably didn't, because if he could do that, he wouldn't need to be involved with the Libyans in the first place, he could have just stolen the plutonium and been done with it), he's smart enough to have done it without disruptive violence; the clerical error may have actually been Doc's method in the first place, he just fudged the inventory and walked out with the plutonium, easy as you please.

[[WMG: What happened to those Indians?!]]
Marty travels back to 1885 and smack into a small army of Indians on the war path, who just run past him. Um, that's a big matzo ball just hanging out there. I mean they straight up just saw him driving around, one of them even shot the car with an arrow, and then, from their perspective, he just disappeared. The cavalry did run past him to but they didn't really see anything.

[[WMG: Clara was a Time Traveler even before ''Part III'', or at least had contact to some]]
Claras reaction to Doc Browns claim, that he had build a Time machine and travelled with these from the future to her "now" (the year 1885) is like someone who was culturally exposed to popular science Fiction about Time Machines (e.g. she hears the Term, knows immediately what it means, and think it is something from science fiction). There is just one Problem with that: the Term "Time Machine" was introduced und popularised by H.G. Wells novel "The Time Machine", published in 1895, ten years after the supposed Time Period Clara is from. Even H.G. Wells short story "The Chronic Argonauts" (according to Wikipedia " the first well-developed use of a machine constructed to travel through time (a "time machine") in science fiction") wasn't published until 1888, three years after the 1885 setting. There is simply no way, that somebody from the year 1885 would know exactly what the Term "Time Machine" means, and treat it like some Science-Fiction stuff, since the Term wasn't introduced for several more years. That left just three possibilities: 1) Clara is a Time Traveller from sometime beyond 1895, 2) Clara already had contact to Time-Travel-Science-Fiction via real Time Travelers, 3) (possibly) due to further meddling with the Time Line, Time Travel-Fiction within the Back-to-the future-Universe exists at least a few years before it does in ours.
* While it's not likely (given that it had only been a couple days since she got to town), it's possible that she - unknowingly - had just come into contact with an ''artifact'' of time travel. It wouldn't be out of character for Doc to have a copy of ''The Time Machine'' in the [=DeLorean=], perhaps with the intention of eventually going to some point shortly after 1895 to get it signed. He could have loaned it to her without thinking about the possible ramifications of it being seen a decade early. Even if she hadn't started reading it, that would be enough for her to recognize the term.

[[WMG: The 2015 Jennifer was cheating on Marty.]]
In that future where Marty became a bitter shell of the man she loved (not to mention the shitty wedding and the way he treats their children) has led Jennifer to look for love in other places. It would certainly explain why Marty would have a hard time keeping track of her, as well as his sarcastic comment of how they were like a couple of teenagers. Jennifer's guilt of the affair has led her to being a tranq.
* To add insult to injury, she could be cheating on Marty by having an affair with Needles.

[[WMG: The Music/ZZTop cameo in Part III means the members of the band had ancestors with an UncannyFamilyResemblance in frontier times.]]
Long after forming a band together, Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard were startled to learn they had distant relatives in frontier times who not only were all musicians, but also played together. They came into the possession of sheet music for an original composition written by their ancestors, and after learning to play it themselves, they turned it into their song "Double Back". Alternately, ZZ Top were ''also'' time travelers - they went back to the old west hoping the music scene there would give them some inspiration for new songs: They ended up traveling with musicians of the time and wrote what became "Double Back" there.

[[WMG: Doc already had the bulletproof vest in the original timeline.]]
He might be crazy but he's not stupid. At least not to the point he'd think the terrorists wouldn't seek retaliation. Marty simply didn't have a chance to see it for himself before escaping to 1955. Since the new timeline's Doc doesn't remember this, he's not sure if Marty's warning was needed or not.

[[WMG: Marty and[=/=]or Doc had something to do with Lady Diana's infidelity being exposed]]
After the second movie, they did some time travel that somehow caused her to be exposed. If not for that, Prince Charles wouldn't have divorced her and she wouldn't have died from a car crash.

[[WMG: Several fans will be watching the second movie on October 21, 2015]]
That's the day Marty and Doc went forward to. Fans everywhere want to compare the writers' predictions to what really happens. Most of them want to see if, contrary to their expectations, [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII Queen Elizabeth II]] will be around.
* Pretty much confirmed. It's not even October yet and a lot of cinemas are already advertising special screenings of the trilogy on the 21st.

