Everything wrong with the BTTF movie

[ALEXAKOS]

Apparently those guys look for movie errors.
This takes quite some time and is very well done.|

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jboIiCsgIrY

[RoyHinkley]

When people ask me if I'm going 'back to the future', I always say "I'm trying to re-live the past".

[ccurzio]

1. If I were in a room full of clocks I'd probably subconsciously realize that I wouldn't need to look at my watch to know what time it is.
2. The dude can't look back a second time with an expression of indignation?
3. Hill Valley CALIFORNIA. It's a suburb of a larger city, and if the urban sprawl that started there way back in 1955 is any indication, Hill Valley has likely grown very large very quickly. (Also, calling out the title of a porn flick? Come on.)
4. Considering both Biff and George grew up in Hill Valley and still live there, it's not unreasonable to assume it's possible they work in the same place. Depending on the line of work (which we don't really know), it's not unreal to see an unproductive douche get promoted over the harder working folk. I've personally worked at many places like that. (And fine, if you want to count the continuity error of the pens as a mark against the movie fine. I'll give it that one.)
5. Dave didn't "clear up" the relationship between his mother and her brother, he was emphasizing that point to tell her that SHE should be the one visiting him in jail and not her kids. Come the FUCK on. (Also, "uncle jail-bird Joey" was dubbed in after the scene was filmed.)
6. Any DeLorean owner knows that the side-clearance of the doors is a mere 11 inches, so the "vertical-opening doors" would be very easy to get in and out in tight spaces.
7. Special effects were more difficult back in the 80s. The subsequent REAL flames placed on the road were far less intense than those in the establishing shot.
8. ...So? A dog saw something the other characters weren't paying attention to. Big deal. (I'm more interested to know how Einstein got the reflective jacket and hood put on him.)
9. They didn't "go to the mall", they were cruising around looking for Doc's truck while keeping their lights off to not call attention to themselves. As soon as they saw the truck in the distance (about the same time Einstein spotted THEM), they put their lights on and gunned it.
10. There is ice on the car, it's just not as prominent. (BECAUSE IT'S AIR COLD, AM I RIGHT JAMES?)
11. The barn has doors on the front AND the back. When Marty drove into the barn, the door through which he entered was already open. The Peabodys came in through the door on the other side of the barn. (Fair point about there being no opening behind the car, though.)
12. Another continuity problem with the sunrise and another fair point, but we do know that the Peabodys do live a fair clip outside of Hill Valley.
13. Marty is severely disoriented. It's more to the point that he should have known that Doc is older than 30 years when he knew him in 1985, so the "you're alive" comment originates from a 16 year-old kid's confusion of not knowing what the hell is going on.
14. Do you know of ANYONE (outside of coin collectors) who inspects coins during the course of their job to look at the mint years? But yeah, it's possible that someone somewhere may have noticed the year on the coin(s) once they entered circulation and chalked it up to a minting error. (And maybe made some extra money off of the find.)
15. Hill Valley is a much smaller town in 1955 (established as part of the commentary about the movie theater), so roads named after people in a small town should have some significance to the town. (There is a major street in Berlin Germany also named after John F. Kennedy, and the locals there know why. Berlin is a much larger city than Hill Valley, too.)
16. The camera may have been recording, but yeah, it wasn't steady or pointed at Doc. Another point.
17. Prop continuity. This is nitpicking now because this is what's wrong with ALL movies.
18. Dave's head is analogous to Marty's hand during Earth Angel. What can I say? Temporal mechanics is bizarre. (I bet the photo would be the last thing to fade from existence, or the subject matter in the photo would be replaced entirely - like the photo of the headstone in Part III.)
19. I've been startled awake by noise without screaming or making any kind of sound myself. It happened to me two nights ago, as a matter of fact.
20. It's more obvious that the kid is trying to grab the box away from Marty, not help him break it.
21. He straight-up kills George in Part II, so clearly he DOES have homicidal tendencies.
22. HE KNOWS it's his mom. That's why he's so damn uncomfortable. He doesn't WANT to look but finds himself doing it anyway.
23. We don't know how long Marvin was working the lock before we see the shot. Also, trunk locks in the '50s weren't as sophisticated.
24. Biff was ready for the first punch. He was laughing and looking away when George wound up for the one that landed.
25. George has had a confidence problem for a long time, and his new confidence starts to affect him more when he finally DOES step in and give that red head what for.
26. His existence is still in danger because it's established at the very beginning of the movie that only after George kissed Lorraine for the first time did she know that she was going to spend the rest of her life with him. It's established again when Marty says "If they don't kiss they don't fall in love, and I'm history."
27. Marty came back at the very end of the song (from the point of view of Marvin, regained his nerve) and clearly demonstrated guitar ability. Wanting to see more, Marvin suggested "another one!"
