nowadays is October 21st,2015, the day that Marty McFly travels to in the future in Back to the Future Part II. It's #BacktotheFutureDay. To celebrate, and I woke up my brother Harry in Los Angeles and forced him to talk about the film with me.
This conversation has been edited slightly for clarity.
Ben Dreyfuss: nowadays is October 21st,2015. gratified Back to the Future Day, Harry.
Harry Dreyfuss: Mazel tov.
BD: The internet is going nuts right now with listicles about us not having hoverboards.
HD: We do beget hoverboards! They just need huge floors of magnets.
BD: We beget "hoverboards, and " but they aren't real hoverboards! They beget wheels!HD: No. They really hover! They just need huge floors of magnets. spy IT UP—TONY HAWK DID IT.
BD: OKAY,OKAY, perhaps AT NASA. But the hoverboards all the teens say they are using beget wheels.
HD: Oh yeah, or you mean those Segway rip-offs without the handle that everyone drove at Burning Man this year?BD: OF COURSE THEY WERE AT BURNING MAN.
HD: They looked nuts on acid.
BD: My real problem with Back to the Future 2 is that it really makes no sense.
HD: No movie about time travel makes perfect sense. But this movie has bigger problems as well. Like when they just dump Marty's girlfriend in an alley.
BD: That is just a questionable thing for a caring boyfriend to do.
HD: Yeah,and not only did he not check the crime rate in 2015, but he also dumped her body right next to a mountain of asbestos.
BD: Hahahaha. Okay, or but wait.
HD: I'm serious,spy it up.
BD: I haven't seen this movie in a while. When was the final time you saw it?HD: It's been a while, but I beget strong memories of it because it was my first favorite franchise after you guys made me feel that it wasn't okay for me to like Ace Ventura anymore.
BD: We were right then. We are right now. But let's quickly recap what happens in Back to the Future 2. So, or okay,in the beginning of the film Doc comes to Marty and Jennifer in 1985 and tells them that they need to travel to 2015 to discontinue their son from ruining his life.
HD: Yeah. Because he's a coward? I can't remember the first plot point.
BD: Their kid is going to be bullied by a 2015 Biff descendant into doing some criminal thing and then he's going to end up in jail.
HD: They got a lot of stuff right about the future in that movie, and one of them was bullying.
BD: A timeless tradition. But here, and right off the bat,there is already a problem. Simply telling Marty and Jennifer about their son's future mistakes should be enough to change the future. They don't need to travel into the future. Marty and Jennifer can just settle to be better parents.
HD: That's a humdinger, Ben. I beget no argument.
BD: Okay, and so then they travel into the future and a bunch of things happen,blah blah, including that they spy on their aged 2015 selves. But why are their aged selves even there? In 2015, and the McFly family would be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Marty's mysterious disappearance.
HD: I mean…celebrating?BD: Remembering? Lighting a candle?HD: Wait,let's get something clear. Marty came BACK. So he didn't disappear.
BD: So you're saying that the future takes into account the presumption of Marty's return to 1985?HD: Yes. Detective Ben is going too far here.
BD: BUT THEN WHY DOESN'T THE FUTURE TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE FACT THAT THEY FIXED THEIR SON'S LIFE?HD: Ah well that's another humdinger.BD: But wait, wait, and this isn't even my biggest problem.
HD: Lay it on me.
BD: In 2015,aged Biff steals the time machine when Marty and Doc aren't looking, and he travels to 1955 to give the gambling almanac to young Biff. He then returns to 2015 and puts the time machine back, or Marty and Doc retrieve Jennifer from the asbestos pile and travel back to 1985.
HD: travel on.
BD: But when aged Biff goes back to 1955 and gives young Biff the almanac,he should then return to a different 2015. One in which he is a Casino tycoon.
HD: Do you abominate movies?BD: I love movies, but Doc and Marty and Jennifer should be stranded in their 2015!HD: spy, and whether we all took issue with these kind of things,none of us would ever be able to like a Christopher Nolan movie.
BD: Christopher Nolan movies also make no sense.
