Disclaimer: I do not own the Back to the Future trilogy.
Summary: What happens from the perspective of those left behind in the present whenever a time traveler goes to the past and alters history? Three instances – one from each movie – of the "ripple effect" taking place.
October 26th 1985 1:35AM
When Marty accidentally travels to November 5th 1955 and alters his parents' history…
"Let's see if you bastards can do ninety!"
Marty McFly accelerated the DeLorean through the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall as the Libyan terrorists pursued him in their Volkswagen. As the DeLorean hit eighty-eight miles per hour, it suddenly disappeared in a blinding flash of light, leaving behind a pair of fire trails on the ground.
In the area where a certain time travel experiment had just taken place, Doc Brown was lying the ground in a pool of blood, dead from the bullet wounds in his chest and torso. Suddenly, the bloody bullet holes riddled in the coat of Doc's white radiation suit and the pool of blood underneath him vanished into nothingness as if they were never there in the first place. Because they weren't! Not only was Doc alive, despite remaining motionless in the exact same position, but he was completely unharmed!
The name on the mall's sign at the entrance instantly changed from 'Twin Pines Mall' to 'Lone Pine Mall', while the image of the twin pine trees on the left side of the name morphed into a single pine tree.
At the McFly residence in the neighborhood of Lyon Estates, Lorraine Baines-McFly turned the light on as she entered the kitchen. Her husband, George McFly, was sound asleep at the table in the dining room, his head resting on top of it. He was still dressed in his work clothes. Next to him were the reports he had written, which he would deliver to his supervisor, Biff Tannen, in the morning.
Lorraine casted a weary look at her husband, feelings of disappointment, unhappiness, and regret once more dominating her mind at the reminder of what her wasted life had become. George was always a nice person and all, but she wished he paid much more attention to her like a proper husband and gained at least a modicum of a backbone to stand up for himself and not allow others to constantly treat him like a doormat. Maybe then she wouldn't be so depressed and miserable all the time or feel like her life had become a complete waste, and she and George would have at least a somewhat happy marriage instead of living like roommates who barely got along or acknowledged each other. Lorraine didn't want to think in such a manner, but given George's unwillingness to improve himself, she was sure that their relationship would never get any better, no matter how many more years passed. Frankly, she often considered leaving him and moving on to seek a better life, but could never bring herself to go through with it, mainly for their children's sake and the fact that Lorraine would, despite everything, always love him deep down.
She grabbed the bottle of vodka sitting on the counter and poured herself a glass of it. Although her daily consumption of alcoholic beverages didn't do any favors for her body, it certainly did slightly ease her depressed mind and help her somewhat forget the misery that was her life, even if the effects were always temporary.
Just as she was done pouring her drink, something odd happened.
A series of random images suddenly invaded her mind. The sensation was akin to snapshots quickly jumping from one scene to the next. What was going on? Lorraine wondered. Was her life flashing before her eyes? Was she about to die? Perhaps the years of alcohol consumption, smoking, and unhealthy eating, combined with the stress and depression of her overall unhappy lifestyle, had finally caught up to her. Either that or she was simply having hallucinations brought on by her alcoholism. Or maybe she was actually going insane? At any rate, she'd probably feel better once she laid back down in her bed.
There was something about the images, or memory flashes, that confused her. While Lorraine recognized most of the people in the snapshots, a lot of the events shown were very different from what she recalled actually happening. They showed her being infatuated with a mysterious kid – strangely, he looked very similar to her youngest child Marty – who got hit by her father's car (in reality, it had been George who was run over) and took her to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance thirty years ago. The memory flashes also showed George rescuing her from Biff, after the latter had tried get his way with her. What was shocking about that situation was that George had actually knocked Biff out with a single punch and took her into the gym where they enjoyed the rest of the dance, which itself happened differently with the kid who looked like Marty performing strange, but interesting, music on stage.
The forty-seven-year-old woman was certain that she was hallucinating, if not dreaming. Not only didn't she remember any of that happening, but there was a better chance of a snowstorm happening in Hell than someone as meek as George McFly winning a fight against Biff Tannen, let alone by knocking the bully out with only one punch. As much as Lorraine greatly wished something like that had happened, it was impossible in the real world. Lorraine felt terrible for thinking poorly of her husband, but the truth couldn't be denied.
She then saw images of her and George in their adult years, as well as Dave, Linda, and Marty at various ages during their childhood and teen years. But the George shown in the flashes was vastly different from how she knew him. He was brave, confident, determined, and never allowed others to bully or intimidate him ever again. He also never gave up on writings and even managed to publish several books. In a nutshell, this hallucinated version of her husband was the complete opposite of the uninspiring, timid man who was currently asleep at the dining room table. He was everything Lorraine could only dream of her husband really being, which was why she felt a pang of sadness by the knowledge that this fictionalized, but better, version of their life wasn't real.
