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Each event described in this timeline is either depicted in the films, novels, screenplays, or described in interviews of director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis and producer/co-writer Bob Gale.[1]
Time Travel Theory
According to Doctor 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. 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 the term Doc Brown often uses to describe the deleterious effects of this process is "erased from existence". Travelling to the future will not create a new timeline. The time traveller will merely move forward along his current timeline. Imagineer Bruce Gordon suggested in issue #108 of Starlog Magazine [2] that no second version of the time traveler exists until the time traveler goes back in time and sees himself in the past.
Timeline 1
This is the original, unaltered timeline. In this timeline, Biff becomes George's boss and continues bullying him.
Date unknown: Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon is first published.[4]
Date unknown: Eleven-year-old Clara comes down with diphtheria and is quarantined for three months. As a result, her father places a telescope next to her bed for her to use, which sparks her lifelong interest in astronomy and science.[citation needed]
Date unknown: Seamus McFly, his wife Maggie McFly and his brother Martin emigrate from Ireland to the United States. They take a few years to get to California, shortly settling in Virginia City, Nevada along the way. Martin starts a bar fight there after someone calls him "yellow," and is stabbed to death as a result[citation needed]
Date unknown: Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen shoots twelve men, not including Indians or Chinamen, before the end of this year according to a newspaper article. The article has no follow-ups because Tannen killed its editor.[6]
A snake spooks the horses pulling the wagon of Clara Clayton. They ride madly into Shonash Ravine, killing Miss Clayton. The ravine where she died will be renamed in her memory, Clayton Ravine.[7]
10:04 a.m.: The new courthouse clock is delivered to Hill Valley by train.[8]
8:00 p.m.: As part of Hill Valley’s anniversary festivities, the new courthouse clock is started at exactly eight o’clock PM PST. Photographs with the clock are offered to townspeople wishing to pose with the new timepiece. The clock will remain in faithful service to Hill Valley for the next seven decades, two months, seven days, two hours, and four minutes.[citation needed]
Date unknown Due to discrimination against German-Americans during World War I, Doc's father changes his family's name from "Von Braun" to "Brown".[10]
Date unknown: A History of Hill Valley, 1850-1930 is published. [citation needed]
Date unknown: At age 11, young Emmett Brown reads the works of Jules Verne for the first time and decides to dedicate his life to science.[citation needed]
Doc Brown slips off his toilet whilst hanging a clock and has a vision of the flux capacitor.[14]
While spying on a girl (Lorraine Baines) changing, visible through her window, George McFly slips and falls out of a tree into the street right in front of Sam Baines' car. Baines takes him in, and his daughter Lorraine takes care of George. The two fall in love.[15]
Date unknown: The youngest Baines sibling is born to Sam and Stella Baines (In an alternate script for Part II, a 1967 dinner scene with the Baines' mentions 11-year-old Ellen, but in the finished trilogy, name and sex are never mentioned, but Stella is very pregnant in 1955).
Date unknown: Lyon Estates, the future home of George and Lorraine McFly and their kids in 1985, is completed.
Date unknown: Ito Fujitsu is born. In Timeline 2, he will be Marty's boss in 2015.
Date unknown: No recognition for George McFly, who labors thanklessly at an unnamed company where he must complete written reports; if not now, his supervisor will eventually be Biff Tannen
Date unknown: Marty and Doc meet and become friends. According to the original Part I script, Doc shows up at Marty's house and hires Marty to sweep his garage in the year 1983. Doc gave Marty total access to his record collection, and they became friends.
Saturday, October 12: Libyanterrorists steal plutonium from the local power plant so Doc can build them a nuclear weapon.[14] It is dismissed by the FBI as a "simple clerical error".[24]
8:24 a.m.:Doc asks Marty to meet him at Twin Pines Mall at 1:15 a.m. next morning.
Marty fails his audition with his band, The Pinheads.
Marty admires a blackToyota4x4 at the Statler Toyota dealership (a Statler Studebaker dealership in 1955, and Statler’s Fine Horses in 1885).
