Movie plotholes/ The only thing that doesn't add up
This is the greatest trilogy ever made (i dont consider the godfather a trilogy cause 3 sucked). everything in this movie was well thought out, all the events and the going back and forth were perfect (especially if you watch them around 15 times each and pick up all the small details 
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the only thing that think didnt add up in this movie was the fact that Marty's parents doent remember him. i mean sure its 30 years later (speaking of the 1st movie) but even if for only a week he was still a huge influence in both their lives right? when he started getting older wouldnt they start saying, hey wait a minute, this guy looks really familiar.
Worse yet wouldn't george suspect loraine of cheating on her with marty? i mean calvin marty in the late 60s?
just a stupid point. it might make no sence but its something that popped to my head and figure i'd share it. of course dont mean no offence to the trilogy
)the only thing that think didnt add up in this movie was the fact that Marty's parents doent remember him. i mean sure its 30 years later (speaking of the 1st movie) but even if for only a week he was still a huge influence in both their lives right? when he started getting older wouldnt they start saying, hey wait a minute, this guy looks really familiar.
Worse yet wouldn't george suspect loraine of cheating on her with marty? i mean calvin marty in the late 60s?
just a stupid point. it might make no sence but its something that popped to my head and figure i'd share it. of course dont mean no offence to the trilogy
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See the problem? Why and how did Old Biff return to the original version of 2015 after changing the past? He should have come back to the alternate 2015 that he created. Doc and Marty should have been stranded in the original timeline or overwritten and erased from existence or however it's supposed to work.
Their memory of "Calvin" would fade over time, especially his appearance. It would be very vague in their memories, even if they thought they remembered what he looked like, it'd be pretty unclear. They might have recognized him if he showed up one day looking exactly like he did in 1955, but seeing Marty grow up gradually, I think the association would be kind of... overwritten.
Calvin would have been out of their lives completely for over ten years before Marty was born, so they'd be likely to write that resemblance off as a total coincidence even if they noticed it.
Of course, if this new series does see Marty visiting the 1970s, these issues could definitely come into play.
How it's "supposed to work" is that as Old Biff got back to 2015, the world was already changing around them. Because the timeline shift occurred in 1955, it took a longer time for the "time ripple effect" to catch up to that point, so the effects of the change weren't immediately visible, but it's likely that by the time Doc and Marty left 2015, the McFly family no longer lived in the house that they had just visited.
Also, in a deleted scene, it was shown that Old Biff seemed to collapse and then vanish after getting out of the time machine, because his changed past resulted in his death sometime before 2015, so his old self was erased from existence... but the scene was removed because it was confusing.
I think they rationalized that in some commentary by the logic that men are subconsciously drawn to women who remind them of their mothers. So the characters aren't related, but it's not a coincidence that they look alike.
Really? I remember a scene like that, though ... guess I just heard someone mention it a long time ago, and I'm conflating the two memories?
Except it's his great grandma. I thought it was even weirder that Marty looked exactly like his great-great grandpa yet looked nothing like his dad. Then I saw ZZ Top, and I forgave them.
I think he still collapses in the film, but he only vanishes in the deleted scene. The deleted scene was included on the DVD so you might have seen it there.
Yeah but the point is that his grampa married somebody who looked like his mother, and his dad married somebody who looked like his mother, so the resemblance was passed down non-genetically
But the real Out-of-canon reason was that they just wanted to cast the same actress so they could maintain the "Mom? Mom is that you?" gag
*erases everything*
Got one or two things to add, though (fan rambling "on"):
Bob Gale addressed that issue not only with the "Men are attracted to women looking like their mothers"-rationale. The main reason that Maggie looks like Lorraine is... well, that they didn't want to make a BTTF without Lea Thomson.
That could work well within 30 years' time. But in fact, Bob Gale didn't seem to care much for that logic. In a first draft for Back to the Future II, Marty was supposed to go back to 1967, just 12 years after his first visit... and Lorraine doesn't recognize him as Calvin at all (but this draft would have been a terrible movie anyways
It makes sense, even if it is reaching...
Well, they'd only known Calvin Klein for a few days, and given no photo's were taken, it's understandable that they'd forgotten what he looked like. Plus, when you see someone everyday, it's hard to see them changing until you look at old photos.
I have to watch the movies without the Spanish dubbing, then. I suppose that, in the 80's, the Calvin Klein brand wasn't as well known in Spain as it is now, and the translators thought that the Spanish people won't get the joke, so they changed the name. In Spain, he's mis-called "Levi Strauss".
