May 6, 2025 • 36 mins
🚀 Great Scott! I’m thrilled to announce my new book, Why We Love Back to the Future: 40 Years of Fandom, Flux Capacitors, and Timeless Adventures, publishing May 6, 2025, by Mango Publishing!
📖✨ Pre-order now —  on Amazon! 🛹⚡Â
This book is the culmination of a 10-year journey exploring the Back to the Future universe through podcasts, radio shows, and TV appearances. It offers fans unique insights and features interviews with amazing individuals like Chris Van Vliet, Roxy Striar, Eric Tate, Tony Ruscoe, Jeff Smith, Frank Janisch, Norman Benford, and includes a special passage by Jeffrey Weissman, who portrayed George McFly in Parts II and III.
Kicking things off is an electrifying foreword by Saturday Night Live’s Mikey Day and a heartfelt introduction by Harry Waters Jr., who serenaded us with “Earth Angel” during George and Lorraine’s iconic dance. I can’t wait to celebrate 40 years of Back to the Future with all you time travelers!
Let’s make like a tree and get reading! 🌳📚 #BackToTheFuture #BTTF40 #GreatScott #TimeTravel #MangoPublishing #NewBookRelease #PreOrderNow
📖✨ Pre-order now —  on Amazon! 🛹⚡Â
This book is the culmination of a 10-year journey exploring the Back to the Future universe through podcasts, radio shows, and TV appearances. It offers fans unique insights and features interviews with amazing individuals like Chris Van Vliet, Roxy Striar, Eric Tate, Tony Ruscoe, Jeff Smith, Frank Janisch, Norman Benford, and includes a special passage by Jeffrey Weissman, who portrayed George McFly in Parts II and III.
Kicking things off is an electrifying foreword by Saturday Night Live’s Mikey Day and a heartfelt introduction by Harry Waters Jr., who serenaded us with “Earth Angel” during George and Lorraine’s iconic dance. I can’t wait to celebrate 40 years of Back to the Future with all you time travelers!
Let’s make like a tree and get reading! 🌳📚 #BackToTheFuture #BTTF40 #GreatScott #TimeTravel #MangoPublishing #NewBookRelease #PreOrderNow
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. This is Bob Gail, co creator Back to
the Future, and you're listening to Brad Gilmore. Stop stop,
okayat it's great Marten. You can't be such a bat
to the future. Oh. I know you did send me
back to the future, but I'm back. I'm back from
the future. A right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Wait a minute, wait, gosh, f are you're telling me
that you built the time machine.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
The way I see it? If you're gonna buil a
time machine, why not doing some style? Hey, everybody, welcome
to Back the Future of the podcast on the podcast
looking Back in Time with the greatest film trilogy of
all time, Back to the Future. I'm your friend in time.
Brad Gilmour. Oh my goodness, it's a big day. Today
(00:54):
is May the sixth, So it's not as cool as
May the fourth be with you. It is not sync
good then by yeah. But what it is is it
is a huge day for me and for hopefully all
you pinheads out there, because another what year? Yeah, year's work. Wow,
(01:17):
another year's work on a Back to the Future project,
and this one I come to you with a phenomenal
feeling about because today is the official release of Why
We Love Back to the Future forty Years of Fandom,
Flux Capacitors, and Timeless Adventures, available through Mango Publishing, on Amazon,
(01:39):
on Barnes and Noble, on Target, wherever books are sold.
You know, go and find it. If you find it
in a bookstore, please like, send me a picture of
it and DM me or email me Brad Gilmour at
can't Wait Forever dot com because I would love to
be able to sign those, take pictures of them, post
them at places, because it's a really interesting time for me.
(02:02):
You know. The first book came out in April of
two thousand and twenty, and what was interesting about that
was the pandemic. It was the pandemic. That's what was
(02:25):
so interesting, you know. And because it was the pandemic,
it it was the book. I feel like the book
kind of came and went a little bit because there
were larger things going on going on in the world.
And you know, it's just so crazy what five years
(02:47):
can do and how much can change in five years
in your life, in your mind and your career, and
you think that you're done with something and then all
of a sudden you find your way back to it.
And longtime listeners of this show. If you've listened since
twenty fifteen, God bless you. First off, we're actually in May.
(03:09):
This right now is our ten year anniversary of the show,
which I actually can't even believe that I'm saying out loud.
But you know, longtime listeners know, I've gone back and
forth on this show, like sometimes I'm like, oh, I
don't know what else I can do? What else can
I say? My heart wasn't in it. Sometimes I had
co hosts and I didn't have co hosts, and they're
(03:30):
all great people. We even bonded again over the pandemic.
And so I just I thought though that the book
was finished. And I've told this story in a variety
of different ways, but you know, I just thought it
was done and I put it out there, and then
there's a paperback version which corrected some minor things, and
(03:52):
thought I was done with it then, And so it was.
It was four years, i'd say, without thinking about the book,
you know, a good four and a half years, maybe even,
And I wasn't thinking about it. I didn't care, you know,
like I didn't care to think about it too much anymore,
(04:14):
just because writing that first version of the book was
so damn difficult. It was so damn difficult that I
never wanted to write a book again. And then I
did a Bond one, which again I felt like my
heart was was seventy five percent there and not one
hundred percent, and I just didn't feel like I didn't
(04:40):
feel like proud of those literary works as much as
I should have being my first book. And so I
tell this story in Why We Love Back to the Future.
But it was twenty twenty four this time last year MAYA,
twenty four Memorial Day weekends were coming up on exactly
(05:01):
a year, and I was with my buddy Jeff Smith.
We were doing the Clue of the movie podcast I
did Back to the Future of the podcast live. They're
at Comic Palooza and the headliners were Michael J. Fox,
Christopher Lloyd. John Cena was there as well, although you
couldn't see him unless you bought a ticket then you
still couldn't see you. But yeah, it was. It was
(05:26):
there with Jeff and doing that Back to the Future
live podcast. I was like, damn, man, you know, I wish,
I wish, I wish I would have done this on
the book. And you know, after the book came out.
I interviewed Bob Gail and Christopher Lloyd and Leah Thompson
and so many people who were involved with Back to
the Future that I felt like I kind of let
(05:48):
let myself down a little bit. And forgive me if
I've told these stories before, but this is like a
full length podcast and we're gonna get into some Back
to the Future ish stuff. Just give me a second, guys.
But I remember doing that convention and then leaving and
(06:09):
feeling very energized. You know, I had that picture prominently
displayed on my fridge, which I still do. I was
very excited about Back to the Future and kind of
thinking about it a lot again. And you know, the
musical had come out and I saw it, you know,
in twenty twenty three, and it was amazing. And then
(06:32):
I thought more about the animated series, and more about
Future Day and more about Biff, and I thought more
about everything, and I just thought there was so much
detail to say it in a pretentious way, or a
detail to say it in the southern vernacular that I
(06:56):
left out of that version of the book. And I
contacted Mango and said, hey, I want to do this
book again. I don't know if y'all want to do
it again, but I want to do it again. And
it just so happened We're coming up on the fortieth
anniversary of Back to the Future and all of that,
(07:19):
you know, and can I do it? And they responded
and said, put a pitch together. So I put the
pitch together similar to I did it in the first book.
