People often complain that Marty didn't conquer his fears or do what his dad did and get extra confidence to get his dream career. But Marty was terrified that people were going to reject his music, and only did the audition in front of a few teachers, but he got over it and managed to do it in front of hundreds of people. They didn't like the end of it, but he is so confident by the end of "Johnny B. Goode" that he says "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it!" He might not just be talking about Rock & Roll but about his music as well.
However, Marty does get extra confidence to get his dream career. Marty is seen holding an envelope when he comes out of his room to discover the changes to his family. According to trivia, there was a deleted scene where after Marty wakes up, he is seen putting the tape that Jennifer told Marty he should send to producers into the envelope with the intention of following her advice.
This leans into Fridge Horror when the sequel reveals that the very next day after deciding to pursue his dream of being a rock star, he ends up in a car accident that forces him to abandon it. It wraps back around to Fridge Brilliance as Marty’s chance at becoming a rock star being taken from him just when he built up the confidence to pursue it helps explain why he’s so bitter and self pitying in 2015.
Imagine yourself if, for example, you're a really good footballer at school, win a ton of awards, your scholarship is football-related, then you're in an accident, that's all your fault, and the doctor strongly recommends you quit football. You would be crushed and blame yourself for years.
It seems inconceivable that George, no matter how rage-fuelled, was somehow able to knock out Biff in a single punch. But looking at the punch closer, George originally tries to hit Biff with his right hand, only for Biff to grab him and put him in an arm-lock, and it's only when Lorraine is pushed to the ground that George spins round and smacks Biff with his LEFT hand. Now earlier in the film we see George writing his sci-fi stories in the lunch-room, and he's using his right hand. But even back in the 50s, it was commonplace for schools to insist on right-handedness even if a person was born a lefty. In this case, it's possible that George was born left-handed, forced to pretend he was right-handed by school (since we see him writing with his right-hand) but still managed to maintain a degree of dominant strength in his left hand. As such, when he went up against Biff, of course his right hand was useless, whereas his left hand was stronger.
This can also explain a lot of George's issues. Forcing left-handed people to use their right hand is known to cause serious traumas. In some cases, especially in Asian countries, left-handed people were outright bullied. George's timidity may be a product of suppressing his useful hand.
An early version of the script even had the characters noticing that George was better at punching with his left hand than his right.
In Real Life, the early model DMC-12s were plagued with alternator issues. The battery was infamously unreliable when several appliances were running, leaving drivers stranded (most famously, Johnny Carson was a victim of the DMC-12's poor battery performance). The frequent stalling of the DeLorean in Part 1 could be plot convenience or it could be a reference to the Delorean's reputation for unreliability.
Which explains why Doc Brown was able to get a Delorean despite being virtually broke: it's an unreliable junk by 1985 (or he purchased it when they were first produced years back at peak cost, resulting in him being broke).
Also, why does it no longer break down after it got the hover conversion? Likely whoever worked on Doc's 'classic' car took some liberties due to the power requirements of the hover conversion, and completely replaced the entire alternator and battery assembly.
One may wonder why 1955 Lorraine/her family would take Marty's pants off while he was knocked out. Since the car hit Marty in his leg/shin/thigh area, they probably took his pants off in order to check for bruises or any other serious injuries. Obviously he wasn't injured, so they just forgot to put his pants back on or had a hard time doing so.
When Marty first shows up at 1955 Doc Brown's house in the first installment, he's testing a thought-reading device. He makes a series of guesses as to why Marty is there, ending with noticing Marty's jacket and asking if he's looking for donations for the coast guard.
If the Libyans knew anything about building a nuke, they never would have gone to Doc Brown in the first place.
Doc Brown burned down his house, wasted his family fortune, and spent 30 years trying to invent his time machine. In 1985, he is reduced to living in his former garage next to a Burger King, driving a shady truck advertising "24 HR Scientific Services," and hanging out with ignored and insecure high school kids, all the while being treated as an outcast by his community (even Strickland calls him a "real nutcase"). It's plausible that Doc has cultivated black market connections in order to make some money and get the raw materials he needs for his experiments and inventions. These connections probably helped him get in touch with the Libyans and even corrupt officials at the nuclear research center in order to get the plutonium he needed for the time machine.
