Back To The Future: 1955 Marty Improved Biff’s Life – Theory Explained

A fan theory asserts that Marty McFly’s Back to the Future time-traveling actually improved the life of local bully Biff Tannen. While Marty and Doc’s journey through time often leads them fighting to undo something they unwittingly caused, if the Back To The Future trilogy has a villain, it’s definitely Biff Tannen. The Tannen family and the McFlys both go way back in the history of Hill Valley, and it seems the two families just never got along – mostly thanks to Biff and his ancestors being huge jerks.

Biff, especially in the original Back to the Future movie, is the definition of a character viewers love to hate. He’s an egotistical, selfish, entitled and morally bankrupt bully, and what’s worse, he’s big and strong enough to usually get his way. At the same time, while no one would actually want to know the character in reality, Biff actor Thomas F. Wilson is so entertaining in the role it’s little wonder he returned for both sequels.

If there’s one person Marty McFly absolutely doesn’t care about helping during any of his time travails, it’s Biff. Yet, according to an interesting fan theory posited by Reddit user SatNav, that’s exactly what he inadvertently did by the end of the first Back to the Future. In the original timeline before Marty goes back to 1955, George McFly’s life is rather miserable. He answers to Biff, his supervisor at work, and is forced to do Biff’s work and his own. He never stopped being the meek young man he was in 1955 and has been dominated by Biff and others like him his entire life. When Marty returns to 1985 during Back to the Future’s ending, George is quite different, having developed confidence and is no longer under Biff’s thumb. However, while that’s great for George, SatNav’s theory suggests Marty improved Biff’s life through his actions too.

While Biff is seen getting George’s car nice and shiny and it’s portrayed like he’s now beneath George, there’s also a truck in the background that says “Biff’s Auto Detailing.” That means that instead of working a job he hates and is unqualified for, Biff now owns and operates his own auto detailing business. That’s a huge improvement by any metric, going from 9 to 5 employee to one’s own boss. The theory also suggests this change came about as a result of Marty McFly causing Biff to wreck his car and get it covered in manure. Getting the car thoroughly cleaned would’ve cost a good amount of money, so SatNav believes that instead, Biff did the work himself and along the way discovered he had an aptitude for it.

Thus, Marty’s interference ultimately improved Biff’s future. The theory is plausible enough and could be slotted into the canon fairly easily, if not for the fact Biff seems genuinely afraid of George, and is also kind of tense in his interactions with the McFlys in Back to the Future‘s fixed 1985. That suggests the old Biff might still be bubbling under the surface waiting to get out, and resentful of no longer being the dominant party. This is further supported by old Biff readily stealing Doc’s DeLorean time machine in 2015 and using it to make himself rich, pointing to his not being truly happy in his work in auto detailing.

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