My last post covered the ever multiplying Martys in the Back to the Future flicks, and as long and rambling as that post was, I still have yet more to say. Much more. This time I’d like to talk about another sort of temporal anomaly in the third film.

Two DeLoreans Too Many

And coincidentally instantly after posting my last BTTF article, two separate people (shout out to Robot's PJs and Masters of None) pointed out the two DeLorean theory of Back to the Future Part III. Here’s a snippet from the Master’s blog:

When Marty went back to 1885 to save Doc, he first had to uncover a DeLorean in 1955 that was already buried by Doc in 1885. When he went back to 1885, he ripped the gas line and emptied the gas tank, thus causing the car to be useless and having to have it be pushed by the train in the final sequence. However, what neither of them realized is that when Marty travels back to 1885 from 1955, there are now TWO DeLoreans. One that Marty ripped the fuel line, and one that Doc JUST BURIED not but a few months earlier to be uncovered by Marty in 1955. To rectify the situation and travel back to 1985, all they had to do was patch the gas line of the first with some tubing and siphon the gas from the buried DeLorean to the other, simply leaving a note for the 1955 counterparts to remember to fill up when found.

But this isn’t a paradox or a film flub or a mistake. It’s just normal stupidity, and stupidity I can always believe. Marty has spent three movies proving exactly how unbright he is; Strickland was totally within his right to be rough on him. He’s a slacker, bottom line. Marty was ready to fight Griff and his gang because of a chicken sound effect; this is not a thinking man. Doc, on the other hand, is brilliant with machines, but noticeably less than brilliant at other things (namely life and love). Let’s say at his best Doc is prone to rash decisions: stealing plutonium from known terrorists for one, challenging Mad Dog Tannen to a duel over a matter of $80 for another. Rewind back to the first movie, Doc forgot to put more plutonium in the trunk (one pellet, one trip). This is not a wild assumption on their intelligences (as most of my assumptions are), this is totally believable. Not remembering the second DeLorean was dumb, yes; problematic for me in terms of plot, not as much.

My problem is Doc returning to the present with a wife and kids. What’s up with that? And let me explain this in the longest, most drawn out way possible. So, Back to the Future III ends with Marty punking out on his drag race (I mean if you’re going to own a big ass monster truck and you’re going to be hanging out with dudes named Needles, I think it’s expected of you), Doc shows up in a locomotive and says everything’s cool, Doc’s son does some sort of weird finger in finger gesture, then Doc’s train flies off, and The End. Good feelings all around. Trilogy over. Roll the credits. But something is missing for me though.

I’m on board with Doc building a steam-powered time machine out of a train, why not? It’s no more unbelievable than a car. But what were Doc and Clara up to before dropping in on Marty? There's a missing story here. Namely why did Doc & Co. visit the future before visiting Marty? Maybe, it was just for the cool visual of a hover converted train. 1985 was not their first stop and this is important because there’s a hidden plot that they don’t ever get at. They went to the future first in order to destroy Marty’s family.

Most of you know of my Bill Murray fetish (sadomurrochism), but you may not know about my Back to the Future obsession.

I spend way too much time thinking about Back to the Future paradoxes and working on my BTTF fan fiction (about the misadventures of Einstein the dog and the pine tree Marty ran over). I think about Back to the Future the way sane people think about their children or politics or sports. I spend most of my time staring off into sunsets with visions of DeLoreans and Sports Almanacs dancing though my head.

