I’ve recently been on a Back to the Future kick, what with the 25th anniversary and all, and I rewatched the trilogy over the past weekend.  It was at the beginning of the second movie where common sense kicked in over the desire to be entertained and I realized that… yeah, the whole set-up for the second movie makes zero sense whatsoever.

I need to get this out, for it is petty and nerdy and nitpicky, but it will eat me alive if I don’t.  So here we go!

The setup: At the end of the first film, Marty returns from 1955 to find that his parents are better than ever, his dad’s hired an attempted rapist to wax his cars, and Marty has a new 4×4 truck.  Good times!  Then right as he’s about to kiss Jennifer, Doc Brown returns from the future all crazy-like, drags Marty and Jennifer in the car with him, and yells that “Something’s gotta be done about your kids!”

With that, they take off into the future and my issues begin.

1. What’s the hurry?

When Doc arrives, he’s about a 10 on his frantic manic-o-meter, rushing around like there’s an imminent crisis to be solved.  It makes for great drama and for sending out the first movie on a high note (and getting things kick-started in the second), but really — there’s no rush whatsoever here.

Let’s back up a bit.  When the Doc leaves Marty, he travels to 2015 where he presumably enjoys a lengthy stay (long enough to get a hover-conversion on the car, a facial rejuvenation and do some scouting).  Let’s say a week.  During that time he discovers that Marty’s son and daughter are going to get into big problems with the law because Marty Jr. can’t stand up to Griff and the daughter (I forget her name) thinks she’s in an episode of Prison Break.

So Doc high-tails it back to the past to get Marty so that he can change all of this.

But, at no point should we forget that he has a time machine.  Doc is in no rush — he could spend the next twenty years on a beach in Maui, then return to the same point in 2015 — but he acts like this has to be resolved ASAP.  And why couldn’t Doc Brown just fix it himself?

2. The Jennifer Conundrum

The makers of the films have gone on record as saying that they didn’t plan for this to be a trilogy from the get-go, because otherwise they would’ve never put Jennifer in the car with Marty and Doc.  Girls destroy bromances, yo!

But that’s what they had to work with, until they get to the future and Doc knocks Jennifer unconscious for “asking to many questions about her future” so that the film could return to the Doc/Marty pairing.

From a logical point of view, none of this makes sense.  First of all, when Doc arrives in 1985 he’s not hiding anything from Jennifer.  BAM, there’s a time machine.  BAM, you two are married in the future and have kids.  BAM, they’re in trouble.  Doc even orders Jennifer to come, because this concerns her too.

And then he just knocks her unconscious.  What, he couldn’t take a few minutes to explain all this?  Would the Doc knock out Marty if Marty started asking too many questions?  And considering what happened to Jennifer, why did Doc ever think it was a good idea to just throw her unconscious into an alley 50 feet from a main road?

3. You shouldn’t change the future unless you should!

I really never understand Doc’s attitude toward time travel, mostly because it changes on the screenwriter’s whim.  One minute he’s excited about exploring through time, the next he’s upset that he ever invented the machine, and so on.  In the first film his younger self refuses to know too much about his future because it could change things, but in the end he decides “what the hell?”

So as we go to the future, Doc tells Marty that he shouldn’t know too much about what’s going to happen, and what’s already happened, or else it could change things.  Fair enough, except that only works if you shove Marty in an isolation chamber and not let him loose into the town with vague instructions.  Marty’s going to learn about the future and his past — it’s inevitable.  Doc has already done so, as a matter of fact, so what’s the big deal?

Jump ahead to the rest of the second movie, where a major timeline crisis is caused by a character returning to the past with future knowledge that causes an alternate reality to pop up.  Changing things in time is bad, the movie tells us, except when it’s good — like when Marty’s actions in the first movie change the future (which becomes the first alternate 1985, when you think about it), or when Doc insists that they have to save Marty’s kids from being jailed.

Now how does Doc know that by changing these events in 2015 they aren’t going to cause even more problems for the future past that?  And if he’s willing to change events and gather knowledge about history, why does he start forbidding Marty from doing and learning these things as well?

4. Why did they need to go there anyway?

The short answer is: They don’t.  Doc could return to the past, tell Marty about the problems his kids get into, and Marty knows well enough to make sure it won’t happen come a certain date in 2015.

The slightly longer answer is: We needed a reason to go to the future.

I’m not sure why Doc was so concerned about Marty’s kids over Marty himself, who had his future ruined in that car accident.  Why didn’t Doc come back to change that?

5. Flying in broad daylight

Yes, because a flying sports car that bursts into flames and vanishes over suburban California on a Saturday morning will certainly not be noticed by anyone.

Well, except that attempted rapist guy, but he’ll sit on it for 30 years.

6. The problems of the latter two movies are really Doc Brown’s fault

All of the problems, all of them — the alternate 1985, George McFly’s death, the scramble to reclaim the book, Doc’s being thrown into 1885, Marty almost being killed in the past — are directly caused by Doc’s insistence that they go to the future at the beginning of this movie.  I’ve already established that the situation wasn’t that immediate or even important for them to do so, but because they did, everything got really screwed up.

If they would’ve stayed at home, or perhaps used a bit of caution instead of rushing out there like that, things would’ve been a lot different.  Boring, but different.