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Page 246
The cover of A Match Made In Space is described here as “a bedroom with a space alien very reminiscent of Marty’s Darth Vader speaking to a young man cowering beneath the covers” which is awesome mainly for Gipe’s insistence that he put “space alien” in there in case we go away thinking A Match Made In Space is about an illegal Darth-Vader lookin’ Foreign National who is scaring a dude.
The movie goes through this quickly, and it’s almost too quick! Lorraine says its his first book, George says to his kids if they put their mind to it they can accomplish anything, and them BAM we’re busy with the 4x4. I guess I always wondered if the book was actually any good and if it sold. How is George an accomplished author if his first book is just coming out today?
Well FEARS: ASSUAGED, thanks to this Brady-Bunch level dialogue / entire scene!
“Holy cow,” Marty said. ”You wrote that, Dad?”
George nodded proudly. ”My first novel,” he said. ”I sure hope it sells.”
“Of course it’ll sell,” Lorraine gushed. ”After all, it’s not like you’re a nobody. You’ve been selling stories ever since college.”
“That’s right, Dad,” Dave added. ”You’re the one who’s always telling us to have confidence and a positive attitude. Where’s yours now?”
“You’re right,” George said. ”I’m sure this book is going to do just fine.”
Hold on hold on this sappy heartwarming family moment isn’t over yet!
Then, turning to Marty, he put a strong hand on his shoulder and said: “And that tape of yours is going to do just fine, too.”
Cue the audience saying “awwwwwww” in unison!
At this point Biff (“standing with a deferential smile during the previous conversation”, this dude has been transformed) gives Marty the keys to the 4x4 (Gipe taking this for-real-last-chance opportunity to drop some more brand names as he reminds us it’s “a tricked-out black Toyota SR5 truck, as shining and beautiful as when it sat on the showroom floor”), and Marty runs out and climbs inside and begins to have sex with it!
He ran to it, got inside and caressed the upholstery,
oh baby don’t stop
gear shift,
oh BABY, KEEP CARESSING, JUST GO NUTS WITH WHAT YOU CARESS, TELL ME WHAT YOU CARESS NEXT
every switch and dial within reach
that’s it, I’m done, Marty be sure to clean up the seats when you’re finished
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Page 245
An interesting difference between the movie and the book: here in booktopia, George asks for two coats of wax, and says the coat last time was a little sloppy:
“Yessir!” Biff replied in a voice that was friendly and eager to please. ”You’re the boss, sir!”
Meanwhile in the movie, George asks for two coats of wax, Biff says he’s finishing up the second coat, and George says “Don’t con me” and Biff says “I’m sorry, I was just STARTING the second coat”. So movie Biff still has some of his jerky ways about him (old Biff remains an echo of his formal self!) while in the book, new Biff is completely transformed (/ old Biff COMPLETELY KILLED) and he just wants to do a really really good job.
Anyway remember when Lorraine almost got raped by Biff? George and Lorraine do! They think about it with a smile.
“I’ve had to keep Biff in line ever since high school.” Then [George] added with a smile: “Although if it hadn’t been for Biff, your mother and I would never have met.”
Ah, memories.
“Yeah, Dad,” Linda interrupted. ”You’ve told us a million times already. You beat him up when he was bothering Mom and that’s how the two of you fell in love.”
“It was more than that,” Lorraine added. ”Your father literally came to my rescue.” She sighed. ”It was so romantic…“
Again, this works way better in the movie because the sexual assault was played down as much as is possible AND Linda and Lorraine don’t have this back and forth. Here in the book, where the word “rape” was used and her dress was torn open by Biff, this whole exchange is just really really strange. You can read it like George and Lorraine never telling their kids the full details, but Lorraine is still really into this night. Lorraine I don’t know what your deal is!!
Hey, remember how Marty kept going for those time travel laffs while he was in the 50s? He’s not the kind of guy to leave well enough alone, so at least he’s being consistent here in the 80s:
“Whatever happened to the other guy?” Marty asked.
