Back To The Future, Part 3 (Robert Zemeckis, 1990)
In the final installment in this popular trilogy (See Back to the Future Part I and Back to the Future Part II) Marty McFly (Micheal J. Fox) must travel to 1880’s Wild West to rescure Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from certain death at the hands of the Tannen Gang. Once in 1885, Marty discovers that getting the DeLorean up to 88 MPH without the assistance of gasoline might prove to be a bit of a challenge.

The third movie is particularly convoluted not in itself, but in its position in the timeline for it both follows and precedes the other two.  Thus, it will help us to keep in mind the structure of the story based on the information established in the first two.
First, let us get it clear that the third movie presents us with three distinct main time lines.  The first of these is the unaltered original history.  It is unarguable that before Doc Brown could go back in time, history had to progress to the time from which he begins.  Therefore we must have a history in which Clara Clayton and Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen and Shamus and Maggie McFly all lived their lives without any interference from Doctor Emmett L. Brown or Marty McFly.  Of this timeline we know very little, but the little we know will be helpful.  Once Doc Brown returns to January 1885, he creates an anomaly, a second main timeline, which is intrinsically altered by his presence in ways which are discoverable.  The third main timeline diverges from the second in September 1885, when Marty McFly returns.

The only piece of the first main timeline which is important to us involves Clara Clayton.  We know that in some timeline, Clara Clayton falls into Clayton Ravine.  It is patently not the third timeline, because we see Doc rescue her.  It is also apparently not the second timeline:  had Clara fallen into the ravine in the second timeline, she would not have been able to erect a tombstone for Doc.  Therefore she must have fallen in the ravine in the first main timeline, giving her name and the local story to that rift.

It will, I think, be accepted by all that at the beginning of the first movie, in the original timeline in which George McFly is hit by Lorraine’s father’s car, the first major timeline of the third part is the history.  In fact, our first major timeline will have continued beyond that point quite a distance.  As a general rule of thumb, any temporal anomaly caused by a trip into the past extends to the point in the future from which the time traveler began.  However, in this story, because of the convoluted timelines of the second part of the story, the point in the future constituting the end of these anomalies is not so easy to divine.  Consider for a moment:  Doc left 1955 to return to 1885; Marty also left 1955 to return to 1885.  However, both the Doc and the Marty who made these trips began their temporal travels in 1985.  Furthermore, they had both been to the future at least as far as 2015.  And this is the far end of our timeline.  Ignoring, for the purpose of the story, the fact that the second movie crippled the timeline, we will assume (arguendo) that all of the trips made were possible.  Thus we perceive that Doc and Marty would not have come to 1885 had they not been in 1955; they would not have come to 1955 had Biff not altered the timeline; Biff would not have altered the timeline had Doc not taken Marty to 2015 to help his kids.  Doc would not have picked up Marty had he not already looked into the future somewhere beyond that point.  Therefore, both of the temporal anomalies extend from 1885 to somewhere after 2015.

This means that the first major timeline brings us from the death of Clara Clayton to the original meeting of George and Lorraine McFly, on to the point when Marty escapes terrorists in the time machine, then follows the sawtooth snap created in the first movie by snapping back to 1955, and creating the timeline in which George decks Biff–the affluent timeline–and sawtooths until it stabilizes into an N-Jump termination.  Time then progresses to after 2015, as Doc explores the future.  All of the impossible mess of the second part becomes part of this timeline, up to the moment Doc is struck by lightning.  At that instant, in that branch of the convoluted mass of temporal anomalies, the first main timeline ends, and is replaced by the second.

In the second main timeline, as we mentioned, Doc prevents the death of Clara Clayton.  Although it is colorful to imagine that he rescues her dramatically as we see in the movie, it is far more likely that he meets her at the station, preventing her from driving the horses to town, being spooked by the snake and carried off the cliff.  Neither of them were aware that he had saved her life.  Doc had previously sent the letter to Marty, two days before Clara arrived.  By that night, the two had discovered their common interests, and were enjoying the night at the town festival.  But, in events similar to those seen in the film, Buford Tannen fires a bullet from a derringer into Emmett Brown when the elder scientist stands up for the lady.  She undoubtedly remained close by his bedside, talking with him and comforting him, until he died two days later.  Although Clara Clayton did not drive into the ravine, she did not marry, have children, or severely impact the timeline in any other way.  By 1955, the changes made were minimal, consisting principally of a tombstone and a few newspaper articles and photos.

Now we reach one of the peculiarities of this anomaly.  To accept this, the reader will have to perceive the deterministic nature of temporal anomalies, and the nature of determinism itself.  Let us assume that, the world being a certain way, a person must make a choice between thing one and thing two.  Let us assume that for any reason or for no reason the person chooses thing one.  That choice having been made suggests that the person ultimately would not have chosen thing two.  Thus, were we to erase all of the events leading up to that choice, and repeat them such that every event and circumstance which was relevant to the choice was the same, the person would again choose thing one, because the reason he chose thing one the first time would still have the same force this time:  because this time is still the first time, even though we perceive it as repeated.  No matter how many times the first time repeats, it will always be the first time.  It is as if a stereo tape has been rewound, and the left channel re-recorded:  the right channel will always play the same thing, no matter how many times the left channel is changed.  As long as nothing which is changed is relevant to the present circumstances, the events will play out the same way.

Some will argue with this by suggesting that certain actions could be random.  But if the choice between thing one and thing two was decided by a coin toss, the person would still conclude that the coin toss was the way to choose, and would reach into the same pocket at the same instant, grab the same coin, flip it the same way with the same force and angle at the same moment, catch it (or miss it) the same way, and get the same result.  Even the wind which effects the way it flips would be the same.  Thus, if nothing which is altered in the past matters to a specific chain of events in the present, those events will occur in the same way.

All of this is essential in order to understand that the second major timeline also leads to George McFly being hit by the car, Marty escaping to the past, the various travels of the second film, and Doc being hit by lightning.  In the second major timeline, the only things which are different which matter to us is that there is a tombstone for Doc Brown not far from the cave in which the time machine is hidden, and that Clayton Ravine does not have that name.

This is a flaw that the movie overlooks.  Marty should not know the name of Clayton Ravine, nor the story which accompanies it, because at the moment that Doc gets hit by lightning, Marty’s entire history shifts to this second timeline.  However, we will overlook this noticeable but small mistake; it is there for a plot purpose–the movie could not have any other way to tell us the name of the Ravine, unless it had done so before Doc was hit by lightning.

After Doc gets hit by lightning, Marty is in the second main timeline.  The letter was not delivered in the first main timeline, since it was not yet sent (although the Western Union man will have won his bet several times, since our tracing of the temporal anomalies shows that this time comes once in the line in which George gets hit by the car, once in the line in which Marty interferes, once in the repeat of that line with the more affluent Marty interfering, once in the line in which Biff gives himself the book, and once in the line in which Marty takes it away–and each time in this second main timeline the letter is brought for delivery, but only in the last repeat is Marty there to receive it).  The letter itself alters this timeline, as Doc now is instructing himself in understanding discoveries not yet made.  Fortunately , we can accept the idea that Doc does not alter the timeline thereafter, choosing to make his time trip (either by intent or due to the availability of the plutonium) on the same day in 1985.  But Marty chooses to end the second main timeline and begin the third by going back to rescue Doc, because he learns–and Doc in 1955 learns–that Doc is shot in 1885 by Buford Tannen.