28. There was a lot of imaginary racial controversy a while ago about the Johnny B. Goode originating with Marty. What people don't realize is that Chuck Berry was the one who originally inspired Marty, so it's stupid to debate.
29. Pepsi box. More stupid prop continuity.
30. Strickland covering his ears twice. Another stupid shot continuity nitpick, but valid anyway.
31. We don't know why Dave was named Dave and it doesn't matter. We do know Martin was also McFly family name.
32. 10 minutes for plot suspense. And okay, he puts in 11 minutes.
33. DeLorean electrical problem CONTRIBUTING to the cliche. More plot suspense.
34. Another fair point about the electricity, but this is more suspense building. Also, Doc is wearing heavy duty gloves. and wasn't directly hit by lightning.
35. Considering the time machine only ever crashes into anything either during or immediately after time travel, it could be the field impacting with the structures leaving the car protected. I think the train scene at the end of Part III shows the car is far from invulnerable to impacts, and the ripped fuel line also in Part III shows it can be damaged.
36. Yes, it is Red Thomas. That's the joke. (And I think Patrick Stewart, or even Christopher Lloyd for that matter, are both good examples of aging well.) If Red was say, 38 back in 1955 that would make him 68 in 1985. That's not "really old" or even an assumption that he should be dead.
37. Fair point about the Libyan bus's headlights this time around, but we don't know what else may have been altered since 1955.
38. Exact distances notwithstanding, I don't think it's impossible to make it to the mall in that short a timespan. (And how do we know Marty ISN'T athletic?)
39. Doc didn't change anything else because he didn't want to corrupt the timeline further. He already went ahead and read Marty's letter, so to keep everything in check he did everything he would have done anyway (with the added precaution of the vest) to preserve the timeline. The statement "you'd think in 30 years he would come up with another power source for his DeLorean anyway" assumes that Doc read the letter in 1955. Considering Marty wrote on the envelope "Do not open until 1985", Doc probably AT LEAST complied with that request. By then, the Flux Capacitor (and its power requirements) had already been designed and most of it built.
40. Being the cause of the changes in the timeline, it's reasonable to assume that Marty still retains his old memories. We don't know if the ripple effect ever causes him to start remembering his alternate life, but it probably doesn't. So yeah, Marty is still his "old self" and probably had to bullshit a lot when discussion of his past comes up. Dave and Linda seem to have mostly the same kinds of personalities, so Marty probably isn't that different a kid personality wise but lacking the memories of your childhood would be a pretty shitty situation.
41. How do we know that Dave (or Linda, for that matter) live with George and Lorraine? We don't. They could just be there for breakfast.
42. ...So? They already saw he was stumbling around and acting weird (and wore his clothes to bed), so they probably just assumed his thinking the car was wrecked was because he wasn't completely awake.
43. Obviously from the point of view of the family, if his parents' car is wrecked they would need to use Marty's truck to get around in the interim until they got their own car fixed or got a new one. COME THE FUCK ON.
44. It IS a great lesson. Biff probably got very easily ostracized by pretty much everyone after being knocked the fuck out by one of the nerdy, unpopular kids. Hell, immediately after George kicked his ass, people were telling him he should run for class president. George very clearly excelled thanks to new-found confidence, and Biff, being nothing more than a bully, went nowhere.
45. I don't think they're giving Biff all the credit, but in the context of Biff being at the house and the discussion coming up (and that one singular incident with Biff turning George's life completely around), it's totally acceptable that they credit that as being a very significant influence.
46. So Biff's truck is gone. Maybe he left after dropping off the book, or needed to get more wax because he got caught trying to scam George. Maybe it's just more shot continuity errors. Ugh.
47. Claudia Wells didn't return because her freaking mom had CANCER. So they had to find a replacement actress. THAT'S going to be a nitpick? (I also wouldn't say George was "completely unrecognizable" in the sequels since George barely appeared in the movies due to the legal wranglings with Crispin Glover. And in the scenes where George DOES appear, Jeffrey Weissman did a pretty good job of playing Crispin Glover playing George McFly.)
48. In the same way Doc didn't open the letter until the last minute, he was probably trying to preserve more of the continuity by going to 2015 and again fixing things at the last minute. (And he traces Marty's family's complete future destruction to that one event, and plans things a good bit farther out. If he truly wanted to help Marty, he'd have told him about the accident with the Rolls Royce but they had to acknowledge the writing at the end of Part I as a plot point. (That's why the situation with the "kids" gets resolved fairly early on. The writers had to deal with that to get to the more important story.)
49. "Last Night", Doc pulled out facing the other way. He initially drove in the opposite direction to GET enough road to make it to 88, before turning around and pushing it to 88. When Marty tells Doc they don't have enough road to get up to 88, they were still at Marty's driveway and very obviously did not.

