Question: When Marty and Doc arrive in the bad 1985, they learn that 1985 has changed and are told that alternate versions of themselves exist. Alternate Doc has been committed and alternate Marty is at a boarding school in Switzerland. Nice movie trick to keep them from running into their alternate selves. Question though, isn't the 1985 at the start of this movie also an alternate 1985? This too has been altered from the original 1985 as seen at the beginning of the first movie. So, where are the alternate Marty and Doc in the timeline when Marty's family is actually upper middle class? Since this is an alternate 1985 as well, where is "rich" Marty? Why didn't he bump into his other self, the Marty that owns the black pickup truck?
Tailkinker
6th Oct 2013
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
16th Dec 2010
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: Where are Dave and Linda McFly in the alternate 1985? They don't seem to live with Biff and Lorraine, and they are too old to be packed off to boarding school (like Marty), so where exactly are they? Biff mentions them when threatening Lorraine into staying so its not like they've been rubbed out like George was.
Answer: If you have the Blu-ray or DVD, watch the movie using either trivia track or watch the deleted scene where Marty meets his brother Dave and turn the commentary on. Dave is a homeless drunk and Bob Gale states that Linda ended up becoming a hooker. However, since Wendie Jo Sperber was pregnant at the time and couldn't appear in this film, it was decided to cut both of them out.
Answer: It's never stated in the film where they are. Biff makes a reference to having Dave's probation revoked if Lorraine leaves him, so Dave has apparently run into trouble with the law. He does appear in a deleted scene, where he has become an alcoholic and appears to be homeless with little contact with his family, likely because of his dislike of Biff, as he appears pleased to see Marty. No scenes with Linda were filmed, as Wendy Jo Sperber was pregnant at the time of filming, although scriptwriter and producer Bob Gale has stated that, had they included Linda in the alternate 1985 scenes, she would likely have become a prostitute, which would tie into Biff's threat to have her thrown in jail.
7th Sep 2009
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: Marty prevents the bad 1985 by burning the sports almanac in 1955. However this alone won't prevent Old Biff from taking the almanac from 2015 to 1955. Indeed it raises the possibility that OB will remember having lost the almanac as a young man and choose to travel back to a date other than 12.11.55 to hand it over. I can think of three possible resolutions to this problem: (1) Marty makes a note of the date and time, then burns the almanac as a 47-year-old before Old Biff gets it; (2) Marty informs the 1950s Doc of what is to happen and he resolves to make the DeLorean more secure and/or not to throw the almanac in the bin; (3) Doc travels to 2015 in the steam locomotive and burns the almanac. Any other ideas?
Answer: I don't think it works like that. Old Biff came from a timeline that no longer exists, wiped out in favour of a timeline where his younger self becomes hugely rich because of the almanac, which is then ultimately replaced with a timeline where Marty wasn't involved in the car crash and he, and his children, are presumably more successful. In this new timeline, Marty and Doc would never have been to 2015 to try to sort out Marty's wayward children, Marty would never have bought the almanac, the old Biff of that timeline would never have learned about the time machine, and so would never have the idea of taking the discarded almanac back to his younger self, much less changing his date of arrival to try to prevent the theft. Doc and Marty have nothing to worry about.
31st Aug 2006
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: Can anyone tell me why the role of Jennifer was recast?
Answer: Claudia Wells, the actress who played Jennifer in the first film, dropped out of acting shortly after the film was made, apparently for unspecified medical reasons, only returning to acting in 1996. As such, she was simply not available to play the part.
Claudia Wells was unable to reprise her role because her mother had cancer.
11th May 2006
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: In the scene where Marty's recently purchased sports almanac drops out of its plastic bag, Doc says that he did not invent the time machine for financial gain. In Back to the Future's first Twin Pines Mall scene, Doc says that he'll get to see who wins the next 25 World Series. Can we assume Doc would not have tried to profit from knowing those results in advance?
Answer: It seems that, yes, we can assume that. Doc's very clear on the dangers of meddling with the timeline - it's fair to say that he's intelligent enough not to risk it.
Answer: He never intended on betting on it, he just wanted to see who won the 25th world series.
