#actually it would make the most sense imo if it was dave but i severely doubt that lol

[inmyjaws]

i would put money on the “mandela prophet” being thatcher davis. not a lot of money but still

[sparxymcfly]

SPARX LOSES THEIR MIND [a fairly long post fair warning]

Why hello everyone! Has Sparx made another purchase that they then freaked out over for a period of time and have now come to share with everyone? Yeah, precisely, keep up, come on. Me being incorrigible is not the focus today, the focus today is the box of prop replicas I bought from the official Back to the Future website and more precisely the letter inside that’s been monopolizing all the space in my brain ever since [and well, a few other things inside I’ll get to, but they’re less paradigm-shifting than this letter imo]

So let’s see what we’ve got!

So the website description [the product is here btw] lists like, everything you get in the box. Sure, yeah, totally normal. I was excited for every little thing in this box to be perfectly clear. However, what really jingled my jangles and got me curious was the bit saying “Marty’s Introduction Letter”. Now, what I thought this was going to be was some like softly-meta bit from our dear young friend Marty, probably labeled “to whomsoever finds this” and explaining his adventures. I mean, makes sense, right?

Except that’s not what it is! At all! Guess what the OPENING LINE is??

EXCITED? PERPLEXED? SURPRISED? SO WAS I.

Let’s keep reading, shall we? I’ll transcribe it to make it easier to read alongside the pictures because a) friendly to people who struggle with text in images and b) Marty’s handwriting is. It sure is. Love you, buddy.

Front Side:

“Dear Dave and Linda, 

If you are reading this it’s probably because I haven’t been home in a while, but don’t worry, just because I’m not here now doesn’t mean that we won’t see each other again in the future.

I am most likely traveling back in time with Doc and we’ve had a problem that prevents me [possibly us?] from returning to the present.

I’ve always told you that time travel is so heavy and you always treat me like a madman, but if Doc and I hadn’t traveled to the past and the future on several occasions then Dad would be six feet under right now, Biff would be our stepfather, Junior and Marlene would be in the clink and you two would be living in [not sure? it could be the word ‘ruin’] and hitting the bottle. In the worst case scenario, mom and Dad wouldn’t even have fallen in love and we would have vanished from existence as if-” [continued on the next page]

Back Side:

“-someone had erased us from a photograph.

I’m not going to give you my speech again, I know you don’t believe me, but as crazy as it may sound, there are two things that Marty McFly will never be: a liar or a chicken.

What’s in this box will blow your mind. In it I keep memories of my travels to 1885, 1955, 1985, and 2015: pictures, tickets, maps, and souvenirs of the past and the future. I even keep a coin from the casino that that jerk Biff built after stealing the DeLorean from us.

Your brother in time

Marty”

Now let’s take this step by step because this is a journey and a half. Granted, I do fully understand and I know we all have to know that this box’s existence with everything it has in it kinda requires just a bit of suspension of disbelief, considering it’s highly unlikely Marty actually grabbed every little thing in it from start to finish of the trilogy. I may or may not walk through that later who’s to say. I know I’m gonna at least pick some of my favorite things in the box to talk about. But to be perfectly honest, even just taking one iota of this letter as somewhat canon-adjacent or even just one possible canon is making me lose my mind.

Let’s get going wow so THAT’S what tumblr formatting do that’s neat. LET’S DISCUSS first - Dave and Linda!

Okay so like literally first and foremost the biggest point here- Marty trying to tell his siblings about time travel. Dave and Linda! The first assumption, as far as I have seen it, has always been his parents! In fact, his dad, for the whole science fiction angle. Although, to be quite fair, most takes I’ve seen have really been George figuring it out, not quite so much Marty telling him on purpose. And then, well, y’know, Doc and Jennifer are the only other people who know. But this is just wildly interesting. When did he start trying? The wording of the letter makes it sound like he’s tried tons of times, even though they don’t believe him. How openly does he talk about it? Is it really just to the two of them? It sounds about like that, especially considering the apparent potential secrecy of this box and it being addressed to just the two of them. We can make any guesses we want about how long it took before he tried to talk to them- perhaps not long after returning home from his adventures, perhaps it took a few years, perhaps it even took decades! Because that being an option does tie into my second big point!

