Netflix’s New Time Travel Horror Movie Makes Future’s Biggest Plot Hole Even Worse After 39 Years

Notice! This article contains spoilers for Netflix’s Time Cut.

Back to the future has often been criticized for a massive plot hole, and it looks like Netflix’s new time travel horror movie has made the narrative inconsistency even worse. Although touted as one of the best time travel films, Back to the future is not free from the errors and paradoxes of time travel that often plague films that span multiple timelines. After nearly four decades since its release, Robert Zemeckis’ film remains influential and inspires many modern science fiction films.

However, one cannot ignore a glaring plot hole at the end of the film that has sparked debate among viewers for years. Interestingly, even though the Back to the future Plot holes are often talked about, a new Netflix film ends up repeating the same thing. The shared narrative inconsistency between the two films highlights how, no matter what time travel films do to avoid logical inconsistencies, some paradoxes are nearly impossible to fully resolve.

Back to the Future and Time Slash Share a Plot Hole

It doesn’t make sense that Marty and Lucy’s parents don’t recognize them from the past

In Back to the futureIn the past timeline, Lorraine initially has a huge crush on Marty and should be able to remember his face throughout her life. Marty eventually also plays a crucial role in bringing Lorraine and George together. As he was an important figure in their parents’ lives when they were younger, both Lorraine and George should have remembered his face. However, strangely, they seem to have no memories of what “Calvin Klein” was like and seem unfazed by the fact that their son looks uncannily like the man who brought them together when they were younger.

Something similar happens in Time cut. After Lucy saves her sister, Summer, from the murderous Sweetly Slasher in the past, she returns to the future. However, she returns to the past again, claiming that, in the future, her parents didn’t recognize her because saving Summer ended her own existence. Considering that Lucy spent a significant amount of time at Summer’s house in 2003 and even shared many meals with her parents, it doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t recognize her. Obviously they wouldn’t know she was their daughter, but they should at least be able to recognize her as Summer’s friend.

Both Time Travel Movies Deserve Some Benefit of the Doubt

Plot hole can be dismissed for more than one reason

The plot hole can be dropped in both Time cut and Back to the future because it’s possible that the parents assumed that Lucy and Marty just looked like someone they knew. Given that the parents are middle-aged in both films’ current timeline and were much younger when they met Lucy and Marty, they may have even forgotten exactly what they looked like. Not to mention that, as no other character knows about the possibility of time travel in both films, parents would never imagine their children traveling from the past.

Since Lucy introduced herself to Summer’s parents as Summer’s friend in 2003, the parents could have simply assumed that Lucy was another girl who looked like their daughter’s old friend. Back to the future requires a little more suspension of disbelief because Marty played an important role in bringing his parents together and spent a lot of time with George in the past. However, because Marty traveled 30 years ago, his parents probably remember some details of how someone helped them get together, but not all of them.