A woman asks Marty for a donation to preserve the non-functioning clock tower, handing him a flyer containing specific date and time details about the lightning strike to the clock. Marty puts the flyer in his pocket.
Lorraine's brother Joey fails to make parole again.
1:16 a.m.: Marty arrives to the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall.
From about 1:18 a.m. to 1:35 a.m., in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall, Doc demonstrates his new time machine. His dog Einstein becomes the world's first time traveller at 1:20 a.m. NB: This time jump does not create a new timeline—timelines are only created by going back in time. Einstein merely moves 1 minute forward on timeline 1. The Doc states this is the case with timelines in the Blackboard scene in Back to the Future 2
1:35 a.m.: Marty flees from the Libyans in the De Lorean and accidentally departs 1985 for 1955 by accelerating to 88 mph. His arrival there brings Timeline 2 into existence, and Timeline 1 fades away.
Timeline 2
This is the timeline brought into existence by Marty's accidental time journey into 1955. It is the timeline that is current at the end of the first movie, before Doc takes Marty and Jennifer into 2015 to try to change it back. In this timeline, George becomes an author and Biff becomes a car detailer.
6:15 a.m.: Marty McFly arrives in 1955 from Timeline 1, on Twin Pines Farm, and knocks down one of Old Man Peabody's twin pine trees, who then later renames his farm, Lone Pine Farm.
8:29 a.m.: Marty McFly arrives to downtown Hill Valley.
Marty interferes with the first meeting of George McFly and Lorraine Baines by pushing George out of the way of Sam Baines's car, getting hit instead of George.
Marty finds the young Doc Brown and shows him the time machine from thirty years in Doc’s future. Its plutonium is depleted, however, rendering it useless for time travel.
Marty discovers the flyer with the details of the clock tower lightning strike. Doc has said that only "a bolt of lightning" could provide the power to make the time machine function. The two devise a plan to channel the lightning exactly one week from this date.
Sunday, November 6th: Doc learns that Marty has interfered with his parents' first meeting and that he and his siblings will be "erased from existence" unless Marty can get them together.
Monday, November 7th: Marty, as "Calvin Klein" ("Levi Strauss" in the Spanish and Italian dubbed versions and "Pierre Cardin" in the French one), goes to Hill Valley High School to try and get George and Lorraine together, but she has developed a crush on Marty instead of George. Biff Tannen is not amused by this development.
1:21 a.m.: Marty, in a radiation suit as "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan", visits George to try and make him take Lorraine to the dance that Saturday.
George reports his weird alien experience to "Calvin," telling him that Darth Vader said he would melt his brain if he failed to ask out Lorraine. After George helps Marty open a Pepsi bottle, they go into the cafe, where George talks with Lorraine. The plan is successful at first, until Biff and his gang interfere. Biff and his gang chase Marty around Courthouse Square, and Marty improvises a skateboard to escape. Lorraine ignores George in favor of Marty, and asks Marty to the dance. Biff’s car has its first recorded encounter with a manure truck.
Wednesday, November 9th: George and Marty come up with a plan for Saturday night that will see George become a "fighter" for Lorraine Baines.
Biff, who is paying the bill on his tidied-up car, boasts to Lorraine that he will marry her someday. She has just picked up her outfit for the dance at the frock shop, and rebuffs his advances: "I wouldn’t marry you if you had a million dollars". Biff jumps into his car to go home to get ready for the evening. There is nobody with him.
Marty observes that Dave, and then Linda, have disappeared from his photograph from the future, indicating that the current timeline has already changed into a timeline in which they will never be born. He looks noticeably concerned.
Marty borrows Doc’s car to take Lorraine to the dance, but Biff steals her away. George arrives while Marty is suddenly absent. George punches Biff before he has his way with Lorraine, but she hasn’t fallen for him quite yet. George and Marty have more to do before Marty’s future is restored, and Marty’s photo proves it. Marty himself begins to be "erased from existence."
While George and Lorraine are finally beginning to enjoy themselves at the dance, Dixon cuts in. George nevertheless takes what is rightly his and the future Mr. & Mrs. McFly finally share their first kiss. The timeline in which George's and Lorraine's three children were never born has been averted, as Marty observes from his photo. Marty offers additional advice to his young parents in order to assure he will have a nice life back in '85.
