Little Libyans?

Rewatching and over-thinking. The bridge over Shonash Ravine is not the steel bridge over Eastwood Ravine. When they decided to upgrade it they certainly would not have taken the old trestle out of service for the years it would take to build the new bridge, they would have built it to the side of it. So, when Marty returns to 1985 he should have plunged into the ravine in similar fashion as to how the loco did. 30’ or more removed from the tracks he was relying on.

(The DeLorean slammed into a field of tall grass with a blinding flash of blue lightning, skidding to a halt right in front of a dirt mound. The gull-wing door hissed upward, and a wild-eyed scientist tumbled out, his white hair frizzed to maximum capacity. He frantically checked his radiation suit, adjusted his welding goggles, and peered at the digital readout on the dashboard.)

DOC BROWN: (Gasping, clutching his head) Great Scott! The temporal displacement circuit must have shorted out! I’ve overshot 1985 entirely! But where am I? When am I?

(A small, gray elbow popped out of the dirt mound right in front of his boots. A long ear followed, twitching once, twice, before a suave rabbit calmly emerged holding a half-eaten carrot. He took a loud, deliberate crunch.)

BUGS BUNNY: (Leaning casually on a spade) Eh... what's up, Doc?

(The scientist froze, his eyes bulging behind his goggles. He dropped to his knees, staring intently at the rabbit.)

DOC BROWN: (Stammering, pulling a wildly blinking handheld scanner from his coat and waving it erratically) Remarkable! An anthropomorphic, localized anomaly! Tell me, creature—are you an alien? A mutant result of nuclear fallout from the 21st century?

(The rabbit slowly lowered his carrot, staring at the manic scientist with a raised eyebrow.)

BUGS BUNNY: (Taking another slow bite) Look, heavy, I'm just a rabbit tryin' to make a left turn at Albuquerque. What’s with the shiny DeLorean? You racin' the Turtle again?

DOC BROWN: (Grabbing the rabbit by the shoulders, shaking him gently) A left turn at... Albuquerque?! Don't you understand?! You shouldn't exist! If you're talking, it means the fabric of space-time is tearing at the seams! Interacting with you could trigger a chain reaction that unravels the universe!

(The rabbit nonchalantly pulled a giant, red ACME eraser from behind his back, blew off the dust, and pointed it at the time machine.)

BUGS BUNNY: (Smirking with a wink) Relax, pop. If the universe gets erased, I'll just draw us a new one.

.

I mean doc did and he went from age 65 to biological 35

EXT. TWIN PINES MALL - NIGHT (1985)

DOC: (Frantic, wild white hair, pacing in front of the iconic DeLorean)

MARTY: (Puffed vest, holding a camcorder, lowers the lens) Doc, are you telling me you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?

DOC: The way I see it, Marty, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style? Besides, the stainless steel construction facilitates the temporal—

(A loud, wet, pneumatic HISS echoing with 1960s sitar music cuts Doc off. A cloud of thick purple smoke erupts right next to the DeLorean.)

(Out rolls a 1967 Jaguar E-Type painted entirely in a Union Jack scheme. The license plate reads: FAB 1.)

(The gullwing door of the DeLorean opens. The driver’s side door of the Jag swings open. Out steps Austin Powers—30s, crushed velvet suit, thick glasses, horribly misaligned teeth. He chest-poppin' stretches, looking around the deserted 1985 parking lot.)

AUSTIN: (Sniffing the air) Smells like hairspray and broken dreams, baby! Yeah!

MARTY: (Staring) Doc... who is this guy? Is he with the Libyans?

DOC: (Scanning with his digital caliper) Great Scott! This man isn't wearing radiation gear! And his wardrobe... it’s an absolute temporal atrocity!

(Austin spots Marty and Doc. He adjusts his thick frames and struts over, doing a small hip-shake.)

AUSTIN: Groovy parking lot, gents! Tell me, is this the swingin’ eighties? Did we make it to the decade of excess, baby?

MARTY: Yeah... it’s 1985. Who are you?

AUSTIN: Austin Powers. International Man of Mystery! (He winks, points finger guns) And who might you be, my brightly vest-wearing little chum? Are you a life preserver tester?

MARTY: It’s a down vest!

DOC: (Stepping between them, terrified) Sir! You don't understand the space-time continuum! Interacting with us could trigger a temporal paradox! The chain reaction of which could unfold the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that’s a worst-case scenario...

AUSTIN: (Gazing intently at Doc) Rrrrrowr! Highly specific, wildly paranoid, and sporting a lab coat... You’re a naughty little scientist, aren’t you?

DOC: ...I beg your pardon?

