Goofs for
Back to the Future (1985) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When the DeLorean goes 1 minute into the future, the fire goes between Doc's legs but when the camera switches angles, it no longer does.
  
  
• Continuity: Odometer in the DeLorean throughout the movie. During the chase scenes with the Libyans, it is first shown as 33061 (When Marty says "C'mon move! Dammit!"), then it drops to 32994 (when Marty makes a sharp right turn and the speedometer drops significantly), then back up to 33062 (just before jumping to 1955), and finally towards the end of the movie , back down to 33051 (just before going back to 1985).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Marty is being chased by terrorists, it appears as though a stunt double is driving the car. Actually, this is footage that was shot with the actor Eric Stoltz playing Marty. Michael J. Fox was later chosen over him, but they kept the driving scenes at the mall with Stoltz in, since the shots were fairly distant and the driver's face is not particularly visible.
  
  

• Continuity: When Marty hitches a ride on the back of a truck, as he waves to the girls in the fitness center you can see he has a watch on his left hand. But when he meets Jennifer in school moments later, it has gone.
  
  
• Continuity: After Marty has been thrown into the bookshelf after the amp explodes, he is lying on the floor with his left leg bent at the knee. In the very next shot, he has not moved but both legs are straightened and on top of each other.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double for Biff when he and his thugs are chasing Marty around the town square.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Reflected in Marty's sunglasses after he is thrown across the room by the amplifier.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty is escaping from the Libyans, the time circuit is already on when he moves his hand from the ignition to the gearshift. But when he shifts the second time, the time circuit seems to be off until he bumps its power switch.
  
  
• Continuity: A picture on the table below Biff, and the candy in Biff's hand when he is talking to George about his car in 1985.
  
  
• Continuity: The sign atop Red Thomas' campaign car in 1955 changes direction as it turns the corner and one of the large loudspeakers disappears (the rear one).
  
  
• Continuity: Length of Marty's hair before he runs into Lou's Diner.
  
  
• Continuity: The menu in the diner when Marty talks to George after talking to Biff.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Marty hits the final note of Johnny B Goode, you can hear the note being sustained with vibrato, yet Marty isn't applying any.
  
  
• Continuity: When George and Marty are in the diner the first time, being accosted by Biff, George is looking at one of them in one shot, and when the shot changes, his gaze cuts sharply to the other one.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Seeburg remote-selection wall-boxes seen in the diner are incompatible with the Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The episode of "The Honeymooners" (1955) that Lorraine's family watches wasn't shown until 31st December, 1955, yet is seen in November 1955.
  
  
• Factual errors: The JVC camcorder requires constant pressure to operate the rewind feature, not just a single push and release.
  
  
• Continuity: When talking to George at the clothesline, both of Marty's shirt pocket flaps are out, but in the next shot one of them is tucked in. Shortly after that, both pocket flaps are out again.
  
  
• Continuity: Biff's car changes quickly when he is chasing Marty on the skateboard.
  
  
• Continuity: When being chased by Biff, Marty's grip on the truck momentarily changes from the back to the side.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double when Marty is walking all over Biff's car to avoid the manure truck.
  
  
• Continuity: Marty's skateboard suddenly gains modern wheels and trucks.
  
  
• Continuity: The wheels on Marty's skateboard when the Doc backs the DeLorean out of the truck change from yellow to pink.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty is pretending to be Darth Vader, the hair dryer in his belt appears and disappears (some extra footage, wherein Marty moves the hair dryer, was cut from the final version).
  
  
• Anachronisms: The guitar Marty plays in 1955 is a Gibson ES-345 with a retrofitted Bigsby vibrato (you can still see the studs on which the original stop tailpiece had been fitted); both the guitar and vibrato were introduced after 1955. The ES-345 was first produced in 1958 and it uses humbucker pickups invented by Seth Lover of Gibson in 1957.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Marty and Jennifer arrive late at school, you can see through the windows at the end of the hall that it's dark outside.
  
  
• Continuity: Strickland holds his hands over his ears then puts them down after Marty plays "Johnny B Goode", then in the wide shot of the crowd Strickland has his hands over his ears again.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty is "hitching a ride" on the back of a jeep, he passes the aerobic center (formerly Lou's Diner) three times. Each time is a different angle.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Enchantment Under the Sea dance the left speaker is atop a box, but when Marty gets on stage and kicks over the speaker the box is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Doc is telling Marty how his time machine works, he says, "Never mind that now, never mind that now." When he says this, Marty has the camera down by his side and isn't filming, yet later in the film when Marty shows the film to Doc in 1955, the film starts out with the camera on Doc saying, "never mind that now, never mind that now..."
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In the opening scene, Doc's invention overflows Einstein's food bowl. When Marty enters, you see an empty bowl, but that's the water bowl.
  