Marty goes back and successfully saves Doc, without bringing him back to the future.  Doc saves Clara in a much more dramatic way, and Clayton Ravine is renamed Eastwood Ravine, on the mistaken belief that Marty died there.  And once again time progresses through all of the lines we’ve traced on these several pages.  There are a few points which could change things drastically, especially at the end of these anomalies; we will look at these individually.

You might expect that the fact that Doc has sent himself the blueprints for the time machine will alter the future; you might expect that since Marty has told Doc about being hit by lightning, Doc will know to avoid it.  However, you must remember that when 1955 comes around in the third main timeline, there is no reason for the entire sequence not to repeat.  All of the events which we have traced through both previous movies repeat again.  Then Doc and Marty receive the letter, and recover the time machine, and make the repairs.  Unfortunately, this time they do not find Dr. Brown’s tombstone.  Dr. Brown built a new time machine, and took Clara with him into the time continuum.  He was not shot by Buford Tannen, because Marty prevented that.  Now Marty and Doc have no reason to investigate what happened to Doc Brown–and would discover nothing if they did–so Marty will do as Doc requested, heading back to the future to dismantle the time machine.

Unfortunately, on the day that Marty fails to return to the past, the timeline ends.  Without Marty’s return to the past, time is forced to return to the second main timeline, and Doc Brown is killed by Buford Tannen.  All of history repeats its loops and swirls, until it becomes apparent that Marty now will go back to rescue Doc, restoring the third main line, after which he will not.  The movie creates an infinity loop of the most awkward and convoluted shape, since it is filled with tags and jumps to different timelines; yet in simple form, time advances to just beyond 2015, snaps back to 1885, advances to 1955, and snaps back to 1885 to repeat the process.  Once more we have destroyed time.

Is there any way out of this?  It is clear that if someone goes back to change the past, they cannot both succeed and preserve their reason for doing so.  It might be possible for Marty to have another reason to return to the past, and to save Doc, and thus to end in an N-Jump.  However, we see no reason for him to do this, and it would take a true creative leap to find one here.  Somehow, something has to happen between 1885 and 1955 which will spark Marty to return to protect Doc; but Marty no longer knows that Buford Tannen is going to shoot Doc “over a matter of eighty dollars”, and so does not know to save him from that.  No, for time to be saved, we must invent a reason for Marty to disobey Doc and return to 1885, and allow that having done so Marty will accidentally save Doc.  It seems unlikely.

But perhaps, if there is a divine providence in these matters, there might be an intervention which would put the time line back on its track.  There are records of the God of Abraham tampering with time–minor matter, mind you, but tampering no less–and He might do so again to save us all from the folly of our scientific tampering.  On the other hand, I have said somewhere that time in the supernatural realm is multidimensional in ways which go far beyond our simple notions of forward, backward and sideways.  Perhaps better solutions to the temporal paradox than the infinity loop, or to the impossible necessary future than the N-Jump, are found in this multi-dimensionality.  And perhaps there is a Doctor Emmett Brown traveling in time who may read this and stop by to explain it to me.

Back To The Future, Part 2 (Robert Zemeckis, 1989)
In this sequel to Back to the Future Marty McFly (Micheal J. Fox) travels with Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to 2015 to prevent Marty and Jennifer’s son, Marty McFly Jr. from landing in jail. While in 2015, eldery Biff Tannen steals the DeLorean and travels back to 1955 to give his younger self a copy of a sports almanac which drastically alters the timeline. Arriving back in 1985, Marty and Doc discover that Biff’s actions have considerable altered the 1985 they left. In order to restore the timeline Marty must travel back to 1955 and prevent the almanac from falling into young Biff’s hands.

Sideways time was not new with this movie, nor has it been ignored since. My earliest peek at it was in an old John Pertwee Doctor Who episode, in which the Doctor slides into what is frequently misnomered a “parallel world”.  “An infinite number of choices, an infinite number of parallel worlds” is how he describes it (and wrong on two counts:  a very great but finite number of choices, a very great but finite number of divergent worlds–but it was a mistake which took genius to make).  In each of these contexts, the idea that divergent timelines exist based on events which could have been different is basic.  However, Back to the Future treats such divergent timelines differently–and I think in a way which makes better sense in many ways.  The divergent timelines in Back to the Future are presented as alternate possible worlds, not actually existing:  only one timeline truly exists, and if the past is altered, the known future ceases to exist, replaced by the new future which is built from that past.

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I will mention that I find this position much more satisfying in both a subjective and an objective way.  Objectively, I find it absurd to imagine that each choice, each event, each occurrence, splits the world into two co-existing alternate histories.  By this view, either the universe is splitting into billions of divergent universes every second (after all, how many other things could you alone be doing right now?), or determinism is far more pervasive than any of us could imagine, such that even if you hesitate to push the mouse button, you have no alternative but to push it at the precise picosecond at which you will do so.  Subjectively, I do not like the prospect of imagining that for every moral or ethical decision I make correctly, there is another universe in which another me is making the opposite choice–and if so, how is that person really me, if he does not share my basic morals and ethics?  Although the existence of such worlds in sideways time–worlds in which the same people and places exist, and it is the same day and time, but the history is different somehow–is very appealing from the viewpoint of the storyteller, it is not so appealing as an explanation of reality.  (I would further mention that, as a theological position, I find the idea of dividing anyone into billions of divergent selves each with his own moral and ethical self-identity, his own spirit and soul, almost entirely indefensible.)

  The story launches from the end of Part I, as Doctor Emmett L. Brown sweeps into the presence of Marty and Jennifer, stuffing garbage into his recently-installed mini-fusion generator (looks like a tokomak design to me), and announcing that they must come back to the future with him, to help their children–an ending which suggested a sequel was coming.  But if we expected this film to be about the future, we were mistaken.  Marty and Doc must go to the future in order to set up the next twist in time, but they must again return to the past to repair it.  Looking at the movie carefully, we find not fewer than five trips from some point in the future into some point in the past.

It should be observed here that time travel into the future, by itself, creates no temporal problems.  The character who vanishes from the timeline by his own initiative, and reappears at some later time, has no more affect on the timeline than the one who moves away and comes back later, or takes an extended nap and then wakes up.  The only situations in which travel forward creates a problem are when that forward travel is induced by events in the future, or when that forward travel is tied to a return trip.  Temporal anomalies occur when events in one time change, but the causes of those changes lie in the future relative to those events.  That is, if something yet to happen causes a change in something which has happened, a temporal anomaly occurs.