And they came back and they said, we think it's
a great idea. And then I started to figure out, like,
how could I make this really feel almost new? And
the original manuscript, I believe was twenty seven thousand words.
(07:41):
I could be off by a thousand or two words,
and at that time the longest thing I'd ever written,
which I think most of the time you write a book,
it's hopefully the longest thing you've ever written, because before that,
the longest thing was like a term paper, you know,
which still was in like ten twelve thousand words, so
still you know quite a bit. But anyway, I just
(08:03):
felt like I knew more. I was a better writer,
I was a better thinker, I was a better communicator
in a variety of different ways. And they said yes,
and so we went on and we started doing it.
I added several new chapters, so it's like it's been erased.
Is probably one of my early favorites, where it discusses
the some of the cut scenes from Back to the
(08:28):
Future Part one that we thought were important to include.
And there are other scenes that are smaller extended versions
of scenes that didn't really matter. Now that didn't matter
but didn't add to the overall story. But there were
five scenes that we thought, Wow, this was interesting to
see and does this make a difference. Is this a
good cut is it a bad cut? Like we've done
on the podcast. And I actually got to use some
(08:50):
of those transcriptions, you know, from my friend Frank Janish,
from my buddy Norman Benford in there. I have contributions
from Chris van Vliet, who's a huge YouTube or Roxy
Streyer who's a dear friend of mine and a huge YouTuber.
Jeff Smith who directed who done it the Clue documentary.
We did the podcast together. We do Pick six together,
which you should check out. I'm actually gonna upload some
(09:12):
episodes of Pick six on this podcast feed so you
can check it out because I really think that y'all
would enjoy it. You know, I had him do it.
In addition to the book. Tony Rusco, who's a huge
on the Back to the Future musical, didn't a thing
for the book. Eric Tate did something for the book.
Jeffrey Weisman, who played George McFly, was so lovely in
(09:32):
contributing to the book. And so I started to compile
it all together, and I think the manuscript went from
twenty seven thousand words to fifty seven thousand words. And
then that doesn't include all the you know, letters from
friends in time that are included in the book. And
then here was like the best story I could possibly think.
(09:56):
One of the things that I didn't love about one
of the many thing I didn't love about Back from
the Future, a celebration of the greatest time travel story
ever told, was I didn't have a forward. I was
running up against the deadline. I'd never done this world before,
and I didn't have a forward written for the book,
so I had I wanted to get a forward, and
(10:17):
I thought, like this book was so cool that it
like the idea of it. Because it was still called
back by the way, this is a kind of behind
the scenes, it was called Back from the Future, A
celebration of the greatest time travel story ever told, the
Great Scott Edition and then it turned into Back from
the Future forty years of Fandom, Flux Capacitors, and Timeless Adventures.
(10:41):
So put a pin on that because that was the
name of the book. So I was trying to think, like,
who could I reach out to that would be interesting
to have write this forward? And I reached out to
a couple of people who I won't name, but I
didn't hear back from them, and I was like, Okay,
who can I reach out to? And then I said,
you know what, I must send a letter to Mikey
Day from Saturday Night Live. And Mikey It's been a
(11:06):
favorite of mine since I used to watch him on
television on wilding Out. Wilding Out used to be a
huge show for me, and I would watch him on
television on Wilding Out and then when he got to
Saturday Night Live, him and Taryn kill him, I was like, Wow,
those are the wilding Out guys and they're on SNL now,
this is so cool. I've kind of seen their whole
careers grow. And we had Mikey on the podcast a
couple of times. Although like we had them on the podcast,
(11:28):
it's not like we have some great rapport where now
I email them all the time and we chit chat
and talk and we're great buddies. It was just kind
of a professional You came on the podcast You Want
to Talk About Back the Future. He had is a
Cake two on Netflix. We talked about that, talked a
little Indiana Jones, but never anything like heavy right, And
(11:49):
I really got that rapport. But I knew how big
of a fan of the series he was, and he
was so gracious to, you know, put my book over
and get a copy of it and things of that nature.
So I sent him a letter in the mail. But
it wasn't just any letter. This is awesome. So I
had the idea of how is this letter going to
(12:10):
stand out and make him feel like, wow, I should
be a part of this. So what I did was
I went and ordered on Amazon a leather envelope like
almost like a filing envelope, like Manila sized, and I
went and I wrote the letter on my computer of Mikey,
(12:30):
ask him right the fore, and at the top of
it I put Western Union and of course I signed
it your friend in time Brad Gilmour, and I wrote
it and pen Then I did something I used to
do when I was a kid. When I was a kid,
I used to like to make treasure maps because I'm
a weirdo. And I made a treasure map when I
was a kid. And the way we would do is
(12:51):
you would draw the map on a white piece of
computer paper, and then you'd crumble it up and flatten
it out. Crumble it up and flatten it out, crumble
it up and out until it looked really weathered and
the paper almost went from stiff to very soft and wrinkly.
And you'd take that and then you'd get like a
(13:13):
tray like a baking sheet. I would do this at
my grandmother's house. You get like a baking sheet, and
then you would put like my grandmother always had tea
brood at all points and hours and moments of the day,
seven days a week. Twice on Sunday. She actually had
a sweet kind of lemon tea. And then my grandfather
had like a more strong stout tea than they always
(13:34):
were in the fridge, true Southerners. And I would take
some of that tea and I would pour it over
the paper just enough to cover it, not too much
to where it float, but just enough to word it
would cover it, and I'd leave it there, oh, for
about an hour, maybe two hours. I'd come back to it,
and then I go put in that Texas sun and
let it bake, and then it looked great in weather.
(13:56):
And then you take a lighter and you light the
edges of it, just sends it blow it out, so
you kind of blow it out so that it wouldn't,
you know, catch the whole thing on fire, and then
it would look like a real weathered leather or in
this case, it was a weathered treasure map. And then
I wanted to do the same thing for Mikey as
(14:18):
a now grown adult thirty one years old at the time.
And I crumbled the letter up, put it in the tea,
let it bake in the sun, sends the edges with
some with a lighter, and then I put it in
the leather envelope and send it to thirty Rockefeller Plaza
in New York, New York. He didn't think about it,
(14:41):
didn't hear from him. Was still working on the book.
I started working on it. I think I got the
green light in sometime in June and really started getting
after it in like July and August. It's when I
really started doing it. The first thing I did was
kind of do a pass of everything, look for grammar,
look for some mistakes, which there are a few in
there from the first run of the book and even
(15:01):
the second run of it, there were just mistakes. It happens.
I'm the only one working on this for the you know,
Mango does their part. They definitely do their part. They
do a copy edit, and man have they grown in
the last five six years and tremendously and Hugo and
the whole team over there. I can't say enough great
things about Mango. And that's not any PC crap, that's
like true. They are amazing. So I did it for cleanup,
(15:25):
and then I was like, Okay, what what chapters can
I take out? Is there anything to remove? Should I
add something? And so I kind of combined a couple
of chapters together, which were the time capsule chapters, which
were two separate ones, and I just made them one.
And then I was like, I want to add something
about the erase scenes. I want to add something about
the musical and so let's make sure that we do that.
