History Franchise / BackToTheFuture

* TheAllegedCar: While these films made the DMC [=DeLorean=] ''the'' coolest of the {{Cool Car}}s, they also showed that it was delicate and prone to a number of problems (e.g. stalling on a hot start, sticky doors).[[note]]Albeit this detail is lost for foreign audiences because [[NoExportForYou DMC didn't sell outside the U.S.]][[/note]] The [=DeLorean=] misbehaves particularly badly in the first movie, so maybe Doc worked some of the kinks out with the hover conversion?

* NoPronunciationGuide: For "gigawatts". Not so noticeable to the general public at the time, but over 20 years on, the prefix "giga-" (beginning with a hard "g") [[TechMarchesOn has become commonplace]] for computer-related terms[[note]](Gigabyte and gigahertz likely being the most commonly known among the average computer user)[[/note]], so nowadays it's bound to give even non-engineers pause. (Or, make people think you're referencing ''Back to the Future''...)

[[caption-width-right:350: ''Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.'']]

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The [=DeLorean=]. The [=DeLorean=] Motor Company went bankrupt in 1982, well before the film was made, and Robert Zemeckis had to argue with Universal to use the car since DMC wouldn't be able to give them any commercial endorsements. At the time the car was considered a failure--underpowered, unreliable, generally just a crappy car, which is why DMC went out of business. Indeed this joke is played on in the film as the [=DeLorean=] has a habit of [[MyCarHatesMe stalling on Marty at the worst possible time]]. It's now entirely thanks to this series that anyone remembers it.
** The use of the word "Dude" as an insult in the 1885 segments. Back then it was pretty much equivalent to "City slicker" or "Dandy", and meant someone with no experience of horses or cattle trying to play cowboy. (It is still used this way when referring to a "dude ranch.") Its use as a term of affection only goes back as far as TheSixties.
** An unintentional one occurs with the pronunciation of the word "gigawatt". The director's commentary notes that they were unaware that the word is pronounced with a hard "g" sound, hence the use of the pronunciation "jiggawatt" in the film. They only used that pronunciation because that's the pronunciation a real guy used in a lecture they attended in preparation for the film. As it turns out, however, "jiggawatt" is the actual original pronunciation of the word (derived from the Ancient Greek word "gigas", meaning "giant", and was pronounced with a soft "g") and its use by the older and eccentric Doc Brown is rather believable.

->''"{{If my calculations are correct}}, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit."''

* PlayingGertrude: Intentional example. Creator/LeaThompson is just nine ''days'' older than her onscreen son Creator/MichaelJFox. Creator/CrispinGlover is actually three years ''younger'' than Fox, and Creator/ThomasFWilson is just two years older than Fox. This trope is played straight when it comes to scenes in 1985. But it becomes averted once we go back in time to 1955, where Thompson, Glover, and Wilson are playing their characters at or around Marty's age.

* ''Super Back to the Future Part II'' (1993) - [[/index]]a side-scroller for UsefulNotes/SuperFamicom only released in Japan.[[index]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** One segment in ''Part II'':
--->'''Marty [=McFly=]:''' "There he is, Doc! Let's land on him, we'll cripple his car."
--->'''Doc:''' "Marty, he's in a '46 Ford, we're in a [=DeLorean=]. He'd rip through us like we were tin foil."
** As noted above, in ''Part III'', Marty being a crack shot in a lightgun game and even in a carnival game with a real gun would ''not'' have been enough to save him in a real and lethal shooting duel.

* IdenticalGrandson: Michael J. Fox, Creator/ThomasFWilson, and some of the minor characters all wind up portraying their own ancestors/descendants (including [[UpToEleven Including Michael J. Fox in drag playing an Identical Daughter]]). Lampshaded in Part III, after Buford mistakes Marty for Seamus [=McFly=], says "You ain't Seamus [=McFly=]... you look like him, though." Creator/LeaThompson plays different ages of the same character, Lorraine Baines-[=McFly=], but also Maggie [=McFly=], Marty's ''paternal'' great-great-grandmother and thus [[IdenticalStranger not (apparently) related to Lorraine]] at all.

->''"[[IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect If my calculations are correct]], when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit."''

* ArtisticLicenseCars: The [=DeLorean=]'s VanityPlate is a California plate that reads "OUTATIME", which is 8 characters. At the time, California plates could only be 7 charcters long; it wasn't until 2014 that eight-character plates could be used.