“What other guy?” his father asked.
“The guy I was named after.”
“Oh,” Lorraine murmured. ”We never saw him again. He vanished into thin air.” Then, looking at Marty closely, she said “I don’t remember ever telling you about him.”
”Well, you must have. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known, would I?”
And man this exchange is winky and terrible and only exists so Marty can lord his time-travel knowledge over his family, but it could’ve been worse. In the first draft of the movie, George goes back to a photograph of that night, looks at Marty in the photo and says something like “Naaaahhhhhhh, it couldn’t be!” and then the movie ends which is even winkier and terribler (and YES if you understood “terribler” it is so a word). This first draft also solves the “two Marties” problem by having Marty 2 walk into a bathroom and TOTALLY DISAPPEAR, an event glossed over by Doc in one line and never mentioned again which is so unsatisfying that I can see why they simply ignored the problem in the final draft rather than try to attempt an explanation!
While everyone is reminiscing about Lorraine’s Busy Night, Biff walks in with a book called A Match Made In Space!
SPOILER ALERT: GEORGE MCFLY WROTE IT :0
SPOILER ALERT 2: OMG WHAT IS GOING ON WITH HIS HAIR IN THAT AUTHOR PHOTO
SPOILER ALERT 3: THERE’S, LIKE, A WING AT THE BACK??
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Page 244
Lorraine puts her arm on Marty’s shoulder (familiar physical contact suggesting an easy relationship between these two characters! YES) and then says “Tonight’s the big night, isn’t it? Isn’t tonight your big date with Jennifer Parker? She’s such a nice girl. I really like her a lot.” Gipe lets us inside Marty’s head and then shoots down his own rhetorical questions:
Marty could hardly believe this was his mother talking, even taking the physical transformation into account. Could this be the same woman who continually bad-mouthed Jennifer? Obviously not.
In both the movie and the book, Marty says that he can’t go because the car’s wrecked. In the movie, everyone freaks out and is all “Wrecked? When did this happen? How come nobody told me?” and then they go outside and see the car is fine. In the book, nobody freaks out but instead they take this opportunity to awkwardly hit us over the head with what happened, in case we’re all as slow as Marty:
“Wrecked?” Dad said.
“He’s been like this all morning,” Dave explained. “It’s like he went to bed and woke up in a different house with strange people.”
Wait wait, it gets better:
That was indeed the case but Marty didn’t say so.
Wow, Brother Dave sure is speaking naturally, and just like who had no idea what just happened would speak! They all calmly go out to see Biff waxing the car:
There in the driveway was a sparkling new BMW. Next to it stood Biff Tannen, polishing diligently. His expression also seemed subtly altered, devoid of the usual arrogance and belligerence. As he worked, he whistled a happy tune.
Out loud, Marty says “Geez,” and then “to himself” (though how his family standing right beside him knows which is which is a mystery) he says “What a difference a belt in the chops can make”.
So! Altered Biff: the dude goes from manager (of at least George McFly) to owning his own car-detailing business which as a self-employed dude (reviewing this crappy book = TOTALLY MY JOB) I can see as a step up. And he’s given up on a lot of his anger too, which is great! And here in the book he’s whistling a happy tune, which shows he’s even happier. So, hooray! Happiness!
But, maybe things aren’t so great? It makes me think of those dystopian science fiction futures where people get their minds messed with. Is Biff really happy? Or is his business in trouble and he’s putting a brave face on his faltering life? It’s pure speculation, obviously, but it’s a troublesome part of the ending because if Biff’s life isn’t unarguably improved like the McFly’s lives have been unarguably improved, then Marty has kind of done an ultimate dick move on Biff: improved his own life at the expense Biff’s. He’s used Biff (intentionally or not) and there’s all sorts of consequences we don’t see: for example, if Biff had kids in 1985 Prime that he didn’t have in this new 1985, there used to be some alive kids running around that aren’t running around anymore because WHOOPS THEY NEVER GOT BORN, HOPE THOSE STRAWBERRIES WERE WORTH IT MARTY
Something to think about, I guess! I know that Crispin Glover (dude played George McFly) argued to have something be wrong in this ending, to show that maybe messing with time wasn’t the greatest idea and there were unintended consequences. He got overruled, but that would make this ending even (arguably) darker!
