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

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

Back to the Future has often been criticized for one 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 movies, Back to the Future is not bereft of the mistakes and time travel paradoxes that often weigh down movies that walk through multiple timelines. After nearly four decades since its release, the Robert Zemeckis movie remains influential and inspires many modern sci-fi flicks.

However, one cannot ignore a glaring plot hole in the movie’s ending that has sparked debates among viewers for years. Interestingly, even though the Back to the Future plot hole has often been talked about, a new Netflix movie ends up repeating the same. The shared narrative inconsistency between the two films highlights how, no matter what time travel movies do to avoid logical inconsistencies, some paradoxes are almost impossible to fully resolve.

Back To The Future & Time Cut Share A Plot Hole

It Makes No Sense That Marty & Lucy’s Parents Don’t Recognize Them From The Past

In Back to the Future‘s 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. Since he was such a key figure in his 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” looked like and seem unbothered by the fact that their son looks eerily similar to the man who brought them together when they were younger.

Something similar happens in Time Cut. After Lucy saves her sister, Summer, from the Sweetly Slasher killer in the past, she returns to the future. However, she returns to the past again, claiming that, in the future, her parents did not recognize her because saving Summer wiped out her own existence. Given how Lucy spent significant time at Summer’s place in 2003 and even shared many meals with her parents, it makes no sense they do not recognize her. They obviously would not 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

The Plot Hole Can Be Dismissed For More Reasons Than One

The plot hole can be dismissed in both Time Cut and Back to the Future because it is possible that the parents might have assumed Lucy and Marty only looked like someone they once knew. Given how the parents are middle-aged in both movies’ present timelines and were much younger when they first met Lucy and Marty, they might have even forgotten what exactly they looked like. Not to mention, since no other character knows about the possibility of time travel in both films, the parents would never have imagined that their children traveled from the past.

Since Lucy introduced herself as Summer’s friend to Summer’s parents in 2003, the parents might have simply assumed that Lucy was another girl who resembled their daughter’s old friend. Back to the Future demands 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, since Marty travels 30 years in the past, his parents probably remember some details of how someone helped them get together, but not all.

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  A teenage girl goes back in time to the early 2000s to save her sister from a dangerous killer.

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  Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. In 1955, he meets his parents when they were his age, and must step in to make sure they wind up together before he gets back to 1985.