[[WMG: Charles is dead in the 2015 from the second movie]]
Some fans ask why "Queen Diana" would go to Washington without her husband. It turns out he died at some point of history between becoming King Charles [=III=] or King George [=VII=] and 2015. He must have become King otherwise his Princess consort would never become ''Queen'' consort.
* This is would mean she's actually the Queen Mother, with William (presumably) being king.

[[WMG: "Clint Eastwood" was still regarded as the coward of history.]]

Let's see: he has never fired a single shot to Buford Tannen (or to ''anybody'' besides those dummies), avoided the shooting with him for as long as possible and even though the outcome appeared to be a win (Buford was K.O.'d and sent to jail), "Clint" still proceeded to go down a cliff (hence "Eastwood Ravine"). Meanwhile, Buford's life couldn't change that drastically, as Biff, his great-grandson, still likes the Old West in the modified 1985 (he compliments Marty's outfit).

The only advantage the ''real'' Creator/ClintEastwood would have while setting up his career is that cowards tend to be forgotten in history, and no one would have compared him to a figure that only appeared for a week in 1885 in a little-known town, and even if the link ''was'' discovered, the real Clint could have dismissed it as the two "not being related".

Doc's 1955 self was surprised at seeing his name at a tombstone from 1885 and he knew the buried Emmett Brown couldn't be just an ancestor who had the same given name as him because his family used to known as Van Braun before World War I. Having never traveled in time by then, Doc's 1955 self would remember no timeline other then the one where Buford shoots his future self in 1885 and it not affecting his family supports the theory about Clint Eastwood.

[[WMG: Buford killing Doc was Fate's XanatosGambit to minimize the damages caused by Doc while stranded in the past.]]

Fate doesn't like it when people from the future are stuck in the past and Doc had already damaged history by saving Clara's life. Fate realized that either Marty would find out and get back in time to rescue Doc or Doc's death wouldn't be prevented. Either way, Doc would be unable to cause more damages to history.

[[WMG: Lorraine and George assume years later that "Calvin Klein" was [[MistakenForGay gay]].]]
Look at it from their perspective. "Calvin" spent the entire time trying to set them up, he freaked out every single time Lorraine tried to flirt with him, the entire kissing scene ended up being viewed as familial rather than romantic, and he even remarked in the car about not being sure he could go through with the expected behavior in that situation. While the audience knows Marty wants to ensure his future existence and is creeped out by the idea of hitting on his mother, they don't know that. Chances are that, when they look back, Lorraine and George might assume that the reason why "Calvin" behaved like that was due to him not being interested in girls. They might even think that he was staying with Doc for a while because his parents kicked him out when they figured it out or something.

[[WMG: Marty caused Doc to fall while hanging his clock]]
In the diner in 1955, Marty slips into a phone booth and is relieved to see Doc's name in the phone booth. ''"Good, you're alive."'' He dials the number...

Meanwhile, Emmett Brown is perched on his toilet, hanging a clock. The porcelain is slightly wet. Suddenly the phone rings, startling Doc and causing him to slip. He conks his head and is knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, at the diner, a frustrated Marty can't get anyone to answer and hangs up the phone.

A few hours later, Doc comes to. He has a vision...

[[WMG: Corporate management in 2015 takes on the corporation as their surnames.]]
That explains "Fujitsu-san" as Marty's boss. Management at General Motors, for example, would be called Mr. or Ms. General Motors.
* Jossed as the company they work for is called [=CusCo=], not Fujitsu.

[[WMG: Marty jinxed the Chicago Cubs by not racing Needles.]]
In Part II, the Chicago Cubs were shown winning the World Series, while Marty was shown to be [[FutureLoser a jaded]], [[JadedWashout depressed]] salary man because he got into an auto accident in 1985 while racing Needles. In Part III, he avoids getting into the accident, thereby erasing that future, so, on the real October 21, 2015, the Chicago Cubs were sadly beaten by the New York Mets.

[[WMG: The 2015 of Part II is the result of an alternate timeline where Music/{{Power Metal}} got big in the early 1990s instead of Music/{{Grunge}}]]
More due to the motifs of 2015 than anything else, if grunge hadn't gotten big, clothing and decorative trends would have likely been different. Power metal is simply a placeholder because with a fairly minor point of divergence, it might have happened.