It is clear from the early conversations in this movie that Doctor Emmett Brown has made several trips through time.  He went forward beyond the date to which he is taking Marty, and worked his way backward, picking up a newspaper at one point, arriving at the date on which Marty’s son becomes involved in a crime, and observing the boy’s movements, with a view to changing those events.  These “temporal hiccoughs” will have created a series of inoffensive N-jumps, as he by his presence changes insignificant details in the time line, creating C-D timelines which differ from the A-B timelines of the same period merely by his presence.  However, he forms a plan which can only result in failure or an infinity loop.
Returning to 1985 as the movie begins, he takes Marty and Jennifer (and his dog Einstein) back to 2015.  For Marty and Jennifer, this is a leap forward in time; however, for Doc Brown, it is a leap back from the points in the future in which he has collected information upon which he is about to act.  He has visited the future–we cannot say exactly what date; we will suppose that he went to November of this same year, since he left from November of 1985 to go thirty years forward.  This is a couple of weeks after October 21 of 2015, the date he has identified as the point at which the trouble starts.  He may have traveled beyond that, and those travels may complicate the temporal pattern significantly; however, for our purposes we may assume that he first got his information on November 12, 2015 (a date of no consequence to the matter, except that we need one).  On that date, Doc Brown first discovered the problem with Marty’s son.  He returned to several dates between November 12 and October 21 (causing those hiccoughs), picks up the paper on October 22, and then tracks Marty Junior’s movements on October 21 so that he may intercept him at the critical moment.  He picks up Marty because the young McFly can do a believable impression of his own son, and returns to carry out his plan.  Under the information we’re given, Marty does abort the crime, and keep his son out of jail.

We look at the newspaper–like the photograph of the first movie, this is a plot device; however, it is slightly more believable:  whether or not Marty McFly Jr. commits the crime on October 22, the newspaper will be printed.  We would only question why Doc Brown would have bothered to keep it.  But although the newspaper serves as a valuable plot device, it also dramatically underscores the temporal problem which has been created at this point.

Doc Brown went into the future, and discovered the “future history” of certain events.  He returned to the time of those events (and his trip to the past behind that is incidental, although it sets up its own anomaly which we shall examine in a moment) and, relying on information from the future, changed that future.  We see that the future is changed, because the newspaper changes; we know that everyone alive the next day will remember the events of this day as including the damage to the courthouse, not the arrest of the younger McFly.  However, now the information upon which Doc Brown has made his plans has changed, and he will have no reason to do what he has just done.

I want to make it clear that it matters little whether time works the way proposed in these articles, or the way suggested by Doc Brown in the films.  I will explain the problem under both theories.

Under our theory, time advanced to the moment Doc Brown discovered the disaster he wished to avert–November 12, 2015, point B, for our purposes.  Then, because he intervenes, time snaps back from that moment to October 21, 2015, point C.  Creating the C-D timeline, Doc now erases the events from history–the very history upon which he relied to discover the import of those events.  In this timeline, Doc will arrive November 12, 2015, point D, and learn nothing significant about Marty’s children.  Thus he will have no motive for his abrupt return to take Marty back to stop those events; and without his intervention, those events will happen, creating the history for him to discover and attempt to erase.  This is the infinity loop.

Doc Brown’s theory strongly suggests that there is only one real timeline; alternate futures cease to exist and are replaced by new futures when events change them.  For this reason, the picture and the newspaper change before their eyes:  the original future history has ceased to exist entirely, and been replaced with the new future history.  Unfortunately, if this is so, then not only is it not possible for Doc to have discovered the now non-existent information, but even the Doc present in October 2015 will not remember the information which he previously learned in November 2015, because that information no longer exists, and he never knew it, and could not have acted upon it.  I realize that this is absurd (the primary reason why it is not part of my theory), but do not want to put too fine a point on it:  the movie does not fully explain its own theories of time, and we would be remiss to presume too full an understanding.  This is only the best reconstruction I can make of the matter; and either way, once Doc has caused the change which erases the events, he can no longer act upon those events.  Time has come to an end, and our story is over.

But we will continue the analysis as if there were a way out of this problem (indeed, there might be, if at some point on the CD timeline between October 21 and November 12, something else happens to make Doc Brown aware that he must intervene to cause history to occur as it has, or to otherwise disrupt the timeline).

We have mentioned that Doc returned to 1985 to pick up Marty, creating another N-jump.  You might think that Doc did nothing at that point to create an anomaly; after all, it would be no different if Doc were to spend a few hours in Boston, come back for a moment, and then return to Boston.  However, in his return trip he has passively brought back and conveyed information about the future:  the time machine has been redesigned so as to be able to fly, and Biff Tannen has seen it do this, and seen it disappear.  Since much of the added technology comes from the future, it is necessary that time advanced to at least 2015 without Biff Tannen seeing this, and then reverted to the alternate timeline (the C-D segment of this thirty year anomaly) in which he has that information.  This larger anomaly most likely would have been another infinity loop, since Doc’s motivation for returning to the past was to retrieve Marty to change a future which he in fact changed, so at the end of this segment, he also has no reason to retrieve Marty.  It is from the C-D segment of this anomaly that the next is launched, as Biff steals the time machine.

There is a deeper problem in all this that complicates this anomaly immensely.  Doc has again undone history in a major way.  In removing Marty and Jennifer from 1985, he has prevented them from marrying and starting their family.  Although he quite reasonably found them there when he first arrived, when he returns with them in tow, their grown selves are not there, and there are no children, no reason for him to have brought them.  This further complicates things, as it means he will not have read about the young McFly getting in trouble, and so will not have gone back to get Marty.  That means that he will read about it, and will go back–an infinity loop may be created here.  But there’s going to be another anomaly within this, because if Doc brings Marty to the future and finds nothing for him to do, he will then return Marty to 1985, restoring the timeline he knew (with minor variations) such that now he needs Marty to save his son–as you can see, a very convoluted infinity loop within the infinity loop.  But the film ignores the impossibility and moves forward, so we will have to do so as well.

Because Jennifer is picked up by the police and “returned home”, there are some additional adventures created.  However, Doc’s concern that something horrible might happen if Jennifer meets herself (or if Marty meets himself) is patently absurd.  Merely meeting yourself is not a problem.  For the person from the past who meets the future self, it might be a surprise, but, like Biff, there is every chance he won’t recognize himself, and even if he does that is not necessarily a complication (unless, as Doctor Who somewhere suggests, temporal displacement involves changing some type of energy level such that physical contact between the two selves will cause a discharge–highly unlikely in our opinion).  For the person from the future, seeing the past self will only remind him that he once saw his future self.  If they meet in the past, the N-jump has already occurred, and time is already different; if they meet in the future, we are certainly on the timeline of the self who came to the future previously and returned to the past (because if not, the future self would not be there).  The only danger inherent in such a meeting is that the younger self may learn something which will change his life in a way which will change the older self such that the younger self cannot learn this.  (And it may be that Doc’s concern is overblown for Marty’s benefit:  he does not really believe that Jennifer merely seeing herself will destroy the time-space continuum as he says, but is concerned that if in seeing her 48-year-old self, her 18-year-old self will decide not to marry Marty, throwing the future into an infinity loop.)

In the midst of this, Jennifer learns a great many things which could become information by which an infinity loop is created; however, that information is not relevant to the events of this movie.  We will return to it when we examine Part 3.  Of far greater import, while Marty and Doc are retrieving Jennifer, Biff steals the time machine.

You will recall from our discussion of the Terminator films that at the moment anyone goes back in time, the timeline from which they have left ceases, goes not one picosecond beyond the instant the reverse time trip begins.  No history continues from that point; the A-B timeline has ended, and the C-D timeline replaces it, so any future the universe may have must follow from an altered timeline.  Thus Marty and Doc cannot return to the time machine, unless we can suppose that under the altered timeline events will bring them to a moment so similar to this one that all of the essential facts are unchanged.  However, we know several of the essential facts, and are forced to conclude that we have another temporal disaster.