10:01 p.m.: A chunk of the clock tower ledge breaks off as Doc Brown tries to connect the wires. This missing chunk is still visible as late as 2015.
10:04 p.m.: lightning strikes the clocktower, and Marty travels back to 1985 in the time machine, via a complex utilization of the energy of the lightning strike itself devised by Doc Brown, and thanks to Marty McFly’s precise foreknowledge of this local historic event. There are noreportedimmediate witnesses to this event. Despite repeated attempts, the clock is never successfully repaired; in fact, some Hill Valley residents voice a desire for the clock’s preservation as is (along with the damaged ledge below it) to memorialize the unusual occurrence.
10:05 p.m.: The young Doc Brown returns home, unnoticed, having witnessed the earliest successful demonstration of time travel in human history. He is carrying a note Marty has handed him in lieu of verbal information about his own future, but is hesitant about reading it. While he has torn it up, he does not discard it. Doc must wait almost three decades before acquiring the technology required to build the device he has just seen with his own eyes, and is careful enough not to further interfere with McFly family events as they unfold over the next decade (see Timeline 1 above for these events, which are for the most part unaltered, and will also occur as part of Timeline 7 below).
1:24 a.m.: Marty arrives from 1955. The rematerializing De Lorean fails to stop and crashes into the front of the Town Theatre (now used for a Christian revival congregation). He then runs from the town square over to the LonePine Mall to witness the departure of his one-week-younger self (The fate of this alternate 1985 Marty remains a mystery), and finds out Doc survived because he was forewarned by the note Marty gave Doc just moments ago in 1955 about the Libyans (and that Doc finally had the courage to read in his long interim). Doc retrieves the time machine before any witnesses arrive to the rundown square (other than former 1955 mayor Red Thomas, now a tired homeless man sleeping on a bench), and no charges are lodged against driver or scientist.
Doc takes Marty back to his home, and then travels to 2015. As the Doc travels forward 30 years along this timeline, the next 30 years of timeline 2 are revealed below.
(Saturday morning) 10:28 a.m.: Marty awakens from a night’s rest to discover he has a much-improved family life and circumstances; he owns the black Toyota four-by-four that he wanted, and his father is now an author (see below).
Sunday, October 27th: Marty races Needles and crashes into a Rolls-Royce, injuring his hand, blowing his chance to become a famous guitarist and setting his life on course toward a mediocre, suburban future (see entries below).
October/November: George McFly's first novel, A Match Made in Space, is published. The cover alludes to young George, young Lorraine, and "Darth Vader" (Marty's anti-radiation suit, utilized as a costume in 1955).
1990s
The filming of the Back to the Future Trilogy had been completed by 1990, a fact which may have influenced below parts of the timeline.
Date unknown: The Hill Valley Telegraph closes or sells its printing and news-gathering operations to USA Today to create a local edition of the nationwide newspaper.
Date unknown: Invention of: hover conversion, Mr. Fusion, the Black & Decker hydrator, the Mattel hoverboard, power shoelaces and self-drying jackets, skyways, rejuvenation clinics, suspended-animationkennels, automated gas stations, automated dog-walking leashes, thumbprintID verifications, the 300+ channel universe, automated hovering news units (as used by USA Today), roll-down TV sets (the McFly home runs the Scenery Channel on it in a window).
Date unknown: The United States abolishes the trade of lawyers, allowing the justice system to move with far greater speed and efficiency. The Weather Service develops the ability to either end or predict the end of rainfall to the exact second.
Date unknown: Relations with Vietnam improve and now there are promotions to surf there.
Marty Jr. is pushed by Griff to participate in a crime.
The 47-year-old Marty, dared by Needles, illegally lets Needles scan his card, and as a result is fired by Ito Fujitsu in typical real-estate mogul fashion: "Read my fax!"
Thursday, October 22nd: Marty Jr. is tried, convicted and sentenced to 15 years in jail for a robbery.
Wednesday, October 28th: Marlene McFly attempts to break her brother out of prison, but fails and is caught. She is sentenced to 20 years in jail.
