Marty’s almanac changing for Biff in Back To The Future Part 2 might seem like a plot hole, but it secretly makes sense thanks to the trilogy’s time travel mechanics. Every time travel movie has its own approach to the tricky topic. Some, like director Shane Carruth’s infamously dense Primer, treat the science of time travel completely seriously. Others, like 2010’s iconic H๏τ Tub Time Machine, don’t even try to explain how their version of time travel works beyond a few MacGuffins.
The Back to the Future trilogy does offer a few explanations for the time-traveling DeLorean that Doc and Marty use, but the movies are mostly content to leave the scientific specifics in the background. Occasionally, Doc will need to work out how to find gasoline in the Wild West to power the car, or the pair will use lightning to charge the battery back in 1955. However, most of the time, the Back To The Future movies only mention how their time travel works to avoid obvious plot holes.
The Ripple Effect Of Time Travel Keeps Changing The Sports Almanac In Back To The Future 2
Back to the Future Part 2’s Almanac Keeps Up With Changing Realities
For example, Back To The Future’s “Ripple effect” explains why the names on tombstones disappear and the people in pH๏τographs fade away depending on how Doc and Marty’s alterations to the timeline play out. This explains why the sports almanac that Biff stole from the future to get rich changes to reflect alterations in his timeline. An elderly Biff brings the almanac back from 2015 and gives it to his younger self, allowing him to become exorbitantly wealthy thanks to his foreknowledge of sporting events.
Like Back to the Future’s depiction of lightning powering the time machine, this seemingly silly detail is actually entirely internally consistent.
Inevitably, Biff’s first wins and every change that they cause in his timeline will alter the outcome of future sports events at some point. As such, it might seem like the almanac would become unreliable. However, the ripple effect (which happens in all directions) would change the almanac, so it would still work. Like Back to the Future’s depiction of lightning powering the time machine, this seemingly silly detail is actually entirely internally consistent. That said, this doesn’t mean that the almanac subplot is necessarily waterтιԍнт.
Back To The Future 2’s Ripple Effect Doesn’t Solve All The Problems With The Sports Almanac
The Almanac’s Existence Still Presents A Sequel Plot Hole
With history changing (particularly regarding sports), there is no way to guarantee that the publishing company that produced this specific almanac would make the same book available with the same cover. As such, there was no way to be certain it would be available when Marty went to buy it in 2015. Judging by how disastrously bad Back To The Future Part 2 made Marty’s brother Dave McFly’s life in the sequel’s deleted scenes, Biff’s time as one of the world’s most powerful men had pretty awful repercussions.
As such, it seems unlikely that the almanac could continue to exist in Biff’s version of the timeline despite his own changes to reality, especially after many years. That said, as Biff’s fortune grew, he would be able to rely less and less on the almanac to keep himself rich and powerful. Thus, this Back To The Future Part 2 plot hole is not necessarily as big an issue as it seems.
