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Intricacy in the Back to the Future trilogy
The Back to the Future trilogy is perhaps the most well-crafted trilogy of the 80’s. There are dozens of instances where intricate plot details align to make nearly perfect sense. Part of the power of the films is that even though they are so complex, they manage to hold the understanding and belief of the audience.
Throughout the trilogy, the DeLorean and its duplicates created via time travel make 14 trips through time. They are:
- 1) Doc's dog, Einstein, is sent one minute into the future to test the machine.
- 2) Marty travels back to 1955 from 1985.
- 3) Marty returns to 1985 from 1955.
- 4) Doc travels to 2015 from 1985.
- 5) Doc returns to 1985 from 2015.
- 6) Doc takes Marty and Jennifer forward to 2015 from 1985.
- 7) Biff travels from 2015 to 1955 to give himself the sports almanac, thus creating an alternate timeline.
- 8) Biff returns to 2015 from 1955.
- 9) Doc, Marty, and Jennifer return to the alternate 1985 from 2015.
- 10) Marty and Doc travel back to 1955 from the alternate 1985 to get the sports almanac from Biff.
- 11) Doc accidentally travels from 1955 to 1885 when the Delorean is hit by lightning.
- 12) Marty travels from 1955 to 1885 to rescue Doc.
- 13) Marty returns to 1985 from 1885. It could be argued that the Delorean made a 14th trip through time: being placed in the mine by Doc in 1885 for Marty and Doc to find in 1955. However, it did not actually time travel (i.e. "skip" any period of time) in that instance.
- 14) Doc and his family travel from the future to 1985 to introduce Marty and Jennifer to Jules and Verne, and to give Marty an undamaged photo of he and Doc Brown in front of the clock.
- (IMDB)
Further intricacies with the DeLorean (IMDB):
“There exist enough clues in all three movies to reconstruct the travels of the DeLorean precisely (to within a few minutes at worst, except 2015 Biff's arrival in 1955 and Doc's personal travels). There are a few interesting things to note: On November 12, 1955, between the time Biff arrived (or 6 am, whichever came later) and 6:38 pm (the time he left), there were three DeLoreans present in Hill Valley (ordered from its point of view): (1) The instance when Marty was trapped in 1955 in the original movie, (2) the instance when Biff came to 1955 to give himself the almanac, and (3) the instance when Marty and Doc came back to 1955 to take the almanac back. (According to the "ripple effect" timeline as presented in the films, there wouldn't be a DeLorean hidden by Doc in the mine until later that evening, when the lightning blast would accidentally send Doc back to 1885, thereby altering the timeline.) Not counting the time Doc traveled by himself, the DeLorean spent nearly 71 years (on its own time scale) from its first time travel to its destruction. By the time Marty made his ultimate return to 1985, he was approx. 14 days, 3 hours, and 27 minutes older than he should have been; Jennifer, on the other hand, is 7 hours and 26 minutes younger than she should have been."
There are also intricately-woken details with the clock tower: “The clock in the clock tower started running at 8:00 p.m. on September 5, 1885. The date is provided by the caption on the photograph Doc gives Marty at the end of the movie. The lightning strikes the clock tower at 10:04 p.m. on November 12, 1955. This means that the clock tower operated for exactly 70 years, 2 months, 7 days, 2 hours, and 4 minutes” (IMDB).
The many intricacies and fine details of the Back to the Future trilogy legitimize its reputation as being extremely well-crafted.
This page has been compiled almost entirely from the IMDB and Wikipedia.