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Why did Marty McFly’s hand start disappearing?
- Thread starter darz1
- Start date
To give visual representation that he had fucked up time and his time was running out to fix it. It's a time travel story, don't think about it too hard.
OP
OP
So the audience could follow the story, that he had a time limit/or how urgent it was to fix his parents up. Instead of just having a line reminding them, they show his hand fading. The time travel mechanics don't really matter, they're just there to support the outlandish premise, and often comical scenes.
Don't forget about the Marty that spent his entire life in the timeline that the protagonist Marty made until he took the DeLorean back in time.
Did that Marty make another alternate timeline where his life was even better than the one that protagonist Marty made?
Did he replace a Marty who went and made an even better timeline?
When does stop? At God-Emperor Marty?
Did that Marty make another alternate timeline where his life was even better than the one that protagonist Marty made?
Did he replace a Marty who went and made an even better timeline?
When does stop? At God-Emperor Marty?
Back to the Future operates on a model of time travel that's a bit... fantastical. There are no alternate timelines. There is one timeline, and changes made to the past will affect objects (including people) that have been displaced temporally. Newspapers, photographs, Marty himself can be altered or even erased when they alter the timeline.
It's one of my least favorite time travel mechanisms, but eh. It can work.
It's one of my least favorite time travel mechanisms, but eh. It can work.
Does the OG timeline still exist, but since Marty never returned to it, his family just believes he disappeared one day and never returned?
There are no alternate timelines in BttF. Changes to the past ripple forward and alter the future retroactively.
OP
OP
It's not a time travel movie, it's a family drama. The time travel is incidental, and it works within its own universe. It's a perfect movie
No, because there is no other timeline. Time changed and became the new timeline. Time travelers are somewhat immune to this phenomenon, depending on the needs of the plot.
So Marty effectively murdered his counter-part and replaced him?
No, because that counterpart is also him, and will never return, because the Marty we've been following is the same person. If they'd established the time travel slightly differently there would be a version of Marty who lived in the "good" timeline who would probably either want his life back or screw up the 1955 timeline requiring a confrontation between the two Martys. But BttF uses an assumption of singular existence meaning there's only one of everyone, except when versions from different time periods time travel and co-exist at the same time. The one fuzzy moment for this conceit in the trilogy is in 2 where the Hell Valley versions of Marty and Doc are clearly elsewhere while our Marty and Doc are doing what they do in the movie. Whether they replaced the Hell Valley versions upon arriving in the alternate 1985 or if this is the one instance of two versions of characters in the same time period from two different versions of the timeline co-existing is never explained.
It's pretty shaky when you dig into it at all, which is why the first and third movies are great in that they only use time travel as an excuse to tell a character-driven story, while the second movie, while fun, is a goddamn mess because it makes the story entirely about time travel, and the logic breaks down under even light scrutiny. BttF really should never have had sequels.
There is no Marty counterpart. The one from the original timeline and the one from the new timeline are one and the same.
It's canon. But the difference is that the almanac makes massive changes, to the point nothing resembles the 1985 they know. That's why Doc explains it as an alternate 1985. But notice how they never think about finding a way to travel to the original timeline. It's about burning the almanac so the 1985 they know comes back.
Always thought that was a visual representation of the percentage chance he had of being born if the current set of events don't change, like the least likely he'd be to being born the most transparent he'd become and eventually disappear.
Would be kinda cool to see everyone at the dance freaking out cause the guitarist just evanesced tho.
Would be kinda cool to see everyone at the dance freaking out cause the guitarist just evanesced tho.
Unless our Marty eventually regains the memories of "good timeline" Marty, I'm going to consider that a Dead Marty.
OP
OP
It's definitely canon. It's hard to say that it's consistent, though.
The best I could do would be to say that, first of all, Doc's talk about an alternate timeline is illustrative. Time had taken an alternate path, but the previous timeline no longer exists in the sense you may have thought was implied.
More importantly, in alt-85, our Marty was living on borrowed time. Since his origin timeline no longer existed, he'd disappear before long. But IIRC in BttF1 he spent a couple days in '55 before starting to fade away (despite fucking it up very quickly) but only a few hours in alt-85 in BttF2.
There is only one timeline. It changes shape to match the changes in events.
Marty was being erased slowly because the Time Reaper likes to twist the knife to make you suffer before you and your suffering are erased from existence. Also because Marty's instant erasure would have created a paradox. The Time Reaper was slowly creeping up on Marty from the moment he pushed George McFly out of the way of that car, but he gave Marty just enough time to set things into a non-paradox state.
Marty was being erased slowly because the Time Reaper likes to twist the knife to make you suffer before you and your suffering are erased from existence. Also because Marty's instant erasure would have created a paradox. The Time Reaper was slowly creeping up on Marty from the moment he pushed George McFly out of the way of that car, but he gave Marty just enough time to set things into a non-paradox state.
Were you not paying attention to the movie? I was like 8 when i first watched it and understood what was going on. Lol
Back to the Future time travel doesn't operate on multiverse theory