(15:48):
And I want to add more context to every single chapter.
So every single chapter was either completely rewritten I read
through sentences and rewrote them and made them sound better
than I could before add a punctuation grammar. The whole
like wrote some new chapters, which was so much fun
to do, and I got to use parts of the podcast,
(16:08):
which is where the whole book idea came from. It's like,
what if we adapt the podcast into a book? And
I feel like this version is that, and so I
wanted to get that forward. I didn't hear back from
my key, but I was like, this book needs a
really good introduction, and I know that books have been
introduced by, you know, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd
(16:30):
and Bob Gail and Bob Zamechas, and those are the
best names you could possibly think about. Right to have
this on your you know, to have that name on
your book, Leah Thompson. There's so many big names, but
I really wanted somebody who life was greatly impacted by
Back to the Future and still is and you might
(16:54):
not realize it. And that was Harry Waters Junior. When
I first reached out to Harry Waters Junior a decad
to go, he said yes immediately. The first big name
guest I heard yes from Harry Waters Junior, then a
few years ago by I want to do another season.
I think of season four of the podcast where I
dropped it all at once Netflix style, which was just
(17:15):
so stupid, but I'm glad I did it. I reached
out to Harry. He said, yes, he came back on
anytime i'd reach him and email him, always a cheery response,
and so I reached out to him. I said, you know,
I want a really good introduction for this book, like
a like a like a forward. I think I called
(17:35):
it a forward at the time. I mean, which it is.
I mean it is, But when I read it, I
was like, Wow, this is a great introduction to what
this book was about. And I reached out to Harry.
He said, absolutely, would love to. He actually wrote it
on his laptop before he got on a intercontinental flight
(17:57):
to fly out of the country. I think he was
going to Frankfurt, Rmany or something like that. I don't
remember where, so don't quote me on it. But he
was out going out of the country and he wrote
the forward in the airport and sent it to me,
and I loved it. It was perfect, and so I
added that to the book. And then I was driving
home one day and I checked my email when I
got home and who was it who emailed me but
(18:18):
Mikey Day. And Mikey was like, hey, thanks for sending
me the coolest piece of mail I've ever received. Would
love to do your forward. And that's how I got
Mikey Day to do the forward. So the book was
all ready to go, and then Mango was like hey,
and this was interesting. They were like, hey, we're getting
(18:39):
some pushback on the title back from the Future. And
I was like, oh, okay, why and they were like, well,
you know, some distributors just want to make sure that
it's a positive portrayal of Back to the Future and
not like an exploitive book. And the title although says fandom,
it doesn't necessarily mean it's good fandom, right because we
(19:04):
all know what Star Wars is done and different things
like that over the years. So I understood that, and
I go, well, what do you want to do. I
thought they were going to tell me they're pulling the book,
to be honest with you, that's what I thought they
were gonna say. And I'm like, no, I did all
this work and you got to take it away from me.
But that's not what they said. At all. They actually said,
what we want to do is we have a few
(19:26):
series of books, Why we Love Twilight being one of them,
Why we Love Star Wars being another one. That one
was written by my buddy Ken Knapsock. And without Kin
writing that book, I would have never started this book
journey for back to the Future. It's really incredible that
they mentioned that. They said, we want to call this
(19:47):
book why we Love back to the Future. I said,
you don't have to twist my arm. I love it.
Let's do it. And the cover, I mean everything was done.
The design was done, The book sat Back from the
Future everywhere in at the scott edition, and then it
changed with like I think like two weeks to go
to press, it changed to why we Love back to
the Future. And I love the title even more. I
(20:09):
love it even more than Back from the Future. And
it wasn't my idea, and you would think as a writer,
your ideals surpricious, but it was pretty cool that that
happened and I was very happy about it. So the
book is out now, make sure you go get it,
download it ebook. It don't get the audiobook yet. The
audiobook isn't updated, so don't get the audio unless you
(20:30):
want to hear the original version of the book, which
is a far less good version, less superior version. This
is a far more superior version. However, you say that,
you know what I'm talking about. So what I wanted
to do right now, it's do a little fun gimmick
that I like to do, and I got some episodes planned.
This one's kind of at the whim. I wanted to
(20:52):
kick off the season a little bit later, but we'll
go ahead and get it working right now. So season
eleven officially underway. Head Roberts, Mechis and Tom Hanks on
this podcast. Who would have thought, Okay, what I want
to do is I've always wanted to get a physicist
on here to talk to me about how time travel
is really possible. So the first thing I want to
(21:13):
do is I'm pulling up my chat GPT and I'm
going to ask Juniper, is time travel possible? Hey? There?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So the idea of time travel is a fascinating one,
and it's a topic that scientists and science fiction writers
have explored for ages. According to our current understanding of physics,
time travel into the future is theoretically possible due to
relativistic effects like how time moves slower for objects traveling
close to the speed of light or in strong gravitational fields,
(21:44):
But traveling back in time is far more complex and
remains purely speculative. There are some theoretical models involving wormholes
or cosmic strings, but we're still a long way from
making any of that a reality. So for now, time
travel remains in the realm of science fiction. But who
knows what the future might hold?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Okay, well, interesting because I've always wondered if it's theoretically possible.
So okay, if going to the future is theoretically possible,
what are some theories on how you could travel to
the future?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Absolutely traveling to the future is more grounded in the
laws of physics we know. Here are a couple of
the main theories. First, there's time dilation from Einstein's theory
of relativity. If you travel at speeds close to the
speed of light, time slows down for you relative to
someone who stays stationary. So if you spend a period
(22:42):
traveling at near light speed, you'd age more slowly than
people back on Earth, effectively jumping into the future when
you return. Another concept is gravitational time dilation. Time moves
more slowly in stronger gravitational fields. This means that if
you were to spend some time I'm near a massive
object like a black hole, you'd experience time more slowly
(23:04):
than someone far away from it. When you return, you'd
find that more time has passed for everyone else, effectively
traveling into the future. Lastly, there's the concept of cryogenic
sleep or stasis, where someone could be put into a
state of suspended animation and then woken up far into
the future. While this isn't exactly time travel in the
(23:25):
relativistic sense, it's another way to skip forward in time.
These ideas are all theoretical or based on extreme conditions,
but they give us a glimpse into how future technology
or understanding might make leaps in time possible.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Okay, so let me go back for a second. Those
one of those kind of sounds like the plot of
Interstellar where you're traveling at the speed of light and
you come back and everyone else's aged and you haven't
aged as much. Right, But can we talk about how
accurate is the time travel as picted in back to
(24:01):
the future.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Exactly like an interstellar That effect is a real consequence
of relativity now. When it comes to Back to the Future,
the depiction of time travel is purely fictional and doesn't
align with our current understanding of physics. The movie uses
a Dolorean equipped with a flux capacitor to jump instantly
to different points in time, which is a fantastic narrative device,
(24:25):
but not something supported by science. The movie's portrayal of causality,
like changing the past and immediately altering the future, is
also quite simplified in reality. Even if backward time travel
were possible, it would bring up enormous paradoxes and complexities.
