DOC BROWN SUICIDAL?

BACK TO THE FUTURE:

WHAT IF DOC BROWN WAS 

SUICIDAL?? 

1985: The first time we see scientist Doc Brown is when Marty goes to meet him in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall. To Marty's surprise the back of Doc's van opens, sending out huge plumes of coolant gas into the air. 

A car reverses down the ramp. Some sort of souped-up Delorean. The door opens revealing the inside is also full of coolant gas from the rear vent ejectors. Toxic if you breathed it long enough. 

Doc appears a little flustered, out of it. But at sight of Marty regains his composure. After all history is about to be made. Literally. So begins an adventure of a life-time. Or several in fact.  

But heres what really bakes the noodle. What if Doc Brown was trying to gas himself in his own failed time machine? But then thought better of it? 

Think about it. He'd lost everything building a time machine in his garage and he wasn't even sure if it would work. 

He'd lost so much already: His mansion burned to the ground in a devastating fire, destroying family heirlooms and leaving no legacy. 

Was it arson? Biff? The real-estate agents? Who knows. But he lost his entire fortune, went bankrupt and had to sell the property to real-estate developers hungry to rip-up Hill Valley. That alone might have crushed lesser men. But not Doctor Emmett Brown. 

For the next three decades he resided in a tiny garage littered with furniture from his beloved mansion that no longer existed. 

Meanwhile the world around him changed radically. The 1980s had signalled the end of Mom and Pop businesses in the wake of corporate take-overs. 

Where grass and trees and fields once stood, now concrete and noise. Truckers roaring passed his window at all hours.  

The Hill Valley he once loved had traded its 1950's soul to modernity. Like many residents Old Man Peabody sold off his property. Miles of farmland as far as the eye could see - just gone. Now a huge carpark. 

 

The local hardware store became a Walmart. Chains like McDonalds killed-off the cool little teen hot-spots like Lous Cafe. 

The grassy Courthouse Square and war memorial removed and paved over for yet another parking lot. 

Motorways ripped-up the suburbs. The wholesome community dissipated under the grinding wheels of advancement. No more Howdy-Doody-Time. Just MTV and the stark reality of Reaganism. 

Hill Valley was no longer 'a nice place to live'. Just another truckers-stop. A place kids wanted to get away from as soon as they were old enough. Kids like Marty McFly.  

So all that time the Doc lived alone, no family, nothing but his dog. He'd sacrificed everything clinging to a hope that his Flux Capacitor would make time travel possible. 

If it did work he could see where all this advancement was going. View firsthand what future lay before mankind. 

Part of him was excited by the prospect while another part felt terrified. What if no blade of grass remained? What if the whole damned world had become one giant parking lot? 

Well maybe there was nothing for it but to go back into the past and be done with it. Find somewhere that made sense. And maybe peace of mind. 

That was the dream. 

But he had to overcome his own doubts first. What if he really was ...crazy? 

Then one day Marty McFly rocks-up into his life on something called a skateboard, listening to something called VanHalen on something called a walkman. Just some dumb kid from the rotting suburbs. But the only person in the whole world who believed in him. Marty gave him strength. So Doc finished the time machine.  

But maybe that fateful night a beleaguered Doc sat in the Delorean and doubted himself once again. What if his calculations were wrong? Jesus. This was insane. 

What the hell am I doing? I've just built a time machine - out of a Delorean?! Stolen nuclear pellets to power it and now Im in cahoots with Libyan terrorists!  

Maybe during that anxiety attack, he flicked some switches and filled the car with coolant gas? He breathed it in. Started feeling drowsy. To hell with it all. 

The voices were right. He was no inventor. He was sixty-five years old! Just another crazy crack-pot who'd wasted his entire life chasing windmills blowing in the American dream. A dream now made of asphalt and concrete. 

But then something stopped him. Maybe the fear of death. Maybe the buzz from the Flux Capacitor, fluxing. 

Maybe because Marty was coming to see him at 1:15am and the last thing that kid needed was finding his best friend dead from car fumes. All his doubts had to go. It was time to man-up and face the music. 

If his calculations were correct, at 88-miles per hour - they were going to see some serious shit. The rest as they say is history. 