As for their children, Marty was more or less the same, while Dave and Linda seemed far more confident and ambitious like their father.
She also saw Biff in the flashes and he was different too. He had stopped bullying George after what happened on the night of the dance and years later started an auto-detailing business instead of becoming a supervisor at the company that he and George worked for. Ironically, while George had become assertive, Biff developed a subservient attitude towards his former bully victim and seemed to be generally nicer and quite cheerful – a far cry from the intimidating and obnoxious asshole that Lorraine had always known.
Then there was herself. In the flashes, she looked happy, attractive, and was in much better shape. Even if the memories were merely hallucinations or part of a dream, Lorraine couldn't help but feel envious of that contented version of herself, whose marriage to George and overall life were apparently much better than her own.
While the new memories grew clearer, the old ones had become fuzzy and begun to fade out of her mind, causing her to worry. Granted, the newer memories were of a far happier and ideal life that represented what could have been, but they still weren't her experiences. It felt as if her memories were being replaced by those of someone else.
As the memory flashes suddenly slowed down, Lorraine looked over to George, who was still sleeping. Little did she know, her husband was dreaming that he'd successfully mustered the courage to stand up to Biff thirty years ago and years later became a successful science fiction author, complete with having a much better life with his family thanks to his confidence.
A strange sight suddenly caught Lorraine's attention. She glanced around and noticed everything in the house was... fading. Even her sleeping husband had become translucent.
It was in that moment that the memories that had flashed through her mind suddenly felt like they really happened. She fully believed... no, knew that she had lived through every single one of those happier events, while her original memories, which felt like a dream she no longer remembered the details of, were all but forgotten. She even felt better, mentally and physically. Depression and misery had been replaced by happiness and peace, while her body was a lot more energetic.
Before she could give further thought to what was happening, Lorraine herself suddenly faded and transformed. Gone was the worn-out, overweight, alcoholic woman who, despite being forty-seven, looked as if she was pushing sixty. Standing in her place was a much happier and physically fit version of that same woman, who looked great for forty-seven and could easily pass for ten years younger.
At the same time, all the furniture, equipment, decorations, and other items in the house had instantly changed as well, while George was longer at the dining room table. Everything was much neater, newer, and quite upscale as opposed to the rather cheap, tacky, antiquated items that had faded out of existence.
Completely unaware that anything had happened, Lorraine took a sip of the glass of water she came into the kitchen to get. After finishing the water, she washed out the glass at the sink and put it away. She then turned the light off and went back to bed.
She laid down next to George, who was sound asleep. The forty-seven-year-old wife of a great husband and mother of three wonderful children produced a smile, gratefully reflecting on the contented life she had with her family. For better or worse, there was nothing she would change about it.
Lorraine Baines-McFly closed her eyes and, within minutes, fell asleep. In the morning, she and George would go out for a few rounds of tennis. Furthermore, George's recently published novel A Match Made in Space was due to arrive, which both of them were excited for. It was going to be another great day.
October 27th 1985 2:42AM
When Marty and Doc travels to November 12th 1955 to retrieve the sports almanac from Biff Tannen…
"Don't worry, Marty, assuming we succeed in our mission, this alternate 1985 will be changed back into the real 1985, instantaneously transforming around Jennifer and Einie. Jennifer and Einie will be fine, and they will have absolutely no memory of this horrible place."
"Doc, what if we don't succeed?"
"We must succeed," Doc declared, seconds before the flying DeLorean hit eighty-eight miles per hour and disappeared in a blinding flash of light, leaving a pair of fire trails hanging in the smog-filled night sky.
On the roof of Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise, the owner of the high-rise, neon-lit casino and hotel building slowly opened his eyes as he came to. Not too long ago, he had been in his Jacuzzi with two hot ladies enjoying the Clint Eastwood film A Fistful of Dollars when that no-good, little son of a bitch Marty McFly confronted him with the knowledge of Gray's Sports Almanac, the sports statistic book that was responsible for the incredible fortune he had amassed. The bastard kid had demanded to know how, where, and when he received the almanac. He had relayed the requested information to Marty and attempted to kill the teenager immediately afterwards to maintain his secret. This led to a chase up to the rooftop, where he had Marty cornered, only for the latter to unexpectedly jump off the building. He had then approached the ledge, only for Marty to suddenly reappear out of nowhere, standing confidently on the hood of a flying DeLorean! Before he could fully react to the strange sight, the forty-eight-year-old billionaire had been cracked in the face by the gull-wing door, knocking him out cold.
