MovieChat Forums > Back to the Future (1985) Discussion > Complaints about parents remembering Mar...

Complaints about parents remembering Marty

posted 9 years ago by boatlandmore
12 replies | jump to latest

I'm 43 & I met my wife in High School in 1991. At the time she was dating someone else but there was a girlfriend of her's that pushed my future wife to dump him & go out with me. It took 4 months, but she did & the rest they say, is history. With that said, even tho this girl Jennifer was so instrumental in us eventually getting married, I don't remember exactly what she looked like. If 10 girls that looked like her were standing in front of me now, I'd have trouble picking her out of the crowd. I'd have to look at my wife's yearbook & find her there. My point is that its' not entirely out of the relm of possibility that the Mcflys wouldn't see Marty for who he was after 30 years worth of other life events took place. It could happen.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] boatlandmore 9 years ago

Some memories fade in time & some don't

[–] mcp-69798 9 years ago

You're right. George and Lorraine only interacted with Marty HOURS, during one week in 1955. They also believe it was Biff the one that helped them to fall in love, not Marty. Besides, even if they somehow remember "Calvin Klein"... they're not going to think "hey, our son is a time traveler!", just that this stranger they met 30 years ago resembled Marty, that's all.

[–] buddyboy28 9 years ago

Some people remember things well, some don't, isn't a lazy explanation, it's just a fact of life.

I've been sat with relatives no older than 45, and they're talking about an old friend from years ago they haven't seen for ages, and they're arguing about how the guy looked. How tall he was, how big his nose was etc.

Even if you can vaguely remember soneone's apperance, can you watch that person grow from a baby into a 17 year old while every now and then, looking at photos of them as little kids, no doubt with grandparents/parents genetics in their features and join the dots?

I've never had a problem with that aspect of the movie myself because again, everyone's different.

You can also put it down to George and Lorraine smoked a lot of pot in the 60's, which ironically was in the original BTTF 2 script when Marty went back there to see Lorraine 

[–] doowopfan 9 years ago

I agree and disagree. The part I agree with is that George and Loraine knew Marty for only a week thirty years before. But as for remembering people you haven't seen in forever, facebook kind of supports that can happen. I have found people, or they have found me, I went to middle school with and haven't seen since and that was 1993. 23 years so not quite 30 but still, people I haven't seen in almost a quarter of a century but when i see their pictures or names, I immediately remember them and recognize them. So I don't think it is that it would have been absurd to think George and Loraine should remember Marty if they had known him longer than a week. But that short of a time? Eh,...

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I did sixty in five minutes once...

[–] Totemkauf 9 years ago

If 10 girls that looked like her were standing in front of me now, I'd have trouble picking her out of the crowd

But that wouldn't be the same situation. In that situation you are given 9 other girls that look the same and are being reminded of her and told to pick her out.

The same situation would be if you saw 1 girl , who looked/sounded/acted like her, if it would even cross your mind who she resembled. And as much as we'd all like to think we'd know what we would remember, you can't really know for certain unless it actually happens.

Actually the situation would also call for that one girl to be a kid you are familiar with now, who you've known since she was born.

[–] Ashaod43 8 years ago

I would agree if Biff wasn't in the mix. I would think with Biff being the thing that got them together they would remember everything from that night. Just like lea remembers the dance. Women eat those memories up and would hardly forget. At the end of the day it's a movie and you have to let some of that stuff go.

[–] buddyboy28 8 years ago

I would think with Biff being the thing that got them together they would remember everything from that night

Not once does the end of the movie suggest they don't remember everything that night or even Calvin himself.

All Lorraine says is that without Biff they wouldn't have fallen in love.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Memory is a fickle thing, and it often discards things that are neither repeated, nor useful in your daily life, unless there's a big emotional impact associate with it.

Even if you see someone a lot for many years, and then suddenly don't see that individual for twenty years (let alone 30), you can forget completely how they looked like.

I was 'spotted' one day, by someone I didn't remember the name or face of. The face was 'slightly familiar', but I couldn't remember where I know that face from, and if I had only seen the face, I would not have realized I know it, it would've been just another face in the crowd of faces.

And yet we spent a lot of time with this individual, we had projects, we met multiple times for the duration of the day, had discussions, did all kinds of stuff. It lasted for years, and yet, 20 years later, it took many explanations, 'don't you remember we did this and that' to sloooowly regain my memory about that particular entity. "Oh yeah, we did used to do that"..

If I had reproduced, had a son, that grew up to be a teenager, while I saw him every day, slowly changing into that very face, I would definitely NOT have reacted to it in any particular way, other than 'it's my son's face'. I wouldn't have been like "HEY! Why does my son face look EXACTLY like that individual's face from 20 years ago?!?!".

Even if I saw the very individual, I would've just been like "hey, your face looks very similar to my sons face, that's funny", and not think more about it.

Marty's parents saw him for a VERY short period of time every time they met, and chronologically speaking only for a week. Not a lot of exposure every day. And some of that was under the influence of alcohol.

This is the MOST ridiculous "plot hole" nag of all time. I am all for nitpicking errors and stupidities in movies, and asking questions about movie stories and plots and whatnot, but THIS thing is not even remotely close to any kind of flaw, plothole or stupidity.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

It's easy to ask that question ONLY because we, as the audience, see Marty's parents as young people at one moment, and the next, we see them being 'adults' and Marty looking the same at both points in time.

We see both points immediately next to each other, but THEY had to wait thirty-friggin'-years to experience the other point. Try watching the 'Young versions of Marty's parents' scene, then waiting 30 years before starting to watch the 'Adult versions of Marty's parents' scene, and see if you can remember exactly how some extra in the 1950s scene looked like or what not.

[–] hurricane (1967) 6 years ago

I've always found it completely plausible that they didn't make the connection that Marty was the guy they knew 30 years earlier called Calvin Klein.

I'm sure they'd remember Calvin, but as said they only knew him for a week then he vanished from their lives for ever. I'm not sure in those circumstances I'd remember exactly what he looked like. It's not a case of forgetting his existence, just whether they remembered exactly what he looked like.

And even if they did notice a resemblance between 1985 Marty and 1955 Calvin Klein, so what? It's not like they're going to go; "Hey, the guy we knew 30 years ago looks like our son. The only possible explanation is that he traveled back in time and met us when we were school children." They're more likely to write it off as a coincidence. For all we know, they'd mentioned it to Marty previously. Just because they don't mention it in the scene where Marty returns home and meets his improved family for the first time, it doesn't mean it's never been mentioned.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (15135) 6 years ago

Actually, coming from someone who has an extensive memory, most people don't remember small details like that over the decades. I'm kind of a rarity in remembering a lot of details that people around me have forgotten over the decades. The only way I can remember how a person looks is if their face had a strong impact on me, which was how I was able to tell at age 13, that a baby-sitter who cared for me when I was 3 had not changed one bit in her appearance.

So it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for George and Lorraine to have gradually lost their memories of "Calvin Klein's" appearance over the years.