Dates unknown: Doc spends an unknown amount of time in 2015 and later. While he's there, he outfits the time machine with a Mr. Fusion and a hover conversion, undergoes personal rejuvenation surgery, and learns as much as he can about Marty Jr.'s meeting with Griff on the 21st. Eventually, Doc leaves for 1985 to fetch Marty and Jennifer. This creates Timeline 3 which begins at the Doc's entry point of 1985 and timeline 2 fades away.
Timeline 3
This is the timeline which Doc brings into existence by travelling to 1985 to seek Marty and Jennifer's help. In this timeline, the fate of the McFly children ought to have been greatly improved. Unfortunately, "Old" Biff's stealing the De Lorean and traveling back to 1955 retroactively changes the events of this timeline and bring Timeline 4 into existence instead. Biff quickly returns the De Lorean to 2015 undetected (before any past alterations have taken place), and Doc, Marty and Jennifer depart moments before it fades away.
Doc returns from 2015 and crashes the De Lorean into the garbage cans in the McFlys' driveway. Doc then informs Marty that "something has got to be done about (his) kids." Doc then proceeds to take Marty (and Jennifer by circumstance) forward along this new timeline to 2015.
Biff Tannen, whilst pausing from cleaning Marty's 4x4 Toyota for him, witnesses the De Lorean hovering briefly before taking off for the future.
4:29 p.m.: Doc, Marty and Jennifer arrive in 2015 to save Marty Jr. from Griff. Marty poses as Marty Jr. and turns down Griff's proposal. After the hover board chase which ensues, only Griff and his gang are arrested for damaging the courthouse. At some point Marty acquires a Grey’s Sports Almanac with the intention of using it to his advantage once he returns to his own decade.
"Old" Biff, age 78, who has been waiting for this opportunity for three decades, steals the De Lorean and heads back to 1955 with Marty’s sports almanac, which Doc angrily threw into a convenient trash receptacle, bringing Timeline 4 into existence six decades in the past.
Biff returns the De Lorean to 2015. His return to Timeline 3 appears to break the Doc's rules of time travel (he should have returned to 2015 in Timeline 4). However the "ripple effect" which would cleanse the timelines is slightly delayed (Biff had travelled to 1955 where his younger self is too young to gamble, meaning young Biff could not immediately act on the knowledge contained in the almanac until 1958). After a few seconds in Timeline 3, the "ripple effect" which turns timeline 3 into timeline 4 catches up with Biff and he gets erased from the timeline after having been presumably murdered by Lorraine in 1996 Timeline 4. (see below)
7:28 p.m.: Doc, Marty and Jennifer, who think their adventure is over unwittingly depart to an "alternate 1985" thinking they are going home. They are unaware of the fact that Timeline 3 is collapsing around them and their trip to 1985 brings Timeline 5 into existence.
Timeline 4
This is the timeline Old Biff brings into existence in 1955 by arriving from 2015 in the stolen De Lorean, almanac in hand. It is replaced with a virtually identical Timeline 5 on October 26, 1985 when Doc, Marty and Jennifer arrive from 2015, and observe the damage Biff has accomplished.
The 78-year-old Biff Tannen arrives from 2015 sometime that morning with Gray’s Almanac. He hides the De Lorean in an undetermined location and sets out to find his younger self, who has just survived an automotive encounter with a manure truck, creating a lasting memory. Young Biff will have to pick up the car this morning downtown, as old Biff recalls correctly.
Young Biff boasts to Lorraine that he will marry her someday. She has just picked up her outfit for the dance at the frock shop nearby, and rebuffs his advances. Biff is about to jump into his car to go home to get ready for the evening, when he encounters an elderly stranger occupying the driver’s seat. The stranger soon informs him, "Today’s your lucky day."
Old Biff, entirely in secret, demonstrates the power of the almanac and convinces his younger self to hold on to it: "Keep it in a safe". He also informs him to kill anyone who asks about the almanac, specifically "some kid" or "a crazy, wild-eyed old man who claims to be a scientist" (referring to Marty and Doc, respectively).