All that aside, YES the fact that George and Lorraine hire to wax their car the man who tore her dress and tried to rape her in high school seems INCREDIBLY WEIRD no matter how you slice it.
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Page 216 - 217
There’s a lot happening on these two pages so this is a long one!
One of the things I love about Back to the Future (AND AS YOU MAY HAVE GUESSED THERE ARE A LOT OF THESE THINGS) is that at the end of the story you get, like, five different climaxes one after another after another and we even get a musical scene where everybody dances and has a great time. It’s so satisfying! And this is the very first one, resolving the “George is a wimp” thread!
It gets resolved with punches!!
So in movieland George finally gets a spine when Biff tells him to beat it, so he says “No, Biff. You leave her alone.” but here in booktopia George says “You let her alone” which IS an old-fashioned way of putting it but I think I give this a pass since we are in the 50s after all and maybe George is the sort of guy who draws the fading grammatical distinction between the two phrases (leave alone = leave in solitude, let alone = stop interfering with)! OH SNAP YOU WANTED LAFFS BUT INSTEAD LEARNT GRAMMAR FACTS, HOW’S THAT TASTE??
Lorraine sighed. At last someone had come to her assistance. He wasn’t Marty, but in some ways he was even better. Her lips started to form the words “Thank you” even as Biff removed his hands from her body and started to get out of the car.
In the movie George throws a weak punch, Biff grabs it and starts twisting George’s arm, Lorraine tries to help, Biff throws her to the ground and laughs at her, and George is SO MAD AT HOW SHE’S BEING TREATED that he curls his fist, throws a punch, and knocks Biff out in a really great shot that cheats so we can see him spin around more than once! Yay!
This really dramatic scene is totally deflated by Gipe’s hilariously wordy and robotic prose. Check out this action-packed description!
[Biff] moved towards George, one large hand reaching out to grab any part of the interloper’s body. It brought back a large section of sleeve with George’s arm enclosed.
Turns out BIFF SHOT FIRST. George tries to punch but his “flailing fist” hits Biff “causing no damage or pain at all”.
“Help!” Lorraine shouted.
George wanted to yell the same thing, but managed to grit his teeth and choke off the cowardly word.
In this book Lorraine stays in the car, so that means Biff doesn’t push her down and doesn’t laugh at how helpless she is, so what gives George his chance to punch? Oh shoot, it’s just that Biff hears something that he thinks might be someone working with metal and gets really interested in that. Not even joking:
[Biff] applied more pressure. Then, far on the periphery of his circle of awareness, he heard a sound… like a faraway riveting… or was it running footsteps? Partly distracted, he allowed his grip to relax.
SPOILER ALERT: nobody is metalworking here at High Valley High, and that really just the sound of Marty running up to watch. This is awful, just awful, because it robs George of his one truly-earned emotional moment in the movie (getting sincerely furious at how Biff treats the woman he loves and punching his way through those feelings) and instead puts Marty there in the scene instead, still helping George out because I guess the poor guy can’t do anything on his own after all.
George throws his climax punch at Biff and “delightfully reminiscent of the duffel bag” (no surprises here, thanks book) Biff’s head gets knocked up and back “like it had been struck by a flying two-by-four” and he drops to the ground and lays there so long “that a referee could have counted to at least a hundred before there was the slightest movement of his body.” Is Lorraine into this? UM YEP:
Lorraine’s sparkling eyes stared at George’s, projecting a message of total adoration.
