Half the tenants were bookstores and video stores.It's Ghost Pine Mall now that it's been shuttered in 2025 from multiple retail bankruptcies like JC Penney.
Eric Stoltz made me understand the tragedy of the ending of Back to the Future and the inhumanity of the American Dream
- Thread starter Skipper
- Start date
And a Blockbuster that never upgraded to Blurays.
...and, SCENE.
I'll take "predestination paradox" for a thousand, Alex.
As a general rule, I do not believe in predestination paraodoxes. They break ALL form of logic. I assume, no, insist, that there was an previous iteration that may be completely lost, buried under a constantly changing recursive loop that perpetuates itself after whatever outside meddling or changes kicked off the loop.
According to ENT, it was.
But, that also can just show that ENT was a *product* of FC - and occurs after the events of it has altered the past.
And yet we have Riker visiting a holodeck recreation of the NX-01 in the year 2370. Three years before the Enterprise-E traveled back in time to 2063.
^
This.
It's the same timeline. The NX-01 was in Kirk's history textbooks when he was a kid and if it IS an alternate timeline then TOS is part of that alternate timeline.
This.
It's the same timeline. The NX-01 was in Kirk's history textbooks when he was a kid and if it IS an alternate timeline then TOS is part of that alternate timeline.
I wish people would stop saying that.
BTTF is NOT saying that wealth brings happiness. Yes, the McFlys ARE richer (not rich, just richER) in the new tiimeline. But that's irrelevant.
The McFlys are happy because they're stronger and more confident. All of them, not just George. And that added strength and confidence is the reason they're better off.
About that bit in BTTF2 when Old Biff is visibly ill as he gets out of the DeLorean: I like the explanation that the reason he's sick and being erased from existence, because Lorraine shot him sometime in the past.
Thats awesome. I've never thought about it that way. Its the 1985-A future..... no one else disappears when they get stuck in a wrong future. So why would Biff? If he beat the ripple effect back to the future, he should have still had it reform around him, and he would be taking the place of mobster Biff - who is now dead. Genius.
and that still happened post FC. Seven didn't pop up until post FC either, because now her parents had borg stuff to study from ENT. Everything after FC is affected by FC.
i remember being young and reading books like that, karate kid and gremlins, and always being confused at how many extra scenes and differences there were in the books.
Well from your description it doesn't sound like a "'Middle' to 'Upper Middle' class" habit to casually give your kid a new car. Unless the advance on the book was a truly astronomical amount I think if parents wanted to use the money for their kid it would have been wiser to put it, say, into a college fund. So unless the new McFlys were financially irresponsible, we can safely assume they were a bit above "Upper Middle Class".
edit: Just for fun, asked chatGPT
Sure!
Yes, in 1985, the **Toyota Hilux SR5 4x4** was considered a fairly expensive vehicle, especially for someone like Marty McFly.
Here’s why:
1. **Price** – In 1985, a brand-new Toyota Hilux SR5 4x4 cost between **$11,000 and $14,000** (which is about **$30,000–$40,000 today**, adjusted for inflation). It wasn’t exactly cheap for a high school student!
2. **Status Symbol** – In the ’80s, 4x4 pickup trucks were becoming very popular in the U.S., especially among young people and off-road enthusiasts. A Hilux like Marty’s, with a roll bar, auxiliary lights, and chrome wheels, was definitely seen as a cool ride!
3. **Who Paid for It?** – In the movie, the altered timeline makes Marty’s father, George, wealthy and successful, so he likely bought the truck as a gift for Marty. In the original timeline, Marty wanted it but probably couldn’t afford it.
So, for the average teenager, that Toyota would have been a pretty expensive and out-of-reach dream!
I mean.... the real question should be how much are the monthly payments? Might be do-able.
It don't take money and it don't take fame
Don't need no credit card to ride this train
Tougher than diamonds and stronger than steel
You won't feel nothin' 'til you feel
You feel the power, just feel the power of love
It was in the song all along.
Don't need no credit card to ride this train
Tougher than diamonds and stronger than steel
You won't feel nothin' 'til you feel
You feel the power, just feel the power of love
It was in the song all along.
