1 Clever Back To The Future Line Predicts The Second Movie's Entire Plot (2024)

A throwaway line that Doc Brown says to Marty McFly when he shows him the DeLorean in the first Back to the Future movie slyly foreshadowed the almanac storyline for the sequel. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s Back to the Future script is a masterclass in plant-and-payoff; almost everything in the movie is a setup that builds to a payoff later on. Lorraine telling her kids how she fell in love with George ends up being key to Marty’s plan to ensure they get together when he goes back in time to 1955 and starts being erased from existence.

Doc’s Harold Lloyd clock sets up the Safety Last! parody at the clock tower in the big finale. Marty’s skateboard rolling into a case of plutonium sets up Doc’s armed standoff with the Libyans he stole it from. There’s a ton of intentional foreshadowing in Back to the Future. But since Zemeckis and Gale had no plans for a sequel when they were making the first one, there’s a great bit of foreshadowing for Back to the Future Part II that had to be a coincidence.

Doc Brown Sets Up Back To The Future Part II's Story Early In The First Movie

Doc Hints That He Could Use The Time Machine To Make Money On Sports Bets

One of the most iconic scenes in Back to the Future sees Doc showing Marty the DeLorean in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall. When he’s trying to illustrate the infinite possibilities allowed by the time machine, Doc tells Marty, “I’ll also be able to see who wins the next 25 World Series.” He’s implying that he could use the time machine to see 25 future World Series winners, then come back to the present and place huge bets on all of them to become a millionaire.

This foreshadows the plot of the sequel. In the first act of Back to the Future Part II, when Doc takes Marty to 2015, Marty buys a sports almanac with the intention of placing bets on the winners of future games once they return to the present. When an older Biff Tannen finds the almanac and the time machine, he goes back to 1985 and branches out an alternate timeline in which he becomes a rich tyrant who rules Hill Valley with an iron fist.

Back To The Future Part II Makes Doc Brown Out To Be A Hypocrite

Doc Suddenly Takes The Moral High Ground

The fact that Doc suggested using the time machine to get rich off of future sporting events in the first Back to the Future film makes him a massive hypocrite in the sequel. Whereas Doc seemed interested in profiting from knowing sports results in the first movie, he chastises Marty for trying the same thing in Part II. Doc openly said that he was planning to do exactly that as soon as he unveiled his time machine.

Your Rating

10 stars9 stars8 stars7 stars6 star5 stars4 stars3 stars2 stars1 star

Rate Now

0/10

Leave a Review

Your comment has not been saved

10/10

15

8.8/10

Back to the Future

PG

Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. In 1955, he meets his parents when they were his age, and must step in to make sure they wind up together before he gets back to 1985.

Director

Robert Zemeckis

Cast

Claudia Wells , Christopher Lloyd , James Tolkan , Thomas F. Wilson , Michael J. Fox , Wendie Jo Sperber , Crispin Glover , Marc McClure , Lea Thompson

Runtime

116 minutes

See Also

DB Sparking Zero - What If Guide, How to Unlock All Sparking Episodes