Events that occur prior to a timeline split date are of course identical to those described in the lower-numbered timeline. For instance, permanently unaltered events in Timeline 1 during the 1960s are common to all BTTF timelines and are listed only once. Accordingly, the events within each timeline are listed (chronologically) as they are understood to have occurred, but most often where they differ (often radically, or else subtly) from those of their "parent" timelines. Some timelines, such as Timeline 5 in which the events of 1985A take place, are drastically different in terms of their respective events and effects. The resulting timelines, from 2 to 8, are represented by each successive horizontal arrow. The blue stars represent the ensuing jumps by Doc’s DeLorean depicted in the trilogy. In the graphic above, the term Timeline 1 describes the original timeline. The multiple Back to the Future timelines. Accordingly, there is no second version of the time traveler, as had been suggested by Imagineer Bob Gordon in issue #108 of Starlog Magazine, years before the second film was released. Old Biff, in a scene deleted because, according to Bob Gale, the audience likely would not understand the reasoning behind it). Jennifer and Einstein in 1985A), leaving him or her unaffected unless the new timeline precludes the time traveler's existence (e.g. Doc further explains that the new timeline causes the world to "change around" the time traveler (e.g. Īs a time traveler acquires multiple recollections of these altered timelines, a fourth-dimensional latticework begins to emerge which can be expressed graphically, as Doc Brown actually does for Marty McFly (in a crude blackboard drawing) in Back to the Future Part II. Because of this, events from later timelines do not make their way backward into previous ones for example, Bob Zemeckis has specifically denied the presence of a second Marty at Twin Pines Mall in Timeline 1. Thus, every time travel jump into the past depicted in the Back to the Future saga "destroys" a current timeline and "creates" a new one, although Doc Brown often uses the phrase "erased from existence" to describe the deleterious effects of this process. Emmett Brown in Back to the Future Part II, whenever a time traveler alters key events occurring in the past, they effectively bring an alternate timeline into existence at their point-of-entry, and their original timeline is erased, even though its events are not forgotten by the time-traveler. Information from fan fiction is not included.Īccording to Dr. Verne's birthdate and Clara's birth year) are derived from episodes of the animated series, although whether or not that information is canon is subject to dispute by fans. The Back to the Future film trilogy presents a detailed local history of the fictitious city of Hill Valley and the genealogies, information, and histories of its residents.Įach event described in this timeline is either depicted in the films (or on other artifacts such as newspapers depicted in the films), in the novels, in screenplays to the films, or described in interviews by the Bobs (director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis and producer/co-writer Bob Gale). This article covers a subject that has been deemed non-canon by either the author or the Back to the Future licensees, and thus should not be taken as a part of the "real" Back to the Future universe. "Only if it turns out that reality is actually nothing more than a holographic illusion created by the interplay of subatomic particles on a vast two-dimensional membrane."