Episode 2 is great, but they really messed up the whole Paradox thing.
In a present where Doc never invented the time machine Marty would never have been able to travel back in time to alter Doc's time line to meet Edna int he way that they did. Thus they never would have met to begin with because he would have never traveled back in time. We can pretend this paradox doesn't exist, but this is probably one of the most glaring issues regarding paradoxes of the entire series.
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lets get an explanation!
We dont know what happens exactly if there is a paradox, doc theorizes on it but we never see it happen (or maybe it does in the example above). Maybe it takes time for the timeline to catch up, who knows. One theory could be that timelines become parallel dimensions.
For instance lets say in part I, when doc is electrocuted by the lightning strike as marty is going back to the future, he dies; the timeline would go as marty showing up in 1955, showing him the video of his older self from another dimension, marty returns to 1985 with the delorean but the time circuits and flux capacitor disappear or stop working and the is no shootout at the mall.
Or had marty and buford had the gunfight at the end of part III and one died, you could extrapolate that the same way. (no biff and griff, no marty jr.)
Furthermore if it was ever invented, it's less likely that Marty got a hold to it since Doc doesn't sound as friendly anymore.
The only logical explanation to all of these is that Doc was wrong for the entirety of the trilogy, and paradoxes do not bring the downfall of the universe "as we know it".
Remember the end of Part2 (or beginning of ep 2)? Marty arrives as his past self leaves, creating a time loop. If the time loop is not maintained, the timeline will revert to its original form.
Also...someone wrote that at the end of ep2, there is no flux capacitor.
You also have the case of the predestination paradox
(the time traveller is in the past, which means they were in the past before. Therefore, their presence is vital to the future, and they do something that causes the future to occur in the same way that their knowledge of the future has already happened).
Quote from wikipedia:
In the film Back to the Future Marty plays Chuck Berry's future song Johnny B. Goode, which then is relayed to Chuck Berry, resulting in the song having no original creator. Also, after Marty leaves, his future mother Lorraine states that she likes the name Marty, making Marty's name a possible instance of the bootstrap paradox.
Anyway, I view time travel as inter-dimensional hopping more than changing history. Say, when he went back and stopped his parents from getting married, his original timeline still existed, he just branced into an alternate universe where his parents never got married.
I see time travel as a train track. You can go in a straight line, but if you went backwards to one of those off-shoots and went on a different track, you'd be going in the same direction, just parallel to your original track, as it were. In that case, the current timeline Marty is in may have never had a time machine created in it, but that's irrelevant, as Marty came from another dimension.
Of course, that's where the BTTF series had a few problems. They mixed a few ideas of time travel. You had Marty disappearing because he stopped his parents meeting, indicating the existence of only one timeline, but in the second movie you had our Marty having time travelled and experienced all this, even though in 'Hell Valley' Doc wouldn't have made the time machine.
Long story short; it's suspension of belief, just enjoy it
No. The newspaper declaring Emmett's incarceration in an asylum was dated 1983. Doc wouldn't have finished the time machine for another 2 years.
There wouldn't be any duplication if original was never invented. Simple as that. Why would it have such a vague power all of a sudden? It's almost like movie magic. Wait...
Even going to back in time for one moment in time creates infinite amount of paradoxes. I guess that was the idea behind the dream sequence in the first episode. In all movies and this game, they've created numerous paradoxes that they weren't even aware of, while trying not to cause others. I believe space/time continuum simply somehow acknowledges time travel as another force of nature, therefore don't malfunction in itself to oblivion like how Doc estimates.
If that novel be correct however, Doc and the ticket should not have started phasing until after traveling back to 1986...
Unless it's impervious.
Clearly,the new Delorean exists in a state of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff,and normal rules don't apply.
I do think the Delorean being a duplicate has something to do with it not vanishing though. We are definitely working with many multiple timelines (parallel dimensions) here. I look forward to see what direction the story takes now.
No it shouldn't, the delorean itself still exists in the citizen brown timeline, it just cant fly or travel through time hence why the time circuits and flux capacitor stop working and the car crashes.
Perhaps. But I think that according to Back to the Future laws of time traveling and etc that instead Doc Brown should have stayed in the DeLorean and either been able to meet his duplicate, the enigmatic Citizen Brown, or there would be only him in the present day and he would have retained all of his original time line knowledge and memories until the time ripple caught up with them. My proof? Back to the Future 2 shows Marty and Doc in the alternate 1985 (as well as when in the game's episode 2 when both return to the present day 1986 to find the Tannen crime syndicate). In both these examples Marty has been sent away from Hill Valley for one reason or another by Biff, etc, and in BTTF 2's 1985A Doc is committed to an insane asylum. If the rules of the game's episode 2 ending/episode3 applied to the second movie, then Marty would find himself with different memories banished outside Hill Valley and Doc would be in a mental ward and that ending for the trilogy would have really sucked. Doc disappearing from the DeLorean in the ending of the game's episode 2 is more for drama than accuracy of the movies or real [theoretically, of course, as it's not real] time travel, etc.
