Back to the Future

I'm confused already. It's easy to think of the third one as just the Wild West, but there's quite a bit in the other periods too. Is it II or III that has Biff running the casino and ruining the town?

The second one is the most all over the place, conceptually.

I don't know anymore. That 'Biff running the town' thing really upset me but I guess it is the better film.

why is the love interest a bad idea N?

They don't make 'em like this anymore.

If there were a way for Doc and Marty to have gotten to this alternate 1985, there would be nothing to prevent them from going back to 1955.  They embark on a fool's errand:  they seek to change the present by changing the past and, as we discussed with Terminator, there are only three possible outcomes of this:  first, you can fail to make the necessary change, so that the past is intact and you still desire to change it, causing an N-jump; second, you can make the change, eliminating your reason for doing so, and so undoing the change, creating an infinity loop; third--the almost impossible result--you can make the change and create a different reason for yourself to know to come back in time to make the change, creating a sawtooth snap which will hopefully terminate in an N-jump (but might still result in an infinity loop).  Marty and Doc return to 1955 with the intent to alter history; furthermore, they are basing their efforts once again on information which they are about attempt to erase.  A disaster stands before us.

You've got to love this guy

this proves he is great, u r all gay (except N)

Lol I have seen Rex tweeting, had no idea it was THAT Rex!

― Looking for Cape Penis house (Neanderthal), Sunday, January 17, 2021 4:16 PM

Wait, do people not know that part of the “act” for the entire trilogy is seeing how little changes in the past alter the future?

wait BTTF has TIME-TRAVELING in it?

every movie has time traveling in it imo

we’re traveling through time right now

Well, we were, but now we're in the future.

i love how he points out that the replacement of one sign with a completely different sign they built for the movie is "not a mistake". do people think that they film movies entirely in sequence, striking each set after every scene and the rebuilding it again when there's a later scene in the same location?

i think some people think the film is being acted out live every time the dvd is put on

ME AND BTTF2:
"Oh man, Biff is so evil...can you imagine if the world was really like that? It would be hell...I can't believe Biff took over the world...it's so scary....Biff is so evil..."

― Abbott, Monday, September 15, 2008

Yes I can definitely imagine that.

But why is 2015 Biff such a crusty asshole? He came from the timeline where Biff is a happy, meek friend of the family.

biff is never happy and meek, only cowed in the presence of big george who terrorises him relentlessly

Yeah they don't show it but I always imagined Biff seething after George goes back inside the house after the "Don't con me!" scene. Biff would be even more miserable in that timeline

he came from an alternate timeline where only one-play was available

*one-ply

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqQ6whOG-Pg

MJF is fucking hilarious in this…favorite part is the slow stare at dad coming into frame in the coffee shop

What a perfect movie. And it would have been perfect even without the "Johnny B. Goode" scene -- I mean, it adds nothing to the plot -- it's just a moment of pure elation. It rockets the film into the statosphere.

Tom Wilson (Biff) was asked the same questions by BACK TO THE FUTURE fans so often, he wrote a song answering them. This is great. pic.twitter.com/OTXN6UdwOI

— All The Right Movies (@ATRightMovies) September 10, 2022

I've often kinda wondered what happened to the other Marty seen at the end of the first movie, who seemingly is sent back to the 1955 of his timeline, which is the 1955 where the protagonist Marty changed the past. So I came up with silly fan theory...

This has bugged me for a long time, but my "fan theory" is that Doc Brown knew he couldn't send that Marty back to 1955 ('cuz he'd crash right into Marty-Prime arriving at that same spot); so instead he set the dial for 1055 or something. Sent that fool back to the Dark Ages, where he figured he couldn't cause any trouble and would die quickly. BUT! -- somehow Nu-Marty survives, claws his way back to the present (or, let's say, 2025 – for purposes of developing this into a new movie), and he's hella pissed... now he's a bad guy, coming for revenge! Watch Peacock for BTTF 4, coming in two years...

So he's basically Khan? Sounds great/terrible.

