Silent movie references? Political satire?
Conveniently timed lightning strikes? Here are a few things about the 1985
sci-fi classic "Back to the Future" that you'll only notice after watching it multiple times.
A lot of the foreshadowing in "Back to the Future" isn't exactly subtle,
but some bits are easier to miss than others. For example, when Marty McFly
worries about sending out his audition tape in the film's opening moments, he speculates
about the record company telling him he has "no future." Sure enough, he almost doesn't.
If you look at some of these early moments long enough, you find out how layered they really are,
especially once you know the course that the movie is going to take.
In the scene where Principal Strickland scolds Marty for being a slacker,
it's easy to notice that he says that "history's gonna change," but he also identifies George
McFly's lack of drive — or lack of backbone, really — as the reason Marty's father "never
amounted to anything." Sure enough, that turns out to be the exact part of history that changes.
It's always been obvious that the last few minutes of "Back to the Future" serve to set
up the plot of "Part II," but there's one bit of sequel bait that only gets a double-take once you
already know what'll happen when Marty gets to 2015. Right before the Libyan
nationalists crash the party, Doc Brown mentions his high-minded time travel goals:
"I've always dreamed of seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind."
Very noble and inspiring indeed.
But then he adds something that most of us would probably find even more inspiring:
"I'll also be able to see who wins the next 25 World Series."
It's a fine joke, but it's a lot more foreboding in the context of Biff's
use of the sports almanac a film later. Plus, it makes Doc's outrage about Marty's
identical idea for a money-making scheme in "Part II" kind of hypocritical. Then again,
the Doc who gleefully hoped to learn the World Series winners isn't really the same
Doc who scolded Marty for besmirching the nobility of time travel. Maybe the
extra 30 years he had to speculate on probable consequences were able to change his mind.
If you're a fan of silent comedies, few images are as iconic as poor Harold Lloyd
dangling from the hand of an enormous clock in 1923's "Safety Last."
If you know the film — or even just the shot — it's impossible not to see the resemblance
when Doc Brown finds himself hanging for dear life from the hour hand. It's a great homage,
especially when you remember that Doc is played by yet another, albeit unrelated Lloyd — Christopher,
this time. Lloyds of the world should probably all stay away from clock towers, just in case.
"Back to the Future" isn't content with just one reference to "Safety Last," though:
it sneaks in a second — one that doubles as foreshadowing for Doc's later bit of aerial
comedy. In the film's opening, as the camera pans over Doc's clock collection,
we see that one of the clocks has a tiny figurine of Harold Lloyd attached to one of the hands.
We take it that Doc Brown is a fan of "Safety Last" himself.
No one turns on a classic time travel caper to see a small town mayoral race,
but you still shouldn't miss this cynical joke about the cyclical nature of politics.
In Marty's original 1985 timeline, mayor Goldie Wilson is running for reelection,
and the megaphones installed on his campaign van make it clear that "progress is his middle
name." Political and civic progress, that is, because the slogan certainly isn't referring to
creative progress. Back in 1955, Mayor Red Thomas has his campaign car blare the exact same slogan.
His predecessor almost certainly followed exactly the same script.
If you're paying enough attention, you might notice that the two campaigns
match each other word for word, but subsequent viewings give you more time to appreciate the
layered ironies at play. Another favorite: both mayoral candidates are incumbents.
Their campaigns are promoting change… as the reason to keep on re-electing the same guy.
There's been plenty of nostalgia for the '80s over the past decade — just
as the '70s and '80s had plenty of similar nostalgia for the '50s.
"Back to the Future" was part of that wistful cultural wave, and the set design proves it:
once upon a time, Hill Valley had more civic pride and less vandalism.
The movie's view of this nostalgia is nuanced, however, and it doesn't hesitate to skewer
exactly this kind of longing for the past. In "Back to the Future," we see that the '50s were
far from innocent: after all, both Goldie Wilson and the band playing the school dance get racist
slurs thrown at them just for existing. The Hill Valley of 1955 may not have had an adult
movie theater in the town square, but it still had rapists and peeping toms. Compared with all that,
Marty's fantasy of a night away at the lake with his steady girlfriend seems positively wholesome.
Even the most basic bits of nostalgia get subtly taken to task here. Idealized family dinners?
As soon as they get the chance, Lorraine's family is thrilled
to watch TV while they're eating ... just like the McFlys in the '80s.
Life imitates art — so when an unrecognizable vessel crashes into your barn and a mysterious
figure in a bizarre full-body suit emerges, you might well think aliens are responsible.
Especially if it's 1955 and you're a kid with a collection of comic books.
Books, movies, TV, comics — these things are just part of how we relate to the world around us.