We learn much about the newly created timeline from the next trip–the impossible trip–back to 1985.  It appears that Biff did give himself the sports almanac, and that relying upon it he makes himself a rich man.  He murders George McFly in 1973-after Marty is born (at least we don’t have that disaster), but early enough to change Marty’s life completely.  Marty has spent most of his life in far off boarding schools, and probably does not even know Jennifer, let alone Doc. 

Meanwhile, Doc has been committed–the date is unclear, but it is clearly earlier than 1985, and thus before the creation of the time machine.  Thus, Doc will not create the time machine, nor will he bring Marty into the future to save his kids, and so the aged Biff cannot take the time machine from them to the past.  But wait!  The future may be saved if Biff realizes that he must take the book to himself, and so invests in developing the time machine from the papers of the institutionalized Doctor Brown.  Alas, he has no way of knowing that Doctor Brown was working on a time machine, and will not give those notes a second thought; and even if it happens that someone else develops time travel soon enough, and Biff is in a position to exploit it, his statement to Marty indicates that his older self never explained who he was, and his younger self has no clue that it was him.  The triggering event–passing the book from the future to the past–sets off a chain which makes itself impossible, and we have another infinity loop.  Once again all of time comes to an end, perpetually repeating two alternate sixty-year timelines.

Although this time I see no possibility of resolving time, I will continue to trace the timelines in this movie.  Somehow, Doc and Marty return to 1985, discover the problem, and research it in detail.  Although this return trip should create an anomaly, because the point in the future from which they are alleged to have returned does not exist, the nature of this anomaly cannot be defined.  However, there are a few temporal inconsistencies which the movie overlooks, which we will examine.

Doc drops Jennifer home and Marty off at “his” house, and returns to the lab.  But Marty discovers that he no longer lives there–that his entire neighborhood has been destroyed–and Doc discovers that he has been locked in an asylum.  Eventually, Marty learns that his father died, his mother married the wealthy Biff, and he was sent to boarding school.  Now we must ask the question:  where are Doc and Marty?  The Doc and Marty of this world never went into the future; therefore, Emmett Brown is a mental patient somewhere, and Marty McFly is attending school in Europe.  The two we see are temporal duplicates from an alternate universe sideways in time.  But under Doc’s theory, there are no alternate universes in sideways time; there is only one existent timeline, and if it changes, all others vanish.  So if Doc is correct, then he and Marty–and Jennifer and Einstein–cannot be here; or else, upon their arrival, their divergent selves must cease to exist so that they may continue.  Neither of these solutions are satisfying.  To avoid the awkwardness of these alternatives, we must adopt the theory of sideways time–popularized most recently in Sliders, and explained somewhat in Multiverser–that alternate universes do exist, created by divergence from a common history.  Thus, Marty and Doc may still have (and recall) the histories of their own past, and may be here, while at the same time there is a divergent Marty and a divergent Doc (often misnomered “parallel selves”), the one in Europe and the other institutionalized.  But if this is so, then there will also be a divergent Jennifer and Einstein–and even if not, even if time has been so altered that neither of them were ever born (entirely possible, even likely given the disruption in this area), they are leaving their friends in that timeline, and returning to the past to eliminate it.  Doc suggests that time will change around them, bringing them back to the original future history.  However, were this so, then it would also shift the divergent Doc and Marty to the “original” history, and there would be two of each of them when these two return.  No, Jennifer and Einstein will be lost, trapped in a divergent universe without any way of returning home–and Doc and Marty, in a linear history time machine, will have no way of retrieving them.  In fact, when under the single real history theory of Doctor Brown history is altered, Jennifer and Einstein will vanish with the alternate universe, victims of a time travel accident.

If there were a way for Doc and Marty to have gotten to this alternate 1985, there would be nothing to prevent them from going back to 1955.  They embark on a fool’s errand:  they seek to change the present by changing the past and, as we discussed with Terminator, there are only three possible outcomes of this:  first, you can fail to make the necessary change, so that the past is intact and you still desire to change it, causing an N-jump; second, you can make the change, eliminating your reason for doing so, and so undoing the change, creating an infinity loop; third–the almost impossible result–you can make the change and create a different reason for yourself to know to come back in time to make the change, creating a sawtooth snap which will hopefully terminate in an N-jump (but might still result in an infinity loop).  Marty and Doc return to 1955 with the intent to alter history; furthermore, they are basing their efforts once again on information which they are about attempt to erase.  A disaster stands before us.

Note that the history they intend to create is not the original, but another divergence which is closer to the original than the current history.  They are in the C-D segment of the anomaly created by Biff (itself an offshoot of the N-jump created in the first film), and are attempting to make a portion of that into the A-B segment of a new anomaly whose C-D segment will lead to a future essentially similar to the A-B segment of the other anomaly.

The adventures which follow are exciting and fun (my video store has these films in the comedy section), and of little concern to us in detail.  Doc’s concern about encountering their selves is overblown, although it is true that if they recognize themselves they will know more about the future than they otherwise did (such as that they survived and returned to the past for some reason).  Also, if Marty’s presence here in this sequence disrupts the events of his prior visit such that the other he can’t return to the future, he creates an infinity loop (since he cannot then prevent himself from doing so), so it is necessary for him to prevent Biff’s thugs from attacking his temporal duplicate.  After much finagling, he manages to destroy the book, creating the new C-D timeline, in which history is restored to that which he prefers, that of the more affluent family headed by the successful author.  Unfortunately, this restoration undoes the reason for Marty’s return to 1955 (the second return), and another infinity loop results–once again, time comes to an end.

In the end, the time machine is struck by lightning, and vanishes into the past with its inventor.  Doc Brown is sharp, and has a letter delivered to Marty while the lad is still standing in the rain, introducing the beginning of Part 3.

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When I saw this Odinn Hat I knew that I had to have one. It just looked too cool not to own one. They can be found on the 66º North website. Enjoy. Mine is on the way to me through mailorder.

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I don’t think it should be any surprise that this movie is merely a quick vehicle to get Zac Ephron in a movie and making money as fast as possible before, god forbid, he becomes a flash in the pan. If you have seen a trailer for the film then you’ve pretty darn near seen the film aside from the juicy bits that all the tween girls in America are frothing to see.

Basically this is about a guy named Mike O’Donnell (Mathew Perry) who is having a rough time in his life. His wife is wanting a divorce, his kids are remote at best, he didn’t get the big office promotion and let’s just say his life has been going down the drain since his life at 17 when he was the big basketball star. And, let’s cue the body swap movie.

In order to get us, the audience, where we need to be which is watching Zac play out this 17 again life while maintaining his middle aged knowledge, Mike (Perry) falls into a Twilight Zone type of vortex where the switch happens. Switch? Instead of being 17 again he should have asked to go back in time 20 years. Think of movies like Big (in reverse) or Freaky Friday, only in a good way. Perhaps Like Father, Like Son comes to mind. Maybe even a dash of It’s A Wonderful Life is even thrown in.