And OF COURSE you have my permission to take that “eyes projecting a message” part TOTALLY AND CYBERNETICALLY LITERALLY.
Marty and the five musicians (Gipe is reminding us that they are black again, nobody forget how black these people are okay) are watching this. Marty can’t believe what he’s seeing because everything’s so perfect, and one of the elements of this perfection is the evidence of Lorraine’s sexual assault:
…Marty, who, followed by the five black musicians, had just arrived on the scene. But the picture was clear and perfect, with every detail in place - Lorraine’s torn dress, the prostrate form of the bully and nervously grinning face of the unlikely hero.
I feel like here Gipe realized that mayyyyyyyyyybe his writing wasn’t getting across the mood he was going for, so he decided to pull that classic Really Really Good Writing Trick of having other unnamed characters show up and be amazed at how awesome everything is. This is the very next sentence he writes, still in the same paragraph:
Others arriving on the scene immediately grasped the significance of the scene and were touched by it.
I hope you are glad that others arriving on the scene immediately grasped the significance of the scene and were touched by the scene.
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![Pages 214-215Strickland makes the unnamed teen throw out his cigarettes and lets him leave, so George steps out of the stall. Strickland asks him what’s been going on, George says “Nothing, sir” and Strickland busts out “Bull droppings” again, which is nice. Then Strickland tells him he’d better get back to the dance and is a huge dick about it:
“The dance is just about over. You’d better get back to your - never mind, I don’t suppose you have a date.”
Sick burns, Gerald!! George runs out, sees the lights are down for the last dance, and runs outside:
Although he doubted that Marty was still manhandling Lorraine in the parking lot, George decided to make a dutiful appearance and explain the reason for his delay.
And in another terrific example of “slowing down the action for literally no reason”, George runs (well, “walks briskly”, we don’t want to get to excited here) to where Marty should be, but he’s not there! Then George realizes he’s just in the wrong section of the parking lot, hah hah, and wanders over to the correct car.
It’s like Gipe wants to illustrate how not to write an action scene, which is really convenient because if this book was good this tumblr would be super boring and would consist entirely of me saying “Hey, here’s another good scene. Listen, you guys should really just be reading the book. Let me get out of the way here. There you go.” It doesn’t even work as a character moment, because I always saw George as bright, but socially-awkward and cowardly. Here he’s just… dumb and socially-awkward and cowardly and can’t even remember where Marty parked. So YEAH, George finally strolls up to the right car:
Through the windows he could see arms and even what he judged to be legs flailing. Lorraine was screaming as the male figure pressed his body against hers and groped wildly with his hands.
“Holy cow,” George muttered. “It looks like Marty is going all out.”
George opens the door and we finally get the great “Hey, you! Get your damn hands off -” line, which dies in his throat as George sees it’s actually Biff in the car. And Biff has that menacing line, “I think you have the wrong car, McFly.” and ZAP we are suddenly inside George’s head! George actually has a nice bit here, where he’s shocked at what he’s seeing and can’t understand it:
Was Marty behind this? Was there a slim possibility Biff was in on it, too? Should he run?
It’s nice because of course George doesn’t know what’s going on! He just met this Marty dude with the extreme interest in his life who came up with this stupid plan in the first place, and George has been beaten up and beaten down his entire life, so a weird betrayal like this would TOTALLY seem possible in that one crazy moment as he’s staring at Biff and Lorraine. I give medium-sized props for this!
But then George sees for the first time a flicker of fear in Biff’s face, and concludes that Biff “had been caught in a potentially damaging situation that cried out for immediate action”. He’s still thinking this when Biff says “Just close the door and walk away, McFly” and again I love how this line was delivered in the movie: so calm, so menacing. That strength of delivery carries it in the book here for me too!
Then we’re back in George’s head and he’s thinking of… BILLY STOCKHAUSEN. (SPECIAL NOTE: this site is now the #2 Google result for “Billy Stockhausen”; I could not be happier) Remember him? He’s that friend he failed to stand up for before! “Since that moment, [George] had feared physical combat, had learned to anticipate it and avoid it.”