  
• Continuity: In the beginning of the film, the 1985 Marty is in his house discussing the wrecked car with George and Biff. A glass candy jar is shown, filled to the top with candy. In the next scene, the candy jar is only half full.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the "save the clocktower" scene, the can for donations makes the sound of a few noisy coins inside, but when Marty donates a quarter, it makes the sound of only one coin dropping into an empty can.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In 1955 when Marty is playing the JVC video camera for Doc Brown, one of the wires falls off but the picture keeps playing.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The dinner plates used by the Baines family in the 1950s were not made until the 1970s.
  
  
• Continuity: When Doc dislodges the cable from the lamppost you can see the minute hand on the clock tower advance, yet one moment later when he looks over his shoulder the minute hand advances again.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty shows the Doc of 1955 the videotape, the Doc of 1985 says "the flux capacitor stores it and then releases it", something he didn't say at the original scene at the mall. There are other differences between the two scenes.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Marty returns to 1985, in under 10 minutes he runs a distance shown as 2 miles on a 1955 sign. That sign shows the distance by road, and he took a short cut.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Although not widely used until after the establishment of the SI in 1960, the metric prefix "giga-" was invented in 1951, so Doc could indeed have known it in 1955.
  
  
• Continuity: The "Save The Clock Tower" flyer that Marty shows to Doc Brown in 1955 is smooth and pristine when he first unfolds it; in later shots it alternates between being wrinkled and smooth before Doc Brown wads it up.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Near the end of the movie, Marty positions the DeLorean and realizes he can go back earlier and warn Doc. However, Marty seems to press the buttons 458708 which have no correlation to 10/26/85 0124am.
  
  
• Continuity: At the dance, the picture under the strings at the head of Marty's guitar disappears in long shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty is getting ready to be sent back to 1985 and the DeLorean won't start, his foot isn't on the clutch. When he bangs his head and it finally starts, we see him taking his foot off the clutch.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Delorean backs up before lifting off at the ending of the movie, the camera is reflected on the rear license plate.
  
  
• Continuity: When Doc is talking about the significance of November 5 1955, Marty's camera alternates from his side to his eye between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: Just after Marty tells Biff to "Get your meat hooks... off..." he and Biff grab each other's lapels, poised to punch. In the next shot, Marty is no longer holding him and his collar is neat.
  
  
• Continuity: The amount of debris on Marty after he blows out the amplifier and the shelf falls on top of him.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the parking lot at the mall, Doc uses a remote control to drive the car after putting Einstein in the driver's seat. As Doc backs the car away from himself and Marty, the stunt-driver's hands wearing black gloves can be seen turning the wheel from underneath a dog suit.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: As George is approaching Lorraine in Lou's Diner in 1955, a customer nearby asks for a Cherry Coke. While Cherry Coke wasn't sold as a ready-made drink until 1985, Coke flavored with cherry or vanilla syrup was standard soda fountain fare in 1955.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When doc is using the remote control for the time machine at the start, a close up of the remote control shows that the voltmeter for the battery is reading zero - the unit is off.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At the end of Marty's "Johnny B Goode" guitar solo, the drums can still be heard, but a shot of the drummer shows that he is not playing the drums.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Marty plays "Johnny B. Goode" at the end of the movie, the double bass sound is the sound of a slapped double bass (the string pulled and knocked on the wood to give it a percussion effect), while the musician plays normally with his fingers.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The "keys" on the basketball court where the dance takes place are the newer keys which are 12 feet in width and were not used till around the 1970s. The old keys in the 1950s were much narrower.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the first time travel experiment in the mall parking lot, when the DeLorean reaches 88 miles per hour, it is shown beginning to glow and throw blue sparks. As it does so, it drives past crewmembers with lighting equipment and a generator.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During Marty's audition for the dance, the drummer is clearly not playing what we are hearing. We only see the drummer hit the high-hat and the snare, but we occasionally hear the crash cymbal and toms hit.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During Marty's audition for the school dance, there are clearly two guitars playing (one lead and one rhythm) yet onstage there is only one guitar player, Marty, and he is playing the lead intro.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the end of the film when Doc drives into Marty's driveway and knocks over the trash can, the driver (an obvious stuntman) is not wearing the futuristic sunglasses that Doc removes in the next shot.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty is skateboarding and stumbles upon two pedestrians, the lighting changes from sunny to shaded. Most noticeable on the boardwalk. They were clearly filming at a different time of day.
  
