Although Back to the Future’s ending was always oddly dark, the story only gets creepier the more I think about its ending. Back to the Future’s ending is undeniably clever in terms of how the sci-fi comedy sidesteps the complications of time travel by jumping straight into the next big twist. Doc Brown arriving from the future and telling Marty that “Something’s gotta be done about your kids!” leaves viewers with no time to really think about how Back to the Future’s timelines add up.
Before the story has even ended properly, viewers are whisked off on the next adventure and encouraged to ignore any inconvenient plot holes that might arise from the original movie’s ending. This is a necessity since thinking too much about Back to the Future’s ostensibly happy ending makes it less cheerful and more existentially terrifying. In the movie’s ending, Marty technically arrives in a version of his life that he has never inhabited before, meaning the version of his family that he lives with are complete strangers.