Back to the Future takes a fun, imaginative approach to
(24:46):
time travel, but it's more fantasy than science. It's great
for storytelling and capturing our imagination, even if it doesn't
reflect what's physically possible.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Okay, well, I don't know if I fully agree with you,
because you're saying that back to like if they go
back and change the past. Okay, it doesn't have a
direct effect as simplified as you say and back to
the Future. But just because Back to the Future simplifies,
it doesn't mean that there's not a part of Back
to the Future that is accurate. Because they explore things
(25:20):
like paradoxes, and they explore things like alternate timelines, which
would happen if you go back and change it. Like,
for instance, if I were to go back to yesterday
and change something I did yesterday, I wouldn't live the
same today that I'm living now. I would live on
a fractured timeline that today would be representative of a
(25:42):
different timeline because I changed the events of yesterday. Am
I right?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I get what you're saying, And that's a really interesting perspective.
The idea of alternate timelines or branching realities is definitely
a popular interpretation in modern physics and many sci fi stories.
While the classical interpretation of time travel might imply a single,
changeable timeline, many modern theories suggest that altering the past
(26:10):
could indeed create a new, divergent timeline, leaving the original
timeline unchanged. So, in a sense, what you're describing changing
something in the past leading to a different present is
in line with the concept of parallel universes or multiverse theories.
These theories suggest that every change creates a new branch
of reality, so you'd experience a new timeline from that
(26:33):
point onward. In that way back to the future, and
similar stories do capture the essence of some real theoretical ideas,
even if they simplify them for storytelling.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Okay, So if theoretically speaking, if I go back five
years from today and I change one thing that happens,
how is that going to alter the future? All right?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
So, if we think about it in terms of the
branching timeline theory, going back five years and changing one
thing would create a new timeline from that point forward. Essentially,
you'd now have two timelines, the original one, which remains
unchanged and continues on its course, and the new one,
where the change you made sets off a ripple effect,
influencing everything that follows. In that new timeline, the future
(27:23):
would unfold differently based on the change you made. Even
a small alteration could lead to a cascade of events
that alter relationships, careers, or even larger societal outcomes. From
your perspective, you'd experience this altered future as your present reality,
while the original timeline would continue separately, inaccessible to you. So,
(27:45):
in essence, the future you experience would be a new
branch of possibilities shaped by that one change you made.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Okay, So, if I were to go into the future,
as you says, theoretically possible due to light years or
wormholes or whatever the exact thing you were mentioning earlier.
Here's my question. If you're saying that's possible, but is
it possible for me to go forward into the future
effectively and also see a different version of myself? Or
(28:14):
is it more like we talked about an interstellar where
I come into the future because my timeline has slown
or slowed down rather comparative to those around me on Earth,
and therefore there's not two of me. They're just seeing
me later than they should have, so I'm younger. Great question.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
In the scenario where you travel into the future due
to time dilation like an interstellar, there wouldn't be two
versions of you. Instead, you'd simply age more slowly compared
to everyone else, So when you arrive in the future,
you'd be younger relative to the people who stayed behind.
They would have lived through all the intervening years at
a normal rate while you essentially jumped forward in time.
(29:02):
So there wouldn't be another version of you waiting in
the future. It's just you having experienced less time than
everyone else due to the relativistic effects. It's not about
creating duplicates. It's about experiencing time differently compared to those
around you. It's a mind bending concept, but it's grounded
in real physics.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Okay, is there such a thing as jumping forward in
time and actually seeing a duplicate version of yourself?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Not in any established scientific theory. The concept of seeing
a duplicate version of yourself when jumping forward in time
usually belongs more to the realm of science fiction. In
the real world physics, we know time dilation or any
forward time travel wouldn't create another version of you. You'd
simply arrive in the future after having experienced less time
(29:54):
than everyone else. The only way you'd see another version
of yourself in the future would be if you let
to your past self behind and then encounter that future
version who aged naturally. But that scenario involves more of
a hypothetical loop or a form of suspended animation, rather
than the actual duplication of yourself. So while science fiction
(30:15):
loves the idea of encountering multiple versions of oneself, our
current understanding of physics doesn't support that kind of scenario.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Okay, let me ask you this a couple more questions
before I wrap this up with you. So, first off,
in Back to the Future, Doc is talking to Marty
and he says, when he's showing in the flux capacitor
and the time machine how everything works, he says, Hey,
I could go back and witness the birth of Christ
to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In your opinion,
what are the top five most important world moments that
(30:47):
if we could theoretically go back in time and witness,
we should and why.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
That's a fun thought experiment. Here are five monumental moments
in history that would be incredible to witness firsthand. First,
the birth of civilization in Mesopotamia around three thousand, one
hundred BCE. Witnessing the rise of the first cities, writing systems,
and organized states would give unparalleled insight into how human
(31:14):
society first took shape. Second, the construction of the Great
Pyramids of Giza around two thousand, five hundred sixty BCE.
Seeing how these ancient wonders were built and the society
that created them would solve countless mysteries and offer a
direct connection to early human engineering and culture. Third, the
life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth around four BCE
(31:37):
to thirty CE. Witnessing the events that led to the
foundation of one of the world's major religions would offer
profound historical and cultural understanding. Fourth, the signing of the
Magna Carta in twelve fifteen. This moment laid the groundwork
for modern democracy and legal systems, making it a cornerstone
of political history, sith the Apollo eleven moon landing on
(31:59):
July two, twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, Watching humanity's first steps
on another celestial body would be a defining moment in
human achievement and exploration. Each of these moments shape the
course of human history in profound ways, and witnessing them
would provide invaluable insights into our past.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Okay, love that Love it now? My final question to
you on Back to the Future the podcast season A letter,
there's a theory that it looks like the McFly family
are fond of women who resemble Leah Thompson. Maggie McFly is,
of course portrayed by Leah Thompson and Back to the
(32:39):
Future Part three. She's married to Seamus McFly, who's portrayed
by Michael J. Fox, and this is also Michael J
plays Leah Thompson's son and Back to the Future Part
one and two and three. For all that matter, George
McFly is attracted to Leah Thompson.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Is there any kind of I don't know embedded DNA
in us that makes us instinctually attracted to a certain
type of person?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Like? Is it is that nature or nurture?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
That's a fascinating question. The idea that people might be
instinctively attracted to a certain type of person could be
influenced by a mix of nature and nurture. From a
nature standpoint, some research suggests that we might be drawn
to certain physical or personality traits due to evolutionary factors
like indicators of health, fertility, or compatibility. On the nurture side,
(33:37):
our upbringing, family dynamics, and early experiences can shape our
preferences and the types of people we find attractive or familiar.
This could explain patterns like the mcflies being drawn to
similar looking partners across generations. Ultimately, attraction is complex and
likely a blend of both genetic predispositions and environmental influences.
(33:59):
The idea that the flies have a type is a
fun narrative choice, but It also mirrors how real life
attraction can be influenced by a mix of inherited traits
and personal experiences.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Last, but not least, is Back to the Future the
greatest movie ever made?
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Haha, Well, that's a matter of personal opinion. For many fans,
Back to the Future is indeed one of the greatest
movies ever made. It's got a perfect blend of adventure, humor, heart,
and timeless appeal. Plus, it revolutionized the way we think
about time travel in film and left a lasting cultural impact.