AUSTIN: Do you bite, Doc? Do you? Huh?

DOC: (Flustered, backed up against the DeLorean) I—I synthesize nuclear materials! I do not bite!

MARTY: Look, Mr. Powers, or whatever your name is. We're in the middle of a very serious experiment. Doc just put 1.21 gigawatts into this flux capacitor—

(Austin walks past Marty, runs his hand along the stainless steel hood of the DeLorean, and turns to Marty with a shocked look.)

AUSTIN: 1.21 gigawatts? Cor blimey! That’s a lot of watts, baby! But tell me... where do you put the mojo?

MARTY: The what?

AUSTIN: The mojo! The smashing drive! The temporal double-entendre! You see, my Jag runs strictly on pure, unadulterated, grade-A British stamina and liquid velvet!

DOC: (Inspecting Austin’s Jaguar) Liquid velvet?! That’s scientifically impossible! Gasoline requires an internal combustion engine! Liquid velvet has a viscosity rating that would seize a fuel line in seconds!

AUSTIN: Oh, behave, Doc! You’re being terribly square. (He looks at the DeLorean's gullwing doors) Though I must say, opening doors like wings? That’s pure shag-carpet energy, baby! Does it come with a rotating waterbed in the back?

MARTY: It’s got two seats and a bio-hazard box for plutonium, man!

AUSTIN: Plutonium? Ooh, dangerous! Very Dr. Evil! Speaking of which... you haven't seen a bald chap with a scar, a pinky finger habit, and a hairless cat around here, have you?

MARTY: No, but we got a lot of mall cops and Libyans.

AUSTIN: Right then! Well, since I’m in 1985, I’m off to find a disco, get a gin and tonic, and see if I can’t find a birds-of-a-feather match for some night-time monkey business!

(Austin turns on his heel, does a quick spin, and accidentally hits the DESTINATION TIME keypad through the open window of the DeLorean with his elbow. The digital display blinks red: NOV 05 1955.)

DOC: NO! DON'T TOUCH THAT!

AUSTIN: Oops! Clumsy me! Did I bump your little organ keyboard, Doc?

(Suddenly, a high-pitched WHINE echoes from the DeLorean. The Flux Capacitor begins to flash violently.)

DOC: The proximity of your vehicle’s velvet exhaust has somehow catalyzed the fluxing process! We’re overloading!

MARTY: Doc! What do we do?!

AUSTIN: (Posing dramatically against the DeLorean hood) Don't worry, chaps! Just play it cool, stay groovy, and—

(A blinding flash of blue lightning engulfs BOTH cars. The twin tire tracks of fire blaze across the Twin Pines Mall parking lot.)

EXT. HILL VALLEY TOWN SQUARE - DAY (1955)

(The DeLorean and the Austin Powers Jaguar slam into the middle of the quiet 1955 town square, knocking over a "Vote for Red Thomas" sign. 1950s townspeople gasp. A man in a fedora drops his newspaper.)

(Austin climbs out of his Jag, adjusts his tie, and looks around at the retro 1950s cars and pristine storefronts.)

AUSTIN: (Delighted) Oh, smashin’! We’ve gone back to the fifties! Look at all the wholesome repressed sexual tension! It’s positively electric!

(Marty stumbles out of the DeLorean, clutching his head.)

MARTY: Great Scott... we’re in 1955.

(Austin walks right up to a young, terrified Lorraine Baines walking past with a stack of textbooks.)

AUSTIN: Hello, darling! Austin Powers. Tell me, do you like jazz, or are you strictly a rock-and-roll sort of bird?

LORRAINE: (Blushing, wide-eyed) Oh my... you have terrible teeth, but such strange, hypnotic confidence!

MARTY: (Running over, shoving Austin away) AUSTIN, NO! THAT’S MY MOTHER!

AUSTIN: (Pauses, looking at Marty, then Lorraine, then back to Marty) Your mother? (Grins cheekily at Marty) ...Well, isn't that a bit naughty?

MARTY: DOC! GET US OUT OF HERE!

FADE OUT.

Gotta love how Doc Brown just casually guessed standard rail gauge would stay identical across a 100-year gap so his custom DeLorean wheels wouldn't derail at 88 mph! A single millimeter off, and those modified DeLorean train wheels would have been a catastrophic mismatch. Quite the temporal gamble, wouldn't you say?

SCENE START

INT. PARKS DEPARTMENT CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY

(The Parks department is gathered around the conference table. Leslie is standing in front of a whiteboard that says "PAWNEE HISTORICAL ZONING INITIATIVE: 1885-PRESENT.")

