Back to the Future
Oct. 25th, 2010 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI saw Back to the Future on the big screen this weekend with a bunch of people (and we ran into even more people we knew at the theater). It is still a fantastic movie--I was commenting to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trinityvixen afterward that absolutely everything in the movie is on point. There's nothing extraneous. It actually has very few scenes set in the fifties before you get to the climactic Enchantment Under the Sea dance, and all of them both move the plot forward and illuminate the characters. In a sea of bloated three-hour-long dear-god-when-is-this-going-to-end epics, it's a refreshing change. I did get a thrill, too, when Doc said he wanted to go twenty-five years into the future, because I'm sitting twenty-five years in the future right now! oooooo
There were a number of things that struck me differently watching as an adult than as a kid. 1 - Twenty-five years later and we still have generic muslim terrorists in films. The Libyans in Back to the Future are clearly meant to be kind of cartoon villains--one of them's wearing a Yasser Arafat style head scarf, even. They also seem to be entirely neutralized and/or killed by driving into a film processing booth. 2 - This movie seems to be saying that Chuck Berry stole his style from a white guy (who, incidentally, showed up an entire black band). Even though it's clear Marty did not write this song himself, it's a little...um... 3 - I'm pretty skeeved out by the attempted rape scene. Especially since Biff, for the most part, in all three movies, is something of a caricature villain. But if I was Lorraine, I'm not sure I'd want the guy who'd tried to rape me polishing my car, just sayin'.
I also could not help but look at the movie from a fanfic-writing point of view. NOT SLASH. OR ANYTHING NC-17, I hasten to add. I brief look at fic for this film on the internet has just confirmed for me that the potential pairings are really squick-inducing...even some of the canonical ones. But--I can't help trying to figure out the relationship between Doc and Marty.
My guess is that in the original timeline, Marty latched onto Doc as a replacement father figure. From what we see of his home life, it's pretty unhappy. His mom's an alcoholic; his dad's completely disengaged. And Marty's watched his dad be bullied his entire life and just take it. It makes sense that he would become a sort of wizard's apprentice to Doc, if only to get out of the house most of the time. I mean, he's going over to Doc's at 8AM on a school day at the start of the movie. Admittedly, it's to play rock star with Doc's amplifiers, but it speaks to the amount of time he spends there.
But what about the new timeline? We can see from his siblings that in this new timeline, the changed prospects of the parents--not just George's confidence, but also the affection between him and Lorraine, as their romance is on firmer footing--has been reflected in increased confidence and ambition in the kids. So we can assume that the same would be true for the Marty in this timeline. Marty in the movie does not do too badly for himself--he stands up to Biff where George doesn't, though if you take later movies as canon, that's more to do with hot-headedness than courage. And he has landed himself a sweet girlfriend, and put together his own band. But we also see that he has these deep faultlines in his self-confidence, direct echoes of his father.
So I would think, in the new timeline, Marty would not need a substitute father figure as much. My guess would be Doc would seek him out--Doc has probably been watching the McFly family for the past thirty years, checking for causal paradoxes. But that would mean that the Doc Marty comes back to at the end of the film is one who's been in the company of a more confident, happier Marty who is now gone.
chuckro posits that Marty's memories from the new timeline would fade in, though I don't see any canon basis for this in movies two and three. If they don't, though, Marty would have an awfully hard time relating to a family that has entirely different memories. (Perhaps Doc could coach him on the new timeline?)
I was also thinking about what it would do to Doc's timeline, knowing for certain that in thirty years he will build a working time machine. From the layout of Doc's apartment at the start of the film, it's clear that the time machine is not the only thing Doc's been working on. He seems to be always building dozens of little things, some with success and some without. So, if he knows the time machine's a workable idea--does that mean he focuses more completely on that? If so, it could mean he has completely drawn out plans long before the original timeline but has to wait for the invention of the Delorean, since he knows that will be the car he uses. Or, does he conversely work more on other projects, since the time machine is assured? This conflicts with canon, of course, but it totally makes sense to me that Doc would fail to complete the time machine because of his knowledge of its success. Causality is weird like that.
Anyway, I'm kind of dying for well-written Back to the Future gen fic, but it seems like BtF fic comes in two flavors: Mary Sue and OMG THAT IS SO WRONG. Perhaps I will have to request it for Yuletide. ... Though that could end badly.
trinityvixen afterward that absolutely everything in the movie is on point. There's nothing extraneous. It actually has very few scenes set in the fifties before you get to the climactic Enchantment Under the Sea dance, and all of them both move the plot forward and illuminate the characters. In a sea of bloated three-hour-long dear-god-when-is-this-going-to-end epics, it's a refreshing change. I did get a thrill, too, when Doc said he wanted to go twenty-five years into the future, because I'm sitting twenty-five years in the future right now! ooooooThere were a number of things that struck me differently watching as an adult than as a kid. 1 - Twenty-five years later and we still have generic muslim terrorists in films. The Libyans in Back to the Future are clearly meant to be kind of cartoon villains--one of them's wearing a Yasser Arafat style head scarf, even. They also seem to be entirely neutralized and/or killed by driving into a film processing booth. 2 - This movie seems to be saying that Chuck Berry stole his style from a white guy (who, incidentally, showed up an entire black band). Even though it's clear Marty did not write this song himself, it's a little...um... 3 - I'm pretty skeeved out by the attempted rape scene. Especially since Biff, for the most part, in all three movies, is something of a caricature villain. But if I was Lorraine, I'm not sure I'd want the guy who'd tried to rape me polishing my car, just sayin'.