Of course, we never know if Clara didn't fall into the Ravine AFTER Doc's death in 1885, so it might just as well not be a plot-hole at all.
I haven't watched it in a while, but I think Doc is only inspired to actually go pick her up (and subsequently save her) after having a conversation with Marty. In the pre-Marty timeline he may have been too late.
A more consistent (but sillier) plot hole has to do with the photo of the gravestone. The gravestone in the photo fades and disappears, but logically, the photo itself should vanish as well, since why would anybody take a picture of an empty space?
Your 1955 Doc there is in a different timeline in which it is Clayton Ravine.
When Marty finally returns to 1985 from 1885, he is in a new timeline in which it is called Eastwood Ravine. And if he had decided to return to 1985 a day before the original time travel from the first movie, he would have encountered a 1985 Doc Brown who knew the ravine as Eastwood Ravine.
Though there are plotholes-- especially with the Biff returning to 2010 bit... a lot of the confusion about what to expect boils down to understanding the notion of each trip to the past creating a new divergent timeline.
http://bttf.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline
Got it!
I think I was thrown off by the fact that the old maps Doc looks at still have it named "Shonash Ravine", and I thought that was because the now 1885-Doc actually rescued Clara (so it was never named after her). But in fact it was just the old maps that still carried the "Shonash" name.
This whole thread is giving me a headache!
You spanish and your dubbing. I lived in Spain for a while and was blown away by Arnold Schwarzenegger saying "Sayonara, baby" in Terminator 2.
In that case, why would anybody need to go back to 1885 to prevent a non-existent gravestone from appearing? Time paradox.
Again, it's similar to above mentioned scene in film 1. Marty has given Doc the letter about his death in the past, so his memory has been changed, and he knows about being shot... hence wearing a bullet-proof vest. That Doc is living in a "new" timeline that branched off back in 1885, when Marty "fell" into the Ravine. Although that branch-off took place way before Doc was born (and even before his ancestors had moved to America), so it had no real influence on his life, other than the fact, that he knows the Ravine as the Eastwood Ravine now. The same goes for the McFlys.
The second one always had me wondering why biff returns to the original 2015 with the delorean if he changed it instead of going to his rich 2015, but a cut scene on the dvd shows the old man fading out of existence (maybe to wealthy Biff's 2015?)
I agree about the tombstone photo in the third. Who would Marty travel back to 1885 to save doc if he doesn't see the tombstone?
But it would've been nice of Doc to say "Meet me at 1:00 at the Lone Pine Mall, bring my video camera and a bullet-proof vest"... now that he knows.
Yeah I meant something like that. If Doc had told Marty his plan with preventing his death before hand with vest and taping together the shreds of the note and then says "Oh put a note in my pocket so I know not to get killed." it would make you wonder, who told Doc beforehand and would have made no sense. Doc has to make Marty in think he's dead in the end of part 1 or else marty will have no reason to warn him in 1955 and as you said that leads to a paradox or death. I've seen people warning themselves before in time traveling stories and it's annoying.
They should have gone to a future in which they mysteriously disapeared in 1985, the morning they were supposed to go to the lake, and were never seen again.
Think about it. It really doesn't make sense otherwise.
And by the way, Calvin Klein Marty is called Pierre Cardin in France...
Taken from the trilogy's bonus DVD FAQ:
They said Doc doesn't remember things because of all the drugs he did as Reverend Jim in the late 70's.
When Doc and Marty are out of gas in 1885, couldn't they actually get a little bit of that stuff from the time machine in the old mine????
Yes, and then the movie would have been over.
Well, we COULD have watched 1885 a little further while Marty and Doc go back to the future. We'd see Clara die and Buford maraud around the place without anyone stopping him...
One typically drains the gas tank before putting a car into hundred-year storage, I think?
I would have thought that Biff would say hey this guy looks familiar, since marty pissed him off soo many times and made him go into all those manure trucks lol, but in a way he did only in part 2 when he saw the delorean.
In Back to the Puture Part II, Marty & Doc go back to an alternate 1985 where Biff runs the town. We know Doc was sent to an Insane Asylum, but hey..."What happened to / Where is the Alternate '85 Marty during the movie??
Is he in jail? Is he dead? Or (my theory), did Biff have his goons send him away to another place, (LA maybe?) and is suprised that this Marty is back in town? I don't know.