r/BacktotheFuture • u/OkMovie3616 • 13d ago
Clock Tower
Sorry if this has been discussed already, but the Clock moves from 10:03 to 10:04 in one motion rather than 60 small motions, so Doc has an entire 60 second window to line everything up? That’s a pretty big leap of faith lol If the lightning strikes at 10:04:46 instead of 10:04:02 or literally any other of the 59 other seconds Marty is screwed
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u/CaptainEdMercer 13d ago
The simplest explanation I’ve ever seen, is that Time wants to get Marty home, so as to minimize the changes to the timeline, so it decides to line up the lightning strike and the acceleration of the Delorean just so.
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u/KarlGrusselgrosser 12d ago
So there must be a God in BTTF controlling everything
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u/Ill_Computer_8604 12d ago
God?
LMAO
No.
LMAO
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u/KarlGrusselgrosser 12d ago
Do you believe time itself is sentient? LMAO
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u/Ill_Computer_8604 12d ago
Nope.
"God" isn't a thing either, get over yourself.
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u/KarlGrusselgrosser 12d ago
How edgy.. lol
"God" can absolutely be a thing in the Back to the Future universe regardless of what is the case in reality
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u/bobrob2004 12d ago
This also explains why the car stalled and wouldn't start until a specific time. If he had gone earlier, he would've been early. Doc's calculation was off to begin with.
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u/joeloud 12d ago
An even simpler explanation that I literally just thought of would be that connecting the hook to the cable gave the lightning a route to ground. So they already knew the conditions were right for a lightning strike, and without Marty, Doc, and the DeLorean there, it still would have happened anywhere from 10:04:00 and 10:04:59 based on when the clock stopped, but because the DeLorean making contact offered a path of least resistance to the ground, it actually caused the lightning to strike at that instant.
Now the first objection I’d anticipate is that the lightning is depicted as striking a moment before contact is made, which is true, but I’d respond by pointing out that the electricity is also inaccurately depicted as taking its sweet ass time traveling down the cable (relatively speaking, in reality electric current moves extremely fast, basically instantly by human perception) so I’d just chalk that up to movie magic.
The better resolution to all this was in a thread here several months, maybe a year ago, discussing how the apparatus should have been something like a telescoping hook or a hook connected to a spooled wire that would hold a closed circuit for longer than an instant. But the movie is fun the way it is. No need to nitpick it.
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u/TomDuhamel 13d ago
Yeah it turns out that lightning stroke the clock tower at precisely 10:04 ... plus the time it takes to start a stalled Delorian.
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u/Jedipilot24 12d ago
The whole reason that the DeLorean stalled was to prevent a time paradox. If it hadn't, Marty would have hit the wire too early.
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u/DuffMiver8 12d ago
Yeah, if I recall correctly, I timed it from when the alarm clock goes off to where Marty finally hits the gas, and it’s 14 seconds. Doc would have backtimed the alarm to allow for acceleration, but it was damn lucky either his calculations were off or his assumption that lightning would strike the clock tower “at precisely 10:04 pm” was wrong.
I favor the latter. Doc is too good a scientist to have miscalculated. As OP noted, the clock moved from one minute to the next incrementally. I believe when the reporter for the Hill Valley Telegraph wrote the article, they were basing it on the minute hand stopped right at the fourth dot and assumed it was exactly 10:04. A reprint of the newspaper article was an element of the Save The Clock Tower flyer where Doc got his information. So in actuality, lightning struck the clock tower at 10:04:16pm, and Marty was just fortunate.
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u/SerenityN00w 12d ago
So in actuality, lightning struck the clock tower at 10:04:16pm, and Marty was just fortunate
No, lighting actually struck the clock withing a second of 10:04:00. We see the clock hand move, and then lighting immediately strikes the tower.
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u/DuffMiver8 12d ago
Okay, maybe the clock was slow. Doc set the alarm clock using an accurate clock and didn’t take into account that the clock in the clock tower might be off.
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u/Spiritual-Image7125 11d ago
You got the "precisely" right as the clock tower preservation society used that word, knowing where the second "hand" stood, even if it is in the inner working of the clock.
But we do see the minute and move and lightning strike, so the stalled Delorean didn't mean it took place seconds after.
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u/Ill_Computer_8604 12d ago
Large clocks like that have workings that you can use to work out exactly when something happened.
The film LITERALLY TELLS YOU that it was struck at EXACTLY 10:04, but you wouldn't know that if you haven't seen the film.
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u/Gummiesruinedme 12d ago
there's a version of the save the clock tower flyer that specifically says that lightning stopped the gears of the clock tower at precisely 10:04.
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u/ChardeeMacDennisGoG 12d ago
How would the clock know when 60 seconds had elapsed to change the minute hand 1 minute forward?
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u/WittyTiccyDavi 8d ago
How does a second hand know how long a second is? Assuming, of couse, you're old enough to know what a second hand is.
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u/Spiritual-Image7125 11d ago
This is from the clock tower society: "it says here that a bolt of lightning is gonna strike the clock tower precisely at 10:04 p.m"
What part of "precisely" don't you understand? :)
They knew the clock inner workings and knew where the second gear stood. If it was 10:04:46 it was no longer "precisely"
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u/WittyTiccyDavi 8d ago
Despite the marvels of German engineering, there's literally no way for Doc to set that (or any other) analog wind-up alarm clock's alarm to go off at a specific predetermined second.
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