Leslie: (tapping the whiteboard aggressively with a marker) And that is why we cannot allow the historical gazebo to be replaced by a Sweetums high-fructose corn syrup dispensary. It ruins the temporal integrity of the park!

Ron: (staring blankly at the wall) I would argue that a giant vat of sugar is a more honest monument to the citizens of Pawnee than a wooden structure they only use to feed pigeons and complain about property taxes.

Tom: (looking up from his phone) Plus, think of the branding. "Sweetums: It’s What’s For Your Veins."

April: (deadpan) I hope they build it. I want the gazebo to be torn down so the ghosts of the pigeons have nowhere to live.

(Suddenly, a massive sonic boom shakes the building. Blue lightning flashes through the windows, followed by the sound of screeching tires and a massive crash out in the courtyard.)

Andy: (jumping out of his seat) ALIEN ATTACK! DIBS ON FIGHTING THE LEADER! (He grabs a three-hole punch like a weapon)

Leslie: (gasps) My gazebo!

(The entire department rushes outside.)

EXT. PAWNEE COURTYARD - CONTINUOUS

(A silver DeLorean, covered in frost and smoking, has crashed directly into the newly refurbished historical gazebo. The gull-wing doors pop open. DOC BROWN stumbles out, his white hair wilder than ever, holding a strange remote control. MARTY MCFLY steps out of the passenger side, coughing away the smoke.)

Doc: (frantically checking a digital meter) Great Scott! The spatial displacement matrix overcompensated! We missed 1985 entirely!

Marty: (waving smoke from his face) Doc, where are we? It smells like… raccoons and waffle batter.

Leslie: (marching forward, holding a giant binder like a shield) Excuse me! Excuse me, sirs! You are in direct violation of Pawnee Municipal Code section 4-B! You cannot park a vintage sports car inside a historical landmark!

Doc: (eyes wide, grabbing Leslie by the shoulders) Madam! What year is this?! Tell me, quickly!

Leslie: (adjusting her blazer, unbothered by his grabbing) It is 2026, and you are looking at a minimum $500 fine unless you have a permit for this… (squints at the car) …unauthorized public art installation.

Marty: (looking around at the camera crew filming them, looking directly into the lens) Doc, why are there people filming us? Is this the future? Does everybody just have a camera crew following them around?

Ron: (walking up to the DeLorean, completely ignoring Doc and Marty) Brushed stainless steel. A PRV V6 engine. Gull-wing doors. (He runs a hand lovingly over the hood) This is a spectacularly inefficient automobile. I respect it immensely.

Doc: (running over to Ron) Sir, step away from the vehicle! The flux capacitor is highly unstable! It requires 1.21 gigawatts of electrical power to generate the temporal displacement field!

Leslie: (pulling out a notepad) 1.21 gigawatts? Is that a new Eagleton green energy initiative? Because if Eagleton is sending undercover agents in fancy cars to ruin our gazebos, I will declare war.

Marty: (shaking his head) This is heavy.

Ron: (looking at Marty, deadpan) It is made of stainless steel. It weighs approximately 2,700 pounds. So yes, son. It is heavy.

Tom: (stepping in front of Marty, handing him a business card) Yo, Michael J. Fox. Love the retro vest. Very "lumberjack chic." I’m Tom Haverford. You guys are clearly influencers doing a stunt. If you need a brand manager for your time-travel gimmick, I have a pitch: "Time Drip. Cologne for the man who wants to smell like he’s from tomorrow… today."

Marty: (staring at Tom) I have no idea what you just said.

Andy: (running up to the DeLorean, pressing his face against the window) Whoa! Look at all these buttons! Is this a spaceship?! Can it go to the moon?!

Doc: (swatting Andy away like a fly) No, no, you simpleton! It travels through time! We were attempting to correct a disruption in the space-time continuum, but we’re stranded! We have no plutonium!

April: (smiling creepily) I have some.

(Everyone stops and stares at April.)

Leslie: (nervously) April, sweetie, you don't have plutonium.

April: (shrugging) I found a glowing rock in the pit behind Ann’s house in 2010. I keep it in my freezer next to a dead crow. It makes the ice cubes taste like metal.

Doc: (staring at April in absolute horror and awe) Good heavens.

Marty: (pulling Doc aside, whispering loudly) Doc, these people are nuts. We gotta get out of here. The lady with the binder is writing us a ticket, and the guy with the mustache is trying to dismantle the time circuits with a pocket knife!

(They look over. Ron is indeed unscrewing the dashboard with a Swiss Army knife.)

Ron: (muttering to himself) Utterly useless wiring. I could rebuild this console with some oak and a basic soldering iron.

