Back to the Future Writer Bob Gale on the “Golden Rule” of Getting Time Travel Right

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As a die-hard fan who grew up with a VHS copy of Back to the Future tucked under my pillow, I can attest to the profound impact this iconic trilogy has had on not just my life, but the entire time travel genre. It’s a timeless classic that continues to inspire creators across various mediums, and its influence is evident in everything from Stranger Things to Doctor Who.

Over nearly four decades, the “Back to the Future” trilogy – currently available on Peacock for streaming – has significantly shaped the concept of time travel in various forms of narrative: films, TV series, graphic novels, books, and beyond.

There are certain IPs (intellectual properties) that, much like the sci-fi DeLorean driven by Doc Brown, appear across different time periods. These stories, such as those about Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), serve as a benchmark or point of reference for writers from diverse backgrounds when creating tales that traverse the space-time continuum. A clear demonstration of its cultural influence can be seen in the second highest-grossing film of all time, Avengers: Endgame, which acknowledges and pays tribute to the lasting impact of Back to the Future, both through dialogue and plot elements.

Why Avengers: Endgame made that now-iconic reference to Back to the Future

As a passionate gamer, one thing I’m incredibly proud of is that we managed to make time travel comprehensible even for a 9-year-old. In the epic movie Avengers: Endgame, when they gather to chat about time travel (a scene not initially in the first preview), it was Bob Gale, co-creator and screenwriter of Back to the Future, who shared this insight during a call with SYFY WIRE. They were discussing the Time Shopper graphic novel from Action Lab Entertainment and writer Tony Fleecs.

He mentioned that during focus groups, people commented, “Hold on a second, in Back to the Future they could accomplish this and that,” to which the filmmakers responded, “Oh no, we need to address that issue because today, in 2019, most people’s understanding of time travel stems from those movies. So they included the scene where Ant-Man says, ‘What do you mean? Back to the Future is nonsense.’

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Regardless of that particular line of dialogue, the film Endgame did borrow an idea from the Marty/Doc plot. As the Avengers embark on their “Time Heist” to gather the six Infinity Stones, they revisit significant events in the MCU, offering fresh perspectives on these moments by looking at them from various angles.

Gale points out an interesting twist: “It’s amusing because in the Avengers film, they perform actions identical to those we did in Back to the Future Part II – traveling back to earlier movies and altering them. In our first movie, something unique was introduced – the duplication paradox. At the end of the film, Marty arrives at the mall on time to watch the events he’d just experienced, where a younger version of himself, a week behind, performs the same actions.

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How Back to the Future sparked a paradox debate amongst the crew

As Gale recounts, the paradox caused a divide within the film crew regarding whether what they were filming contravened the principle of one object occupying the same space at the same time. He elaborates that during filming, this topic sparked varied opinions among the team, and it was an intriguing discussion for everyone involved at the time. Interestingly, even today, the paradox remains captivating, and in the 1955 section of Part II, they amplified this concept by introducing multiple Docs and Marties.

Gale is pleased that him and director Robert Zemeckis opted to alter the past without causing too much change in the future. Originally, in the first movie script, Marty was expected to return to a more advanced version of 1985, but this idea was abandoned as it was understood that Marty wouldn’t be content in a world he didn’t recognize.

“One of the dramatic challenges of time travel is about changing history. Basically, you can’t do it. You can’t kill Hitler. You can’t stop Pearl Harbor. You can’t prevent the assassinations of JFK, RFK, or Martin Luther King. Because everyone knows those things happened, and they can’t walk out of the theater into a world in which JFK didn’t get shot,” he says. “But we were able to just change Marty’s personal history and left the rest of history exactly the same, which was just a really cool way to tackle one of the great time-travel problems.”

In the final scene, Hill Valley remains remarkably familiar, yet unremarkable. However, having been stranded for over an hour in a different time, it now feels remarkably homely.

In the final scene of the initial film, Marty returns to 1985, and the town square appears dreadful. There’s a homeless man on a bench, an adult bookstore, and the once-green park from 1955 has been transformed into a parking lot. Despite his exclamation that everything looks wonderful, it is only so for him as he’s returned to his own familiar surroundings. Gale remarks that we were able to narrate this time-travel tale in a way that the focus wasn’t on altering history but instead on creating a relatable human story. One that resonates with everyone by posing a question that people worldwide have pondered: ‘What did my parents do on their first date?’ This connection is what makes it memorable.

Back to the Future writer shares his golden rule for time travel

Over the past few years, Gale has re-entered the universe of “Back to the Future” as a writer for the Broadway musical and the comic book series by IDW. Whenever he contributes or advises on subsequent content related to the movies (such as comics or video games), his recommendation remains consistent: “Observe that there aren’t many time-travel TV shows or comic books with lasting success, because at some point, the challenge in writing time travel is that when you have a time machine, not only can you perform any action, but you can also reverse any action.

Gale emphasizes: “Whenever someone was working on additional Back to the Future projects, I would stress, ‘Avoid using time travel as a convenient plot device.’ In our films, we made sure that time travel wasn’t an easy solution. It required something specific to activate. It wasn’t simply a matter of hopping into the time machine and going wherever you wanted. Instead, it was often a complex problem to solve, so that characters couldn’t just go back in time, fix their mistakes, and escape their predicaments.

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2024-11-19 19:31