Back to the Future Questions

Bring on the tough stuff. There’s not just one right answer.

  1. Marty's parents are pretty different at the end of the movie. Would someone actually be happy that their parents were suddenly "improved" versions of themselves, or would they prefer to hold onto the people they already know and love, warts and all?
  2. Doc rips off some plutonium in order to get his time machine going. Does this suggest that rules/laws are worth breaking if doing so might result in an awesome scientific achievement?
  3. Marty nearly unravels the space-time continuum by interfering with his parents' romance. Even if time travel was real, could such a paradox ever take place, since if Marty was never born, he never could have gone back in time in the first place?
  4. People are more skeptical today than ever before. If someone showed up at your door tomorrow and insisted they were from the future, and knew all kinds of impossible things about you, is there any way you'd ever believe them, or would you be positive it was some kind of con? Do you think most other people would react similarly?
  5. A lot changed in thirty years. People from the 50's were almost nothing like people from the 80's. Can someone from one era ever truly understand/connect with someone from a different era, or is the generation gap too large an obstacle?
  6. Do you believe time travel is theoretically possible? Why or why not? If so, why isn't the world already teeming from travelers from the future?
  7. In 1955, Goldie Wilson is a lowly busboy. In 1985, he's mayor. Was BTTF trying to make a point about racial attitudes/realities across generations here? If so, what exactly were they trying to say?
  8. A ton of characters, settings, lines, etc. from the present are mirrored (sometimes almost exactly) in the past. What was the film trying to say by showing not only the two generations' differences, but also their uncanny similarities?