Continuity mistake: Beginning of film. When Marty arrives at Twin Pines as the Doc requested he cruises up alongside Einstein on his skateboard, saying "Where's the doc, boy?" There's a cut to the truck opening, then back to Marty, and for some strange reason the yellow wheels on his skateboard have turned pink, but the reflection on the wet car park is still yellow. It cuts back to the DeLorean coming out of the truck then back to Marty, and his wheels are yellow again. This doesn't happen in the VHS version. (00:17:40)
Continuity mistake: When Marty rides to the mall he is riding his skateboard, but after Doc comes out in the car, it's gone, then at the end of the film when Doc drops off Marty he has it again. (00:18:40)
Continuity mistake: When Doc and Marty are at the Twin Pines Mall and Doc is telling Marty about the car, he says "never mind that now, never mind that now..." and Marty has the camera facing the ground, but later when Doc in 1955 is watching the video, you can see him saying that on the video. (00:18:50 - 00:50:05)
Continuity mistake: When Marty arrives at the Twin Pines Mall at the beginning of the film, he drops his skateboard behind the DeLorean. When Doc starts the car with Einstein in it, the skateboard disappears. (00:19:05)
Continuity mistake: In one shot of Einstein strapped in the DeLorean, if you look closely in between the steering wheel, the yellow time circuits on the bottom read the month as "10" rather than "Oct." And the red and green time circuits read "11" instead of "Nov." (00:19:20)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the film, when sending the DeLorean into the future, the wide shot shows the DeLorean heading for Marty and Doc then disappears leaving a trail of fire. Notice the cut as the car park goes from being dry to wet with puddles. (00:20:00)
Continuity mistake: When Doc points out that Einstein's watch is in sync with his, the LED display changes from being off in a wide shot to on in the closeup. (00:20:05)
Continuity mistake: Before Doc's time travel demonstration, he shows Marty two synchronized clocks. Here we see Einstein turn his head towards the front of the DeLorean, but in the next frame he's facing the camera instead. (00:20:05)
Continuity mistake: When we first see the machine in action, the travel is shown from three different angles. In the second, a line of fire passes directly between Doc's legs, but in the third angle, they pass to the left of both of his legs. (00:21:00)
Continuity mistake: Moments before Doc and Marty witness the DeLorean's first trip through time, Doc's left hand changes its position on the radio control unit between shots. Initially he's holding a toggle switch, but after saying, "You're gonna see some serious s***," he has a grip on the unit's side instead. (00:21:05)
Continuity mistake: When Doc and Marty are watching the DeLorean burn out from across the vacant Twin Pines Mall parking lot, the radio control unit's antenna is seen lowered one shot then fully raised in the next, despite Doc not having touched it. (00:21:20)
Continuity mistake: As the Delorean accelerates towards Doc and Marty in the car park, in a shot from the car's perspective they're a few feet apart, then we cut to a close up, and they're right next to each other. (00:21:45)
Continuity mistake: The time machine is gone for 1 minute and 21 seconds - not just 1 minute. (00:22:00 - 00:23:20)
Continuity mistake: Near the beginning, right after Einstein time travels, Doc walks up to the time machine and says it's cold. He then opens the door and greets Einstein. In this split second you can see Einstein's stopwatch has a non-illuminated LED display, but in the next shot the face has changed to the bright red numbering. (00:23:10)
Continuity mistake: After Einstein comes back Doc Brown is demonstrating to Marty how to set the time machine. He simply pushes the buttons on a key pad. To set it for July 4, 1776 he punches 3 buttons. To set it for December 25, 0000 he punches 6 buttons. To set it for November 5, 1955 he punches 12 buttons. Later, when Marty is resetting the time machine to go back 10 minutes early he punches 7 buttons (all not including the ENTER button on the keypad). (00:23:50)
Continuity mistake: As Doc reacts to the icy DeLorean, the door Doc was about to pull open barely has any ice on it, but when Doc opens the door with his foot, more ice is on it, then melts after Einstein runs back into Doc's truck. (00:24:00)
Continuity mistake: At Twin Pines Mall, when Marty is recording Doc Brown, Marty is raising the video camera to record Doc Brown saying, "No, no, no, this sucker's electrical," but when this piece of film is played back in the Doc's garage in 1955 it appears as if Marty was already recording when the Doc starts speaking. (00:25:15 - 00:50:40)
Continuity mistake: When Marty is filming the Doc in the parking lot, Doc says that he needs '1.21 gigawatts' to power the time machine. Marty then says 'Doc, you don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium.'. However, when Marty and the Doc of 1955 are listening to it on his TV, the Doc keeps talking after he says '...of electricity I need'. (00:26:35 - 00:53:05)
Continuity mistake: As Doc turns the plutonium jar on the back of the DeLorean, the little thing sticking out of the jar slides greatly down, without any motion of moving. (00:27:15)
Suggested correction: Wrong. It does show motion as it slides down, it just moves very quickly.
Continuity mistake: When Marty is trying to escape from the van he turns the time circuits on. However, the time circuits were already on - you can see them illuminated when he first puts the car in gear. (00:28:45)