Using headings is making formatting easier don’t worry I promise I will maybe probably get the hang of making my posts look nicer :) probably :) Time period and Doc!

This is 2015 Marty!! But the Lone Pines, non-broken hand version, which to my knowledge this is the first time we’ve heard from him. I wonder endlessly if this version did successfully become a rockstar, but I don’t think much of anything in this letter confirms or denies it. We do know this who we’re dealing with though, or at least that it’s passed 2015, on account of when Marty is listing off all the awful things that he had to prevent via time travel, he says that “Junior and Marlene would be in the clink”, which happened on that day they traveled to in Part 2- this takes place after that day. And most most importantly, Marty and the Doc still travel through time together even when Marty is in his 40s! Which means they’re still hanging out even then :) this is very important information. Which not just this one time, but the fact that [Marty presumes, though I don’t doubt it really does] this happens a Lot, enough that Marty could open the letter with “probably stuck somewhere in time” as if they go through all the time, but this is a safeguard in case they get stuck. Granted, re: my post about the whole Marty’s mental state thing, that would call into question how long this has been going on, how often they do this, if Marty has had the opportunity to talk this out or deal with his issues in any kind of way... but I digress.

Completely separately from any knowledge or events gleaned from the comics or the game, we know that Doc does in fact visit at some point again! Which, y’know, good! Don’t leave your boy like that, Doc. This could also like potentially cue back into Doc being like super long lived re: the rejuvenation clinic thing along with WHATEVER ELSE future stuff he might encounter/pull off/use but also Doc is a time traveler and can go whenever he pleases, so actually this proves nothing. Please enjoy the mental image of Marty in his 40s with Doc in his 60s-70s with me though, they are both older but they are such so friends still. Please. It’s giving me serotonin I hope it also gives You serotonin.

Etc [aka I can’t think of any more headers and actually I’m going to just fill the last bit with random little thoughts, every paragraph is a new one this time <3]

I am so incredibly dying to hear what Marty’s “speech” is, him referring to it as “my speech again” implies that it’s more or less the same every time. Dave and Linda don’t believe him, which of course as we know [re: Doc’s Delorean handbook with the very long name I’m too pumped up to check right now] Doc specifically didn’t allow that to get out, so it makes sense. Well, that and their dad is a famous sci-fi author and as far as Dave and Linda are concerned, that’s all he’s ever been, so Marty talking about time travel probably just sounds like more of what their dad goes on about. Granted, Marty literally has a mad scientist best friend, but one, other than the time machine and various little doodads like the automatic dog feeder and the giant amp- which are in the grand scheme of things pretty mundane and believable- we don’t have proof that Doc has made any actually strange or extraordinary inventions that work for this kind of precedent to be set. And, well, on top of that they just don’t believe his “tall tale.” I would still Love to hear what it is though.

And the fact that he just TELLS THEM all the terrible things that did or almost happened! The fact that he follows this section up with the “my speech again” line means this knowledge is not a part of said speech, and y’know with the contents of the box and that fact’s presence this is probably the first time they’ll have heard it. Which like, wow, if this box convinces them [and kinda even if it doesn’t] that is a LOT. 

