Marty is a paragon, the mentor for his dad. Having a paragon as your protagonist means telling the story from the mentor’s perspective. The mentor doesn’t need to change, since he usually already embodies the truth. Occasionally, though, neither the mentor nor the student is completely right, but the truth is in the middle in between them.
The protagonist of the first movie is George, in the second movie it’s Biff and in the third it’s Doc.. That’s why Marty doesn’t have an arc, it’s not about him, he’s just the cameraman. The Dude also doesn’t have an arc in The Big Lebowski, it’s very hard to effectively pull off this kind of narrative but those movies did it with flying colors.
How do you figure Biff to be a protagonist in any movie? He's the dictionary definition of an antagonist. He is self serving, violent, and even murderous. He tries to kill Marty with his car multiple times, and even killed Marty's father.
Marty's arc is there, but it's not as simple as "character learns a lesson and changes." It's a little more subtle than that. In the beginning, he's a cool kid with an extremely uncool family, and the uncoolness of his family gives him some insecurity that it will be hard to escape that kind of life, that he'll inevitably be sucked into it and have to be a dysfunctional dork like the rest of them (which is what happens to him in part 2 in 2015 after his car crash. He loses confidence and becomes a dorky middle aged man). This is all given voice in that scene where Marty is complaining to Jennifer about his insecurity over how his band won't be successful because he'll make a fool of himself. He sees the writing on the wall, and in a way, his future feels written, inevitable, despite the fact that he tells Strickland "history is about to change." His rejection at the audition cements that impression for him. But part 1 is where the thing Doc says at the end of 3 happens. "Your future is whatever you make it." Marty gets taken out of his comfortable tragedy and planted into an uncomfortable new reality of having to try to get his loser parents to fall in love with each other, an Herculean task. In the process, he changes history, and his whole family becomes cool in the future, but narratively, this was his reward for learning a lesson. Through encouraging his dad to become a better person, he has gained confidence, and encouraged himself to be a better person, regardless of what other people (like Biff) think. That's why he doesn't think twice about singing Johnny B. Goode onstage after previously being very defeatist about his musical career and his life. When you believe in yourself, anything can happen. Your whole reality can change around you, and that's what happened to Marty at the end of the movie. Giving his Dad hope ended up giving him hope. So there definitely is a satisfying arc for this character, but it's not the main focus of the story. It's just there to give the story a little more resonance in the end. To make Marty have a journey that meant something for him.
another example would be ferris bueller, we see an arc in cameron which ik has been talked about to death on youtube but i think that your point about silliness also applies here
It's interesting, 'cause part of the reason why Eric Stoltz got the boot and was replaced with Michael J. Fox was that he tried to inject ill-fitting characterisation into the script, believing Marty's story was a tragic one, 'cause he remembers a world which no longer exists.
A really well made video, glad the algorithm happened to shove this onto my homepage after listening to Johnny B. Goode, I hope your interest in film continues, we all have a hidden aspiration to make a mark on the world, and you seem creatively inspired enough to be big someday! Subscribed, and I hope to see you on my homepage again soon!
Why must characters change? Open Coriolanus for example - Titus Lartius doesn't change, which end as it should be in such case. And historical movies could be watched for reconstruction of aesthetics of the epoche, like Maria Antoinette by Sophia Coppola. Where also no arch of a character portrayed by Kirsten Danst.
Ghostbusters: None of the three leads have arcs. They show zero change or growth. Trading places: Winthorpe is the same exact person in the end, and thats kind of the point. He was incapable of change. He couldn't adapt. And when confronted with what happened to him, his instinct was to go and murder the Dukes.
So you edited in clicking noises in the video, and other noises. This is highly annoying and takes me out of the video. And then there’s the over loud jazz music in the background. I can’t finish the video.
But Marty does have a clear arc in the first movie. In the first act he’s crippled by his fear of failure, no doubt because he was raised by a cowardly pushover who was held back by the exact same fear. See the scene in the town square with Jennifer, discussing his fear of sending his audition tape to a record company: “I mean, I just don’t think I can take that kind of rejection.” The same line is spoken by George in the cafeteria later in the movie. George’s life has been shaped by his fear of failure; giving up on his dream to write science fiction, his terror of asking Lorraine to the dance, etc. In 1985 we see that it’s influenced the lives of his entire family, who are pretty much all losers. Don’t try, because if you try you may fail. Marty’s arc is overcoming that fear and coming to embrace Doc Brown’s credo: “If you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything.” It’s maybe not as clean and well sign-posted as it could be, and in II and III they move onto the whole ‘chicken’ nonsense, but the first movie ends with Marty seeing the results of his actions. He’s learned that failing to try can only lead to failure.
Marty does have an arc, although a simple one in the first film. In the opening, Marty finds out that Doc's clocks are 25 minutes slow, and that he's late for school. When he arrives, Jennifer mentions that if he's caught again that would be 4 tardy slips, so it wasn't that Doc's clocks were slow for Marty to be late. He's always late. When he's going to go back to 1985, he resets the time to get back 10 minutes early, so Marty goes from always being late to now getting somewhere early.