Whether it's the greatest movie ever made might depend on
(34:37):
who you ask, but it's certainly a beloved classic that
continues to inspire and entertain people of all ages.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Okay, is it the best time travel movie ever made?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It's definitely a top contender for the title. Back to
the Future is often celebrated as one of the best,
if not the best, time travel movie ever made. Its
clever storyteller, memorable characters, and seamless blend of science fiction
and comedy set.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
A high bar.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It also introduced a lot of people to the concept
of time travel in a way that was both entertaining
and thought provoking. Of course, there's always room for debate
with other great time travel films like The Terminator, Looper,
or Interstellar, but Back to the Future holds a special
place in cinematic history and in the hearts of fans worldwide.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Ladies, gentlemen, that is Back to the Future of the
podcast Season eleven. Go Get Why we love Back to
the Future, available in stores right now. But this is
Back to the Future podcasts only podcast looking back in
time with the greatest film trilogy of all time, Back
to the Future. I'm your friend in time, Brad Gilmore
and I Will see you in the future. To think,
(36:03):
actuat s a fact the Arctic
Hi, everybody. This is Bob Gail, co creator Back to
the Future, and you're listening to Brad Gilmore. Stop stop,
okayat it's great Marten. You can't be such a bat
to the future. Oh. I know you did send me
back to the future, but I'm back. I'm back from
the future. A right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Wait a minute, wait, gosh, f are you're telling me
that you built the time machine.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
The way I see it? If you're gonna buil a
time machine, why not doing some style? Hey, everybody, welcome
to Back the Future of the podcast on the podcast
looking Back in Time with the greatest film trilogy of
all time, Back to the Future. I'm your friend in time.
Brad Gilmour. Oh my goodness, it's a big day. Today
(00:54):
is May the sixth, So it's not as cool as
May the fourth be with you. It is not sync
good then by yeah. But what it is is it
is a huge day for me and for hopefully all
you pinheads out there, because another what year? Yeah, year's work. Wow,
(01:17):
another year's work on a Back to the Future project,
and this one I come to you with a phenomenal
feeling about because today is the official release of Why
We Love Back to the Future forty Years of Fandom,
Flux Capacitors, and Timeless Adventures, available through Mango Publishing, on Amazon,
(01:39):
on Barnes and Noble, on Target, wherever books are sold.
You know, go and find it. If you find it
in a bookstore, please like, send me a picture of
it and DM me or email me Brad Gilmour at
can't Wait Forever dot com because I would love to
be able to sign those, take pictures of them, post
them at places, because it's a really interesting time for me.
(02:02):
You know. The first book came out in April of
two thousand and twenty, and what was interesting about that
was the pandemic. It was the pandemic. That's what was
(02:25):
so interesting, you know. And because it was the pandemic,
it it was the book. I feel like the book
kind of came and went a little bit because there
were larger things going on going on in the world.
And you know, it's just so crazy what five years
(02:47):
can do and how much can change in five years
in your life, in your mind and your career, and
you think that you're done with something and then all
of a sudden you find your way back to it.
And longtime listeners of this show. If you've listened since
twenty fifteen, God bless you. First off, we're actually in May.
(03:09):
This right now is our ten year anniversary of the show,
which I actually can't even believe that I'm saying out loud.
But you know, longtime listeners know, I've gone back and
forth on this show, like sometimes I'm like, oh, I
don't know what else I can do? What else can
I say? My heart wasn't in it. Sometimes I had
co hosts and I didn't have co hosts, and they're
(03:30):
all great people. We even bonded again over the pandemic.
And so I just I thought though that the book
was finished. And I've told this story in a variety
of different ways, but you know, I just thought it
was done and I put it out there, and then
there's a paperback version which corrected some minor things, and
(03:52):
thought I was done with it then, And so it was.
It was four years, i'd say, without thinking about the book,
you know, a good four and a half years, maybe even,
And I wasn't thinking about it. I didn't care, you know,
like I didn't care to think about it too much anymore,
(04:14):
just because writing that first version of the book was
so damn difficult. It was so damn difficult that I
never wanted to write a book again. And then I
did a Bond one, which again I felt like my
heart was was seventy five percent there and not one
hundred percent, and I just didn't feel like I didn't
(04:40):
feel like proud of those literary works as much as
I should have being my first book. And so I
tell this story in Why We Love Back to the Future.
But it was twenty twenty four this time last year MAYA,
twenty four Memorial Day weekends were coming up on exactly
(05:01):
a year, and I was with my buddy Jeff Smith.
We were doing the Clue of the movie podcast I
did Back to the Future of the podcast live. They're
at Comic Palooza and the headliners were Michael J. Fox,
Christopher Lloyd. John Cena was there as well, although you
couldn't see him unless you bought a ticket then you
still couldn't see you. But yeah, it was. It was
(05:26):
there with Jeff and doing that Back to the Future
live podcast. I was like, damn, man, you know, I wish,
I wish, I wish I would have done this on
the book. And you know, after the book came out.
I interviewed Bob Gail and Christopher Lloyd and Leah Thompson
and so many people who were involved with Back to
the Future that I felt like I kind of let
(05:48):
let myself down a little bit. And forgive me if
I've told these stories before, but this is like a
full length podcast and we're gonna get into some Back
to the Future ish stuff. Just give me a second, guys.
But I remember doing that convention and then leaving and
(06:09):
feeling very energized. You know, I had that picture prominently
displayed on my fridge, which I still do. I was
very excited about Back to the Future and kind of
thinking about it a lot again. And you know, the
musical had come out and I saw it, you know,
in twenty twenty three, and it was amazing. And then
(06:32):
I thought more about the animated series, and more about
Future Day and more about Biff, and I thought more
about everything, and I just thought there was so much
detail to say it in a pretentious way, or a
detail to say it in the southern vernacular that I
(06:56):
left out of that version of the book. And I
contacted Mango and said, hey, I want to do this
book again. I don't know if y'all want to do
it again, but I want to do it again. And
it just so happened We're coming up on the fortieth
anniversary of Back to the Future and all of that,
(07:19):
you know, and can I do it? And they responded
and said, put a pitch together. So I put the
pitch together similar to I did it in the first book.
And they came back and they said, we think it's
a great idea. And then I started to figure out, like,
how could I make this really feel almost new? And
the original manuscript, I believe was twenty seven thousand words.
(07:41):
I could be off by a thousand or two words,
and at that time the longest thing I'd ever written,
which I think most of the time you write a book,
it's hopefully the longest thing you've ever written, because before that,
the longest thing was like a term paper, you know,
which still was in like ten twelve thousand words, so
still you know quite a bit. But anyway, I just
(08:03):
felt like I knew more. I was a better writer,
I was a better thinker, I was a better communicator
in a variety of different ways. And they said yes,
and so we went on and we started doing it.
I added several new chapters, so it's like it's been erased.
Is probably one of my early favorites, where it discusses
the some of the cut scenes from Back to the
(08:28):
Future Part one that we thought were important to include.
