FAQ

It wasn't an arrow that ripped the fuel line. It was Marty's driving hurriedly in a desert and likely hit a rock on the underside of the car. Marty's trip was supposed to be very simple; travel to 1885 in a vast open plain (that should have been devoid of people), hide the DeLorean, go get Doc, and head back to 1985. Neither 1955 Doc nor Marty could have anticipated travelling back right in front of a tribe of fleeing Natives being chased down by mounted Calvary.

It's all about the timelines as explained in Part II. When Marty goes back to 1955 the first time, that is the 1955A timeline. Doc goes back to 1885, but it becomes the 1885A timeline, the same timeline Marty is in. Once Marty goes back to 1885, it becomes 1885B and any letter they attempt to send forward would not reach the Marty in 1955A. It's the paradox of time travel.

Obviously, the 1985 Doc who was stuck back in 1885 intended by instruction that Marty return to 1985 once the DeLorean was recovered and fixed up.

As for why the 1955 Doc didn't put a tank of emergency gasoline in the trunk when Marty was going to leave for 1885, along with everything else, good question. Perhaps, the best one can assume is that thinking of such precautions somehow just passed by 1955 Doc's mind. He was so preoccupied with so much other stuff surrounding that event and getting Marty all ready and he did behave in such a hurry to get Marty out of that time as soon as possible that he didn't have time to think every possibility through and get a full check list.

According to the official website. On the "The Most Frequently Asked Questions from Back to the Future by Bob Gale & Robert Zemeckis" section: "We have no plans or desires to make a Back to the Future Part IV. We think we've taken Doc and Marty through an odyssey that's rounded them both out as complete characters and which also suggests they'll both have fine futures; we've developed and executed almost every time travel idea that's ever interested us, and we feel that another Back to the Future would only get stale and hackneyed. After five years, the filmmakers and the cast are all ready to try other things, and we prefer to end the series on a high note!"

Because he wanted to keep it and it had to go with him so when he went back to 1985 he'd still have it. Also, it would be ill-advised to leave a piece of technology from 60 years in the future in 1955. In case someone other than Doc were to discover it.

It's simply part of Doc's process. He feels it necessary to build models that will properly play out the planned scenario. Both to visualise the goal and demonstrate it to Marty. Behind the scenes, it also is beneficial for the audience to understand how the plan is supposed to play out.

It doesn't directly. However, Marty is Shamus's great-great grandson. So Shamus feels an odd connection and kinship to him that he can't quite understand. Similar to how young Lorraine was drawn to Marty in BTTF1. She mistook her feelings as infatuation and lust until she kissed him and realised it was not that.

The feeling can most likely be compared to deja vu. When you go to a place you've never been or meet someone you know you've never met before, but have an odd recollection of that exact moment/place/person.

After receiving a letter from Doc Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) explaining that a lightning strike has sent him and the DeLorean time machine back to 1885, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), still stuck in 1955, seeks out the 1955 Doc in hopes of getting back to 1985. However, when he learns that 1885 Doc is about to be shot and killed by Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (Tom Wilson), Marty and 1955 Doc rebuild the DeLorean and Marty travels to 1885 where he finds the Doc living as a blacksmith and meets his own ancestors, Seamus (also played by Michael J. Fox) and Maggie (Lea Thompson) McFly.

Back to the Future, Part III is the third movie in the Back to the Future trilogy, all of which are based on screenplays written by American film-makers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It follows Retour vers le futur (1985) (1985) and Retour vers le futur 2 (1989) (1989).

Doc indicates in his letter that the unexpected lightning strike shorted out the flying circuits, hence the box on the hood with the components to replace them. Not to mention that the DeLorean has been sitting for 70 years, so numerous parts would need to be replaced due to time, lack of use, rusting, etc.

It's also a joke aimed at the early days of electronic components and how, in the intervening years between 1955 and 1985, components like these underwent a lot of research and development to miniaturize them or were replaced with better tech. Think about smart phones, which are the successors to the first electronically operated computers: the oldest computers filled entire rooms and could only do a fraction of what a smartphone can, which currently allows it's owner to do pretty much anything with respect to gathering and making use of information.

Some of the parts that the 1955 Doc uses look like vacuum tubes, which were invented to generate and distribute electricity in home appliances like televisions. They were eventually replaced by the transistor, which did the same thing but was smaller and more efficient and -- very importantly for home appliances -- didn't generate as much heat. Transistors were eventually replaced by microprocessors, which we know as computer chips, which have been the tech used to this day. When Doc was building the time machine and the time circuits, he probably started in 1955 with vacuum tubes and transistors but as the technology of microprocessors became available, he altered his design to make use of them.

In the end, it's a funny inside joke that the component Doc has to build to replace the fried microchip was several hundred times larger -- it looks goofy sitting on the hood but it worked.

The writers said that this was just due to McFly men being attracted to the same kind of women. It has, in fact, been observed by scientists that men often marry women who resemble their mothers, and women marry men who resemble their fathers. One example of this is Jennifer's resemblance to a young Lorraine. They also said they did not think it would be right to not give Lea Thompson a role in the movie.

Those were the tires removed from the 1955 DeLorean (the white sidewalls) so Doc could fix the rail car wheels to it.

No. They appear to be unrelated antagonists. During the scene between old Marty and old Needles in 2015 (right before Marty gets fired), a lot of information about Needles is displayed on screen. One of those is his name: Douglas J. Needles, not Tannen. It states that he has two children, both girls (Roberta, 23, and Amy, 20).

Not necessarily. For example, early in the film, Marty took a photograph of Doc's tombstone as it appeared in Doc's original 1885 storyline. After Marty goes back in time to help him, the tombstone does not disappear, but the writing fades away. This suggests that the future is not "set in stone" (pun intended), but is still unresolved. It is not until that particular tombstone is destroyed when Marty defeats Tannen that it vanishes from the photo. In much the same way, some parts of the future will likely not change: the company that Marty worked for in the original 2015 will still exist, and he may still work for them—and on a cellular level, that piece of paper will still be manufactured. However, the fact that Jennifer even has that particular piece of fax paper in her possession leads one to assume that some event in the future occurs that causes her to retain the paper, regardless of whatever changes in the past are made. Ultimately, Marty and Jennifer will not make enough changes in their life to completely separate them from the original 2015 timeline and the fax paper still exist and is in Jennifer's possession.

Given that Mr. Strickland would have then been at least 100 years old in the first film, this is highly unlikely. The boy is likely to be Mr. Strickland's future father or grandfather (depending on how old Strickland is actually supposed to be in 1955) and the emphasis on discipline is likely to be a family tradition. Principal Strickland's grandfather was a marshal so the family must have a long history of being involved in disciplinary work.

Perhaps he figures that he could prevent that later on by going back to 1885 to drop off some gasoline and a set of instructions for his past counterpart. It's also possible that he and Clara have been constantly fixing the timeline after inventing the locomotive time machine.