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Eric Stoltz made me understand the tragedy of the ending of Back to the Future and the inhumanity of the American Dream

I'll say this - I don't think my family and friends considered ourselves 'wealthy'/'rich', or that having money brought happiness. Hanging out with your friends after school, or going to a family member or neighbor's house on the weekend to have lunch/dinner and watch sports on television, that's what made you happy. No one was comparing their stock portfolios or showing off their latest purchase/acquisition. I remember when our neighbor became the first on the block to purchase a Betamax and Atari game console. Teresa was a bank manager for Wells Fargo and Larry was a bus mechanic for the Bellevue School District. That might have earned them good money, but those were still expensive purchases.
 
Book? I guess there was a novelization, as was common for films in the 80s. I wonder if I own it? I worked at a book store in the 80s.
The book adds several sub-plots... Strickland is a way bigger prick than he was in the book, and George doesn't just run late on his mission to save Lorraine; he gets delayed by several of his classmates.
 
By the way, everyone says that Marty's room is the same at the beginning and the end of the movie. I looked frame by frame and I tell you that's not true.

The curtains are slightly darker in the new timeline.

my favorite trivia about Marty's room is that he has a couple issues of Reference Quarterly on his shelf. That's a Library Science Academic Journal.

George doesn't just run late on his mission to save Lorraine; he gets delayed by several of his classmates.

They filmed that but ended up deleting those scenes. I think they locked him in a phonebooth.
 
The book adds several sub-plots... Strickland is a way bigger prick than he was in the book, and George doesn't just run late on his mission to save Lorraine; he gets delayed by several of his classmates.
And IIRC there's also a scene inside the band members' car before Marty gets slammed in the trunk
 
Mm. That's reading too deep into it and not letting movie logic win. We're supposed to to take it that on some level everything is mostly the same and the only thing that's different is that everyone is a stronger, healthier and happier person.

George still chuckles at reruns of The Honeymooners while Lorraine sips at her Vodka, just now she's laughing too with them cuddled on the more expensive couch.

Marty still set fire to the living room rug and they all still wore the classic 80s outfits for the Polaroid and Marty was still a rebelious teen enough to hang out with Doc.

We can read too much into it and say that logically things are different and tragic but that's not how we're supposed to see it.
 
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No, but Marty could have saved up enough money to buy a Walkman back then. And who knows, maybe his parents gave it to him as a gift.

I mean, the McFlys didn't exactly make a ton of money back then, but they weren't poor. That's a gift they could easily have bought.
 
No, but Marty could have saved up enough money to buy a Walkman back then. And who knows, maybe his parents gave it to him as a gift.

I mean, the McFlys didn't exactly make a ton of money back then, but they weren't poor. That's a gift they could easily have bought.


Probably. I had never gotten the impression they were poor and the Walkman is something Marty could have had. (Hell, I had one and I'd say my lifestyle in 1985 was on cusp with Marty's AND we had a computer and, well, THREE TV's!)
 
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I've got a few photos in my middle and high school yearbooks of students wearing headphones and listening to portable tape players.
Heck, by the time I graduated in 89 and my brother in 90, students were putting CD players in their cars in place of tape decks.
 
What exactly was George's job? He seems to be some sort of middle class 9to5 corporate drone who works in a office full of other drones.
 
What exactly was George's job? He seems to be some sort of middle class 9to5 corporate drone who works in a office full of other drones.
We don't know what George actually did for a living, other than that Biff was his supervisor and George did all of Biff's paperwork for him.
 
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I'm really finding it fascinating to see how future generations are interpreting BTTF. I'm Marty McFly's age and I can guarantee that neither myself nor any of my contemporaries equated the word "tragedy" with this film when it came out. It was pretty universally adored.
 
I think it's pretty clear that in the original timeline, the McFly's certainly weren't dirt poor. They were living in a suburban neighbourhood after all, not a trailer park or cramped inner-city tenement building apartment. One does have the impression however that they are struggling at least a little bit; the furniture looks a little old, the decor is a little tacky (though that's more of a taste thing), and there's a lot more clutter. Contrast that to the epilogue where the furniture all looks like it was purchased less than a decade prior, the colour coordination is a bit more on-point and the place is just generally tidier (plus they now have a piano). Indeed I sort of see the house interior and decor of more a reflection of Lorraine and George's state of mind and self esteem.

Now I'm no expert on car makes (let alone American car makes) but I'm pretty sure George's car (the one Biff totalled) was a '76 Chevry Nova. Granted it was nowhere near as nice at the time as a 7-series Beamer, but from what I gather while an ageing model, it wasn't exactly a POS rust-bucket in and of itself. Indeed for a family car, it seems a little on the impractical side. Maybe they used to have sometime more sensible when the kids were little, but he traded for a second-hand Nova once they got older and Dave left school? As for the Beamer; as I said before, I can easily see that being just a company car.

I think everything we see the McFly's attain in the epilogue can easily be accounted for with George simply getting promoted to supervisor back when he originally deserved to. Maybe even another promotion to regional supervisor or something a few years later. Odds are Biff only got to be supervisor by taking credit for George's work to begin with, and even his advancement was depending on George doing the work of two people. So it would stand to reason that an unfettered (and self-confident) George would do so much better, and likely be recognised for his work.

Indeed just without Biff leaching off the family, upping their insurance premiums, and (most likely) borrowing money he never repays, making them late with the mortgage and bank-loans, I can see them easily going from "struggling" to "doing OK". With the pressure off, maybe Dave stayed in school longer, not having to drop out early and go work flipping burgers to help support the household. Instead he got himself an education, got an office job down the line . . . maybe even at George's office, since as middle-management he can swing a little nepotism his son's way to get him started.

What exactly was George's job? He seems to be some sort of middle class 9to5 corporate drone who works in a office full of other drones.
Some non-specific white collar desk job. We do see him with a printer-calculator at the dinner table with a bunch of papers (presumably to do Biff's reports for him) so whatever it is, it probably involves accounts or finance to some degree. Maybe an accountancy, maybe insurance. Doesn't really matter either way I suppose.
 
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