Great Scot, now THAT would have been heavy

A few nights before Halloween, Lauren and I were painting pumpkins with Allison and listening to the Sirius oldies station. Well, technically Lauren was painting pumpkins with Allison. I was bundled up on the couch trying to sweat out a cold. As usually ends up happening during this process, one of the side effects is that my mind starts drifting in and out of the most random thoughts; some trivial, some intriguing, some downright surreal. It’s kind of like being stoned, though without that pleasant feeling of transcendence. Anyway, as this was still early in the night, my thoughts hadn’t crossed over into the truly weird category. They were merely goofy, “Huh, d’y’ever think about that?” kinds of thoughts. Well as I sat there listening to the oldies, my thoughts turned to the movie Back to the Future, which takes place mostly in the year 1955. And as my brain cells cooked inside my fever-induced oven of a head, it occurred to me that Marty McFly was really damn lucky he didn’t poof out of existence in that movie.

Now before I continue, I should acknowledge that I understand watching a movie like Back to the Future requires huge suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer. I mean, time travel aside, there are various plot points that you just have to kind of go, “Okay, whatever.” I get that, so this isn’t an antagonizing appraisal of the plot itself. I’m accepting the rules the screenwriters put into place as is, as essential rules of the universe. So operating from within that paradigm, Marty McFly was still really lucky that he didn’t poof out of existence.



A little backstory for the uninitiated. In the movie, Marty travels 30 years back in time to the year 1955. Within the first few hours of being there he meets his parents, George and Loraine, as teenagers and interferes with their first meeting. When Marty later meets Doc Brown and shows him a picture of himself and his family, Doc Brown notices that Marty’s brother is disappearing from the picture. If Marty doesn’t fix it so that his parents meet and fall in love again, then they will never get married and never have kids and eventually all the kids including Marty himself will disappear from the picture – and from existence. It takes the better part of the movie, but finally George saves Loraine from a bully and they start slow dancing at the high school dance. But Marty is still fading from the picture. It’s not enough that they’ve met and are dancing. The two of them need to kiss because that is the moment Loraine realizes she wants to spend the rest of her life with George. They kiss just as Marty is about to fade from existence completely. The instant they do, Marty and his brother and sister reappear in the photograph and all has been restored.

As I sat there thinking about this flow of events, something jumped out at me. After Marty interfered with that first meeting, he didn’t poof from existence immediately. There was still time for him to put things back the way they were, because as far as the spacetime continuum was concerned, it was the kiss, not the first meeting that was the crisis moment – the nexus of events if you will. And evidenced by the fact that Marty was about to fade from existence completely, had George and Loraine not kissed at that exact moment, the event horizon would have been irreversibly crossed and Marty and his brother and sister would have ceased to exist. Stay with me here now…

Well, since it was the kiss and not the meeting that was the point of irreversibility, it’s conceivable that nobody would have disappeared from the photograph until that point had been crossed. After all, as far as the spacetime continuum was concerned there was still time to put things right. What if vanishing from existence didn’t happen in stages, but was an all or nothing thing? What if Marty’s brother hadn’t been fading from the picture when Marty showed it to Doc Brown? Would Doc or Marty have realized something was awry and known to put it right? Or would Marty have gone about his business not knowing that at some point a few days later he would just suddenly cease to exist? Without the picture giving them the red flag, would either of them have realized that Marty had put his own future existence in danger and thought to do something about it?



I don’t know. So I guess it’s a good thing for Marty the nature of the universe works the way it does.

That’s all. What you thought there was more? Sorry, this wasn’t coherent thought. At this point I’d moved on to something equally ridiculous. Be happy I thought it through this far.