Best trilogy that exists without any spinoffs or prequels. First film is my favorite film of all time. You make some interesting points. For me I think the simplified version of how time travel is depicted serves the audience, and the story being told.
As far as I can tell, no one can really 'go back in time', because the very act of doing so simply creates a new timeline, one where you "go back in time", but the original timeline you were in, continues on, without you, and is never changed, except for your disappearance (into an offshoot timeline). It's less about time travel in the sense of Doctor Who or slingshotting around a stellar mass at warp speed a la Star Trek, and more about moving between different timelines, some which may not exist until you create it by "going back in time". The quantum probability of a different multiverse version of yourself creating or accessing a time machine to "go back in time", once you actually "go back in time", settles on that reality and creates it, an entire universe branching off. I do wonder if those new timelines created have actual real 'pasts', or did that timeline only start from the point that you created it and doesn't have an actual past before that point, only the shared past in people's memories in that newly branched universe. I think in the movie, Doc Brown has drawn on a chalkboard exactly this concept, but I can't recall how he explains how it's possible to then go back in time, if the act of time travel in and of itself branches off into a new timeline. In that sense, I find time travel stories unbelievable, but it's entertaining if you just follow it for the plot and characters, as opposed to taking seriously the idea that anyone can go back in time and change things, which unfortunately is that one wish many humans have: regret. Also, Marty McFly's dad's voyeurism is a criminal sex offence, so I find the idea that it was so normalized as to be a 'joke' that gets rewarded with him getting to marry the woman he is stalking, is disturbing. It's very creepy, and yet it's a common theme in a lot of '80s 'teen sex comedies' from the same era.
In your second to last paragraph, I agree that suspending disbelief is important. You kind of just have to accept the laws of physics in that movie series' universe the same way you have to just accept that the force is a thing in Star Wars. Regarding your last paragraph, yeah, these movies revealed a lot of weird things that were more normalized in the past, which is why Disney wanted no part of that franchise.
You nailed the main con for me.... cheesy exposition. It's incessant. Zemekis' films tend to suffer from an overabundance of exposition to move the plot along. That said, they're still fun movies.
Best trilogy that exists without any spinoffs or prequels. First film is my favorite film of all time. You make some interesting points. For me I think the simplified version of how time travel is depicted serves the audience, and the story being told.
Nailed it Raymond.
Thanks, Jim!
As far as I can tell, no one can really 'go back in time', because the very act of doing so simply creates a new timeline, one where you "go back in time", but the original timeline you were in, continues on, without you, and is never changed, except for your disappearance (into an offshoot timeline).
It's less about time travel in the sense of Doctor Who or slingshotting around a stellar mass at warp speed a la Star Trek, and more about moving between different timelines, some which may not exist until you create it by "going back in time". The quantum probability of a different multiverse version of yourself creating or accessing a time machine to "go back in time", once you actually "go back in time", settles on that reality and creates it, an entire universe branching off.
I do wonder if those new timelines created have actual real 'pasts', or did that timeline only start from the point that you created it and doesn't have an actual past before that point, only the shared past in people's memories in that newly branched universe. I think in the movie, Doc Brown has drawn on a chalkboard exactly this concept, but I can't recall how he explains how it's possible to then go back in time, if the act of time travel in and of itself branches off into a new timeline.
In that sense, I find time travel stories unbelievable, but it's entertaining if you just follow it for the plot and characters, as opposed to taking seriously the idea that anyone can go back in time and change things, which unfortunately is that one wish many humans have: regret.
Also, Marty McFly's dad's voyeurism is a criminal sex offence, so I find the idea that it was so normalized as to be a 'joke' that gets rewarded with him getting to marry the woman he is stalking, is disturbing. It's very creepy, and yet it's a common theme in a lot of '80s 'teen sex comedies' from the same era.
In your second to last paragraph, I agree that suspending disbelief is important. You kind of just have to accept the laws of physics in that movie series' universe the same way you have to just accept that the force is a thing in Star Wars. Regarding your last paragraph, yeah, these movies revealed a lot of weird things that were more normalized in the past, which is why Disney wanted no part of that franchise.
You nailed the main con for me.... cheesy exposition. It's incessant. Zemekis' films tend to suffer from an overabundance of exposition to move the plot along. That said, they're still fun movies.
Yep. I suppose filmmakers probably have to balance writing quality with runtime.