Now that Gipe has reminded us of George’s motivations, we’re ready for the next page! EVENTS HAPPEN!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6n3bgiJq01rozk7ho1_500.gif)
Pages 214-215
Strickland makes the unnamed teen throw out his cigarettes and lets him leave, so George steps out of the stall. Strickland asks him what’s been going on, George says “Nothing, sir” and Strickland busts out “Bull droppings” again, which is nice. Then Strickland tells him he’d better get back to the dance and is a huge dick about it:“The dance is just about over. You’d better get back to your - never mind, I don’t suppose you have a date.”
Sick burns, Gerald!! George runs out, sees the lights are down for the last dance, and runs outside:
Although he doubted that Marty was still manhandling Lorraine in the parking lot, George decided to make a dutiful appearance and explain the reason for his delay.
And in another terrific example of “slowing down the action for literally no reason”, George runs (well, “walks briskly”, we don’t want to get to excited here) to where Marty should be, but he’s not there! Then George realizes he’s just in the wrong section of the parking lot, hah hah, and wanders over to the correct car.
It’s like Gipe wants to illustrate how not to write an action scene, which is really convenient because if this book was good this tumblr would be super boring and would consist entirely of me saying “Hey, here’s another good scene. Listen, you guys should really just be reading the book. Let me get out of the way here. There you go.” It doesn’t even work as a character moment, because I always saw George as bright, but socially-awkward and cowardly. Here he’s just… dumb and socially-awkward and cowardly and can’t even remember where Marty parked.
So YEAH, George finally strolls up to the right car:Through the windows he could see arms and even what he judged to be legs flailing. Lorraine was screaming as the male figure pressed his body against hers and groped wildly with his hands.
“Holy cow,” George muttered. “It looks like Marty is going all out.”
George opens the door and we finally get the great “Hey, you! Get your damn hands off -” line, which dies in his throat as George sees it’s actually Biff in the car. And Biff has that menacing line, “I think you have the wrong car, McFly.” and ZAP we are suddenly inside George’s head! George actually has a nice bit here, where he’s shocked at what he’s seeing and can’t understand it:
Was Marty behind this? Was there a slim possibility Biff was in on it, too? Should he run?
It’s nice because of course George doesn’t know what’s going on! He just met this Marty dude with the extreme interest in his life who came up with this stupid plan in the first place, and George has been beaten up and beaten down his entire life, so a weird betrayal like this would TOTALLY seem possible in that one crazy moment as he’s staring at Biff and Lorraine. I give medium-sized props for this!
But then George sees for the first time a flicker of fear in Biff’s face, and concludes that Biff “had been caught in a potentially damaging situation that cried out for immediate action”. He’s still thinking this when Biff says “Just close the door and walk away, McFly” and again I love how this line was delivered in the movie: so calm, so menacing. That strength of delivery carries it in the book here for me too!
Then we’re back in George’s head and he’s thinking of… BILLY STOCKHAUSEN. (SPECIAL NOTE: this site is now the #2 Google result for “Billy Stockhausen”; I could not be happier) Remember him? He’s that friend he failed to stand up for before! “Since that moment, [George] had feared physical combat, had learned to anticipate it and avoid it.”
Now that Gipe has reminded us of George’s motivations, we’re ready for the next page! EVENTS HAPPEN!
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CLIFFHANGER ENDING RESOLVED: Yes, he does it.
Marty decided to make a lunge for her.
Stay classy, Marty! As he’s lunging, the car door opens, he’s grabbed, and he’s pulled out not by George but by… BIFF TANNEN. Marty caused $300 worth of damage to his car and Biff’s gonna take it out of his ass! And in case you were wondering in the middle of this dramatic scene just how it was Biff knew to find Marty here, Biff stops everything so he can explain it to us:
“Good work, guys,” Biff said. “Skinhead thought that was you, sneaking out to the parking lot. We might never have got you alone otherwise.”