In the comic book, Doc even is revealed to have been working for the military, which is the real reason he burned down his house, in order to cultivate the personality of a raving lunatic, since his prototype time machine genuinely caused a temporal arms race!
Regarding Marty only setting a few minutes' worth of lead time in returning to the past: keeping in mind that Marty didn't want to screw up the timeline worse than it already was (he knew he couldn't run into himself in the future/present), he gave himself as little time as possible to screw things up in. Also, he wasn't expecting the DeLorean to fail on him.
Regarding the Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory; Marty's actions in 1955 caused his brother and sister to be completely erased, then remade, in time. However, he himself was only partly erased before being brought back. This would explain why he kept his old memories, whilst still having some personality changes (e.g.; the "chicken" problem, deciding to send his demo tape into the record company after all), even though the rest of his family are now completely different.
Marty's father's explanation for why he was in the street to get run over by Lorraine's father? Birdwatching. Well, he was packing binoculars, but that's not the only reason it's appropriate. He was there looking at Lorraine. What's 50's slang for an attractive young woman? A bird. He was, so to speak, literally bird watching.
If Marty was so influential to George and Lorraine that they named a kid after this guy they met, how come it's the name of their third child instead of their first? Simple, he really wasn't that influential by the time their first child was born (8 years or so after they got romantic). Whatever inspiration that made them come up with the name Marty in the original timeline (friend, celebrity, name from a baby book, etc.) is still the inspiration for them in 1967 or so when Marty is born, albeit with a little extra emphasis "Oh, that's the same name as that guy who helped us meet each other, wasn't it?"
Why does Doc Brown continue to insist not letting Marty tell him about his death? It wasn't just because he didn't want to know what's going on, but from the sequence he saw when he saw the Oh, Crap! moment on the video he watched, he figured out that he would die. And because he knew of his death, he didn't want Marty to worry about his own death.
Or that he figured that knowing the future locks you into it, making it a "fixed point."
Retroactive Fridge Brilliance: In Doctor Who, the Doctor manages to fake his death, but makes it seem as if he died, in order to keep a fixed point from being fucked up. Doc Brown probably came to a similar conclusion; as long as Marty thinks that he was dead, he would still go into the past, and time would continue on its natural course.
This one isn't all that hard to figure out. Doc was watching a video pertaining to the development of his time machine, and Marty at that moment first chooses to try to tell him about the future. From that point on Doc does not want to know anything about it. There are a lot of good reasons for why this could be. First, by his own admission the time machine was the first thing he invented that worked. Considering he spent his entire life as an inventor without success, imagine the vindication for him when he learned he not only eventually created something that works, but something as amazing as a time machine. Now imagine if he perceived a chance to never achieve that ambition if Marty told him something he did not want to hear. If Marty told him something that could make him change his future, then he could very well never invent the one thing that keeps his whole life from having been a failure. Consider also that Doc can see that Marty has quite clearly screwed up his own future. Doc by contrast does not want the same thing to happen to him. Even if he guessed the information was about his death, all not knowing would mean is that he would die when he always died. At the end he puts in point blank when he says he refuses to accept the responsibility. For all his brilliance he cannot foresee what the future will be, he was not willing to risk changing his future or that of anyone else connected to him any more than he had to. It takes him many years and an obviously great amount of curiosity before he reassembles Marty's letter and receives the warning.
There's also another reason he might have changed his mind. He would have been well aware they'd changed the history of the Mcfly family for the better. Doc already seems to suspect that's the case when Marty tells him that George not only came through but stood up to Biff which he'd never done before. Doc replies "Ever?" and Marty asks what's wrong but Doc waves it off because they needed to get into position and it was too late to change that. Doc also got a fairly detailed version of Marty's parents history when they were trying to set them back up, sees how pathetic George is and Marty tells him George pretty much would remain pathetic and they'd be together out of sympathy more than anything. Doc lives in the same town as them and would likely be keeping an eye on the Mcfly family because he knows he and Marty are destined to be important to each other. He'd quite obviously see that successful confidant author George Mcfly in a loving marriage is not at all how Marty described him as and know things had changed. And since everything seemed to be working out fine, it was clearly possible to improve the circumstances of ones life by changing their own future without any issue. So as the years went on he figured "What the hell?"
