Why would they have never fixed the clock tower after the lightning storm?

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rulenumber62@reddit

Are we the generation that recognizes movie quotes and references the easiest? I asked around, we were the only age bracket that didn’t need it named.

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activelyresting@reddit

I know that I know this movie(s) way better than I ought to.

I also know that if it were made today, Marty would travel back to 1995. And that makes my bones hurt

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compulov@reddit

Do you think that boomers felt that way when the movie was originally released? Assuming they went to see it...

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activelyresting@reddit

Yeah I think about that often.

Especially when my daughter talks about 90s stuff as being "vintage" 💀

Ohhhhhh that's how my mum felt when I was all about cool retro stuff when it was the 90s 😅

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Sodamyte@reddit

You'd be surprised how many of our generation give me awkward looks that they never realized Ivan Drago and He-Man were the same guy.

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DarwinGoneWild@reddit

Oh that’s funny I didn’t even notice this post wasn’t on the BTTF subreddit.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

And I didn't realize that I didn't mention the title. It goes without saying around here.

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Faith75070@reddit

There was not much to distract us from the abunance and magic of movies, I think.

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Amazing-Basket-136@reddit

Get busy living…

Baby Ruth!…

Adrian!!!

Someone should shoot the carpenter.

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akm1111@reddit

And "get to the chopper"

(I pulled that Adrian line out at work last night, because one of the other guys is 6mo younger than me & he'd know the movie.)

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GrungeCheap56119@reddit

I think we are, because we had attention spans back then. Lol.

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Jolly_Line@reddit

That, married with regular access to lots of great film (TV, Blockbuster Video, and Theaters).

[-]

That, and VCRs becoming widespread as we came of age. We may have only owned a few VHS tapes of movies we liked, so we watched them, whatever we could record, and whatever we could rent over and over and over.

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GrungeCheap56119@reddit

You just unlocked my core memory of renting a VHS from Blockbuster back when!

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Jolly_Line@reddit

There’s one left, in Bend CO.

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FairNeedleworker9722@reddit

Let's analyze this. The clock was built in 1885. Probably has all custom parts. Who knows how warped or damaged they are from the strike. Then you have only a period of 30 years to repair it. Locals probably wanted to keep the same historic clock. Local governments drag their feet and kick the can on issues all the time. No one NEEDS that clock repaired. This isn't a bridge or a road. Plus Hill Valley has to go through the economic downturn of the 70s. Money for beautification needs to be lobbied hard.

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kyle-the-brown@reddit

Ehh, its probably the most real thing about the trilogy. A city not being able to get the budget to deal with a landmark is so America it's not even funny. I live in Houston and we have a giant eyesore called the Astrodome sitting there, it was the first dome stadium and once was a landmark but now its just a giant reminder of how inefficient city and county governments are.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

I really enjoyed the Monster Trucks in the dome. And Astroworld. So sad. I was there on the final weekend

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

Are you kidding? Most people can't even get local government to paint crosswalks where they're needed. Pay civic money for a clock when people could just wear a watch? Never!

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Sodamyte@reddit

unless you put a rainbow on them lol

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8-Bit-Memories@reddit

It’s amazing that you never mentioned the name of the movie, and we all know exactly what it is

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

I knew I didn't have to

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TheWorldIsNotOkay@reddit

Mechanical tower clocks are expensive. Small towns are poor. The town nearest me has an old theater on its main street that has been out of business since the 70s and still has 50-year-old posters hanging in the lobby. It's apparently registered as a historic site, so no company wants to buy it since they'd have to bring it up to code while also maintaining its historic construction and appearance.

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m4dm4cs@reddit

Also, I never noticed this until I saw the movie on the big screen a couple of weeks ago, that area is a run down shithole full of XXX theaters and pawn shops in 1985. Maybe it went downhill after the clocktower was broken but it doesn’t seem like an area with a lot invested in it. Fixing the clock tower in a shady part of town probably wasn’t a big priority.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

I need to re-re-watch it again. At the end of the movie, the alternate timeline is such that the clock tower survived (right?) as the lightning went into the flux capacitor instead

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Legion2481@reddit

Nope. In fact Doc's scramble to reconnect the cables involves him looping part of the cable on the clock face itself which if anything makes the strike worse.