But, anyway, before we get into too much, here's what you should know…

The Basics: Time Travel 101

There are basically two types of time travel: static time travel and fluid time travel. Every time travel movie or book, probably works around one of these. Static time is unchangeable, so what is supposed to happen will happen and there’s nothing the time traveler can do about it. Destiny often plays a huge roll in this type. Fluid time travel means anything can change anything, butterflies and whatnots and Nazis taking over the world. The timeline in the Back to the Future franchise is fluid; every change creates a new parallel timeline. Back to the Future II is based entirely on this premise (and hoverboards). The world and all its inhabitants got erased except for any time travelers; Hill Valley turned into biker Las Vegas and Biff transformed into Donald Trump (but a little classier). And presumably because of the flux capacitor, plutonium, things which are heavy, or science!, Marty, Doc, and Jennifer’s memories remain unaffected by these radical shifts in the fabric of reality. But it’s okay because time is so fluid—it’s positively dripping—that all this could be changed back with no ill effects. They even leave Jennifer in an alternative 1985 and don’t pick her up again until Back to the Future III. They left her sleeping on a porch for one and a half movies, through the rise and fall of two timelines and a wacky western adventure.

Temporal Anomalies: Marty A and Marty B

What I want to talk about though is the end of the first film. Marty had just returned to 1985, mere minutes away from saving Doc Brown from being gunned down by Libyan nationalists, and just in time to see himself go back in time (if I just spoiled Back to the Future for you then you should stop reading now… and never read this blog again). When you see this in the film, you think, “Oh, that’s nice, we’ve come full circle.” Except that it’s not the same Marty we saw at the beginning of the film. That’s an entirely different Marty.

I love cosplay girls or, at least, I love the idea of cosplay girls. Who are they? Where do they come from? And, most important of all, why do they come from? As in why? Why do they do things that they do do (doo doo)? And in particular I love Whovian cosplay girls. I don’t understand them, but dammit I respect them. And, maybe, I wouldn’t say respect either, but I have good-humored bewilderment for them. It’s their unending ability to turn anything sexy, and it’s that ability that makes me believe there’s something primal about the Dr. Who girls. Dr. Who cosplay is an exercise in scifisexification (to turn things sexy which shall not be sexy).

Dr. Who certainly wasn’t the first example of this, it may not even be the best example, but it’s quintessential. The sharp increase in sexy female versions of the 11th Doctor alone is fascinating. But don’t take my word for it, enjoy:

Sexy Doctor

via camiyak.tumblr.com

via CollegeHumor

Every master of disguise has a tell—some big, some small—but always enough for whichever hero, however dimwitted they may seem, to notice.

Zartan – G.I. Joe

Tell: Blue skin
Zartan is the classic master of disguise. He can disguise his voice and appearance as anyone he wants. These are perfect disguises that are indistinguishable from the original. Perfect in every way except (and here’s our first except) that Zartan's skin turns blue in the sunlight. He has a weird sort of photosensitive hereditary rosacea, but instead of hives or acne, you get a case of the blues (I’m calling it azuracea). Zartan's motto on his business card should read: I can masquerade as anyone on the planet as long as it’s not between the hours of 7 and 5.

In the G.I. Joe live-action movie, Zartan doesn’t turn blue, but whistles as his tell. So, in all the ridiculousness that is the G.I. Joe movie, the filmmakers drew the line at blue skin.

I was thinking recently about the Predator’s mouth (as I often do on cold, lonely nights), and I noticed a slight design flaw. Not its nightmare vagina appearance, well sort of, but not the fact that it looks like a succubus’s private parts but because it really doesn’t work as a mouth. The primary function of most mouths is to eat some sort of food, but the primary function of the predator’s mouth is to be pointed at while someone (most likely your friend Ricky) shouts, “Oh, damn!”

As mouths go it just doesn’t work. Scary and disturbing? Yes. Functional? Probably not. Here’s the problem—count them up—the Predator species has 10 teeth. 10 teeth! And four of those are on those little pincers around his mouth, so only six of them are really devoted to any chewing/biting power. That’s barely enough to eat applesauce! Meaning Predators either have the dietary habits of your average baby or that of a snake.