Yeah, or Superboy-Prime from the DC Universe

https://i.ibb.co/jZDdXKHN/tumblr-d0037367dc5bb175d76f3dbcb5a80412-1750489f-1280.jpg

Saw one of those cute posts where someone points out we are as far from 1996 now as Marty was from 1955 then. Fair enough. But having lived in 1985 and 1996 and 2026, I feel that traveling back from 1985 to 1955 would be more of a shock than traveling back to 2026 from 1996. My wife disagreed, and blamed overfamiliarity with 1996. Also fair enough. But what would be the things we take for granted in 2026 that you would miss in 1996, and what perspective or tech from 2026 would blow their minds in 1996? The first thing that came to mind for her were smart phones, but I sort of feel like they are just advanced refinements of things that existed in 1996 (cellphones, internet). I'm blanking on other hypothetical shocks to the system. Then again, my coffee hasn't kicked in yet.

For example, what would be the contemporary equivalent of the puffy vest gag in "Back to the Future?"

Please god don't give film studios ideas

lol I recall reading that apparently this is one of the few IPs the owners won't allow to be rebooted, at least not as long as Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale are alive.

a closely related question: If Marty McFly went back in time thirty years ago today, what song does he play at the dance to blow everyone's mind?

"Chuck! It's Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Berry. You know that new sound you're looking for? Well, this ain't it."

cellphones, internet

in 1996 these were still some way from being ubiquitous.

yeah no one I knew had a cellphone in 1996 (New England US)

however, I was using my parents’ home computer and a slow dial-up connection to ~surf the web~ (look at low res porn pictures)

iirc my boss was the only person with a cellphone that i knew in 1996. and only a select few people in the office had the internet on their pcs.

We definitely had internet and email in college (1993-1997), however rudimentary compared to now. Cell phones ... I don't remember when I got my first one, but I knew car phones were a thing, and those big brick phones. Nokia apparently had a mobile phone with a QWERTY keyboard in 1996, so they existed, and I assume I must have known they existed, but I can't remember.

the quality of ready meals

all cars being a slight variation on the same car

I knew about Minitel and networks, but I didn't really ~understand the internet~ (e.g. how to find low res pictures of helena christensen) until we had it at home in '97

Hmm, MP3s (and streaming) would have been a big deal in 1996, there's one, I think.

I think having a speedy internet in your pocket would genuinely be wildly futuristic to someone in 1996.

My answer for the true mind-blowing technology, though: vapes.

We had Prodigy at home in the early/mid-90s, so to an extent I'm with Josh on that.

In a way I think a tablet would blow my mind more than a smartphone? I don't know though, digitization just doesn't really have the wow factor, though if you showed 1996 me the, for example, homepage of the NYT with videos etc. it would be pretty impressive.

For example, what would be the contemporary equivalent of the puffy vest gag in "Back to the Future?"

This one seems easier since you could do stretchy, skinny jeans / jeggings. Regardless of whether that would genuinely blow the minds of '96ers, it would be the gag

xposts: yeah a tablet streaming a hi-res movie would def work. Vapes is a good answer!

Also I remember in 1996, being a teen who listened to music constantly, I wished somebody would invent wireless headphones - funnily enough, now they're here... well, I was going to say that I hate them, but I don't, I just mourn the loss of headphone jacks and will get outdated gear just so I can still have the jack for output.

I have never used wireless headphones...didn't even think it was that antiquated

Of course, if you had a smart phone or similar with you back in 1996, it wouldn't work! But MP3s (and vapes) would.

Could imagine the plot of the reboot being a panicked Marty racing around, trying to find a way to charge his phone/vape.

Lol, I just asked my daughter what she would bring back to 1996 to showcase the future and she said "covid." Then she paused a beat and clarified, "I mean, the vaccine."

a panicked Marty racing around, trying to find a way to charge his phone

Back to One Future After Another

Loads of people still smoking indoors would be one of the first things you noticed if you went back to 1996.

IIRC, people were experimenting with nicotine nebulizers as a treatment for smoking as early as the late Seventies, so the idea for vaping did exist.

xpost No draconian post-9/11 security, too.

CGLDI: Didn't know that! But still, "in the future, people inhale vapor from capsules inserted into sleek little pocket-sized devices" would absolutely play as miscellaneous world-building for a sci-fi movie, at any point from the 50s to the 90s really. There must be a Star Trek TNG episode that does it...

The doohickeys we have in our pockets are considerably more mind blowing than anything that anyone was carrying in Star Trek TNG or DS9.

In 2000 I had a Siemens phone in Italy with a tiny black and white lcd, you could browse the internet in a really limited way on it. ILX was one of the few sites that worked.