I’m also incredibly curious where- or, heh, more accurately when- Doc and Marty have gone and gotten lost. If nothing has changed and Dave and Linda are able to still read this letter and see the contents of the box, then logically it probably isn’t the past. Or, well, it could be, and maybe they just haven’t changed anything, but c’mon now. This is Doc and Marty. They’d probably have changed something by mistake. [Or, okay, maybe not, it’s entirely possible age/time has made them wiser and more careful, buuuuut let’s call it a 50/50 chance, haha] It’s probably the future? But then, doubly again, we don’t know! “Doesn’t mean you won’t see me again in the future” sure could imply either way, though it leans future to my way of thinking. It could mean they’ll see Marty again and he’ll have come from the past the normal way, just even older than 40s now, but the wording more makes me think they’ll keep aging and find him stuck there. GRANTED this I think, most logically, means Marty knows he and Doc will eventually figure it out and get back, and as usual, they’ll set the time machine to a reasonable amount of time in the future from their departure to not seem strange. But it also could give a little hint to where they are in the future, since Marty’s siblings are both older and so if it is that they’d age and see him, it couldn’t be too terribly far in the future.

In leaving this box and note, what was Marty planning? Was it just to finally have them believe him? Was it to have somebody have this box, in case he doesn’t make it back? I’d imagine he’d have left some kind of note about what to tell Jennifer and his kids if that were the case- and maybe what to do with his other stuff, but Jen and the kids at minimum because c’mon, Marty wouldn’t leave them never knowing- so I think it’s unlikely, but it’s a possible route worth thinking about. Then of course an interesting, though admittedly far-fetched theory, which is that he might be intending that Dave and Linda somehow assist in the rescue/escape out of time of Doc and Marty! Which has little grounding past arming them with information and items seeming so Much, but it’s also very interesting to imagine Dave and Linda of all characters joining in the time travel shenanigans! It truly is kinda a shame they’re not utilized terribly much, but then, until this letter and a few more recent tangent thoughts, I hadn’t either! So who’s to say.

And as somehow, like, the finisher, despite being so mundane in comparison, I wanna point out Marty writing lowercase m for mom but uppercase D for dad. Like! He wrote a big M for his own name and their surname and Marlene, so it’s not even just how he writes them, he really did just give their dad the uppercase D the whole time and their mom got the lowercase m! I have no idea what this might mean if anything I just think it’s a funky little detail that just. Stuck out!

THAT’S IT THOSE ARE ALL MY RAMBLES ABOUT THIS LETTER

Actually I might be lying, there could be more. But this is already SO long so I’m taking mercy on you all. This letter is just. It’s making my brain EXPLODE if anybody reading this also has thoughts shout them at me just go OFF I will enjoy it greatly and maybe even continue shouting along with you.

UHHH the rest of the box I’ll discuss later! I have no idea how to end a post :)

[noco7]

Do you think the love triangle was forced?

I like how you say "the love triangle." I know you mean Gwen-Duncan-Courtney but like. There was a Cody-Gwen-Trent triangle before them, and an Ella-Dave-Sky love triangle afterwards. They are not the only TD love triangle out there.

I'm going to be honest, I don't personally care about the Gwen-Duncan-Courtney love triangle. I don't get the outrage. So many people see it as the end of the glorious D*ncney empire, but that relationship was crumbling before Gwen got there. I also don't care much for Gwen or Duncan as chacters 💀 Courtney all the way, and Evil!Courtney is Best!Courtney, so the love triangle did not destroy my favorite character lmao. Sorry for the rest of y'all though.

And yeah. It was forced. I think everyone believes that, and I kinda doubt you anon - that you asked this question in good faith. You just wanted to see me rant, didn't you?

And I'm gonna do it, cuz I love ranting. Yes, The Love Triangle was forced. And that's the biggest problem with it, imo. Not the result. Not Gwuncan. But all the steps it took to get there.

It's no question that Gwen and Duncan's like for each other was a little.... abrupt. They are alike, and I could even argue that they WOULD make a decent couple, but Fresh wasn't interested in writing a decent couple, and I'll touch more on that later. They were interested in the drama. So suddenly, Gwen starts missing Duncan. Suddenly, Duncan kisses her. And huzzah, one of the most controversial moments in TD History.

After all what's more soap opera than the girl's boyfriend cheating on her with her best friend? And to get to that scene, S2 and S3 were made a fuckton worse.

