House of R - 'Back to the Future' Turns 40, and Our Top Time-Travel Moments

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Destiny has brought you here, this podcast is your density. Mal and Jo are back as they celebrate the 40th anniversary of ‘Back to the Future'! They discuss the cultural impact the franchise has mad...e, Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly, timeline theories, and of course the incestuous horndog legend that is Lorraine McFly. Next, they come up with 12.1 questions about film and share their top five time-travel moments of the quarter century. (00:00) Intro (00:56) ‘Back to the Future’ turns 40! (07:36) Opening snapshot (01:09:30) 1.21 Gigawhats (12.1 questions about ‘Back to the Future’) (01:10:05) Most quotable line (01:14:25) What’s the most 1985 thing about this movie? (01:19:43) Best Biff-ism (01:24:58) Most ironic statement from either Marty McFly pre-time travel, or other people post-time travel? (01:27:48) Crispiest Glover moment? (01:33:47) Most iconic costume? (Non-Orange Puffy Vest Edition) (01:37:00) Most concerning Einstein moment (01:41:20) Favorite example of the BTTF franchise’s cultural impact (01:51:06) Favorite needle drop? (01:53:47) Chrispiest Lloyd moment? (02:01:07) What’s your biggest time-travel quibble? (02:06:19) What’s the horniest moment not involving incest? (02:08:03) The most astonishing incest moment? (02:13:01) Top five time-travel moments of the quarter century Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Producers: Jessie Lopez and John Richter Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:04 Save at Whole Foods Market. So welcome to a very random yet delightful episode of House of Art. I'm Joanna Robinson joining me today. She's only five minutes late. It's Mallory and Rubin. Joanna, my density has popped me to you. I needed to dial up the weird on that like 200% in order to match. I unfortunately do not have any nearby chocolate milks that I can order to enthusiastically slam down on the counter before declaring that to you.
Starting point is 00:01:51 And they're just like wipe your mouth with your hands multiple times before you start. Yeah. And so it's a different energy from George overall. We are definitely going to be celebrating the weirdness of George McFly a little bit later on. We are here to talk to you about back to the future. So 40th anniversary of Back to the Future just a few days ago. So we are here to celebrate this perfect. slice of movie history. And also just shoehorn in our top five favorite
Starting point is 00:02:21 sort of time travel moments from film and television the last quarter century. Just a little cherry on the Sunday of our celebration of Back to the Future on this podcast. So we'll be talking about Back to the Future. We've got some awards to hand out, some questions to ask, and then we will do our top five moments. It was ridiculously hard. As hard as top 10 speeches was,
Starting point is 00:02:42 to do in our sort of full best of the quarter century podcast. Now we're down to five, you're like, how can I do anything but just like the absolute hardcore basics here at five? Listen, let's just say it. This was a nightmare. We're having so much fun with this series, but it's like a complete torment. Yeah. I think that you can make the case, though, that the counterintuitively, the shorter the list is,
Starting point is 00:03:07 the more you can free yourself. It's like the longer it gets, the harder it is to justify. your omissions. Right. Here you're like, I just had five. What could I do? What can I possibly do?
Starting point is 00:03:18 What did you expect? Also, in case anybody missed our explanation for this pairing other than the very obvious celebrating time travel, time you whimey, because you might be saying 40 years for Back to the Future. That movie came out in 85. That has nothing to do with the quarter of the century. We have decided to engage in some time travel of our own and use this as an excuse because it is one of the most seminal installments in the time travel canon.
Starting point is 00:03:50 What better time to talk about time travel? I think this is the time travel story. I mean, H2 Wells might disagree, but I think this is like this is it. Some quick partner reminders before we get into all the time travel goodness. Later on this week, speaking of mind-bending storytelling. Yeah. Hot Nolan Summer continues a pace with Inception on Thursday. I'm so excited for that. I love that movie. Hot Nolan Summer rules. This is the best thing we've ever done. It's amazing. And then Superman. You and I are seeing Superman tonight. Yes. It's recording this on Tuesday. You and I are seeing it tonight on Tuesday, but we're recording about it later this week. And our pod will drop sometime over the weekend of our sort of dive into. the James Gunn version of Superman. How much of the pod...
Starting point is 00:04:46 Get it on the record right now. How much of the pod will be about Nicholas Holt's fashion tour to force during the postwork? How much of the pod will be about the dog, Mallory? Well, if you say 50 and I say 50, we've got a pot. We've got a pod. That's all those.
Starting point is 00:05:02 These are our core interests. The dog and Nicholas Holtz. And, yeah, Van texted me the other day. He was asking me if I had seen it. And I was like, Not yet, no. And he was like, he was talking about how divisive it's been in sort of some of the early reactions or whatever. And I was like, I'm just really here for Lex Luther, which is not something I thought I would say a couple years ago.
Starting point is 00:05:23 But here we are. And I can only be myself. So Superman is coming. And then we've got a little break. We've got something called Wellness Week here at Spotify. I've got a little break. And then we are going to San Diego Comic-Con. That's right.
Starting point is 00:05:38 Before we just, do you want to announce what our best? next best of the quarter century that we've just settled on pre-San Diego Comic-Con, Mallory and Ben? We're doing villains. We're doing villains. We're doing villains. So, Hobbes and Dragons at gm.com, if you want to nominate a villain from, you know, House of Our Friendly Film and Television in the last quarter centuries.
Starting point is 00:05:59 And so you're 2000, who are the top 10 villains? And you can define villain however you like. I'm excited to see how much of the podcast centers around. What do we mean by villains? And you can pick a villain. based on how much you just delight in them or how much they truly terrify you or whatever the case may be. So Hobbes and Dragons at Gmail.com, if you want to participate in that. The boys, the Midnight Boys, we should say, you do, poup, coming off the Midnight Court episode.
Starting point is 00:06:24 Incredible work from the boys. We'll also, of course, have their Superman instant reaction later this week. That's a lot. It's a lot, Mallory Urban. How can folks keep track of everything that's going on? Here's what I would recommend and follow the pods. Follow House of R. Follow the Ringiverse on Spotify or wherever.
Starting point is 00:06:43 you get your podcast. You can watch full video episodes of HouseVar and The Midnight Boys PewPew on Spotify, incredible stuff. You can also, of course, watch our video episodes on the Ringerverse YouTube channel, so subscribe to that as well. And you can follow the Ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing. We are on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Joe just said, send us your nominations for Best Villain of the Quarter Century so far. Send us your emails about anything you'd like. Superman? Inception. Inception. Nicholas holds. Dogs?
Starting point is 00:07:15 Please. Yeah. It's all of it. Any of it. The inbox is open. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Joanna, back to you in the studio for today's spoiler warning. Oh, thanks for her so much, Mallory Rubin.
Starting point is 00:07:29 Okay, listen, what are we going to be spoiling? Back to Future franchise. Mostly we're talking about the first Back to the Future movie. Hopefully a movie you've seen. A lot of people watching it right now. Go watch the future. Guess what? It's a perfect movie.
Starting point is 00:07:43 It's on Hulu. Go watch it. But, you know, we might talk a little bit about Back to the Future 2 and 3. We don't have huge plans to do so, but, you know, that's on the table. Definitely. Also, on the top five time travel moments. Yeah. Just as with the speeches caveats, I really have one that I feel like is a major spoiler that I plan to sort of give everyone due warning to skip ahead if they don't want to hear it.
Starting point is 00:08:09 But the rest, I think, are fairly, you know, not big. twists or turns necessarily of the plot. So that's, but we, you know, if we feel like something is tender, inside of, we'll note it. We'll note it before we talk about it. Um, all right. 40th anniversary. Shocking stuff.
Starting point is 00:08:27 Where else the time gone? I mean, genuinely. Uh, let's go down to our opening snapshot for Back to the Future. All right. This came out in 1985, directed by Robert Zamechus. Have you heard of him? Mm-hmm. Um,
Starting point is 00:08:50 Before he made this movie, he had made Use Cars, which was a bit of a flop, romancing the Stone, which was a huge, massive hit, the latter, which got him the green light on Back and Future, a project that he had been trying to make for like five years. Yeah. And after he made films, you might have heard of, like Forrest Gump, Death Becomes their contact, flight, and then a bunch of CGI goop. Robert Semeckis, I consider what is... Put some respect on Castaway's name, Wilson Hive, rise. Yeah, I'm like a rare person who does not enjoy Castaway, but I mention it whenever I can. The, Robert Zemeckis and Tim Burton are like the two great directors that I feel like we lost to like the CGI fascination. They just got overly invested in whether or not they could and forgot to ask whether or not they should.
Starting point is 00:09:35 So, but we are here with his perfect, perfect film, Back to the Future. Screamplayed by Bob Semeckis and Bob Gale. And Bob Gale is basically done back to the future and then talked about Back to the Future for, the next 40 years. Wouldn't you? That's exactly what I would do. Oh, man. Zemeckis, it's always fun to have an excuse on the Ringer podcast network to talk about him. Making Back to the Future is just an incredible thing, genuinely historic.
Starting point is 00:10:05 And also that is true of Farr's Gump. And like, you can't take that away. You can't. Some weird sex stuff in both of those movies. Fair enough. Is there weird sex stuff and castaway or just like in your imagination, what were Wilson? I mean, it's an intimate relationship, certainly. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:24 A lot of time on that island. I mean, I might have said this to you before on a pod, but I watched Castaway quite late, like just a few years ago, and it just did not hit for me. And I think probably if I'd seen it in the theater with everyone else, I would have been like, wow, that volleyball, incredible. But I think it had absorbed it too much via sort of pop-pulsive fumes before I watched it. So when Wilson starts to bob away on the open seat, you were not like, I have never been moved so deeply by anything I've seen on screen.
Starting point is 00:10:59 Interesting. In fact, no. In fact, no. Okay. This movie, which was tough to get made, wild. Which is wild. It's basically exists because of Steven Spielberg. Yes.
Starting point is 00:11:15 Steven Spielberg champions his movie. the opening title card is Steven Spielberg presents you know, Back to the Future and exec produced this with Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, have you heard of her, of Amblin Entertainment fame? And I just want to take a moment to talk about Amblin Entertainment from 1981 to 1985 when this movie comes out.
Starting point is 00:11:35 You have Poultergeist, E.T., Gremlins, the Goonies, and back to the future. One of the best runs in the history of Forget just movie making, anything. I just... That's bonkers. That just shapes what the 1980s were, essentially. As is Back to the Future in many ways,
Starting point is 00:11:56 because this is like a smashola hit. I score by Alan Silvestri. You know, someone whose work we're quite familiar with from the Avengers theme, among many other things. Comes out July 3rd, 1985. Fun fact about that. We will come back to Back to the Future when we get to Stranger Things season three.
Starting point is 00:12:15 Yes. which takes place over the weekend that Back to the Future comes out. And there's like a little, you know, Back to the Future. The Kids are hiding out in the theater. Back to Future is playing. And then a very stone Robin and Steve are trying to explain the plot of Back to the Future. It's top tier. It's very memorable.
Starting point is 00:12:32 Top tiers. I might be mentioning it again later today. Okay, great, great. Top tier. The budget for this movie was $19 million. Tiny, quite small. the worldwide box office in 1985 was 388.8 million in 1985. And this is the number one film at the box office that year by a fairly comfortable margin. So made on a fairly economical budget, makes a crap ton of money. And everyone who passed on this movie looks like an absolute dumbass. just an absolute smash-a-phenomenon.
Starting point is 00:13:14 The two films behind of the box office that year are both Sylvester Stallone sequels, but back to the future just blows it all away. And I just want to like underline for people who weren't, I mean, I was not old enough to be aware of all the ramifications of this. But like, if you- Mallory was not yet alive, we're about to get to Mallory's origin story and just literally one second. That's right. But if you weren't around the time, I just want to let you know that in 1985, Michael J. Fox was not only in the number one film in the world by a wide margin in a time when way more people went to the movie theater.
Starting point is 00:13:53 But he had the second highest rated TV show in the U.S. season four of family ties with a staggering 30 Nielsen rating. And if you're like, Joina, I've never understood how to read the Nielsen ratings. I don't bother. I don't like, I don't blame you. Sunday Night Football, which is the number one Nielsen rated program that we have had for the last several years in our television landscape can only fetch around a five on the Nielsen rating.
Starting point is 00:14:17 So 30 is insane. It was a different time. Streaming has made everything different, but a lot of who are watching, Family Ties, and Michael Jay Fox is Alex P. Keaton, and a lot of people watch Back in the Future and Martin McFly, and Michael J. Fox was like the biggest thing. How about the most important of all?
Starting point is 00:14:34 The world. Teen Wolf. Wolf. I mean, let me tell you something that is true. Please tell me. I think I've mentioned before that when I was a youngster, a young kiddo, parents split very young, put a pin in that. We'll come back to that in a mere moment.
Starting point is 00:14:50 That's actually not the story I'm about to tell, although I will shortly. Yeah. When my sister and I would go to my dads every other weekend, we had like a number of movies in the rotation, things that we would watch when we were kids. We watch Clueless all the time. We watched rescuers down.
Starting point is 00:15:05 under all the time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. A movie that I watched probably 9,000 times when I was a kid, teen wolf starred Michael J. Fox. And it just was like an inextricable part of my experience as a young person in the world. Obviously, it is not actually as important as back to the future and family ties, but at the time. It's very important. It was to me. I will also. And I feel like I'm doing a great job explaining my phenomenal film taste when I say castaway,
Starting point is 00:15:41 meh. But Teen Wolf 2, starring Jason Bateman, I'm a fan. I'm a fan of Teen Wolf too. I'm a fan of Teen Wolf. We watched Teen Wolf during the pandemic in this little Zoom movie club that I had during the pandemic, where we watched sort of questionable movies. And a bunch of my friends had not seen Teen Wolf. I was like, let's watch Teen Wolf guys.
Starting point is 00:16:02 You haven't seen it. They did not go over as well as. one would necessarily hope. But that's a shame. I think you had to have seen it on like TBS when you were 10 to really, really understand what T. Wolf was about, but one of my friends made this joke about, you know, he has like, he's got this Burnett best friend in that movie. That's a classic 80s. He has a really cute best friend, but cannot tell that she's cute because she's brunette and there's a hot blonde in his class, right? And so it just became this like runner, my friend group, and it still is where it's just like when a woman, a incredibly hot woman shows up in a movie,
Starting point is 00:16:35 she's a brunette, like, oh, her brown hair. It's disgusting. I frankly, frankly can't stand it. Mallory Rubin, yeah. How is your origin story inextricably linked with Michael J. Foxx? So you mentioned family ties. I did. As anybody who has seen family ties, or perhaps heard me tell this exact same story
Starting point is 00:16:57 on other podcast before, we'll know. There is, of course, a character on family ties named Mallory. and you mentioned, actually you mentioned a Bateman. So the Batemans of now. That's true. It's a double Bateman pod. It's a double Bateman pod. Who saw that coming?
Starting point is 00:17:16 Just seen Bateman's character. Just seen Bateman a really super normal person now. Yeah. And Mallory Keaton. In the Alex Keaton, Michael J. Fox, verse that has led us to this little personal story. That is where my parents got to name Mallory. I never know with my parents who split when I was incredibly young what is true. Oh.
Starting point is 00:17:40 And what is apocryphal? So this is my mom's telling, but she always likes to say that they had settled on the name Zach for my sister, who was then a girl and they named Allison and then for me. And that they like didn't have a name prepared for a girl. And then Family Ties was playing at the hospital and they were like, how about Mallory? I feel like that's probably not how it happened. Was it Zach or was it Zachary? And they're like, you know what? Sounds like Zach Mallory.
Starting point is 00:18:12 And that's close enough. And here we go. I think it was Zach. Okay. Just Zach. But, you know, I'll have to check in with Barry Rubin and Sherry Bell. We'll find out. Please.
Starting point is 00:18:20 And so that's the story that they got Mallory from family ties. This is something that I have never quite understood, but do consider to be a part of my my history and my canon and thus a part of my relationship to Back to the Future or anything else that Michael J. Fox is in. When you told me, because my memory is so Swiss cheese, like when you put a note in the doc about that, I was like, wait, are you named for Mallory Keaton?
Starting point is 00:18:46 And then you were like, yeah. And then I was like, oh, she's definitely told me that story before. We've definitely talked about this. Perhaps in the context of Wadivision, who's to say? But anyway, growing up, you know, there was a Mallory in the Babysitters Club. And that was like, obviously, a big thing in the era of our youth. And I would always be like, nope.
Starting point is 00:19:01 It's not that Mallory. Family dies. Mallory Keaton. Mallory Keaton, a very powerful person. Okay. This film was nominated for four Academy Awards and one. Let me tell you something. Should have been more.
Starting point is 00:19:15 Oh, should have been Best Picture, honestly. One for Best Sound Effects editing, but it was nominated for Best Original Song. Sure, of course. Kiwi Lewis in the News. They're here. Best Sound. Best Original screenplay. And I agree.