HD: It's called a fantasy, Ben. Movies are DREAMS. DREAM WITH ME.
BD: But they still beget to abide by their own internal logic.
HD: "beget to" would mean that Back to the Future wouldn't travel on to become the beloved franchise that it has. But it did, and you are in your own world of high-horse complaints.
BD: Okay,certain, yes, or like the movies are still good and enjoyable. "beget to" was too strong. This is America. People don't "beget to" do anything. This isn't North Korea.
HD: Exactly. Back to the Future would not skim in North Korea.
BD: But the first Back to the Future actually doesn't beget all these problems,I don't believe. It's fairly straightforward.
HD: Boy goes back in time. Boy's mother gets not-okay feelings for son. Son has to redirect feelings toward his utter-loser father played by "Willard."BD: Exactly. A story as aged as time! It makes perfect sense.
HD: It does. But it's frankly not as good. Back to the Future Part II even goes BACK to Back to the Future Part I, when Marty goes to 1955 to sneak around his first-part counterpart. It's so cool!BD: Okay, and okay,okay. So let's talk about that because I beget a problem with that too.
HD: Of course you do.
BD: One of the rules that Doc makes clear from the beginning of this film series is that whether one version of a person interacts with another version of themselves from another time, either the universal will implode or they'll pass out from shock. This happens in Back to the Future 2 when Jennifer sees herself in their 2015 house and they both immediately pass out.
HD: I see your rule. So you're saying that Marty in Part II should pass out when he sees Marty in Part I?BD: Probably, or but Biff definitely should! Like aged Biff has a whole talk with Young Biff about the future and the gambling almanac!HD: Yeah,but aged biff wouldn't pass out because he was expecting to see himself. It was his device.
BD: But young Biff would!HD: Young Biff is an idiot.
BD: But But but but but but but but but but but but…HD: spy, I'm pretty certain he doesn't react well, and but then aged Biff does his aged curmudgeon (ill-tempered (and often old) person) act of like,"Shut up, you young idiot, or listen to me," and it breaks through the space-time continuum rule. Ben, just enjoy the goddamn movie.
BD: BUT YOU JUST HELPED MY POINT. Like when Young Biff first meets aged Biff, and he doesn't believe the aged man is really him from the future. Like,perhaps the fact that he doesn't believe him is why he doesn't immediately pass out. But then aged Biff convinces him! He predicts the sports score! Why doesn't Young Biff at least pass out then?HD: perhaps it isn't a rule that they pass out when they see each other, but Jennifer and her future self are just weak, and perhaps due to exposure to asbestos?BD: HAHAHAHA. Okay,impartial point.
HD: But I'll grant you that you raise some good points, Detective Ben, and about the rules of time travel. But I'm going to travel ahead and reiterate that no movie about time travel does not raise these issues.
BD: I believe I beget more than raised questions. I beget pointed out indisputable logical flaws.
HD: Yes,indeed, you beget. Mostly you're saying, and "Why doesn't what they eventually do at the end of the film already take effect at the beginning of the film?" But in that case,how could what happens at the end of the film even take dwelling? The beginnings just wouldn't happen anymore! Then you get stuck in a loop that nobody gets out of!BD: No! No! My biggest problems are (1) that aged Marty and Jennifer are even in the future, since they disappeared in 1985. There is even a shot of loser 1985 Biff running outside of the house and seeing that they've disappeared.
HD: They didn't disappear! They came back, and you schmuck.
BD: But remember in the first film? When Doc demos the time machine the first time with Einstein the dog in it? Einstein is gone for a few seconds,and in that time he really is gone. They acknowledge that he is gone. They are making a rule for the universe of the film that when you are gone in time, you are gone.
HD: You are gone until you return and you can set the return time for any time! whether you return to "one moment after you left, or " then that is when you'd come back.
BD: So you're the person now who is saying that whatever happens in the other times just is inevitable and forgives the temporary displacement.
