February 2012
33 posts
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Page 37-38
Linda says she thinks it’s a major embarrassment having an uncle in jail, Lorraine says we all make mistakes, but now Book Dave says “Yeah, but Uncle Joey made them consecutively,” and I kind of really love that because it reminds me of John Campbell, who I also kind of really love.
Then Dave says “Damn, I’m late” and his mom says “Watch your...
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Pages 34-36
So Marty walks in on dinner and sees that his family:
were so wrapped up in their own lives that they didn’t think to ask him how the musical audition had turned out. He didn’t feel like explaining why he had lost or seeing their expressions of fake sympathy.
“Meat loaf again,” he said flatly.
His criticism did not keep the jaws from working.
OH MY GOD, WHAT THE...
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Pages 32-33 (continued)
OKAY! So George had another quiet moment of self-analysis, which actually sounds nice, but is interrupted by the shouted words, “Hey, McFly!”
Has Biff returned?? No! It turns out that Howard, George’s neighbour, is there! And he wants to sell him Girl Scout cookies! Howard is “a forty-year-old, pot-bellied, generally unpleasant neighbor who, like Biff Tannen, spoke to...
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I both discovered and read the best fan fiction... →
I do this for YOU, I hope your day is going well
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Pages 32-33
So the movie goes from that “car totaled” scene to “we meet Marty’s family as they eat dinner” scene, but not so this book! This book gives us two pages of solid gold AND two (TWO!) brand new characters before we even sit down for the meatloaf. Let’s take them one at a time. Are you ready?
Marty is mad at his dad (why? ”the infuriating events of the...
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Pages 31-32
Biff does the “Hey, McFly, your shoe’s untied” thing and George falls for it, and Biff says “Don’t be so gullible, McFly!” but then goes on to say
“Boy, you haven’t learned a thing in thirty years.”
And never in the history of human events has one person seen so many casual references to 30 years ago in a single day than Marty has today....
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Page 28
Okay so I checked that last quote about harbingers of joy and it’s true down to the DAY: Friday, October 25th, 1985 is when Doc first calls Marty and tells him to meet him at the mall. Maybe Gipe noticed this too and thought “Man, I’ve got to work in the fact that this is two months away from Christmas… but how??” and then saw his chance with the flashing lights? WE...
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“Flashing lights are seldom the harbingers of joy, except at Christmas, and that...”
– Page 28 starts with a bang of pure brilliance as Marty skates up to his house, sees the flashing lights of a tow truck, and instantly deduces that something is wrong through LOGIC
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Page 26-27
HEADS UP: this whole scene with Doc is not in the movie. So as movie viewers, WHAT DID WE MISS??
Well, it’s mostly Doc thinking to himself, about… himself. He’s reminding himself of who he is and how he got wherever he is right now! We each do that each morning right?
“Well, Ryan, as you know, the internet is a vast global telecommunication network upon which you post...
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Chapter 2! Page 25
Okay this book does the “new chapter pages start half-way down” thing and even though it’s short, this page is remarkable in that each paragraph has something nutty with it. LET US BEGIN:
PARAGRAPH 1
We’re finally meeting Doc for the first time! All we know about him so far is that Strickland considers him a child that never grew up, and he’s pals with Marty....
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Pages 19-20
Still looking in the dealership window, Marty notices the 4x4 and has is ”wouldn’t it be great to have that car” speech, only he ends it with “put our sleeping bags in the back… make out under the stars.” (Less classy, Marty. Less classy.) Jennifer replies “Mmmm” and NOW Marty says “Someday, Jennifer, someday” which makes him seem like...
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“ACTUALLY- it was only MOSTLY scraped off. It was hard to tell amongst the grated...”
– My brother, aNorthernBrewer! THIS IS AN UPDATE TO THE ANECDOTE IN THE PREVIOUS POST. He goes on to say “Though I was informed that they could create a new one for me by pinching some skin to form a ‘Nipple’ and tattooing on an Areola”
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Page 16
So Mr. Strickland is left shouting “Stop! Wait! We must file out in an orderly fashion! Wait!” under a sprinkler before the falling water drowns out whatever else he’s saying. Everyone’s rushing out of the room, and during the confusion Marty leaps to his feet and grabs Weeze’s skateboard! Unlike just about everything else used in the last few pages, this board...
