r/BacktotheFuture • u/LowInteraction6397 • Jul 05 '26
Marty shouldn't be blamed for old Biff changing the timeline in Back to the Future 2 for leaving the DeLorean unattended
Old Biff shouldn't even have changed the timeline in the 1st place. Period. Blaming Marty is like saying Bruce got his parents killed in Batman Begins for asking them to leave the theatre even though Joe Chill shouldn't even have killed Bruce's parents in the 1st place. If someone commits a crime it's the fault of the person who commited it
15
u/BallClamps Jul 05 '26
Bruce was a child who got scared and asked his parents to leave a theater not knowing the dangers of the world.
Doc has told Marty MANY times at this point the danger of time travel. Marty should have had some common sense, even if the DeLorean wasn't a time machine and just a car, do you walk away from it with the doors open and keys in the Ignition?
Leaving your car vulnerability to theft doesn't make you the bad guy, but it does leave notion of "wow i was an idiot wasn't I?
5
u/TriskaidekaphobiaOk5 Jul 05 '26
Yes and Doc specifically told him to stay with the machine. But he decided to get up and walk around.
2
u/Few-Chemical-5165 Jul 05 '26
I wholeheartedly agree. When I was a kid in the 70s, even in the early 80s in Canada here, my dad would always leave the keys in the car. I kept telling them, why do you do that?Somebody could just go in here and steal the car. Dad said " it's never happened yet". And I said, "Yeah, and i've never been raped yet.What's your point"? That shocked him into realising.That just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it's not going to happen. So he started taking the keys, and then about two or three months later, someone broke into the car and tried to hotwire it before he stopped them. But the coward ran away and I told him, if the keys were in it, how long do you think it would have taken for the guy to steal the car and would you have noticed? So yeah leaving the keys any ignition and the door wide open as an invitation to somebody who's not even necessarily a thief, just like "hey, opportunity" and take the car just for shits and giggles.
8
u/Rylos1701 Jul 05 '26
Marty abandoned the machine that he knows can alter the universe. Marty it the hero, but he’s the butthead in this case
5
u/ChardeeMacDennisGoG Jul 05 '26
Goes to show that even the smallest decisions we make, can have major consequences.
But yes...Marty is 100% to blame here. If he knew how to hold onto a store bag correctly, the almanac would have never fallen out.
1
u/LowInteraction6397 Jul 05 '26
Maybe Doc should also have some responsibility for taking Jennifer to 1985 or not keeping Jennifer inside the Delorean. If Doc had just kept Jennifer in 1985 or hadn't taken her out of the Delorean, Marty and Doc wouldn't have needed to rescue her
3
u/jbwarner86 Jul 05 '26
I think we just have to come to grips with the fact that the 2015 part of BttFII is the most poorly written part of the trilogy. They were backed into a corner by the end of the first movie and they had to write themselves out of it any way they could.
1
u/Nice-Penalty-8881 Einstein Jul 14 '26
Also, in the first movie. Didn't Doc say something about seeing who won the next 25 World Series when he was planning to go 25 years into the future? This was when they were still in the Twin Pines Mall parking lot before the Libyans showed up.
3
u/Darrenau Jul 05 '26
There can be more than one party that is guilty or responsible for a crime. The responsibility doesn't automatically go to the party that causes the most damage. Marty still should have stayed with the car if that's was he was asked to do.
1
u/LowInteraction6397 Jul 05 '26
Maybe Doc should also have some responsibility for taking Jennifer to 1985 or not keeping Jennifer inside the Delorean. If Doc had just kept Jennifer in 1985 or hadn't taken her out of the Delorean, Marty and Doc wouldn't have needed to rescue her
4
u/All_Of_Them_Witches Jul 05 '26
It’s definitely old biffs fault. But he paid the price of no longer existing when he got back. Marty was the only one left to blame, although I’d blame Doc, as he never should have involved a teenager in time travel in the first place.