This comes full circle in the third movie, with Doc warmly telling Marty and Jennifer: "You're future hasn't been written yet - no-one's has. Your future is whatever you make of it, so make it a good one. Both of you."
A double example: First, the paralleling color-themed names of the two mayors of Hill Valley, Red Thomas and Goldie Wilson. Secondly, could their last names be a reference (even unintentional) to Thomas F. "Biff Tannen" Wilson?
Why did Doc think asking who the president of the United States was would be a foolproof plan to catching Marty in his lie; after all, how would Doc know if he was lying? But what is his reaction to Marty's answer? "The actor?!" He thought that Marty, being just a kid, wouldn't be clever enough to think up a plausible name off the top of his head, and would resort to saying someone remotely famous. The joke becomes that much funnier now.
How can Doc Brown just walk into the high school in the first movie and have absolutely no one question him in any way? In 1955, he wasn't "insane and probably dangerous loner" Doc Brown, he's Emmett L. "local (and slightly eccentric) millionaire who helped out with the Manhattan Project" Brown. He was initially thought of favorably by the people of Hill Valley, until he put everything he had into his work and was shunned as a result.
He also could've just explained it away that he was showing a relative/new prospective student (or both) around the place, being that handsome and charming young Calvin Klein fellow
People didn't freak out about adults showing up in schools so much back then, especially in smaller places. There might be a sign asking guests to check in at the office, and as noticed, he wouldn't exactly have been a "stranger".
With all the changes Marty made in the first movie, how could he and Doc Brown be sure that the time the lightning struck the clock tower hadn't changed too? By noticing that the "Save the Clock Tower" Flyer doesn't fade like the picture does! Of course, giving the current a place to travel might have prevented the clock from being damaged, in effect making it a crude lightning rod.
Alternatively, the Delorean touching the cable is exactly what caused the lightning strike. A kind of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. They know that the lightning strike happens at a certain time, so they make sure to catch that moment. But it is them catching that moment that is why the lightning strike happens at that exact time. They only know the exact minute, not the second. And lightning can strike multiple times within a sixty-second window.
When 1955 Doc views the video of himself from 1985, he remarks, "Thank God I've still got my hair!" It does seem strange that his hairline is at exactly the same level of recession in 1955 and 1985. (In contrast, Christopher Lloyd himself, 30 years after making the film, is almost entirely bald.) Maybe Doc invented something that halts, but doesn't reverse, hair loss.
Unlikely as the Doc claims he never made anything that works... unless he did intend to make something that let hair grow back, but he failed, and the result was a side-effect of halting hair-loss, meaning that just like the mind-reading machine mentioned above, he didn't realize he had actually technically succeeded, just in a very round-about kind of way.
Doc being the Bungling Inventor that he is, it's very likely that the Time Machine (and its miniature) are not the only creations of his that are Made of Incendium, especially if his track record is consistent failure; he need not be successful to have burned off all his hair, and may in fact be surprised that he managed not to lose the rest of it for the next 30 years.
The reason that Dave disappeared before Marty is simply that the ripple effect worked from the moment things changed in the past up to the present, meaning Dave, the eldest child, was the first to fade out, giving Marty more time to right what went wrong.
A bit of a meta example - the first film was clearly designed to provide a nostalgic view of 1950s-era America and much Lampshade Hanging is done pointing out how much things have changed from the 50s to "present day". Except "present day" was in the mid-80s, meaning people reading this are now as far removed from the setting of Back to the Future's "present" as its original audience was from its "past" setting. Hilariously, the film is so jam-packed with 80s pop culture, from fashion to music to technology, the segments of the film set in "the present" are now just as much of a nostalgic throwback for children of the 80s as the past segments were for children of the 50s.
Word of God lampshaded this in the DVD commentary.
The writers showed a great deal of foresight in realizing this possibility for the 'Cafe 80's' scene in Part II, which may be seen as a throwaway gag but is actually a pretty good prediction of 80's nostalgia while the 80's were still going on.
It seems odd at first that after the Libyans crash that we never hear from them again, but they were traveling between 60 and 70mph in a vehicle not known for its safety with one of the two hanging out of the open sun roof with an RPG-7 rocket launcher. RPG-7 grenades have impact fuses without any additional safety devices. If the impact with the photo-mat didn't kill them both outright, the blast from the RPG would have surely finished them off.