It’s just like that scene in Star Wars where Darth Vader has Luke in his Force Choke! Remember? But then he stops the choking to explain to Luke that it’s a good thing his engineers built the Death Star with sensors capable of tracking his position inside of it, otherwise he would never have gotten this chance to do this? It’s in the Special Editions; I don’t know what you’re talking about.
ANYWAY, Lorraine yells at him to stop (and that he’s drunk) and Biff does his sinister “Well, lookee what we have here” line, and then continues talking to Lorraine and makes it EVEN CREEPIER:
“Maybe I’ll take a part of it outa your ass.”
Biff gets in the car with her, Lorraine yells “Let go of me!”, Biff says “Oh, no, baby, you’re staying right here with me”, Marty yells “Take your filthy hands off her, you bastard!” and Biff orders his goons to take him away. Then he closes the door on him and Lorraine.
I kinda feel like I should put a rape trigger warning here? And I’m kinda mad that my jokey jokey fun times Back To The Future tumblr needs to have one but that’s what the book has forced me to do?
So I keep saying how the PG-rated movie does all that it can to make this scene as PG as possible, and while Lorraine does end up briefly stuck in the car with Biff in the movie, and it’s a scary scene, it never explicitly gets past the “Biff is trying to kiss her and she’s pushing back” stage. And that’s good, because the more you think that Marty came up with a plan that boils down to “sexually assault my mom so that she’ll fall in love with someone else” the more it seems like MAYBE Marty and/or George and/or Doc should’ve kept brainstorming just a little longer.
This book has already been going the opposite way by making things as explicit as possible, using words like “assault” to describe what Marty intends to do, but it gets worse here. In fact, we have what may be the worst sentence in the book so far:
If it hadn’t been for Marty, Lorraine would be enjoying the dance instead of having to fight to avoid being raped.
Not only does Gipe use the word “rape”, but he blames this rape on Marty, which is an interesting choice for a character that I’m PRETTY SURE we’re supposed to like? But it’s also 100% accurate, since it totally was Marty’s plan that led to this situation! Marty, in turn, blames George for the rape:
If that simpering chicken hadn’t reverted to form at the last moment -
But the time for recriminations was short.
I’m mostly interested in Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s (they’re the dude’s that wrote the movie) thought process that led to this. We know Lorraine originally fell in love with George because he was hurt and she nursed him back to health, so to make her fall in love with George in this timeline, we - trap her in a car, sexually assault her, and then have George beat Marty up? Really, there’s no solution to the “Make Lorraine get interested in George” problem that doesn’t end rapey? This scene is in the first draft of the movie, so it was part of the plan from the beginning. That first draft also has Lorraine (then named “Eileen”) even more into Marty:
…she lunged at Marty, nearly knocking him over, starting to kiss him passionately. Eileen climbed all over him, her skirt everywhere. She reached out and took Marty’s hand, lying limp at his side, and placed it on the top of her bare breasts. Marty couldn’t move, paralyzed in shock that this promiscuous teenager was his mother!
Oh Back to the Future, what will we do with you
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Marty sasses Doc for his sucky demonstration (“Why don’t we just set fire to me now instead of going to all that trouble?”) and Doc shrugs and says it’s just a demonstration, obviously things will be different in real life. It should work. Marty questions the use of the word “should” and Doc - kinda tears into him.
Well, how can I guarantee you this will work? It’s a scientific experiment…
He then goes on to list things that could go wrong, including:
- a cop car cuts Marty off
- “that beautifully engineered car breaks down during the run”
- Marty misses the hook
- an old lady out wandering the streets at 10:04 pm steps in front of the car (seriously)
- lightning strikes early or late
- the newspapers got the time wrong
And that last point actually raises kind of a big issue! We’re told that lightning struck at exactly 10:04 pm, and the characters know this because that’s when the hands on the clock froze. But the clock tower wasn’t built with a second hand! For all we know lightning strikes at 10:04 pm and 35 seconds, which is a concern any plan Doc and Marty have that relies on split-second timing.
