Why didn't Marty and Doc just get the gas from the 1885 car?

[replicaprops]

I mean, I understand it's just a movie, but the car that the Doc hid in the cave, had gas and the un broken mechanical part.
They could have just took the gas and left their future selves a note saying they needed the gas.
Then they could have done something other than what happened in BTTF3.
Just sayin.

 

[micdavis]

Yep, leave a note on the dash.

BRING GAS.

End of movie.

But that would be boring.

 

[Vivek]

Back to the Future™ Frequently Asked Questions

Official answers from Gale and Zemeckis.

Q: In I885, when Marry tells Doc they're out of gas; why don't they just go to the Delgado Mine, dig up the DeLorean where Doc hid it and get the gas out of it?

A: There are two logical answers to this one... 1) The car mechanic's answer: As anyone who has stored an automobile for a long period of time can tell you, you always drain all of the fluids out of the car before putting it into storage. Doc most certainly would have drained the gas out of the DeLorean if he was going to leave it hidden for 70 years. At the 1955 drive-in, Doc specifically says "I put gas in the tank" indicating that the DMC must have had an empty tank when they found it in the mine. 2) The time travel theory answer: Even if Doc had not drained the tank, he still would not have gone back into the mine for fear of creating a time paradox by accidentally damaging the DeLorean, the mine, or who knows what. After all, since Marty is now back in 1885, Doc's plan obviously worked, and worked perfectly. But what if Doc were to go back into the mine and accidentally cause a cave-in that causes even more damage to the DeLorean? What happens to the future of that DeLorean, when it's unearthed in 1955? And what might that do to Marty and the undamaged future DeLorean now in 1885? As an analogy, imagine a time traveler going back in time, finding himself as a child, and cutting off that child's hand with a meat cleaver. What happens to the adult time-traveler's hand? That would definitely risk a time paradox, and we know that Doc would never go out of his way to risk such a thing for fear of (in the worst case scenario) unraveling the fabric of the space-time continuum and destroying the entire universe.

 

[Contec]

I always thought Doc used the gas and other fluids to make his Workshop things. He could have used it to make the timed logs he uses in the locomotive.
He also told marty to "NOT COME AND GET ME" because he lived there happily for a few months and learned how to shoe horses and fixing wagens.
So under those months he could have used the gas for other things.

 

[Jet Beetle]

I put this exact same question up about 3 months ago.

 

[Vivek]

http://www.therpf.com/f47/problem-back-future-iii-99098/

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

I put this exact same question up about 3 months ago.

http://www.therpf.com/f47/problem-back-future-iii-99098/

Ah, too slow, you beat me to it.

 

[Jet Beetle]

Actually I was hoping you'd get even more theories - it was a fun thread. But Vivek is quickly becoming THE BTTF encyclo here. Everytime a question comes up he seems to have the perfect answer.

 

[Vivek]

Thanks Paul . But here all credit to the creators who have answered most of these frequently asked questions years ago.

Since 1999 I have been posting and reading so many BTTF theories on the BTTF.com forum, so sometimes it's really tough to conclude one theory as the only plausible answer. Everybody seems to have their way own interpretation of these off-screen scenarios and time travel theories, which indeed makes all this a fun discussion of ideas. But whenever official answers are given, I always take them as facts to be represented in the BTTF universe.

 

[Seabass]

their answer makes complete sense anyways. gasoline decays into varnish after not a long time, after 70 years of storage it would be completely useless. this is why we have additives like Sta-bil