Marty's original family were a bunch of losers. His brother works in a fast food joint, his sister is apparently completely cynical and jaded and his dad is working some low level white collar grunt job while being bullied by Biff, his superior, into doing Biff's own work as well, meanwhile his mother's overweight, an alcoholic and has an apparently spiteful attitude to anybody else being even remotely happy. The house is also a craphole. After he returns to 1985 they're completely different. His brother now has some kind of office job, his sister is now more socially outgoing, his parents are Happily Married and successful, the house is nicer and now Biff is working as a car cleaner (presumably, George is doing the job he helped Biff into himself). Some people have criticized this ending as being too materialistic, but it's really not. Only one small change in the timeline has led to such a dramatic improvement in the McFly family, that change being George learned to stand up for himself and to not give up in the face of adversity. If you pay attention, George has only just got his first novel published, even though he presumably has been trying since the 50s. The original George probably wrote his first manuscript, got a rejection, and gave up because he was trampled down and broken. His kids, unconsciously following his example, are the same way. The new George probably wrote his first manuscript, got a rejection, and started work on another better manuscript. That also got rejected, so did the next one and the next one. But he didn't ever give up and by 1985 his persistence has finally been rewarded. In the meantime he was probably doing the job Biff was originally doing because he was clearly good enough to do it. His kids, unconsciously following his example, are the same way.
After Marty gets hit with his grandfather's car in 1955, he wakes up to Lorraine telling him he's been asleep for almost nine hours. He doesn't look too banged up to have passed out for that long. But then you remember that Marty had to meet Doc at 1 AM the night he went back in time, without much more than what looked like a cat nap after dinner. He'd have probably been awake for over twenty-four hours real time, not to mention mentally exhausted from what was happening, and was sleeping it off (there's the Reality Subtext that Michal J. Fox was only sleeping two hours a night at this point, splitting his time between filming both this movie and Family Ties).
While Marty wasn't pushed hard by his grandfather's car, he did fall with the back of his head hitting the pavement. Hard. THAT impact caused him to be out for nine hours.
Fridge Heartwarming: Marty tells 1955 Lorraine that she might regret drinking later in life when she takes a swig from her mother's personal liquor stash. 1985 Lorraine, she's a bloated alcoholic, so he knows for a fact that she's going to regret it. This also makes his discovery about her smoking even funnier: he expects her to drink and is shocked that she sleeps around, but smoking warrants aSpit Take.
After Marty returns to 1985 and Doc gets shot, he doesn't get up and reveal he's alive until after the other Marty goes back in time and the Libyans crash. While it's possible that the attack knocked him out for a couple of minutes, there are two other perfectly good reasons not to get back up immediately: first, by playing dead, he lets the Libyans think they succeeded in killing him and that they don't have to come back for a kill shot. And second, by making Marty think he's dead, he preserves Marty's memories of the incident and prevents a potential paradox.
Another possible reason: We know that timeline changes take a while to take place. It's possible that when Marty ran up to him, Doc was dead...and then the ripple effect kicked in.
Shortly after meeting Marty, Lorraine's father calls him an idiot. Now this could be due to him letting slip stuff about the future which doesn't make sense to them. But then, think about it. If Marty had any idea what he was doing, he would have been watching what he was saying from the beginning. His acting without thinking even kick started the whole issue with changing the past in the first place, even though he knew that George getting hit with the car was what brought his parents together. Finally, we learn in the sequels he effectively ruins his life TWICE due to his pride. Lorraine's father had it right. Marty is an idiot.
Given the way her father spoke bluntly and without rancor, he also may have been referring to the medical and legal use of the term 'idiot' at the time. Though it had already been considered an insult for decades, it also had an actual definition that was superseded in the 1970's by 'mental retardation'. Gives a new meaning to his conclusion that Marty's parents 'are probably idiots too', meaning that it was an inherited condition rather than necessarily being a sign of poor parenting. It makes his claim that he'd disown Lorraine if she had an 'idiot' child harsher, but not necessarily out of line for the culture of the time.
