Why Marty McFly’s Dad Had to Realize Time Travel Was Real After Going Back to the Future

Marty McFly never tells his parents that he traveled back in time to reunite them. Back to the futurebut George had more than enough clues to piece it together. When Marty goes back in time and unintentionally bumps into his parents, he doesn’t tell them that he is their son from the future. Lorraine assumes his name is Calvin Klein because it’s written on his underwear, and he just moves on. He pretended Doc Brown was his “Uncle Doctor”And he made sure his parents fell in love without revealing that he came from the future.

But Marty didn’t do a flawless job of covering his tracks. He may not have outright said he came from the future, but he used some of his knowledge of the future to ensure that George would ask Lorraine to the school dance. When this happened in the years that followed, it must have alerted George. Neither version of George ever revealed on screen that he discovered his son was a time traveler who visited him in 1955, but based on all the evidence, he should have known.

After watching Star Trek and Star Wars, George McFly must have become a suspect

Something must have clicked when he heard “Vulcan” and “Darth Vader” again

When Marty couldn’t convince George to ask Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea ball, he had to resort to desperate measures. He broke into George’s house in the middle of the night, woke him up with a Van Halen guitar riff and told him he was Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan. This inspired George to finally ask Lorraine to the dance and get Marty’s existence back on track. But when Star Trek and Star Wars emerged in the following decades, George must have remembered the bizarre interaction that changed his life.

George was a huge science fiction fan — he was almost going to skip the dance so as not to miss the new episode of his favorite TV show, Science Fiction Theater – then he would definitely have watched Star Trek and Star Wars when they left. He certainly wouldn’t forget his close encounter with an alien, especially since it had a huge impact on the trajectory of his life. So something must have occurred in his mind when he heard “Vulcan” and “Darth Vader” again after all these years.

George’s writing career means he must have considered time travel as an explanation

George’s debut novel is called Match Made In Space

When Marty went back to 1955 and met his father, he was surprised to learn that George liked writing science fiction stories because he didn’t know his father had ever done anything creative. The shy George from the original timeline was too nervous to show his work to anyone, so his writing career never took off. After Marty instills some confidence in his father, he returns to an alternate year in 1985 in which George was a published author. The first edition of his debut novel arrived in the mail and seemed to suggest that he was familiar with the time travel element.

George’s debut novel is called A match made in space and The cover art shows a young man and a woman being brought together by an astronaut in a yellow suit, who looks suspiciously like “Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan.” Based on this cover alone, it appears that George’s book tells the story of how an alien’s intervention introduced him to his wife. Just the fact that he wrote this novel suggests that he was already considering time travel as a possible explanation for the strange events of his final days of high school.

Marty’s resemblance to Calvin Klein may have been George’s final clue

George must have noticed that his son looked exactly like his high school friend

If all these clues weren’t enough evidence to convince George that his son was a time traveler, the fact that Marty grew up looking and sounding exactly like Calvin should have warned him. George and Lorraine only met Calvin a few days ago, but he has had a profound effect on their lives. He knew they were destined to be together, even when they themselves couldn’t realize it, and he painstakingly strived to make them fall in love. They owe their marriage to this mysterious stranger.

Marty only grows up to look like Calvin 30 years after George and Lorraine met him, but Calvin undoubtedly left a lasting impression on them. If George wasn’t able to figure out that Calvin was a time-traveling Marty based on all these clues, then he wasn’t paying attention. Back to the future never outright confirms that George recognized Marty as Calvin, but is the subject of a large Family Guy cutting gag.