Back to the Future (Page 3 of 4)

The same Terry Matalas that worked on Star Trek: Enterprise? Wow, Hollywood is a small town... 

Nice I remembered his name from the ST-ENT credits (that's how big of a nerd I am).

You're telling me that movies are made by real people? Now that's just crazy

Who are these crazy mixed up fools? Do they give reasons why?

Nice!  Never seen it all laid out like that before...

A few others I can think of  -

At first Marty's sister is unpopular, then at the end is told by the brother "hey, I can't keep track of all your boyfriends" or some such.

The scene with Jennifer in the town square is completely crammed with setups - in addition to the clock tower flyer, there's also:

Marty sees the 4x4 truck, later he will own it.

Marty frets about sending his demo tape to record companies, and Jennifer says "Like Doc says, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything".  Marty answers with "what if they say I'm no good?...  Jesus, I'm starting to sound like my old man",    Later George says the same thing almost verbatim about his writing to Marty, and Marty gives him the "put your mind to it" line.   Which George then echoes again at the end, talking about his novel - "It's like I always say, if you put your mind to it..."

And the demo tape itself is a setup - (I believe) it's the same tape he later uses to melt George's brain.   (I admit I could be wrong on this one).

EDIT - oh, you had the 4x4 in there already, I missed it.   Carry on.

Hey, thanks! This is the first one I've done. My plan before I started was to do this with Bttf, Titanic, Holes and then progress to less obvious/weaker ones to compare them. I may still do this, but making that dang chart was way more mentally and emotionally exhausting than I had guessed possible, so I think I'm going to take some time off and let my brain re-solidify. ...But yeah, I'd imagine I'll do more in the future. You have any good candidates?

Also, where would you all peg the act 2/3 break in BttF? I think I put it as the kids coming back to "life" in the picture at the dance, but I'm not sure if that's correct. What do you all think?

Last edited by Bathilda (2013-03-02 05:29:42)

I'd agree the act break comes when Marty has gotten his parents to fall in love, and the final act is all about getting Marty back to the future.   

I think that makes the actual break Marty's final scene with his mom in the stairwell, where we find out for sure that Lorraine has chosen George.   Once that's settled, we immediately cut to Marty meeting up with Doc at the clock tower and the race to the finish is on.

Bathilda, would you be willing to send me your document with all of the text? I'd love to make an infographic out of this.

(It would say "collated/written/whatever by [you], infographic by [me]." I'm not trying to steal your thunder, I just really like making infographics, and this is outstanding.  )

Teague: I most definitely will! I was hoping someone would offer!! Powerpoint has proved insufficient for this task and I gladly hand it off to you. But you're going to have to wait a day, because I'm going to send some other info thingies along with it that I learned while doing this, as well. : )

Trey: I think it SHOULD have been Marty's band's tape. They even establish his band's name, so all they would have had to do was change the label on the tape. *sigh* I guess they went for the funny pop culture gag instead. 10 points to you if you know the name of Marty's band without checking.

I didn't include the "put your mind to it" thing in because it happens three times at the beginning, middle and end and therefore seemed like more of the theme of the movie than anything else. (And I couldn't decide how I would fit all of that one on the page in any sort of organized manner. But I'll put it on the list so Teague can put it in his infographic if he wants to.) -- Edit: D'oh! The sister popularity one is good, too! Will add.

And my "cool story bro" tale for the movie is this: Going to see Back to the Future was my parents' first date. So for me this movie has almost always had this extra layer of, "What if I have to go back in time, to make my parents go on their first date to see a movie about a kid who has to go back in time to make sure his parents go on their first date." The idea blew my mind as a youth and has remained much more of a threat in my head than it really should.

Last edited by Bathilda (2013-03-02 09:20:56)

I guess I always assumed it was a little clip from "Eruption" or "Atomic Punk". According to TMZ, it actually is Eddie Van Halen just messing around. In universe, tho, it might be Marty emulating Eddie to demo to other musicians at school.

/nobody rules these streets at night but me

What, you mean that kids movie with Huey Lewis in it? Oh, sure, THAT sounds like a rock'n good time...