Dear Johnny Fanboy,

After recently watching the Back to the Future trilogy again I noticed a nit-pick.

At the end of Back to the Future - Part II the 1985 version of Doc Brown gets sent back in time to the Old West. All Marty McFly sees is the DeLorean apparently exploding. A guy from Western Union turns up and hands Marty a letter they have been keeping for 70 years. It's from the Doc, letting Marty know he's okay.

Marty then immediately realises that there is another Doc in 1955 who can help him. He rushes to find him, knowing that he'll be at the clock tower in Hill Valley, helping an earlier version of Marty get back to 1985.

My question is: why does Marty dash over there to find the Doc? At the end of the movie he comes running down the road. If he had arrived a moment or two earlier he might have actually stopped his other self from getting back to 1985. Either his other self could have seen him and slammed his brakes on, or the Doc could have been distracted by him and failed to connect the wires that allow the electricity from the lightning bolt to travel to the car.

Why doesn't Marty instead take a slow walk over to the Doc's house and meet him when he arrives home?

Megan Lea

Johnny Fanboy replies:

That's a very good point, one that I had never considered before.

In cinematic terms, of course, having Marty run into shot at the end of the movie is far more exciting than him just knocking on the Doc's door.

In the context of the story, however, I can think of two reasons why Marty would be in such a hurry to get to the clock tower. Firstly, it could be that Marty (like us) is caught up in the excitement of events, and it never occurs to him that he could take his time.

Alternatively, perhaps he aims to sneak into the boot or back seat of the earlier Marty's DeLorean without that Marty or the 1955 Doc noticing. It may be that, having skim-read the Doc's convoluted plan to get him home using the DeLorean stored in the cave (which is documented in the letter), he has his doubts about this scheme being able to work. Either that or he doesn't even read that part of the letter before dashing off in the belief that the earlier Marty's DeLorean is his only way home.

If Marty's plan had succeeded, he would have had to hide out for only one night in 1985 before his other self departed with Jennifer and Doc Brown to 2015 and he could resume his proper place in time. Of course, the Doc would never have condoned such a reckless and risky plan, which could potentially have caused a maaaaaaaajor paradox!

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