Letting out a groan due to his head still aching, Biff Tannen was about to stand to his feet when something strange happened.
A wave of random images suddenly flooded his brain. It was like his life was flashing before his eyes, except the images he saw were very different from how his life had actually happened, and definitely not in a good way. What the hell was going on here? Biff wondered. What were these images and where were they coming from? Was this some sort of twisted joke of something? He was probably dreaming or hallucinating, most likely due to the concussion from having been knocked unconscious by the door of that flying DeLorean. Or he'd simply drank one too many glasses of alcohol.
Whatever the case, Biff wasn't pleased or amused by the images at all. The hallucinations or dream, which occurred in a form similar to a bunch of snapshots quickly jumping from one scene to the next, had begun on what was undoubtedly the most important Saturday of his life – November 12th 1955. The date he would vividly remember for the rest of his life. The eventful parts of that day had started when he picked his car up from Western Auto Store after the troublemaking punk Calvin Klein made him crash into the manure truck four days earlier. He'd then encountered the old codger with the cane who gave him his prized possession: the sports almanac containing the results of every sporting event until the end of the century. To this day, Biff still wondered what exactly had happened to the strange old man. His speculations included the man being from out of town (living either in a city far from Hill Valley, in another state, or even in another country) or perhaps from the future (which would definitely explain the almanac's accuracy). He'd also considered the possibility that the old man was an angel or messenger (if not God himself) sent from the heavens to bless Biff with incredible wealth and power. At any rate, he would always be thankful for that fateful encounter thirty years ago.
Unfortunately, the evening part of that Saturday hadn't been so great. After attempting to get his revenge on Calvin Klein and have his way with Lorraine, he had gotten knocked unconscious by a single punch from George McFly of all people! The same Irish bug he'd bullied since childhood, who'd been known by everyone as 'the weakest kid in school' for the longest time. There was no doubt that George's unexpected boost in confidence had been the result of Calvin Klein's influence on the formerly timid McFly kid, which was one of the many reasons that Biff still loathe the bastard who caused three hundred bucks damage to his car with every fiber of his being. Just like the old man, Klein had disappeared completely after that evening and was never seen or heard from again.
Speaking of Calvin Klein, for some reason, the flashing images in Biff's head showed him a version of that night where he had a few more unpleasant encounters with the punk bastard. In the snapshots, Calvin Klein had actually stolen his almanac and made him crash into a manure truck again! That wasn't what happened, Biff recalled. Yes, he had confronted Klein that evening, but only in the parking lot when he had ordered his goons to take him away so that Biff could have some private time with Lorraine. Then he'd simply left the school and gone home after waking up from the punch that George dealt him. Yet, these false memories showed him angrily confronting Klein outside the school gym, kicking him twice for stealing his almanac, taking the book back, and leaving the school, which was then followed by bastard unexpectedly showing up at his car in the River Road tunnel, culminating in a fight over the almanac. After Klein had managed to steal the almanac again, Biff tried to run him down with his car, only for his enemy to be taken into the sky by what seemed to be a spaceship as the distraction resulted in a second crash into the manure truck, after which Biff had actually gotten arrested for his reckless driving.
However, Biff knew for a fact that none of those extra events had happened to him, which he was thankful for. In actuality, he'd only crashed into the manure truck once and his drive home after leaving the school had gone without any problems. Most importantly, he'd never lost the almanac and went on to become incredibly wealthy with it and build his empire. Even though the snapshots obviously weren't real, they definitely made Biff despise the Calvin Klein guy even more than he already did, if that was possible. The mere thought of the one person he passionately hated more than anyone else depriving him of his chance at a great life and humiliating him further made him wish that Klein was still around. That way, Biff would find the son of a bitch and kill... no, torture him very slowly and very painfully until he begged for death. He would love nothing more than to make his old enemy suffer in ways that would make dying seem like a paradise.
As the memory flashes continued beyond the 1950s and into the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Biff realized that the images seemed to represent what his life could have been like had he never received the almanac or lost it to someone else, namely that punk bastard Calvin Klein. To say that the billionaire ruler of Hill Valley was downright disgusted and furious by the alternate turn of events he was witnessing before his eyes and how he'd turned out without the almanac would be a huge understatement. In the life shown in the flashes, the non-rich version of himself had opened an auto-detailing business where he waxed cars for his customers. Granted, Biff had always figured he might've gotten a job related to cleaning automobiles had he never amassed a fortune with the help of the almanac, especially after the manure incident, but what really set off his rage was seeing George McFly still alive and happily married to Lorraine (who continued to look as she did before Biff had coerced the woman of his dreams into changing her appearance to his liking), while his car-waxing self seemed to be almost forcing himself to enjoy life. Worst of all, this fictionalized version of him behaved in a pitifully servile manner around the Irish bug all the time! That could only mean he was definitely dreaming because, billionaire or not, Biff Howard Tannen wouldn't be caught dead submitting himself to the very weakling he'd stayed superior to his whole life, not counting the three years between the evening of George's lucky knock-out punch and the day Biff had won his first million betting on the horse race!