[Mark D]

Wow nice job!

You should email that to the guys that made the video.

[OverlandMan]

I've got 2 nitpicks with the film(s) that were not pointed out in this YouTube video.

#1. The Nuclear reaction according to the film generated 1.21 gigawatts of electricity. How? Nuclear reactions only generate heat. Look at nuclear power generation? They use the reaction to generate heat, which generates steam from water, which turns generators. In the first film they use a Plutonium chamber. In parts II & III they use Mr Fusion. Obviously this is silly twist suggesting mankind has figured out how to combine atoms for heat/energy generation (fusion) rather than splitting them (fission) and use it for common applications. Either way, both fission or fusion would only generate heat, not electricity directly.

#2. The scene in the first film where the Libyans are chasing Marty in the DeLorean depicts the Libyans hit the car a few times with the AK-47. This is realized when you hear the metal clanging sound in conjunction with Marty's reaction to turn the car the other direction and the sound of gunfire during and just prior. If they did indeed hit the car with the 7.62 bullets (30 Caliber), there should have been visible holes in the stainless penetrating most likely through the fiberglass. Additionally, most milsurp rifle ammo for 7.62x39 is cheap foreign stuff from Eastern Europe, Russia, etc. and uses FMJ (full metal jacket) bullets. The use of FMJs, which I would say is 95%+ likely in this scene, would have exacerbated the theory of the bullets penetrating all the way through the car, provided nothing of significant mass was in between the entrance and exit hole.

[mluder]

Wow nice job!

You should email that to the guys that made the video.

Agreed. Thanks for writing all the things inward thinking as I watched. Some people have a bit of success with something and then, because they need to repeat that success try to make stuff work when in fact they're really just trying too hard.

Cheers
Steven

[Mark D]

I've got 2 nitpicks with the film(s) that were not pointed out in this YouTube video.

#1. The Nuclear reaction according to the film generated 1.21 gigawatts of electricity. How? Nuclear reactions only generate heat. Look at nuclear power generation? They use the reaction to generate heat, which generates steam from water, which turns generators. In the first film they use a Plutonium chamber. In parts II & III they use Mr Fusion. Obviously this is silly twist suggesting mankind has figured out how to combine atoms for heat/energy generation (fusion) rather than splitting them (fission) and use it for common applications. Either way, both fission or fusion would only generate heat, not electricity directly.

#2. The scene in the first film where the Libyans are chasing Marty in the DeLorean depicts the Libyans hit the car a few times with the AK-47. This is realized when you hear the metal clanging sound in conjunction with Marty's reaction to turn the car the other direction and the sound of gunfire during and just prior. If they did indeed hit the car with the 7.62 bullets (30 Caliber), there should have been visible holes in the stainless penetrating most likely through the fiberglass. Additionally, most milsurp rifle ammo for 7.62x39 is cheap foreign stuff from Eastern Europe, Russia, etc. and uses FMJ (full metal jacket) bullets. The use of FMJs, which I would say is 95%+ likely in this scene, would have exacerbated the theory of the bullets penetrating all the way through the car, provided nothing of significant mass was in between the entrance and exit hole.

#1 The bridge between nuclear power to eletrical power is never expressed directly in the film but from the design of the car but I always interpreted it to be a steam driven turbine, similar to a normal nuclear/electrical power plant. The technical discussion from Probert and Scheffe on the design of the car points in this direction as well. It's also the reason why the fission reaction with plutonium and fusion reaction with Mr. Fusion makes no difference. They are both just sources of heat to generate steam and spin the turbine to produce electricity.