And, yes, there would be no car. ;-)
I see it as a ripple. It takes time for the ripple in the river of time to catch up to our time travelers, explaining why Marty and Doc's memories aren't changed to fit those of their alternate versions of that alternate time line. Or if the alternate dimension theory is true, then Marty and Doc should never be effected by the ripple as they have exact duplicates elsewhere in that time period that never went back in time to come back in the first place, making them who came back from the past a sort of universal phenomenon. The way I see it, though, is that these ripples slowly heal the space/time continuum like a fleshly body heals itself from a cut or wound. It takes time for the time stream to heal itself with those ripples (which is weird since it's time itself we're talking about; shouldn't the ripples have already made it to the future/present before they get back there?). Think of how they also look at photos to tell when someone is being erased from existence. It slowly takes time. Why? For the plot of the movie to take place, of course. ;-)
DING DING DING! We have a winner! That's some smooth thinking, there! ;-)
I brought up this point a few weeks ago but got a logical answer from telltale. There probably shouldn't be 2 doc's and 2 marty's, that hasn't happened in any other alternate timeline other than the end of part I when marty arrives prior to leaving.
Here is why doc disappears; the Doc we all know and love is older than he should naturally be in 1986 due to all the time travelling. Since we can assume FCB does not travel through time, the doc we are with either gets transported to his natural timeline (ie. if he's spent 20 years time travelling, he would be taken to 2006) or similar to what happens to biff in part II, he shortens his lifespan in the new timeline and disappears.
Let's assume the following timelines;
Doc is born in 1914 making him 71 years old in 1985. He spends 29 years of his life time travelling meaning he's lived for 100 years.
In the FCB timeline, he dies some time between 1986 and 2015 (the year he would turn 100 without time travelling). This is why he disappears. You could argue he gets transported to say 2015 but if that were true, when they returned to alternate 1985 in part II, marty likely would have arrived in early november since he'd spent a week time travelling.
The way i figure it best is: The Delorean we know from ep 1 was just simply created in an alternate time line that still exists along side the ones we jump through. I guess nothing we do will erase that timeline. But then thats the time line where Doc had his surgery.....
I guess it's the same logic as the picture of the tombstomb in the 3rd film; at the end the tombstome in the picture vanishes but the picture itself doesn't.
A. The opening is merely symbolism and foreshadowing. It makes no sense in universe for Marty to have that dream.
B. The game takes place six months later, not one year.
It could be the duplication made that DeLorean special and immune to ripples in the time line. Like Fry in Futurama when he became his own grandpa (although that's just disturbing, really, lol).
This is the best explanation so far.
However we ALSO know Marty had Docs notes. Now while we dont know if the notes vanished or not, we also dont know if with all this stuff Marty had been exposed to, that Marty himself MAYBE fixed the Delorean somehow? Im sure Marty isnt that stupid to have not caught some tech specs of how this all worked.
Basically there are 2 possibilities:
A) time-travelling and changing history affects not only all other people but the time-traveller as well. If you prevent your own birth you would die. That's what BTTF I indicated by Marty slowly getting "erased from existance". But that would also cause the famous "grandfather-paradoxon". This theory would not fit with the common LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. If the time-traveller erases the cause to do his time-travel you will get this paradoxon. And there you stick ad infinitum.
my personal preference is for B because it does never create a paradoxon nor leads to an unlogic situation. But of course B doesn't work with the ripple effect: the photo taken from the tombstone in BTTF III would be from the 1955 which followed the 1885 where Doc was shot. So when Marty changed 1885 he created a parallel universe with a different development. The following 1955 would have a graveyard without Doc's tombstone. But the picture was taken in an alternate 1955 - the one BEFORE he changed 1885. So the picture with the tombstone would stay intact.
The movie doesn't have a very "logical" explanation of all this because it fails at several points: when the tombstone vanishes, why should the foto exist? Why should Marty in 1955 take a foto of an empty space at the graveyard? Why would Marty in 1955 even return to 1885 if Doc was not shot?
Why did Marty not vanish after saving Doc's life? There's no more reasen why he should be in the wild west.
Following explanation B above would lead to this: after Marty saved Doc's life the foto would stay the same as HE stays the same. the only problem would occur AFTER marty returns to 1985 in the end. there he would meet his own duplicate: the Marty that was stuck in 1955, got Doc's letter, took out the Delorean of the Delgado mine BUT DID NOT see any tombstone at the graveyard and thus returned without worries to 1985.
the same problem with deleting the CAUSE of a time-travel occurs in the game. The newspaper said that Artie McFly died and that was the reason why Marty travelled back one day to save him. He managed to do so and returned to Doc, seeing his dublicate just seconds before the time-jump. But why the heck should this happen? there is no newspaper anymore which tells about Arties death because he is NOT dead. So what caused Marty to travel back?
Same with the TCB-opening. Why should Doc disappear? Because he didn't get that old in this timeline? Hell if Doc wouldn't get this old, he wouln't even ever have landed in 1931, so all the events of episode I and II would never have been happened which would not only cause also Marty to vanish and be back in 1986 BUT also would lead to the paradoxon, that if Doc died earlier and all the events of epI and epII didn't happen then there would be no citizen brown which means Doc could get older, which means there would be epI and epII which means that there is citizen brown which means Doc dies earlier which means that epI and epII didn't happen which means....
see. option A (the time-traveller gets affected of the changes he implies) does simply not work. there will always be a paradoxon if you intefere with THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.
Apparently you have never seen BTTF Part II. Where there are two docs and two Marty's in 1955. So, um yea. You can take your BTTF fan hat off now. ;P