24th Feb 2006
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: When Marty came back to 1985 in the first movie, some things had changed. The name of the mall for example went from Twin Pines Mall to Lone Pine Mall. How come then when Biff comes back to 2015 after stealing the DeLorean, everything seems the same? Wouldn't they notice everything was different when they were flying over Hill Valley to go back, like Biff's casino perhaps?
Answer: When Marty returns to 1985, he leaves 1955 after those changes have been made, so he's now in a timeline where the effects of those changes exist. When old Biff went back, he simply gave his younger self the almanac, then returned to 2015 before the younger Biff did anything with it, i.e. before any changes had been made. Old Biff therefore returned to his original unchanged timeline - the timeline split caused by young Biff using the almanac came after his departure, so he didn't enter the altered timestream.
28th Feb 2005
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: How does old Biff know how to operate the time machine?
Answer: Old-Biff first comments on the flying DeLorean "I have not seen one of those in 30 years", then he sees what he believes to be two McFly Jr.'s and gets even more suspicious, next he spies on Doc and Marty having an argument about the almanach and how Doc is opposed to time travelling for personal gain! What else does he need to know? And lastly: We're talking about a time machine here! Old-Biff could have stolen it, kept it for how ever long it took him to figure out how it works and returned it at leisure. We don't even have any proof for the days he picked to departed from 2015 or to arrive in 1955. The only verified date is his return from Nov 12 1955 06:38 pm.
Chosen answer: He doesn't, but it's hardly difficult to work out - the date setting readout is pretty obvious. Biff presumably set the date, then just accelerated the car until the time circuits kicked in.
Answer: It's a plot hole. Biff couldn't have known or suspected the DeLorean's time-travel procedure, which necessarily included Biff setting the precise 1955 destination with no previous instruction. Biff just suddenly "knew" how to operate a time machine. He also changed the timeline by going back to 1955, so there's no way he could have returned to the "normal" 2015. But he does.
It's not totally impossible that Biff knew how to the time dial worked. He wasn't suspecting what it was, he knew it was a time travel machine and thus knew what the dial was for and possibly being technically educated knew how to use the time dial.
We know from the first movie that Biff, by age 48, was waxing cars for a living in 1985. He hardly had a "technical education" and it's doubtful he acquired a technical education by age 78 in the year 2015. It was established in the first movie that he had become a timid underachiever.
Alright I agree, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But he has lived for 78 years by then, till 2015. Even though he has no clue on how the flux capacitor works, he doesn't need to, all he needs to do is work the time circuits, a simple keypad system which even shows which display shows which time. For someone from 2015, it's not so hard to figure out.
Answer: He could have taken however long he wanted to figure it out, as long as he returned it to the exact time he took it from. We don't actually see him time travel with it when he takes it, so, for all we know, he could have taken it to his house and taken the few hours/days he needed to figure out how to use it.
22nd Jan 2005
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: In the alternate 1985, there is an alternate Biff, Lorraine etc. Shouldn't there also be an alternate Marty and Doc?
Answer: Yep, and there is, but they're both elsewhere. Doc's been committed to an asylum somewhere. When Marty first meets the alternate Biff, Biff tells him that he's supposed to be in Switzerland at boarding school - that's where the alternate Marty is.
Wouldn't someone probably see Doc and report that he escaped from the asylum?
Maybe, but no way to be sure, and they're not around long enough for that to be an issue anyway.
Answer: Doc would most likely not have been seen by anyone, as the time he spent in the alternate 1985 was primarily inside the DeLorean, at a boarded-up library, graveyard, and his lab (and all at night too) so most likely not spotted by the public.
Even if someone had seen Doc, it could've been dismissed as someone who looks like him. Even if they did report his escape, someone would either call or go to the asylum and verify Doc was still there.
I also don't think that Doc Brown ever achieved celebrity status prior to his being committed, so how would the average person even recognize him as some obscure scientist who was put away?
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Chosen answer: We see the alternate Marty depart for the past at the end of the the first movie. As for Doc, as he's simply lived through the thirty years from when the timeline was changed, rather than jumping through time to get there, he actually is the alternate Doc.
Tailkinker ★