Whatever movies you think of, and there are plenty to think of here, writer Jason FIlardi is responsible for the premiss being rammed down our throat. I use the word writer loosely as do I also the word responsible. Filardi has brought us Drum and Bringing Down The House. As for responsible, well that should go to the executives that were determined on creating a Zac Efron project rather than looking for a project for Zac Efron.

The real question was why I was even attending a screening of this movie. Well, I have a just turned teen daughter who had to see this trifle so when the passes came up I had to take them. In attendance was also another 100 teenage girls sans boyfriends. Just as contrived as the movie itself is shirtless Zac, who when he took off his T-shirt, my hearing failed from the squeals that only teenage girls can make. And why does he have to play basketball again!!

I can tell you that this is harmless entertainment. We’ve seen actors stoop much lower than this though I can’t tell you how we ended up with Matthew Perry cast as adult Efrom. I also can’t tell you why we need to have Brian Doyle Murray as the janitor that just happens to have the magical ability to make vortexes appear at his whim. Seems like he could do better than the janitor gig.

Overall, I didn’t throw up. I actually found a couple of the scenes funny and fresh. There was a lot that I didn’t like that with a little work could have been made much better, but Hollywood is lazy that way and if they don’t have to do the work, they won’t. *

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Just so-so; use some discretion.

* I actually like the poster. I think that what they had to work with that it’s pretty clever and at least it is not just another headshot poster that we’ve grown so tired of seeing as of late.

The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 silent film. The movie is based on two of Thomas Dixon’s novels The Clansman and The Leopard’s Spots. This early film is noted for its innovative technical and narrative achievements and is studied in virtually every Film History 101 class in colleges and universities. Of course it also provokes controversy due to its treatment of white supremacy and its positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan.

Originally this film would have been presented in two sections with an intermission in the middle. The first half depicts pre-Civil War America and introduces two families, the Northern Stonemans and the Southern Camerons. The Stonemans visit the Camerons at their South Carolina estate. The elder Stoneman boy falls in love with Margaret Cameron and one of the Cameron sons, Ben (Henry B. Walthall), pines for one of the Stoneman daughters, Elise. Of course the Civil War breaks out and the young men join their respective armies. A black militia (with a white leader) ransacks the Cameron house. The Cameron women are rescued when Confederate soldiers rout the militia. Meanwhile, the youngest Stoneman and two Cameron boys are killed in the war. Ben Cameron is wounded after a heroic battle in which he gains the nickname, “the Little Colonel,” by which he is referred for the rest of the film. The Little Colonel is taken to a Northern hospital where he meets Elsie, who is working there as a nurse. The war ends and Abraham Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theater, allowing Austin Stoneman (meant to parody real life Congressman Thaddeus Stevens) and other radical congressmen to punish the South for secession using radical measures supposedly typical of this period of the Reconstruction era.

The second part depicts Reconstruction. Stoneman and his “mulatto” protegé, Silas Lynch, go to South Carolina to observe their agenda of empowering Southern blacks via election fraud. Meanwhile, Ben, inspired by observing white children pretending to be ghosts to scare off black children, devises a plan to reverse perceived powerlessness of Southern whites by forming the Ku Klux Klan, although his membership in the group angers Elsie. Shockingly a former slave proposes marriage to the other Cameron daughter, Flora. She is scared by the former slave, Gus (Walter Long), and runs off into the forest pursued by him. Eventually she is trapped and then leaps to her death. The Klan hunts down Gus and lynches him. A crackdown on the Klan is then ordered by Silas Lynch (George Siegmann). The Camerons flee fro the black militia and hide out in a small hut which is home to two former Union soldiers who agree to assist the Camerons.

Meanwhile Lynch tries to force Elsie to marry him. Disguised Klansmen discover her situation and leave to get reinforcements. The Klan, now at full strength, rides to her rescue and takes the opportunity to disperse the rioting “crazed negroes.” Just then Lynch’s militia surrounds and attacks the hut where the Camerons are hiding, but the Klan saves them just in time. Victorious, the Klansmen celebrate in the streets, and the film cuts to the next election where the Klan successfully disenfranchises black voters and disarms the blacks. The film concludes with a double honeymoon of Phil Stoneman with Margaret Cameron (Miriam Cooper) and Ben Cameron with Elsie Stoneman. The final frame shows masses oppressed by a mythical god of war suddenly finding themselves at peace under the image of Christ. The final title rhetorically asks: “Dare we dream of a golden day when the bestial War shall rule no more? But instead-the gentle Prince in the Hall of Brotherly Love in the City of Peace.”

D.W. Griffith, the film’s director, agreed to pay Thomas Dixon $10,000 for the rights to his play The Clansman. Since he ran out of money and could afford only $2,500 of the original option, Griffith offered Dixon 25 percent interest in the picture. Dixon reluctantly agreed. The film’s unprecedented success made him rich. Dixon’s proceeds were the largest sum any author had received for a motion picture story and amounted to several million dollars. The film is estimated to have cost Griffith a total of $112,000 causing him to seek out many different investors. At the film’s premiere in Los Angeles the title was The Clansman but it was later changed to The Birth of a Nation to reflect Griffith’s belief that the United States emerged out of the Civil War and Reconstruction, ended by the Klan, as a unified nation.

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Lillian Gish, the Victorian ideal.

The films stars Lillian Gish as Elsie Stoneman and Mae Marsh as Flora Cameron. They must be credited for causing some of the stir that arose when the film was released. Not only is the film polarizing, but as the black men in the film are being portrayed as sex crazed and violent men after these so innocent white women had to bring about a response. To stir up this type of emotion in 1915 is an impressive undertaking by D.W. Griffith.

As you watch the film you can’t help be confused by part one and two as they look and appear to be two separate movies spliced together. Part two is the section with all of the disturbing material and does not match up with part one which has more cinema techniques. Watching the film without keeping history and film history in the back of your mind, one can easily find the film tedious and hard to keep your attention. It is like eating aged cheese, it takes a refined pallet. If you have an interest in film history and how we got from there to here with styles then this film is a must watch.

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Mae Marsh as Flora Cameron.

The film caused several riots in Boston, Philadelphia and other major cities. The NAACP organized protests at the various premieres of the film around the country. In addition, The Birth of a Nation was outright banned in several cities such as Chicago, Pittsburgh and Kansas City due to its racist themes. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson commented that the movie, which starred Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh, was “like writing history with lightning.” Griffith’s next silent film masterpiece, Intolerance, was made in reaction to the negative response he received from The Birth of a Nation.

Griffith’s use of intricate editing and film techniques such as alternating close-ups and long-shots from varying camera angles, were revolutionary and inspired a generation of directors. The film’s portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan and African Americans, resulted in Griffith being accused of racism. Despite attempts by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to have the film banned, it was highly successful at the box office. Deeply hurt by the accusations of racism, Griffith’s next film, Intolerance (1916), was a quartet of stories of man’s inhumanity to man. Griffith’s attempt to compensate for the politics of the Birth of a Nation was a commercial flop. Intolerance left him heavily in debt and over the next few years desperately attempted to make films that would enable him to pay off his creditors.

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Just so-so; use some discretion.