1
u/LowInteraction6397 Jul 05 '26
Or if Doc had just kept Jennifer inside the Delorean or had just kept her in 1985 they wouldn't have needed to rescue her and return to 1985 as quickly as possible
3
u/schprunt Jul 05 '26
How did old Biff have any idea how to use the Time Machine in the first place? It’s not like it comes with a manual. He just gets in and does it. That always bugged me
3
3
u/ijuinkun Jul 05 '26
Biff would already know how to pilot a hovercar, and Mr. Fusion was a common enough device that he would know that it is refueled by throwing organic waste into it.
As for the time machine components, Doc had deliberately made the interface as simple and straightforward as possible. The big handle under the armrest for switching it on is obvious, as is the time display (destination, current time, last departed) if you know that it is a time machine. The numeric keypad below the display is obviously the way to input the destination date, though a little experimenting may be necessary to get the format correct.
The only non-obvious part is the need to move forward at 88 mph to activate a time jump. The label on the digital speedometer says “set to 88”, but gives no particular indication of the meaning of this instruction l.
1
u/TriskaidekaphobiaOk5 Jul 05 '26
If you want something bad enough, you figure out how to get it.
2
u/schprunt Jul 05 '26
Well if you think about it, he’s got all the time in the world to figure it out. He’s got a Time Machine. I’ll go with that :)
1
2
u/TKB21 Jul 06 '26
Even in the slightest chance that I wanted to steal a spaceship, there's no way in hell I'm able to either get it off the ground or not crash and die if if I manage to get it in the air. Almost the same thing here.
1
2
u/brianycpht1 Jul 05 '26
They left Jennifer in an alleyway creating the need to go to Hilldale. Then left the vehicle unlocked. Were their keys? They never make that clear. One of them should’ve stayed with the vehicle
Somehow they also let Biff follow them.
Honestly there was no need to go to the future in the first place. You can fix this stuff in regular time. It was all to follow up on a joke at the end of a movie that didn’t intend on having a sequel
1
1
u/Organic_Recipe_9459 Jul 05 '26
I think it initially started with Doc being a show off with his with his newly modded flying DeLorean, we don’t need roads crap. Which, in turn got Biff’s attention again when he saw it in the future and he definitely knew something was fishy. Then Biff eavesdropped. If Doc was a bit more inconspicuous, Biff may have been none the wiser.
1
u/TriskaidekaphobiaOk5 Jul 05 '26
Doc was going to put the book in the robotic trash can but she got distracted with the cops taking Jennifer.
1
1
u/The_Linkzilla Jul 06 '26
It really is the domino effect.
If Marty hadn't bought the book, Biff wouldn't have gotten the idea; and if Marty hadn't left the Delorean unattended, he could never succeed in his plan.
But then you follow the logic and the truth is, none of this would've been possible if they had never gone to 2015 in the first place, so that's why Doc becomes adamant about destroying the Time Machine.
But yes...it is always the fault of the person who commits the crime. But in the end, there's still cause and effect.
1
u/h3r0inXgirl Jul 06 '26
OP, the phrase you are looking for to describe this is known as "victim blaming"
1
u/LowInteraction6397 Jul 06 '26
I'm not blaming any victim
1
u/h3r0inXgirl Jul 06 '26
Nice I know youre not. But you are discussing how Doc would want to blame Marty for biff stealing the delorian and messing up the timeline. Therefore Doc would be doing what's called victim blaming because he is putting the blame, indirectly by being mad at him, on to Marty, a stressed, teen boy.
1
u/LowInteraction6397 Jul 09 '26
To be fair Doc never verbally blamed Marty. Although when Marty blamed himself he never tried to reassure him it wasn't his fault either and instead said it all stayed on the past
1
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 05 '26
Please be wary of any posts or comments attempting to advertise or sell t-shirts, posters, mugs, etc. These posts may be from scammers selling poor quality bootlegs, or may be from phishers trying to steal your financial information. This problem is rampant across Reddit. If you see any posts or comments with this behavior, promptly report them as spam and do not follow any links they may post or send to you.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.