Starting point is 00:19:29 I agree. Absolutely. Because something that is so satisfying about watching back to the future and rewatching back to the future over and over again, it's the same thing that satisfying about one of my favorite films of all times tremors is that this screenplay is like a puzzle. And it just every single scrap of information that drops in the beginning before we go back to the is like comes back into play. Every single thing is there for a reason. And it just links together so satisfyingly. and it's just so precise.
Starting point is 00:20:00 And without being overly complicated, it's just like extremely legible, really easy to follow, especially when it comes to time you-wimey paradoxes, which we're about to talk about the second, making all of the rules of that pretty clear, even if they fudge some things, which we will also talk about a little later.
Starting point is 00:20:19 And while being like extremely fun and extremely sort of heartwarming and uplifting and also a bit creepy, because Lurie McFly wants to fuck her son. Yep. It's true and it's just, it's not even like incidental. It's just a core part of the story.
Starting point is 00:20:36 It is the central text. Incredible stuff. Genuinely amazing and astonishing. Yeah, that really, I mean, we'll talk about obviously all of the aspects of the screenplay and the story, time travel or otherwise that continue to just like delight all of these decades later.
Starting point is 00:20:57 But I really agree with what you're saying. I think that one of the really not only consistently rewarding things about revisiting it, but one of the just impressive aspects of whether you're casually consuming it or like actively studying it, of returning to the story, you know, the pacing, the plotting, the brilliance of the setup is so nimble. And like, yeah, all of the, we'll get into it again, like all of the particulars of the loops and everything. But like, even just, yeah, well, history is going to change when Marty and Strickland are beefing in the hallway. It's like little things like that in other stories can feel maybe needlessly clunky as like a guidepost for where we're heading. And every version of that and back to the future is perfect.
Starting point is 00:21:51 When Doc Brown goes to grab his suitcase, which I'm going to come back to you later, but then when he's like, oh, fuck. Like, I only have one plutonium pellet. One pellet, one drip, I must be out of my mind. How do I ever expect to get back? It's like, right, we understand what the problem is going to be. And we understand it in, like, an actually, like, kind of organic way that you would believe that character would, like, say and do. And one of my favorite examples in terms of just, like, the nimbleness and deafness of the structure of the script is taking something that should be and is initially presented to us as a story limit. Marty, you can't interact with anybody
Starting point is 00:22:31 and very quickly repositioning it as you have to go. Not only might you see your parents, you have to go ensure that they get together, that this happens because you fucked up the meat cute and now you're going to erase yourself from existence. So like the list is so long of versions of things like early, early in the movie that you can point to that you're like,
Starting point is 00:22:52 this is just kind of the perfect alchemy to get us where we need to be in, way that feels propulsive and also clear and also fun. It's just kind of amazing. I think my favorite example of that in terms of just how definitely it's woven into the plot is the clock tower flyer, which is like shoved into his, you know, it's there to interrupt a kiss, right? So it's just sort of like this annoying lady is here to interrupt. You're trying to smooch Jennifer on a park bench. Huey Lewis is playing dimly in the background, like, life is good. And then here's this lady with an annoying flyer.
Starting point is 00:23:34 And then, yeah, and then Jennifer puts her, puts, I love you and a phone number. So it becomes this character moment of like, she writes, I love you. He is like dazzled by her. You know, Huey Lewis swells, all this stuff like that. So you believe that Marty, of course, is like holding onto this flyer. So he has the relevant information that they need later. And it's all just like incredibly, it's not like, oh, I just happen to have this flyer about the pocket tower. It's all just.
Starting point is 00:23:56 That would be in his pocket. It just all fits together perfectly. And so, yeah, it should have won best original screenplay, I say. Let's go back in time and fix that. This, of course, spawns a franchise. It wasn't intended to, like, sort of similar to what we were talking about with Batman Begins earlier in Hotnell and Summer when you were like, how do you mean they didn't mean to make more when they had a Joker teaser at the end?
Starting point is 00:24:19 This movie ends in a way that you're like, how do you mean they didn't mean to have more when it ends with Marty? Something has to be done about your kids. But they didn't plan to make more until it was the biggest movie in the world. And then they added a to be continued screen on the VHS home rental. But Back to the Future 2 comes out in 1989. Back to Future 3, 1990. They were shot simultaneously.
Starting point is 00:24:41 Back to the Future Musical, which our producer on this episode, Jesse Lopez, was just giving us the download on before we started. And video games, comic books, pinball machines, et cetera, et cetera. It's just like an absolute chokehold on the 80s. and into the 90s, and I think in many ways defined the decade to a certain degree. So it's incredibly important and fun. And that's why we're here to talk to you about back to the future. I think that like something in terms of both this film individually and the franchise overall,
Starting point is 00:25:18 even though obviously it's really, I think really fun to discuss both parts two and part and part three. and you know those films are um to some not as good and to others beloved and adored like there's more variance with with the reception to those movies of course yeah but this movie is like a pantheon film and that's i think as close to like a universal opinion as you're likely to find and the franchise has that standing even though two and three while like really good and really fun or not you know you're maybe like we're at like a a plus plus plus plus with the first one and then okay i'm a debate is the B plus and A minus like whatever right. Actually, you know what?
Starting point is 00:26:01 Got to tell you. I think three is underrated. Just throw that out there. Yeah. Three is just a fucking delight. Two is the one I revisited the least. Three is the one I will go back in and watch because I actually really quite enjoy that one. Two, I think is a bit messier.
Starting point is 00:26:17 I remember when they came out and I was just like, and the general opinion was like, these are not as good as the first one. And they're not, but like over time, they've sort of in our estimation. The hoverboard takes a chokehold on conversations about anything. And so two gets elevated that way. Mary Steenbridge is just like an all-time
Starting point is 00:26:38 great performance. Clara, you have my mart now and always. Also, shout out Copernicus. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about Einstein today, but like Copernicus have his moment. And yeah, to that point, like the growing in esteem, the franchise is like, it's, you know, we are just, I think this will come up elsewhere today,
Starting point is 00:26:55 certainly, but like we are just in and era of, and this is certainly not a new thing, but we are undeniably in an era of the franchise, right? And like, something like Back to the Future that was this instant, unbelievable success in over 40 years is no fucking joke. That's a long time. To have something where like whenever you come to it for the first time, whether or not you have any relationship to the 80s or the 50s or the 50s or Nike Mags or the Chicago Cubs or whatever the case may be. You're like, this is just the fucking best is such a cool thing to get to share. Like parents can share it with their kids. People can share it with their friends.
Starting point is 00:27:42 And it's just like beloved. You never tire of it. And it's the staying power is, I think, like, astonishing. I was trying to get a sense of that, you know, because, you know, something we like to talk about when we want to make ourselves feel. feel old is the fact that like if Marty McFlower would go back in time now, he would go back to 1995. So like how dated does this feel for younger kids? And I'm very curious how like young kids who have, you know, for whom 19805 is even more distant than 1955 was when Back to the Future came out, how, you know, what are the touchstones there? Can they get as into it as I would hope? I do feel like this should be a universally enjoyable film. But like if you had showed me,
Starting point is 00:28:26 me, an 80s kid, a 1950s film where they go back to the 1920s. I mean, I was a weird kid, so I probably would have enjoyed it, but would like, would the gen pop have enjoyed it? I don't know. So I'm curious. If you want to write into us Hobbits and drag into us to drag into sages to Gmail. If you've shown your child back to future or if you haven't, you want to show it to them, have a great summer night movie night, family movie night, and then let us know how that went. I'm very curious to know if the kids enjoy it back to the future. They should. Yeah. One thing that I think is like kind of part of the secret sauce. I mean, there are many elements of the secret sauce, obviously, but like, you know, if you think of something like E.T. Or like even when we've
Starting point is 00:29:03 talked about stranger things and they're so rooted in one moment in time, we talk about back to the future as an 80s movie. And obviously like we're going to talk more about the 85 elements like the Pepsi free than all, right, when we go through some of our categories today. Pepsi free. It feels redundant, but that's what the can says. It says diet Pepsi free on it. Because the free is caffeine, right? But then Marty's missed are like no sugar also.
Starting point is 00:29:32 Give me a tab. Yeah, great point. I had to Google that to be clear. I was like, what is Pepsi free? I forgot about caffeine-free Diet Coke in the gold can. I am now reminded of that. Yeah, I felt much more current on new Coke, having more recently Googled that because of stranger things.
Starting point is 00:29:48 But like, so Back to the Future is very, very. much something we associate with the 80s, the mid-80s. There's some iconic 80s shit in this movie, but we're in the 50s. We're going to be in the future. We're going to be in the old West. We're going to across the franchise move throughout time. And so it is, I think, like, despite it being so 80s core, a little less essential than it might initially seem to have some sort of like appreciation of interest in attachment to the 80s. One thing that I remember, so, so, Bill, Sean, and Chris did this for the rewatchables at the 35-year anniversary. Of course.
Starting point is 00:30:27 Again, we're fucking all ancient and washed. So that was already, for those doing math at home, half a decade ago. Right. I remember at the time Bill's saying on the pod that his son Ben watched the movie for the first time. Yeah. As like at that time, a young team. Yeah. and thought it was the best thing you'd ever seen,
Starting point is 00:30:51 just in the world. It's like, that was so fun and cool to hear. Ben Simmons is a very cool kid. Yeah, I hope that this is like an eternal story that always hits. It should always hit. And to your point about, yeah, this is where we spend way more time in the 1950s than we do in the 1980s. And it also isn't, you know, sometimes when you watch 80s things and it's just jam-packed
Starting point is 00:31:16 with, you know, the stereotypical totally tub. or whatever it is. There isn't a lot of really 80-centric language in this other than I suppose Marty keep calling things heavy.
Starting point is 00:31:27 But that is not even 80s slang. I remember that much. So, you know, and Doc Brown takes scientific exception to it. But I love it so much.
Starting point is 00:31:38 But it's not, you know, there are some, the 1980s became, it became kind of popular to do a fish out of water stories in the 1980s. Put a 1980s
Starting point is 00:31:47 character into, I don't know, or put a character from Beastmaster and Beast Master, he comes to the mall. Then the strange alien futuristicness of 1980s like mall culture, once again, shout out season three Stranger Things, you know, clangs really well with, you know, this fish out of water story. And usually it clings up against a very mall-coated,
Starting point is 00:32:14 hip 80s kind of kid. And that's not who Martin McLeigh is. he's got a skateboard. He's a cool kid, and we're going to talk about the Martin McPly effect, like, at a second. But, you know, it's not as, like, cardboard cut out 1980s stereotype as some of the other stories you get in the era. Hello, Rubin, we know your relationship to Mallory Keaton.
Starting point is 00:32:36 But what's your relationship? Like, when did you see Back to the Future? When do you first remember watching Back to the Future? What's your relationship with? Do you, like, I don't remember a time before Back to Future? Yeah, this is, it's funny because, like, often, You know, that's something we always talk about on rewatchables. Obviously, if on House of R, we're doing a origin story with a property. It's like, when did this first come into your life?
Starting point is 00:32:54 And I so often have these really specific vivid memories. Like, this is the day I watched Bull Durham for the first time. And then I watched it four days in a row or whatever, right? Right. I have no idea when I saw back to the future for the first time. Like, genuinely no idea. I just kind of feel like it was there. It was just always there. And so I was born in 86. This came out in 85. So I, you know, I would have seen it for the first time, like, years after it came out, you know, when I was in, like, elementary school or, or something like that. But it, yeah, it just kind of feels like something that was always just a core part of a viewing experience and also a reference set, like, in a way that's really fun to track over time. That's the other thing
Starting point is 00:33:41 about the staying power where it's like the ever-present nature of Back to the Future is a touchstone on the time travel front and other time you IMEy stories is like such a delight. I do remember revisiting it. This is like the ninth time already that we mentioned
Starting point is 00:33:59 Stranger Things season three, but that was a fun excuse, not that you ever need an excuse, but that was a fun excuse when season three came out because of what you noted, it's playing at the theater and they go, they see it,
Starting point is 00:34:09 to just like, all right, well, fuck, now this is on my mind. I can't wait to boot it back up. It's like, that's also been a fun part of just the, the fandom over the years is kind of like you never go too long without something reminding you of back to the future. And then you're like, is it time to just like watch the entire trilogy, like right now? So that's just like, you know, we are, um, rewatchables, binge modes, storm.
Starting point is 00:34:36 Like we spent a lot of our life rewatching and rereading things that we love. It's kind of like a core part of our relationship with stories. And, you know, Back to the Future is like a part of that for me as well. it's just like it's always a fun thing to revisit. Adam really loves it. We love rewatching it. I told you the other day that he was like, 4K set, here we go. You know, to add to the like all the prior versions that he already has.
Starting point is 00:34:57 So yeah, it's just like kind of always delightful and always fun. And like to see how many other people love it. I sent you that letterbox reel of like all they posted on the letterbox socials. I think the other day for the 40 year anniversary. Like here are like, here's a mashup of all the people who have listed this among their top four films. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's not surprising, of course, but you're like, right.
Starting point is 00:35:24 This is just like a central defining part of the moviegoing experience for a huge spot of the people who love or make movies. And that's just so fun. What about you? This is a random couple. I have so much to say in response to this. A couple of things. One of the things that I love that Letterbox does when they have, when they hit someone who's
Starting point is 00:35:43 already given them their top four is to say, do you know what you're not? the movie that you've done that shows up most often in people's top floor. And that's always fun to think about. But yeah, Back to the Future and it cuts across like generation,
Starting point is 00:35:57 genders, et cetera, et cetera. I think that a couple things I want to say. I also don't remember watching Back to the Future for the first time. I do very clearly remember watching two and three in the theater.
Starting point is 00:36:14 And I will, I'll come back that because I had like a really like key in theater experience watching one of the, it was like in my development of understanding how things work a moment in the theater. I remember when I saw a DeLorean for the first time in the wild. I was in L.A. because my dad used to work down in L.A. sometimes and we would go down and visit him. We were in Westwood and there was just DeLorean in a park garage. I was like, what do you mean DeLorians exist in the real world? I thought it was a made-up sci-fi car. Did it have a plutonium core or did it have a mistrefusion? No, flex capacitor all the way, baby, of course. Oh, gee. But I remember it was in a parking garage and there were cars on either side of it. And I was like, you know, obviously our doors open out. The wing doors of the Delorian are so infamous. But I was like, is that just a pain? Is the Delorean just a pain in the ass? And I think it is, which is, you know. And then, oh, I wanted to ask you. I know you guys got the 4K.
Starting point is 00:37:16 to future, I saw a photo of it as well as a new inception. I think we had the inception in the back of the future. Oh, okay. It was new. Are there any special features on the 4K that you got excited about? I have to spend more time exploring them for the whole trilogy. But that is something that I'm enjoying in general with the like, I was going to say physical media era. But as you and I have discussed recently, that's been part of my.
Starting point is 00:37:46 entire life with Adam. Like we were, on the 25-year anniversary front, we were watching a few weeks, a few weekends ago, we were watching the criterion for in the mood for love. And it's just like every additional, you almost feel like you like don't deserve to receive extra information about something so perfect, you know? And then you're like, but it's here. Just you saying in the mood for love makes me want to start crying. I know. Have you gotten? to, this is, we're doing it back to the future podcast, but now we're just excited. We'll have to talk to you about stuff. Have you gotten to, because they've been doing some
Starting point is 00:38:23 like in-person showings for the anniversary. Like, have you gotten to go? No. That is like a high priority for me in the back half of this year. I have got to make it happen. Let's, let's, I know they were doing a screening, I think this, they're doing a screening this month in LA that I saw that I was like, should I just go down for that? The answers, yes. Cool. Yeah, if I just want to like sob, hold my breath and then sob in the theater for two hours and the moonful love sounds good to me. That's perfect, honestly.
Starting point is 00:38:56 Back to Back to the future. Yes. Wait, what was your, what was your life-altering movie going experience? Oh, I want to tell us about that later. I want to save that for something else. Yeah, yeah. As I mentioned, we're rejected 40 times. This is just remarkable.
Starting point is 00:39:11 40 times for being essentially like too innocent because what was all the rage at the time were 80s comedies like Porky's and Animal House. They were like if it's a team comedy, it used to be sort of like a sex, sexy, gross out team comedy. And you, Mallory Rubin are like, have you met Lorraine McFly? Yeah. Disney also rejected it because of incestuous horn dog legend Lorraine McFly. They were like, the incest stuff is too tough for us here at Disney. So it's not a Disney film. Disney's kicking itself for that.
Starting point is 00:39:41 They would love to have Back to the Future ride at Disneyland. This is like my single favorite part. Perhaps unsurprisingly. This is my single favorite part of the Back to the Future lore. I mean, with respect to Eric Stoltz. Lorraine is my. Yeah, it's my single. Poor Stultz.
Starting point is 00:39:55 Brutal. But like the idea of a story where like we've got much more incest corner talk coming today. Don't worry. This isn't going to be it, folks. At one point, there is an actual subtitling panting. Yeah. Panting.