  
• Continuity: In the "save the clock tower" sequence, the same man rounds the corner in the background twice in the same direction.
  
  
• Continuity: In the coffee shop in 1955, when Marty and George are first seen sitting next to each other, we see Biff's black car outside, parked in the sunshine. When Biff enters the coffee shop, the car in the background is in the shade.
  
  
• Continuity: In 1955, Doc tries to read Marty's thoughts with a huge device on his head. After Marty says he's from the future, Doc starts saying "Do you know what this means? It means that this damn thing doesn't work at all". During his sentence, he tried to untie his strap under his chin and it's obvious he's struggling. He doesn't finish untying it, but in the next shot the device is in mid-air.
  
  
• Continuity: When the lady from the Hill Valley Preservation Society hands the flyer to Marty, the text that Jennifer writes on its back later is already visible.
  
  
• Continuity: After Marty arrives in 1955 early in the morning and leaves the barn, he drives what should be a short distance but when he arrives in front of his neighborhood the sun is quite high in the sky.
  
  
• Continuity: When George opens a bottle for Marty he has very disheveled, but a few moments later when they are out of the cafe George's hair is perfectly styled.
  
  
• Continuity: Marty shows Doc the letter that Jennifer wrote to him on the back of the "save the clock tower" flyer. Moments later, when Doc has the flyer and is reading the print, there is no writing on the back from Jennifer.
  
  
• Factual errors: The "Libyan" driver is actually wearing a Saudi headdress.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the movie, when Marty says the car is wrecked, they all look out the door and see Biff waxing the BMW, with Biff's pickup beside it. He is just starting the second coat of wax. After Marty meets Jennifer they look at his parents behind the screen door. The BMW is between them and his parents, but Biff's pickup is no longer visible. Biff didn't leave (he still had the second coat to apply). In the second film Biff is still at the house when the flying De Lorean takes off.
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning of film when Marty realizes he is late for school and rushes out of Doc Browns place, he closes the gate and places his skateboard at his right foot. The long shot then shows him skating away on the left foot.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When Marty wakes up in his bed in 1985, in the bookcase behind his head there's a yellow magazine named "RQ". This stands for "Reference Quarterly", a trade journal of reference librarians. In the DVD commentary track by producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton, they admit that the set dresser made a mistake in putting it in, as a teenager would have no reason to have a copy of "RQ".
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the movie, as Marty drives the DeLorean to the start line and then begins the trip up to 88 MPH for his attempted journey back, the street is alternately wet/dry between shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: While Marty is running from Biff in 1955, he takes a scooter/skateboard contraption from one of two kids, removes the top part, and skates away, sharply rounding a sidewalk corner on the way. Multiple scratch marks can clearly be seen on the concrete consistent with repeated takes of this stunt.
  
  
• Plot holes: Although Doc Brown would have been able to tell exactly which minute lightning would strike the clock tower (from the photograph in the flier), he would not have been able to determine which second - yet he implies that he knows when he puts the alarm clock in the time machine.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty is freaking out after arriving in 1955 and fleeing the Peabody farm, the stock footage outside the car window is full of trees. Yet, when Marty stops and gets out to see the Lyon Estates construction site, we see that there are no trees, only open fields.
  
  
• Continuity: The key bunch Marty used to try starting the stalled Delorean, shortly after he mounted the cable hook at the back of the car in 1955, was different from the bunch he used to start the again-stalled car shortly after his return to 1985. In fact, the one he used in the later scene consisted of just one key in a metal hoop.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In some overhead shots of Doc hanging on the clock tower, a pair of stage lights can be seen resting on the ground.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the film, when Marty is back in his house but everything has changed, his mother is asking him if he's going to the lake with his girlfriend. There are two shots of her, one before she asks Marty the question, and one after. In one shot, she has a teacup and saucer in her hand. In the other shot, the teacup and saucer are on the table.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Marty is waving to the girls in the aerobics gym (which used to be Lou's Diner) the camera truck is reflected in the large window.
  
