Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

About a month ago, I had a small realization about one of C-3PO's comments in The Empire Strikes Back.  The Rebels become concerned when Luke Skywalker fails to return from placing sensors on Hoth, and in order to re-assure R2-D2, C-3PO says, "Of course, we'll see Master Luke again, and he'll be quite alright; you'll see!"  Then, to himself, he remarks, "Stupid little short circuit.  He'll be quite alright."  The second half of C-3PO's repeated copulative sentence exhibits assonance ("quite alright"), and this provides a sense of thoroughness or completeness, which matches the meaning in a way.

Back to the Future Part III

I recently re-watched the Back to the Future trilogy, and for the first time, I noticed a small element that may contribute to the change in Marty McFly's character near the end of Part III.

In Back to the Future Part II, Marty's intense reaction to being called chicken is introduced.  His mother Lorraine explains, "Your father's biggest problem, Marlene, is that he loses all self-control when someone calls him chicken," and this happens twice in the movie, once with Griff ("Nobody calls me chicken") and once with Needles ("Nobody calls me chicken, Needles, nobody!").

This trait also appears in Part III, just with the term slightly altered in order to fit the new time period.  Now, Marty's response to Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen's taunts is "Nobody calls me yellow."  The two agree to settle their differences in a duel on Monday, although Marty thinks that he and Doc Brown will have already gone back to the future by then.

Marty's ancestor Seamus tries to dissuade him from fighting Tannen:  "You could have just walked away, and nobody would have thought the less of you for it.  All it would have been was words, hot air from a buffoon.  Instead, you let him rile you, rile you into playing his game, his way, by his rules."  Seamus's wife Maggie comments that Marty (whom they know as "Clint Eastwood") reminds her of Seamus's brother Martin, and Seamus explains that "Martin used to let men provoke him into fighting.  He was concerned that people would think him a coward if he refused; that's how he got a Bowie knife shoved through his belly in a saloon in Virginia City."

Later, Doc Brown gives Marty advice in a similar vein:  "Marty, you can't go losing your judgement every time someone calls you a name.  That's exactly what causes you to get into that accident in the future."

When the time for the confrontation comes, Marty is too busy trying to revive Doc (out cold from drinking a single shot of whiskey) to deal with Tannen, and when he looks at the photograph of Doc's tombstone that he brought back from 1955, he sees that it now has his own name (or rather his alias "Clint Eastwood") and tries to forfeit.  Tannen renews his insults ("I think you ain't nothin' but a gutless yellow turd, and I'm givin' you to the count of ten to come out here and prove I'm wrong"), but this time Marty keeps his head and says to the crowd in the saloon, "I don't care what Tannen says, and I don't care what anybody else says, either."  He maintains this mindset when he returns to 1985, and he doesn't race his new truck against Needles, thereby avoiding a crash with a Rolls-Royce.

The change in Marty's character seems to result from a combination of these factors (the knowledge of a dead relative with the same name and impulsive tendency, Doc's hint at a future accident, the tight time schedule available to Marty and Doc to meet the train they need to push the Delorean down the track so they can go back to the future, and the photograph of the tombstone that seems to foretell his death), but there may be an additional, more subtle cause.

Shortly after Marty first encounters Tannen, he's able to identify him because he overhears the bartender call him "Mr. Tannen."  He remembers him from a video playing in Biff's museum in Part II and says, "You're 'Mad Dog' Tannen."  To this, Tannen replies, "'Mad Dog.'  I hate that name.  I hate it, ya hear?  Nobody calls me 'Mad Dog'!" and then proceeds to shoot up the floor in front of Marty.  Tannen's response to being called "Mad Dog" ("Nobody calls me 'Mad Dog'" followed by a violent outburst) is basically the same as Marty's response to being called chicken ("Nobody calls me chicken" followed by a lack of good judgement).  Marty may recognize that he shares this trait with someone he dislikes and consequently re-evaluate and change himself.

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It also occurred to me that McFly is an appropriate name in light of the movies' theme of family relationships, particularly between father and son, because the "Mc-" prefix comes from the Gaelic word mac, which means son.

E.T.

I recently ran across a reference to E.T.* and started wondering about some of the characters' names.  I rewatched the movie earlier this week in order to refamiliarize myself with it.

The movie is about an alien who accidentally gets left behind on earth and subsequently forms a close relationship with a boy named Elliott.  Elliott gives the alien the name E.T. (for "extra terrestrial").

Throughout the movie, there are many instances where their close relationship is illustrated.  Shortly after they meet, E.T. mimics Elliott's movements as they get to know each other.  In one scene (even called "A Psychic Link" on the chapter menu on the DVD), while Elliott is at school, he seems to experience what E.T. is doing at home.  Later, when Elliott's brother Michael comments that E.T. "doesn't look too good anymore," Elliott brushes this off with, "Don't say that; we're fine!" and Michael replies, "What's all this 'we' stuff?  You say, 'We' all the time now."  When government officials discover E.T. and invade the family's house, asking probing questions, Michael tries to explain that "Elliott feels his feelings," and one scientist comments, "EEG analysis shows complete coherence and synchronization of brain wave activity between both subjects."

I realized that, in a small way, their names point to this sort of symbiosis, too:  both start and end with the same letters.

I also noticed a couple small references.  First, the DVD cover, which is apparently one of the original posters for the movie, bears some resemblance to a detail in The Creation of Adam, part of Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Second, when E.T. sees a kid dressed up as Yoda for Halloween, there's a brief quotation in the soundtrack of Yoda's theme from The Empire Strikes Back.  Both soundtracks were composed by John Williams.

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*In I'm Told I Had a Good Time: The Micky Dolenz Archives, Volume One (page 429), Dolenz comments that Allen Daviau, who was the cameraman for the production company that he started in 1975, was later the cinematographer for E.T.  In the movie's credits, he's listed as "Director of Photography."