6:38 p.m.: Old Biff departs 1955 to return the De Lorean undetected, not realizing his younger self might eventually lose the almanac. Doc Brown will fail to notice Old Biff’s departure time on the time readouts in the De Lorean, having distracted himself with thoughts of women and the old West.
Wednesday, March 26th: Biff Tannen, now at the legal age of 21, wins his first million on a horse race using the sports almanac, which he has managed to hold on to successfully.[18]
Wednesday, October 14th: Biff Tannen wins another large sum of money at a sports event. He is seen smiling on the cover page of the next day's edition of the newspaper, with the almanac partially visible in his pocket.[25]
Date unknown: Biff Tannen wins again and again, gaining the nickname, "The Luckiest Man On Earth."[18]
Thursday, March 15th: George McFly is shot dead by Biff Tannen on his way to pick up his writing award. He was against BiffCo's policies.[25]
Date unknown: Biff Tannen marries Lorraine McFly and becomes stepfather to Dave, Linda and Marty McFly, shipping Marty off to boarding schools overseas. Match, Skinhead and 3-D are still Biff's cronies.
Sunday, May 22nd: Doc Brown is committed after being declared legally insane. Richard Nixon announces he will run for a fifth term in office, vowing to end the Vietnam War by 1985. BiffCo's representatives announce that the company is going to build a new dioxin plant in Hill Valley.[25]
Date unknown: Something causes Biff's death, but exact details are unknown. A theory suggested by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis says that Lorraine found out Biff had killed George, and shot him out of revenge. This would seem to have the effect of erasing Old Biff from existence in 2015, as depicted in a scene deleted from Back to the Future Part II.
Timeline 5
This is the alternate timeline brought into existence when Marty, Doc and Jennifer return from 2015. This is referred to by Doc as 1985A, which is depicted in BTTF Part II. The key difference between this timeline and Timeline 4 is the simultaneous presence of two Martys (his doppelganger overseas in Switzerland at boarding school), two Docs (his doppelganger committed to a mental institution) and possibly two Jennifers, one who is still unconscious from what she has witnessed in 2015 and her 1985A doppelganger, if she has one, which is never seen or mentioned.
Alternate explanation: We have no canon evidence for the continued existence of Timeline 4 Marty, Doc, and Jennifer after their departure for 2015 from Timeline 2. Given that the timeline altered around them during their trip, it is entirely possible (from the perspective of those in Timeline 4), that Timeline 4 Marty, Doc and Jennifer "vanished" at the time of their departure in Timeline 2 to "reappear" in the De Lorean, with their Timeline 2 memories intact, in Timeline 5, creating no doubles.
9:00 p.m.: Doc, Marty and Jennifer arrive back from 2015 and find out things have radically changed (see Timeline 4 above). Marty is caught by Match, Skinhead and 3-D, meets the radically alternate 1985 versions of his mother and Biff Tannen, and is a direct witness to Biff’s way with women.
Doc deduces what has happened in the past with Biff and the almanac from the evidence Biff has carelessly left behind, but he has no way of knowing when and where the transfer occurred. A courageous Marty confronts Biff about his secret document and easily extracts the needed information from the smug mogul. Biff, recalling the advice given by his future self, grabs his gun to kill Marty. A chase with Match, Skinhead and 3-D naturally ensues, and Marty escapes once again after learning it was Biff who murdered his father.
2:42 a.m.: Doc and Marty head back to 1955 to put the history they remember back on track. Jennifer Parker is left behind, as Doc surmises that she will not be erased when 1985A is. At this point, Timeline 5 fades away, to be replaced by the nascent Timeline 6.
Timeline 6
This is the key timeline brought into existence when Doc and Marty arrive in 1955 to relieve Biff of his newly acquired almanac from the future, thus preventing Timeline 4 and Timeline 5 from coming into existence, but without disturbing Timeline 2 as Marty has previously accomplished.