On the bright side, none of these events were real and, when he woke up from this nightmare, he would still be the richest and most powerful person in the state, if not the country. However, there was one problem. As these new memories grew more vivid, the old ones had become fuzzy and begun to fade out of his mind, causing Biff to become seriously worried. Could this somehow have something to do with Marty finding out about his almanac? He was going to make that kid pay, big time!
In any case, this couldn't be happening! He was Biff Tannen, 'the luckiest man on Earth' and ruler of Hill Valley, not Biff Tannen, the secretly miserable auto-detailer who pretended to be cheerful around others while sucking up to a still-living George McFly! He had to do something to stop this! He couldn't lose his real memories! The memories of being immensely wealthy and powerful, on top of the world, and married to the beautiful woman he'd wanted since high school! Those were the memories that made him who he really was!
The memory flashes suddenly slowed down as the last images showed Biff waxing a BWV in the driveway of the McFly residence, eagerly bringing a delivered box into the house, and witnessing a flying DeLorean taking off and disappearing in the broad daylight sky.
At this point, Biff fully believed... no, knew that he had lived through every single one of the events that had just flashed through his mind, while his old memories, which felt like a blissful dream he no longer remembered the details of, were all but forgotten.
Biff suddenly became transparent as he started fading from existence, while the same thing happened to the Pleasure Paradise itself. The high-rise casino and hotel building, along with Biff on its roof, vanished into nothingness, instantly transforming into the Hill Valley Courthouse and Clock Tower. The industrial smokestacks that had been incessantly spewing thick pollution into the air were also gone as the night sky suddenly looked very clear, while the strong stench brought on by the excessive amounts of airborne toxins could no longer be smelled.
Down below, the large crowds of biker gangs, prostitutes, bums, drug addicts, and others who had been outside, along with the two military tanks patrolling on the streets and all the cars and motorcycles parked or driving around, were gone in an instant, leaving an empty and much cleaner parking lot in front of the Courthouse. The streets were much cleaner too, no longer filled with excessive grime and free of all the trash that had been strewn everywhere. The only person present in the town square was Red Thomas Jr., the local bum, who was asleep on the bus bench as usual.
All the sex shops, adult book stores, strip bars, the porn theater, and the toxic waste reclamation plant had also faded into nothingness, having been replaced by normal stores, shops, and other businesses, including Lou's Aerobic Fitness Center, Texaco gas station, Statler Toyota, Bank of America, Essex Theater, the Assembly of Christ church (the front of which was damaged and boarded up after Marty had crashed the DeLorean into it upon his return from 1955 the previous night), and Elmo's Rib Cafe.
Not only had the Courthouse square changed, but the entirety of Hill Valley was suddenly in a neat and clean state, in a stark contrast to the war-torn, crime-ridden, toxin-polluted, nightmarish version of the town (which many preferred to call 'Hell Valley') that no longer existed – or, rather, never existed to begin with. The constant sounds of gunshots going off, people screaming, police sirens, and wildly barking dogs were completely absent. Instead, Hill Valley was peaceful and quiet, which was absolutely normal for two o'clock in the morning. The local high school was fully intact, instead of burned down and left in soot-covered ruins. The public library was also in one piece, as opposed to boarded up, vandalized, messy, and out of business.
At Oak Park Cemetery, a number of gravestones had instantly faded out of existence, including the one that read: In Loving Memory – George Douglas McFly – Born Apr 1, 1938 Died Mar 15, 1973!
At the Parker residence, Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer, was still asleep on the porch swing when the security bars on all the windows instantly vanished, while the smashed car in the driveway transformed into her father's station wagon, which, in contrast, looked perfectly fine. The dead leaves all over the place, the overgrown bushes on the side of the house, and the overflowing metal trash bins near the sidewalk curb were also gone, leaving the yard and rest of the area in an immaculate condition. Through it all, Jennifer remained asleep and wouldn't wake up until after eleven when Marty picked her up in his truck shortly after his return from 1885. Since she wasn't a native of the world that had just been erased from existence, everything had literally transformed around her.
