MovieChat Forums > Back to the Future (1985) Discussion > When Einstein was sent into the future, ...

When Einstein was sent into the future, shouldn’t there have been another Einstein?


I mean, in Back to the Future 2, when Doc takes Marty and Jennifer to the future, they see their future selves as married adults.

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This is probably just a plot hole that many time travel movies fall victim too. But I'll try to use some movie logic to explain it.

Marty and Jennifer were able to see their future selves because they had full intention of going back to 1985. So they were seeing the future in which they had traveled to 30 years prior, then returned back to their time and lived the rest of their lives.

Einstein would not have been able to see himself in the future because he had no intention on going back to the time he left from. So for that amount of time (1 minute) there was no Einstein.

Of course that opens up the question of wouldn't future M & J remember the date that their past selves traveled too, and the reason that they traveled there (save their son)? But that's just another one of those things you need to not think to hard about with time travel movies.

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You are correct. Doc would have to send Einstein back to the original departure time after he arrived in the future.

In the movie, it would have looked like Einstein departing for the future, then immediately returning back from the future.

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[deleted]

No, when Marty and Jennifer went to 2015 there should not have been a Marty and Jennifer, in that timeline Marty and Jennifer would have just disappeared 30 years ago and were never seen or heard from ever again.

Also some people have speculated that the Marty and Jennifer in 2015 are the Marty and Jennifer who experienced all 3 films and lived their lives after the 3rd film from 1985 - 2015 however this isn't possible either because the Marty we see in 2015 didn't stand up to Needles and got into the car accident, the Marty who made it through all 3 movies didn't.

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From the presents point of view the future changes immediately. If Marty was worried about his kids he could have just went to the convenience store and bought some condoms. Problem solved.

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I always wondered if there were two Doc and Martys in 1985B.

Doc was committed and Marty had been sent to Switzerland in this reality, we're told. So, wouldn't that mean the versions of themselves that came back from 2015 were some kind of paradoxes that didn't exist?

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I like the theory I heard on this board in another topic that Doc and Marty had only a limited amount of time before time caught up to them and they were erased in that event of Part 2. Which is why they didn't get erased. They stopped it all just in time after going back to 1955 to stop Biff from using the almanac. Also I am sorry but I don't really see time travel the way you do where you don't go back in time and prevent something but just make some alternate reality instead. Frankly it feels like that is what you were getting at TC. And I am tired of that sort of thinking being used to criticize these movies and the first 2 Terminator movies.

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Edit.

Thinking about it, if this version of Doc and Marty were erased from existence completely, they would never have traveled to 2015, Biff would've never stolen the Time Machine and gone back, ergo history would never been changed. In which case Marty and Doc WOULD have traveled to 2015.

It's the same with stopping their parents from getting together in the first one. If Marty goes back in time, stops his parents meeting, he's never born. So then he can't go back in time and stop his parents meeting.

Time travel doesn't exist, and will always fall down somewhere if you consider the plot too much. Better just enjoy it.

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Everything you just wrote makes my head hurt. You have way too much free time on your hands.

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It beats doing work.

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I'd rather be working than writing bologna like that.

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Don't let me stop you.

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Time travel doesn't exist, and will always fall down somewhere if you consider the plot too much. Better just enjoy it.


Agree.

The laws of physics and time travel in any given story are created by the author, and all we can ask is that whatever time travel rules they invent will be consistent throughout the whole story, but not consistent with whatever rules someone else comes up with.

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I actually haven't seen the movie in a while but now I'm wondering, how did Einstein operate the time machine in order to get back to 1985? If it was just time catching up wouldn't he just have appeared like when you vanish when you are being erased from history?

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This question proves you can't think fourth-dimensionally, so it's useless to read your threads.

Einstein SKIPPED over that minute. There wouldn't have BEEN an Einstein in the 'future', without DeLorean BRINGING one there. That was the only entry point into the future for Einstein. Where would there be another Einstein and why? Where would he come from? There was NO Einstein during one minute, so there wouldn't have been any 'other Einstein'.

Maybe better stop writing posts if you can't even understand the SIMPLEST time travel premise that was ALREADY EXPLAINED 36 years ago!

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Why do you need to go out of your way to be a condescending jerk when you respond to questions pertaining to Back to the Future? Or you insinuate that I'm too ignorant to understand the slightest of details regarding to how time travel may work. You previously did something like that when I asked a question about the DeLorean's fuel line ripping in Back to the Future III.

https://moviechat.org/tt0099088/Back-to-the-Future-Part-III/607f1f4f11b29a5d0fb44b5c/When-Marty-ripped-the-fuel-line-on-the-DeLorean-what-happens-to-the-rest-of-the-fuel-in-the-tank

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