Starting point is 00:40:16 Yeah. Because Lorraine McFlynees at the time. Yes. It's basically climaxing in public, lasting after her own son. She's just like her bosomers are just constantly heaving. I think they just didn't know. They had no idea what Leah Thompson was capable of, I guess,
Starting point is 00:40:38 when they were like, this is too chase. They did not know how much, what she could do under a sweater set. You know what I mean? And she's just like, I've got a lot to say. Yeah, this is, you know, when you and I talk about sort of doing a nostalgia podcast like this, you know, a question I always asked myself was like, if, you know, if Sean and Chris and Bill did this on the rewatchables, what are we adding to the conversation five years later? And I was like, I feel certain that we have so much more to say about incest than those three
Starting point is 00:41:07 fine, fine podcasters do. It is our bread and butter. We come from the Game of Thrones trenches. This is what we were built for is to talk about Lorraine Bates McPy. When you've covered the Targaryens and some Lannisters for as long as we have, God damn it.
Starting point is 00:41:23 You know, it's a big incest year for our podcast. I mean, we're just a few months removed from White Lotus, a lot of incest talk there. We never go too long. It's true. It's something we should reflect on, but it doesn't have to be Game of Thrones season for us.
Starting point is 00:41:37 to find a way to talk about incest. Or maybe the incest finds us. Something we've been saying for years, you know, since we started the pod and our listeners ask about sort of House of our merch. So something we'll say is like put it on the march or whatever. Mallory saying in our notes
Starting point is 00:41:52 yesterday something about when I was like, it felt right to end on incest. You're like put it on the merch. I was like, that's just the one thing I would ever push back on. I'm fine with incest to being a strong part of our brand. I don't need to advertise it necessarily. But I think it's a A solid business idea.
Starting point is 00:42:09 We should consider it. It feels right to end with incest. Ossimilar. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terse appetite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea,
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Starting point is 00:43:37 some kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9-9 or visit Zetbound.lily.com. I want to talk about the Marty McLeigh architect. You already talked about Eric Stoltz. Was famously cast, they shot, you can watch it on YouTube, you know, scenes with good old Stoltsie. He took the role very seriously, took a dramatic method actor approach to it. The actress who plays Jennifer said that he used to call her house and say Marty was like looking for her. All this sort of stuff like that asked to be called Marty on set. And the directors who wanted Michael J. Fox in the first place, but he was sort of tied up with family ties. Or like we made a huge mistake.
Starting point is 00:44:23 And like I have to say this is such, this is just such a good message about it is okay to admit you have made a mistake. Yeah. Sure. And start, even if you have invested in something. start again because if they had let this fly with Stoltz, I love Eric Stolt. Same. Same. I have seen some of these clips, especially when it's like frame for frame, like the exact same blocking.
Starting point is 00:44:50 It's very eerie when he and Chris and Glove are like sitting at the counter and he's just sort of like slides into frame to stare at his dad next to him and just watching that blocking side by side. Michael J. Fox is just such great comedic timing. It's just not what Eric Stoltz was here. to do. And so imagine this movie with the wrong guy as Marty McFly and then
Starting point is 00:45:12 Back to the Future just doesn't become as what is that timeline? What is that horrible alternative future where Back to the Future is a flopola and then you don't get castaway or something like that. Well, sounds like one of us would be celebrating in that scenario. One of us would be morning. Yeah, I also am a big Eric Stoltz fan.
Starting point is 00:45:31 Caprica Hive rise. There you go. I found a way to mention Battlestar Galactica in some capacity on this podcast as well. But it's, you know, I think I'm maybe the, the, would you recast like exercise is never one of my great strong suits. I'm very inclined, I think, to be like, well, this is like, this is the way it was and the reason I loved it. How could I even consider an alternate possibility? But even by that standard, there are Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly is like, really, really, really high on the list of the performer and the character cannot be separated in our minds. Like there's not a, there is not actually a possible future where, like, or past, where that makes sense.
Starting point is 00:46:21 It's just he is the character. What's wild to me is that I, with love and respect to Michael J. Fox, who is an absolute legend, I don't think of him as someone with a huge acting range. But I do think there is a huge difference between Alex B. Keaton and Marty McFly. And so, and like, who he shows up playing on the Good Wife years later or whatever it is. Like, he's definitely done things that I wouldn't say those are the same characters, but there's something about his approach that is, you know, I was reading this AV club write up from several years ago where they called Michael J. Fox small and squinty and brusely charismatic, which I was just like, perfect. watching it, or maybe I knew it at the time and forgot it, but I had missed all the interviews where Tom Holland had talked about how much of an influence
Starting point is 00:47:13 Martin McFly was on his Peter Parker. And within minutes of rewatching the movie this time and thinking about its legacy, I was like, oh, well, that's Tom Holland's Peter Parker right there. I'd always thought about Ferris Bueller because of the run through the backyard sequence in the first Holland Spider-Man movie. I was talking about Ferris Bueller as an influence, but he's so much more of Martin McFly, and Tom Holland has talked about that directly,
Starting point is 00:47:36 how it was the biggest inspiration for him. He's like, I want to be this generation's Martin McFly. The Tony Stark, Peter Parker relationship is supposed to be a sort of Doc Brown Marty McFly relationship. Kevin Feudemito was like a huge fan of the 80s blockbuster and like skipped his prom to go watch back to the future. So of course, like that influence is there inside of that.
Starting point is 00:48:00 But thinking, just thinking about not only the far-reaching effects of Marty McFly into Rick and Morty or all these, you know, other things that are happening now. But a definitional character for the 80s, this sort of like little stinker character that like you see echoed in Ferris Duller, which comes out the next year, Bart Simpson, who has his origins in 87, Zach Morris, 89, Bill and Ted, of course, don't go on their excellent adventure in 89 without Back to the Future. like that guy who you know just becomes so key and core
Starting point is 00:48:37 and not really an archetype you know Zach Morris indoors into the 90s but not really an archetype Excuse me Joanne Brives
Starting point is 00:48:46 back Zach Morris indoors into the present When are we doing our same by the Bell rewatch let me know I'll be ready
Starting point is 00:48:53 I would fucking love it can we go through the college years I would do it all I'm actually quite prepared to talk about Sam by the Belvedic College years. But yeah, just thinking about Marty McFly's this is like huge impact on, you know,
Starting point is 00:49:08 and they're like characters-ish like Marty McFly before that, but no one, like, no one quite like Marty McFly as played by Michael J. Fox and what echoed after that into our pop culture landscape. He is eternal. I, all of that about Tom Holland and his feeder tracks perfectly, like two, you know, total short kings. Yeah. Marty McFly and Tom Holland's Peter Parker.
Starting point is 00:49:32 It makes complete and total sense. Just say the name. Marty McFly. Like already before you've done anything else. It's perfect. Like what could be cooler than the name McFly? I, something that I really,
Starting point is 00:49:50 I think it's fun to talk about as you go through the movie, like whether Marty is always as like, like cool as it seems, right? Like when Jennifer is watching the pin hits at the battle of the band, and she's like, you know, quivering lips. She's just like, my boyfriend is so fucking hot. I can't wait to like go try to bone him on the bench in the town square before my dad picks me up.
Starting point is 00:50:17 You're like, Marty really made this all work for him. This is kind of amazing. The thing that is like so incredible to me from first viewing all the way to now, I love to overuse the word iconic, as you know, but Marty McFly really deserves it. He's an icon. Truly. Marty, from the moment we are introduced to him in the just masterful opening stretch in Doc's clocktastic lab.
Starting point is 00:50:47 The kicking of the skateboard, the Nike Bruins, the jeans, the red t-shirt, the button down over at the suspenders, the jean jean. the jean jacket with the very CR core pin on the gene jacket. Marty McFly he's about to pick up the guitar, blow the amp, is super hot girlfriend
Starting point is 00:51:10 planned a trip to the lake effortlessly cool. In a nerd plot. In a nerd plot. He's hanging out with a scientist. I have followed questions. Marty McFly is a super hot girlfriend. And I support him in that.
Starting point is 00:51:28 He seems to have no friends. And his best friend is this weird old man scientist. Yeah, exactly. So he's like oozing aura. Yeah. Yeah. But then he's like hanging out on Don Brown. He doesn't have like a normal friend group.
Starting point is 00:51:47 It seems like to me. And that's okay. In terms of the classic rewatchable sort of like who might have played this. or whatever. It is just interesting to think about the long list of who might have played Martin McPly because people like Ben Stiller are on there. Ralph Machio is on there. Robert J. Jr. is on there. John Cusack is on there. Charlie Sheen is on there. Downey could have done it. Downey, it's different. It's definitely different. Any of those people are different, but Downey's one of the few where I'm like, maybe. He could have done it. Now, I just said no one else
Starting point is 00:52:22 could have done it. And I don't want anybody else to do it. I just don't like, oh, little guy. Michael Day Fox's just a little guy, you know. Matthew Modin is really interesting to me because I don't know if I've ever told you this story, but like I have pride of myself all my life on my movie knowledge, my ability to identify an actor, all this sort of stuff like that. I almost never make a bet unless I'm extremely sure about something. And I, when I worked in movie theater in college, I ran my mouth with my boss when I was so sure that Matthew Modeon. played George McFly and I don't know where I got that, but I do think that Matthew Matthew Dene and Crispin Glover are cut from very similar clause. So it would have been interesting
Starting point is 00:53:03 to see Matthew O'Dine playing Crispin Glover's son. Anyway, that's one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to me is I was so sure and she was like, you're a teenager and an idiot. You know, she was an adult and I was like, I know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I was deeply embarrassing. Did you actually put money on it? We bet something and I lost horribly and I've learned a really strong lesson that day. Doc Brown would tell you, like, it's not about, you know, we're not doing this to gamble. We're doing this to learn about the human experience. He says that in another movie.
Starting point is 00:53:33 And this movie, of course, he's like, if I go to the future, I'm going to learn who won the next 25 world series. So there's some inconsistency's there from our guy on it. It'll come back. Yeah. Well, he figured what the hell. You know, Mallory? He figured what the hell. Okay.
Starting point is 00:53:47 We want to talk about, since we are going to talk about some other time travel stories briefly at the end, we want to talk about how this fits into the scope of time travel as a storytelling device, something that we like to talk. to talk about a lot. We haven't had an opportunity, other than Doctor Who, we haven't had an opportunity to really go in depth on a time travel-centric show. But I would love that because, you know, the idea of talking about these various flavors of paradoxes, et cetera, is really, really interesting to think about. As I mentioned before, this is not just a time travel story. This is a cultural fish out of water story, which is, you know, something I always love
Starting point is 00:54:24 watching. but as you mentioned before it, something has got a double ticking clock on it. In terms of like a propulsive motion, Marty has to reunite his parents before he gets erased.
Starting point is 00:54:38 And once again, we have like very clear there's a photo that we're watching and we're watching body parts disappear. Conveniently, Marty is the youngest, so I guess he stays around the longest. Yeah. So that's like, that's a ticking clock we have and then get the Delorean to the clock tower
Starting point is 00:54:52 before lightning strikes because we don't know where lightning will strike again. So these are like our two ticking clocks. We're constantly out of time. We're constantly racing around. And it's just like extremely fun in that regard. And something that I love tracking across this movie is like all of the time pieces. We start, of course, with like all the clocks.
Starting point is 00:55:15 As you mentioned in that scene where we get Marty McFly's sneakers before we get his face. All of Doc's clocks are slow. The Delorean is faulty. the clock tower is broken, Marty's watch is wrong. You know, like all the time is wrong and out of joint constantly across this film. And this really fun, like, background kind of way that I really love. One of my favorite little aspects of the introductory phase of the film where we're kind of just acclimating to the characters in the world is the idea that
Starting point is 00:55:43 the future boy is always late. Like, I just love little shit like that, you know, four tardies. Yeah. The genre mashup, you know, certain. Certainly this is a Mount Rushmore, time travel tale, no question. It is a sci-fi story. It's also just an incredible action-adventure story. It is an incredible family drama.
Starting point is 00:56:12 Very dramatic on the family front. It is... Are you thinking about Uncle Joey? It's a jailbird, jailbird Joey. Jailbert, Joey. Get used to those bars, kid. Incredible. brutal, brutal stuff for jailbird Joey.
Starting point is 00:56:27 I have, I thought that the, the, the themed icing choice on the cake. Listen, who knows how much vodka laureate had had at that time? Boy, really something. She had to get no multicolored gel pass to decorate that cake. Of course. You know. Had to go all in. It's a story about slices of American life and like, you know,
Starting point is 00:56:53 know, the Hill Valley like this small town, USA, across different periods of time and history, like the mall, your car, your dog, your girlfriend, your band, the lake, your mom wanting to fuck you. Like, what part of that is not going to be relatable to anybody watching? Not everybody's traveled through time, but, you know, you've probably experienced most of the other stuff, right? Not all of them now. There are, what I love about Back to the Future is you can go as light as you like on this.
Starting point is 00:57:32 You can just like diet Pepsi free skate your way through this movie and have a great time. And then like in sort of reading up on this, there are people who have gone quite deep on Back to the Future, which is also really fun. People who like to think about paradoxes and time travel and all that sort of stuff like that. So there are there are competing theories about how time travel actually works in the Back to Future universe. and similar to sort of the Terminator franchise, the more sequels you do, the more complicated you've made your premise, your simple premise that works in the first one,
Starting point is 00:58:03 then you sort of make it weirder and weirder as things go on. But this is what some people call a single timeline, time travel story where you go back on the timeline and the things you do in the past, influence the future. So when you go back to the future, things have changed, et cetera, et cetera.
Starting point is 00:58:20 However, there are nitty-grating details and we'll get into some of our nitpicks, you know, that where people would argue, actually, this is a time-branching story because Marty comes back to the future with no memory of having grown up with parents who want to fuck each other or, you know, who aren't losers, et cetera, et cetera. The Marty McFly we meet is the same Marty McFly who left. And so has he actually supplanted other Marty McFly who is in this other future? Again, you can go as deep as you want to with this sort of stuff. But it falls into really classic tropes, the grandfather paradox, predestination paradox, Marty nearly erasing his own future. How can Marty travel back in time to push his father out of the way of the car?
Starting point is 00:59:14 You know, Marty has to exist in the first place. In order to exist in the first place, his father had to have been hit by the car. So how does any of that? That's just like the fun little pretzels you can loop. you can work your brain into when you're thinking about back to the future. Yeah, I really agree. I think that it exists. I mean, not in a unique, unoccupied by any other story space in that sense, but is a really good example of a time. So there are some type of travel stories that you like cannot watch or consume casually. It's like impossible. And there, you know, so I think the ability to kind
Starting point is 00:59:46 to calibrate the degree of your interrogation is really fun. I think also in general, like, maybe if you're consuming a lot of sci-fi and a lot of time travel tales, you have a very specific belief for your like, I'm just tearing through my quantum mechanics at home and I have a really strong opinion on how this goes. Maybe you don't, and you're really interested in seeing different explorations of different possible permutations and different stories. Sometimes time travel tales think about every question that somebody might have and some don't, right? In some, that's like the point to really interrogate that aspect of scientific inquiry in our place in the universe. And sometimes it's more of a device to explore something about like a
Starting point is 01:00:35 human interest aspect of your story. There's a million versions of this. And I appreciate this aspect of the Back to the Future franchise that like it really does, I think, welcome. and invite good-spirited fun debate. You genuinely don't have to think about that part of it at all if you don't want to. I think, like, to your point from earlier about part two, I admire the ambition of two to get more complex on that front, but I think without question, it's not as, like, you're like, oh, boy, this is. I love what part two does to what, it is so sad.
Starting point is 01:01:15 To watch Marty sneak and creep around the margins of like the enchantment of the C sequence. Yeah. Like to watch him. That is so fun. And it's fun. Anytime you do it, you know, we may have to talk about the MCU later, but obviously the MCU like picked up that that fun little idea. But yeah, but then there's other complications that just get really, really messy. And like, yeah, you don't need to think about it.
Starting point is 01:01:44 You can just freaking enjoy back the future who cares, but then also if you care about it, you can care about it a lot. Yeah, exactly. It's great.
Starting point is 01:01:51 I think that the, like, brilliance of the, the fading photo as a device, yeah. It really kind of can't be, like, overstated what a master stroke that was.
Starting point is 01:02:00 Because, again, instantly iconic, internally associated with this movie, it is such a smart way to make something deeply complex really simple. Right?
Starting point is 01:02:13 Like, Dave doesn't have hair. Oh boy, Dave's like just a couple leg stumps. Oh, right? Yeah, exactly. When we're jamming at the end and Marty's got the photo tucked into the strings of the guitar
Starting point is 01:02:29 and you're like, every check that you have throughout the film, you understand what you need to. If you're like coming to the film at any point in your life and you're like, I've really been studying my HG Wells or I have spent some time refreshing on my Bradbury.
Starting point is 01:02:46 I'm deep in the butterfly effect, the sound of thunder hive. Maybe you're going to have a different relationship to that stuff, and that's interesting too. I think one of the things that's fun on the the paradox, time loop, what happened when did it always happen?