And there are other scenes that are smaller extended versions
of scenes that didn't really matter. Now that didn't matter
but didn't add to the overall story. But there were
five scenes that we thought, Wow, this was interesting to
see and does this make a difference. Is this a
good cut is it a bad cut? Like we've done
on the podcast. And I actually got to use some
(08:50):
of those transcriptions, you know, from my friend Frank Janish,
from my buddy Norman Benford in there. I have contributions
from Chris van Vliet, who's a huge YouTube or Roxy
Streyer who's a dear friend of mine and a huge YouTuber.
Jeff Smith who directed who done it the Clue documentary.
We did the podcast together. We do Pick six together,
which you should check out. I'm actually gonna upload some
(09:12):
episodes of Pick six on this podcast feed so you
can check it out because I really think that y'all
would enjoy it. You know, I had him do it.
In addition to the book. Tony Rusco, who's a huge
on the Back to the Future musical, didn't a thing
for the book. Eric Tate did something for the book.
Jeffrey Weisman, who played George McFly, was so lovely in
(09:32):
contributing to the book. And so I started to compile
it all together, and I think the manuscript went from
twenty seven thousand words to fifty seven thousand words. And
then that doesn't include all the you know, letters from
friends in time that are included in the book. And
then here was like the best story I could possibly think.
(09:56):
One of the things that I didn't love about one
of the many thing I didn't love about Back from
the Future, a celebration of the greatest time travel story
ever told, was I didn't have a forward. I was
running up against the deadline. I'd never done this world before,
and I didn't have a forward written for the book,
so I had I wanted to get a forward, and
(10:17):
I thought, like this book was so cool that it
like the idea of it. Because it was still called
back by the way, this is a kind of behind
the scenes, it was called Back from the Future, A
celebration of the greatest time travel story ever told, the
Great Scott Edition and then it turned into Back from
the Future forty years of Fandom, Flux Capacitors, and Timeless Adventures.
(10:41):
So put a pin on that because that was the
name of the book. So I was trying to think, like,
who could I reach out to that would be interesting
to have write this forward? And I reached out to
a couple of people who I won't name, but I
didn't hear back from them, and I was like, Okay,
who can I reach out to? And then I said,
you know what, I must send a letter to Mikey
Day from Saturday Night Live. And Mikey It's been a
(11:06):
favorite of mine since I used to watch him on
television on wilding Out. Wilding Out used to be a
huge show for me, and I would watch him on
television on Wilding Out and then when he got to
Saturday Night Live, him and Taryn kill him, I was like, Wow,
those are the wilding Out guys and they're on SNL now,
this is so cool. I've kind of seen their whole
careers grow. And we had Mikey on the podcast a
couple of times. Although like we had them on the podcast,
(11:28):
it's not like we have some great rapport where now
I email them all the time and we chit chat
and talk and we're great buddies. It was just kind
of a professional You came on the podcast You Want
to Talk About Back the Future. He had is a
Cake two on Netflix. We talked about that, talked a
little Indiana Jones, but never anything like heavy right, And
(11:49):
I really got that rapport. But I knew how big
of a fan of the series he was, and he
was so gracious to, you know, put my book over
and get a copy of it and things of that nature.
So I sent him a letter in the mail. But
it wasn't just any letter. This is awesome. So I
had the idea of how is this letter going to
(12:10):
stand out and make him feel like, wow, I should
be a part of this. So what I did was
I went and ordered on Amazon a leather envelope like
almost like a filing envelope, like Manila sized, and I
went and I wrote the letter on my computer of Mikey,
(12:30):
ask him right the fore, and at the top of
it I put Western Union and of course I signed
it your friend in time Brad Gilmour, and I wrote
it and pen Then I did something I used to
do when I was a kid. When I was a kid,
I used to like to make treasure maps because I'm
a weirdo. And I made a treasure map when I
was a kid. And the way we would do is
(12:51):
you would draw the map on a white piece of
computer paper, and then you'd crumble it up and flatten
it out. Crumble it up and flatten it out, crumble
it up and out until it looked really weathered and
the paper almost went from stiff to very soft and wrinkly.
And you'd take that and then you'd get like a
(13:13):
tray like a baking sheet. I would do this at
my grandmother's house. You get like a baking sheet, and
then you would put like my grandmother always had tea
brood at all points and hours and moments of the day,
seven days a week. Twice on Sunday. She actually had
a sweet kind of lemon tea. And then my grandfather
had like a more strong stout tea than they always
(13:34):
were in the fridge, true Southerners. And I would take
some of that tea and I would pour it over
the paper just enough to cover it, not too much
to where it float, but just enough to word it
would cover it, and I'd leave it there, oh, for
about an hour, maybe two hours. I'd come back to it,
and then I go put in that Texas sun and
let it bake, and then it looked great in weather.
(13:56):
And then you take a lighter and you light the
edges of it, just sends it blow it out, so
you kind of blow it out so that it wouldn't,
you know, catch the whole thing on fire, and then
it would look like a real weathered leather or in
this case, it was a weathered treasure map. And then
I wanted to do the same thing for Mikey as
(14:18):
a now grown adult thirty one years old at the time.
And I crumbled the letter up, put it in the tea,
let it bake in the sun, sends the edges with
some with a lighter, and then I put it in
the leather envelope and send it to thirty Rockefeller Plaza
in New York, New York. He didn't think about it,
(14:41):
didn't hear from him. Was still working on the book.
I started working on it. I think I got the
green light in sometime in June and really started getting
after it in like July and August. It's when I
really started doing it. The first thing I did was
kind of do a pass of everything, look for grammar,
look for some mistakes, which there are a few in
there from the first run of the book and even
(15:01):
the second run of it, there were just mistakes. It happens.
I'm the only one working on this for the you know,
Mango does their part. They definitely do their part. They
do a copy edit, and man have they grown in
the last five six years and tremendously and Hugo and
the whole team over there. I can't say enough great
things about Mango. And that's not any PC crap, that's
like true. They are amazing. So I did it for cleanup,
(15:25):
and then I was like, Okay, what what chapters can
I take out? Is there anything to remove? Should I
add something? And so I kind of combined a couple
of chapters together, which were the time capsule chapters, which
were two separate ones, and I just made them one.
And then I was like, I want to add something
about the erase scenes. I want to add something about
the musical and so let's make sure that we do that.
(15:48):
And I want to add more context to every single chapter.
So every single chapter was either completely rewritten I read
through sentences and rewrote them and made them sound better
than I could before add a punctuation grammar. The whole
like wrote some new chapters, which was so much fun
to do, and I got to use parts of the podcast,
(16:08):
which is where the whole book idea came from. It's like,
what if we adapt the podcast into a book? And
I feel like this version is that, and so I
wanted to get that forward. I didn't hear back from
my key, but I was like, this book needs a
really good introduction, and I know that books have been
introduced by, you know, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd
(16:30):
and Bob Gail and Bob Zamechas, and those are the
best names you could possibly think about. Right to have
this on your you know, to have that name on
your book, Leah Thompson. There's so many big names, but
I really wanted somebody who life was greatly impacted by
Back to the Future and still is and you might
(16:54):
not realize it. And that was Harry Waters Junior. When
I first reached out to Harry Waters Junior a decad
to go, he said yes immediately. The first big name
guest I heard yes from Harry Waters Junior, then a
few years ago by I want to do another season.
