Tim Babb’s March Blog Madness: Day 16

Back to the Future is a classic piece of 80’s cinema. The sequels aren’t bad either, despite what those hammer heads at the Now Playing Podcast say. But the sequels don’t actually exist, because there is a sequel that we never saw…because it would be too depressing…I’m talking about “Back to the Future Part 1.5.” To set this up, we have to go back to the first movie…

Not as much Huey Lewis and antics this time

I’m sure most of you have seen the movie, but just to hit the important points: Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox…duh) is a high school student who’s parents (Lorraine and George) are in a sad, depressing state and he gets shot back in time and interferes with his parents meeting each other. Marty then has to intervene to make sure his parents meet and fall in love or else he’ll never be born. In intervening, he changes the nature of his parents’ relationship and ends up fundamentally altering his father’s personality. So when Marty returns to the future he finds that his parents are happier, healthier (and since it was the 80’s, wealthier) human beings and that life is a great deal sweeter than it used to be.

Pictured: Success in the 80’s

Well that’s all well and good but let’s take a half step back to where Marty arrives back in 1985. He shows up at the Lone Pine Mall in time to see his past self jump in to the time machine and head back to 1955. Except that’s not really his past self. The Marty at the end of the movie (Who we’ll call Marty II from now on) didn’t live the same life as Marty. Marty II grew up in this sweet life with these happy, successful parents. He’s never heard the story about how Loraine’s dad hit George with his car and they fell in love. Marty II has only heard the story where Biff tried to rape his mom (yipes!) and George came in and knocked him out with one punch. So when Marty II goes back in time, he’s going to be more than a little shocked to see George as the whimpering coward he was in 1955. Not to mention that when Marty II gets hit by the car and he wakes up in Lorraine’s room with her fawning all over him, he’s not going to have any reference for that.

“This is NOT what I meant by ‘MILF'”

So in the first movie Marty knew that he had messed up the George getting hit by the car thing so he came up with a plan to get George and Lorraine together at the dance by creating a situation where George would have to defend Lorraine’s honor. But in Back to the Future Part 1.5, Marty II doesn’t think he’s interfered yet. He probably still thinks Biff is going to try and rape his mom at the dance. And until that night doesn’t happen the way it did in the first movie, history hasn’t been altered and the photo wouldn’t start to erase itself. So Doc and Marty II would just chill at Doc’s place for a week.

“We’re gonna get this helmet to work it it takes all week”

So Marty II wouldn’t befriend his father, he wouldn’t end up taking Lorraine to the dance, Biff wouldn’t yank him out of the car and go after Lorraine, and George wouldn’t show up to stop Marty only to find Biff. But the lightning bolt and the clock tower are still on schedule. So Marty II still has to leave the night of the dance…the point in time in which history HAS changed and THEN the photo will start changing. But he will be too busy getting the DeLorean up to 88 in perfect time to hit the wire.

“That’s weird, I never noticed Dave’s hair was cut off in this picture”

Unfortunately, Marty II will arrive in a 1985 where he was never born. George will never have sacked up to confront Biff and Lorraine still will have no idea who George is. So they will never get married, they will never have Marty II, and Marty II can never go back in time and push George out of the way of that car…which will mean they do get married and they have Marty who goes back in time and changes history, and then results in another Marty II who doesn’t, which results in a Marty who does, which results in a Marty who doesn’t, which results in the unraveling of the very fabric of the space time continuum and the destruction of the entire universe.

Now we’ll NEVER see the hoverboards

Nice job, Marty…you’ve killed us all.