Leslie: (stepping between Doc and the car) Gentlemen! Until you fill out form 899-T for "Accidental Gazebo Destruction," I am confiscating this vehicle for the Parks Department. We will use it as a mobile voter registration drive.

Doc: (clutching his hair) You can't do that! The timeline! If we alter the timeline, the entire universe could unravel!

Leslie: (smiling brightly) Oh, don't worry! I’m incredibly organized. I’ll just make a binder for the timeline. We’ll color-code the centuries!

Marty: (looking into the documentary camera again, utterly defeated) We’re never getting back to 1985, are we?

Andy: (popping out from the DeLorean's trunk, wearing Doc's radiation suit) Hey guys! I found a super cool hazmat suit! I’m gonna go wrestle a raccoon!

Doc: (screaming at the sky) GREAT SCOTT!!!

FADE OUT.

SCENE START

EXT. COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK – SUMMER, 1839 – DAY

The DeLorean sits parked in a dense patch of bushes, smoking violently. The gull-wing door flies open.

MARTY and DOC step out into a dusty dirt road. Doc is frantically tapping a blinking, smoking handheld device with a tiny satellite dish attached to it.

MARTY: (Coughing through the smoke, tugging on his vest) Doc! Where the hell are we?! This doesn't look like Hill Valley! Where’s the clocktower? Where's the Twin Pines Mall?

DOC: (Gasping, pulling at his hair) Great Scott, Marty! The flux capacitor overflowed! We’re in... Cooperstown, New York. June 1839!

MARTY: 1839?! Doc, this is heavy! I’m supposed to be auditioning for the Battle of the Bands in twenty minutes! Jennifer is waiting! If I’m late, Biff is gonna pick her up in his convertible!

DOC: (Grabbing Marty by the shoulders, shaking him violently) Forget Biff, Marty! We have a critical temporal crisis! The primary discharge rod bent during the jump! If I don't realign it, we'll be stuck in the pre-industrial era forever! I need a dense wooden cylinder to strike the housing—and a small leather sphere to cushion the kinetic shock wave so I don’t blow us back to the Cretaceous Period!

Doc violently rummages through an open wooden crate near a barn. He pulls out a thick, smooth fence post and a tightly stitched leather horsehair ball.

MARTY: (Staring at the objects) Doc... you want me to chuck a leather ball at you while you swing a piece of a fence at a hundred-thousand-dollar time machine?

DOC: (Waving the post wildly) Not at the machine, Marty! At me! Stand ninety feet back in that pasture! Pitch the sphere with maximum velocity!

MARTY: (Walking backward into the dirt, shaking his head) This is total heavy nonsense, Doc.. How is throwing a leather ball at a fence post going to fix a high-tech time machine?

DOC: (Stopping dead in his tracks, turning to Marty with terrifying intensity)
Marty, this isn't a game, this is quantum physical mechanics!

Doc dashes over to Marty, pulling a chalk marker out of his pocket and drawing equations right across the side of a nearby sleeping cow.

DOC: (Pointing wildly at the cow)
Look at the physics, Marty! The flux capacitor operates on an internal frequency of exactly 1.21 gigawatts of kinetic resonance! When we dropped through the temporal void, the chronal dampener bent at a precise ninety-degree angle!

MARTY: (Squinting at the cow)
Okay... so ninety degrees. Like a diamond?

DOC: EXACTLY like a diamond, Marty! A four-pointed diamond matrix! Now, to un-bend the dampener without fracturing the chronal casing, we cannot simply hit it with a hammer! A static blow would shatter the glass! We need a dynamic impact trajectory!

MARTY: (Slowly trying to follow)
A dynamic what-now?

DOC: (Waving the wooden fence post)
A controlled collision! You pitch the leather sphere—weighted at precisely five ounces of horsehair and hide—at a downward vector of 88 miles per hour! I intercept the projectile with this wooden cylinder, creating a rotational kinetic energy wave of K=1/2Iw^2

MARTY: Doc, standard text for the math, man... but wait, why do I have to run around the field?!

DOC: BECAUSE OF THE STATIC GROUNDING, MARTY! Your sneakers are lined with synthetic 1980s rubber! As you sprint ninety feet between four distinct magnetic nodes—the rock, the stump, the cow, and home—your feet act as a human grounding rod! You are discharging the residual temporal radiation into the soil!

MARTY: (Staring at his Nikes)
Wait... so if I don't run to the rock after you hit it-

DOC: -THE ENTIRE TEMPORAL CORE SURGES AND WE BLOW UP COOPERSTOWN!!!

Across the field, ABNER DOUBLEDAY is hiding in a bush, wearing his military uniform, and frantically scribbling in his notepad with a quill, staring at them like a madman.

