# Opinions on the Back to the Future trilogy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [November 2, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574 "2020-11-02T19:25:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/21 "2020-11-03T12:49:05Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > o spice things up a bit, is there any scene in film history more (unintentionally?) racist than the bit where Chuck Berry learns rhythm and blues from a white teenager? In retrospect, it’s very, very cringey. - Except Marty learned it from Berry. Who learned it from Marty. Who learned it from Berry. Who… Where did it start? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/22 "2020-11-03T12:55:18Z")
It is a big ball of **wibbly wobbly, timey wimey** stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/23 "2020-11-03T12:55:48Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Except Marty learned it from Berry. Who learned it from Marty. Who learned it from Berry. Who… > Where did it start? [In Timeline 1, Marty learned it from Chuck. In Timeline 2, Chuck learned it from Marty.](https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/entertainment/back-future-timelines). Which way around applies in all the other timelines, I dunno - probably Chuck learning from Marty. Which I find unfair to Chuck, tbh. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/24 "2020-11-03T12:59:25Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > > [@running\_coach](#): > > > > Except Marty learned it from Berry. Who learned it from Marty. Who learned it from Berry. Who… > > Where did it start? > > [In Timeline 1, Marty learned it from Chuck. In Timeline 2, Chuck learned it from Marty.](https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/entertainment/back-future-timelines). Which way around applies in all the other timelines, I dunno - probably Chuck learning from Marty. Which I find unfair to Chuck, tbh. - So Marty actually _is_ the original writer. Though there’s nothing to suggest he has any songwriting talent. Also, in every timeline, Marty remembers the song as being written and performed by Chuck Berry. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/25 "2020-11-03T13:18:24Z")
Yeah, but when Marvin calls Chuck, he says (paraphrasing) “You know that new _sound_ you were looking for? Listen to this!”, so it wasn’t merely the song, it was R&B which Marvin was referring. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/RMpm9G6oJNE/maxresdefault.jpg "(1985) Marvin Berry & the Starlighters - Johnny B. Goode") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMpm9G6oJNE) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/26 "2020-11-03T14:39:30Z")
You’re overthinking it. All Chuck could hear over the phone is fast guitar playing. By then Marty wasn’t playing anything that coiuld be recognized as JBG. He’d gone on to the Who by then, or Hendrix. And that was all it took, I doubt Marvin could remember anything about the song, nor did he write down the lyrics. All he probably remembered was that it used “a blues riff in B” and cranked the guitar. Chuck still came up with the song. Nothing racist, nor cringeworthy. Now, transparent aluminum, that’s another story… ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/27 "2020-11-03T14:40:51Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Now, transparent aluminum, that’s another story… - Metalist. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/28 "2020-11-03T14:45:12Z")
Back to the Future is one of the best movies of the 1980s. I can effortlessly name 20 movies that have won Best Picture that aren’t as good. The sequels are good, but you can’t expect them to be as great as the original. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/29 "2020-11-03T14:55:52Z")
I really like the first movie. It helps that I first saw it in college, possibly at the campus movie night. The second and third are OK but they seem to be trying too hard to link to and reference the first one. And I agree with whoever said adding the whole “Nobody calls me chicken” subplot was a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/30 "2020-11-03T15:38:40Z")
Sorry, but JBG was still playing when Chuck got on the phone - Marty did his duck walk right after, for example. Anyway, the point remains: this scene has a white teenager ‘inventing’ R&B music, & that Chuck Berry got his grooves from said white teenager ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/31 "2020-11-03T15:52:32Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Sorry, but JBG was still playing when Chuck got on the phone - Marty did his duck walk right after, for example. Something that _started_ as JBG was playing, but how much could Chuck hear over a 50s phone from another room? I just rewatched it - by the point Marvin held the phone, Marty was just jamming something that only people familiar with the song could have recognized. Next it was hammer-ons and harmonics, and kicking over the amp. Plus, Chuck didn’t see duck walking on the phone. [Doesn’t look at all like what Marty did, plus, it’s a bit slower. (1958)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ROwVrF0Ceg) [Chuck and some other guy named John doing JBG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpTpxbnBWYM) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/32 "2020-11-03T16:04:15Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Anyway, the point remains: this scene has a white teenager ‘inventing’ R&B music There’s no way the movie suggests that Marty invented that style. We (the audience) are assumed to know that Marty learned it (directly or indirectly) from Chuck Berry. The gag is that, thanks to the paradoxey magic of time travel, Chuck Berry learned it from his own alternate self. It’s the same kind of gag that I’m sure has been used in other time travel stories, although I can’t think of any examples right now. Except: I don’t remember, but does Doc Brown get the idea for the flux capacitor from future-Doc via time-traveling Marty? