FAQ for
Back to the Future (1985) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Back to the Future can be found here.

First, thirty years have passed since then. Marty was in 1955 for only a week, and in that week he was actually with George and/or Lorraine for a matter of hours. Yes, he had a big influence on their lives, but all the same they did not see him very much, and it's not likely that they would remember his face after thirty years. Many of us have trouble seeing the faces of persons we've seen hours ago. Second, it's not as if they suddenly see Marty again out of nowhere. He is their son; they had brought him up from birth, seeing him grow up through the ages. Even if they did think there was a resemblance, wouldn't it be likely that George and Lorraine would either a) put it down to a coincidence, e.g. Lorraine: "Hey George, you know who Marty reminds me of? That guy Calvin Klein we knew for a week in High School!" George: "Yeah, I remember him. Ha! That's kind of funny since that's where we came up with the name Marty, huh?" OR b) consider it to be the same guy? Lorraine: "George, I can't believe this, but I think our son Marty is the same guy we knew for a week in 1955!" Of course, it not mentioned whether George ever noticed the suspiciously close resemblance between the boy he thinks is his son and his wife's old boyfriend, or if he ever broached the subject with Lorraine. They don't even remember Marty being the one who got them together. At the end of the movie, they mention that if it hadn't been for Biff, then they wouldn't ever have gotten together. So, why would they remember him?

No. Einstein doesn't live out that minute: he exits the timeline at 1:20, and re-enters it at 1:21, completely skipping over that minute in time. One minute passes for Marty and Doc before they meet Einstein. But for Einstein, the trip is instantaneous.

Einstein was never going to return to the time he left. There was no reason for him to do so; his sole function was to prove that the DeLorean worked. At 1:20 am, he left the timeline. He re-entered it at 1:21 am, completely skipping the minute over. After that, he ran off into the trailer. He never lived out that minute, unlike the human travelers in Part 2, who went back to live out the period of 1985-2015. In Part 2, however, Marty, Doc and Jennifer went into the future and then returned to 1985. The future selves they saw were the future of their selves that returned to 1985.

We never find out. In an early draft of the screenplay, Marty got to know Doc when he was 15; he would do odd jobs for him as an assistant, initially as an after-school job, but after some time they became friends:

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MARTY: Doc Brown's all right - he's just a little hung up on time. A couple of years ago he showed up at my house and hired me to sweep out this garage of his. He pays me 50 bucks a week, gives me free beer...and gives me total access to his record collection - he's got this great old record collection.

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Lorraine said that she liked the name Marty, but that doesn't automatically mean that she intended to name any of her children that. Dave McFly could have been named after someone else, perhaps a distant relative not mentioned in the films, or a friend. Maybe they just liked the name David more.

It doesn't have a title. If you look at the tape Marty puts into the Walkman, it does not say "Van Halen" it says "Edward Van Halen". The band (Van Halen) would not allow the producers to use any of their songs, so Eddie Van Halen (the man) wrote an original piece of music, and that's what Marty plays.

Most people agree that the Marty we see going back in time at the end of Part 1 grew up in the new timeline with a wealthy family, and would have had a different personality. As for his memories, there are two schools of thought. One school believes that, due to the ripple effect, time needs to catch up, so Marty's personality would get rewritten and he would get his new memories as well. Eventually he would remember not having been surprised to see the truck, and the timeline might change slightly to reflect his resulting actions. The other school believes that Marty's memories would not change, the reason being that, while time traveling, Marty was outside his timeline and thus not affected by any changes he made, other than physical ones. There's an extension of the self-preservation theory that says the space-time continuum would naturally try to prevent paradoxes like these.

The hair dryer was in a suitcase that the 1985 Doc put into the DeLorean trunk at Twin Pines Mall. There was a scene in which the 1955 Doc looks through the contents of that suitcase, picks up the hair dryer and asks "What's this?" "A hair dryer," Marty replies. Doc shakes his head and says, "A hair dryer? Don't they have towels in the future?" The scene was cut from the final film for time.

