The 1985 film, Back to the Future, seemingly had a good ending after all of that time travel shenanigans; however, behind its happy implication, there is a horrible detail that is often overlooked. In the film’s ending scene, Marty’s family’s life appears to have improved significantly as they are shown to be wealthier, his father is no longer bullied, and his siblings are also happier and better adjusted. The film’s premise sees Doc (Christopher Lloyd) pulls Marty (Michael J. Fox) travel to the past where Marty accidentally disrupts his parents chance meeting and jeopardizes his existence. He then spends his time trying to reunite them before returning back to the future.
When Marty returns to the future, it is clear that his parents, siblings, girlfriend and Biff all know and recognise him as ‘Marty’, however since Marty was stuck in the past, it slowly becomes apparent that another version of the character had been born into the new timeline Marty helped create – the new timeline that allowed for a happier and wealthier version of his family. That begs the question, where is this Marty who grew up with the wealthier and more adjusted family? This alternate version of Marty would have different memories, and ultimately a different life, than the one original Marty had before leaving for the past, considering he would have been raised in different circumstances.
However, shortly after, Doc pulls Marty away to attend to another time travel adventure, giving the audience and Marty himself little time to ask questions about the present reality.
Back to the Future Erased a Version of Marty
Towards the end of the Back to the Future, Marty returns to 1985 a few minutes earlier so he can save Doc from being gunned down by Libyan terrorists. When Marty arrives, he watches another Marty face the terrorists before escaping in the DeLorean. This is essentially the same scene as the beginning when Marty teleported to the past, just from a different point of view. It stands to reason that the version of Marty we see in the DeLorean at the end could have been the Marty who is the child of the well-off McFlys. So this mean that Back to the Future closed the loop with that ending, or did they just effectively erase that Marty?
Well since, that version of Marty never comes back and the original Marty carries on living his life, it is safe to assume that the second Marty was erased from existence. This is quite horrifying as the Marty we follow through the franchise is essentially an imposter from another timeline who has taken their son’s place. What’s more, it is also horrifying that the versions of his family that Marty grew up with have also been erased.
Doc Brown Might Have Saved the McFlys From Knowing the Truth
Doc’s insistence on Marty leaving with him at the end of Back to the Future implies that he knows something wrong happened with the well-off Marty. Perhaps he pulled Marty out of the scene because if he were to remain, he could tell his parents about the time travel adventures, which could eventually hint at the possibility of their son being erased as discussed above. Moreover, in Back to the Future 2, when Doc arrives just in time in a deus ex machina fashion to prevent Marty from falling to certain death after an altercation with Biff, this points to him knowing Marty’s fate ahead of time. This, alongside Doc’s knowledge of Marty’s time travel, points to Doc preventing Marty from revealing too much to his family.
After everything that happened, it is difficult to look at the ending of Back to the Future without acknowledging the secretly horrific implication that Marty is an alien to new timeline and the version of Marty that belonged to that era had been erased and forgotten. This dark ending lurking behind a happy conclusion just shows how interesting, unknown, and unpredictable time travel is in the world of science.
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