A throwaway line that Doc Brown says to Marty McFly when he shows him the DeLorean in the first 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.

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.”

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

Marty looking off-screen as Doc finds the almanac in Back to the Future Part II

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.

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Back to the Future
PG
Adventure
Comedy
Sci-Fi
10/10
205
9.2/10
Release Date
July 3, 1985
Runtime
116 minutes
Director
Robert Zemeckis

Cast

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Back to the Future follows teenager Marty McFly as he is inadvertently sent back to 1955, where he disrupts his parents' meeting. With the assistance of eccentric inventor Doc Brown, Marty must restore the timeline by ensuring his parents fall in love and find a way back to 1985.