#2. Bullets are also shown to be hitting doc's scientific services van without any visible bullet holes...There is a sparking effect that makes it look like the bullets are ricocheting off. I guess they didn't want to have to actually put holes in either of the vehicles so I'd just file this under 'movie magic'

[Kane]

#1 The bridge between nuclear power to eletrical power is never expressed directly in the film but from the design of the car but I always interpreted it to be a steam driven turbine, similar to a normal nuclear/electrical power plant. The technical discussion from Probert and Scheffe on the design of the car points in this direction as well. It's also the reason why the fission reaction with plutonium and fusion reaction with Mr. Fusion makes no difference. They are both just sources of heat to generate steam and spin the turbine to produce electricity.

What happened to the plutonium rod after the time jump? They say each rod was only good for one jump (as seen with the Plutonium gauges going to 0 after the jump in time). Where did the plutonium go? Assuming the plutonium gauge was basically a radiation monitor, then the plutonium would have to disappear or be completely consumed for it to fall to 0 immediately after the time jump.

Was the rod consumed completely?

Also, what happened to the irradiated water that was used for the steam? Marty never has to replace the water? How would he dispose of the radioactive water?

[ccurzio]

Also, what happened to the irradiated water that was used for the steam? Marty never has to replace the water? How would he dispose of the radioactive water?

Unnecessary. On the trip back, they're shoving raw electricity straight into the flux capacitor, bypassing the nuclear system entirely. They didn't have to fuck around with anything related to the nuclear reactor.

After getting back to 1985, Doc took care of it.

[Starglider]

#1 The bridge between nuclear power to eletrical power is never expressed directly in the film but from the design of the car but I always interpreted it to be a steam driven turbine, similar to a normal nuclear/electrical power plant.

Something like a stirling radioisotope generator is possible, one of that size would output in the 10s of KW. The obvious problems are (a) stated power requirements are 100,000 times higher and (b) for short durations, a nuclear heat source is completely unnecessary; conventional fuel and indeed a conventional gasoline-powered generator will work better. You could solve (a) by saying that a turbine is spinning up a compulsator for a 1.21 GW pulse over several microseconds (e.g. similar to the return stroke duration for a bolt of lightning), but again nuclear power is a really heavy, expensive and dangerous way of doing this. Also we didn't see an extended 'charging up' time in the film.

Thus my guess was always some kind of betavoltiac generator (or since this is fantasy tech maybe direct gamma or neutron KE capture) working off the radiation spike from a plutonium criticality event. That would actually require fissionable material to work, not just any isotope or generic heat source, and it would be on-demand without a charge-up/spin-up period. The chamber would still require cooling after the criticality event so the steam out the back still fits.

[vwdmc16]

One huge flaw I noticed when I was 10 years old: when the car stalls seconds before Marty needs to race to the clock tower and he slams his head into the steering wheel where there is no horn button.... But looking back you can see he also throws his left hand at the turn signal stalk where the horn really is, still that always bothered me.

Also they didnt catch the odometer errors int he Libyan chase scene.

[Farrar]

I haven't seen the video, but one of the things that I thought kinda funny was that Brown said "I don't know how they found me," while his truck is labelled "DR E BROWN ENTERPRISES" in big block letters on both sides -- and, were that not enough, he put lights on the truck to shine on his name...

[vwdmc16]

I always want to hear more back story on the libyan meeting/ set up, How did Doc get mixed up with some terrorists? Anyone know of fan made side stories for Bttf?

[Mark D]

I always want to hear more back story on the libyan meeting/ set up, How did Doc get mixed up with some terrorists? Anyone know of fan made side stories for Bttf?

There is a hilarious episode of robot chicken that gets into the Doc / Libyan set up. Should be up on youtube.

[Rich W]

I always want to hear more back story on the libyan meeting/ set up, How did Doc get mixed up with some terrorists? Anyone know of fan made side stories for Bttf?

Kristen Sheley has written some good BTTF fan fiction over the years. http://www.kristensheley.com/bttf/

Lots of others out there, but I have not read any lately. https://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Back-to-the-Future/

[ALEXAKOS]

I would suspect (as most Hollywood films go) that the Lybians were eager to create a weapon of mass destruction to attack within the US and assigned their Plutonium to a Scientist (Doc) for that purpose.
:fancy:

[OverlandMan]

I would suspect (as most Hollywood films go) that the Lybians were eager to create a weapon of mass destruction to attack within the US and assigned their Plutonium to a Scientist (Doc) for that purpose.
:fancy:

It's a good thing he took their plutonium and, in turn, gave them a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts. He did this because he loved the USA.

