Corrected entry: When Marty confronts Biff in 2015 and asks when, where, and how he got the sports almanac, Biff retrieves it from a safe and a lock box and carefully shows it to Marty. Because the almanac contained results from sporting events through the end of the century (the year 2000), it would have been rendered worthless 15 years before and would therefore no longer need to be kept in a safe, if even at all.
Tailkinker
9th Feb 2012
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
26th Nov 2010
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Corrected entry: In the year 2015, Marty's daughter Marlene is telling Lorraine that the reason the scenery channel isn't working is because the scene screen repairman called Marty a chicken and Marty threw him out of the house. Why would the repairman call Marty a chicken? Nothing at all makes sense about this, what could possibly provoke a repairman to call the owner of the home he was working in a chicken ? Even if Marty was rude to him, it would make more sense to just call him a jerk, not a chicken. Calling him a chicken likely means he was goading him into a fight and there is no logical reason for some repairman to want to pick a fight with someone he is servicing.
Correction: As we have no information regarding what happened, it is somewhat absurd to attempt to base a mistake on personal speculation regarding a trivial conversation that took place off-screen. It is unlikely, yes, that a repairman would call a client a chicken, however, as we are not made aware of any other details of the incident, it certainly cannot be said that it could not have happened.
Correction: It is a play on Marty's peculiar personality trait of being easily provoked to take unreasonable action when being called a chicken. A habit he cannot kick and probably has become known for ever since breaking his wrist in 1985. We even see Needles push his buttons with it. Apparently, the repair man tried the same.
11th Dec 2006
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Corrected entry: Doc and Marty learn the date when Biff was given the Almanac. It turns out that this is also the date of the events in the first film. Doc then surmises that they will not only have to avoid detection by Old Biff but also by their 'other' selves. All that considered, does it not seem a little reckless to return to that date? They have a Time Machine, and the book is useless to Biff until he turns 21 which would be 1958 at the latest. That's a whole three years and Doc could have chosen from any day he wanted to retrieve the book but he picks the day where they run the greatest risk of screwing up time even more. Given that he's always lecturing on the consequences of messing with time, and that their entire future depends on him succeeding, it seems a little out of character for Doc to not even consider the possibility that they go back to a different day.
Correction: It's a calculated risk on Doc's part. On that day, they know where Biff is, they know that the almanac will be out in the open and far easier to get. If they leave it until later, Biff will have had a chance to hide the book away somewhere, making it potentially impossible to locate. And while Biff might not yet be twenty-one, it wouldn't preclude him doing an illicit deal with somebody over that age to place bets on his behalf, thus altering the future. If they go back to the day when he gets the book, it avoids any possibility of Biff altering the timeline. It does open up the possibility of them causing problems, but given that they're both aware of the situation, plus know precisely where their prior selves will be on that night, the risk is relatively minor compared to allowing Biff to hold onto the book for any extended period of time. As for considering this, Doc undoubtedly did, but showing a long-winded justification on-screen would have been somewhat dull and would simply have broken up the flow of the film.
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.
Correction: No, this scene takes place in 1985 (Marty and Doc were trying to return home from 2015 and discovered the "bad" 1985 instead of theirs), so the almanac still contains fifteen years' worth of future information.
Tailkinker ★