[[WMG: Chuck Berry invented Heavy Metal in the 1950s]]
What he heard on the phone was not "Johnny B. Goode", but Marty's solo. This ends up being his new sound.

[[WMG: The Miami team that lost to the Cubs in the 2015 World Series were [[Film/MajorLeague a relocated Cleveland Indians]].]]
When Marty sees the result of the 2015 World Series, he's stunned that [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut the Cubs]] won it -- but even more stunned that the team they beat was from Miami, which didn't have a major league franchise in 1985. But in "our" timeline, Miami did eventually get a team -- the Miami Marlins. Except they play in the National League alongside the Cubs, so they couldn't face each other in the World Series. Instead, we'd have to find a timeline in which Miami has an American League franchise.

As it turns out, in ''Film/MajorLeague'', the plot centers around the attempts to stop the AL's Cleveland Indians from moving to Miami. So, we can assume that in the ''Back to the Future'' timeline, the Indians ''did'' move to Miami, and that's where they got their AL team. They then went to the World Series in 2015, but lost to the Cubs (of all teams). Interestingly, in "our" timeline, the Cubs didn't win the World Series in 2015 -- but they ''did'' win it in 2016, and the team they beat was... the Cleveland Indians.

There's also a bit of a ButterflyEffect in this timeline. In "our" timeline, the Cleveland Indians never left -- but [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball the NFL's Cleveland Browns]] ''did'' leave, a move which so crushed the city of Cleveland that they immediately built a new stadium for the Indians to keep ''them'' from leaving. Presumably, if the Indians left first, then the Browns would have stayed -- and the chain of franchise shifts in the NFL in the 1990s could well have been very different.

[[WMG: Marty's car accident somehow prevented the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_%28Japan%29 Lost Decade]], ensuring that JapanTakesOverTheWorld]]
When Marty didn't crash into the Rolls Royce, his altered life somehow ended up affecting the Japanese economy, preventing the high-tech Japanophile 2015 of their timeline and replacing it with our own 2015.

[[WMG: Lorraine's father really did disown her when she had Marty]]
In 1955, Lorraine's father tells her, "If you ever have a kid like [Marty], I'll disown you!" Now, this could be RuleofFunny, or he could have been serious. Think about it- Mr. Baines is never seen in the present day, and the only indication that the [=McFlys=] have a relationship with him is when Linda says, "Grandpa hit him with the car" (talking about George back in 1955). However, Linda is older than Marty, and thus, probably had a chance to form a relationship with her grandpa before Marty was born and Mr. Baines cut off all contact with his daughter.
* The IDW Comics state that Marty was close with his Uncle Joey, maybe that was because he was the only one from Lorraine's family who bothered to visit?
* His opinion of Marty as an idiot was based more on his behavior such as making reference to things that hadn’t happened yet and generally feeling disoriented and wanting to get out which was a result of him being a FishOutOfTemporalWater, which wouldn’t apply when he was growing up in his own time. Plus, in any case, Sam was probably being hyperbolic, since he would have to be a massive jerk that to disown his daughter based on the behavior of her son when he was presumably a very young child, if the theory is suggesting that he disowned her as soon as Marty was born, given that Linda is only about three years older. As for why he’s never seen in the present day, the [=McFly=] family is only seen over the course of a few minutes total in all versions of 1985, where they're first having dinner, then meeting Marty in the morning, and then going out to brunch, so there's no reason why Sam, who doesn't live with them, would appear or come up in conversation outside of Lorraine referencing something (George getting hit by his car) that he was directly involved with.

[[WMG: Johnny B. Goode has different lyrics and a different melody]]
Listening to the [=BTTF=] soundtrack in the car the other day, it struck me that Michael J. Fox sings slightly different lyrics with a slightly different melody at some points in his version of Johnny B. Goode than the more familiar Chuck Berry original. IRL, Johnny B. Goode is one of those songs that no singer sings the same way twice - but in universe, Chuck Berry listens to Marty sing it over the phone and is probably scribbling lyrics as best he can while trying to remember the melody. So Marty's lyrical and melodic screw ups become the "real" lyrics and melody.

[[WMG: Doc deliberately set up his passing out before Marty's fight with Buford in order for Marty to learn his lesson.]]