[Kane]

It's a good thing he took their plutonium and, in turn, gave them a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts. He did this because he loved the USA.

Joke's on him. Everyone knows the best kind of bombs are made with pinball machine parts.

[Jonathan]

It's just a movie... but I'll bite on the nuclear ridiculousness topic...

Agreed on the nuclear reaction generating heat and not electricity directly.

For some relative scale of things in comparison, the nuclear power generation units I'm familiar with are about 750 MW each when at full power. The nuclear reaction in each unit is in the ballpark of 3 million horsepower of energy as heat. They are about 1/3 efficient, so say that 750 MW of produced electricity is about one million horsepower. I don't know what kind of transmission you would need to handle one million horsepower, but let's not worry about that for a moment. Each of these 750 MW producing units is doing so with a turbine generator set where this combined massive piece of steel all rotating at 1,800 RPM weighs in at about 300 tons. So to produce that 1.21 GW of electricity, even if for a moment, you need about 1.5 times what this real world nuclear reactor can do and your turbine generator set comes in weighing 450 tons. Yikes! That's a heavy car!!

Not to mention the irradiated water or fuel rod or whatever else was left over and they forgot to mention. I'm not aware of anyone coming out with a liquid uranium, and so if the fuel rod was used for this one nuclear reaction, it would still be generating heat long after that one moment. The reactors can typically shut off about 90% of the heat produced immediately by stopping the chain reaction by one way or another. The remaining decay heat just keeps on going though and only stops based on the half life of whatever isotope it's decayed down to. You still need to remove that decay heat which is why power plants have irradiated fuel bays where the used fuel is under water for a few years and the water circulating around it is sent through a heat exchanger and the heat is then sent off to a cooling tower or lake/ocean. You take away the circulation of the cooling water while the decay heat is still being produced and sooner or later tragic things can happen (like at Fukushima).

It may be interesting to note that the uranium that is stored at a power plant that has not gone into the reactor yet is not radioactive (or dangerous) enough to warrant any special shielding. We used to walk right by the storage area and it only had a fence around it for security, but not for shielding. Once it goes into the reactor and comes out again, then that's a different story. So to me, they shouldn't have needed the radiation suits to handle fresh fuel. Although the typical US design of a reactor is different than Canadian and the US uses a much higher level of enrichment for their uranium. You can make bombs out of the US stuff but not the Canadian. So why would any of these countries out there not want to use a CANDU type design and then there's no chance for weapons production? Kind of what the UN wants to know as well.

[SIMid]

The flames on the road was a signature effect in BTTF.

So when Doc dropped Marty off towards the end of Part 1 at his house. He reverses, goes down the street, does a U-turn, guns it to 88 and ...... no flames after the flashes??

[Kane]

The flames on the road was a signature effect in BTTF.

So when Doc dropped Marty off towards the end of Part 1 at his house. He reverses, goes down the street, does a U-turn, guns it to 88 and ...... no flames after the flashes??

I haven't seen that part in a while, but after he flashed away, is the road even visible in the shot? It could be off-frame so they wouldn't have to worry about it.

[Kane]

Not to mention the irradiated water or fuel rod or whatever else was left over and they forgot to mention.

Maybe that is how the Native Americans really died. It wasn't from the army slaughtering them... Marty had dumped the irradiated water and fuel rods into the desert and they all died of radiation poisoning.

[ALEXAKOS]

The flames on the road was a signature effect in BTTF.

So when Doc dropped Marty off towards the end of Part 1 at his house. He reverses, goes down the street, does a U-turn, guns it to 88 and ...... no flames after the flashes??

Doc respected the neighborhood so to avoid a fire he whent out without flames. The guy is a master at his game!!!! Hahaha

[SIMid]

I haven't seen that part in a while, but after he flashed away, is the road even visible in the shot? It could be off-frame so they wouldn't have to worry about it.

He did flash away, but you would think you could see a glow of red. That's my disappointment.

[SIMid]

Doc respected the neighborhood so to avoid a fire he whent out without flames. The guy is a master at his game!!!! Hahaha

Haha!! Maybe!

Just hope they don't make a remake. :tantrum: