BTTF as The Time Machine
Monday, January 11, 2010
I spent the weekend watching/listening to the Back to the Future series in preparation for redoing my video “Who murdered George McFly.”
Each video – even if they don’t seem so – usually involves an intensive study of the films I’m parodying, along with observations about the films.
I still have essays I’ve written on Back to the Future I haven’t posted yet from my 2007 parody, but this time through, I saw additional things – about fate and destiny.
Yet the surprising thing came late yesterday when I was watching the last of the trilogy.
Almost from the first, I understood that there was a strong connection between BTTF and H.G. Wells’ Time Machine, but in it appears the reconnection is through the George Ball film.
In some ways, the second two films of the trilogy are more intense than the first film as the filmmakers began to view the project in mythological terms. The last two films play off themes of the first film, but all three films have references to the Ball film.
The opening scene of the ticking clocks in the first film clearly makes reference to the opening scene of The Time Machine – except perhaps for the miniature Doc Brown hanging from one of the clocks in this scene.
I don’t know if the name “George McFly” was derived from the name of the main character in The Time Machine, but it is clear that Doc Brown was modeled after the Time Machine’s character.
Both are for instance are inventors. Both have developed time machines. Both fully intend to explore the future. Both men are seen as quacks.
In the Time Machine, George the inventor demonstrates his time machine with a small model. In BTTF, Doc Brown demonstrates his machine by sending his dog one minute into the future.
In the novel, future beings that encounter George the inventor, ask if he came down in a bolt of lightning, which may or may not be symbolized by the striking of the clock town by lightning in BTTF. But there are other significant references in The Time Machine movie that clearly continue to connect these films.
Doc Brown of 1955 is surrounded by Victorian icons very similar to residence of George the Inventor from the movie.
In the movie, The Time Machine, George has the misfortune of stopping several times. Unlike the book, the movie is a product of its time, a 60s commentary on war. George arrives in time to see World War One, World War Two, and the atomic war of 1966, and later learns of the continued global war that drove the morlock’s underground.
The 1955 Doc Brown makes passing reference to this when commenting on why Marty is wearing a radiation suit, saying it is on account of the atomic wars.
The time vehicle in the Ball movie strongly resembles automobiles at the turn of the 19th Century, so the fact that BTTF uses a car for its time machine may also be a tribute to the earlier film. Time travelers inevitably get stranded. In the Time Machine, the vehicle is stolen by the Morlocks – as it is briefly in the second BTTF film. In the Ball film, the time traveler must journey underground to retrieve his vehicle for his return to the past. This is also true in the third BTTF film where Marty and the 1955 Doc go into the old mining shaft, before Marty goes back to 1885 to rescue the 1985 Doc.
In all three BTTF, the time traveler is stranded in that time and must interact with the locals, and as a result, learns something about the civilization in which he is immersed.
Although I have not yet uncovered all the references, the most significant references to the Ball film comes in the third BTTF film.
In the Ball film, the time traveler rescues a woman from drowning. They fall in love. The time traveler is forced to leave without her, and later, goes “back to the future” to get her.
During one particularly moving scene, Wena, the woman, gives the time traveler a flower, which he later shows to his 19th century companions as evidence of his trip when he turns to his own time.
In the third BTTF film, the 1985 Doc Brown – warned about his impending death – refuses to pick up Clara the teacher, and this results in her near death as her horses get spooked by a snake and she nearly falls off a cliff. Doc Brown rescues her. They fall in love. She gives him a flower, which becomes a symbol of their love. When it is clear that time is about to separate the lovers, he leaves the flower on her window sill as she cries inside. But all is well in the end, and like the lovers in The Time Machine, they are reunited later, when Doc, Clara and their two children, Jules and Verne travel “back to the future” to meet up with Marty.