# Doc Brown's Plastic Surgery in Back to the Future Part II - joke? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 26, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289 "2020-03-26T00:19:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289/1 "2020-03-26T00:19:49Z")
I asked question in another thread and never got a response, so I will ask it here. Powers said this in another thread: > [@Actors Who Looked "Old" for a LOOOONG Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-looked-old-for-a-loooong-time/847069/85): > > Christopher Lloyd would have been 47 in 1985, yes, but Doc Brown would have been in his 70s by then. All the characters who appeared in both 1955 and 1985 – George, Lorraine, Strickland, Doc, and Biff – were played by actors appropriate for their 1955 ages and then aged up (well except maybe James Tolkan as Strickland) for their 1985 scenes. > > \*\*In the sequel, one of the first things 77-year-old Doc does is strip off his aging mask (which Doc had used to hide his de-aging treatments from Marty) so that Lloyd could play him without makeup. > \*\* > > Powers &8^] I responded like this: > [@Actors Who Looked "Old" for a LOOOONG Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-looked-old-for-a-loooong-time/847069/113): > > Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. \*\*I thought the joke was that when he took the aging mask, he looked identical to how he looked before. \*\* > > We laughed in the theater in 1989 thinking that was the joke and I have always thought that was the joke. > > He…did look the same after he took off the “peel”, didn’t he? I thought Marty was being nice when he paused and said, “Yeah, ya’ look great, Doc” or something like that. Who is right? Wasn’t the joke that Doc looked identical after he peeled the face-peel off? ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289/2 "2020-03-26T00:37:11Z")
I haven’t seen the film in a while, but I remember the joke being exactly as you say, that it’s funny because he looks the same. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289/3 "2020-03-26T01:00:04Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > I haven’t seen the film in a while, but I remember the joke being exactly as you say, that it’s funny because he looks the same. Yes, my wife thinks so as well. I was 11 when we saw this movie in the theater and I remember my parents and brother laughing and my Dad chuckling and saying, “He looks the same!” It’s how I thought everyone took the joke. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289/4 "2020-03-26T01:39:51Z")
It was both. They put him in make-up in the first _BTTF_ 1985, but it barely registered on screen, and in the end was recognised as a waste of time. They decided to both remove the need for it and explain it away in _BTTF Part II_ with a joke that was almost self-referential. “We’re removing it because we didn’t need it and nobody noticed anyway. But just in case, let’s address it and justify it in-story”. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289/5 "2020-03-26T16:04:34Z")
When I last watched, I could have sworn his face looked smoother after the mask removal. Though I was watching in HD on a screen close to my face. It might not be visible on standard definition TV. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289/6 "2020-03-26T18:11:35Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > When I last watched, I could have sworn his face looked smoother after the mask removal. Though I was watching in HD on a screen close to my face. It might not be visible on standard definition TV. Again, I saw it in the theater on the big screen and we all thought the joke was that he looked identical. I do get that it very well was likely a meta-joke about how that whole make-up attempt in the first movie was irrelevant. Hardly anyone thinks of Doc looking all that different in 1955 vs 1985. He did, but it was not a major part of it, unlike Biff and his parents. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doc-browns-plastic-surgery-in-back-to-the-future-part-ii-joke/850289/7 "2020-03-27T19:42:49Z")
I agree the gag is he looked the same. If they intended it to be subtle it’s no longer funny.