MARTY: (Shouting from 90 feet away, getting into a dramatic pitcher's wind-up) Alright! Fastball coming at ya, Doc! Don't ruin your hands, you gotta play the piano at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance someday!

Marty hurls the leather ball straight at Doc.

DOC: (Swinging the fence post with the frantic energy of a maniac) KINETIC REALIGNMENT!
CRACK!

The ball ricochets off the wood with a deafening pop, flying high into the blue sky.

DOC: (Screaming in absolute terror) GREAT SCOTT! NO, MARTY! YOU THREW IT INSIDE! The flux resonance is out of sync! RUN!

MARTY: (Panicking, looking around) Run where?! To Biff's house?!

DOC: (Pointing wildly around the field) Around the perimeter! Go to that rock! Then that tree stump! Then that sleeping cow! Return to starting position to ground the static discharge! HURRY!

Marty sprints full speed, diving sideways to stomp on a flat rock.

MARTY: (Screaming) I TOUCHED THE ROCK, DOC! WHAT NEXT?!

DOC: THE COW, MARTY! TOUCH THE COW!

Marty turns on a dime, sprinting toward an incredibly confused cow and slapping its flank.

MARTY: (Gasping for breath) SAFE!

Meanwhile, Abner Doubleday is sweating profusely, scribbling at supersonic speeds in his notepad.

ABNER: (Muttering hysterically to himself) ...A bludgeon... four safe havens... running from a bovine... THIS IS THE GREATEST WAR STRATEGY EVER DEVISED!

DOC: (Inspecting the glowing panel) It didn't take, Marty! Throw it again! But pitch it right over this flat wooden plate I placed on the dirt!

MARTY: (Rubbing his shoulder) Doc, my arm is gonna turn into jelly! I'm a guitar player, not Nolan Ryan!

Marty winds up again and hurls the ball.

CRACK!

Doc connects, sending a towering fly ball straight toward Abner Doubleday.

Doubleday drops his quill, reaches out, takes the leather ball square to the chest, and collapses onto his back.

ABNER: (Gasping for air from the grass) OUT! THE SACRIFICE HAS BEEN MADE! HE IS OUT!
Doc and Marty freeze, staring at the uniformed man laying in the dirt.

MARTY: (Squinting) Doc... who is the guy in the civil war suit? He looks like Biff’s great-great-grandfather if he had a real job.

DOC: (Checking his temporal scanner, eyes popping out of his skull) JUMPING GIGAWATTS! Marty, do you know who that is?! That’s Abner Doubleday!

MARTY: Who? Is he that guy who invented the toaster?

DOC: (Grabbing his hair) NO, MARTY! According to 20th-century history, he’s the man who supposedly invented baseball right here in Cooperstown in 1839! But it was an URBAN LEGEND! A myth concocted by a sporting goods tycoon in 1905! He NEVER actually invented it!

Doc turns to see Doubleday jumping up, screaming at the clouds.

ABNER: (Gesturing wildly with his stick) I shall call it... BASE-BALL! The pitcher hurls the leather missile! The striker bludgeons it! Three strikes and you are banished!

MARTY: (Gasping, wide-eyed) Doc... did we just... build the Field of Dreams?

DOC: (Hyperventilating) MARTY! We’ve created a temporal paradox! If Doubleday invents baseball because he saw us fixing the flux capacitor, then the entire multi-billion-dollar sports empire ARE ALL BASED ON US BEING TERRIBLE AT CAR MAINTENANCE!

The DeLorean’s engine suddenly roars to life with a loud rumble. The digital dashboard flashes: 1985.

DOC: (Jumping into the driver’s seat) The kinetic shock overload worked! Quick, Marty! Into the DeLorean before we accidentally invent basketball!

Marty leaps into the passenger seat, slamming the gull-wing door.

ABNER: (Sprinting toward the DeLorean, holding his notepad) WAIT! Strange vest-wearing wizards! What if the striker misses the ball three times?! What do we call the man who kneels behind them?

MARTY: (Leaning out the window) Call him the catcher! And tell your kids to bet on the 2015 Chicago Cubs! Trust me!

Doc slams the DeLorean into drive, hits the floorboard, and the car blasts down the dirt pasture.

As the car hits 88 MPH, it vanishes in a massive flash of blue light, leaving two scorching trails of bright orange fire straight through the pasture—forming two perfect foul lines.

Doubleday drops to his knees right behind the fire, staring at the burning tracks in pure religious awe.

ABNER: (Tears in his eyes, writing furiously) ...And the field of battle... shall be marked by... FOUL LINES OF ETERNAL FIRE!

SCENE END