Loops and Loopholes in Time Travel

Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future (1985) displays an interesting interpretation of time travel. Throughout the film there are interactions with the idea of time, and traveling between time, causing inconsistencies to arise in the plot. Using Taylor’s ideas of space and time in comparison with Lewis’ theories of time travel, I will diagnose specifically what happened in the film.

In the film a young man, Marty (Michael J. Fox), is sent from the year 1985 to 1955, and becomes entangled in his parents’ lives, threatening his own existence. Due to the story being laid out in Marty’s personal time, we must first acknowledge that the beginning of the movie is the start and the end of the film is… well, the end. Throughout Marty’s personal time of about a week, Marty experiences character growth and ends up right where he left off in 1985 to pick up as if he had never left. This is hardly the point of concern. Where things get messy is the idea that 1955 is in the past, and then all of a sudden in the present (of Marty’s personal time) giving him control over his perception of what actually happened, since he never personally experienced 1955 himself.

            One thing we can all agree on is that at the end of the film, Marty’s life is back to normal, minus negligible changes considering the fragility of the space-time continuum. Sure he has a different car and his brother has a real job. Yea, his dad is slightly cooler than he was before, but ultimately it can be argued that the 1985 that we experienced with Marty is the 1985 that had happened anyways (before his travel).

            This can be reinforced by looking at several “loops” as Lewis calls them. Loops are essentially events caused by time travel whose explanation is explained only by time travel. This would be like if I go back in time and give myself a blue ribbon… only to give it to myself again and again and again. Several of these loops include Marty’s name, the African American man running for mayor, and Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode. The fact that these loops exist in Marty’s life much prior to (in his personal time) his travel to 1955 doesn’t prove the continuity of this time travel absolutely. Chrisholm and Taylor would argue that his interference with time is sufficient but not necessary to these events taking place. Something could have happened to cause these things to happen regardless of whether or not Marty got involved. The loop that ultimately comes together to prove Marty’s impact on the past is that Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) takes Marty’s advice in 1955 to wear a bulletproof vest. While it is still only sufficient, Doc hints that Marty’s letter had something to do with it.

Throughout the film, there are arguments to back up the possibility of a branching away from the “normal” timeline and reconnecting; however, there are several inconsistencies. While I will continue to ignore the changes after Marty’s return to 1985, I want to address a few issues. While Doc continues to refuse knowledge of his future due to the space-time continuum and how it can change the events that are to come, he did make a time machine. He also knows, because of Marty’s video, that he will live at least until 1985 at the point in which the video is made, yet he is afraid of falling from the clock tower. As a matter of fact, he shouldn’t care much about his future, because it is still uncertain to him, aside from his assured existence for the next 30 years. The only logical reason for him to care about changing the events of his future is because these events could interfere with what Marty and us would consider the normal chain of events. This all gets muddy, however he is slightly right in agreeing with both Lewis, Chrisholm and Taylor. Past events will remain past events and future events will remain future events, mainly because they are in someone’s past, even if that person exists in the future (Marty and us).

The most consistent aspect of the film is perhaps that Marty did not change, oddly enough. After his return to 1985 Marty’s life around him had changed, maybe only slightly. Still, would one not expect Marty to be different having been raised by such different parents? His brother and sister changed. Maybe his experience going back in time developed a change in his character. Maybe he learned some sort of lesson. Maybe this is exactly what the director intended! In dealing with such unknown and unexplored subjects such as space-time, time travel, and the understood continuum, could one expect the film to “get it right” without cracking the code of time travel itself? It is precisely these paradoxes and inconsistencies that make the idea of a time machine so difficult and foreign. After all, we had a time traveling experience of our own (cheesily enough). In the year 2013, we got to enter the world of 1985, then 1985’s interpretation of 1955, then 1985 again, and ultimately right back in our own present… our infinitesimally small concept of present.