Changing History problem (Spoilers)

edited December 2010 in Back to the Future
I've finished the game twice now and love it :D

However, there are one or possibly two problems with the story regarding history being rewritten. Spoilers ahead!




Near the end of the game when Marty goes to break Doc out of jail, he finds him already gone, with Tannen having taken him in a van to kill him somewhere, and the newspaper from the next day changes to reflect the change in events. But what I'm wondering is, what exactly did Marty do that caused this change to happen? As far as I can tell, even if Marty went into the past, did everything he did but then wasn't able to break the Doc out of jail in time, the Doc would have still been released the next day and then killed outside the courthouse. But something was changed, causing Tannen to decide to get the Doc out of jail and drive him out somewhere to kill him. But what was changed?

The second problem isn't as big and can probably be explained easily. At the end of the game Marty finds himself fading away, meaning something must've happened to Arthur. If Marty had never gone into the past, then wouldn't Emmet have still delivered the subpoena to Arty who would have then still testified against Tannen? But they delivered it anyway. My only explanation is that without Marty's help, Emmet was never able to deliver the subpoena to Arty, who then never testified and never got himself (possibly) killed by Tannen.

Does anyone have an explanation or a better one?
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