Starting point is 01:03:03 We really change it. Splinter reality's fun. There's, like, so much there that's interesting to talk about. And, like, I think that there are, like, a lot of things in the movie that, could fall into a, did this happen this way, because they had always done it, loop debate,
Starting point is 01:03:20 even though the film canon makes it very clear that that's not the case. Yeah, and there are so many things where it's just like this actually is different, right? The photo vanishing is different when Marty gets back. Yeah. Like his parents and his siblings are different. In part two, we see obviously a much more sprawling, cause and effect of like what happens to an entire community, etc.
Starting point is 01:03:43 something like, you know, Doc wearing the bulletproof vests. There are so many examples that you can pick. But like something like that is, I think, a good example of like, you can really just debate that if you want. Like, Marty didn't go over. The movie makes us to wear the bulletproofing. The movie makes us understand he put it on because of the letter. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:04:00 Marty went back and changed something and then Doc read the letter later and put that vest on. We didn't see blood. That is the film canon. But right. Did we see blood oozing out of his chest? Like, no. So you could debate that stuff. And then obviously there are other like,
Starting point is 01:04:13 I would say non-debatable, like, clear loops established, like, with Johnny Be Good or something like that, right? Where it's like, Marty is playing that because he has listened to Chuck Berry. And then he, because of the phone call, in steps Johnny Be Good into Chuck Barry on the other end of the phone call. Yeah. It's the boostrap paradox. But, like, but he did, I mean, that's that, I mean, I'll get into some of this in my, like, try and terrible nitpicks. But that's one that I'm just sort of like, I, I, I, I love that part, actually, to be clear, and I'll talk about a reason why. But, like, this idea of, like, Marty McFly invented rock and roll or Marty McFly invented skateboarding.
Starting point is 01:04:53 It's like, no, those exist before Marty went back in time. I do, in a tidy sense, I do appreciate, I do appreciate the time travel stories that are, oh, wait, always happened this way. I always traveled back in time. I just didn't know it at the time. and, you know, that might come up in some of our, like, top five. That's just very satisfying. Oh, it was me who did it because I have already been here.
Starting point is 01:05:20 Like, that's extremely satisfying. And that's not, you know, Marty taking George's place in front of the car is a different story. Yeah. But like the DeLorean. So, like, Doc, he's got the idea for the flux capacitor before Marty. Yeah. But does he pick the DeLorean? Does he pick the Delorean?
Starting point is 01:05:42 No, but he always picked the Delorean. He always picked the Deloian. DeLorean. But does he pick the DeLorean this time? Yeah. It's fun. It's fun. It's really fun to think about it. And I want to on the on the overthinking front, I just want to cite one other thing that I read that I thought was so interesting. There's this blog called the Hottie Culturalist. What a great title for a blog. That's just a great name. Yeah. So on the like overthinking front, we're having really good time. The author here is Ruth Bushie. And she has a section in her piece, some of which you've already touched on about this idea of like, entering realities and stuff like that. She has to say this concept of the dreaming as it relates to back to the future. She says in somewhat significantly, the film portrays, films portrayal of time travel mirrors the functions of dreaming. Both explore the fantastical yet avoid real disaster or death.
Starting point is 01:06:33 They inflate underlying fears to their worst incarnations, i.e. being late means someone's dies. And wish fulfillment, such as having a dad who respects himself or having your band play the school dance. So this idea that like, you know, we get these three instances inside of the movie of Marty waking up. And Marty himself is like, oh, it was all just a dream. And then again, the second time, oh, like, what a wild dream, et cetera. And so this idea that there is, no, I don't think back to futures of dream.
Starting point is 01:07:00 Obviously, it's a real time travel. His parents are changed and something has to be done about his kids. Like, this really happened. But this idea that his adventure has this sort of dream logic to it. it is a really cool way to think about it. So that was a really cool piece. Yeah, the like hallucinatory quality to it is that's awesome. I love that. Anything else you want to talk about before we get to some of our specific questions about Back to the Future? I think the only other thing is just like, you know, I really, I feel very similar to you. I really enjoy time travel stories where you're like,
Starting point is 01:07:34 oh, it always happened this way. Yeah. We're always there. Yeah. I think that's really just really satisfying and rewarding as a puzzle and also kind of an interesting, like, oh, it always happens. logical thing to think about. I think like increasingly these days, this is kind of like shifts for me over time, but these days I think just I'm like inclined toward, you know, the multiversal, yeah, spawning new timelines, like you do something
Starting point is 01:08:03 and it, and you know, we should say across the entire franchise, there is the like, and we did this and now we're here like chalkboard moment later obviously, but that's not the broad. broad philosophy of what we're dealing with here. All that said, on the single timeline, you go back, you do a thing, it changes your future front. The thing that I love about it is that it is so rooted in the decisions that you make.
Starting point is 01:08:37 And I think, like, in other stories, something that's always really, like, intellectually and kind of philosophically stimulating is thinking about how free will is still so present in core in stories. where things are fixed. I really love that. That's something you and I love talking about with each other, like, and thinking about it in stories. So this is not the only version of a time travel tale where free will is present, certainly, but like it's really central in a way that is, you know, like it makes the characters, it's just their actions and their agency and the ramifications of the choices that they make are so paramount to the text in a way that, uh, obviously makes them just real drivers of what is. happening. You know, Marty's like, what things that I do, like, are going to matter when Doc, like,
Starting point is 01:09:24 you know, when Doc's obviously initially talking to Marty about Marty and Marty's life, but like, when he's just like, I don't want to know. Like, don't tell me anything about my life. Like, if I know too much about my future, I could endanger my existence. All of the, the key people who have a certain degree of awareness are like, what does that awareness lead to and what does it mean? And that's just so interesting. I also, I was thinking a lot about what are the opportunities inside of a time travel story. Like, what kind of stories can you tell? We talked about this, though, we talked about this a lot with like Loki, which has a lot of time travel in it, but is, you know, a multiverse story. What are the opportunities inside of a multiverse and like a version that we love is,
Starting point is 01:10:02 you can meet yourself? What is it like to meet a different version of yourself? What does it tell you about yourself, et cetera? So what is it like for you, Marty McClay, a teenager in a sort of like parents just don't understand phase of your life to go back and meet your parents as teenagers, like, you know, to see them that young, to understand why they are the way that they are to a certain degree. And then Marty gets to basically, like, parent his parents. Yes. Into being better, happier, more successful, cooler people.
Starting point is 01:10:32 And so that's, you know, and then it becomes even twistier and more interesting when in future installments the same actors are playing, like their, you know, various relatives with dubious Irish accents and whatever it might be. but I just think that that is such a fun opportunity and we'll get into this and we get into our top five moments but yeah,
Starting point is 01:10:53 who can you meet in the past or in the future? I love it. Along your family timeline and what can that tell you about? My favorite quantum leap is not going to come up inside of our conversations
Starting point is 01:11:06 because that was a show from the 1980s and 90s, but a show that I was obsessed with as a kid and the best episode of that show has the character he would he would like leap through time into different people's bodies and at one point he leaps back into his own family that's the own like there's like a two-parter where he's like inside of his own family story and so all of a sudden this thing where it was like
Starting point is 01:11:31 this guy's leaping through time to change history or make people's lives better he's in what does it mean to make it so personal it's your own family um what does that mean i just i think about that all the time. We talk a lot about George and Lorraine, but listen, shout out Seamus. When Strickland's like, No McClay ever amounted to anything. I'm like, that sounds like bad news for our guy, Seamus. Oh my God. The ginger, you know, wigwork on and facial hair work on those on Lee and Michael's great stuff. Okay. We're calling this next section, 1.21 gigawatts. A.K. 12.1 questions about Back to the Future. This is some of your best work to date on the how many
Starting point is 01:12:19 topics of a thing should we allow in a category and how can we hook that to something in the story? This is just an absolute masterclass. It's really stretching moving that decimal point over and really stretching things. But this is a math-y science kind of story. So here we go. Yeah. So we're just going to run through some things that we love or some questions that we have about this movie. So we're going to start with number one, most quotable line.
Starting point is 01:12:44 Valerie was the most quotable line for this movie. Okay. So obviously there are a number of contenders and things that people say to each other. And like I am tempted to just go with great scott. But I am going to go with roads. Yeah. Where we're going.
Starting point is 01:13:02 We don't need roads. Paired with the Doloreon taking flight, which is one of the best moments in movie history. Period. That's the one. There is the one. And Chris is my girl. Christopher Lloyd's delivery of it too, right?
Starting point is 01:13:13 This is the fucking best. Like, you get a chill. Like, for your entire body, you're just like, shit. I was like, should I find something less obvious? And I was like, no, it's just, this is it. It's perfect. This is it. So, yeah.
Starting point is 01:13:26 But a sub question you have here, which is not our point one. But anyway, what's an obscureish line that you quote or people in your friend group or family quote that maybe other people don't from this movie? Because I actually have a several. Do you? Yeah, I had a few. And I don't know if I can say, like, I don't want to claim that I routinely quote them, but I will say that I love them.
Starting point is 01:13:46 Yeah. Okay. I'm going to give you my top three. Yep. Why he needs to pack for the future? Who knows if they've got cotton underwear in the future? I'm allergic to all synthetics. Frankly remarkable.
Starting point is 01:14:06 Maybe my favorite line of the movie. Definitely, Rayon. I'm just saying. Okay. Yeah. this one will be coming up again but I don't think that we collectively
Starting point is 01:14:22 as a people even though we've all spent a lot of time on it have spent enough time talking about the fact that when Marty is like where are my pants Lorraine says over there on my hope chest because she wants to fuck her son
Starting point is 01:14:49 and she hopes that they'll get married. She's like, I'm just going to add your denims to the linens that I have in my hope chest. Remarkable stuff. And then we've already mentioned, you know, our love of Clara in part three, and I
Starting point is 01:15:05 am really genuinely very partial to the Doc Clara plot. So I love now, like, going back to the first film and when Doc on the school dance says, look, there's a rhythmic ceremonial ritual coming up. And I'm just like, you don't think
Starting point is 01:15:21 that this guy can fuck. Stay tuned. Oh, yeah. This guy fuck. I'm startling Doc Brown information that I learned in research for this that I can't wait to share. No, not. Nothing bad. Just sort of like adds special nude crunchy layers to Doc Brown.
Starting point is 01:15:37 I can't wait. What are your. My number one, and these are genuinely like inside my friend group genuinely things that we say to each other. It's Marvin, your cousin, Marvin Barry. Your cousin. Barb and Barry. Stella, another one of these damn kids
Starting point is 01:15:57 jumped in front of my car. That's an incredible moment. How many kids is he hit? How many kids? One of these damn kids jumped from the car. And then this is the most applicable. And genuinely, this is only my friends in college and I would say.
Starting point is 01:16:17 Tom, how am I going to generate that kind of power? And that's Doc Brown talking to a portrait of Thomas Edison. Remarkable. Tom, how am I going to generate that? I don't read that kind of power. And then this isn't a line, but fun fact, I think it's true and not apocryphal, is when Marty has to put a cassette tape in his Walkman in order to scar his father for all time. The cassette tape says Edward Van Halen on it because Van Halen the band couldn't contribute movies, but Eddie Van Halen is like, I'll do it. So it doesn't says Van Halen. It says Edward Van Halen. It says Edward Van Halen. It's so my friends and I call it. called Eddie Van Halen, Edward Van Halen for the rest of time because of that cassette.
Starting point is 01:17:00 So, yeah. I love it. Great stuff. Mother Rubin, what is the most 1985 thing about this movie? All right. I'm going to throw a few contenders at you. We already talked about Pepsi-free. Diap Pepsi-free can is top there.
Starting point is 01:17:13 Just unbelievable. And, like, not only just the Diap Pepsi-free itself, but, like, the exchange that you alluded to already when we go back to 55 and we're at lose. give me a tab. Tab, I can't give you a dab unless you order something. Right. Give me a Pepsi free. And you want a Pepsi bag, you're going to pay for it.
Starting point is 01:17:36 I love the volume of like really great moments in the movie where specific time references unlock time travel humor. You know, you mentioned the other obviously great recurring example of that is all of the heavy, the humor about heavy weight has something to do with it. The Life Preserver Runner. The Life Preserver Runner is very good. Okay. Some other 85 things about the movie. I think that the moment when, early in the film, we just, George takes a box of peanut brittle and just pours like the entire thing out
Starting point is 01:18:11 into a bowl for just a nice snack. That feels very mid-80s to me. Now I still enjoy a peanut brittle. But that's like, this is my snack, just a bowl of peanut brittle very 80s. And then that's media George McLeigh, who again, we will come. come back to is eating a bowl of cereal at a diner. I have so many questions about that. A milky bowl of cereal at the diner. Yeah. I have a lot of questions about that. I mean, it seems like a nice way to pass the time. I hope that was crisping clover's an idea. Kind of sit here and just, not some fries,
Starting point is 01:18:41 not a burger. We're going to get a milky bowl of cereal at the diner. Okay. On the food front, Dave, well before, you know, we've reset events and he's like, Marty, I always wear a to the office. Our guy is rocking the visor and vest true to the era for Burger King. In general, obviously, the fashion in the 85 stretch of the film, we'll talk about this elsewhere in the categories today,
Starting point is 01:19:07 but couldn't be more. 80s core, particularly in the jackets. They are paying the jeans. Yeah, the great stuff. Huey Lewis passed. I mean, sports came out in 83. My mom, I've mentioned this before, was just like, they always playing.
Starting point is 01:19:20 Always playing Huey Lewis. Loved Huey Lewis. He lived in Marin County when I grew up. where I grew up. At the sushi place, my family and I used to go to, like, you know how about the dry cleaners or whatever? They have, like, those portraits of celebrities that are signed. It was just like, whatever.
Starting point is 01:19:33 It was just one, and it was just Huey Lewis, like, signed Huey Lewis portrait. Hewloos' kids went to my high school and he would, like, show up to our... Did he ever judge a battle of the bands at your school? Not when I was there, but he did show up to our Christmas concert. Okay, that's so pretty good. Huey Lewis, a legend. Obviously, Reagan being president, which also just sublocks some incredible humor from our guy, Doc Brown. And that, the car, you know, the Delorean gets most of the press as it should, but the Toyota SR5 that Marty left after, the 4x, the four by four.
Starting point is 01:20:11 Yeah. The extra cab. Is that the car that Marty McFly wants? Like, that is such a weird. It's a great, a great, a great roomy bed in the back for a trip up to lake with a girl. trying to put that up the lake and just needs a place to put some sleeping bags down. I support that. But like it's so so garish. Um, okay. Diet Pepsi free can of course, uh, kind of top of my list, but so at the beginning,
Starting point is 01:20:38 when he goes into Doc's garage, we're going to talk about that later. Um, and, uh, there's a news piece playing and they're talking about the stolen plutonium. So that is like a little key thing that will come back. But as we pan away, sort of barely in the back ground, but if you have the closed captioning nouns, you can get it, is 12 wooden crates filled with cocaine washed a shorter Boca Raton floor yesterday. And if that's not 1985, I don't know what it is. Just incredible. And then the Libyan nationalists just showing up speaking literal gibberish sounds very
Starting point is 01:21:13 1985 to me. This is a, you know, the rewatchful has a once-age the first category. It's a wild. A lot. Do you have on your list? You know, again, I was born in 86, so I don't, I don't have as good of a real-time feel for, like, was it like to walk around a town center in the 80s as some of our listeners. Yeah. Was it full of porn?
Starting point is 01:21:37 Exactly. You have anticipated my question. Was Orgy, American style splashed across the marquee and you had down in a later category. It's like maybe my favorite detail in the entire movie. Hill Valley is great. Like, you know, they're supposed to be like, they're trying to show you, oh, the 1950s were better and dreamier and like, you know, Mr. Sandman is playing and, you know, the gas station attendants are so lovely, something like that. And it's like, 1980s. It's tough out here in these streets. There's just like graffiti and porn shops and like a porn theater in downtown Americana. And I'm like, okay. This is fantastic. Great stuff. All right. You request is a special request from Valerie Rubin. You want to talk about your guy, your favorite character, Biff Tannen, your hero, the love of your life.
Starting point is 01:22:29 I've ever said any of that. Best Biffism. I basically, the reason that I requested this category was just to avoid the unlikely, but it needed to be eliminated at all cost scenario where we somehow didn't talk about the chase and the menor crash. Couldn't allow it to happen. because obviously the actual clock tower lets send Marty back to the future action sequence at the end is like just unbelievable. That's the best action sequence in the movie. But this is a low key close second. Oh, it's great.
Starting point is 01:23:06 This is just the best. And obviously the menorah crash for Biff ends up becoming much like, you know, you noted Marty waking up and just like, mama, oh, crazy dream. or Doc's apologies for not building a to scale model, like these great recurring through lines across all of the movies. Biff crashing into some sort of vat of manure. Happens in every film. Part three, going into his mouth to that extent in part three. Plus he has like a mustache.
Starting point is 01:23:35 He has like facial hair. Very tough for Mad Dog Tannen. Very tough. But it's all just great. I think that the, With respect to Mad Dog, who I actually like, as a character, not as a person, to be clear. He doesn't want you to call him Mad Dog Joe. I think this is not a controversial opinion.