  
• Continuity: In the latter part of the scene where Marty is accelerating to return to the future, there is a shot of the front of the time machine. To the right of this shot, the sign for the Bluebird Motel is seen, which is about where the "START HERE" line was.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Doc sends Einstein one minute into the future right at the start, it actually takes two minutes, 17 seconds.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the clock tower chase, disabled signs are visible. These were first used in the 1970s.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Marty is playing "Johnny B. Goode" in the dance, George pushes the guy dancing with Lorraine aside yet has not kissed her. Marty takes his hand from the fretboard, yet the sound of a guitar strumming can be heard even though Marty is the only guitar player on stage.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: According to the clock tower, it takes about 2 minutes for Marty to get the DeLorean up to 88 mph to catch the lightning, even though he appears to be flooring the gas pedal.
  
  
• Continuity: After arriving back in 1985, when Doc takes off to the future, he drives about 50 meters up the road and gets the DeLorean to disappear in under 100 meters past the house. Yet it took Marty some time to get to the clock tower from the BlueBird Motel.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the opening scene, if you watch the clocks carefully, you can tell that not only are some of them not synchronized properly, but some are not even running.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When the Libyans are chasing Marty, the AK-47 the shooter is using jams not once, but twice. One of the most well-known qualities of this weapon is that it almost never jams, even when filled with water or sand.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: It can appear to viewers that Einstein is a puppy in 1955 but still alive 30 years later in 1985. However, the 1955 puppy is not Einstein but in fact a different dog, Copernicus. You do not find out that he is Copernicus until Back to the Future Part III when 1955 Doc Brown who, after reading 1985 Doc's letter, asks Marty who Einstein is.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): As Doc Brown is showing Marty how the time machine works, he gives examples of certain important dates in history that you can travel to. One of them is the birth of Christ, which he enters "DEC 25 0000". There is no year between 1 B.C. and 1 A.D. It is believed that Christ was actually born somewhere between 4 and 6 B.C.. It is also believed that Christ was born sometime in the spring.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Marty realizes he can save Doc by going ten more minutes into the past than originally planned, he actually resets the Time Circuits to go eleven more minutes into the past.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In 1955, the record shop has a Chordettes album cover in the window, but it's actually a CD cover from the '80s.
  
  
• Factual errors: The guitar cord Marty plugs into the amplifier in 1985 is a TRS cable (tip, ring, sleeve), it has 2 bands going around the plug. The plug Marty plugs into his guitar is a right angled instrument cable (1 band around the plug). If Marty had been using a TRS cable he would have had another single banded cable hanging from his guitar (y-cable).
  
  
• Continuity: When Marty Arrives in 1955 and crashes in to the barn, the DeLorean does not appear to be covered in ice, like it did a short while before, when returning to 1985 following Doc's 'one-minute experiment' in the parking lot.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In 1955 Dr. Brown questions Marty on Ronald Reagan being President in 1985, saying he supposes Jane Wyman is first lady. In fact, they were divorced in 1948 and Ron and Nancy were married in 1952. However, Doc was probably not aware of this and has only a limited knowledge of pop culture, which would not be uncharacteristic of him.
  
  
• Continuity: Right before the Delorean makes contact with the wire to send Marty back to the future, you can see another person sitting in the passenger seat of the Delorean.
  
  
• Continuity: In 1955, when Biff loses control of his car and crashes sideways into the manure truck, the position of the car in conjunction with the truck changes from one shot to the next. When the car hits the truck, only the back seat area is in a position to be dumped on, but when the camera angle changes, the entire car is now in a position to have manure dumped on it.
  
  
• Continuity: In the first test run scene, Doc insists they wear radiation suits, because of the tube of plutonium. However, when he says 'Safe now' and places the empty plutonium holder back in the case, both Marty and Doc Brown remove their protection and Doc opens the case containing 14 other tubes of plutonium!!! During the first experiment where Marty first sees the DeLorean, the ramps on Doc Browns van lower. In the first shot, the ramps have wet tire marks as if the car has just been driven into the back of the van from the wet parking lot, but on the next shot of the ramps coming down, they have been wiped clean of tread marks.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Marty is videotaping Doc Brown inserting the plutonium into the DeLorean, it is translucent red. Metallic plutonium is silvery white in color.
  