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There are plenty of places, if you look hard enough, where you can find scripts in all type of formats. Since I am a movie fanatic I read scripts of movies that I’ve seen all the time. I especially like to get a script, read it, and then see the movie to see how close what is on the screen to what I saw in my head.

Link to script you can print at home:

7 Days to Live – By Dirk Ahner. [2nd Draft.]
8 Mile – By Scott Silver. [Early Draft.]
8mm – By Andrew Kevin Walker [First Draft]
10 Things I Hate About You – By Karen McCullah Lutz.
25th Hour – By David Benioff. [April 2001 Draft.]
48 HRS. – By Steven E. De Souza, Walter Hill…
187 – By Scott Yagemann. [Revised Shooting Draft.]
531 – By Thomas A. Brown & Rob Goodman.
1492: Conquest of Paradise – By Roselyne Bosch.

– A –

Absolute Power – By William Goldman. [May 1996 Draft.]
Abyss, The – By James Cameron.
Adaptation – By Charlie Kaufman. [2nd Draft.]
Addams Family – By Larry Wilson & Caroline Thompson…
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.. – By Earl Mac Rauch.
Adventures of Fartman – By J.F. Lawton.
Affliction – By Paul Schrader.
After School Special – By David H. Steinberg. [Final Draft.]
Agnes of God – By John Pielmeier.
Air Force One – By Andrew W. Marlowe.
Ali – By Rivele, Wilkinson, Roth & Mann.
Alien – By Dan O’Bannon. [Early Draft.]
Aliens – By James Cameron. [First Draft.]
Alien³ – By Walter Hill and David Giler. [Final Draft.]
Alien: Resurrection – By Joss Whedon. [Early Draft.]
Alien Nation – By Rockne S. O’Bannon, James Cameron.
Aliens Vs. Predator – By Peter Briggs. [Unproduced.]
Aliens Vs. Predator – By Shane Salerno.
All About Eve – By Joseph Mankiewicz.
All the President’s Men – By William Goldman.
Almost Famous – By Cameron Crowe. [Dec 98 Draft.]
Alone in the Dark – By Mastai, Roesch & Scheerer.
American Beauty – By Alan Ball. [Early Draft.]
American Gangster – By Steven Zaillian.
American Graffiti – By George Lucas, Gloria Katz.. [.html]
American Pie – By Adam Herz.
American Psycho – By Matthew Markwalder. [Unproduced.]
American Shaolin – By Keith W. Strandberg.
American Splendor – Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer B…
American Werewolf in London – By John Landis.
American Werewolf in Paris – By Tom Stern & Tim Burns.
Annie Hall – By Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman.
Anniversary Party – By Alan Cumming & Jennifer J. Leigh.
Any Given Sunday – By 11 Writers. [Shooting Script.]
Antz – By Todd Alcott and Chris & Paul Weitz. [Early.]
Apartment, The – By Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.
Apocalypse Now – By John Milius, Francis Ford Coppola.
Apt Pupil – Brandon Boyce. [Early Draft.]
Arcade – By David S. Goyer.
Arctic Blue – By Ross LaManna.
Armageddon – By Jonathan Hensleigh…
Army of Darkness – By Sam Raimi & Ivan Raimi.
Assassins – By Larry and Andy Wachowski.
Assassins – By Brian Helgeland, Larry and Andy Wachowski.
As Good As It Gets – By Mark Andrus and James L. Brooks.
At First Sight – By Steve Levitt.
Atomic Submarine, The – By Orville H. Hampton.
Autumn In New York – By Allison Burnett.
Avengers, The – By Don Macpherson. [Early Draft.]
Avventura L’ – By Michelangelo Antonioni…
Awakenings – By Steven Zaillian.

– B –

Bachelor Party – By Paddy Chayefsky.
Bachelor Party – By Neal Israel and Pat Proft.
Back to the Future – By Bob Zemeckis & Bob Gale. [First.]
Back to the Future – By Kristen Sheley. [Novelization.]
Back to the Future – By Bob Zemeckis & Bob Gale. [4th.]
Back to the Future Part II – By Bob Gale. [Early Draft.]
Back to the Future Part III – By Bob Gale. [Early Draft.]
Bad Boys – By Doug Richardson. [Revised Draft.]
Badlands – By Terrence Malick. [Final Version.]
Bad Lieutenant – By Abel Ferrara and Zoe Lund.
Bad Santa – Glenn Ficarra & John Requa, Joel & Ethan…
Barton Fink – By Joel and Ethan Coen.
Base, The – By William C. Martell.
Basic – By Jamie Vanderbilt. [First Draft.]
Basic Instinct – By Joe Eszterhas.
Basquiat – By Julian Schnabel.
Batman: Year One – By Larry and Andy Wachowski.
Batman: Year One – By Frank Miller.
Battle of Algiers, The – By Franco Solinas.
Battleship Potemkin – By Sergei Eisenstein.
Beach, The – By John Hodge. [Early Draft.]
Bean – By Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll.
Beavis and Butt-head Do America – Mike Judge & Joe S…
Being John Malkovich – By Charlie Kaufman.
Being There – By Jerzy Kosinski and Robert C. Jones.
Being There – By Jerzy Kosinski and Robert C. Jones.
Big Blue, The – By Luc Besson, Garland & Golden.
Big Fish – By John August. [Final Production Draft.]
Big Lebowski, The – By Joel and Ethan Coen.
Big Sleep – By Faulkner, Brackett, Furthman.
Big Trouble in Little China – By W.D. Richter. [Partial.]
Birds, The – By Evan Hunter.
Birthday Girl – By Jez Butterworth.
Black Rain – By Craig Bolotin & Warren Lewis. [Early Draft.]
Blade Runner – By Hampton Fancher.
Blade Runner – By Hampton Fancher and David Peoples.

(check back for updates as I’ll add them when I find more.)

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Don’t miss the Atlanta tour of homes this year. The Midtown Atlanta tour of Homes is April 18, 2009 from 11:00am to 5:00pm. You’ll be able to see some of the most unique and eclectic homes you’ve ever dreamt of, or perhaps past by and always wondered what they looked like from the inside. The tour costs $20 in advance or $25 the day of th​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​e​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​e​​v​​en​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​t​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Tickets can also be purchased at Outwrite Bookstore located at 250 10th Street.

Also don’t miss the Modern Atlanta Home Tour and Events which takes place May 12-17, 2009.

For 2009 they will be featuring homes and interiors by Atlanta’s leading contemporary studios with names like Dencity, BLDGS, TaC Studios and more. You’ll be able to see the latest trends in design and architecture in Atlanta with this self guided tour of modern homes. The cost for tickets is $35 for both Saturday and Sunday tours with includes entrance to the MA09-Design Is Human Opening Night Kickoff Party and Exhibitions. Click here for more info.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989)
Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Keanu Reeves) are two teenage slackers that dream their garage band the Wyld Stallyns will one day bring them unlimited fame and fortune. Bill and Ted’s failing grades in History class jeopardize their dream as Ted’s father threatens to ship Ted off to an Alaskan military school should he fail his upcoming oral presentation in History. Divine intervention arrives to help Bill and Ted in the form of a visitor from 700 years in the future. Rufus (George Carlin) explains to the bewildered pair that he is from a future where the civilization is founded on Wyld Stallyns music and Bill & Ted’s philosophy of “Party on Dude!” and “Be Excellent To Each Other”. Rufus loans the pair his time machine / phone booth and instructs them to use it to help them with their History presentation since the future of the world depends on them passing it. Rufus then turns the pair loose on the past to kidnap historical figures to use in their presentation.