The thing about Gwuncan is not just that it's poorly written. It's because the writers had to demolish Gwent and Duncney to get there. And instead of putting down Gwent with grace and dignity, or having their relationship generally peter out, the writers just machet-ed it. And in the fandom's eyes, that's *Gwuncan's* fault.

In the real world you can't blame your bad breakup on the next guy your girl gets with. But this isn't the real word, this is writing. And word on the street is that TD had to fuck up Gwent so that they could get Gwuncan. So now Gwuncan represents the downfall of Gwent.

Duncney, on the other hand, was just... they needed to make the relationship worse in Action, obviously. But how they went about it (even I though I enjoy evil Courtney), did a disservice to her character arc in Island. There's nothing wrong with characters regressing, or making a dark turn, but like. You need to have a reason.

A lot of people say that reason was her anger on being rigged out. And she's right to be angry about it. But how is it Duncan's fault? (I actually have a figured out a way that makes sense but like, TD didn't. And we're examining THEM.)

So now Duncney sucks, so Duncan has a "reason," to cheat on her.

Great. So that's why S2 sucks. What about S3?

I See London. As a Noah stan, this episode doesn't hurt me, and it never did. But as a *writer*? Oof. Some of the worst slop I've seen.

I See London is completely built for the Gwuncan moment, and it's so fucking obvious. Gwen and Courtney building a friendship? It's just to make the betrayal all the harder. Duncan somehow being in London, despite being dropped off in Egypt? Yeah, just for Gwuncan. Gwen helping KIDNAP him? Which is OOC for several reasons.... Just for Gwuncan. Even Noah's elimination could be tied to Gwuncan if you tried hard enough.

Gwuncan, as a writing moment, was the root of all evil. Lmao.

But Gwuncan as a ship? I'm going to be honest, I don't think the love triangle was to set up Gwuncan. Which doesn't make sense, but here me out. Sure Gwuncan happens as a result, but the focus is less on their relationship and more about how it affects Courtney. When it comes time to eliminate either Courtney and Gwen, they make up a fake reason to have a tie. (Cody would have voted for Courtney if he didn't have some random injury.) And then Gwen couldn't just lose, but had to have a random allergy? Like the elimination is so stupid, I can't.

But wow, one half of the ship is now gone. Their relationship lasted FOUR episodes! Four! Two long-standing fan beloved ships that spanned entire seasons, are now destroyed for ... four episodes? Why?

And then they make an episode where DUNCNEY get paired together in a WEDDING THEMED CHALLENGE? Bruh. Like I'm actually sad for Gwuncan, as a ship they were disrespected so bad. The show constantly put focus on Duncney, it's so clear that the writers wanted to talk about Duncney, and that Gwuncan was just a cool conflict they thought of.

It's honestly sad, and my deepest condolences for Gwuncan fans, and any Gwuncan fan who still ships Gwuncan and believes in them - y'all the strongest soldiers.

If TD had truly wanted to make Gwuncan a thing, yeah breaking up Gwent and Duncney was necessary (and perhaps they should have ended Duncney earlier and not just Then), but they should have written Gwuncan as two people fleeing terrible relationships. Let them have the audience's sympathy. And then have Courtney be eliminated instead, and show us how good Gwuncan could really be.

The fact that in All Stars they immediately ditched the Gwuncan idea is either proof they never wanted that ship, or that the audience hated the ship so bad that getting rid of it felt like the only option. Cowards. Should have just taken it as a challenge to prove how good it truly was. That's what I would have done. (That's why i write noco)

Tl;dr. Gwuncan's cheating moment was Cool Drama, Fresh wanted to cash in on that, played the long game and destroyed their savings in the process. But they did get what they wanted! But a cool moment is just that, a moment. And Fresh doesn't even like Gwuncan.