WHEN there's a Back to the Future reboot, the DeLorean time machine will become a Tesla Cybertruck time machine. Like the DeLorean, the Cybertruck is known for poor reliability, poor on-road performance, and stainless-steel panels. And like the DeLorean, reaching 88 MPH in a Cybertruck is fantasy. Hollywood has gone broke, now, so a race and gender swapped Back to the Future won't happen--though it could. Marty wakes up feeling that something is wrong, but she puts it down to that time of the month. Doc Brown needs Marty's help to return things back the way they were because a time machine experiment went awry. Will Doc Brown and Marty be able to restore the one true timeline, or will they only make things worse? There's your character arc. Can use all new actors, any age or gender or race. Have two sets of actors--the "real" Marty and all the characters in the old timeline, and the alternate Marty. But, when the timeline resets, will the "real" Marty be changed?
As others have said, there is such a thing as a "flat" character arc. In the case of BttF, Marty is the change agent. He's the catalyst for the arcs in the other characters (primarily George's). And he's the change agent by being himself. And through helping others change, he changes in himself ever-so-slightly. It does take the whole trilogy for his arc to be complete. But he's not really the main character in any of the movies. In the first movie, the main character really is George, not Marty. Instead, Marty is the "point-of-view" character. He's in essence Watson from Sherlock Holmes or Ishmael from Moby Dick. He's telling the story, he's involved in the story, he's even the most seen character in the story. But the story isn't about him.
Another character who doesn’t really have an arc is arguably Captain America in the First Avenger film, that’s kinda the point of the character but it just works. You could argue both Marty and Cap just get more confidence in their own abilities as their films go on, whilst supporting characters have their arcs
In movies Bill Murray always has an arc, and Chevy Chase does not. Both work in their own way. Another way to put it is: some characters are just on a journey and need to change to succeed, but some don't.
Marty is a paragon, the mentor for his dad. Having a paragon as your protagonist means telling the story from the mentor’s perspective. The mentor doesn’t need to change, since he usually already embodies the truth. Occasionally, though, neither the mentor nor the student is completely right, but the truth is in the middle in between them.
The protagonist of the first movie is George, in the second movie it’s Biff and in the third it’s Doc..
That’s why Marty doesn’t have an arc, it’s not about him, he’s just the cameraman.
The Dude also doesn’t have an arc in The Big Lebowski, it’s very hard to effectively pull off this kind of narrative but those movies did it with flying colors.
The Dude may well be the best example.
How do you figure Biff to be a protagonist in any movie?
He's the dictionary definition of an antagonist.
He is self serving, violent, and even murderous. He tries to kill Marty with his car multiple times, and even killed Marty's father.
@@We_Are_Borg_478 he was defending his property from a thief.
@@We_Are_Borg_478 Biff is the main character of the second movie, everything revolves around him and is about him.
@@NikSoren
He is the main plot device, agreed.
But protagonist means the hero of the story.
Biff is definitely an antagonist which is the bad guy.
Marty's arc is there, but it's not as simple as "character learns a lesson and changes." It's a little more subtle than that. In the beginning, he's a cool kid with an extremely uncool family, and the uncoolness of his family gives him some insecurity that it will be hard to escape that kind of life, that he'll inevitably be sucked into it and have to be a dysfunctional dork like the rest of them (which is what happens to him in part 2 in 2015 after his car crash. He loses confidence and becomes a dorky middle aged man). This is all given voice in that scene where Marty is complaining to Jennifer about his insecurity over how his band won't be successful because he'll make a fool of himself. He sees the writing on the wall, and in a way, his future feels written, inevitable, despite the fact that he tells Strickland "history is about to change." His rejection at the audition cements that impression for him.
But part 1 is where the thing Doc says at the end of 3 happens. "Your future is whatever you make it." Marty gets taken out of his comfortable tragedy and planted into an uncomfortable new reality of having to try to get his loser parents to fall in love with each other, an Herculean task. In the process, he changes history, and his whole family becomes cool in the future, but narratively, this was his reward for learning a lesson. Through encouraging his dad to become a better person, he has gained confidence, and encouraged himself to be a better person, regardless of what other people (like Biff) think. That's why he doesn't think twice about singing Johnny B. Goode onstage after previously being very defeatist about his musical career and his life. When you believe in yourself, anything can happen. Your whole reality can change around you, and that's what happened to Marty at the end of the movie. Giving his Dad hope ended up giving him hope.
So there definitely is a satisfying arc for this character, but it's not the main focus of the story. It's just there to give the story a little more resonance in the end. To make Marty have a journey that meant something for him.
another example would be ferris bueller, we see an arc in cameron which ik has been talked about to death on youtube but i think that your point about silliness also applies here
It's interesting, 'cause part of the reason why Eric Stoltz got the boot and was replaced with Michael J. Fox was that he tried to inject ill-fitting characterisation into the script, believing Marty's story was a tragic one, 'cause he remembers a world which no longer exists.
