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June 04, 2006
Dynamite
Oh how I love Wikipedia. Being the timewaster that I am, one of my favorite things to do is to read something on Wikipedia, then click on the various links. I can easily spend an hour doing this. Today I was watching the History Channel, when an ad for Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's foundation came on the TV. So, I thought, what does Wikipedia say about Michael J. Fox? Naturally, I wound up on the page for Marty McFly. There is a wealth of information, including a section on something I never even thought about:
Pre-Back to the Future
Little is known about Marty's life prior to the first Back to the Future film, except for the fact that he set the living room rug on fire when he was 8. How exactly Marty and Doc met has never been explained, although a draft script for the first film states that a couple of years ago Doc turned up at Marty's garage one day and offered him $50 a week, plus free beer and use of his record collection, to clean his garage. This explanation is not accepted by most fans however as it contradicts the characterizations of Marty and Doc we see in the finished film. Several fan fics place Doc and Marty's first meeting when he was a little kid. Co-writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale say they once considered expanding on their relationship, but decided against it, reasoning that children and adolescents are often attracted to eccentric or mysterious neighbors. Though one wonders if the time machine events helped deepen that friendship even more.
I mean, why do people worry about how Doc and Marty met? I mean, to be honest, I don't think I want to know. In fact, being a completely fictional movie, we sadly will never know. But, if you want to get all technical, Marty first meets Doc in 1955, when he visits him to send him back to the future, meaning there is some strange parallel thing going on because Doc knows he will meet Marty in 1985. Maybe without the 1955 meeting, Doc and Marty never meet in 1985, meaning there is no time machine trip and then Marty never exists. Or is it in 1885 when Doc goes back in time and then Marty goes to rescue him after Biff's ancestor shoots Doc in the back? What about in 2015? (I'm still waiting for my flying car, by the way.)
Good God, my head hurts.
Posted by oz115 at June 4, 2006 09:16 PM