The very premise of the film is faulty.  We are introduced to a character named Rufus (George Carlin) living in a utopian society in San Dimas, California, seven hundred years in the future, in 2688.  This world is based on the music of Wyld Stallyns, a band formed by the movie’s main characters, Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves).  But, according to Rufus, that won’t happen if the boys fail history, and they are about to fail if they cannot get an outstanding grade on a history report.  If they fail, Ted will be sent to military academy in Alaska, and the band will never exist.

Our understanding of time requires that causes must exist sequentially before their effects, even if they are displaced temporally due to time travel.  This means that there must be an original timeline, a history, running from 1988 to 2688 before Rufus can travel back to 1988.  But according to the premise, if Rufus does not make that trip, Wyld Stallyns will be just another obscure garage band, and the entire society based upon their music will never exist.  Thus we have the problem that Rufus won’t make the trip unless he makes the trip–he causes his own history.  This is the reverse form of the grandfather paradox, the inevitability problem:  if you appear in the past, you are destined to depart from the future.  (For those paying attention to alternative time travel theories, this is insoluble in the dimension-hopping view, although it does work in the fixed timeline theory, because all actions by everyone are inevitable. 

Is it possible that without Rufus’ intervention Bill and Ted might pass history anyway, or that failing history might still form the band at the right time and do what must be done?  If this were so, Rufus would have no cause to make his trip, as the utopian society would have come into existence without his action.  But everything we know about 1988 goes against that possibility:  Bill and Ted are about to fail history; they not only don’t know the answers to their history problems, they don’t even understand the questions; and Ted’s father is already gleefully making arrangements to ship him to his new school.  No, there must be an original timeline AB in which the boys fail, Ted leaves, the band never forms, and the utopian society of the future does not come to pass.  But in that case, Wyld Stallyns is less than a footnote in history, and there is no reason for Rufus to make his trip to correct what he could not imagine.

Yet with a bit of extrapolation, the premise is salvageable.  Perhaps someone, probably someone named Rufus, made a trip back in time from the original 2688 (point B) to 1988 (point C, as history is inherently altered by his presence), and there encountered Bill and Ted.  Not for a moment imagining that the grades of two dim-witted high school students on a history report could be of any significance whatever, he assists them in his C-D timeline with an introduction to real history.  The details of this are the purest conjecture.  If he gives them control of a time machine akin to the one we see in the film, it is likely that they will have adventures much the same as those we are about to unravel.  On the other hand, he could take them on a sane, orderly trip through time, changing nothing of consequence, and creating a simple N-jump before 1988.  However it happens, Bill and Ted are inspired to produce an A+ report, pass history, and go on to form their band.  All of history from that point forward is altered, bringing about the utopian society.  And the revered published biographies of Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted Theodore Logan tell of the strange visitor from 2688 who changed their lives completely.  Thus the rulers in 2688 have had time (seven hundred years) to determine who went back and what they did, and so to make an effort to intentionally confirm what was done accidentally in the C-D timeline, sending Rufus back from point D to create the E-F timeline.  It is this history which we see as the film begins.

From a time analysis angle, the first important point we are given is that Ted’s father, local police chief, has lost his keys.  This becomes important later, and we will have to deal with it at that point.  The first time travel event is the trip Rufus takes from 2688 to 1988.  But nothing is simple in this film, because this anomaly is about to give birth to an entire series of internal anomalies.  But even before they begin, we have another complication, as Bill and Ted arrive from their own future, and tell their younger selves to trust Rufus.  It’s a small problem.  Obviously the first time these events happened, the counterpart travelers could not arrive because they had not yet begun the trip; but Bill and Ted are faced with a problem–their pending report–and Rufus has offered to help, so they would probably begin the trip anyway.  Once the timeline unravels properly, they will appear to themselves, and the final history will have them meeting in both points of time.  But on the first trip, no mention has been made of the princesses, and Ted has not been reminded to wind his watch.

The design of the time machine owes something to Dr. Who, as it looks like a phone booth, but with a complex antenna on top.  The explanation of how time travel works is kept simple and improbable, written off with a “modern technology” excuse.  This is not about how time travel itself works, and clearly does not intend to address that idea.

But they then create the next anomaly, traveling back to 1805 to see Napoleon’s invasion of Austria.  Napoleon orders them destroyed, and they flee back to their time machine and head for the future.  However, Napoleon is thrown by the blast of his own cannon into the path of the active time machine, and apparently (and inexplicably) dragged along to 1988.  This creates a very strange circumstance, as it means that at this moment Napoleon Bonaparte vanished from history (probably listed as “killed in an 1805 explosion”) fairly early in his campaign to conquer the world; yet he is still a known historic figure, whose contribution to the history report will remain significant.  In a moment, Ted will leave the dictator in the care of his little brother Deacon, who will subsequently abandon him at a bowling alley leading to a wild collection of events which have nothing to do with our time travel story save that the Napoleon who is returned to 1805 will be a rather different person from the one who left that time.

At this moment, something occurs the interpretation of which has some impact on our understanding of the time events:  Rufus steps into the time machine and leaves, and another time machine immediately arrives.  The question which faces us is whether this is one event, or two.  If the time machine leaves, and another is sent from the future, then an entire seven hundred year history must be lived, in which our characters have only Napoleon (who is never returned to his place in history in this version), so that the moment when the second time machine leaves the future can occur.  However, if we instead understand this as the time machine duplicating itself in the present as it departs for the future, we are still part of the same E-F timeline.  In the first case, Bill and Ted will do their history project with the help of Napoleon, and presumably get the required grade (otherwise the future is undone) and then another time machine is sent back for them to use to improve their grade (a foolish choice on the part of those in the future–if their first foray into the past was successful, another trip runs a serious risk of causing a disaster); in the second case, our story continues immediately, as the boys again travel to the past.

It is also at this point that they introduce a fiction which makes no sense at all:  “The clock in San Dimas is always running.”  Unlike Marty McFly, who observed that he had a time machine and therefore all the time in the world, Bill and Ted have only the amount of time between now and the time of their report.  But more on this later, as well.

The boys then begin hopping around through time creating temporal anomalies left and right.  In each case in which they remove someone from history they cause that person to mysteriously vanish from the world, never to be seen again before their report.  (In theory, they later replace these people, so they will return to existence never to have been missed.  In that subsequent timeline a similar report will be made, and the history of those people will be much as we know it.)

Their first stop is 1879, where they remove Billy the Kid from history.  This creates an immediate change in history (the disappearance of a notorious outlaw), and time must advance through all of the events until Bill and Ted leave to get Billy the Kid.  But these events will be confirmed, because the adventurers will still go to 1879 and take Billy.

Next they move to 410 BC, and take Socrates.  This sets up another anomaly, a new timeline in which the previous anomalies (removal of Napoleon and Billy) are contained.  The effects of this would be much like the removal of the Kid, but there are a few quirks which interrupt this.