6:00 a.m.: Doc and Marty arrive from Timeline 5 in a De Lorean more technologically improved than the one (with depleted plutonium) in which the younger Marty has already arrived (Timeline 2). They have left Jennifer Parker safely asleep at home in 1985A, as Doc surmises that she will not be erased by any changes to the future that they will make. He also advises Marty that Biff’s initial acquisition of the almanac must not be interfered with, so that "Old" Biff will return the time machine to 2015 thinking he’s succeeded.
Morning: "Old" Biff arrives (in yet another instance of the De Lorean) to transfer the almanac to his younger self. He locates Biff at the auto repair shop picking up his car.
Young Biff Tannen boasts to Lorraine that he will marry her someday. She has just picked up her outfit for the dance at the frock shop, and rebuffs his advances. Biff is about to jump into his car to go home to get ready for the evening, when he encounters an elderly stranger occupying the driver’s seat. The stranger says he has a way for Biff to eventually get Lorraine to the altar. Young Biff fails to recognize his older self, even though he’s mysteriously able to start Biff’s car.
Marty McFly is an intimate witness to Old Biff’s demonstration of the power of the almanac, but he does not interfere, as Doc has advised. Young Biff tells his older self he’ll "...take a look at it."
6:38 p.m.: Thinking he’s done enough to change the future, and intending to escape detection, "Old" Biff departs in the De Lorean to the same moment he departed in 2015 (see Timeline 3).
9:28 p.m.: Doc flies the De Lorean from the Lyon Estates construction billboard to the roof of Hill Valley High School, only to malfunction the time-circuits again.
Evening: Marty fights off Match, Skinhead and 3-D and keeps them from jumping the younger Marty (from Timeline 2), allowing the events of that timeline to occur as they had before (i.e., as Marty recalls it from his point of view). Marty avoids any direct contact with his day younger self, as does Doc Brown with his younger counterpart.
Evening: After much wasted time and effort, Marty ultimately retrieves the almanac from Biff’s car and burns it, causing this timeline to fade back to (or revert to) Timeline 3. Marty and Doc are able to visually confirm the erasure of 1985A from items they’ve retrieved from that alternate future.
9:44 p.m.: The hover-converted De Lorean from 2015 and 1985A, with Doc on board, is unexpectedly struck by lightning just outside Lyon Estates and sent back to January 1, 1885 due to an on-board malfunction Doc neglected to correct. This brings Timeline 7 into existence, seven decades further in the past. The lightning bolt damages the car's time and flying circuits and forces the car to spin quickly reaching 88 miles per hour, causing the time machine to disappear into the past, leaving behind a pair of spiral flame trails.[26]
Timeline 7
This is the timeline Doc and Marty exist in, separated by 7 decades of time, at the end of BTTF Part II and the beginning of Part III (i.e., before Marty’s trip back to 1885). It is a timeline in which Doc lives in 1885, without Marty, for only eight months and almost seven days. As it seems the careful Doc's presence has little impact on past history (until 1955 when his De Lorean is unearthed), this timeline is nearly identical to Timeline 2withTimeline 6.
12:00 a.m.:Dr. Emmett Brown accidentally arrives from Timeline 6. Stranded in the past, he sets up as a blacksmith in Hill Valley.[12]
Saturday, July 4th: Doc passes out after drinking one shot of whiskey at the 4th of July celebrations.
Saturday, August 29th: There is a meeting of the townspeople over who will pick up the new schoolteacher on the 4th. Doc volunteers.
Tuesday, September 1st: Doc buries the broken De Lorean time machine in the Delgado mine.[12] He writes a letter to be delivered personally by Western Union to Marty McFly on November 12th1955 at exactly 9:45 p.m. to the exact stretch of road he was floating above when he was struck by lightning.
Friday, September 4th: Doc picks up Clara Clayton. It is love at first sight. Unknowingly, Doc also prevents Clara's death that day, and Shonash Ravine is never renamed Clayton Ravine in her memory.
Saturday, September 5th: The Hill Valley festival. A photographer takes a portrait of Doc posing next to the new courthouse clock (this photo is discovered by Marty and young Doc in 1955 at the library). While Doc dances with Clara, Buford Tannen shoots him in the back.
Monday, September 7th: Doc dies of the bullet wound Tannen caused, and is buried in Boot Hill Cemetery.