When I was a kid and believed movies didn’t make mistakes because an adult would’ve caught them at some point so clearly the problems I saw had logical solutions, I decided that at some UNSEEN point in the story Doc wandered into the clock tower to examine the gears and determined that it was 10:04 pm and zero seconds (or maybe one second, the movie stretches things out for dramatic impact). If he couldn’t get access to the gears, then he snuck out one night to the clock tower ledge (which we know he can get access to so this totally works) and examined the clock hands SUPER carefully with a protractor so that he could measure their angles and from that deduce approximate seconds. However, none of this is ever shown anywhere EXCEPT IN MY IMAGINATION THAT IS and so having Doc draw attention to the idea that the time could be off, without offering a solution to this obvious plot hole all the characters seem to be deliberately overlooking, is a super weird choice. I guess it’s there to build a kind of crappy suspense, because we’ll all be wondering if this whole plan is stupid until the end?
All that aside, this page DOES end on an awesome note:There was a knock at the door. Doc Brown and Marty exchanged anxious glances.
”Biff,” Marty said. “Somehow he got out of the shit and followed me.”And I love love love the “SOMEHOW” there, like it’s inconceivable to Book Marty that once someone is sitting in a pile of shit they would not try brainstorm some escape out of it (“maybe I should stand up, and leave the shit?).
Also, we future people talk about trying to “get out of shit” all the time (i.e., “My roommate is so lazy: he’s always trying to get out of shit like doing the dishes”) that to me the phrase “get out of THE shit” is hilarious and 100% what I’m saying from now on.
“My roommate is so lazy; he is always trying to get out of the shit.”
-Me, from now on, not even joking -
Page 179-180
Marty finds himself holding onto the front bumper of Biff’s car! This is a dangerous position to be in! We know this because Biff explains it for us!“Now we got the son of a bitch!” Biff shouted. “If he holds on, he’s dead, and if he lets go, he’s dead!”
Biff decides to drive Marty through the glass window of Hal’s Bike Shop, and decides that if worse comes to worst, he can tell the judge that his brakes failed, which isn’t the greatest plan in the world but does suggest that Biff is seriously contemplating murdering Marty here, which is a thing.
Looking back through the windshield at the malevolent Biff, Marty could only gulp.
Yep, Marty’s trapped! He looks for cops to help him, but there are none. Then he has a vision of his own tombstone for some Future Laffs AND some old man itis:
A quick vision of his tombstone flashed before his eyes as Biff drove him inexorably backward. It read: MARTIN MCFLY - BORN 1968 - DIED 1955.
Now, as they were about to pass a large manure truck in the same traffic lane, new devilment was added. Match had picked up a beer bottle and was about to throw it at Marty’s head.
“Got to get outa here!” he cried.And remember how in the movie Marty was a cool headed dude who improvised an awesome escape? This is how he gets replaced by Book Marty, who cries out loud to himself. Both Martys (Marties?) do the “send the board under the car, run up on the hood, over the seats, and jump down onto the skateboard as it passes out from underneath the car” move and then Biff hits the manure truck.
Cue tons of applause for Marty! Not just from the kids at the soda shop but also from the customers at “Gaynor’s Hideaway” (a bar?) (and it’s like - do these adults also know Biff or are they just big into watching accidents happen?) and there’s so much shouting and “hand clapping” (haha YES why say “clapping” when you could needlessly specify that hands are involved?) that it seems like the Fourth of July! George is watching too, but with mixed emotions, because he’d trade ten years of his life to have pulled that trick off!