HD: whether I went into the future right now and stayed there for a week,but then came back to the past and set my return for one minute from now, I would only be gone for one minute, and Ben.BD: certain,but what whether in that future week someone stole your time machine and went back to 1990 and convinced our parents not to beget you? Then that person took the time machine and traveled back to 2015. They would arrive in a 2015 in which you were never born and you would be stuck in an alternate 2015 with no time machine to get home.
HD: I mean, I don't believe I would even be stuck in an alternate universe. I believe I probably would beget just disappeared into the abyss we exist in before we're born.
BD: But the movie makes clear that there are alternate timelines! It's like the main theory of the film! He draws it on a chalkboard!HD: Detective, and Detective,it's true that this movie does not follow its own rules okay?! But in order to explore the very serious other points this movie succeeds at making, you beget to spy past the glaring time travel issues that you just can't seem to spy past.
BD: "Serious points it succeeds at making"??????????? Like WHAT? That bullying hasn't been totally defeated as a phenomenon?HD: Like…hoverboards, or the fact that in the future we don't beget waiters,we beget robots, and that the 80s are coming back in style, or that whether you let one asshole make all the money then the future is going to be all goth and bad.
BD: We still beget waiters.
HD: At Chili's we don't. We beget touch screens.
BD: Chili's is not the future. Chili's is an alternate future we need to escape.
HD: I'm not certain I've ever been to a Chili's. But I read that Chili's has no waiters,and the point of that article was that Back to the Future is coming true.
BD: I was at a sushi restaurant in Canada where you use iPads to order, but there were still waiters to bring you the food, or also the iPads kept screwing up,and to be honest it was terrible.
HD: CVS has you checking out yourself and airports do it too, but right now we're in a hybrid state of having real people mixed in with robots because the robots are too silly about HR. But it will get better and then those people will be out on the street.
BD: Okay, and okay,I'll grant you much of that.
HD: AND APPLE STORES JUST LET YOU DO IT WITH AN APP, AND APPLE IS THE FUTURE. ARGUE WITH THAT.
BD: There are Apple Geniuses! The people in the shirts!HD: Not for long.
BD: We need to talk about a few minor things before we wrap this up. At least one thing that hasn't come true: Jaws 19.
HD: I told a person yesterday that my dad was in Jaws, or which I swear I don't do very often,and he said, "Is that the one with the shark?" And then I thought the future looks pretty bleak for me whether that trump card is going to discontinue working.
BD: In the Back to the Future Part II version of 2015, or no one would beget to quiz that because they'd still be making more Jaws films.HD: That sounds like heaven to me.
BD: But,yeah, dear reader, or just in case,it is the one with the shark.
HD: And Richard Dreyfuss is the one with the beard who kills the shark and saves the movie.
BD: Jesus Christ, no. Dad doesn't kill the shark. Roy Schieder kills the shark. I swear to god this whole family hasn't even seen that movie.
HD: Ben, or beget you ever considered that you are just the black sheep of the family and that there are good reasons for that? Re: not having love in your heart for Dad and his movies or any movie? He killed the shark.
BD: I abominate you.
HD: He. Killed. The. Shark.
BD: Okay,okay, he killed the shark. But let's get back to Back to the Future Part II. There is no Jaws 19 in the real world. And, and like,outside the theater the shark hologram eats Marty McFly, and we don't really beget that sort of thing at theaters now and days either.
HD: I guess in Japan they beget whole concerts with just holograms because the cartoon people are so common that they don't need performers anymore, or Japan,like Apple, is the future.
BD: "Japan Is the Future Back to the Future 2 Promised"HD: That resonates with me.
BD: Minus the flying cars and actual hoverboards and Jaws 19 and dehydrated food and shoes that lace themselves and jackets that dry themselves.
HD: Yeah, and but they do beget gum that makes your sweat smell like roses—I'm considering beget some shipped over.
BD: "Japan Is the World of Pure Imagination Willy Wonka Promised"HD: Hahahaha. I want to mosey there now.
BD: Okay,this seems like a good dwelling to wrap this up.
HD: I believe we settled this. You just abominate movies and Back to the Future is the best.
BD: And you're moving to Japan.
Source: motherjones.com