Oh wow, I always knew of the role switch with Eric Stoltz but never knew that was part of it, super interesting thank you
A really well made video, glad the algorithm happened to shove this onto my homepage after listening to Johnny B. Goode, I hope your interest in film continues, we all have a hidden aspiration to make a mark on the world, and you seem creatively inspired enough to be big someday! Subscribed, and I hope to see you on my homepage again soon!
Thank you so much! Very kind words, I hope all is well in your world!
Why must characters change? Open Coriolanus for example - Titus Lartius doesn't change, which end as it should be in such case. And historical movies could be watched for reconstruction of aesthetics of the epoche, like Maria Antoinette by Sophia Coppola. Where also no arch of a character portrayed by Kirsten Danst.
Ghostbusters: None of the three leads have arcs. They show zero change or growth.
Trading places: Winthorpe is the same exact person in the end, and thats kind of the point. He was incapable of change. He couldn't adapt. And when confronted with what happened to him, his instinct was to go and murder the Dukes.
I’m going to ignore the sequels so I can make a video and pretend to be smart.
Amazing video
Nice video
So you edited in clicking noises in the video, and other noises. This is highly annoying and takes me out of the video. And then there’s the over loud jazz music in the background.
I can’t finish the video.
5:29 - :30 Seriously?
One quick critique, Marty does have an arc. He has a flat character arc. He stays the same, and changes the world and characters around him.
I think the chicken thing is his arc, how he overcame that
Lately I've thought that the film is more about George McFly than Marty. 🤔
@@RichieW90210Yeah, but that was only in the sequels. It wasn't a thing in the original movie.
@@somerandomguy2073yeah and the 1st movie wasn’t originally meant to have sequels. So you should be able to view it as a standalone movie.
If you can write a character as fun as Marty McFly or Ferris Bueller, it would be a crime to change them.
But Marty does have a clear arc in the first movie. In the first act he’s crippled by his fear of failure, no doubt because he was raised by a cowardly pushover who was held back by the exact same fear. See the scene in the town square with Jennifer, discussing his fear of sending his audition tape to a record company: “I mean, I just don’t think I can take that kind of rejection.” The same line is spoken by George in the cafeteria later in the movie. George’s life has been shaped by his fear of failure; giving up on his dream to write science fiction, his terror of asking Lorraine to the dance, etc. In 1985 we see that it’s influenced the lives of his entire family, who are pretty much all losers. Don’t try, because if you try you may fail.
Marty’s arc is overcoming that fear and coming to embrace Doc Brown’s credo: “If you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything.”
It’s maybe not as clean and well sign-posted as it could be, and in II and III they move onto the whole ‘chicken’ nonsense, but the first movie ends with Marty seeing the results of his actions. He’s learned that failing to try can only lead to failure.
Marty does have an arc, although a simple one in the first film. In the opening, Marty finds out that Doc's clocks are 25 minutes slow, and that he's late for school. When he arrives, Jennifer mentions that if he's caught again that would be 4 tardy slips, so it wasn't that Doc's clocks were slow for Marty to be late. He's always late.
When he's going to go back to 1985, he resets the time to get back 10 minutes early, so Marty goes from always being late to now getting somewhere early.
WHEN there's a Back to the Future reboot, the DeLorean time machine will become a Tesla Cybertruck time machine. Like the DeLorean, the Cybertruck is known for poor reliability, poor on-road performance, and stainless-steel panels. And like the DeLorean, reaching 88 MPH in a Cybertruck is fantasy.
Hollywood has gone broke, now, so a race and gender swapped Back to the Future won't happen--though it could. Marty wakes up feeling that something is wrong, but she puts it down to that time of the month. Doc Brown needs Marty's help to return things back the way they were because a time machine experiment went awry. Will Doc Brown and Marty be able to restore the one true timeline, or will they only make things worse? There's your character arc. Can use all new actors, any age or gender or race. Have two sets of actors--the "real" Marty and all the characters in the old timeline, and the alternate Marty.
But, when the timeline resets, will the "real" Marty be changed?
As others have said, there is such a thing as a "flat" character arc. In the case of BttF, Marty is the change agent. He's the catalyst for the arcs in the other characters (primarily George's). And he's the change agent by being himself. And through helping others change, he changes in himself ever-so-slightly. It does take the whole trilogy for his arc to be complete. But he's not really the main character in any of the movies. In the first movie, the main character really is George, not Marty. Instead, Marty is the "point-of-view" character. He's in essence Watson from Sherlock Holmes or Ishmael from Moby Dick. He's telling the story, he's involved in the story, he's even the most seen character in the story. But the story isn't about him.
Another character who doesn’t really have an arc is arguably Captain America in the First Avenger film, that’s kinda the point of the character but it just works.
You could argue both Marty and Cap just get more confidence in their own abilities as their films go on, whilst supporting characters have their arcs
In movies Bill Murray always has an arc, and Chevy Chase does not. Both work in their own way. Another way to put it is: some characters are just on a journey and need to change to succeed, but some don't.
Back to the Future is worth comparing to 78's Superman.
Marty McFly: Time Pimp 😎
Good stuff, lets go Monsters >:)