After watching BTTF trilogy for the hundredth time, I realized the movies actually make very little sense, because of the grandfather paradox.
 
For those who don't know it, the grandfather paradox is basically what would happen if you go back in time and shoot your granddad. Since your granddad is dead, you can't exist, so you're erased from existance. But if you don't exist, then you couldn't have gone back in time to shoot your granddad, so your granddad's alive. But if your granddad's alive, you're alive too, and you went back in time to shoot him... Etc.
 
In Back To The Future, Marty goes 30 years back in time and prevents his parents from falling in love. At that moment, Marty starts to be erased from existance, because if his parents weren't together then he'd never be born. But if Marty was never born, he could never go back in time to prevent his parents from meeting, so his parents would fall in love, and Marty would be born. But if Marty was born, he'd go back in time to prevent his parents from meeting.... Blablabla. Movie makes no sense at all.
 
Second movie, Future Biff goes back and hands himself the almanac, resulting in him getting rich, but later on Lorraine shoots him. If Lorraine shoots Biff, then Biff couldn't have existed in the future and he would be erased from existance. But if Future Biff never existed, then he couldn't have gone back in time to hand himself the almanac,so Biff wouldn't have been shot in the past. But if Biff hadn't been shot, his future self would go back in time and hand himself the almanac....... Blablabla, movie makes no sense.
 
I don't know about the third movie, but something about it doesn't seem to make sense either.

if you go back in time and have the slightest imperceptable physical impact on a dude he will probably have his sperms all jangled-up different when he later impregnates someone so he'll have all different babies and soon everyone on earth will be having different babies, well see ya

tho having said that,

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world - Chaos Theory

-wikipedia

Cant think of a single movie/tv show which did time travel well.. or at least where there would or might have had a paradox occur.

Maybe Terminator actually?

they explained this in the second movie. every time they travel back in time, time forks off into an alternate universe. doc brown literally drew it on a chalkboard for you. also time travel totally makes sense

the point wasnt to change the current future but create a better branch to be on

What I don't understand is why Marty never changes even though his timeline does. Upon arriving in Alternative 1985, he and Doc are the only ones who remember the old 1985. Shouldn't Marty instantly change to reflect the changes in the timeline, or shouldn't there be an alternative 1985 Marty running around?

alternative 1985 Marty running around?

Maybe he just took over the alternate Marty's body. Which is a... fairly disturbing idea.
 
or maybe they killed him.

Time travel, like magic, is tool that works in narratives in whatever way the writer finds convenient, and that certain kind of nerd cannot help but overly scrutinize and make prescriptive statements regarding
 
it puzzles me when people talk about how fantastical fictional plot device "ought to work"

I would argue that its less about how it 'ought to work' and that it just stay consistent within its own set rules.
 
Back to the future admittedly has few to no rules really 'set' for time travel but is set in a world similar to ours so we expect things to make sense to us. Like the lack of an extra alternate Marty.

Quote from: Warped655 on February 12, 2013, 05:19:06 pm

I would argue that its less about how it 'ought to work' and that it just stay consistent within its own set rules.
 
Back to the future admittedly has few to no rules really 'set' for time travel but is set in a world similar to ours so we expect things to make sense to us. Like the lack of an extra alternate Marty.

 
It is not so much the fact that a bunch of common garden variety nerds applying basic logic to the situation end up questioning everything. It is more about how when these very issues are so easily brought into the light, that the characters who exist entirely within the narrative who are supposedly experts capable of ripping right through the very fabric of space-time itself though a process that is more or less the metaphysical equivalent of applying a spray-bottle full of water to some tissue paper, are completely ignorant and/or entirely oblivious to these very basic inconsistencies with the actions they are performing.
 
I'm sorry if I do not find the Marty McFly character very believable as an actual human being in any BTTF movie that does NOT end with him using basic logic to effectively break the fourth wall. I GUESS that means there is something wrong with ME.

 
It's okay as long as you admit that you were wrong