Marty McFly is an Intruder

[Jay Walker]

By reading the posts on this forum written by John Titor, I have found the practical flaws in time travel movies. For instance, in Back to the Future, Marty is introduced to a time machine invented by Doc Brown. Doc Brown hustled Libyan Terrorists out of plutonium. "You mean this sucker's nuclear?" Yes, but the first problem right there is nuclear power is not electrical. Nuclear fission in a nuclear power plant heats water, that then converts to steam, that steam turns a turbine that generates electricity. Nuclear power alone would not directly produce 1.21 gigawatts.

I digress.

The major flaw in Back to the Future regarding time travel is after Marty travels back and helps his parents fall in love, he then returns to the present. However, that is not where he belongs. There is already a Marty there that lived the good life, with happy and successful parents and siblings. The Marty that created that much nicer world came from a world-line where Doc Brown is... (spoiler alert) is shot by terrorists, and he himself disappeared, and probably feared dead. When he returns the better present, there is already a Marty that lives there. The crappy future Marty is attached to that world-line. He would be intruding on another Marty's life.

That is why John is unique. Hollywood has not made a time travel movie that actually makes sense. If he was a random lawyer, or computer scientist from Kissimmee Fl, or even a producer of movies or video games, why hasn't a better representation of time travel made it on to the big screen?

 

[Num7]

Following your theory, what do you think happened to the Marty in the happy and successful parents timeline?

 

[Jay Walker]

The question I have about that Marty, is if he would have met the doc, and would Doc Brown have shown the new Marty the Time Machine? Would the new Marty have any knowledge of time travel? If yes, I wonder if HE would mess up in a similar way, but make his parents miserable?
To answer your question however, the writers wanted us to suspend disbelief and assume that the Marty from the messed up time-line replaced any other Marty that should be living his life. However, the sequel they try to enter a second world-line in the plot. Which doesn't actually work because if that were possible, then we would have to assume that there is still a line where Doc is dead. In other words, if they would have started the first movie with the Many Worlds Interpretation in mind from the start, they wouldn't have such a flawed narrative.
P.S Don't get me wrong, I've seen the movies so many times, I used to often ponder the plot. Even as a kid when they first started coming out. Time travel has always peaked my interest.
What do you think?