In this timeline there are now four instances of the De Lorean present simultaneously (the one Marty brought here to create Timeline 2, the one Biff brought here to create Timeline 4, the one Doc and Marty brought to create Timeline 6, and finally the one that Doc hid in the past after he created Timeline 7)
9:45 p.m.: a vehicle driven by a Western Union agent arrives at the entrance to Lyon Estates. The agent delivers to Marty, on time at that specified location, in the pouring rain, the letter Doc dispatched in 1885.
At approximately 10:04 p.m., lightning having just struck the clocktower, Marty scares the young Doc by "returning" on foot seconds after Doc sent the younger Marty back to the future. Doc utters "Great Scott!" and suddenly faints. Marty drives the unconscious Doc back to his house in Doc's car.
7:00 a.m.: Doc wakes up to record the previous date's time-travel experiment, only to be shocked at Marty still in 1955.
Young Doc reads the soggy old letter his 30-year-older self wrote seventy years in the past.
Monday, November 14th: Marty and Doc uncover the damaged De Lorean—the hover conversion has been destroyed—along with 1950s-technology-compatible repair instructions and Doc's walkie talkie, from the Delgado mine near Boot Hill Cemetery, where the older Doc Brown was buried in 1885. As fate would have it, they also find Doc's grave and learn about Buford Tannen. Marty insists on going back to 1885 to rescue his friend; so they elect to photograph the headstone, as it will serve as a "ripple-effect" indicator of Marty’s success in 1885.
Tuesday, November 15th: Doc repairs the unearthed De Lorean, using tubes as well as early transistors in conjunction with the fusion reactor to provide time-travel capability. He fills the gas tank, and also installs fresh (oversized) batteries on the walkie talkies.
10:00 a.m.: Marty leaves 1955 and heads back to 1885 to rescue Doc. This act initiates the ultimate timeline, Timeline 8. Young Doc, with tangible secret foreknowledge, remains behind, leaving the timeline undisturbed. He waits the necessary three decades until he may build the De Lorean/time vehicle, and avoids further contact with the McFlys until the 1980s as outlined above (Timeline 1 and Timeline 2). Although he may not know if he'll be shot by Libyan terrorists in 1985, but he does know he'll possibly be murdered by Buford Tannen in 1885.
Timeline 8
This timeline comes into existence when Marty arrives in 1885, to try to prevent the events that lead to Doc's death in Timeline 7 at the hands of Buford Tannen. It is this timeline in which Doc and Marty appear for most of BTTF Part III. It is also the final timeline depicted in the trilogy, as the De Lorean will no longer travel backwards in time. Since Marty chooses not to race Needles upon his return to 1985, the future is changed once again, and the alternate futures Doc and Marty have experienced in Timeline 2 and Timeline 3 are erased by this timeline. Note:Two De Loreans exist in this timeline for five days in 1885, from September 2nd when Marty arrived, until September 7th when he departed for 1985.
8:00 a.m.: Marty McFly arrives in 1885 to rescue Doc from impending doom. Marty rips the fuel line on the time machine, while escaping Native American Horseback-archers, who were on the run from the Federal Forces, leaving the De Lorean with no fuel at all. He later meets his ancestors Seamus and Maggie McFly, and assumes the name Clint Eastwood.
Thursday, September 3rd: Marty runs into Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, great grandfather of Biff Tannen, and upsets him, causing Tannen to nearly hang Marty. Doc saves Marty in time. Marty informs Doc of his impending death involving Clara Clayton and Buford Tannen. Aware that he will fall in love with Clara Clayton and worried about changing his future, Doc decides not to pick her up, as he has already volunteered to do five days ago.
Friday, September 4th: Doc tries repairing the De Lorean, and accidentally saves the life of Clara Clayton anyway. It is love at first sight.
Saturday, September 5th: The Hill Valley festival. Doc and Marty have a photograph taken, posing next to the new courthouse clock (this photo is given to Marty in 1985 by Doc at the spot where the De Lorean was destroyed by a locomotive near Eastwood Ravine). While Doc and Clara dance, Buford Tannen tries to shoot Doc, but Marty interferes and saves him. He then checks his photograph from 1955, and gets a shock. The future of timeline 8 in which Doc is killed is replaced by one in which Marty, aka "Clint Eastwood", is likely to be killed.
