Part 2 of the Back to the Future series seems to be a lot of people's favorites. Probably because of the hoverboards. I just find it frustrating. Probably because of all the gaps in logic.
Now here's the thing we have learned about time travel: changing past events affects the future. Doc knows this. In Part 1, his 1955 counterpart wants to maintain the status quo as best he can. He doesn't even want to hear about his own death and how to prevent it. "No man should know too much about his own destiny," he said. Let the future be what it is. In Part 3, he has remorse for ever creating that "infernal machine" after learning that he wasn't supposed to save Clara from falling into the ravine. In the beginning of Part 2, he is knocks out Jennifer as she was asking too many questions about her future. The rest of the time he's all about just throwing that book out the window and does what ever he wants regardless of how it may affect history and/or futurestory(?).
In Part 2, Doc visits the future year of 2015 and beyond (off camera.) He spends an unknown amount of time there getting a hover conversion and a Mr. Fusion added to the DeLorean. He learns that Marty's son, Marty Jr., is bullied into aiding a robbery and sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2015. His daughter, Marlene, attempts to break out her brother and gets caught. She is sentenced to 20 years in jail. He goes even further into the future to discover that this event ruins the McFly family from then on. Once again going against his original thoughts of not knowing your own destiny, he goes back to 1985 and picks up Marty and Jennifer and brings them to 2015 to save their kids.
But even the knowledge of this event is enough to change the future. The future that they should have traveled to wouldn't be the one that was unaltered. They should have traveled to a future where Marty and Jennifer have been to the future. But instead they go a future where they apparently haven't. In fact, they seem absolutely clueless to the fact that they were there that day. Marty may all no-big-deal-about time travel, but Jennifer is fairly new to it. And their future selves should have the memories of doing so.
Marty should have the memories of impersonating his son. Jennifer should have the memories of being at her future home and she's about to see herself....NOW! They should both have the memories of being here on this date in the future. But they don't seem to. Even if Marty knows to keep it secret, Jennifer is a time traveler, too. Heck, even Biff knows.
In 1985, Biff saw the DeLorean take off in flight and vanish into time. He has lived with this memory for 30 years. So it happened and he remembers it. So then should Marty and Jennifer. But then comes the huge jump in logic when Old Biff steals the DeLorean to give his much younger self the sports almanac in 1955. After he does so, he returns to 2015 and returns the DeLorean where he found it. After Mission Accomplished and they retrieve Jennifer, Doc and Marty go back to 1985 only to find that it is the altered 1985 (1985A or Bifftopia.) Marty suggests they go back to 2015 and stop Old Biff from stealing the time machine. Doc then states that they would only be traveling to the future of 1985A. Not the previous 2015 that they were just in.
The problem here is that Old Biff should have traveled to the future of 1985A in the first place. He set in motion events that would produce a future (we have seen the 1985 part) that is in it's own universe. There is a 2015 in this universe and that is where Old Biff should have arrived when he returned. Doc, Marty, and Jennifer should be stuck in another universe's version 2015 without a DeLorean.
The weird part is that Jennifer was able to transfer universes without a DeLorean. She was placed on a porch in 1985A and was still on the porch (as herself) in the final 1985. She isn't a prime as she comes from the second universe created from the effect of time travel. Neither is Doc, as he also comes from the second universe created. Marty is a prime as his original universe he was born in was unaffected until he became a time traveler. Even so, as shown by the abilities of Jennifer, these three should have instantly transferred universes once the change was made. This doesn't really make any sense and just shouldn't be, but it evidently can happen.
Maybe it only happens when you're unconscious.
But Jennifer was unconscious in 2015, too.
Alright. Then I don't know how it happened.
The universe they would have traveled to, 2015A perhaps, may or may not have had a DeLorean in it. I would say that it would as Old Biff just arrived there and they are still in the neighborhood (assuming Hilldale exists in this new universe.) Assuming it is the future of 1985A, where the Vietnam War was still going on, it could be a war zone, a nuclear wasteland, or any number of things unfriendly to the human body. Also assuming Old Biff would return it where he found it. It really makes no sense to do so as it is another universe and obvious to Doc and Marty that something has changed.
One would assume that universes don't change to the outsider until time displacement occurs with the DeLorean, right? That's why they didn't know about Biff's time travel until they arrived in 1985A and found it altered. Marty didn't know about the altered 1985 at the end of Part 1 until he traveled there. Likewise, Eastwood Ravine isn't named such until after the 1885C timeline. But Jennifer didn't use a DeLorean and it bothers me.
Here's why it bothers me. Doc and Jennifer are more or less on the same plane of existence. They both originated in the same universe. Marty is from another universe. Jennifer's ability to transcend universal boundaries means that Marty and Doc (and Jennifer and Einstein) should have also transcended the universal boundary when Old Biff changed the future. If it simply changes around them, like Doc said in Part 2 about Jennifer in 1985A, then that should have happened to them in 2015 as well.
But it didn't. Why? I don't know.
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