If Marty Truly Is In An Alternate Reality Why Does He Start To Disappear?
So, after my big explanation to ruin your day and memories of Back to the Future on the previous page, let’s go into damage control mode for a minute here.
If Marty hasn’t just travelled in time, but is in fact also in an alternate reality why would his siblings start to disappear from a group photo and then Marty himself start to vanish into thin air whilst playing guitar?
This is an excellent question!
If Marty is in an alternate dimension surely his existence is unaffected by what happens in this new reality. Surely in an alternative reality he would be safe to break up his parents or even shoot his younger self and not cause himself to be erased from time or cause one of these often spoken of paradoxes.
Just to clarify what I mean by the paradox, I’ll give this example. If you were to travel back in time to yesterday and shoot yourself, the argument would stand that by killing yourself in the past you would now not be alive to live to the age where you decided to travel back into the past and kill yourself.
This would mean that you wouldn’t die…which in turn would mean you would live and then be able to choose to go back in time and attempt to kill yourself again…which in turn would mean you would be dead and therefore unable to go back in time and attempt to kill yourself once again…meaning you’d live… This loop would just continue endlessly and is an example of a paradox.
So, if Marty was in an alternate reality he wouldn’t be preventing his birth, he would be preventing the birth of an alternate version of himself. Therefore not endangering himself and there would be no reason why his siblings or himself would start to disappear.
So why do they start to disappear? And is this therefore not evidence that Marty cannot be in an alternate reality?
Maybe. Maybe not…
The Marty that we follow throughout the film is the original Marty (from our perspective as an audience) and if we follow the logic of the Doc’s diagram form Part 2, the alternate timeline was only created from the point in time that old Biff had travelled back into the past to.
By this same logic Marty will have only created an alternate timeline from the moment he arrived into the past in 1955. It could be argued that everything that happened before his arrival would still count as the original timeline that Marty had come from. In this sense Marty has truly arrived into the past of his own timeline, and in theory could affect his own future and existence.
The idea here is that Marty could create alternative timelines that branch out from his original timline, but this wouldn’t happen until he interacts with the past to make changes. But even then, and here is a key point, even if Marty causes new timelines and realities to be created it could be argued that he is still in that moment actively in his original timeline.
As soon as Marty interacts with the timeline in anyway what is known as the butterfly effect would come into force and the smallest change would make it a new timeline. This would have happened with events like crashing the DeLorean into old man Peabody’s barn and knocking over one of his pine trees (affecting the future to become Lone Pine Mall instead of Twin Pine Mall).
So does this mean that Marty was now already in a alternate reality and should therefore not start to disappear?
Maybe not.
As Marty came from the original timeline and arrived into what could still be understood to be the original timeline it can be argued that anything he brought form the original timeline such as the photo of his siblings and even himself could be open to changes in the original timeline.
As he himself had arrived into his own original and unpolluted timeline, it could be that he had affected the future existence of his siblings and himself and it could justified that they may all start to disappear.
But would doing this erase himself from that timeline? Or would it be that a new branch timeline is created where he isn’t born? Wouldn’t it just mean there are now two timelines, and he was born in one and not in the other?
Yes.
Yes he will have created a new reality where he wasn’t born, but there would still be the original reality to that where he did exist and just one day vanished as discussed earlier.
This would mean that in the reality where Marty wasn’t born, Marty could still exist without causing a paradox. In this reality Marty would only exist for about a week as a new kid at school in 1955 called Calvin Kline. He showed up one day, went to the school for about a week and then vanished on stage in front of everyone whilst playing guitar.
This could explain how the paradox would have been beaten, or alternatively as we see changes in time can be slow to take effect (hence his siblings slowly vanish) it could be that he vanishes and reappears in a never ending loop.
But Wouldn’t This Dismiss Doc’s Idea That Things Are Erased From Time?
Maybe.
The Doc of 1955 who talks about the theory of things being erased from time is obviously 30 years younger than the Doc who discusses the alternative reality theory in Back to the Future Part 2. In 1955 Doc had only just come up with the idea of the Flux Capacitor to begin inventing time travel, whereas the Doc as seen in part 2 has had 30 more years to research, and calculate such eventualities such as alternative realities.
It’s possible that Marty was causing himself to be erased on his own timeline, but it may also be that with actions like this he was also creating an alternative reality. Both can sit along side each other within the established rules of the Back to the Future franchise.
