Paradox
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- Doc: "I foresee two possibilities. One, that seeing herself thirty years in the future would put Jennifer into shock and she'd simply pass out. Or two, it could create a time paradox. The results of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe!... Granted, that's the worst-case scenario. The destruction however might be limited merely to our own galaxy."
- Marty: "Well that's a relief!"
- — Doc and Marty discussing the implications of Jennifer running into herself.
A paradox, in time travel, is "a situation in which the effect of an incident contradicts or eliminates the cause of that same incident" [1].
The classic example of this is the "Grandfather Paradox". An example of this would be in which a person travels back in time, kills his/her grandfather. This results in the erasing of his/her own existence-- and raises the question, if he never existed, how could he travel back in time to kill his/her grandfather?
According to Doc Brown, a paradox could ultimately unravel the very fabric the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe (or at least the Milky Way galaxy) and had to be avoided.
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[edit] Examples
- Marty McFly nearly created a paradox when he interfered with his parents' meeting in 1955. He erased the existence of his brother Dave and his sister Linda, as seen in a photo, and threatened his own existence. Fortunately, he still had one week to bring his parents back together in time for the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, and averted the problem at the last moment, with his father George kissing his mother Lorraine, at the dance. Had he not done so, the paradox would be easily defined: If Marty had never been born, how could he go back to 1955 to interfere with his parents' meeting in the first place?
- When Jennifer encountered her older self and fainted, a paradox was possible. If the younger Jennifer had struck her head and died after fainting, then she would never marry Marty, never have kids, and never give Doc a reason to bring Marty and Jennifer to the future in the first place.[2]. Doc manages to catch younger Jennifer as she faints and hopes that she'll conclude that she was having a dream in what was restricted action.
- Old Biff Tannen, after stealing the DeLorean time machine and giving Grays Sports Almanac to his 1955 self, returned to the 2015 and seemed to have endangered his own existence, collapsing in pain after he climbed out of the DeLorean. Director Robert Zemeckis cut footage that showed Biff being "erased from existence" following his collapse, after pre-release screenings suggested that it would be confusing enough to distract from the plot. In commentary for the deleted scene, Bob Gale explained that Biff had done something after 1985A that negated his existence in 2015A. Gale suggested that Lorraine, in the altered timeline, had finally had enough of her abusive husband and shot him "around 1996". The paradox would be that Biff would not be alive in 2015 to steal the time machine back to 1955.
- The creation of the 1985A timeline also caused the ultimate time travel paradox, preventing the invention of the time machine itself. When Doc and Marty arrived at 9:00 p.m. on October 26, the DeLorean should have been first tested more than 19 hours earlier in the normal timeline, and the time machine's creation was over 25 hours late by the time they left 1985A. However, Doc was in an asylum, Marty was in Switzerland, and neither one should have been able to take a time machine to 2015 for old Biff to steal, to create the 1985A timeline. The extra Marty and Doc had to discover how to repair the timeline quickly, not knowing when they and the time machine might start to fade from existence. As Doc told Marty, "We must succeed," since they were the only ones that could prevent this paradox.
- A paradox was threatened during Marty's second trip to 1955 when Biff's gang chased Marty into the dance; the gang spotted the first Marty on the stage, and was determined to jump him, which would have prevented the first Marty from reaching the clock tower by 10:04 pm and going back to the future, which in turn would prevent all of the events afterward. As part of his mission to get back the almanac, Marty literally sandbagged the gang's plans and averted the paradox.
[edit] Clocktower Paradox
The paradox of the clocktower is explained as follows: A bolt of lightning struck the tower at 10:04 pm on November 12, 1955 and stopped the clock from running. Because Doc set up cables, and diverted the charge from the lightning bolt away from the clock and down to the DeLorean, the clock should be undamaged. There should be no "Save the Clocktower" flyer to be handed to Marty in 1985, and no reason for Doc to be at the Clocktower to prevent lightning from stopping the clock. But if there is no reason for Doc to be present, then the lightning does stop the clock, and the flyer is printed, etc.
When Marty returned to 1985, of course, the hands of the clock were still stopped at 10:04. A likely explanation is that, before rigging up the wiring, Doc considered the paradox that would be created if the clock did not stop at 10:04 on November 12, 1955, and made certain that the clock would be damaged. Besides hanging (without planning to) his entire weight from the hands of the clock, Doc also hung a loop of cable over the minute hand.
[edit] Behind the scenes
The word "paradox" is often used to describe a mystery or an unanswered question. Among the tough questions asked of Gale and Zemeckis in interviews are:
- "When Doc takes Marty and Jennifer out of 1985 and brings them to the future, how can Old Marty and Old Jennifer (and their family) even be in the future?"
- "Doc Brown of 1955 learns a lot about the future from Marty. Shouldn't the Doc of 1985 remember all of those things that happened in 1955?" (More specifically, Doc of 1955 knows from Doc's letter that the DeLorean will be hit by lightning; thus, Doc of 1985 should, logically, know enough to avoid getting hit by lightning).
- "In 1885, when Marty tells Doc they're out of gas, why don't they just go to the Delgado Mine, dig up the DeLorean where Doc hid it, and get the gas out of it?"
(For their answers, see http://www.bttf.com/film_faq.htm)
Paradox was also the working title of the combined script for Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III, and was the title written on the clapboards during the filming.
Paradox was also the title of the musical score played during the scene in Part II in which the time-traveling Doc Brown talked with his younger self while handing himself a wrench to attach the electrical cable to the lamppost in 1955; since Doc Brown caused a "pair o' Docs" to occur.
[edit] Appearances
[edit] See also
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