I think of season four of the podcast where I
dropped it all at once Netflix style, which was just
(17:15):
so stupid, but I'm glad I did it. I reached
out to Harry. He said, yes, he came back on
anytime i'd reach him and email him, always a cheery response,
and so I reached out to him. I said, you know,
I want a really good introduction for this book, like
a like a like a forward. I think I called
(17:35):
it a forward at the time. I mean, which it is.
I mean it is, But when I read it, I
was like, Wow, this is a great introduction to what
this book was about. And I reached out to Harry.
He said, absolutely, would love to. He actually wrote it
on his laptop before he got on a intercontinental flight
(17:57):
to fly out of the country. I think he was
going to Frankfurt, Rmany or something like that. I don't
remember where, so don't quote me on it. But he
was out going out of the country and he wrote
the forward in the airport and sent it to me,
and I loved it. It was perfect, and so I
added that to the book. And then I was driving
home one day and I checked my email when I
got home and who was it who emailed me but
(18:18):
Mikey Day. And Mikey was like, hey, thanks for sending
me the coolest piece of mail I've ever received. Would
love to do your forward. And that's how I got
Mikey Day to do the forward. So the book was
all ready to go, and then Mango was like hey,
and this was interesting. They were like, hey, we're getting
(18:39):
some pushback on the title back from the Future. And
I was like, oh, okay, why and they were like, well,
you know, some distributors just want to make sure that
it's a positive portrayal of Back to the Future and
not like an exploitive book. And the title although says fandom,
it doesn't necessarily mean it's good fandom, right because we
(19:04):
all know what Star Wars is done and different things
like that over the years. So I understood that, and
I go, well, what do you want to do. I
thought they were going to tell me they're pulling the book,
to be honest with you, that's what I thought they
were gonna say. And I'm like, no, I did all
this work and you got to take it away from me.
But that's not what they said. At all. They actually said,
what we want to do is we have a few
(19:26):
series of books, Why we Love Twilight being one of them,
Why we Love Star Wars being another one. That one
was written by my buddy Ken Knapsock. And without Kin
writing that book, I would have never started this book
journey for back to the Future. It's really incredible that
they mentioned that. They said, we want to call this
(19:47):
book why we Love back to the Future. I said,
you don't have to twist my arm. I love it.
Let's do it. And the cover, I mean everything was done.
The design was done, The book sat Back from the
Future everywhere in at the scott edition, and then it
changed with like I think like two weeks to go
to press, it changed to why we Love back to
the Future. And I love the title even more. I
(20:09):
love it even more than Back from the Future. And
it wasn't my idea, and you would think as a writer,
your ideals surpricious, but it was pretty cool that that
happened and I was very happy about it. So the
book is out now, make sure you go get it,
download it ebook. It don't get the audiobook yet. The
audiobook isn't updated, so don't get the audio unless you
(20:30):
want to hear the original version of the book, which
is a far less good version, less superior version. This
is a far more superior version. However, you say that,
you know what I'm talking about. So what I wanted
to do right now, it's do a little fun gimmick
that I like to do, and I got some episodes planned.
This one's kind of at the whim. I wanted to
(20:52):
kick off the season a little bit later, but we'll
go ahead and get it working right now. So season
eleven officially underway. Head Roberts, Mechis and Tom Hanks on
this podcast. Who would have thought, Okay, what I want
to do is I've always wanted to get a physicist
on here to talk to me about how time travel
is really possible. So the first thing I want to
(21:13):
do is I'm pulling up my chat GPT and I'm
going to ask Juniper, is time travel possible? Hey? There?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So the idea of time travel is a fascinating one,
and it's a topic that scientists and science fiction writers
have explored for ages. According to our current understanding of physics,
time travel into the future is theoretically possible due to
relativistic effects like how time moves slower for objects traveling
close to the speed of light or in strong gravitational fields,
(21:44):
But traveling back in time is far more complex and
remains purely speculative. There are some theoretical models involving wormholes
or cosmic strings, but we're still a long way from
making any of that a reality. So for now, time
travel remains in the realm of science fiction. But who
knows what the future might hold?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Okay, well, interesting because I've always wondered if it's theoretically possible.
So okay, if going to the future is theoretically possible,
what are some theories on how you could travel to
the future?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Absolutely traveling to the future is more grounded in the
laws of physics we know. Here are a couple of
the main theories. First, there's time dilation from Einstein's theory
of relativity. If you travel at speeds close to the
speed of light, time slows down for you relative to
someone who stays stationary. So if you spend a period
(22:42):
traveling at near light speed, you'd age more slowly than
people back on Earth, effectively jumping into the future when
you return. Another concept is gravitational time dilation. Time moves
more slowly in stronger gravitational fields. This means that if
you were to spend some time I'm near a massive
object like a black hole, you'd experience time more slowly
(23:04):
than someone far away from it. When you return, you'd
find that more time has passed for everyone else, effectively
traveling into the future. Lastly, there's the concept of cryogenic
sleep or stasis, where someone could be put into a
state of suspended animation and then woken up far into
the future. While this isn't exactly time travel in the
(23:25):
relativistic sense, it's another way to skip forward in time.
These ideas are all theoretical or based on extreme conditions,
but they give us a glimpse into how future technology
or understanding might make leaps in time possible.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Okay, so let me go back for a second. Those
one of those kind of sounds like the plot of
Interstellar where you're traveling at the speed of light and
you come back and everyone else's aged and you haven't
aged as much. Right, But can we talk about how
accurate is the time travel as picted in back to
(24:01):
the future.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Exactly like an interstellar That effect is a real consequence
of relativity now. When it comes to Back to the Future,
the depiction of time travel is purely fictional and doesn't
align with our current understanding of physics. The movie uses
a Dolorean equipped with a flux capacitor to jump instantly
to different points in time, which is a fantastic narrative device,
(24:25):
but not something supported by science. The movie's portrayal of causality,
like changing the past and immediately altering the future, is
also quite simplified in reality. Even if backward time travel
were possible, it would bring up enormous paradoxes and complexities.
Back to the Future takes a fun, imaginative approach to
(24:46):
time travel, but it's more fantasy than science. It's great
for storytelling and capturing our imagination, even if it doesn't
reflect what's physically possible.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Okay, well, I don't know if I fully agree with you,
because you're saying that back to like if they go
back and change the past. Okay, it doesn't have a
direct effect as simplified as you say and back to
the Future. But just because Back to the Future simplifies,
it doesn't mean that there's not a part of Back
to the Future that is accurate. Because they explore things
(25:20):
like paradoxes, and they explore things like alternate timelines, which
would happen if you go back and change it. Like,
for instance, if I were to go back to yesterday
and change something I did yesterday, I wouldn't live the
same today that I'm living now. I would live on
a fractured timeline that today would be representative of a
(25:42):
different timeline because I changed the events of yesterday. Am
I right?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I get what you're saying, And that's a really interesting perspective.
The idea of alternate timelines or branching realities is definitely
a popular interpretation in modern physics and many sci fi stories.
While the classical interpretation of time travel might imply a single,
changeable timeline, many modern theories suggest that altering the past
(26:10):
could indeed create a new, divergent timeline, leaving the original
timeline unchanged. So, in a sense, what you're describing changing
something in the past leading to a different present is
in line with the concept of parallel universes or multiverse theories.
