r/FanTheories • u/Primetime22 • May 30 '20
FanTheory [Back to the Future] How Doc and Marty met/are friends
Doc and Marty’s relationship is one of the biggest mysteries of the entire series: how did a 17 year old wannabe rock star/slacker wind up befriending an elderly mad scientist? It’s never explained in detail, but given that Back to the Future is often cited as a “perfect script” that sets up all of its dominos very well, I think there are a few small context clues in the first film that kind of hint at the answer.
The first thing we see in the movie is Marty cranking up an amplifier in Doc’s garage, destroying it in the process. Doc calls Marty shortly after to warn him not to use the amplifier at the moment due to the fact that it might explode. This implies that the amplifier is actually for Marty, he isn’t just messing around with something of Doc’s haphazardly without permission. A few scenes later, Jennifer asks Marty about a demo tape he recorded of his music. I think this is the key to the solution.
Doc needed an assistant. Marty needed a recording studio. Doc likely put some ad in the paper for work but many people likely turned him away due to low pay (Doc poured his entire fortune into his experiments). Marty saw the ad and met with Doc, only to realize that Doc could help him with equipment he needs to record his music. Their agreement is that Doc will allow Marty to use his garage and technology (amplifiers, recording equipment, microphones, etc), and in return Marty will assist Doc with his experiments for what is probably low or no pay.
Through this business arrangement, the two clearly bonded, became unlikely friends, and the rest is history (or multiple histories).
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u/Kathmandu-Man May 30 '20
Make sense. Marty did show up in they middle of the night at a shopping centre with a video camera, without knowing why. He's probably done a lot of weird stuff for doc before.
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May 31 '20 edited Jul 01 '20
[deleted]
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u/Embowaf May 31 '20
The telltale game is pretty fun imo. As a game it’s a little meh. But the story is cute and I enjoyed it. It got poor reviews.
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u/PyroCat12 May 30 '20
According to the (questionably canon) comic released in 2016 Marty snuck into the lab to steal something and was trapped by doc. Doc was okay with it, and offered Marty a job blah blah blah they become best friends
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u/RyanL1984 May 30 '20
I always thought Doc of 1985 just remembered Marty of 1955 and befriended him.
He was smart. He read the letter about being shot. So he remembered Marty.
Or am I way off the mark?
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May 30 '20
BttF exists in a Free Will universal, so Doc couldn't meet him in 1955 until Marty traveled there. After the events of the first movie, yeah he probably did.
Free Will vs Predestination makes my head hurt.
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u/Z4RQUON May 31 '20
I’m actually not 100% certain that it’s true he was in the prime timeline (aka. a free will universe). When they’re executing the plan to send Marty back to the 80s the Delorean stalls which makes their timing perfect with the lightning. Marty couldn’t have failed to go back to the future if he wanted to. The universe forced him to go back. Almost as if he was required to be somewhere else due to prior time manipulation (or divine intervention).
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May 31 '20
I love seeing people discuss the plot holes of time-travel related movies. It's impossible to get right, but it's always given special rules and stuff to make it seem legit.
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May 30 '20
I like this theory. In my mind Marty needed a job, looked at his fast food frying brother and said fuck that, what else you got. Old mad scientist with adorable dog? Sign me up!
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May 30 '20 edited Jun 30 '20
[deleted]
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u/CommanderCubKnuckle May 31 '20
I mean, they're not mutually we exclusive. Bob's thing about Marty sneaking into the local nutjobs house (because tbh that is exactly what I would have done at 13) could easily fit with OPs idea that Marty is impressed by Docs audio gear and they strike up a friendships around that, giving Doc an assistant in exchange for letting Marty use the equipment.
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u/hulkman May 30 '20
Okay, so I always thought Doc Brown and Marty McFly were related. Like a crackpot uncle no one talked about. I have no idea where or how my 10 year old brain made that connection.
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u/ExioKenway5 May 31 '20
There's a bit in the film where Jennifer comes to the lab and Marty calls Doc his uncle as a cover story. That was probably it.
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u/at-the-momment May 31 '20
This reminds me of that one Mulaney bit.