The first quirk is their stop in the fifteenth century.  Here they meet a couple of princesses, but leave them behind.  Despite what Rufus will say later, these two young ladies will be forced to marry those old noblemen in several histories before they are rescued.  But there is no anomaly caused this time; Bill and Ted created a new history when they took Socrates, but in stopping here they have only become part of this history.  Since the history in which Socrates disappears is still being created, they become part of it the first time through.

But the next event is not so benign.  The foursome now travels to 2688, the origin of the time machine, and see their benefactors.  Normally a trip to the future does not create a problem; but in this case it is a disaster.  This time, it is Bill and Ted themselves who vanish from history never to be seen again; and since the entire world of 2688 is based on their as-yet-unrecorded music, they no longer exist and will never send Rufus back with the time machine.  Although it is internally complex, it resolves to an infinity loop spanning from 410 BC to 2688 AD.  At this point, we revert to the CD timeline, in which a traveler named Rufus happens to help two high school students with a report, and history remains forever trapped here.
But the film still has some interesting points to make, so we’ll ignore this problem and continue with the story.

At this point it becomes a game of how many historic figures can you cram into a phone booth.  They create a string of anomalies running into oblivion (they can’t have left from 2688, so they cannot have created any of these; but in overlooking that we would suggest that we have a string of similarly disastrous anomalies each terminating in 2688).  First they pull Sigmund Freud from 1901 (creating a new timeline), then Ludwig von Beethoven from 1810 (another timeline in which the Sigmund Freud and Billy the Kid anomalies are repeated), then Joan of Arc from 1429 (a new history in which all previous anomalies except Socrates are repeated), then Genghis Khan from 1209 (another).  They then pick up Abraham Lincoln from 1863, the first of these which does not become the beginning of a new history (it is part of the same history in which Genghis Khan vanished).  They then leap backwards, creating an alternate history spanning from one million BC to 2688 AD and repeating all the intricate anomalies already created.

Jerry-rigging repairs to their time machine, they leap forward to San Dimas, and at this point alter their earlier history by appearing and talking to themselves.  Ted realizes that he forgot to wind his watch, and they solve the problem of why they can’t seem to reach home in the morning.  But this begs the question, why can’t they just stay here overnight?  The movie wants us to think that if they don’t reach San Dimas in the morning, they won’t be there in time for their report.  But if they stay in San Dimas tonight, why won’t they still be there tomorrow when it’s time for the report?  The theory fails.  But, following his advice, they hop forward with their crowd of people, arriving on the morrow two hours before report time.  They now have really two problems.  One is that their report must suggest what these people think of San Dimas in the twentieth century, so they have to see some of it; the other is that Napoleon has disappeared.  But these problems are only remotely connected to our time travel questions (our historical figures will be very different when they return home).  Suffice it that they do recover Napoleon, but in the process lose the rest of the crew who are arrested by Ted’s dad for disrupting things at the mall.  In order to do their report, they have to spring their project from prison–and this is where the really interesting ideas start to appear.

Bill and Ted introduce us to this idea:  if they agree to do something in the future which involves changing the past, will those changes be effected in the present?  My answer is yes and no; but we’ll take it one step at a time.

Bill and Ted realize that to get their companions out they will need keys.  They resolve to travel back in time and steal Ted’s dad’s keys (you remember that they had disappeared) and hide them behind the sign in front of the police station.  But they haven’t done this yet, so the keys aren’t there.  All is not lost–they still have Napoleon, and can talk about the others that they met to some degree, so they leave and go get an A on their project.  But since they still have to restore all of the important people to history (remember, Lincoln’s assassination never happened now) they still have to arrange the breakout.  So this time they go back and take the keys, hiding them behind the sign, and creating an anomaly which should resolve to an N-jump (since they will make the trip next time to confirm that the keys are behind the sign).

This raise the issue of the keys.  Where were they in that original timeline?  There are two good possibilities.  The first is that Ted’s dad genuinely lost his keys somewhere else, but then Ted traveled back and stole them before they were lost.  The second is that the keys were never lost in the original timeline, but that we never saw that history–in the history we know, Ted had already come from the future and removed the keys.

But there are more obstacles to cover.  Once inside, they realize they need a distraction.  They don’t have one, but they concoct the idea of using the tape recorder on a timer.  It doesn’t happen, they go back and do their report with Napoleon, and this time when they travel back to get the keys they also set up the tape.  Maybe they also leave a note for themselves on a typewriter by an unoccupied desk, but this is unlikely.  On the next time through this history, they pick up the keys and the recorder activates on schedule, and in they go–but they get caught going by an unoccupied desk, and never complete the plan.  Back to the Napoleon report, and back to the past, and this time add the note (or possibly add the word “duck” to it).  On the next timeline they find the keys, the tape, and the note, and make it into the jail.

Well, this is very iffy at this point.  Maybe they get out of the jail; maybe Bill does the report while Ted sits in jail, but they get an “A” on the project.  Maybe Ted happens to make it out through the window and get the report going before his dad catches them.  Maybe they convince dad that they need these people for their history report, or maybe they leave and do the report again with just Napoleon.  Whatever happens, they agree that the trashcan idea Ted had at the moment of crisis was a good idea, and on their next trip back they install it.  Now everything works, and they do the report with a full contingent of historic figures.

The story is not yet over.  Bill and Ted still must return their new friends to their right places in history.  If they do it right (returning Socrates first, then Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln, Billy the Kid, and Freud), they create a single anomaly in which everyone returns to his place in history.  If they do it exactly wrong, each of those returns is another anomaly, a new history running from its point in the past to 1988.  But we are not told how they do it.
One thing is clear, however:  they don’t take these people back until after they have taken care of their alterations to the police station.  To do otherwise would be to risk all that they achieved, to create an infinity loop in which the last leg is that they failed to rig the jail and had to go through it all again.

Rufus then appears at their band practice with two guitars and two princesses.  His independent travels create additional interacting anomalies, but since we don’t know when they fit we haven’t covered them.  We do know that he takes the princesses from history; but if we assume first that their marriages to the elderly noblemen never produced any offspring and second that those same noblemen would not have otherwise altered the human population (e.g., having children or preventing someone else from doing so), it’s a simple N-jump.

He asks for Bill & Ted’s autographs, and for permission to jam with them.  Neither of these events will significantly alter history.  The delivery of the guitars might make some difference; but I’m one of those who thinks that talent and creativity are more important than equipment, and if the duo shows promise they’ll succeed with what they have and get decent instruments eventually.

If you’re on your toes and a fan of the film, you’ll have noticed that I failed to mention Rufus getting the autographs of the princesses, who after all he says were also in the band.  That’s because they weren’t, and then he didn’t know they were; there was a previous history in which Rufus did not bring the princesses (or the guitars, unless he’s been hanging around the twentieth century waiting for this moment).  When he brought the princesses, it was because he knew that the boys were taken with them and wished to help them during their journeys.  At that point Wyld Stallyns did not have two fifteenth century princesses on vocals.  But it sets up a new anomaly, as Bill and Ted include their “babes” in the band, Rufus becomes aware of this, and in the next timeline also requests their autographs knowing that they were part of the music.

And that concludes their excellent adventure; but they still had a bogus journey to make; and there are a few quirks there, too.