  
• Factual errors: Doc says the DeLorean requires 1.21 gigawatts to make one journey through time. A gigawatt, or 1,000,000,000 watts, is a unit of power which defines the RATE at which energy is transferred. It is meaningless as to how much fuel, electricity or "Mr. Fusion" is required. Doc should specify an amount of time as to how long 1.21 gigawatts is being fed into the DeLorean, or used a different unit such as gigajoules.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Doc is on the ledge of the clock tower near the end of the movie, he pulls on the wire very hard to get it connected, but you can see when he yanks it, it goes well beyond the point where he could easily connect it to the plug, before it even detaches on the other end at the lamp post. The wire then appears very taut after catching the branch, yet he has more than enough slack left on the wire to wrap it around the big hand of the clock twice and zip down it.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Despite the more popular pronunciation of giga being 'giga,' 'jigga' is also an acceptable pronunciation.
  
  
• Continuity: Outside the gas station when Marty attempts to build George's courage, they purchase a soda from the Pepsi machine. After Marty's futile attempts to twist off the cap, George takes it to the side opener and pops off the top. Just before the cutaway you will notice the soda is about to overflow, and when they turn around the soda is under control, but still completely full.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Marty completes the improvised guitar ending for "Johnny B. Goode," he kicks over the guitar amplifier. The amplifier makes the electronic "splash" sound like a guitar amplifier that has a reverb tank. Guitarist Dick Dale and Leo Fender developed the first prototype reverb unit in 1961. Fender's Fender Musical Instruments Corp. introduced the first reverb units in 1962, seven years after the dance, which takes place in 1955.
  
  
• Continuity: In the "Darth Vader" scene, when Marty blasts the Van Halen music into George, there is a shot of Marty with the hair dryer held tightly on him with a belt, and the next shot of Marty there is no hairdryer on him. Then the next shot of Marty, the hair dryer is still missing, then, the next shot of Marty, the hairdryer "mysteriously" reappears! This was because of a deleted scene, and the two shots of Marty with the hair dryer were shots that were next to each other. The shots with the hair dryer "mysteriously" gone originally did not appear until much later, because originally Marty had taken the hair dryer out and "threatened" George with it.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In 1955 when the camera pans past the record store, there is an album in the window by Eydie Gorme - the album is entitled 'Eydie In Dixieland.' This album was not released until 1959.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: There is no cable pulling him back, just the lead from the guitar to the amp trailing out in front of him as he is blown back.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Marty tells the band at the dance that the song is in B, but when he plays, it’s in B flat.
  
  
• Continuity: The letter we see Marty writing in 1955 is not the same letter that Doc pulls out in 1985 after being shot. One noticeable difference is that the 'd' in "disaster" (at the end) is upper case in 1955, but lower case in 1985.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Marty is showing the tape to Doc in 1955, 1985 Doc (in the recording) says his line about the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity needed. When the Doc of 1955 says "what did I just say?", Doc in the recording is still talking, but when the tape was recorded, Marty is talking about plutonium immediately after the gigawatt line.
  
  
• Continuity: When Einstein returns to 1985, the Delorean has no ice covering it. In the next shot when the camera zooms down to the Delorean, there is ice covering it.
  
  
• Factual errors: Marty cranks the volume all the way up before he plugs in his guitar. A pop will happen when he plugs the cord in and again when he plugs the cord into the guitar. Either pop would be at least heard and would probably blow out the speaker. This can happen even on real amplifiers.
  
  
• Factual errors: After Marty plugs in to the amplifier, the hum from the speaker would resonant with the guitar strings leading to an enormous amount of feedback. This alone would make Marty temporarily deaf and he probably couldn't hear the phone ring.
  
  
• Anachronisms: After Marty returns to 1985, Doc Brown, forewarned by Marty's note, manages to survive being shot by wearing body armor. In 1985, there was no ballistic vest in existence capable of protecting against a long burst of 7.62mm rifle fire from a range of a few meters (and presumably, he had not yet traveled into the future and found one that was). Doc would have been riddled to death by the Libyan's AK-47.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Although the configuration of the gull wing doors on the DeLorean would make it impossible to open the doors once it was inside Doc's truck, he has a remote control for the car, so he wouldn't need to be inside the vehicle to load or unload it.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: After the DeLorean takes it's first trip in the parking lot of the mall, you can see a lens hood in the left side of the screen as we see Marty and Doc immediately following the fire trails.
  
  
• Continuity: Marty at the diner in 1955 - he is given a cup of some black tea or coffee. He is never shown drinking from the cup during the diner scenes but when he realizes his father has left the diner he is seen slamming the cup down with no liquid in the cup.
  