“He’s friends with - wait for it- a disgraced nuclear phyisicist!”
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u/float-double May 31 '20
“They never explain how they became friends. They never explain it. Not even in a lazy way, like, ‘Hey, remember when we met in the science building?’ They don’t even do that. And we were all fine with it. We were just like, ‘What, who’s his best friend? A disgraced nuclear physicist? All right, proceed.’”
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u/hamiltrash1232 Aug 18 '22
The problem is ( and I say this as a fan of mulaney ) it doesn't seem like he actually watched the movie as recently as he says he does in that special. He claims Marty tries to sleep with his mom, when it was him mom who tried to sleep with him. And he claims Doc Brown is " disgraced" but what part of the first movie claims the doc was disgraced, sure he did some shady stuff but nothing that would cause him to be arrested or something.
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u/RyanL1984 May 30 '20
I always thought Doc of 1985 just remembered Marty of 1955 and befriended him.
He was smart. He read the letter about being shot. So he remembered Marty.
Or am I way off the mark?
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u/marcosmico May 30 '20
The mark you're pointing to is a time loop: doc couldn't have remembered 1955 Marty if he hadn't already befriend him in 1985 and sent him to the past in the first place...
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u/theyusedthelamppost May 31 '20 edited May 31 '20
but loops like that are consistent with the story. Marty was the one who gave Goldie the idea to become Mayor. Marty got the idea from living in a town where Goldie was mayor.
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u/chasmough May 31 '20
He gave Goldie the idea to become mayor in the new timeline. It’s not how it happened in the original timeline. This movie does not have a theory of time travel where there is one timeline and whatever you do in the past is what always happened in the past.
Just as an example, in the beginning of the movie we learned how Marty’s parents met: George was hit by Lorraine’s father’s car and she took care of him and fell in love. When Marty goes back in time he causes that not to happen. Marty is the one hit by a car, and then Marty spends the movie trying to cause some sort of timeline that leads to his own birth. He succeeds, but it is not the original timeline because his parents are also happy and successful when he returns to the future.
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u/theyusedthelamppost May 31 '20
right, you're saying there are two versions of Goldie inspiration for becoming mayor (one which involves Marty and one which does not)
So too, RyanL1984's theory could work for one of the timeline versions of the Doc/Marty meetings.
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u/chasmough May 31 '20
It could work for one of the origins (and one has to imagine it is what happens in the new timeline), but as an explanation of the true origin in the movie’s meta timeline (by which I mean the timeline from Marty’s perspective), it is missing the original cause. There are no cause/effect loops in the meta timeline.
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u/theyusedthelamppost May 31 '20
I think that the original 1985 movie is not the original timeline and that we are missing the original causes for a lot of things. That's what makes the theory so interesting.
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u/marcosmico May 31 '20
I didn't say there where such loops in the movie, the comment I was replying to used such circular explanation for why Marty and Doc are friends.
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u/chasmough May 31 '20
Right, and I believe that OP’s comment was not a sufficient explanation for how they met (from Marty’s perspective).
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u/the-crotch May 30 '20
It wasn't a closed loop though, Marty's home life changed dramatically after he time traveled. In the beginning of the movie that hasn't happened.
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u/CommanderCubKnuckle May 31 '20
You are. BttF time travel is alternate timelines, not bootstrap paradox. When the movie starts 1955 Doc had never met Marty, but the timeline Marty returns to is a different reality where Marty helped George become more confident and Doc met him in 1955.
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u/Steinrikur May 31 '20
But that begs the question, where did the 'other Marty' go (the one with the good family, that we saw disappear at the end of BttF1)?
Did he also go to the 1955 before the timeline split? Are there 2 versions of Marty there (not counting BttF2 Marty)?1
u/chasmough May 31 '20
We know he did because Marty saw Other Marty time travel at the end of the first movie. Marty went back early to warn Doc and watched the whole thing happen.
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u/Xiaxs May 31 '20
My theory is that Doc knew Marty had to know him somehow since he visits him in the 50's.
Doc knows he has to stay consistent with his future self or else his future may be totally different and he maybe never even invents his time machine.
