Just Where Do (or Did) We End Up?

Often times the journey is more exciting than the final destination. The opposite is probably more true when it comes to time travel. The blink of an eye, maybe some lightning, and you're there. Although some might be able to argue that the actual journey through time begins upon your arrival. But what is the final destination of most travelers? Home, I suspect. Even the time traveler wants to go home at some point. The ultimate rest stop is the one most familiar.

But having not just traveled through time, but also through the multiverse, Marty is at no point ever going to be able to return home. As far as the film series is concerned, Marty and Jennifer (also Doc and Clara) all have a happy ending. I don't think it is that simple. The universe he finds himself in at the end of Part 3 is never fully explored, but there is reason to believe that it is going to be really difficult to live in.

First of all, we are led to believe that Marty returns to the altered version of 1985. He does, in a way, but not the one we have seen. We would think that it is the universe he left at the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2. This is Jennifer and Doc's home universe. But Marty and Doc changed things in 1885 enough so that this has created a new 1985. Therefore, this cannot be the original 1985, the altered 1985, and not the Bifftopia 1985. It is a new 1985 universe. This means that somewhere there is the possibility that there is another Marty, another Jennifer, as well as another Doc in this universe. We just haven't met them. Yet.

We know that changes in past events can affect future outcomes from what they might have otherwise been. Doc changed the future of 1885, Marty changed it again, and the both of them changed it yet again. Eastwood Ravine never existed until this last time jump made by the DeLorean off the unfinished bridge to the year 1985. In this 1985, Eastwood Ravine has existed for 100 years or so. It is not the universe were Marty grew up. The stories he remembers from his childhood of a teacher falling into Clayton Ravine do not exist here. They are stories from another universe.

So where does Marty finally end up? Well, except for Jennifer (who actually barely knows him) he is going to find himself in pretty dire straights. The parents he knows are long gone. The parents he usurped from another Marty are also long gone. The parents he will find in this universe already have a Marty. So at 17, he has no where to live. He has no identity as his driver's license, social security number belong to someone else now. Jennifer is in the same boat as there is most likely another Jennifer in this universe as well. She is soon going to find out that this Marty does not remember much of their previous relationship. It's kind of a downer, but at least he didn't hit that Rolls Royce.

His only hope to escape this universe is to either wait for Doc to fly the time train by to visit, and take his chances somewhere else, or seek out this universe's Doc Brown and hope he's had the same epiphany about the flux capacitor 30 years ago and is in a similar state of production on his DeLorean. Of course, if this is the same, then it is possible that this universe's Marty may be past somewhere changing his future. Then Marty can assume this guy's identity like he did the other Marty's. What's the worst that could happen?

Two identical girlfriends from separate universes.

Aw, snap!