The 1980s visual and subconscious language--with that era's emphasis on material gain--was not left up to interpretation at the end of the film.The filmmakers could not conceive of a Marty who had a stronger father / family unit, yet they were in the same economic class as in the original timeline--as if any sort of personal strength, integrity and psychological stability was impossible to find within a lower economic class (well, not for those who actively pushed the glory of the Upwardly Mobile across 1980s media). No, that was not attempted, because to too many in 1980s media, happiness was synonymous with material gain, as in the coda of BTTF.
Exactly. As if it were impossible to imagine someone being happy AND not having material possessions to prove it.
But as Kai "the spy" has often repeated, it is not the interpretation of some left-wing critic, it is something that has been recognized by the authors of the film themselves.
And again, no one is going to convince me that it was an absolutely common thing in the 80s to give a brand new pick-up truck to a teenage son as if it were a bicycle.
What era has NOT had an emphasis on material gain? The 70's emphasized gaining as much material as one could, which was admittedly not as much. If anything the 80's emphasized "Oh my stars and garters, we have MONEY again!"
Did the post war era not emphasize material gain? (Same as the 80's, I would guess. "Hey, we're not at war with Germany and Japan anymore! And we have REFRIGERATORS now!")
I had classmates who got Camaros pretty much just like that. They were the kids who had Sony Walkmans.
To be clear: The McFly's are meant to be doing better in the new timeline. But they're not fabulously wealthy. Nicer car, cleaner house. "Cleaner house" does a lot of the lift.
For me it felt like 'these are still fundimentally the same people, but they got what amounts to Therapy to re-rail their lives before those lives had a chance to go horribly wrong.'
Like you I see that his parents still love him (though what we don't see are the potential arguments over why Marty looks like Calvin Klein, why and how NOBODY has been able to find Calvin after the night of the dance thus likely turning it into a hill valley urban legend.)
More importantly. The photo Marty had with him? That was STILL THE SAME PHOTO. His siblings didn't re-materialize as different people or wearing different things. Its a bit of a shorthand but the implication is these are still the same people and largely they have similar enough memories that my above thesis holds true 'this is what happened after preemptive therapy and counseling.'
Marty's life is better not just by way of material things, but George is following his dream! This isn't an era where self publishing was really possible. he got a crate of books because part of publicity was going on book tours and talks, and giving out copies. Guy probably got a deal with a publisher (Penguin, Ace, Baen, Tor, Etc) and the box he got was for personal distribution. George got to be the author he wanted to be and his kids are largely successful, but haven't lost touch with each other or their parents. So while Marty's older son comes across as a bit of a yuppy, he's still there greeting his parents, sharing in that happy moment of his father's success.
I've never bought that his parents would have absolutely recognized him from a memory 30 years ago.
But "urban legend"? I LOVE that.
It's actually quite unclear what happens to your current alternate version when you appear in their timeline. 1985A Doc is institutionalized and 1985A Marty is at boarding school, so they can just ignore the issue all together.
Could've sworn I'd seen either a TV documentary or some interview where the intent was that lauraine shot him in the 1985A timeline and when eh got to the future the ripple caught up with him and poof.
Though by that logic I do find it interesting that the time machine itself didn't ripple out of existence. Maybe it has more temporal weight? The equivalent of hurking a boulder into a river instead of pebbles thus making it harder to wash away with the current?
Considering dude went and played a song that nobody would hear for a good decade or more and disappeared on the same night the clock tower was hit by lightning? There would definitely be an urban legend that popped up around the guy. Plus reports from the guy wanting to grow pine trees/land owner of where twin/lone pine(s) mall would be reporting an alien showing up in a bulky suit and a strange silvery craft with what looked like jet exhaust nozzels on the back (the drawings his son made would omit the wheels and memory would morph so that it was a futuristic hovering vehicle with strange upward opening doors.)
Anyone following 'Calvin Klein's' timeline in 50's hill valley might also note that shortly after his visit, one street sweeper Goldie Wilson suddenly took an interest in politics in an era where segregation was still law of the land, and finally getting elected mayor in the late 70's.
To say nothing of The Manure Incident.
Someone make a recut trailer portraying Marty as an alien come to experience earth and in the process help a struggling teenager find self worth and love.
