#*sticks marty into a snowglobe and shakes him* (gently!)

[knickynoo]

marty loves his father just so so much. to the point where his father's death, even in a timeline that they were already going to have to fix, was the point where Marty is the most emotionally devastated in an entire trilogy full of tragedies. how immediately we see him stand up for his father when he so much as thinks Old Biff is calling him a loser in the Cafe 80's. how proud he is both times he sees his dad finally stand up to Biff, the moment he always wished would happen his entire life. the sheer emotion in his voice when he says "my father's alive!" marty loves his dad so much.

cannot believe I forgot him literally jumping in front of a moving car to save his dad with zero hesitation, as if it wasn't the main catalyst for the entire plot of the first movie. I love this kid and he loves his dad - pants anon

Hello again, Pants Anon. Nice to hear from you. Also, yes. I love thinking about this.

I've written a dozen posts about my thoughts on the core of the trilogy being love, but I don't think I've ever focused in on Marty and George before. It's true, though. Marty's love for his dad runs so deep in parts I and II.

The scene of him stumbling around the graveyard and finding his father's tombstone is absolutely the most emotionally intense version of Marty we get in all three films. He's already seen and experienced so much terror by that point, and we've seen him in tears and scared out of his mind at several moments, but none of it compares to the way George's death shatters him. It's a Marty who has truly hit his breaking point, and MJF's acting in those scenes is so good.

It makes sense of course—how else would a kid react to the sudden news of his dad's death but by screaming and crying like that—and at that point, Marty doesn't know what's caused the timeline to skew, so that sense of despair is real. But I feel like even if he knew what was up, even if he knew he and Doc would end up fixing things, George's death still would have hit him that hard.

As for the scene in front of the Baines's house, there's that part of me that goes, "Well, wouldn't anyone rush into the street to push their parent out of harm's way? Marty was just doing what most people would. It's instinct." Then there's the other part that does see Marty's reaction as a conscious act of love. He could have panicked or frozen up and just let things play out the way they were supposed to, but he made that split-second choice to "sacrifice himself" instead.

Which, by the way, is one of the themes of the movies that makes me lose my mind. So much of this trilogy centers on sacrifice. Doc and Marty in particular are constantly having like...a tennis match back and forth of, "No worries, I'll just go ahead and die for you," "No, no, I'll die for you." "I insist that I die for you." They just take turns putting their life on the line for each other.

Out of the plethora of lovely qualities Marty has, the intensity of his emotions is high on my list of why I like him so much. There's just such a depth to the love he has for people. It's what drives so many of his actions throughout the movies.

It's love that urges him to put himself in the path of a car in order to save his dad.

It's love that pushes him to storm up to Biff in the cafeteria in an attempt to protect his mother from the unwanted advances, even though Biff is twice his size.

It's love that makes him sit at the diner the night of the lightning strike to agonize over how to write a letter that can save Doc's life

Rushing at Biff in the hotel to (once again) protect his mother from abuse, falling apart at his dad's grave, willingly going to the Old West when he's been explicitly told not to? All acts of love.

I really don't even think the kid has a choice in the matter when it comes to people he cares about. No matter how scared or unsure he is, the enormity of his love for his family and friends automatically overrides it.

I truly think that's what makes Back to the Future, and Marty as a character, so special.

Thanks for the ask!