Starting point is 01:24:00 I think the first film's use of Biff is the best easily, right? No question. So, like, two is quite enjoyable. Old man, old man Biff. I think it's slightly too much Biff in the second movie. Slightly too much. But yes, everything with the Omnack, obviously, like, just, you know, that's the best. young and old
Starting point is 01:24:17 Biff and George in the first movie and like you know we have a lot of the George Marty parallels but like the way we get the Biff George parallels with like making him do his homework when they're kids and making him do his work reports and like the right down to the handwriting yeah I need time to copy it or like you're so gullible and the distraction to the nose boop
Starting point is 01:24:36 like the way that that plays across time great stuff on the Biff front I love how it builds toward Marty saying you know to Doc toward the end that his dad never stood it up to Biff in his life and the way Doc's eyes go wide and he's like, never? Never? Uh-oh. And the idea that like that is such a, George standing up to Biff is such a big pivot point for him becoming this like, you know, cool, confidence, successful person. On the best Biff,
Starting point is 01:25:04 Biffism front, how can we not, of course, spend a moment on why don't you make like a tree and get out of here? Because ultimately the payoff and two of old, old Biff being like, like, talking about. I'm talking about old, old Biff interacting with young Biff is... It leaves, you idiot! Great. It's so good. But the chase, the chase, I just wanted to make sure we talked about the menor chase for a bit. Like, Marty
Starting point is 01:25:28 Marty's signature move across time of the like, scabbing onto a bumper to hitch a ride on his skateboard and outsmarting Biff this dip shit, this macho bully dip shit, right down to the running across the top of the car leading to the crash. It's just an incredible stunt, by the way. The like the makeshift skateboard,
Starting point is 01:25:52 the sucker punch, like the way that he just like punches Biff out, like again, Short King, Marty McFly gets Biff, knocks Biff tan down with a what's that over there and then punches him in the diner? Incredible stuff. I want to shout out. So Thomas Wilson who plays Biff, similar to Bob Gale has like played Biff and then talked about playing Biff for the next like whatever year. It has a great little like stand up bit song
Starting point is 01:26:14 that he wrote about playing Bif Tannen and people recognizing him as the guy from Back to the Future. Really cute. You can find that on YouTube, etc. I just want to shout out the physical comedy of round two with older Biff in Back to the Future. When we get Biff waxing the car, just the bow and like, oh my God, your books,
Starting point is 01:26:37 you've got a package, your books are here, the bowing and the scraping and the just sort of like hand on hip, just sort of toadying of like second round. a older Biff is with some incredible wigwork I mean the old age makeup of this film is not great but it's really enjoyable. And a great track suit. A great track suit.
Starting point is 01:26:54 Biff, piece of shit, monster does horrendous things. Rocks a track suit. Original older Biff. This is my best Biffism. If it's not make like a tree and get out of here. I got your car towed all the way to your house and all you've got for me is light beer as he steals, has crashed George McFly's car.
Starting point is 01:27:13 Blames him for it. You didn't tell me. And then steals a beer for his bridge and chews him out because it's light beer. The audacity is impressive. The plaid pants in that scene in the light beer scene. Is that going to be your pick for best fashion? Oh, no. But it should be up there.
Starting point is 01:27:35 Okay, you mentioned this before, but like everything that is said before Marty Time Travels and then after Marty Time Travels have these like on rewatch, fun little ironic zings them or whatever. So what's the most ironic statement from either Marty McFly, pre-tripe travel, or other people post-time travel? Okay. So I don't know if for you there were like clear this has to be my pick winners. I was like noodling on this one for a while.
Starting point is 01:28:01 But I just went with a heart pick here. I went with something that like every time makes me laugh, not only because of the line, but because of what it is paired with visually. So this is after Marty has been hit by the car instead of George. We're going to talk more about all of the... All of the Lorraine-Galvin's thumb. This is his...
Starting point is 01:28:30 Marty is leaving. And Lorraine is basically in like a doe-eyed trance gazing after him. And her father, his grandfather, says in response to his wife's observation that this, this, Marty kid, very strange. He's an idiot. It comes from upbringing. His parents are probably idiots too.
Starting point is 01:28:58 Lorraine, you ever have a kid who acts this way. I'll disown you. And she's just like, as he's saying this, she's just like, at her own son. And this is, of course, on the heels of, please watch video of this podcast so you can see Mallory's reenactment over the Lorraine panting over her pantsing on the heels of like, you know, Lorraine's mom, Marty's grandma saying, Marty looks so familiar to me.
Starting point is 01:29:23 Do I know your mother? You know, uh, yeah. Yeah, I think you might. So I just thought everything in that scene in particular is delicious. Michael J. Fox does this sort of like creaky door delivery of like certain things. And that's one of them then later like, Marty, are we ever going to see you again? I get it. Yeah, you will.
Starting point is 01:29:45 Okay, okay. Mine also has to do with that sex positive queen, Lorraine Baines. When Marty in the present day says to Jennifer, I think she was born a nun about his mom. Not knowing that she liked to drink, she liked to park with boys. She liked to have a good time. She's almost 18. She's parked before. She's parked with boys before.
Starting point is 01:30:10 Please. Okay. Best Bifism was for you. This one is for me. I'm calling it Crispiest Glover moment. I love Crispin Glover. Now that I know that it is Chrisin Glover, I love Kristen Glover in this movie.
Starting point is 01:30:25 I think, and like, in terms of the franchise, the fact that Kristen Glover is like, I don't want to come back. And so they just made a mask of Crispin Glover and put it on a different actor is one of the funniest things is ever.
Starting point is 01:30:41 but Chris and Glover that consummate weirdo being in this movie and everyone else I mean you know like Christopher Lloyd we're talking about Christopher Lloyd in a bit
Starting point is 01:30:53 Christopher Lloyd of course is doing an eccentric Doc Brown but no one is more eccentric no one is weirder no one makes an odder choice in this movie than Crispin Glover
Starting point is 01:31:02 is Rorschney Club not even close starting with like the laugh at the beginning and everything that follows So what is your favorite sort of weird George McFly moment? You should go first for this one.
Starting point is 01:31:19 It's so hard to pick one. It really is. You don't have to pick one. But my top one is George dancing by himself at the Acham and under the sea dance before he goes out to the parking lot. And he is just like grooving by himself in a quarter next to like a Poseidon statue. And it's phenomenal. The laugh that I already mentioned, I think his delivery of last night. night, Darth Vader came down from Planet Vulcan and told me if I did take Lorraine out that he felt my brain while his asymmetrical haircut is like sort of flopped over his face and his shirt is untucked is top tier. And then also we already mentioned,
Starting point is 01:31:53 Lou gave me a milk chocolate and the double wipe of his mouth before the whole density debacle is just like, that's my pick. I do think this is a good excuse to just talk about some other George moments. But that's my pick. The way that he kind of like musters the courage, it can be. convinced both by Marty, but then by the Vader. Put a pin in the Vader from Planet Vulcan stuff. We'll be coming back to that in our time travel quibbles. I love so much when Marty's like, because he has to give the, you know, invoke destiny and tell her how beautiful she is. I love him. He's like, Jesus, George, it's a wonder how I was ever born because George just has no game.
Starting point is 01:32:36 And when he's like, can we fix this about the strings of hair you just mentioned? And of course from the beginning from the like, you know, Dave's kissing his dad goodbye on the head. And he's like, time to change that oil. Like George's hair is very central. Yeah. And he does this once. And I don't know. Maybe other people don't feel this way about it, but I'm like, that just looks like a really expensive, like current hip hair.
Starting point is 01:32:56 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's great. And I just love what a complete dofuss. But also a sweetheart, he is in that approach to Lorraine with my density has popped me to you. And I'm George McFly. I'm your density. however, I do think we should use this as an excuse to talk for a moment on the heels of our recent Stranger Things season one rewatch and Jonathan Byers discussion to just acknowledge the fact that George McFly is a peep and Tom is a creep so much for the fucking birdwatching lore.
Starting point is 01:33:28 He is in a tree using binoculars to watch Lorraine McFly. Lorraine Baines change. I don't know that we talk enough about like, Yeah, of course, Marty's got to get his parents together because otherwise he's going to be erased from existence, but it's tough to have to ensure you're not erased for existence by setting your mom up with her stalker. And then your plot becomes, George, you're going to come rescue the day because I'm going to touch her how she doesn't want to be touched all leading to Biff sexually assaulting. Lorraine, this is wild stuff in the film. And Dizzy's like, no, thank you. Dizzy's like that for us.
Starting point is 01:34:14 And everyone else was like, we need the two, it's too, uh, too tame, guys. Come on. It's too tame. It's too tame. Yeah. Um, here's another George thing that I, I really, this is something I love in the movie. Well, that last, that last bit was we have some, we've gone from love to we have some notes back to love.
Starting point is 01:34:31 Um, but the delivery of my dad's a peeping Tom is like, top dear. It's great shit. On the Marty George from. when Marty seeks George out at lunch at the school cafeteria. He's writing a sci-fi stories. And he says that he's writing a story. This is like one of my favorite moments of the movie. I wouldn't want to show it to anyone because what if they say it's bad or like,
Starting point is 01:34:50 realizes that his dad's exactly like him. And like that pivot because George is like, like, what if they, you know, what if they didn't like it? It would be hard to understand. And Marty's like it's not hard to because that's what he's going through with his music, right? As we know. And it's, of course, just a very tender, sweet young George moment. But to your point from earlier about like realizing.
Starting point is 01:35:08 your parents are real people and seeing them in a different light and kind of just that shift in perspective for it not just to be like, oh my God, my mom wanted to fuck dudes, but also to be like, oh, this thing that I maybe thought was like a lame quality in my dad, which is his like insecurity or his trepidation is actually now like common ground. Like I see myself in him because it's something we share. It's like, I just so sweet to me. I really love that. Yeah, it's great. And then of course, like, you know, so much of the story is to your point from earlier about how, like, Marty has to parent his parents. Like, when he fathers George and so much of how George finds this confidence and this belief in himself is instilled by his son, like, you can do anything. Right.
Starting point is 01:35:52 And then he will, like, share that lesson later as the actual parents. I've always said, you know, faint. As I always say. Do I think you put your mind to? Yeah. It's wonderful. I just think that, like, there are, there were ways to play George McFly as like kind of a very stereotypical, like, nerdy kind of guy. But Crispin Glover just made him deeply unhinged and weird. The way that I just really, it's just very
Starting point is 01:36:17 singular. It's just very, very special. Very special. Okay. Most iconic costume, non-orange, puffy vest addition. You went 80s or 50s with this? 80s.
Starting point is 01:36:35 80s. Yeah. I mean, I do think it's just Marty's. The answer is just Marty's, like, main 85 fit that we already talked about. I mean, like, the, the Nikes and everything, the jeans are just like... The suspenders. Yeah, the suspenders. The jean jacket, the pin, all of it.
Starting point is 01:36:47 The Walkman, the skateboard. Like, it's just the purple Calvin Clydes, as we know. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Lorraine. All of that is, like, just the best. And you see it in your mind so clearly when you think about the movie. But if that, by extension of the... Or a coffee vest is not eligible.
Starting point is 01:37:06 It's out. I will offer up two other contenders. I guess I could have picked Biff's track suit. I do really like that. But I don't, you know, Biff is a monster, so I don't actually want to pick in a duty category. You never want to overbiffing. I love the use of Marty's radiation suit.
Starting point is 01:37:26 Like, I think that that is just so great the way that it, when he goes back, when he initially goes back to 55 and like crashes into the Peabody farm and, you know, we've got the comic and like, tells from the future and the way that that presence makes them think that he's an alien who then when he talks is like mutating into human form. And then of course he'll use that costume as part of his insecting of George to think that he's this alien life form because of George's love for science fiction storytelling. And I think just the idea that's something that is like scientific, medical, technical feels so futuristic when it is brought into the past.
Starting point is 01:38:05 that it must be alien is like very, that's very fun, fitting and meta for the movie overall. So that's probably my pick, but I will just say, Jennifer's 85 outfit. Yeah. The pale pink jacket, the blouse and best combo, the light jeans, and the purple binder. I would wear that today.
Starting point is 01:38:29 Actually, you would. I would happily wear that today. It's a great fit. What is your pick? For some reason, and I don't know why, like, if I think in my head of like, what are the back to future costumes? Number one, obviously, Marty McFly, Orange Puppy vest, all the rest. Number two, Lorraine's Enchantment Under the Sea, like, peachy dress is so iconic and so beautiful. She just, like, looks incredible in it and it's just like perfect. You know, I love, I love George's Enchantment on the Sea fit as well. And then, of course, like, Doc's future costume that he comes back with at the end of the movie is the way it, like, billows behind him. Those are definitely synthetic fabrics, first of all. Secondly, the way it, like, billows behind him is just outstanding. But we don't know about the underwear, to be fair.
Starting point is 01:39:22 Could be all natural underneath. The underwear is key. And also, I just want to shout out that Marty McFly's 50s look, the like parade of jaunty button-ups and, like, all those or stuff. just fantastic. Okay. This is another Mallory Rubin category. This is Call Pita, not the Hunger Games character or the bread,
Starting point is 01:39:44 but the organization. But Team Pita, not Team Gail. Yeah, carry on. Go ahead. Obviously, Team Pina. You're demented if you're Team Gale. This is most concerning Einstein moment. Mallory wants to talk about the pup.
Starting point is 01:39:58 So tell me about Science Dog Einstein and your thoughts and feelings about using him in the first Dolore. trial or anything else. Let me, let me just, let me say this. Not the first to say it. It won't be the last. Because how could you not say it after you have seen this film? Doc Brown and character I love should not be allowed to have a bet. Okay. First of all, just let's start at the most basic level before we even get to using Einstein as his science experiment test subject. What has Einstein been eating for a week? It's like established in the lab, Pam, that Doc Brown is like, I'm going to, I've made this,
Starting point is 01:40:35 I've invented this automatic feeder. It's pouring the can cans into the foul, the bowl, like, mountain slush. Disgusting. Is Doc Brown taking it upon himself to actually keep Einstein fed out in the field? I will say next to, right behind it, you can see there's a box of milk bones. So, like, there are other things that are they with him? There are other things that he feeds Einstein besides the most, that's mine, is the most disgusting can of dog food I've had. ever seen in my entire life. Calcan dog food, it looks like someone has like shit out some chili.
Starting point is 01:41:14 I'm not a dog food expert, but that can't be right. That can't be right. It is a very like, particular hue. It's very runny. It's just awful. Oh, my God. Okay. Doc Brown using Einstein for the first test. I have to assume that everybody at home says the same thing out loud that Marty says, which is Jesus Christ, Doc, you disintegrated Einstein. And then when that is proven, thankfully, to not be the case. And sweet Inie returns. And the DeLorean is coated in ice.
Starting point is 01:41:55 And his watch is now one minute behind, just as Doc hoped. Doc Brown says this. He's fine. He's completely unaware that anything happened. It was instantaneous for him. Here's what Einstein is doing while Doc Brown says this. Running. Full stride.
Starting point is 01:42:21 Stir. Running out of the driver's seat of the Delorean into the trailer. Was it instantaneous? Who gives a fuck? He was put into that car alone. And then it was remote control activated to any. miles per hour, he was sent across time and then emerged in an ice chest. Also, he is later shown still, Pure Heart and Pure Bond, barking a warning as the Philippian terrorist arrived.
Starting point is 01:42:50 He is shown in a, yes, he is shown in his own little doggy radiation suit. Doc Brown is exposing Einstein to peril after peril. And on the one hand, is it, meaningful and heartening and beautiful to say, man's best friend, you're with me in all aspects of my life and my work, sure. But I would like Doc Brown to reflect for a moment on whether Einstein is in fact fine and in fact completely unaware that anything has happened.
Starting point is 01:43:22 Thank you for your time. Thank you so much for coming to Mallory said talk about how pets can't consent. And yeah. Quit pet story, by the way. I took my cat to the vet yesterday. and just for our annual, whatever, and re-up some shots. And I warned everyone at the vet hospital that she was really mean.
Starting point is 01:43:44 And she drew blood from no fewer than two vet texts at the vet. That's just who she is. Wow. So, you know, with teeth or claws, claws, right? Because, yeah. Yeah. Oh, claw. Okay.
Starting point is 01:43:57 Jeez. Favorite example of Back to the Future, of Back to the Future franchise is cultural impact. And you were like, clarifying question. because I put a Cubs-based example in the notes, and you're like, is this a franchise? So franchise as a whole. Okay.
Starting point is 01:44:11 My answer actually is larger franchise-based. Tell me. What do you have here? This is my in-theater experience. Oh, exciting. Okay. When I saw Back to Future 2, so I was like 9 or 8, 8, maybe even 7. When I saw that theater.
Starting point is 01:44:26 We just went through time with you. Look at that. I know. I'm trying to do math. I was either 7 or 8. And the Bachelor 2 ends with a to be concluded and then a trailer for Back to the Future 3. That's how it ended in the theater, which is just not something that was done. So this was like new like new horizons for franchising is like this is not quite the post credits teaser, but it is like kind of the cousin of the post-credits teaser.