Hear me out. Also, if this isn't considered a WMG, I will remove it.

Doc wanted Marty to learn the lesson about not losing his judgement when insulted on his own, but he wasn't getting it. So, he decided to help his friend out.

We learn from Chester that Doc has had issues with alcohol in the past.

Doc, remembering this, decides to drink the shot of whiskey when Marty shows up. Aside from Chester and Joey's help, I believe Doc sobered up just as Marty learned his lesson for a reason as opposed to just coincidence.

Doc cared about his friend enough that he went to great lengths to teach him a valuable life lesson.

[[WMG: The other kid Mr. Baines hit with his car was Biff]]
* When Mr. Baines hits Marty with his car, he claims that this isn't the first time this happened. Imagine that Biff was peeping on Lorraine the same way that George was, fell out of the tree the same way, and Mr. Baines hit him and they brought him into the house to recover. After being taken care of by Lorraine Biff became obsessed with her, while she was turned off by his jerkass personality (knowing Biff, he'd try to immediately get her to sleep with him). This would explain why he's so determined to have her as his girl.

[[WMG: Needles set Marty up in a sting operation.]]
* Just as Marty ends the call with Needles, Needles is smirking at someone off-screen, like he's saying "We got him!" A few seconds later, Mr. Fujitsu, Marty's boss, calls to fire him.
** Even worse. . . Needles knew exactly how to press Marty's BerserkButton (since it's shown in Part III that he's the one who got Marty into the accident in the first place, using the same tactic). Marty wouldn't have done anything illegal except that Needles set him up for it, probably deliberately.
*** Which makes you wonder, how much of a sociopath would Needles have to be to get a guy into a terrible, disabling accident and not only not care, but ''continue to take advantage'' of that person?
** Why does Needles need Marty to take part in the scam? To test whether the boss would find out. Needles likely hadn't taken part in the scam and needed somebody else to do it first to see how things turn out, and he knew of Marty's berserk button.
** Considering how often people keep pressing Marty's berserk button, it wouldn't be too far fetched that someone else could get Marty to do something illegal by pressing it. If the sting operation theory is true, Needles could have pressed it to see if Marty would fall for it, since the motivation of solving his family's financial problems didn't get him to take the bait. If anything, him falling for it makes things even WORSE for Marty, since he wouldn't do it to help his family, but for his own selfish wounded pride.

[[WMG: The reason the clocks were behind]]
* What exactly WAS Doc's experiment with the clocks all being 25 minutes slow? Well, remember how Einstein's watch was 1 minute slow because he'd been sent one minute into the future? Doc might be crazy, but he wouldn't put his beloved dog in danger by only testing the time-travel science on him alone. The clocks must have been some prior experiment, possibly testing the time-travel abilities of the Flux Capacitor itself, or maybe just testing sending inorganic matter through time and having it arrive unharmed. It's possible that the Delorean was more of the final stage of the project, when everything was guaranteed to work. He does seem pretty certain that the Delorean won't hit Marty and himself at the mall.
** Of course, the theory that the Doc somehow sent his whole lab through time does run into FridgeLogic: how did he reach 88MPH in a garage? This is a fundamental law of Back to the Future time travel and seeing as we have established that even a 1 minute jump requires 88 MPH, the idea that a 25 minute jump somehow wouldn't is a pretty problematic leap in credulity.
*** Seeing that Doc created the system, it's safe to say that the 88 MPH was a setting he made. In the second film, when struck by lightning, the [=DeLorean=] ended up traveling back in time without having to travel to 88 MPH to do so. That means that the time travel system could have been tested at the lab before Doc finally installed it into the car (this also explains why the case of plutonium was in the lab under the bed: Doc used it for the experimentation).
** ''Nobody said the entire lab was travelling''. The Doc could have just put a single clock inside the Delorean to test it first, then tested it several more times until every clock was 25 minutes slow, at the exact same time. Think of it as calibration to make sure the machine is actually working properly, after all, how many times have we seen someone travel through time by mistaking one measurement of time for another?

[[WMG:Queen Diana still divorced Charles in Bttf II]]
She was called "Queen" because people wouldn't acknowledge anybody else as Queen of England in a timeline where she's alive during Charles' time as King.