  
• Continuity: In the early part of the movie, when Biff is bullying the family, there is a full candy jar behind him. Just before Biff goes to take out some candy, the jar is suddenly half-empty.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Libyans first fire upon the van, the bullets do not inflict any visible marks, leaving the van looking as if nothing had happened to it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the scene where the DeLorean is tested with Einstein as the passenger, Doc is shown revving the car with the front brake on. The speed counter is ticking up. Even if the remote is set to register wheel speed as opposed to travel speed, it should not continue to count up from the same speed once the brake is released - inertia would cause the speed to momentarily drop. It is safe to assume the readout is accurate as it reads "88" when the car disappears, so either the initial count-up is in error, or the car has some kind of inertia-canceling ability.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Doc is unable to believe Marty that Ronald Reagan was president in 1985, he sarcastically says that Jane Wyman is the First Lady. Reagan had been divorced from Wyman in 1948 and was married to Nancy Davis in 1952.
  
  
• Continuity: When Doc is at the Twin Pines mall and tests the DeLorean with Einstein, it appears that the car runs with an automatic transmission: Doc doesn't move any shifter mechanism or clutch on the remote. When Marty gets into the car shortly thereafter and for the rest of the movie, the DeLorean has a manual transmission.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Since most pre-1965 silver coinage was out of circulation by 1985, Marty shouldn't have been able to pay for his coffee. However, the coffee Marty purchases only costs a nickel. The nickel Lou takes from him would appear exactly as the current coin, regardless of the date.
  
  
• Plot holes: After Marty gets back to 1985 and sees his parents, they don't remember him. Wouldn't they recognize him as being part of their past, from 1955?
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the diner in 1955, Marty wants something without sugar but asks for a "Pepsi Free." In 1985, Pepsi Free was the name of caffeine-free, not sugar-free, Pepsi. If Marty wanted Pepsi without sugar he should have asked for "Diet Pepsi" or "Diet Pepsi Free." Presumably the filmmakers ignored this in order to get both the "Tab" and "Pepsi Free" gags into the scene.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When young George McFly is hanging some laundry on the clothes line in his backyard the clothes hang like they are dry, blowing in the weak breeze.
  
  
• Factual errors: DeLorean speedometers only go 85 miles per hour, but the one used in the movie goes 95 miles per hour.
  
  
• Plot holes: Doc is touching the wire when lightning strikes the clock tower but he's not electrocuted.
  
  
• Continuity: The door pull strap on the DeLorean driver's door repeatedly alternates between being entirely absent, present, and present but installed incorrectly.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the bedroom where Marty wakes up to first encounter his future mother, the stormy early morning light from the window can barely light the end of the bed. She turns the light on and thereafter you can see the light from the rainy window throws clear shadows onto the wallpaper at the back of the room, even though the bedroom light is now on.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Marty first meets the prof he is wearing his mind reading hat. He takes the sucker from the dog and turns on the main machine and attaches the sucker to Marty's forehead. Behind Marty and to his left can be seen a Jacob's ladder electrical spark tube. This was turned on by the prof using a switch at the top right of the main machine as we see it. Marty later pulls the sucker off his forehead, and the Jacob's ladder spark stops. Neither of them touched any switches to enable that.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: At the beginning of the movie the name of the mall was Twin Pine Mall. When Marty arrives back to 1985, the sign at the entrance of the mall parking lot reads Lone Pine Mall. This is due to the fact that Marty knocked down one of the twin pines when he crashed into it when arriving back in 1955. Therefore, when history is changed because of this, there's only one pine tree on the spot where the mall is built, making it The Lone Pine Mall.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: There is no way that Marty would have been able to connect the camcorder to a TV in 1955 without some sort of converter box. All the TV would have had would be an antenna connection, but not anything compatible with the connections on the camcorder. However, it is entirely possible that Doc, being a scientist and inventor, had a converter box on hand or could jerry-rig a workable facsimile of one.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Marty stays at the Baines house he askes where Doc Brown lives. Mister Baines tells him the directions. Marty then refers to the "John F. Kennedy Drive". Mr. Baines replies "Who the hell is John F. Kennedy?". At that point in 1955 JFK already had already been a Senator in Massachusetts for three years. Apparently Mr. Baines is not into politics.
  
  
• Factual errors: The DeLorean in the film is a manual transmission (you see Marty shift when escaping the Lybians), making the doc's remote-control device impossible.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The guitar Marty is playing at the dance in 1955 is a Gibson ES-335, however Gibson did not manufacture the model until 1958.
  
  

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