Starting point is 01:44:58 but it is like kind of the cousin of the post-credit teaser of like proto stinger yeah next year you can watch this old west adventure that we have planned for you um you know bif tann will be there etc etc um but my theater reacted in this huge i just remember the theater just sort of like exploded in this huge way and they were like laughing not just at the comp but just sort of like laughing at like what it was and i remember walking out i was probably with my parents um or someone else's parents. But like, I was like, why did everyone react? I was like so confused.
Starting point is 01:45:34 And they were sort of explaining to me like to be continued, how those work, why it said to be concluded. That was different. Like all like I just felt like I really learned something about. And I think about, I thought about it forever. That Back to Future 2 taught me, you know, something about franchising, something about me not understanding, getting like a media education from whatever adult I was with. So I just think about, I just think about that. all the time when I think about back to future two into back to future three.
Starting point is 01:46:02 I love that. It's a wild way to end a movie. Like to be concluded is fine. But to be concluded and now here's a trailer for the sequel that we've already shot is astounding. This is really funny because I don't have any sort of personal like memory or experience like that. But this is also my pick for this because. Oh really? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:46:20 Like I just think, I don't know. Again, I don't want to like, I obviously don't want to imply something that is not true about the history of franchise storytelling. Like, whether it's the long, long, long, history of many other film franchises that you could point to
Starting point is 01:46:35 the godfather, Superman, Batman, James Bond, Star Wars, Indie, Jones, Halloween, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, already by then. Or, I mean, like, fuck, like, you know,
Starting point is 01:46:44 Charles Dickens hive rise. Like, serialized storytelling. Yeah, like, this is like, I'm not saying that Back to the Future invented something it didn't get it. But that what you're identifying there, like, first of all,
Starting point is 01:46:58 what you said earlier in the, pod about how they were like, you know, there was not this intention to go into the future and have this guarantee like the, I just, as we talked about in the Batman Begins pod, I'm kind of like, how can that be true just because it feels like it's not true when you watch the movie? So I'm always fascinated by that. But like the part two, part three, filming close together, filming at the same time, coming out of your part, that ending that you just walked through with the card and then the trailer. But even though that's not the corollary of what happens at the end of part one,
Starting point is 01:47:35 when the DeLorean rises into the sky and it's like, you know, your kids and we talked about the quote, like we're going. We don't need roads. There was a sense of an ongoing journey and a sense of the role of a sequel. Well, it's something I should say is like anytime you were, I saw it because we didn't see it in theaters, it had the to be continued part at the end of it because they, again, they put that on the home release. So like for us, it was always a to be continued story, which is.
Starting point is 01:48:04 Yeah. And I think like we're in such a interesting moment now of like IP creep and franchise glut. And I say that to someone who spends a lot of my time loving that stuff and professionally covering it. But like not everybody knows when to continue and when to stop. That's just true. And back to the future is like simulums. like simultaneously this template for how to do it and a standard that not everybody can hit. And I think like that's just kind of fascinating like benchmark that a lot of other
Starting point is 01:48:41 franchise pop culture is like measured against. So yeah, that that was, I think that's hard not to think about it now, especially when revisiting it. So you did not pick though for your impact on culture, Elon going with the rising doors for Tesla. Um, no, nor the hoverboards and you didn't pick the Nike Mags. So, or the baseball thing. Let's talk about the baseball thing for a minute. So Nike Max, do you know what a cost to get a pair of those?
Starting point is 01:49:11 No. I mean, it's like legitimately like $50,000. Okay. An investment property for you. One of the true like grails. People will throw out the word grail, but one of the true grails in sneaker culture, very, very coveted. rare. On the baseball front. So I always get a kick out of this.
Starting point is 01:49:35 I think actually like, okay, so obviously, like, it was a year off. Right. Wait, so can you remind people? The Cubs. In part two, it's like the Cubs, obviously the sports almanac and just in general, like, the role of knowing the outcome of key sporting events is like actually the driving engine of the plot. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:49:54 Great stuff. But there's a moment when Marty goes into the future initially, where he looks up and sees of the Cubs have beaten Miami in the World Series. First of all, as anybody who's watching baseball and the real world knows, Chicago Cubs and the Miami Marlins in our continuity
Starting point is 01:50:10 are both National League teams. So they could not, in fact, meet in the World Series. Absolutely. Even I know that. And I do. In 2015, it is, unless you were living through in real time, like, it is not something
Starting point is 01:50:28 that I think I'll be able to properly describe to people in the future, the level of holy shit fever pitch, it was Back to the Future Part 2 right about the Cubs because they made the NLCS that year. Like they went really far and they were one of the best teams in baseball. And famously, of course, the Cubs had a, you know, century-long World Series drought. So this was like an incredible thing that it was happening.
Starting point is 01:50:52 It's like, is it happening because of Back to the Future? And then it didn't. They lost some bets. However, they won the next year. They did, in fact, win the World Series. They ended their drought in 2016. They won the World Series, like an incredible World Series against Cleveland. And so that was amazing.
Starting point is 01:51:09 And it was also happening in a similar timeline to just a weird and fun moment in baseball history because the Astros, the Houston Astros won then the year after the Cubs. They won in 2017. And that had been predicted on a Sports Illustrated cover previously, a Ben Writer story. What? Your 2017 World Series Champions, and it was written in 2014 with a picture of George bring around it. So it was like this era of just like predicting or nearly predicting world series outcomes, which is just a really fun like little, little slice of baseball history
Starting point is 01:51:40 there. Will anyone have the courage to predict an Orioles World Series in a form such as this? And will it be proven right one day? I guess it depends on whether anyone ever lets us make a movie. That's something to think about. That's something to think about. I remember you saying many times something about it being the Orioles year when in fact it was not the Orioles. year. Correct. But if you say that every year, one year you will be right. And then you could be like, necessarily. I hope so. Not necessarily, but I really hope so. I believe in it. On the like, hover tech was a, was a good one for sure. On the recent references from, you know, we mentioned the stranger things earlier. I do just want to shout out. Robin specifically, like, because Robin and Steve,
Starting point is 01:52:24 spoiler, are, they have been drugged. Yeah, they're, like, her eyes are red. Yes. As can be. they're about to spend a very gross stretch on the floor of a public bathroom. Robin, high out of her fucking mind, saying, I'm pretty sure that mom was trying to bang her son is just one of the best things
Starting point is 01:52:47 that has happened in recent TV history. And on that front, I really loved, we talked about this at the time, but I loved OB and Loki when he apologizes for the model. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As a Doc Brown reference,
Starting point is 01:52:58 that was like really, really great. I just thought that was such a sweet. one. I love that. And, you know, we have a category named after it coming shortly, but how can we not? How can we not talk about the end game moment? So back to the future is a bunch of bullshit, which is just like, got such a laugh at the time. It was a great way to like, reference something and like acknowledge it's standing. And then be like, we're going to do something different. And also, end game historically great and very responsible with its time travel rules. Got some questions still. No debate after. Got some questions still. Totally fine. One of the longest running most contentious poppulture debates of all time. What Endgame decided to do with town travel.
Starting point is 01:53:39 Okay. I will be coming back to that. I also will be coming back to that. Okay. Favorite needle drop, remember Huey Lewis will be judging your answer here. Yeah. I think it's Johnny be good. It's hard for it not to be good.
Starting point is 01:53:53 Or an earth angel. Especially when the entire Hill Valley Enchamement Under the Sea teenage population turns into like the town from footloose like you would think they would never been allowed to dance in their lives the way they're jitterbugging
Starting point is 01:54:10 their way through Johnny Be Good and it's just sort of like crinolins are flying legs are flailing like everybody's getting laid at Enchantment Out of the Sea because of Johnny Be Good. I'm not picking Johnny Be Good only because to this day it bothers me
Starting point is 01:54:29 the way that they dubbed Michael Day Fox on that song. It's just like so obvious but it is a really joyous moment. Are you going with power of love or earth angel? Or Angel is so good especially as you mentioned when the
Starting point is 01:54:44 the movie becomes like a horror movie briefly when like Marty's hand like the music gets all fucked up because Marty's hand is disappearing and then that that evil ginger in the audiences you know and everything is just sort of like echoing and Laurie's like
Starting point is 01:54:59 George George. It's like, it's all very good. But no, it's power of love because this is wild. Power of love plays under the movie for six minutes. It's minute six to minute 12 of this movie. Power of love just comes in and out underneath the, you know, and it just like comes back up and then goes back out. And it like, it's very unusual. Like obviously the song itself is not that long. So they just sort of looped the courts of power of love. and made it kind of the Allen's Levestri score is so iconic. Johnny Be Good Earth Angel so iconic. Back at the weird
Starting point is 01:55:37 anachronistic use of Back in Time that plays on, plays diogenetically on Marty's alarm clock radio even though the lyrics of Back in Time are about Marty McFly and Doc Brown, but it's playing inside of the movie. That's fine. Power of love is so good. Still a banger.
Starting point is 01:55:54 You know, it plays when you're in Safeway Now or whatever. but there's a title card in the beginning of this movie where it's like Power of Love performed by Hughie Lewis the news. And I was like, why does it get its own title card? That's wild. I couldn't find a good answer to that.
Starting point is 01:56:12 Also, the Power of Love music video has Christopher Lloyd and the Delorean showing up to the club. So like, yes, this is, this is it. Power of Love. Cui Louis, Power of Love, of course. Great back. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, Ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity.
Starting point is 01:56:38 Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zep bound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck.
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Starting point is 01:58:22 Order now at order. about sweetgreen.com. Speaking of Doc Brown. Yeah. We had Crispiest Glover moment. This is Crispiest Lloyd moment with an H. This is really a written joke. It's not really for audio.
Starting point is 01:58:32 But anyway, we're here. Our favorite Christopher Lloyd moment. We haven't talked nearly enough about Christopher Lloyd in this movie. So we want to give our love and respect to Doc Brown. Do you want to hear the fun fact? I figured out about Doc. Maybe you already knew this. But tell me.
Starting point is 01:58:48 So when we're panning through the opening, there's this like news clipping about, about Doc Brown's house burning down. Yes. And when Marty goes to, in the beginning, when he goes there, he's in the garage of that house. Yes. So like the mansion that Doc lives in burned down.
Starting point is 01:59:09 Yep. And now he is living in the garage. And you could see it's the same building, you know, blah, blah. It's like 1640. And then it's like 1646 is the address of the garage that he now lives in. Bob Gale on the audio commentary for Back to Future said that Doc Brown burnt down his own house to get the insurance money. And you know that because like he has like a lot of his stuff is in the garage. So he just like moved all of his stuff to the garage and burnt down the house.
Starting point is 01:59:39 Because like the headline the newspaper is like, you know, disgraced ex-millionaire, you know, scientists. One theory I saw was that when the police rolls up to Doc and he's like, do you have a permit? And Doc bribes him with, I think it's like 50 bucks in 1955. I got a permit. That's a lot of money. So how often was Doc Brown just like shelling out tons of money to bribe cops so that he could do his weird experiments around town? And then that maniac burnt down his own house to the insurance money.
Starting point is 02:00:11 And I just really like knowing that about Dr. Abbott Brown. It all makes perfect sense to me. I mean, especially in general it makes sense with Doc Brown, but like especially you know this guy's like doesn't want to know about his future but like he's on the clock like when he had marty part actually in a very could be my pick for this this category very sweet very sweet and touching stretch where he tells marty how much he's going to miss him he's like you've really made a difference in my life you've given me something to shoot for yeah he's like I got 30 years so I'm I'm filmed on the camcorder doing this thing like let's put the money to work you know
Starting point is 02:00:49 on that on that goodbye with marty before obviously like there's it's not like the final moment because we have everything with the the shouting and the letter and all the seeking the sequencing there but like that i'm gonna have a chance to travel through time it's going to be really hard waiting 30 years before i could talk to you about everything that's happened in the past few days when earlier in the movie in that structure of marty trying to convince doc about all of this
Starting point is 02:01:16 and he says that doc has that moment where he's like i find finally invent something that works. Like, I love how in these movies, like, even the guy who cracked time travel has, like, no confidence. Yeah. You know? It's just one of the really endearing aspects of the character set in the story. Doc, when Marty first, in that stretch, when he first shows up,
Starting point is 02:01:39 the thinking cap, you know, the, like, mind reading machine, that's an underrated classic stretch. He's like, you know what this means? It doesn't work at all. That's the best with a great introduction. into the character. I mean, obviously, like, part of the brilliance is, like, we've met Doc before we've met him, because we meet him in, you know, we meet him in
Starting point is 02:01:56 85, then we meet him in 55, but, like, even before we see him in 85, like, we're in that lab with all the clocks and everything, and then we hear him on the phone, so we have all, we have these kind of, like, layered introductions to him into his brain and to the way he thinks about the world, which is great. One thing I really love on the doc front is his stated views in 55 on
Starting point is 02:02:13 like the Reagan stuff. The actor! Then he was vice president, Jerry, Or this idea that plutonium would be abundant because of, yeah. I'm sure in 85, plutonium is available in every quarter drugstore. In 55, it's a little hard to come by. Or relatedly when he's like radiation suit, of course, because of all the fallout from the atomic wars. That's all great.
Starting point is 02:02:40 When he's really kind of enamored of the camp court, he's like, this is why your president has to be an actor. It's just all of that stuff is great. However, there's a clear pick. I have to assume it's your pick because you texted me about it. And so know that this is also my pick, but please take us through the most memorable thing human eyes have ever got. Okay. I will really quickly say my runner up. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:03:11 Which is you picked a bunch of great emotional moments. I will say his delivery of maybe you were adopted when they first see George McLean in the hallway. also just to be just to note that like doc brown who once again has befriended a teenager um skulks up to this high school in a fedora and it's just sort of loiter around the hallways with this kid who doesn't even go there and marty just like hangs around the cafeteria like security is very lax um at this high school which is perhaps why the town center is just riddled with porn by 1985 anyway This is our joint pick Because I did in fact text Mallory Multiple gifts of this moment Is when Lorraine
Starting point is 02:03:54 The horny legend Lorraine Shows up to Doc Has stocked Marty Flat off followed Marty To Dodge Shows up to ask him to go to the Enchantment of the Sea dance Buzam heaving
Starting point is 02:04:13 Panting the look that Doc Browd does not speak through the scene, the look that he shoots at Marty from behind Lorraine's back when she first walks in of like, your mom is here to seduce you is one of the funniest things ever seen. And then he does like this slow circuit around the garage while Lorraine is talking. And then ends up right behind Marty
Starting point is 02:04:36 and just sort of leans his elbow on the Delorean and then just slowly gives Marty this like side long look of like, what the fuck are you going to do now, kid? It's like the best silent acting I've ever seen in my entire life. It's so funny. Every time I have rewatched back to the future, I have then texted those gifts to someone because every time I get to that scene, I have that moment where I'm just like, this is cinema.
Starting point is 02:05:03 This is art. It's hysterical. It is just like the best. It's just the best. It's the best. It's so provocative and amusing and the physical comedy is so great. And the way that Marty then kind of like retreats and recedes into doc. It's like emerged as this like safety cushion.
Starting point is 02:05:20 It's an extremely awkward pose, but it's like absolutely iconic. It's so funny. The best. And then like I love the deep reflator. All the piece with the rhythmic ceremonial ritual coming up. Yeah. Like very bizarre phraseology. Apparently your mother is emphorously emaciated with you instead of your father.
Starting point is 02:05:41 It's just great. Great shit. It's the best. Doc Brown icon. Number 10, to quote Scott Lang. So back to the future is a bunch of bullshit. What's your biggest time travel quibble? I have to assume that this is like your pick, but maybe it's not, maybe you have a different one. This is not an, I'm the bazillionth person to make this observation.
Starting point is 02:06:04 However, it is my pick. I love this movie. I think it's a gem. Yeah. A jewel. Yeah. Lorraine, George, and Biff not recognizing Marty in 85 after he has been this like crucial figure, Lorraine and George much worse than Biff. But still, in their lives, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't. And I know that like it's something that Bob Gale has engaged with and said like they only knew it for a short time. I'm paraphrasing. And while that is true, it was one week in their lives. What, think about what happened in that week. cute. Like, it's the manure truck moment in Biff's life. It's the thing that broke Biff's spirit forever. Exactly. Like, you're, like, Lorraine's dad hits this guy and then she basically lusts after him for the bulk of the movie until George comes in.
Starting point is 02:07:05 In the stairwell, there's that moment. I love, to you're probably familiar, I do love the choreography of the stairwell sequence coming back into play in Part 2. That is great. when George comes over to shake Marty's hand and literally says, thanks for all the good advice, I'll never forget it. And Marty, you know, winks at this, right? He's like, right, George. That he does forget it.
Starting point is 02:07:31 It doesn't. And like Lorraine similarly in that same stretch, like, Marty, what a nice name. It's like, wouldn't you remember the source of it? Because you were in love with this guy and you wanted to fuck him. And then he's the reason you two were together and he played this really crucial role.
