Great Scott, This is Heavy

Content: Back to the Future trilogy

Introduction: My parents got our first VCR when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. After some experimentation in recording sitcoms and cartoons, I started to record and catalogue just about every movie that came on network television. (We didn’t have cable yet.) When I noticed that a movie was coming up in prime time (usually past my bedtime), I’d set the VCR, watch it later, and then label and number the tape. I kept a catalogue. In retrospect, I don’t know the point of the exercise: Collect every movie ever made? Get up to #100 in my catalogue? Regardless, as a kid I liked projects and lists, so I started recording movies and cataloguing them. And that was how I discovered Back to the Future in the 2nd grade.

No movie inspired or captivated me more growing up than that copy of Back to the Future edited for NBC that I watched 27 times during the summer between 2nd and 3rd grades. I wanted to time travel. I wanted a flux capacitor. And above all else, I wanted a DeLorean. Nine years later, I considered forgoing my freshman year at Georgetown to fund the purchase of a used (obviously) DeLorean that a local car shop had on its front lot.

Most people think that only the first Back to the Future was worthwhile – that the second and third movies were odd or badly made – but I disagree. Each is different, but each is wonderful. The first is the best film. The second is a theoretically complicated and interesting time travel story. And the third is a western. I love them all, never failing to be sucked in for at least a little while when the trilogy is the Hangover Special on TBS. And I want Dream to love them too.

Dream’s Age at Introduction: 10

Reason for That Age: I was first exposed to Back to the Future at age 8, but it was all NBCed up to remove references to vaginas, or something like that. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing too objectionable, but just in case I’ll bump it up a couple years for Dream. Plus, when the second and third movies came out in theaters, I was about 10. It’s a good age to become obsessed with a movie.

What I Want Dream to Get Out of It: Oh, where to begin! I want Dream to love DeLoreans and Doc Brown and Marty McFly and Hill Valley, California. I want Dream to hate Biff Tannen and feel overwhelming pity for wimpy original timeline George McFly. I hope Dream starts to wonder about the 4th dimension and dream (hey – a pun!) that centuries are doors and decades windows. This movie sent my head spinning around what could be possible if we expanded how and when we travel. I hope the same thing happens to Dream.

Be content,
John