Back to the Future - Back in theatres

There's an even bigger problem in the sequel, when grandpa Biff goes back in time to give young Biff the sports almanac, and then returns to the same future he left. Shouldn't be possible based on everything else we see in the movies.

 

Why must people pick apart a movie about time travel for being unrealistic?

 

That I can see, in a way. Young Biff doesn't make the bets until three years later. Grandpa Biff goes back to 2015 to the exact moment that he left. Maybe it takes three years for the future to actually change?

For one thing, the money thing is a plot hole that could have been easily rectified:

Diner owner tells Marty to pay at the front. Marty notices George already leaving and runs out without paying. Problem solved.

And it's a plot hole that had been a main climax of a movie from several years earlier (that my mom made me watch, for some inexplicable reason).

 

How dare you leave out his role as the head bad guy in Legend of the Lone Ranger.

 

Not to mention being Uncle Fester in the Addams Family movies. Or being the voice of The Hacker in the PBS cartoon, Cyberspace (which my kids love).

 

This is explainable. Dimes were silver back in 1955, so if Marty gives the diner guy a 1985 coin, it would be the newer design, and dismissed as counterfeit when it was found. Nickels can be in circulation for many, many years. You probably have one from 30 years ago in your pocket, right now, so all it would have to be is a 30 year old nickel, and that coin would be legitimate.

 

I don't know if I'd buy that explanation for the nickel. Marty didn't look at the coin dates before putting the money on the counter. Yeah, he might have had a 1955-era nickel, but what would the odds be?

 

You might be thinking of "Time Flyer" ... or, as IMDB now calls it (although we never, ever, ever called it that back then), "The Blue Yonder." Peter Coyote, Art Carney.

It was a made-for-TV Disney movie in 1985, and one of my absolute favorites as a kid (partly because the opening scene was a baseball game. Also, it was set in the '20s. Win all the way around for me.)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/

Kid goes back in time to save his grandfather from a fateful attempt at the Lindbergh flight across the Atlantic. Bumbling cops try to arrest him as a counterfeiter when he uses a futuristic dollar bill to pay for a newspaper and a candy bar. Kid spends the entire movie trying to stop his grandfather from flying and trying to evade the police. I won't spoil which one he's ultimately successful at.

 

Never saw it, but it sounds cool.

I was referring to "Somewhere in Time", a chick-flick love story with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, that, like I said, my mom made me watch one night.

Reeve, around 1980, goes to a fancy old hotel that has an art gallery. He sees this painting of a beautiful woman and has a feeling that he's seen her before. A few years earlier (he was a playwright), an old woman came up to him and gave him a watch (I think?). Reeve decides that old woman has to do with the painting woman, and he has to go back in time to meet the woman.

He puts on circa 1900-clothes, changes his hotel room around to make it seem like 1900, etc. Magically, he goes back in time, ends up meeting the woman, the woman's manager loves her too and tries to stop him ... she falls in love with Reeve etc.

At one point, she starts teasing Reeve about his clothing because it's about ten years out of style. He starts jokingly defending himself, then pulls out his pockets. A penny from the 1970s appears, and he sees it, and magically goes back to 1980 as she's screaming for him to stay.

And I won't spoil the rest of the ending.

 

You have to suspend belief at many junctures in movies like the "Back to the Futures" - it's a matter of enjoying the ride.

Last weekend, I watched "Stripes" for the umpteenth time, but for the first time in a few years. There were several, "Hey, wait a minute" moments. I still enjoyed the movie - again.

 

I could never get past the notion as an anal retentive kid that the U.S. Army allowed a man of John Candy's...carriage...into the service.

 

I suggest you don't worry about this sort of thing and just enjoy yourself!

That goes for you all too! ;D