Sunday, September 6th: Doc and Marty prepare to go back to the future. Doc says goodbye to Clara and tells her the truth, but she doesn't believe him. They part on poor terms.
7:55 a.m.: Marty has a showdown scheduled with Tannen; Marty and Doc are ready to escape through the back door when Tannen calls Marty "yellow". Marty still decides not to face Tannen, showing an incredible amount of growth from a mere day earlier, and is about to walk away when Tannen's gang gets ahold of Doc and threatens to shoot him.
8:00 a.m.: Marty then decides to face Tannen, and survives due to a trick learned from the Clint Eastwood movie A Fistful of Dollars (which was being watched by Biff in 1985A, in timeline 5). Again Marty checks the photo he has brought, and is relieved (the tombstone disappears from the picture completely). The future of timeline 8 in which Marty is killed is replaced by one in which both Doc and Marty survive.
Meanwhile, Clara Clayton, on a train bound for San Francisco, overhears a passenger talking about the heartsick Doc Brown; her belief restored, she stops the train and jumps off to find Doc. She discovers clues at the blacksmith shop and rides on horseback towards the spur line Doc and Marty are using. She must reach Doc before he vanishes forever.
Doc and Marty are using a hijacked train's locomotive to push the De Lorean up to 88 mph toward Shonash Ravine so they may both go back to the future (1985). Marty succeeds in doing so, but Doc, who has gone to Clara's rescue on the accelerating locomotive, and Clara are forced to stay behind. Doc now has the hoverboard and one of the walkie talkies. Since "Clint" was observed stealing the engine, and is presumed to have gone down with it, he enters the town's folklore as the man who beat Mad Dog Tannen, and Shonash Ravine is renamed Eastwood Ravine.
9:00 a.m.: Marty successfully travels from 1885 to 1985.
Date unknown: Doc finishes building his second time machine, out of a steam locomotive, and he, Clara, Jules and Verne make a trek to the future (2015 or later), where he retrofits the time machine with a hover conversion and other necessary modifications.
11:00 a.m.: Marty McFly returns from 1885 and the stopped De Lorean is almost immediately demolished head-on by a diesel locomotive approaching the Eastwood Ravine Bridge in the opposite direction. Marty escapes. He returns home to see everything is back to normal (as per Timeline 2). He then drives over to check on his sleeping sweetheart. She is just as Doc predicted.
In a virtuosic display of uncharacteristic self-restraint, Marty decides not to race Needles, and avoids crashing into a Rolls Royce, thus erasing the future experienced in Timeline 2. Jennifer surprises Marty with a fax she retrieved from 2015 in that very timeline, and as it "ripples" into a blank sheet of paper, she discovers the hidden truth about time travel, exclaiming: "It erased!" Marty takes her to see the remains of the De Lorean.
Doc, Clara and their sons arrive at Marty’s crash site in their time locomotive to briefly check up on Marty and Jennifer. Jennifer and Marty show Doc the blank fax, and he dispenses some sound advice about its significance. The Brown family departs for times and places unknown.
Doc, Clara, Jules, Verne, and Einstein return to Hill Valley to have a permanent place to settle down. The family continue their adventures through time, and are occasionally joined by Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker.
^Back to the Future Part II novel. In page 62-63; the HVPD officers are investigating Jennifer's body. It is revealed her birthday was on October 29, 1968. Although Officer Reese in the film just states "Age 47!" she most likely is estimating her age, as Jennifer's birthday is only a mere eight days away.
^Back to the Future Part I. According to a TV news program heard in the background.
^ abcBack to the Future Part II. According to a newspaper Doc showed to Marty.
^Back to the Future Part III novel. 9:44 p.m. is taken from page 42 in the BTTF3 novel. While "Young" Doc is setting the time-circuits to 1885, the "last time departed" readout displays Nov. 12, 1955 9:44 p.m.