After he rips up the letter, Doc is shown putting the pieces into his pocket. Later in 1985, when he takes it out, you can see that it has been taped back together.

It seems odd that Doc would be so against having knowledge of the future then later piece together a letter he knows details future events. He clearly would have had to get the pieces back quickly before they blew away and/or got wet. So why the change of heart? There are two ideas.

1) The most obvious reason is as Doc states, "What the hell." He was simply curious and it saved his life.

2) The more subtle reason, being the intelligent person he is Doc realized something went wrong. Notice how he many times he replays the part of the tape where his future self says, "They found me. I don't know how they found me. Run for it Marty!" That, in addition to Marty obviously being unprepared to travel through time and his insistence that he talk about the future, would be enough for Doc to realize that something went wrong.

This is called the Grandfather Paradox, and there are several solutions to it.

1) The Echo Theory (official solution from the Back to the Future writers): When Marty erases himself from existence, he creates a world where he was never born. His entire existence comes into being on the 5th of November 1955, when he arrived in the past. When the erasure is complete, this is not really Marty, but just an echo of him, whose sole function is to erase him from existence. So the timelines go: Timeline A: Marty is born, 1985; Marty goes back in time, 1985. Timeline B (final timeline): Marty arrives out of nowhere in 1955 and erases himself from existence. He vanishes.

2) Alternate Universes (NOTE: The Back to the Future writers say that there are no alternate universes involved in the trilogy, but this is just to show a different solution to the paradox.) Marty goes back in time. He makes it such that he was never born. But this does not cause him to fade from existence. The photograph will not show his siblings disappearing. He spends his time in 1955 oblivious of what he has done, but when he goes back to the future, he discovers a world in which he never existed. Marty spends the rest of his life wandering the planet as a stranger whom no one knows, except maybe as an old schoolmate from long ago in 1955.

3) The Self-Preservation Effect (SPE) Marty goes back in time and erases himself from existence. 1985 comes along, and he is never born. There is no Marty to go back in time and ensure that he is never born. To prevent a paradox and prevent itself from blowing up, the space-time continuum makes sure that Marty is never born through other ways. Maybe George is instantly killed when Sam's car hits him. Maybe Lorraine spontaneously bursts into flames. Maybe a fire starts out at the school dance before they get a chance to fall in love. And so on, at the end of which Marty is never born.

4) The Universe Blows Up It's the most convenient of the lot. Happily, the damage would probably be limited to just the nearby galaxies.

No. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale initially did not intend a sequel, and the ending where Doc whips Marty and Jennifer off to the future was meant as a joke. 'To Be Continued' was added to the video version before part two came out. That was the first inkling most people had that there would be a sequel. This unexpected addition resulted in a great deal of speculation which, of course, turned out to be true. It appears in the DVD [at least in the collection pack from Region 2] the title card "To Be Concluded".

This is a nod to the late Stanley Kubrick. In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the license plate number of the ship, Discovery, is CRM-114. In A Clockwork Orange (1971), the serum to make Alex sick is Serum (CRM pronounced as a word) 114. And in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), there is a decoder device called the CRM-114. All three of these movies were directed by Kubrick.

To recap: When Marty first goes back to 1955 and meets Doc, Doc doesn't believe Marty is from the future. When Marty tells Doc that Ronald Reagan is the president, Doc is astonished. A couple of lines later, he yells, "I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady!" Jane Wyman was Reagan's wife from 1940-1948, but Reagan had already divorced Wyman and married Nancy Davis in 1952. Some viewers think that the writers may have slipped up; others think that Doc was being sarcastic, especially since he also asks if comedians Jerry Lewis and Jack Benny are Reagan's Vice President and Treasury Secretary.

One topic that some people have assumed, is that former Hill Valley Mayor Red Thomas (from the 50's), is the same person as the bum on the bus bench when Marty returns. This is assumed by some because of Marty calling the bum 'Red.' 'Red' is most likely just a nickname that Marty gives him. However, there is no connection between the former Mayor and the bum. The person used for the former Mayor's images was from one of the production crew.