The amplifier in Doc's lab at the beginning is named "CRM 114" - a Shout-Out to Dr. Strangelove, as it is also the codename of a radio device in that film. This also doubles as some very subtle Foreshadowing, because Dr. Strangelove was a movie about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and the DeLorean is powered by plutonium.
Goldie being friends with George in the 1950s makes sense: being a black teenager who lived in the time period, he would have experienced some kind of discrimination and would thus understand the alienation and mistreatment George goes through every day.
Doc Brown's incredulity at Ronald Reagan being president in 1985 isn't just a random joke. Reagan was known in the 1950s for being a relatively unimportant actor, at least compared to the likes of Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe. Not many people at the time would think Reagan would ever rise to the Presidency.
After seeing the video camera, 1955 Doc comments that an actor being President makes sense since he needs to look good for television. Since television was developed, appearance has become increasingly important in political campaigns.
Nixon's disheveled appearance in the Televised 1960 Presidential Debate, caused by bad makeup, a knee injury, and a staph infection, is said to have contributed to his loss to the handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy.
Reagan is known for embodying style-over-substance politics, said to be a better orator than he was a thinker.
Marty's befriending of Doc makes a good deal of sense. It is shown that while he loves his father, he's disappointed by his spinelessness and lack of drive. Doc, for all his eccentricities, is shown to be a determined and driven man, managing to build a time machine after 30 years of research. Compared to his timid and lackluster parents, Marty would see Doc as more of an inspiration.
The lyrics of 'Johnny B. Goode'' describe a young man who doesn't do well academically but is a very talented musician. Sound like anyone we know? Go, Marty, go go go... Marty McFly!
Where the hell does Marty get all his era appropriate clothing and the car he takes Lorraine to the dance in? He got them all from Doc. Doc was living in his garage in 1985, but in 1955 he still had his family's money.
Doc Brown made the deal with the Libyans to obtain plutonium in 1985. Perhaps the Libyans behind the Pan-Am Flight 103 originally planned to detonate a nuke aboard a plane and Doc cheating them set their timetable back 3 years.
You know how people ask if "You kiss your mother with that mouth?" when you swear? Well, early in the first movie when the McFlys are eating dinner, Marty's brother Dave lets out a loud "Damn!" when he realized he was late for work. His mother then proceeded tell him not to swear and then asked him for a kiss on the cheek.
Marty's mom asks his brother to "kiss your mother before you go". She means a kiss on the cheek, of course. Later, in 1955, Marty gets an actual kiss from his mother.
That's also a case of Fridge Brilliance: People have the ability to unconsciously detect the genetic viability of potential offspring in another person. Sometimes it's by way of pheromones and other times by saliva. This is one reason why two people in Real Life just might not be the right "type" for each other. So, when Lorraine kisses Marty, she gets biologically "turned-off" because she senses his genetic material mixing with hers wouldn't make for a very healthy kid.
This is more of a call back to Lorraine's apparently oft-retold story about how she knew George was the man for her when she kissed him. Since that was true in both timelines, kissing Marty may have given her a strong signal it would end badly. They padded it with a joke the audience was in on with the brother bit.
Also, Marty was horrified while his mother kissed him, which probably made him tense up in a way that felt "off" to Lorraine.
So, Lorraine spends a lot of time hitting on Marty in 1955, and kisses him. Marty's a handsome and charming guy, and while he goes to every length to set up her and George (for obvious reasons), it wouldn't be entirely surprising if George had a few insecurities - especially if his youngest child steadily grows up to look exactly like that guy his wife had a massive crush on in school...
That's assuming that George doesn't also realize that his youngest son looks exactly like his grandfather William and great-grandfather Seamus.
There are fully armed Libyan terrorists freely driving around America. Fully armed Libyan terrorists planning to build a dirty bomb and who were in no way defeated by the end of the movie.
Not defeated? They crashed into a Photo-fox kiosk at upwards of 70mph. Seeing as how neither were wearing seat belts and were driving a car where the only crumple zone is one's face, the only place they are going is the hospital or the morgue.
Speaking of which, a man in possession of stolen nuclear material has plenty of time to casually pack his bags for a trip after a gun battle at the local mall?
Judging by Doc's excitement when he successfully sends Einstein 1 minute into the future, one gets the impression he wasn't completely sure it world work. However he positioned himself and Marty right in front of a car speeding towards them at 88 miles per hour!
