All Marty needed to do..

Time travel movies with artificial time limits. Gotta love 'em.

This is of course a great movie, but the more you think about things in these time travel movies, the more you realize the characters were really stupid and weird.

All that Marty would need to do is tell the doc to:

a) Never conduct his time-travel experiment in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall (or Ranch area)

b) Find some other energy source instead of plutonium

c) Find some other way to get plutonium instead of stealing it with libyans

d) Put extra plutonium (or whatever it needs to be) in the time machine FIRST, before even starting the experiment, perhaps even the day or week before

e) Don't invite Marty for the experiment

f) Make sure the time circuits CAN'T be turned accidentally while changing gears

g) Don't tell Marty how to turn them on

h) Don't input November 05th, 1955 as the 'destination time'

i) Don't call Marty's family after 21 pm (so inconsiderate!)

.. and so on.

I know Doc didn't want to know stuff about the future, _BUT_ he has no qualms about knowing things about future. Let's examine some facts that support my claim:

- "Is she pretty?" Info about future.
- "This is it!" the clocktower-flyer that Doc just reads willy-nilly, although he should avert his eyes and tell Marty to not show it to him
- Seeing the time machine, and that it works, and that he will finally invent something that works (major info about not only future, but HIS own destiny!)
- Watching the 'future tape' - NO PROBLEM, lots of info about future, him, his destiny, etc.

So he already has plenty of information about the future and his own destiny - where does he draw the line? "..Too much"? But what is 'too much'?

If "we gotta get you home!", and doc already knows PLENTY to make that happen, then why couldn't he know a little bit more to ENSURE it will happen, without any silly, impossible 'lightning experiments' that require more precise timing than any clock in 1955 could allow?

All he has to know is how to PREVENT Marty from ever slipping into the future.

These moviewriters had a real problem thinking fourth-dimensionally. Pretty much ALL problems would've been averted by 'information' alone. The doc knowing things would certainly changed the future (and thus the past).

The sequels make even a worse mess of this.

Let's look at some examples of how 'information' would have saved the day easily.

- 1950s Doc knows about 1980s Doc's death in the wild west (suddenly no problem knowing about his own destiny).

So he builds the time machine for 30 years and doesn't make -any- changes to how things play out, or -anything-? Really? How insane would he have to be? I mean, he's eccentric and dangerous, but not -that- insane.

The doc and Marty -clearly- make a plan to prevent Doc's death in the wild west from happening, so they want to prevent it. But all they need to do to prevent it is to just 'know about it' and surely that would lead the Doc to make necessary adjustments to his plans.

- Doc knowing about the Almanac (Marty could tell him in the 1950s) would lead to him telling Marty about it before they go to 2015 (although they don't have to go there, because Marty -knowing- about the kids would surely also alter things already), and the whole thing with the Almanac would never happen.

Surely Marty wouldn't just go buy that Almanac, knowing exactly what would happen because of it. OR at least he would keep it really safe, tuck it under the seat of the DeLorean or something until they get back to 1980s.

The 'wild west' doc with the time-traveling train could also go to 1980s, tell young Marty about the gasoline problem (or at least remind him about the DeLorean in the cave that would have gasoline in it), before Marty experiences any time traveling.

Or Doc could go warn Marty to NOT take part in that time-travel experiment, before it even happens. Or just invite him somewhere else so the 1980s Doc can't get hold of him.

They could solve -every- single problem by just 'knowing' about things. But no, they do the stupid thing, instead. Think of Kuni-san in UHF; "Stoooooooopiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid!!"