[ellie-valsin]

Okay, you guys know what this means, right?  (Other than the fact that I will surely end up arranging a trip to “visit family” in Tokyo in January 2019.)  That’s right, it means that Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 will be getting its first post-Broadway production in Tokyo next year!

Congratulations to the show, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t going to make every earthly effort to get there to see it.  Because my husband does still have family living in Tokyo, we’ve been there a number of times and I’ve been lucky enough to see several Broadway-style shows there.  Let me give some straight-talk insight on what to expect from a Japanese production; those who are offended by straight-talk may stop reading now.  ;)

-The company producing it:  Toho Stage.  If I’m being totally honest, this fact has kept me up half the night worrying.  To be fair, they have produced plenty of what I would call “legit” musical theatre, including, coming soon, Fun Home, as well as everything from South Pacific (I know, whut) to Secret Garden.  The problem is that they also produce tons and tons of Bway flops and Euro-pop musicals, which is mostly my personal experience with Toho.  (Anytime a French musical is licensed in Japan, I know before even looking that it will be with Toho.  No exceptions.)  And they are usually veeeeery loose adaptations of those shows, so I am a bit concerned.  But probably I’m worrying for nothing on this point...We’ll see.

-The staging:  Japan does many musicals, both old and new, American, European, and Asian, but when it does first run versions of recent Broadway musicals, it usually makes some attempt to replicate the staging, stage design, and/or costumes.  You see much more slavish imitation productions out of Shiki musical productions than out of Toho ones, but that’s because Shiki holds the rights to every Disney musical ever, and Disney is very particular about such things.  When Toho puts on Les Mis, they do have an exact replica production of whatever’s playing in other countries, because Cam Mac is similarly particular about it--however, I’ve also seen them change many production designs for other shows.  It all depends on who’s granting the rights and what restrictions are placed on those rights.  The Natasha, Pierre rights holders would be very wise to insist on a similar production to the American one, imo, but then again, I really can’t see any of the immersive stage designs working in the theatre that Toho uses...Not because the stage couldn’t be adapted to, say, the A.R.T. configuration they used in Boston, but because I don’t think the interactive elements/jokes would go over that well with typical Japanese audiences (I think the majority of Japanese musical fans would be very uncomfortable with it).  

Whatever the stage and costume design, I imagine it will be beautiful, since I have always been impressed by that aspect of every production I’ve seen there, whether imitation staging or new staging.

The only thing that worries me about the staging is, well, the stage--or, more precisely the theatre.  Toho’s usual theatre is huuuuge compared to your standard Bway theatre.  We always knew this would be a problem if this show toured, since most touring houses in America are also huuuuge, but I always secretly hoped they’d go back to a tent format and do sit-downs in big cities that way.  I...don’t think a tent is what Toho has in mind.  We’ll have to wait and see, but I will say I don’t think I’d want to be in the back of the balcony on this one.....

-The casting:  Yes, they will all be Japanese, except for the Koreans they hire.  So, in that sense, yes of course it won’t resemble the diverse ensemble from the OBC.  On the other hand, I am quite confident they can find a girl who can look and act the part of Natasha, since most of the female leads I’ve seen in musicals there are quite ingenue-typed sopranos.  They will also make a killer Anatole.

Also, I forgot to mention: it will likely be double-cast, meaning there will be two separate actors or actresses cast for each of the most demanding parts (in this case, probably Natasha, Pierre, Anatole, Sonya, and maybe Helene), and they’ll rotate their schedules throughout the run.  This is typical of Japanese musicals, and should be interesting.