"Back to the Future" knows this, and leans into it. One of Biff's pals has the gimmick of always
wearing a pair of red and blue 3-D glasses around, a nod to the '50s craze for 3-D…
which would eventually return in Marty's '80s, and again without glasses in the futuristic 2015. It's
just one of several ways the film shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
However, the best bit of meta-fictional overlap in "Back to the Future" comes when Marty hooks
up his camcorder to Doc's 1955 TV to show him the footage taken right before Marty's
desperate escape through time. As Marty and Doc rewind and fast-forward to get to the parts
they need in the tape, they're duplicating the time-travel process in their own way,
moving backwards and forwards through Marty's future historical record.
Throughout "Back to the Future," Marty always seems to have the same problem:
he's constantly late. Of course, it doesn't help that all the clocks in
Doc's workshop are set to the wrong time — but those clocks have nothing to do with
him lingering at the dance when he knows he has to make it to the clock tower on time.
Priorities, Marty! We all like "Johnny B. Goode," but you don't want to get stuck in 1955!
Of course, the ongoing detail of Marty's lateness gets a satisfying,
and briefly bittersweet twist: when Marty finally thinks to arrive somewhere early,
it's so he can save Doc's life. Marty giving himself 10 additional minutes to get to the
mall parking lot is an excellent end to his character arc in the first film. He may be
late for everything else — even his own future — but when his best friend's life is at stake,
he's able to step up and work past his most unfortunate habit.
When it comes to time, nobody has any business criticizing Dr. Emmett Brown. He invented the flux
capacitor and conquered the laws of physics while everyone else is still frustrated about Daylight
Savings Time. However, there's one specific detail that it doesn't take a doctorate to notice.
Thanks to the "Save the Clock Tower" campaign, Marty knows the exact time and date
that the Hill Valley landmark will be struck by lightning… sort of. He knows the day, hour,
and minute, but most lightning strikes are over the same second they began. Marty has to hit Doc
Brown's wire at the exact right moment, and he has no idea which moment that might be.
As Doc pointed out earlier, there are a lot of fiddly little details that have to be worked
out exactly right for Marty to be able to make it back to 1985 — but this one seems
more impossible than the rest. It's a good thing that once Doc comes back from the far
off year of 2015, he's got a more reliable, trash-based fuel source.
At first glance, Marty McFly and his dad don't seem to have much in common. After
encountering them both in 1955, even Doc Brown can't quite believe that the two are related.
"Maybe you were adopted."
That's not true, of course, considering that the whole plot of the film centers around Marty
being George and Lorraine's biological son. It's concrete proof of the McFly bloodline,
but it's not exactly necessary. Against all odds, the film makes it clear that George and Marty
actually have quite a lot in common, right down to their body language. Even more meaningfully,
the two share some identical anxieties about rejection: neither one of them can initially
work up the courage to submit their creative work to a publisher or label that might turn it down.
Thankfully, all the father-son parallels get a heartwarming payoff in the film's final act.
Marty helps George find his courage and win over Lorraine — and seeing his father stand
up for himself gives him the motivation he needs to take over for Marvin Berry and lose himself
in the music. And when Marty gets gawked at by a bunch of '50s teens and teachers who can't believe
what they're hearing? It turns out that he can take rejection pretty gracefully, after all.
Kids and their parents have always clashed over music: The art form might change over time,
but once our tastes are fixed, they often stay the same. Sooner or later,
we're all bound to get confused by the latest hits. Needless to say, Marty experiences
this phenomenon firsthand when he plays an '80s-style guitar solo for a baffled '50s crowd.
"I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet… but your kids are gonna love it."
That's not the only time "Back to the Future" shows older generations suffering when their
kids crank up the volume on the newest hits. When Marty dons his hazmat suit to scare the
1955 version of his dad into asking out Lorraine, he amps up the weirdness factor by blasting George
with a few seconds of Eddie Van Halen cranked up to 10. George writhes in agony as he's
literally tortured by Marty's taste in music: he doesn't get it, but his son sure does.
George McFly's burgeoning career as a novelist is the perfect cherry on top of his happier,
better-adjusted life in the altered 1985. If you take a good look at the cover of "A Match
Made in Space," you might notice that it bears a resemblance to those of real-life science
fiction author Robert A. Heinlein. Connections between George and Heinlein are likely anyway:
He's one of the authors George would have absolutely read growing up, considering
that the teenage George was ready to skip the big dance so he could watch "Science Fiction Theater."
Although George doesn't know it, his own life winds up being like something out of a certain
Heinlein story… and not just because he's living in a science fiction movie himself.
Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies" deals with how time travel paradoxes could
lead to a person becoming several of their own ancestors, for example. In a decidedly less
family-friendly version of "Back to the Future," we could see that happening to Marty, too.
That's not the only Heinlein story that echoes Marty's journey, though:
Heinlein's novel "Time Enough for Love" tackles multiple kinds of incest in a science fiction
setting, including a romance between a mother and her son. Awkward doesn't even begin to cover it.
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