These theories suggest that every change creates a new branch
of reality, so you'd experience a new timeline from that
(26:33):
point onward. In that way back to the future, and
similar stories do capture the essence of some real theoretical ideas,
even if they simplify them for storytelling.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Okay, So if theoretically speaking, if I go back five
years from today and I change one thing that happens,
how is that going to alter the future? All right?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
So, if we think about it in terms of the
branching timeline theory, going back five years and changing one
thing would create a new timeline from that point forward. Essentially,
you'd now have two timelines, the original one, which remains
unchanged and continues on its course, and the new one,
where the change you made sets off a ripple effect,
influencing everything that follows. In that new timeline, the future
(27:23):
would unfold differently based on the change you made. Even
a small alteration could lead to a cascade of events
that alter relationships, careers, or even larger societal outcomes. From
your perspective, you'd experience this altered future as your present reality,
while the original timeline would continue separately, inaccessible to you. So,
(27:45):
in essence, the future you experience would be a new
branch of possibilities shaped by that one change you made.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Okay, So, if I were to go into the future,
as you says, theoretically possible due to light years or
wormholes or whatever the exact thing you were mentioning earlier.
Here's my question. If you're saying that's possible, but is
it possible for me to go forward into the future
effectively and also see a different version of myself? Or
(28:14):
is it more like we talked about an interstellar where
I come into the future because my timeline has slown
or slowed down rather comparative to those around me on Earth,
and therefore there's not two of me. They're just seeing
me later than they should have, so I'm younger. Great question.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
In the scenario where you travel into the future due
to time dilation like an interstellar, there wouldn't be two
versions of you. Instead, you'd simply age more slowly compared
to everyone else, So when you arrive in the future,
you'd be younger relative to the people who stayed behind.
They would have lived through all the intervening years at
a normal rate while you essentially jumped forward in time.
(29:02):
So there wouldn't be another version of you waiting in
the future. It's just you having experienced less time than
everyone else due to the relativistic effects. It's not about
creating duplicates. It's about experiencing time differently compared to those
around you. It's a mind bending concept, but it's grounded
in real physics.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Okay, is there such a thing as jumping forward in
time and actually seeing a duplicate version of yourself?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Not in any established scientific theory. The concept of seeing
a duplicate version of yourself when jumping forward in time
usually belongs more to the realm of science fiction. In
the real world physics, we know time dilation or any
forward time travel wouldn't create another version of you. You'd
simply arrive in the future after having experienced less time
(29:54):
than everyone else. The only way you'd see another version
of yourself in the future would be if you let
to your past self behind and then encounter that future
version who aged naturally. But that scenario involves more of
a hypothetical loop or a form of suspended animation, rather
than the actual duplication of yourself. So while science fiction
(30:15):
loves the idea of encountering multiple versions of oneself, our
current understanding of physics doesn't support that kind of scenario.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Okay, let me ask you this a couple more questions
before I wrap this up with you. So, first off,
in Back to the Future, Doc is talking to Marty
and he says, when he's showing in the flux capacitor
and the time machine how everything works, he says, Hey,
I could go back and witness the birth of Christ
to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In your opinion,
what are the top five most important world moments that
(30:47):
if we could theoretically go back in time and witness,
we should and why.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
That's a fun thought experiment. Here are five monumental moments
in history that would be incredible to witness firsthand. First,
the birth of civilization in Mesopotamia around three thousand, one
hundred BCE. Witnessing the rise of the first cities, writing systems,
and organized states would give unparalleled insight into how human
(31:14):
society first took shape. Second, the construction of the Great
Pyramids of Giza around two thousand, five hundred sixty BCE.
Seeing how these ancient wonders were built and the society
that created them would solve countless mysteries and offer a
direct connection to early human engineering and culture. Third, the
life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth around four BCE
(31:37):
to thirty CE. Witnessing the events that led to the
foundation of one of the world's major religions would offer
profound historical and cultural understanding. Fourth, the signing of the
Magna Carta in twelve fifteen. This moment laid the groundwork
for modern democracy and legal systems, making it a cornerstone
of political history, sith the Apollo eleven moon landing on
(31:59):
July two, twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, Watching humanity's first steps
on another celestial body would be a defining moment in
human achievement and exploration. Each of these moments shape the
course of human history in profound ways, and witnessing them
would provide invaluable insights into our past.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Okay, love that Love it now? My final question to
you on Back to the Future the podcast season A letter,
there's a theory that it looks like the McFly family
are fond of women who resemble Leah Thompson. Maggie McFly is,
of course portrayed by Leah Thompson and Back to the
(32:39):
Future Part three. She's married to Seamus McFly, who's portrayed
by Michael J. Fox, and this is also Michael J
plays Leah Thompson's son and Back to the Future Part
one and two and three. For all that matter, George
McFly is attracted to Leah Thompson.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Is there any kind of I don't know embedded DNA
in us that makes us instinctually attracted to a certain
type of person?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Like? Is it is that nature or nurture?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
That's a fascinating question. The idea that people might be
instinctively attracted to a certain type of person could be
influenced by a mix of nature and nurture. From a
nature standpoint, some research suggests that we might be drawn
to certain physical or personality traits due to evolutionary factors
like indicators of health, fertility, or compatibility. On the nurture side,
(33:37):
our upbringing, family dynamics, and early experiences can shape our
preferences and the types of people we find attractive or familiar.
This could explain patterns like the mcflies being drawn to
similar looking partners across generations. Ultimately, attraction is complex and
likely a blend of both genetic predispositions and environmental influences.
(33:59):
The idea that the flies have a type is a
fun narrative choice, but It also mirrors how real life
attraction can be influenced by a mix of inherited traits
and personal experiences.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Last, but not least, is Back to the Future the
greatest movie ever made?
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Haha, Well, that's a matter of personal opinion. For many fans,
Back to the Future is indeed one of the greatest
movies ever made. It's got a perfect blend of adventure, humor, heart,
and timeless appeal. Plus, it revolutionized the way we think
about time travel in film and left a lasting cultural impact.
Whether it's the greatest movie ever made might depend on
(34:37):
who you ask, but it's certainly a beloved classic that
continues to inspire and entertain people of all ages.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Okay, is it the best time travel movie ever made?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It's definitely a top contender for the title. Back to
the Future is often celebrated as one of the best,
if not the best, time travel movie ever made. Its
clever storyteller, memorable characters, and seamless blend of science fiction
and comedy set.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
A high bar.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It also introduced a lot of people to the concept
of time travel in a way that was both entertaining
and thought provoking. Of course, there's always room for debate
with other great time travel films like The Terminator, Looper,
or Interstellar, but Back to the Future holds a special
place in cinematic history and in the hearts of fans worldwide.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Ladies, gentlemen, that is Back to the Future of the
podcast Season eleven. Go Get Why we love Back to
the Future, available in stores right now. But this is
Back to the Future podcasts only podcast looking back in
time with the greatest film trilogy of all time, Back
to the Future. I'm your friend in time, Brad Gilmore
and I Will see you in the future. To think,
(36:03):
actuat s a fact the Arctic
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