raywest

Question: When the police pick Jennifer up and start driving her home, Doc says the Skyway is jammed and it's gonna take them forever to get there. 1) Wouldn't the police be sat in the same traffic? Taking Jennifer home isn't an emergency, so they wouldn't be using lights and sirens. 2) If the Skyway is jammed, why not just do it the old fashioned way and drive to Hilldale rather than fly?

Answer: Regarding your first question, the police (and other local government vehicles) would always have alternate Skyway lanes they can use, regardless of whether it's an emergency. As far as using ground roads, there may no longer be the same direct land routes to Hilldale.

raywest

Question: Why does the storm end immediately after the clock tower is struck by lightning? This happens again in part 2 when the DeLorean gets struck by lightning. All of a sudden, the wind and lightning is gone.

Answer: It actually starts raining really hard in both scenes. The rain clouds followed the thunder clouds.

Answer: It could probably be classified as a freak storm that quickly passed over. Mostly, it's a contrived plot device for the movie and doesn't reflect reality but serves the purpose of telling the story.

raywest

Question: When Doc and Marty go back to 1985, after going to 2015, they land and find out that it's an alternate 1985 wherein Biff is in charge. Someone said in a question that when they returned, shouldn't they have seen Biff's casino as they fly over Hill Valley - is them not seeing the casino there to mislead the audience into thinking nothing has changed or is it a mistake?

Heather Benton

Chosen answer: Most likely this was deliberately done this way so the audience would not immediately know that the timeline had changed. It serves the plot better to have it revealed later.

raywest

Question: At the beginning of the movie, as Doc, Marty and Jennifer are leaving in the time machine to go to 2015, Biff sees the DeLorean fly and then disappear. It perplexes him greatly and he even states, "What the hell is going on here?" 1) Why wouldn't Doc have been more careful when he knew that anyone could've walked out of the McFly house and seen the DeLorean? 2) Why didn't it alter things in the future? Sure, Biff may not have told anyone about what he saw, but it's unlikely since he witnessed such a strange event.

Zinka17

Chosen answer: There's no real explanation about why Doc wasn't more careful, but he is an eccentric person who often acts on impulse rather than logic. It also serves the movie's plot for Biff to be there when he was. Biff in 2015 is an old man, and he is obviously somewhat confused about what he saw. He may well have thought it better to say nothing about it for fear he wouldn't be believed and could be accused of hallucinating the event.

raywest

Question: Does anyone know why Marty takes a book of matches off of Biff's desk when Biff isn't looking? I know that the matches come in handy at the end of the film when he burns the sports almanac, but what was his original reason for swiping the matches? Unless he knew beforehand that he was going to have to burn the almanac.

Answer: It seemed more like a reflex action than a deliberate decision. Marty saw Biff's name on the matchbook cover, causing him to pick it up for a closer look, then just stuffed it into his pocket. As you pointed out, they came in handy later. That and when they changed the timeline in 1955 after burning the alamanac, it would also change back to "Biffs Auto Detailing." Gotta make sure you cover your bases when dealing with the future, make sure that everything changes back to normal.

raywest

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.