Starting point is 02:07:46 On the one hand, I'm mostly agree with you. On the other hand, I have terrible face memory for people. And without any photos, because there's, like, they didn't take any, you know, because, like, I remember the people I went to high school with, but how do I, you know, I'm thinking about, like, this time of my life. But, like, I have had occasion to, like, look at your books or whatever and be reminded of what they look like, you know. I'm with you, except he will, looks like them because he's their kid. And so it's not like. would you know it would have been a real problem. Let me tell you right now. Well, all of those things actually weirdly bother me, this implication, not bothers, but the implication that Marty
Starting point is 02:08:27 invented rock and roll, uh, inspired Goldie Wilson to run for mayor, invented skateboarding, named himself, et cetera, et cetera. It's not true because all that stuff existed before Marty went back in time. So it's like a very weird little like, why are all these aha moments here when like these things Goldie Wilson's already going to run for mayor. Right. Now he's going to credit unless you want to lead into the like
Starting point is 02:08:53 horror was too. Or did it always happen? Yeah. It always happened. The, the Vader. This is the Vader Vulcan aspect as well, right? Because like now while they do again, once again, they do try to get ahead of it
Starting point is 02:09:05 by having like Marty basically say to George, don't tell anybody that. However, I'm like forced to wonder. Especially since George wrote a book about it. Yeah. And, like, he's Mr. Sci-Fi, right? So, like, Star Trek, I have to assume is a big part of his life. In the future, I have to assume that when Star Wars comes out, he's like, this is like revelatory. He's not, however, like, Vulcan, Darth Vader, Darth Vader. This is what that alien who came and played me, Edward Van Allen. I'm serious. On the most, like, impactful, like, primally scary, primordially scary night of my life. If you thought you had an, exactly. If you thought you had an encounter. With an alien. With an alien named Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan.
Starting point is 02:09:48 I feel like those details would stick. Great question. Okay. What's your... Here's my question. I guess I don't know if Bob Gail has addressed this. But, like, we know that Doc tape the letter back up. Did he read the letter right away?
Starting point is 02:10:06 Or did he tape it up and read it later? Regardless of when he read the letter. if someone, if you're a bright scientific mind and someone says 30 years from now, you're going to invent time travel, and here are the particulars of how you will invent it, are you going to then wait 30 years to invent time travel? Doc Brown is just like, I'm just going to sit on this for 30 years because it'll mess with time for me not to.
Starting point is 02:10:42 well, you're inventing time travel, sir. So, like, by definition, you're messing with time, right? Anyway, that's all I'd say about that. It's not a big deal. That's a good one. I like that one. All right. This is the most important part.
Starting point is 02:10:55 Yeah. Number 12 and 12.1. So number 12. What's the horniest moment not involving incest is number 12? And I think you've guessed what 12.1 is, but we'll get to that in second. So what is the horniest moment, Malibin, not involving incest in fact of the future. Okay. So we already talked about the Hill Valley Town Center, just like adult entertainment H.C.
Starting point is 02:11:21 Outle with porn. Or two American style. Porn H.Q. Hill Valley. Wild stuff. I think there's a clear pick here. And it is adjacent to some of the stuff we've already talked about. Jen, like, you know, finger on the lip watching the pinheads play.
Starting point is 02:11:37 And Marty and Jennifer are talking about how they're going to take some sleeping back. So, like, it is Marty. doing the distracted boyfriend meme. Checking out the aerobics girls. Turning to just blatantly stare at the asses of two leotart-clad women who have, this is after earlier,
Starting point is 02:11:54 he goes and dad he's waving the women doing aerobics. And Jennifer... Jennifer does not react. Jennifer's just like, come on. Like, just sort of like draws him back into the conversation just like, boys will be boys sort of moment
Starting point is 02:12:08 for Jennifer. Yeah. Just like... Gotta be that. Yeah. That or, you know, George would fly climbing a treat to ogle his future wife. Okay. I do like after Marty's back at 85, now knowing that his mother was not, in fact, born a nun, when post-time travel, Lorraine is like,
Starting point is 02:12:29 go fuck your girlfriend of the lake, buddy. Yeah. Go fuck your girlfriend, buddy. Yeah. We got that truck with the extra large bed in the back. Number 12.1. Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. the most astonishing incest moment in this absolute slice of Americana back to the future. I mean, crowd and field, all of them obviously starring Lorraine.
Starting point is 02:13:03 The Calvin Klein, the Calvin Klein bedroom scene is, I do think there's some stiff competition here, but it's praising. You know, if you want to just say that's the, pick. It's like, sure, yeah, of course. That could be the pick. Lorraine has taken his pants off and put them on her
Starting point is 02:13:23 hope chest as previously stated. There's no reason to take off Marty's pants. This is just the thing Lorraine has chosen to do. This is like Harrison Ford taking off Monty Griffith's dress for no reason I'm working from. When she moves from across the bed to sit on the bed next to him, causes him to recoil so rapidly that he just falls over. Follow that of bed. The grabbing of the leg under the table during the ensuing family dinner sequence, just saying, guys, like, can Marty sleep over?
Starting point is 02:13:59 He can stay in my room? He can stay in my room. The number of times I wrote in all caps, horny Lorraine in my notes was like unbelievable. The stretch, the aforementioned panting stretch, when Lorraine is watching Marty challenge Biff at the diner. Yeah. That's Calvin Klein. Oh my God. He's a dream. And then after the chase, when she again calls him an absolute dream. And then all the other kids are like, who is that? Where does he live? Lorraine? Thane says, I don't know. But I'm going to find out. And that's when she shows up to dogs having stalked Marty there. And then the whole parking thing with the dance, obviously. I would like to present to you my most important Back to the Future Theory. Tell me. Lorraine Baines took off Marty McFly's pants. She had no reason to. Got close enough to his pants to read Calvin Klein on the waistband.
Starting point is 02:14:57 Do we know that she stopped there? We don't know. And I will exhibit B is this. Later in the high school hallway when Marty is trying to get George to talk to Lorraine, Lorraine's there a very fetching up dude. She's got two friends with her. Yeah. And George has done the locker.
Starting point is 02:15:17 lean is trying to like sort of lean in and and and and make something of himself and she only has eyes for for marty and she's like Calvin Klein and her blonde friend to the right of her elevator eyes down to Marty's crotch and then back up again so here's my theory is that Lorraine took a peek under the Calvin's told her blonde friend all about what she saw and um I'm going to die on the cell like why would she stop there why on earth would she stop there if she took his jeans off. This is terrible. So upsetting. I mean, Marty has already had to confront the fact that his father is a stalker. They're both. They deserve it. They're match made in heaven. Lorraine and George deserve each other.
Starting point is 02:16:02 They're absolute boundary violators. I will also say this is a subtle moment on the panting front. When Lorraine is running downstairs as her mom is calling and Marty is going to try to get the jeans on, there's a shot of Lorraine in the mirror, just like back up against the door, just like taking an eyeful and panting before she goes downstairs. Oh, my God. To be clear, her son. This is a classic of cinema and we really enjoy it. Thanks for coming.
Starting point is 02:16:35 The way the Lorraine says, I'd love to park. And then Marty's response, like, when he picks off on his mother's innuendo, is just It's an absolute dream. Very memorable. I didn't get a chance to mention this, but I do want to mention, I mean, the joy of watching Back to the Future again later in your life when you know who Billy Zane is and Billy Zane shows up as one of Bill's best guys. The way that the guys are named,
Starting point is 02:17:05 Skinhead 3D, and Match, and Match, is like, there is one thing about you and that's what we have named her character. If you're going to walk around two in a match. Yeah, match guy, 3D glasses guy, guy who was, it's not actually a skinhead, guy who has kind of a short haircut. Those are BIFs and Sh. Okay. I think we did it.
Starting point is 02:17:31 Do we do it? Absolute, absolute blast. Great. Okay. We're going to wrap this up with a rapid fire. Top five time travel moments of the quarter century. Lightning round. non-binding.
Starting point is 02:17:46 The rules are thus. Yeah. Our top five moments from genre film or television from the last 25 years to have featured time travel, these are moments. Not the show itself,
Starting point is 02:17:54 but like a moment is out of the story. Same rules are their best of the century pause just in miniature rapid fire form. Molly Rubin, would you like to go first? If you're number five. Yeah, I just want to say
Starting point is 02:18:03 we should do a longer version of this at some point because as you noted earlier, this was deeply painful and stressful. And I think that, you know, in a meta sense, like, we should reserve the right to change our list at any point. Yeah. We can change our future in the form of changing this list.
Starting point is 02:18:20 Like you, Strickland, we can do it whenever we want. Like I ever ampaired? Okay. So my number five is going to be the one that I issued the strongest spoiler warning for. This is going to be about the movie Arrival, the beautiful Denisville New film from 2016. If you have not seen this film, I will try to make this quick so that you could just hit fast forward, like, few times and miss this, because I do think you should experience this directly for yourself if you have not seen this film. Hit the buttons starting now. Okay. Banks realizing that the
Starting point is 02:18:56 visions are not flashbacks there in the future. These are premonitions about her own child. So this is, Arrival is a film that I love based on the beautiful Ted Chang's short story, story of your life. I wondered if this was eligible because story of her life is from 98, but arrival comes out in 2016. So I think by the spirit of the exercise, it's fair game. I had not read that short story when I saw the movie. And so the movie was my first experience with the story. And I was just blown away. I mean, blown away. Like, I really remember vividly what it felt like to see this movie for the first time. And I think this is a really great example of a deeply complex story logic in terms of the time travel mechanics, what is
Starting point is 02:19:42 happening on the genre front, that hits that highest possible frequency, homes of that highest possible frequency, because of the emotional human element. And everything with like the alien language and how the perception of time and the entwinement of Banks's learning to understand the language and how to communicate by starting to experience her life across time. This, like future events are memories and ingrained knowledge and this time, the sense of your own life ceasing to be linear, and what she learns about, like, the truth about her child and her decision then to live her life a certain way anyway, and what she withholds or shares when and the impact that that has. And it's just kind of like jaw-dropping. And,
Starting point is 02:20:39 the building toward the end, like moving in and out of time at the end, so stunningly and the like words to Hannah. Oh my God. It just like kills me. It's so, so, so, so good. So that is my, that is my fifth pick.
Starting point is 02:20:59 Okay. So when I was putting this exercise together, I was like, I made some arbitrary rules for myself. Yeah. And inside of those arbitrary rules, I was like, I'm not going to do time loops
Starting point is 02:21:08 because that's not really time travel. It is if you want it to be, but I decided for myself it wasn't. And then I wrote in my notes, Arrival isn't time travel. I'm not debating you. I think it's fine that you have this here. I was like, Arrival isn't time travel. It's someone coming unstuck in time, which is slightly different. And then I have multiple unstuck in time. And then I pick from my number five, something that absolutely breaks all this rule. So I'm not holding you to anything because I squeezed in something that didn't follow my rules. But I thought about arrival a lot. And then I decided I was not going to do unstuck in time. But I think unstuck in time is perfectly
Starting point is 02:21:38 valuable. And I think it means that you might have a different pick from a show we both love than I do. I do. And I assumed you might think I would have that. Yes. And that I'm counting on you having something else and us being covered there. I do. I do. Okay. My number five, this is my, my sort of like broke my own rules for this, which is episode six of HBO's Watchmen. Great one. This extraordinary being when Sister Knight, Regina King's character takes this nostalgia pill, which you're only supposed to take your own nostalgia pill, which allows you travel through your own memories.
Starting point is 02:22:16 She takes her grandfather to me. She travels through her grandfather, Will Reeves' memories. And, you know, most of the episode is in black and white. Yeah. In this sort of dreamy her going in. So again, this is like, is it time travel? She's kind of traffic, like, psychically through memory, maybe not. But what it does is, is allows for some of the things we talked about earlier in terms of like this is her, her.
Starting point is 02:22:38 you know, Sir Graeme, her ancestors' life, it allows her to experience and the way in which Stephen Williams, the great Stephen Williams,
Starting point is 02:22:46 who directed this episode, um, and Corey Jefferson, who wrote it, like, um, the way the camera moves around so that occasionally
Starting point is 02:22:56 she's in place. So Jovena Dapo is playing the young version of a great performance. Daniel Dubeweiler's in this episode great. Um, but occasionally the camera sends around and it's her, in his place.
Starting point is 02:23:10 And so she's sort of like firsthand experiencing his life. And there's just like a few clever camera tricks to show us this. So the moment is either a tie between that first reveal when they're pinning a badge
Starting point is 02:23:22 on his chest and the camera spins out and it spins back and they're pinning the badge on her. So she's there. So that reveal of like, oh my God, she's in this memory. And then much more powerfully later in the episode,
Starting point is 02:23:35 harrowingly, there's like a lynching scene. and it's like it's him being lynched and then it's her. And so this idea of like experiencing something that your ancestor experienced, experiencing a time in our culture that is different. And to Watchman's point, not so different from the time we live in now. And to viscerally experience that firsthand as she does via this sort of psychic trip through time, watchman is just a plus perfect show. and this is my, most people's
Starting point is 02:24:08 and my favorite episode of the season. And just a really clever use of, David Lindelof will show up here again. But just like a really clever use of Lindelof is in two of your five. Yeah, clever use of, of timely whaminess to show us this story. So, yeah. Great one. Great one.
Starting point is 02:24:27 On the timey-wimy front, I'm going Doctor Who with my next pick. And this was very hard because there are like, thousands of contenders. I found this very difficult to pick a Doctor Who moment, though it felt like... What I ended up going with is the 50th anniversary special, the day of the doctor. Very good. Series 7, 2013. We talked about this a lot when we did our Doctor Who journey together.
Starting point is 02:25:00 But 10, 11, the war doctor, and the moment with Rose Tyler's face sharing this space sharing this moment. This is like what you were saying earlier or something that we love, whether it's Loki or elsewhere, like, confronting different versions of yourself. You know, it was so, I mean, first of all, it's just like a thrill to have 10 and 11. It's just in an episode together. And obviously we, I could have gone pure comedy here with the compensating for what regeneration, it's a lottery, which is just also just incredibly memorable and wonderful.
Starting point is 02:25:39 Very good. But, you know, I love the way that we we get in this stretch when the moment Rose is communicating with the war doctor about 10 and 11. And we get the incredible they're you, they're what you become if you destroy Galifraid, the man who regrets and the man who forgets. It's just like, you know, it's historic. It's the best. And like the buildup to that of the war doctor looking at both of them and saying like, ooh, the way you both look at me, what is that? I'm trying to think of a better word than dread.
Starting point is 02:26:15 Like it gives you a chill. And then, of course, the question about how many children died. And 10 has the number ready. And 11's like, and what that does to 10, like, where can you? be now that you forget something like that. Spoilers. That scene is just so fucking good. So that's my Doctor Whoopick confronting different versions of yourself and staring that in the face and then finding a way forward anyway. Incredible pick. I went with a much more frivolous Dr. Who pick, which is, I mean, Series 3, Episode 10, Blink. Because it's a really fun paradox.
Starting point is 02:26:59 So this is where the phrase wibly wobbly timing wimmy comes from is this idea if you've never seen blink, that this character Sally Sparrow is played by Carrie Mulligan finds this DVD or on the on these well actually some other characters found that but they have assembled these DVD clips of the doctor having a conversation with with blanks in between and transcribed what he's saying and then eventually that loops and loops into an actual conversation that he's having with Sally through time but it's such a delightful paradox because the only reason he knows what to say is because it was transcribed in the first place by someone from the future. And so what's the origin of this conversation?
Starting point is 02:27:51 There is no origin because it was transcribed by someone in the future who gives the doctor the script to use the, you know, and it's just like, it's great. Weird and brilliant and wonderful and perfect and wibbly wobbly, time. Whymy, is here with us forever because of it. So, yeah, it's blink, an all-time iconic Doctor Who episode. So good. What's your number three? My number three is Harry casting his stag Patronis in Preserve Askeband 2004. Again, the book comes out in 99, but the film comes out in our eligible time frame.
Starting point is 02:28:30 You know, either the... the most or one of the most successful film adaptations in the franchise, right? So I'm not going to have a lot of, I don't think, film selections coming for the Harry picks across our series because I'm often like, but I think the Ascoman movie, you know, phenomenal. Just one of the stronger ones. The use of the time turner is certainly a perilous device to introduce, but at the end of Ascaband used, I think, quite effectively, the ticking clock of the dual effort to save
Starting point is 02:29:08 Buckbeak and Sirius. The Dementors attacking across the lake and descending and Harry thinking that his dead father is about to arrive to save them. He's sure. And then it clicks. And he casts the Patronus and it's like he struggled all year with the Dementors and with learning to do this. And here it is, like the full-bodied corporeal stag, taking the form of his father's animagus. And he, as he says to Hermione, I knew I could do it this time because, well, I'd already done it. Does that make sense? And, you know, then there's like a lot of book to film swapping of the subsequent lines, like who in the Dumbledore serious Lupin stretch, who gets what. but the kind of key sentiments are intact, you know, the ones that love us never truly, leave us this, of course, very core idea of believing in yourself and fending off the evil forces, praying on despair by tapping into feelings of joy and empowerment and literally using them as a shield, which, you know, if only the author of this story remembered any of those lessons.