-The singing:  Compared to the OBC, it will most likely suck.  Japanese musical theatre voices are trained to sound a bit different from contemporary Broadway voices, so they usually already sound pretty different when singing regular Broadway scores, but this one?  I predict that this’ll be baaaad.  But you may say, ‘everyone in the OBC sounded “different” from a standard Bway voice, why couldn’t that work for the Japanese, too?’ to which I say, well, it’s a different kind of different.  The OBC had distinctive voices, interesting voices (which, personally, I feel like we’ve been missing more and more on Broadway in these past 10-20 years), but they were hitting very specific notes, often weird ones, since it’s Dave after all.  ;)  Not only have I not seen proof that the average Japanese musical singer can sing a score of this complexity (I’ve never seen them do Sondheim, for instance, though I know it does exist), but they seem to be mostly trained to do a sort of “Rodgers & Hammerstein” style of singing in which everyone attempts a pretty classical musical theatre sound with lots of vibrato and a woman’s break occurs very low, that is, the head voice is used where often the original show belted the notes (see: the painful rendition of Evita’s “A New Argentina”).  High belting is not even a lost art in Japan, because I’m pretty sure it was never found to begin with: clips from shows as disparate as Aida, Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and Wicked have made this clear to me, and certainly every experience I’ve ever had mixing Wildhorn with Japan (Scarlet Pimpernel, Jekyll&Hyde, etc.), or even the more poppy French musicals in Japanese.  Does every actor/actress belt flat?  No, of course not--but plenty of them do.  New contemporary musical theatre continues to move into the realm of American Idol, producing beltier and beltier music, so it’s only bound to become a worse problem over time...

But anyway, even with bum notes and heavy vibrato being consistent annoyances, will that really affect Nastasha, Pierre, which is not really an example of the “belt it higher/longer” Wicked school of musical writing?  Well, of course it will, sometimes.  Don’t expect anyone who can tear into Maria Dmitrievna in Japan.  Don’t expect Natasha will be able to powerfully slam those top notes in her “argument” scenes.  Don’t expect the end of Dust & Ashes to sound great.  And certainly don’t expect to get a reliable “PETERSBUUUUURG!!!” out of anyone (though one might say that for most actors working on Bway, too  ;)).  

And even if they somehow find a miraculous cast hidden away somewhere who can sing the shit out of the notes, there will always be:

-The translation: This shit will be difficult as all hell to translate.  Between Malloy’s own writing style and Tolstoy’s text, I really don’t know how it will be done.  I’ve attempted it myself, so I’ve already seen the challenges first hand...  Japanese is acknowledged as one of the most difficult languages to translate English lyrics into, mostly because the structure of the two languages differs so greatly: in Japanese, you can usually express pretty much any of the same ideas you can in English, but you usually can’t express them in as few syllables.  When my husband and I made a project of translating “No One Else,” it proved almost impossible to fit every idea expressed in the English lyrics into the translation without running waaaay too long to fit the meter.  This is usually solved for in professional Japanese musical translations by cutting out whole lines from the original libretto and taking, say, two lines to translate one line of English text.  It can also be solved by pretty much ignoring the English lyrics and just making up some different ones in Japanese that fit the meter and don’t sound too out of place thematically.  These methods work fine for shows that were lyrically insipid to begin with, like the Euro-pop musicals (yes, Romeo & Juliette, I am looking at you), but on Dave Malloy’s libretto???  Why bother if you have to do a hack job to make it work...?  There’s a reason Sondheim is so infrequently produced in Japan......

Now, for many of you, the translation will not affect your life in the slightest.  For my husband and other bilinguals, it will be excruciating to listen to.  He already gets annoyed enough listening to Japanese Les Mis...I don’t know how I’m going to get him to listen to a translation of lyrics he actually loves to death in English.  ;) 

Anyway, if it sounds like I’m very wary of this production, that’s because...I am.  It’s scary not only because it’s a Japanese production, but also because it’s the first production post-Bway, and nobody knows quite what sort of adaptation to expect.  I’ll try to keep the faith, while still keeping it real...  The good news is that you all will likely be able to judge it for yourself, because Toho usually puts out at least a cast recording for its musicals, and sometimes even a DVD of them!

And will I be attending, in spite of my serious concerns?  Yeah, duh, if I can swing it.  XD  I can already tell you there will be tears at the end, which is one thing I fully expect them to get perfectly right.  :’)