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/33 "2020-11-03T16:17:23Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It’s the same kind of gag that I’m sure has been used in other time travel stories, although I can’t think of any examples right now. > **[All You Zombies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies)** > > " '—All You Zombies—' "\[a\] is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was written in one day, July 11, 1958, and first published in the March 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction after being rejected by Playboy. > The story involves a number of paradoxes caused by time travel. In 1980, it was nominated for the Balrog Award for short fiction. > "'—All You Zombies—'" further develops themes explored by the author in a previous work: "By His Bootstr... > **[By His Bootstraps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_His_Bootstraps)** > > "By His Bootstraps" is a 20,000 word science fiction novella by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It plays with some of the inherent paradoxes that would be caused by time travel. > The story was published in the October 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the pen name Anson MacDonald; the same issue has "Common Sense" under Heinlein's name. "By His Bootstraps" was reprinted in Heinlein's 1959 collection The Menace From Earth, and in several subsequent anthologies, and is now availabl... ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/34 "2020-11-03T16:46:08Z")
I have heard this question posed: Why the heck is Marty friends with Doc in the first place? There is absolutely NO backstory to how they met or anything. The first one is my favorite, but I love the trilogy as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/35 "2020-11-03T17:19:39Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I don’t remember, but does Doc Brown get the idea for the flux capacitor from future-Doc via time-traveling Marty? Nope, he had come up with the idea for the flux capacitor the same day that Marty went back in time. That’s why Doc put that date in the first place. And then Marty is able to convince him that he’s from the future by telling him he knows about the flux capacitor. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/36 "2020-11-03T17:20:11Z")
> [@Rebo](#): > > I have heard this question posed: > > Why the heck is Marty friends with Doc in the first place? > **[How Marty McFly and Doc Brown Became Friends](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/28526/back-future-co-creator-bob-gale-explains-how-marty-and-doc-became-friends)** > > Ever wonder how teenager Marty McFly got friendly with the highly eccentric and middle-aged Doc Brown? 'Back to the Future' co-writer Bob Gale has the answer. > [T]he history of the characters that Bob Zemeckis and I created is this… > > For years, Marty was told that Doc Brown was dangerous, a crackpot, a lunatic. So, being a red-blooded American teenage boy, age 13 or 14, he decided to find out just why this guy was so dangerous. Marty snuck into Doc’s lab, and was fascinated by all the cool stuff that was there. when Doc found him there, he was delighted to find that Marty thought he was cool and accepted him for what he was. Both of them were the black sheep in their respective environments. Doc gave Marty a part-time job to help with experiments, tend to the lab, tend to the dog, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/37 "2020-11-03T17:27:06Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/gR0FptmZKdw/hqdefault.jpg "Family Guy best moments - Back to the future George McFly") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR0FptmZKdw) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/38 "2020-11-03T19:38:46Z")
C’mon guys. The intent was obvious, hell, it was the entire joke. Going into the acoustics of the available phone equipment is seriously avoiding the point. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/39 "2020-11-03T19:42:21Z")
But it definitely suggests that! “You know that new _sound_ you’re looking for?” is not Marvin saying “Hey, this white guy kicked up the gain on my Marshall… maybe you oughtta try that”, no, it’s Marvin saying “Hey, this white guy is playing a form of music unknown to us.” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2020, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574/40 "2020-11-04T00:11:44Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Both of them were the black sheep in their respective environments. Marty McFly plays guitar in a band and has a hot girlfriend, so I an rather unconvinced he’s any sort of social pariah. Having the school principal hate you doesn’t mean much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinions-on-the-back-to-the-future-trilogy/924574.md?page=3)