In Doc Brown's garage, Einstein watched as the interior of it instantly transformed before his eyes. What had been an abandoned, rundown, boarded up, and utterly messy lab in a nonexistent reality was suddenly a much better, more organized, welcoming place, though there was a mess near the blown out amplifier speaker where many items were scattered all over the floor after falling off the bookcase. As with Jennifer, the world had transformed around Einstein since he wasn't a native of the previous timeline.
At the McFly residence, George and Lorraine were asleep in their bed, blissfully unware of the horrendous events that had transpired in a nonexistent reality.
In the Tannen household, Biff was asleep on his couch, snoring as he was completely unaware of the alterations to history that had just taken place. That was because, technically, none of the events from the previous timeline had happened in the first place. As far as Biff was concerned, he'd lost the almanac to a troublemaking kid thirty years ago and, thus, had to live the following years of his life without what would've seemingly been a huge opportunity to amass a literal fortune – not that his life was all bad, since he did own his auto-detailing business, which was thriving quite well.
Speaking of which, in the morning, he was scheduled to go to the McFly house again, this time to wax Marty's Toyota Hilux four-by-four pickup truck. He couldn't be late for that appointment or Mr. McFly would surely reprimand him for it, which the former bully strongly wanted to avoid. Whether he liked it or not, that was the life of Biff Tannen.
November 16th 1955 10:00AM
When Marty travels to September 2nd 1885 to rescue Doc from getting shot by Buford Tannen…
"Vaya con Dios!" Doctor Emmett Brown shouted enthusiastically as he a fired his pistol in the air while watching the DeLorean time machine accelerate on the terrain of the Pohatchee Drive-In Theater.
As soon as the DeLorean hit eighty-eight miles per hour and broke the time barrier, a series of images suddenly flashed through Doc's mind. He saw his entire life from the day he was born up to the current moment appearing before his eyes in a form akin to snapshots rapidly jumping to one scene to the next. Almost immediately, the future inventor of time travel knew exactly what was happening. The memory flashes were the direct result of Marty's departure to 1885 and the changes to history brought on by his presence in that year. In other words, the so-called 'ripple effect' was bringing the new timeline into existence.
Aside from the fact that Shonash Ravine had been renamed Eastwood Ravine in honor of a young folk hero who bravely defeated Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen and perished in a mysterious locomotive incident, all the images that Doc saw were exactly as he remembered them. Even the previous week he'd spent with Marty, along with sending the teenager back to 1985 through the lightning bolt that struck the Clock Tower, happened verbatim. Also the same were Marty running up to him saying he'd come back from the future, as well as Doc passing out from the shock of unexpectedly seeing him again, waking up the following morning, and reading the letter his future self had written and sent to Marty.
Doc then started noticing some changes once the images showed him and Marty at Boot Hill Cemetery after they had unburied the DeLorean from the nearby Delgado Mine. Originally, they had discovered the tombstone of Doc's older self, who had been shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of eighty dollars. Afterwards, they'd gone to the City Archives to look up information on Tannen and any details surrounding his murder of 1985 Doc, only to discover a photograph of 1985 Doc standing next to the clock that would become part of the local Clock Tower.
In the new timeline, however, there was no recollection of a tombstone or Doc's future self being murdered by Tannen, though Doc and Marty still had gone to the City Archives, since Marty wanted to know for sure whether or not 1985 Doc had turned out okay while living in the Old West. They'd then stumbled upon a photograph of 1985 Doc and, to their shock, Marty standing on either side of the clock that would become part of the local Clock Tower. This discovery had led to Doc realizing that they were living in an altered timeline where Marty had, for a reason unknown to them, traveled to 1885 against older Doc's wishes. Thus, to preserve the space-time continuum, once the time machine was repaired, Marty would have to take that exact trip through time and live through whatever events that would transpire while he was in 1885, which was exactly what he had done.
This meant that Marty had succeeded in his mission to prevent Doc's future self from getting shot to death by Tannen. At that realization, there was one thought that appeared in the inventor's head.
Mission accomplished. Congratulations, future boy.
Immediately after that thought, the new memories suddenly took dominance in his mind, while the old ones had lost their clarity. Then, the old memories were gone completely, fully replaced by the ones of the new timeline, which was the only history that Doctor Emmett Brown knew.
Elsewhere, one of the gravestones standing on the grounds of Boot Hill Cemetery read: Here Lies – Emmett Brown – Died September 7, 1885 – Shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of 80 dollars – Erected in eternal memory by his beloved Clara.
It instantly faded out of existence, leaving only a patch of grassy land in that spot.