Question about BTTF 2

Cafe Society
1

Another thread about Back to the Future reminded me of a question I have discussed in the past.

There is a scene early in the movie when they are in 2015 and it’s raining. The rain stops and Doc Brown compliments the Weather service while looking at his watch. Do you think this was meant to imply:

  1. The Weather service has their predictive capabilities down to such a science that they can predict to the minute when a rain storm would end?

or…

  1. They actually control the weather and the storm was set to end at at that scheduled time?

Thoughts?

2

I inferred that the storm was scheduled, not merely predicted. But I don’t think it’s made explicit.

3

I always went with the 2nd option.

4

That one.

5

Too bad the Post Office isn’t as efficient

6

That’s how I always took it.

7

I always assumed the first option. Why in the world would they have control over the weather? Doc says, “Right on the tick”, which implies it was scheduled to stop at a certain time and it did. It’s a bit of a stretch to infer that they were actually making it rain…

8

I vote the first one.

9

first one - and we’re not that far off from that now - with all the live dopler this and that - they can do street level tracking of serious stuff.

10

Not to mention Doc has been to at least a few months in the future from that point, so he could just be referring to the weather tracking and record keeping abilities of the Weather Service.

11

I took it they control the weather, but I may be wrong. Strassia might have it there.

12

I think 2

13

I’ve always thought the first option, the 2nd never really even occurring to me… Just showing advances in weather prediction. That might explain why Doc’s so delighted that the rain stopped, if he already knew about controlled (and therefore, scheduled) weather, he’d be less surprised than he was. Remember, he had already spent quite enough time in 2015 (I can’t believe that’s only 5yrs away now)… So the up-to-the-second weather prediction’s novelty would have longer staying power… Especially for a scientist who likes to conduct “weather experiments”. :wink:

14

It seems to me like Doc has already lived through this day. He knows the circumstances under which Griff confronts Marty Jr. in the Cafe 80s. I would think he already lived through the rain stopping right when expected.

15

I always thought number 1. Number 2 never occured to me.

16

I always took it to mean scheduled rather than predicted.

17

#1. Not #2.

18

#1, it was a joke about how weathermen suck and are never right in the present (or 1985 from Doc’s perspective) but in the future they’d really have their shit together and be able to predict things down to the instant.

19

I always thought it was scheduled as well.

20

Definitely #2. It’s scheduled.

The rain doesn’t taper off–it cuts off like they turned off a tap (which, of course, is what the FX guys did), and the clouds roll away within seconds. It’s pretty clearly not a natural ending to a heavy rain, and the fact that the FX crew was perfectly capable of making it look reasonably natural argues that they did it this way deliberately. That has always been my take on it, and rewatching the scene just now only reinforced it.