I also could not help but look at the movie from a fanfic-writing point of view. NOT SLASH. OR ANYTHING NC-17, I hasten to add. I brief look at fic for this film on the internet has just confirmed for me that the potential pairings are really squick-inducing...even some of the canonical ones. But--I can't help trying to figure out the relationship between Doc and Marty.
My guess is that in the original timeline, Marty latched onto Doc as a replacement father figure. From what we see of his home life, it's pretty unhappy. His mom's an alcoholic; his dad's completely disengaged. And Marty's watched his dad be bullied his entire life and just take it. It makes sense that he would become a sort of wizard's apprentice to Doc, if only to get out of the house most of the time. I mean, he's going over to Doc's at 8AM on a school day at the start of the movie. Admittedly, it's to play rock star with Doc's amplifiers, but it speaks to the amount of time he spends there.
But what about the new timeline? We can see from his siblings that in this new timeline, the changed prospects of the parents--not just George's confidence, but also the affection between him and Lorraine, as their romance is on firmer footing--has been reflected in increased confidence and ambition in the kids. So we can assume that the same would be true for the Marty in this timeline. Marty in the movie does not do too badly for himself--he stands up to Biff where George doesn't, though if you take later movies as canon, that's more to do with hot-headedness than courage. And he has landed himself a sweet girlfriend, and put together his own band. But we also see that he has these deep faultlines in his self-confidence, direct echoes of his father.
So I would think, in the new timeline, Marty would not need a substitute father figure as much. My guess would be Doc would seek him out--Doc has probably been watching the McFly family for the past thirty years, checking for causal paradoxes. But that would mean that the Doc Marty comes back to at the end of the film is one who's been in the company of a more confident, happier Marty who is now gone.
chuckro posits that Marty's memories from the new timeline would fade in, though I don't see any canon basis for this in movies two and three. If they don't, though, Marty would have an awfully hard time relating to a family that has entirely different memories. (Perhaps Doc could coach him on the new timeline?)I was also thinking about what it would do to Doc's timeline, knowing for certain that in thirty years he will build a working time machine. From the layout of Doc's apartment at the start of the film, it's clear that the time machine is not the only thing Doc's been working on. He seems to be always building dozens of little things, some with success and some without. So, if he knows the time machine's a workable idea--does that mean he focuses more completely on that? If so, it could mean he has completely drawn out plans long before the original timeline but has to wait for the invention of the Delorean, since he knows that will be the car he uses. Or, does he conversely work more on other projects, since the time machine is assured? This conflicts with canon, of course, but it totally makes sense to me that Doc would fail to complete the time machine because of his knowledge of its success. Causality is weird like that.
Anyway, I'm kind of dying for well-written Back to the Future gen fic, but it seems like BtF fic comes in two flavors: Mary Sue and OMG THAT IS SO WRONG. Perhaps I will have to request it for Yuletide. ... Though that could end badly.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 05:40 pm (UTC)I didn't compare Marty's room too closely from the beginning of the film and the end, but maybe I should try to get screencaps tonight when I go home--it basically looks like aside from the truck, Marty hasn't changed at all in the new timestream, which doesn't seem possible given how extraordinarily different everyone around him is.
though if you take later movies as canon
Why wouldn't you?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-26 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 01:22 pm (UTC)I think it's interesting to look at the original movie without the weight of interpretation of later movies. Even though those later movies are "canon," in that they were licensed, they are not necessarily illuminating the vision of the writer at the time of the original movie. Even if they are, they give specific interpretations to things that are ambiguous in the original.
For example--Marty's temper. In movies 2 and 3, Marty is a hot head. It is his fatal flaw. He allows himself to be provoked in situations that would best be served by walking away.
But in the first film, he is more impetuous than hot headed. He only ever confronts Biff when Biff is physically threatening one of his parents. These are not situations where it would be best if he backed down--these are in fact situations where standing up to Biff is the best course of action, even though Marty clearly didn't think it through. His temper is not a fatal flaw in the first film--not even close. His lack of self confidence is shown is his fatal flaw. So if you look at the first film in isolation, you wind up with a completely different portrait of the character.
More relevant to this discussion, in later films, Doc is completely familiar with Marty's temper, though this is the Doc who is in the happy childhood timeline, which means that Marty must be exactly the same in both timelines, something that doesn't really make sense with the changes in his family or with the way alternate timelines work in this universe.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 07:39 pm (UTC)Also, also, I didn't search for any, because I wasn't prepared for the "ow, my childhood" factor. Based on your reaction here, I'm glad I refrained.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 01:26 pm (UTC)The problem would be Doc's perspective, because he is such a classic mad scientist. It would be really hard to write anything from his POV that felt true and included some of the pathos of his situation without going OMG EMO.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 11:49 pm (UTC)