TIM BURTONS PLANET OF THE APES

The forgotten Ape Movie.

Tim Burton’s re-imagining of

PLANET OF THE APES.

Most Gen Z's have probably seen Rick Jaffas Apes Trilogy, re-affirming simian dominance with its CGI apes. And as great as those movies are, they probably wouldn't have happened at all, if it wasn't for the ground-work laid down in Tim Burtons Planet of the Apes Re-boot. 

A movie largely forgotten in the wake of swanky CGI superstars such as Jacksons King Kong and Golem from Lord of the Rings, putting all physical make-up prosthetics to shame. But lets look at a simpler time. When CGI knew its place.  

It was the year 2001 and Burtons re-imagining of  Planet of the Apes  was released to an unsuspecting public. But news soon spread. 

I remember this movie was a big deal at the time. The first Ape movie since the 1970s? Wow. And directed by Tim Burton - master of the reboot - such as the Batman franchise. Not to mention Mark Wahlberg and Helen Bonham Carter. So the stakes were high and I was excited to see this re-boot.

DEVELOPMENTAL HELL

A re-boot that was some thirteen years in the making. Originally helmed by indy film-maker Adam Rifkin, he envisioned a more Gladiator Roman Empire approach. It almost happened too, with Rick Baker doing all the make-up.

That is until the suits got cold feet and cancelled the idea. Over the next few years the film fell into developmental hell, seeing various directors come and go, including Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi and Oliver Stone. Even James Cameron was in talks. Various ideas were put before the suits but nothing came of it.

Finally in 1999 Tim Burton agreed to do the job, with renewed interest from Rick Baker.

To save money the suits wanted CGI apes but Burton insisted on Bakers prosthetics. It would be the last time actors would wear make-up in an ape movie.

APE SCHOOL

While the sets were being built, the actors attended ‘Ape School’. An attempt to focus the actors into their characters. Principle actors Eli Roth and Helen Bonham Carter would learn to ride horses and work on simian attributes.

‘It was like going back to Drama school’ Reflected Carter.

For six weeks they had to learn to walk like an ape and make such gestures second nature. 

RELEASE

2001: A long queue stretched round the block. Eager fans waiting to get inside the cinema. And for what it was this movie was a fun roller-coaster ride.

Still from a critics standpoint it felt a little rushed, lacking character development and the slow pacing and realism of the original. 

I just wish it was given more space to breath. Probably should have had a couple of sequels. But hey.

WAHLBERG VS HESTON

Mark Wahlberg plays the ace hero - a stark contrast to the flawed and more realistic character of Charlton Hestons cynical Taylor: a world-weary dude tired of society and just glad to see the back of 20th Century Earth.

Taylor evolved. He started out as a jaded idealist searching for something better than man, but soon learns the hard truth about Ape society and ends up defending a world that he once turned his back on.

In contrast Wahlberg can’t wait to get back home. And this is the thing. Wahlbergs character remains cartoonish by comparison. And like cartoons he never evolves, is never scarred by the things that happen to him. 

Thus all his experiences come to nothing. He goes out much the same as when he went in: butch and boring. 

TARGET AUDIENCE

I think these flaws lay in the marketing of Burtons movie. Clearly the suits were making it impossible for this movie to be anything other than popcorn fodder. 

The original was targeted very much at an adult audience: Humans hunted and strung up like rabbits, rounded up and experimented on. All echoing the Jewish Holocaust most would rather forget.

On the other hand, Burtons movie was a much more dumbed down affair. Humans are enslaved yes but the horror is watered down, dismissed in favour of pandering to a younger audience. A sort of Disney-esque approach.

Despite these faults I still enjoyed Burtons version and Rick Bakers make-up was fantastic. 

The Twilight Zone ending suggested a sequel that would plant itself firmly as a direct adaptation of the Pierre Boulle novel. 

A sequel that never happened because Burton (tired of the suits) washed his hands of the whole affair. 

'I'd rather jump out a window' He said. 

Still the movie has endured. And without Burtons legacy, we wouldn't have Christopher Nolan doing Batman re-boots, let alone those pesky CGI Apes swinging past our screens.