Marty gives back the scooter, the kid is happy, the kid’s friend breaks his scooter so it’s the same way, and we are DONE with Chapter Ten! And if you’re wondering why there’s kinda a shoe-centric focus in some of those images at the top, it’s because I liberated them from this site that reviews movies based on how good the Converse-branded shoes are in it.(Source: segel-sudeikis)
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He had almost resigned himself to being caught when one of the youngsters on scooters turned off Hill Street in a path that paralleled his.
“Eureka!” Marty shouted.Yep, there’s “Eureka!” again, which is now showing up more often than “Doc!” is. So yeah wow am I glad that “Eureka!” running joke wasn’t in the movie because I’m wincing every time!
Marty is a big jerk to the little scooter guy, “literally yanking it out from under the kid” (this is dangerous and mean), breaking it apart so it’s now a skateboard. Marty “gave himself a kick just as hostile hands reached for his neck and missed” (that, my friends, is writing) and the kid whose “scooter had been appropriated and instantly transformed into a lighter, faster vehicle” yells “Wow! Look at him go!” so I guess he’s into it after all.
Biff and his friends “hotfoot it over to Biff’s convertible” and chase after Marty, but as they catch up Marty does a U-turn in front of them and gets away. Marty grabs onto a passing car (FINALLY) and the car drives by the soda shop and the kids cheer, but the driver doesn’t notice Marty and thinks he just won a race because of all the cheering, tee hee! Then a few seconds later Biff’s car goes by and the crowd boos and hisses, but does Biff care?? And can you answer the question with another reference to lips??
The four tight-lipped villains… stared ahead with deadly intent.”
NICE. The chase continues for most of a page and is unremarkable except for a reference to Biff’s car “nearly touching Marty’s buttocks”, so let us leave it there.
(Source: fuckyesmichaeljfox)
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Let me summarize the fight scene for you!
<fightscene>
Biff and Marty fight! Biff throws a roundhouse right! Marty dodges, counters with a hard left to Biff’s gut and a punishing right to his temple! Biff staggers, drunkenly, and falls backwards into a table! As he falls, Match, 3-D and Skinhead (Biff’s goons) advance on Marty!
</fightscene>Oh-oh, [Marty thought], these aren’t good odds unless you happen to be Superman.
Marty runs out and like in the movie, Lorraine calls after him. “That’s Calvin Klein! Oh, God, he’s such a dream!” only since AGAIN she already knows for a fact his name is Marty, she says “I mean, Marty!” and this is stupid. Is it supposed to be a joke that she keeps calling him Calvin? It worked in the movie because she didn’t know his real name. Here in the book where she does, she just comes across as super thick. SORRY LORRAINE BUT U THICK.
Watching this scene “transfixed with fear and awe” is George McFly, who is about to burst into tears because things didn’t go his way again!Damn, he thought, it’s gone wrong again. Even with help from outer space. I’m a dud.
and let’s assume that second-last period is supposed to be a comma and YES it feels petty to point out grammar in this book but WOW all it needed was a simple proofreading / very detail-oriented page-by-page review am I right??
Marty runs out of the store, wincing because he’s got new 50s shoes on and they hurt his heel, and thinks “Damn these new shoes.” which is a detail that’s not in the movie so there you go now you know Marty damned his new shoes. Some kids are yelling encouragement at Marty, which is nice!He would gladly have traded all that moral support for a couple of tough friends, but none seemed in the offing.
And I was say that complain that “in the offing” is probably a weird typo version of “in the offering” but HOLD UP because it’s a NAUTICAL SAYING and I LOVE THE SEA.
This is one of the many phrases of nautical origin. It is quite simple to understand once you know that ‘the offing’ is the part of the sea that can be seen from land, excluding those parts that are near the shore. Early texts also refer to it as ‘offen’ or ‘offin’.
-That website I just linked to
Thanks Gipe! I learned a new nautical saying! I will file it in my brain next to “ahoy” and “thar she blows” and file I new mental note to say “thar she blows” more often because seriously.
(Source: backtothefuturemovies)