Starting point is 02:30:23 Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be a deeply, deeply tragic place that we instead. find ourselves in currently with JK Rowling and her horrific transphobia terrible, obviously, terrible. It's a great pick and it's, again,
Starting point is 02:30:39 that stretch is so enormously satisfying as like Hermione figures out that it was like her that made the sound that like, you know, like all that sort of stuff is just like, it's a little puzzle locking into place and then the emotional climate's a great point. My number three is from the Richard Curtis film
Starting point is 02:30:59 About Time. Bill Nye, Donald Gleason, Rachel McAdams. A film that I don't love, love, love. I have some ethical concerns about what it means to court a woman when you can just go and do a do-over again and again without her knowledge or consent. I have some questions about that. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:31:19 So I have some questions about that part of the movie. The father-son relationship between Bill Nye and Donald Gleason, who play, if you don't, have never seen About Time, you know, people inside of a family where you can travel back in time. And so they have this beautiful relationship. And there is a quirk of the time travel element inside of this universe where it's like in terms of like going back in time and affecting things. Yes, you go back in time, you can change things. So you get doovers again and again and again.
Starting point is 02:31:49 And then you have a kid. And if you go back in time before that kid was born, then you will change who that kid is. And there's a horrifying part where like he comes back and his kid is different. And he has to like fix. And so then so then he encounters limitations on the time travel. And so then he encounters a moment when he has to say goodbye to his dad because his dad is dying. He can't forever spend time with his dad in the past because the kid is coming. And that means he can no longer go back before the kid was born or else he will mess things up for the
Starting point is 02:32:27 kid is coming. So it's this ping pong game between father and son of like they're he's come back in time to spend time with his dad. This is the last time. And then they together break the rules and travel. It's very emotional. I travel back to a day by the seaside when the two when he was a little boy and his father was younger. And I again, I don't love that movie, but I've rewatched this clip on YouTube sometimes because I just find it so profoundly emotional. I love Donald Gleason so much. I love Bill Nye in this role so much. And just this inside of a story about never-ending, revolving chances, and then it becomes a story about what it means for things to be finite and what it means for our main character to eventually choose to not use this thing that he has. And instead, just, you know, value the
Starting point is 02:33:14 day that he's in, be present and be appreciative and live every day as if you are, like, you are living in again, is just a beautiful message. at that story at the end of the day. And just that sequence just absolutely guts me every time. It's really good. Yeah. Great pick. Thank you. My perhaps unsurprisingly top two are
Starting point is 02:33:36 from Avengers Endgame and Lost. I just found it impossible to not. It's kind of impossible. We'll hit me quick, very, very quickly, just some other stories we considered for honorable mentions. But I had one that was very painful to leave off the list, but I have a good reason why I left it off, I think.
Starting point is 02:33:52 So yeah, yeah, my end game pick is something we have talked about many times previously together, Steve and Peggy sharing their dance, which like we've got a lot of questions and notes as a result of still. Like obviously all of the Bucky questions, of course, the time travel implications of Steve's choice. This is something that, as we've discussed before, the directors and writers of this movie do not agree on.
Starting point is 02:34:16 That is like a nuts. And, you know, that has added plenty of fuel to it already. Biggest movies of all times are. ever, filling fire. That's just wild, of course. So, like, yeah, got plenty of questions
Starting point is 02:34:31 as a result of this. But I got, like, I have to say, like, none of that. And this is not always the case. There are plenty of stories from,
Starting point is 02:34:37 like, boy, if I have this many questions, it, like, really saps something for me. Like, this moment just hits so hard for me every time I watch it because there's, of course,
Starting point is 02:34:46 the cap and Tony, kind of inverted ending part of it where Tony has made the sacrifice play. And then Steve, you know, as we hear him say, like, guess to try some of that life that Tony's been telling him to live.
Starting point is 02:34:58 And like, what it means for Steve Rogers, but also for us as fans of that character in these movies who have spent so long with him to watch him allow himself to be happy. To share that dance, to hear it's been a long, long time play, that to enjoy and just relish for a second, like the beauty that's waiting for you after all of the things you did for other people.
Starting point is 02:35:28 And like where we build and where we go all the way from like you must have danced, you know, figured I'd wait to actually seeing them sway there with each other. Like the fact that this is like the prospect of dancing with Peggy is the thing that Wanda and Ultron weaponized to torment, Steve. That's how big this was, right? Like it's just such a beautiful, hopeful note to end on for Cap. And I just,
Starting point is 02:35:52 I'll display all of the questions. that it raises about the timelines and everything else. I will never stop loving it. I came really close to picking Tony and Howard. That's my. Amazing. I was hoping it would be. And I think this is wild because like usually you're the Tony.
Starting point is 02:36:08 I mean, we're both Steve people. But like usually if it comes down to it, you will be more inclined to go Tony than I will. And I always go Steve. But in this case, I'm going Tony because Tony Stark comforting Howard Stark on the eve of his own birth, Tony's own birth. And I think you know, this is
Starting point is 02:36:28 my favorite downy moment of the whole series of films, TVD, because I guess he's coming back. But similarly to, you know, this is Marcus and McPhile doing like what they do best and, you know,
Starting point is 02:36:48 they wrote all the Captain America movies and inside of the Captain America build up, you get civil war and in civil war you get so much of Tony's daddy issues, which has been there from the beginning, from the very, very beginning. And, you know, it's important in Iron Man too. It's important like all over the place. But like his issues with Howard and him learning to understand who Howard was. And then, you know, I think I've zeroed on this pick not only because I is my favorite Downey.
Starting point is 02:37:18 I love this for Tony. I think this always really gets me. But also just like having just watched back to the future, this idea of like a son getting to father his. own father, the idea of Tony, now a father, you know, having a different point of view when it comes to Howard, getting to watch Howard's excitement and anxiety for his son coming and offer him comfort and tell him he's going to do a great job, even though we know he's not, you know, like, all of this sort of stuff. But just like giving him that grace. Yeah. Yeah, it's just really powerful. And again, it's just sort of like, what's the opportunity? Yeah, what are the strong, most potent things for Steve and Tony to get to do? And they really
Starting point is 02:38:03 found clever ways to orchestrate both those things while not worrying too much about the of the time travel. I mean, similar to that sort of about time quandary. This is when Tony's like, I have too much to lose. Like, you know, he's got a kiddo. Like, I can't fuck around with time. I've got this really important thing. She's a little important thing. Yeah, Morgana. That's a great one. And that stretch at Camp Lehigh
Starting point is 02:38:32 going from, you know, everything with Tony and Howard is incredible. Shout out canned sourcrow. And also Howard just casually being like, Zola! My guy! But of course, that's also where Steve, you know, seized.
Starting point is 02:38:45 Sees Piggy. Yeah. And sees the skinny Steve photo on her desk. It's just like incredible stretch of that movie. The PIM, visually, the PIM particle, when you're now when you're like going back to back to the future it's like that's just exactly what the plutonium does look like identical then yeah them like sneaking around um you know
Starting point is 02:39:07 Avengers Tower or whatever it you know sneak it like you know the caps finding each other and stuff like that like that is America's ass yeah all that stuff is like so uh back to the future too you can't even stand it okay um are we have the same property for the last one yes we have two different picks i'm gonna let you go last because yours is is like sort of, I think, the iconic thing that people think of. But again, I decided to say no unstuck in time examples. So it's my own arbitrary rules I gave myself until I cheated on number five. Anyway, okay, so my number one.
Starting point is 02:39:40 This is my major spoiler warning for Lost. So I don't know that you know what my pick is. Maybe you do. Exciting if you do. So skip ahead, please. You have not watched the episode of Lost called The Variable, where Daniel Faraday, skip ahead if you haven't watched it,
Starting point is 02:39:58 Daniel Faraday gets shot by his own mother. And Daniel Faraday is a scientist whose mother sort of groomed him to go to this island. And because the rules of lost are sort of this always happened, that means she groomed her son, knowing that should he go to the island, she will fatally shoot him and kill him. But she does it anyway
Starting point is 02:40:29 because the island demands it or whatever. As he's dying, he says, you knew, you always knew, you knew this is going to happen and you sent me here anyway. Brutal.
Starting point is 02:40:44 And she acquires his journal and just sort of, it's devastating. But it is just a time travel, you know, grandfather paradox. sort of quirk of just sort of like in order for that to happen elie's hoagging had to send her son to his death by her own hand blah blah and all of that is just and i love daniel faraday uh so much
Starting point is 02:41:07 wonderful um i don't know if i ever when i years ago i had this shirt that actually dave gonzella still has um which is um actually i'm gonna let you go first then i'll tell you what the with the shirt is so you say you say yours and then i'll talk about it um So I had three, my number one also comes from the television series lost. I had three lost buckets that I was considering pulling from. The one I picked, the one you picked. And again, spoilers, just maybe to end the pod here, if you don't like at this point here, this stuff. You know, something with Sawyer and Juliet.
Starting point is 02:41:50 Yeah. Which was, I actually, like, had a hard time not picking. But I think that's maybe, and there are, not to say there aren't moments to pick, there certainly are, and they all make me incredibly emotional. But maybe the difference between, like, if we had done just best time travel stories or something like that, like, I would say like season five of Lost would be in the running for like top of the list or near the top of the list, it's like really. You get the like sort of three card Monty sort of trick of like the watch as it passes through custody and stuff like that, John Locke and sort of like over the compass. But the reason I didn't pick story on Juliet and I thought about it a lot It is like
Starting point is 02:42:28 It is a time travel Their thing is like a time travel story And it's also not It's just sort of them being isolated Yeah it's unlocked by time travel But it's not about to a certain degree Do you know what I mean? Yeah
Starting point is 02:42:42 I have picked Unsurprisingly Desmond Hume reaching Penny In one of the most famous moments the TV history. Again, this is not like a real like surprise, but here. The Constant. Lost season four,
Starting point is 02:43:01 episode five, this episode aired in 2008. That made me feel ancient to think about and confront. This is to the rules that you set for yourself and I did not set for myself a Flutterhouse 5, Billy Pilgrom asked unstuck in time.
Starting point is 02:43:19 Story Desmond is unstuck in time. His body is not moving. His mind is. His consciousness is slipping across time, and he is in desperate, urgent need of his constant. And a discombobulated Desmond is with your guy, just mentioned, Daniel Faraday in the present. And Faraday sends him to find him in 96 at Oxford. and my sweet little Eloise's brain just explodes. And it's like all getting very worried. Not the woman I just mentioned, but it.
Starting point is 02:44:02 A rat. The Lerick ran into the Faraday base. And Faraday explains to Desmond that he's going to need the constant. And, you know, as is always the case in Lost, this is just a pitch-perfect blend of fantastic expert genre storytelling that is anchored by a human connection. And Desmond's costa will be Penny, his great
Starting point is 02:44:27 love. And he finds he figures out from Charles, her father back in 96, like where to find her, because Charles is like, she's done with you. And they're broken up and things are painful. And Desmond still manages to tell Penny
Starting point is 02:44:43 not to change her phone number until Christmas of 2004. and then Desmond on the freighter having heard that Penny's been trying to reach him on the heels of spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. On the heels of just the misery of not Penny's boat. Yeah. The prior season, seeing in the sickbed next to him, what happens if this goes on too long? Minkowski, yeah, calls Penny.
Starting point is 02:45:20 and we hear hello and like what Desmond's face does in that moment it's just like it will just always be Penny Desmond to Penny
Starting point is 02:45:32 Penny Penny answered yes and yes Penny it's just the best like no matter how many times you watch it it's just the absolute best the whole scene the whole conversation is beautiful
Starting point is 02:45:42 though like you believed in me you still care about me Penny explaining very quickly the connection is starting to crackle out that she's been looking for three years and she knows for years and she knows about the island um the no matter what like the declaration of no matter what desmond's pledged to return to her just the fact that they were like apart they could not have been separated by more things right and emotion like they
Starting point is 02:46:07 had choke they had they were not together but then also this like other thing right the island like he's missing he's gone and she was still exactly where she was still exactly where she she said she'd be. Like, it's just the best, you know, that she never gave up on him. And the idea that that bond and that commitment to each other, like, between two people, that love and devotion to each other can be the thing that anchors you in time and that saves you is just incredible. And then again, spoiler, this connects to Joe's pick and like everything that happens with Faraday. But like, you know, when Faraday is like looking through his notebook and sees if anything goes wrong, Desmond, you will be my gosh. And you're just like, you know, it's just the best.
Starting point is 02:46:53 I love that you pick the constant. I pick the variable, which are, of course, like, you know, paired episodes. The shirt I had is the DeLorean. And it has, it's a drawing of the DeLorean and it has Daniel Faraday and Desmond Hume and the license plate says constant on it. And it's just sort of like this back to the future constant mashup. So good. With the Time Daddy himself, Daniel Faraday and Desmond Hume with his shirt on button does it often is. Um, yeah, an absolute iconic pick.
Starting point is 02:47:21 I am surprised, I don't mean this in a judge you way, but I am surprised you didn't pick dark. Do you want to talk about dark? That's the one that I, so I made a decision. I just feel like, so dark is one of my favorite time travel stories, period. There are no shortage of incredible moments in dark to pick. I would feel like I was robbing people of something by spoiling dark for them and I just don't know that enough people have seen dark. Okay. Like that's kind of a blanket endorsement for dark.
Starting point is 02:47:48 Let's just do a blanket. Yes. You should watch dark. Yes. Like dark is incredible. Uh, three season German Netflix show from a few years ago. It is a complete mind bender. This is like one of the better recent examples of like you need the string and the cork board to track everything.
Starting point is 02:48:05 Absolutely. The questions of like who people really are. Connections across time. It's my memory is that there's a, really excellent. There's a website that exists. Yes. That you can like tell it where you are in the show. and it can give you some helpful diagramming that, like, you won't spoil you as you go.
Starting point is 02:48:20 Do you know? Yes. I think that if we had done maybe this is a dedicated episode and I felt more confident that people were like, I'm in for whatever and I don't care if I'm being spoiled. I've opted in. I would have maybe put dark on the list or if we were going longer. I don't think I would have been able to abide by my own don't spoil dark for people rule. But just the fact that it was like, again, if we were just talking about stories, it would have been on my list. But moments, I kind of felt too guilty.
Starting point is 02:48:44 revealing some of the twists and turns in dark to people. Another couple other things I had a really hard time keeping off. Fringe, I had a really difficult time keeping off because I love fringe. That was that was painful. Obviously, like we said we're just doing like TV and film. That's why, if anyone's like, wait, why didn't you guys talk about like, this is how you lose the time? This is how you lose the time or like Alchemist Gade or something like that that you guys talk about all the time because they're books.
Starting point is 02:49:11 books. In leaving on tomorrow. Edge of tomorrow. In leaving off time loops, I cut out Russian doll and Palm Springs. Palm Springs was on my honorable mentions as well. And then on the non-US showfront, I will shout out Life on Mars and its sequel Ashes to Ashes,
Starting point is 02:49:33 which is not really, I don't want to, the premise of the show is like, you know, this, in both shows, a policeman in modern day, UK gets shot is on the break of death and then wakes up in first the 70s and then the 80s and has to like solve crimes and this fish out of water sort of thing but like finding out
Starting point is 02:49:51 why they're there is part of the whole premise of the show so it's really hard to talk about but is it actually time travel is a question but life on Mars ashes to ashes I love those shows so I wanted to mention them and life on Mars both of those deal with those
Starting point is 02:50:07 present day cops having to interact with their own family in the past. So again, that is just like always kind of interesting to me. Anything else you want to mention before we go? Just that there are a lot of great time travel stories. And this is like a really fun thing to talk about. I'm sure we'll do more of it in some form in the future. I felt like I think, you know, we talked about this a lot with our speeches list, like how even with 10 in that exercise, you know, it was tough to like not feel like it was like, well, I have to have something from this fictional universe or this fictional universe. With time travel,
Starting point is 02:50:40 I was like really worried about like oh my god because often the thing you discover is like part of the joy of the story so it's like obviously hopefully
Starting point is 02:50:53 if people have listened to this point they decided to so that's fine we hope you enjoyed it watch lost watch arrival watch back to the future I feel like most people listening
Starting point is 02:51:03 I've probably seen Avengers End game so that was don't worry about a veteran game have you heard of Harry Potter these are all things we talked about
Starting point is 02:51:10 Oh, man. Thank you. Incredible thank you to our team today. We've got John Richter, of course. We've got Jesse Lopez pinch hitting with an incredible out of time, baseball cap and back to the future t-shirt on. So really committed to a bit. Love that. Thank you to our Jenna Ranga Powell and to a jokey of dinner on the social. Malia. Thanks for going back in time with me. I'll see you in my dreams for Inception later this week. And then we will, you know, fly through the sky to get. with Superman. So what a week for us. See you soon. Bye. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers
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