Not as simple as dumping a can of dog food, it turns out.
September 26, 2014 11:43 AM   Subscribe

 
Via brundlefly.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:44 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


I love this opener.

Woah, my old man friend isn't home. Better break in and check it out.

But

Rock out first, ask questions later.
posted by entropone at 12:27 PM on September 26, 2014


ahhhh so awesome! Man, those shoes. I love all those clocks, too - thought about getting the Cat Eye Clock a couple of years ago but of course the ones they make these days are plastic junk.
posted by rebent at 12:43 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


> Woah, my old man friend isn't home. Better break in and check it out.

It's amazingly daring to me that the movie never feels the need to explain why Marty and Doc are friends. Over the course of the trilogy we don't even learn how they met.

It ends up not mattering at all, of course, but I can't imagine how a first-time, no-information viewer of this movie wouldn't just spend the first twenty minutes wondering why this kid is friends with a crazy scientist.

On the commentary track, Zemeckis (I think) tells the story of the test screening. The audience knew almost nothing — they knew it was a comedy with the kid from Family Ties — and he could sense their confusion until the scene with young George in the diner, where young Biff comes in and reprises the scene that had played out between their old counterparts in 1985. At that point, he said he could feel the audience recognize "oh, THIS is what this movie is about."

Everything else, even the sci-fi, even the 50s nostalgia, is secondary to that core "when I was your age" idea. You don't need to explain why Doc and Marty are best friends; you just need to show that they like each other. It's a credit to Zemeckis and Bob Gale (the screenwriter) that they understand this when a lesser filmmaker would try to cram in an origin story and bloat the film in the process.
posted by savetheclocktower at 12:46 PM on September 26, 2014 [16 favorites]


Woah, my old man friend isn't home. Better break in and check it out.

Actually, that one shot of Marty's foot letting the welcome mat unfurl is remarkably concise "show don't tell" storytelling.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:49 PM on September 26, 2014 [11 favorites]


It's amazingly daring to me that the movie never feels the need to explain why Marty and Doc are friends.

To my 15 y/o self, the fact that said old man has a guitar amplifier that can freaking blow you across the room is more than enough explanation.
posted by signal at 1:11 PM on September 26, 2014 [18 favorites]


On the commentary track, Zemeckis (I think)

...also explains why Marty is wearing those ridiculous glasses (product placement money, natch) and what a pain it was setting up the shots so they didn't create undesired reflections.
posted by Rash at 1:31 PM on September 26, 2014


The fact that Marty and Doc are friends from the beginning with no explanation has always suggested to me that the BttF films are just one installment in a series of goofy SF adventures.

If you actually read the rest of the books or watch the rest of the movies you know that they met while [INSERT AWESOME THING HERE].
posted by brundlefly at 1:59 PM on September 26, 2014


It's amazingly daring to me that the movie never feels the need to explain why Marty and Doc are friends.

The fact that Marty and Doc are friends from the beginning with no explanation...

Isn't the entire film the explanation?
posted by cosmic.osmo at 2:32 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]



On the commentary track, Zemeckis (I think)

...also explains why Marty is wearing those ridiculous glasses


Does he explain about Marty's ridiculous little guitar?
posted by anazgnos at 2:43 PM on September 26, 2014


posted by savetheclocktower

Heh.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:00 PM on September 26, 2014 [6 favorites]


BTTF Co-writer Bob Gale has explained how Doc and Marty met and became friends. From Mental Floss:
Okay, from the horse’s mouth (yes, I’m the horse — er, co-writer, co-creator): We never explained it in the movie. But the history of the characters that Bob Zemeckis and I created is this…

For years, Marty was told that Doc Brown was dangerous, a crackpot, a lunatic. So, being a red-blooded American teenage boy, age 13 or 14, he decided to find out just why this guy was so dangerous. Marty snuck into Doc’s lab, and was fascinated by all the cool stuff that was there. when Doc found him there, he was delighted to find that Marty thought he was cool and accepted him for what he was. Both of them were the black sheep in their respective environments. Doc gave Marty a part-time job to help with experiments, tend to the lab, tend to the dog, etc.

And that’s the origin of their relationship.
posted by Servo5678 at 5:45 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Aren't they friends because Doc carefully befriended Marty in order to ensure that the future where he anticipates, appears to die from, but survives the shooting would continue to come to be? I don't think Doc built that giant amp just for his own lols. It also puts all the "ah Marty, always blowing my stuff up, you scamp" in a different light; the guy definitely can't afford to cut Marty loose or go off on him until the shooting is safely past.
posted by chortly at 6:11 PM on September 26, 2014


the guy definitely can't afford to cut Marty loose or go off on him until the shooting is safely past.

That doesn't sound like the Doc Brown that I know.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 6:13 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


Probably too much Rick and Morty inflecting my reading, I'll admit...
posted by chortly at 8:31 PM on September 26, 2014


Technically speaking, Doc and Marty are just another alternate-universe version of Rick and Morty. If Cronenberg-Rick-and-Morty exists somewhere in the multiverse, then surely there must be a Zemeckis-Rick-and-Morty too. Poor saps.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:22 PM on September 26, 2014


Aren't they friends because Doc carefully befriended Marty in order to ensure that the future where he anticipates, appears to die from, but survives the shooting would continue to come to be?

Possibly, but only in the timeline as it stands at the end of the film. The opening scenes take place in the unaltered timeline.

Timey and, indeed, wimey.
posted by howfar at 3:00 AM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]


Well, uh, thanks for that "Rick and Morty" info, Strange Interlude. I have yet another awesome cartoon to watch :D
posted by symbioid at 10:09 AM on September 27, 2014


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