Paste Theory

Like Robocop, the Predators subsist off a "rudimentary paste that sustains their organic systems." The fact that Robocop eats baby food is pretty good evidence that a big, strong killing machine can thrive off the stuff. Baby food is probably also convenient for space travel like astronaut ice cream or Tang, or like military MRE’s (which are a little more like dog food, but I think a Predator might enjoy that more though). I do have a hard time believing that the Predator race has the manufacturing infrastructure and know-how to market and mass produce Brand X Predator baby mush (with the meaty gravy that babies crave). However, this same sentiment could also be suggested for spaceships/space travel. I like to imagine that faster than light travel requires more book reading and less laser shooting. Most likely if they do eat some sort of gruel it is composed of the bones of their fallen prey; any meat grinder would do in that case.

Swallow Theory

Predators don’t have teeth because they don’t need teeth, they simply swallow their food whole. Chewing is so primitive, any futuristic society would most likely evolve beyond teeth. It’s like in The Jetsons, where everything’s in pill form. If science has told us anything it’s this: evolution goes amoeba ► fish ► fish-monkey ► monkey ► Brendan Fraser ► Me ► reptilian bounty hunter (rastified 10%) ► pure energy (just wait until I get my energy rays all up in this hood).

It also explains those little insectoid palps on the side of its face (Tooth 1, 4, 5, and 10 in the figure above). Like an insect or crustacean these appendages are there to help cram various foodstuffs down the ol’ throat hole. Not chewing also explains why Predators are so low energy. Swallowing food whole is hell on a digestive system, it’s like eating a big turkey dinner at every meal. When you look at it, Predators really don’t get done nearly as much predatorating as they could. They’re invisible and have laser guns, it should take no more than 5 minutes to kill Arnold and his entire squad. Instead the Predator spends most of his time napping in trees. The daily activity of the Predator probably goes something like kill, eat, nap, kill, eat, nap, wax dreadlocks, string shark tooth necklace, kill, eat, nap.

So, what’s in a Predator’s diet? Anything it can fit in their mouths, I guess. If it’s anything like a snake then any small mammals, birds, or eggs will do. Or any of these fine foods:

The Predators' mouths and jaws may not be effective, but, at least, it doesn’t have a second mouth inside its first mouth.

One man, one fist, one sassy wife, and one moon: these are all the ingredients you need to fuel the space race. It started simply; Ralph Kramden wanted to punch his wife so hard that she would literally fly to the moon. Now, maybe, he didn’t wish her ill will, he could have thought she would survive such a journey. Remember that this was in the 1950’s, a time when people still thought the moon was made out of cheese, the Earth was flat, and the sun was some chariot of fire. You can’t blame Ralph for having a limited knowledge of space travel. He didn’t want to murder her; they just needed a little break and in space no one can hear you nag.

The Honeymooners represented a different time on so many levels. This was a time when it was okay to rough up your wife a bit, at the most it was frowned upon, and to be fair, Ralph never actually hit Alice, he just talked about it… constantly. In the 50’s, not only was it okay to threaten to beat your wife a bit, it was expected. Also, space travel, as I alluded, was a thing of pure science fiction. So, this really was an empty threat at best. This has totally changed with recent advancements in technology. What with Richard Branson’s achievements in personal space flight and Chris Brown’s transgressions in hitting women, anything is possible.

But what does it mean to punch your wife into outer space?

At the very least it takes a Superman caliber punch to knock someone into orbit. A punch with around 4.5 million lbs. of thrust behind it… give or take a million pounds. A punch powerful enough to launch a person into space should technically be enough to get it to the moon… eventually. It’s all about breaking the Earth’s gravitational pull, once you do that, you should be able to just glide the rest of the way.

But how powerful would Ralph Kramden need to be to properly bang zoom his wife into space? Let’s compare:

Ms. Marvel Punched Rogue into Orbit

Pertinent Power Facts
Ms. Marvel: Carol Danvers caught her super powers from contact with an alien she was dating much like a venereal disease (only with more flying).
Ralph Kramden: While not the same as an alien gonorrhea, Ralph once got his physical mixed up a sick dog’s. Wackiness ensued, but little in the way of super strength.

It should be noted that Ms. Marvel and Rogue had a history (Rogue put her in a coma), so she was strong and pissed. Anger issues are definitely something Ralph can relate to.