[[WMG:Marty Junior saw his father as an AntiRoleModel]]
He grew up hearing about how Marty Senior ruined his life just because he [[NobodyCallsMeChicken doesn't like being called "chicken"]] and saw how that incident wasn't enough to put an end to that mentality and decided he was better off being a chicken.

During the video call between Marty and Needles, "avid basketball fan" was listed as one of Needles' hobbies. Needles watching a game would be a nod to that.

[[WMG:Old Biff realized Calvin was Marty.]]
That's one of the reasons he chose November 12, 1955 to be the day he gave the almanac to his past self. Knowing how Doc was [[NeverShallTheSelvesMeet afraid of a meeting of the selves]], he hoped Doc and Marty would never try to recover it in that very day even if they knew that was the day he visited.

* "it's the future"?? The "future" of Back to the Future is only a shade over 3 years from now. (Feel old yet?)
** [[IWantMyJetpack WHERE'S MY HOVERBOARD?!]]
*** [[http://dvice.com/archives/2010/05/artsy-back-to-t.php Here]].
* What I meant that the the 2015 they went to is TheFuture ([[TradeSnark TM]]), not necessary just five years (well, four years now), in our future.
Possibly implied by Craig Shaw Gardner's novelization of ''Part II'':

*** Whitey's full name according to the newspaper is Chester Nogura, implying Japanese descent on his father's side. So presumably, his mother would be the daughter of one of Biff's gang member under this theory.
* On that matter, Needles' 1985 gang in ''Part III'' are probably made up of the descendants of the Tannen gang members throughout the trilogy. Needles' gang members were played by a member of each Tannen gang: J.J. Cohen, who was Skinhead in Biff's 1955 and 1985-A gang in ''Part I'' and ''II'', could be Skinhead's son. Ricky Dean Logan, who was Data in Griff's 2015 gang in ''Part II'', could be Data's father. And Christopher Wynne, who was part of Buford's 1885 gang in ''Part III'', could be his great-great-grandson.

*** The video call information in 2015 gives his full name as Douglas J. Needles, so it’s not a nickname. That being said, another line in the game mentions a Frankie Needles, so maybe he’s Needles’ grandfather.

See the headscratchers page for the TP /LP Marties confusion. LP!Marty will be the new BigBad of season 2, trying to kill TP Marty for stealing his place in life. Future Marty #2 is the Marty of the current alternate present as of episode 5.

* Never mind that his bad future self married three times to three women and there is no indication whatsoever of any other orientation. Even his 2015 self asks about "Marty Jnr's" grandmother.

Jennifer was unable to have kids, so they used future technology to clone Marty. Technology was not advanced enough to combine genes of two people, so the daughter was a Marty clone with its gender changed. Jennifer did not want a clone because she believed that she would faint if she ever saw someone who looked exactly like her.

[[WMG: CusCo is [=SkyNet=] in an alternate timeline.]]

During the video call between Marty and Needles, "avid basketball fan" was listed as one of Needles' hobbies. Needles watching a game would be a nod to that.

* The main theme of the first installment of each trilogy is GENE. The impetus for most of Marty's actions in the first movie is to cause his parents to marry once again, causing him to come into existence from their genes. Likewise, the second movie matches with VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2's main theme of MEME. The consequences of information from the future traveling backwards are expanded upon and shown in detail, as Biff uses the Sports Almanac to change his past and eventually 1985. Finally, the third movie fits with VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3's main theme of SCENE, since it puts the main characters in a completely different setting than any of the movies offered, and shows how that affects the other characters' outlooks. It's also like the third game in that it shows familiar character-analogues and recurring series events in a historically earlier context.

There are two strains to this WMG. Either ''Film/ThisIsSpinalTap'' and ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' exist in a SharedUniverse and Spın̈al Tap is a real band to Marty, or ''Spın̈al Tap'' is as fictional to Marty as it is to us. Either way, the documentary (or "documentary") was released in 1984, a year before the events of ''Back to the Future''.

[[WMG: VideoGame/SonicCD is an alternate timeline of the original Film/BackToTheFuture]]

* Marty's son is sentenced to fifteen years prison two hours after he's arrested. Why? ''The justice system moves faster because all the [[AcceptableTargets lawyers have been eliminated]].''

She was called "Queen" because people wouldn't acknowledge anybody else as Queen of England in a timeline where she's alive during Charles' time as King.