The Importance of Character Arcs - Back to the Future character study
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- čas přidán 23. 06. 2024
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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.
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.
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.
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
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
If you can write a character as fun as Marty McFly or Ferris Bueller, it would be a crime to change them.
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
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.
Nice video
Good stuff, lets go Monsters >:)