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Pages 13-15
So Marty’s in detention and Mr. Strickland is crushing Walkmen (Walkmans? Walksman? No I’m just kidding, it’s Walkmen) in his vise. Marty thinks that if Strickland dismissed him early he could still juuuuust make it to the audition in time, but then thinks “fat chance” and has “a moment of black despair”. Marty, don’t you see? You and Strickland are...
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Pages 11-12
So Marty shows up for detention at 3:42 sharp, wondering if he has “offended the local deity governing the fates of Hill Valley high school students” because everything’s going so wrong. Even his Walkman stereo got dropped and Mr. Strickland took it or at least that’s what was implied! His plan is to skip detention and say he was confused about when it started, but...
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Page 10
RECAPPING YESTERDAY: Marty just got called a slacker, and then his dad was called a slacker too. HOW DOES HE RESPOND??
LET’S FIND OUT, SHALL WE?
If Strickland had been a contemporary, Marty would have thrown back an angry retort. That, of course, was impossible under the circumstances, so he merely looked away.
BAM!
I actually kinda like how we see thematically-appropriate time-based...
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Page 9
So here on Pages 9 (and a bit of 10, the scene doesn’t end on a page boundary, what do you WANT from me) Strickland chews out Marty some more. He says “bull droppings” again (yessss) and tells Marty that the office phone is only for emergencies, and Marty says “well, it was an emergency to the person who called me.” and Strickland gives him… STUDY HALL. :0
...
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Page 8
George Gipe, author of “Steven Spielberg Presents: Back To The Future: A Robert Zemeckis Film: A Novel By George Gipe, Based On A Screenplay By Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale” has heard our prayers, and on this page he responds: MORE STRICKLAND ACTION, COMING RIGHT UP.
Marty and Doc finish their conversation and Doc says “good luck at your gig this afternoon” and Marty says...
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Page 7
Doc tells Marty to meet him at Peabody’s Farm at 1:15 and Marty says “Peabody’s Farm? Where’s that?” and Doc says “I’m sorry, I mean Twin Pines Mall. I still think of it as Peabody’s Farm, but I guess that was before your time.”
I added the emphasis there because somehow it wasn’t already added in the book? For some reason?
ANYWAY...
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Mr. Strickland's job: A REAL THING
So earlier I suggested Strickland’s job of “School Disciplinarian” was a thing that only existed in movies, but it turns out, people make careers out of this! Zith sent me this:
Hey, Ryan! Long-time reader, first time writer. Reading B^F and thoroughly enjoying it (BTW, I’m reasonably confident that was the first time in my life I ever spelled “thoroughly”...
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Page 6
We get some more great description of Mr. Strickland on this page. Mr. Strickland:
Is over 60 and nearing the end of his career, but
“Relishes each day’s mental combat with the selfish young men and women who regard him as nothing but an evil obstacle to their willfulness” (YES oh god yes)
DID YOU KNOW: the more the narration subtly shifts to Strickland’s POV the...
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Mr. Strickland Teaches Typing
Here’s an email I just got (without any names because I forgot to ask for permission to post it, so now it is ANONYMOUS)
YES. I’m currently trying to learn Portuguese [and, coincidentally,living in Portugal], and some time last year I picked up a copy of the Back to the Future book translated into Portuguese. Haven’t read it yet, but I just saw your tumblr post about the first...
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Page 4-5
In these pages Marty gets called out of poor Mr. Arky’s class to go to the office for an emergency telephone call! This is it, everyone! THE PLOT IS BEGINNING.
Marty’s mood vacillates (this is the word Gipe uses, and I gotta give him props: it’s a great word) from the joy of getting out of class to the concern that there really IS an emergency, so he thinks of the worst...
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January 2012
6 posts
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Pages 2-3
These are early pages, where we’re meeting the characters. I promise that EVENTUALLY these recaps won’t be longer than the pages themselves??
Okay, so while the 50s hygiene film about nuclear bombs killing everyone is going on we meet Marty, who has been bopping along to his headphones during the film, ignoring it. Marty is described as:
the most daring and enterprising of the...
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Page 1
If you were writing the first words of a novel version of Back to the Future, how would you do it? Maybe you’d introduce the concept of time being important, like the film did with all them crazy clocks. Maybe instead you’d introduce Marty and Doc, show who they are and what their relationship is. Well, anyway, you’re totally wrong!
The correct answer is to KILL EVERYBODY.
...
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