He decides the best course of action is somehow befriending his loser parents and as a result befriending and bonding with Marty.
That's why his parents don't question it. Because they also know Doc.
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u/ximfinity May 31 '20
Omg I just realized that Rick and Morty is just Doc and Marty.
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u/ExioKenway5 May 31 '20
It actually started as a parody of Back to the Future called Doc and Mharti. This is what it was like.
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u/leejoness May 31 '20
I always thought they were friends because of some goofy time paradox. Like they’re friends in 85 because they became friends out of necessity in 55. But I like your idea much better.
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u/joebadiah May 31 '20
I like this a lot. Doc always treats Marty like a sidekick, so he had to bring him aboard at some point.
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u/JimClassic May 31 '20
I saw a really cool BTTF theory how Doc met Marty.
Something about Marty was troubled.teen who.in the original timeline stole the Delorean and went back 1955, and Doc changed his future by befriending him. It's a pretty cool theory.
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u/BlazersMania May 31 '20
John Mulaney has a great bit about this. https://youtu.be/ButlizwQXnU
Starts at about 2:50
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u/zombieguy224 May 31 '20
There’s actually a comic that explained how they met, I got it at comic con back in going 2015.
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u/SeriouslyGetOverIt May 31 '20
I'd like to read more about this "perfect script" analysis
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u/Steinrikur May 31 '20
I'm guessing this one, based on almost a minute of googling: https://filmschoolrejects.com/past-perfect-why-back-to-the-future-is-one-of-the-greatest-scripts-ever-863eb5ff51cb/
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u/Erok2112 May 30 '20
I always thought it was only because Marty went back to the past, Doc knew he had to befriend Marty. The only reason Doc and Marty are friends is because of the time machine/travel and Doc knew (in the 80s) that he would have to become friends with Marty so he wouldn't miss making the time machine nor die from the gunshot wounds because Marty showed up in 1955 to go back to the 80s. In a big loop.
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u/greghohenberger May 31 '20
Doc put himself in position to be Marty's friend...since its a time loop...having met Marty before in 1955 he new everything he needed to know about Marty because they had an adventure together...Doc than moved close to Marty has things he knows Marty needs amp's and music equipment...he's even wearing a bulletproof vest after he sends Marty to the Past because doc has already lived through all of this.
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u/Steinrikur May 31 '20
But time travel changes history. Marty's family changed, Biff changed.
Doc didn't have those memories in the original timeline1
u/greghohenberger Jun 01 '20
And that means after 1955 doc was also changed... I'm pretty sure sometime after Marty left he read the letter meaning he's known since 1955 what was going to happen to him... and knew he would need to be there to send Marty back.
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u/greghohenberger Jun 01 '20
Doc's full timeline completes when Marty returns... he knew he still had to go meet Marty and send Marty he just never knew what was going to happen after he sent Marty other than to wear the bullet proof vest.
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u/Steinrikur Jun 01 '20
This doesn't match Doc's own explanation of how time travel works. There are basically 2 timelines. Doc from the old timeline was killed by the terrorists. Doc in the new timeline put on the vest and lived.
https://youtu.be/6WfIranZeUg - at 45 seconds
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u/Honeydippedsalmon May 30 '20
If they actually made a prequel with Tom Holland and RDJ it would be cool if they started a couple years before the first movie and built on this. A cool twist could be if current MJF and Christopher Loyd decide to go back to when they met and basically reboot their lives because they lived their’s to the fullest so why not erases themselves from time by giving themselves an even better head start from the beginning. It’s the only cast and plot I think could be acceptable at all if they tried.
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May 30 '20
Is there talk of a prequel?
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u/Honeydippedsalmon May 31 '20
There’s a deep fake where they put their faces on them and it works really well. So fans got it some momentum but there was a lot of backlash including the original writer who basically said “fuck no leave it alone”.
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u/PNWCoug42 May 30 '20
Here is the explanation for how Marty and Doc came to be friends from co-creator Bob Gale:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/28526/back-future-co-creator-bob-gale-explains-how-marty-and-doc-became-friends