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Darth_Redding@reddit

Yeah but the movie theater is a church, there are multiple empty store fronts, the street is a mess, part of the town square has been paved, the "adult" shops, and the homeless guy that sees the time machine come back.

Marty's family is less rough, but town isn't.

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Unable_Apartment_613@reddit

The US moved away from downtowns like that by 1985 and everything had moved to the mall and big box stores in strip malls. We chose to scale America for cars and not people. Taxes shift away from city limits. Cities don't have the money to take on major projects that aren't critical infrastructure. Back to the Future addresses economic changes to America very well tbh.

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GrizzlyAdam12@reddit

They have a mall. They are not a small town.

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jimicus@reddit

I think a bigger question is “what is there in a mechanical clock that would likely be severely damaged by lightning?”.

I’m struggling to think of anything.

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Pacers31Colts18@reddit

Hill Valley in the 50s seemed pretty nice though. It's not like it was ran by Biff Hill Valley

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Jolly_Line@reddit

It’s the larger scale version of the big screen TV breaking, being too expensive to fix, and a giant pain in the ass to move (literally and figuratively). Then becoming the permanent pedestal for the 23” tube TV.

Source: my childhood

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johnvalley86@reddit

I remember trying to move one of those into my buddies Second Story apartment. He got it for free (of course) and was so stoked. Got about halfway up the second flight of stairs and his Hands slipped and dropped it. It was only a few inches so we thought everything would be okay. We got it into his apartment and plugged it in. The drop knocked the lenses out of alignment so there were three pictures on the screen in various Hues of RGB. He said fuck it and rocked that thing for like 2 years.

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Jolly_Line@reddit

Haha. Classic big screen experience!

Great story. Did 3D glasses make it fun?

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johnvalley86@reddit

This is obviously way before 3D movies were popular but looking back some old school red and blue 3D glasses probably would have worked. We would have been the first!

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Jolly_Line@reddit

There’s literally 3D glasses in the BTTF series!

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johnvalley86@reddit

Yeah one of the Biffs Goons wears them.

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Elandycamino@reddit

We had a large swivel base wood one that died, so I stacked another slightly smaller one on top then it dies so a 13 inch tv off to the side on top and a golf club for a remote.

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Brock_Savage@reddit

I live in a wealthy area and it took decades to restore an old theater. Even after volunteers raised the money it's an expensive, time consuming procedure with lots of red tape.

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AbsurdistWordist@reddit

I like that you never even mentioned the movie and yet everyone still knew what you were taking about.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

With this movie, it didn't occur to me that I needed to, and I was right. Lol

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iknowiknowwhereiam@reddit

I love the series but if you start digging it’s easy to see all the holes. Doc says the car has to touch the wire at the exact second the lighting hits, but they only know that to the minute. The parents decided to name their son after that weird kid that was at their high school for half a minute?

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

Another hole: after doc sends Marty back to the future, the clock tower should work perfectly fine as the lightning wasn't channeled thru it but instead into the flux capacitor. We see the clock stuck at 10:04 for the remainder of the series

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Funkopedia@reddit

No, his name was Calvin in the 50s. Marty comes out of nowhere like most names.

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iknowiknowwhereiam@reddit

No Lorraine thinks that’s his name but he says people call me Marty.

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compulov@reddit

Guess it's a good thing he wasn't wearing fruit of the loom.

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Cool_Dark_Place@reddit

She even says "Marty... such a nice name" after they see each other for the last time in the 1950s.

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MaestroLogical@reddit

Doubtful. We see how she puts a lot of emphasis on how her and George fall in love, with it originally being hit by the car. That shifts to being united by the efforts of a mysterious guy named Marty, someone that was crucially instrumental in both their lives, but then vanished without a trace. They'd have never forgotten him.

The also don't name their first born son after him, but by the time they have their 3rd kid, they decide to honor the stranger that helped create their family by giving him the name.

You do have to wonder, when Calvin Klein started being a household name, if they imagined it was the same 'Marty' they knew.

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LeopardCoin@reddit

And I wonder if, at some point, Lorraine and George said to each other "Do you remember that kid, uuuuh, Calvin, when we were in high school?" "Yeah, why?" "Well, don't you think our Marty looks an awful lot like him?"

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

Your first point is just creative license, which most movies require. And the second point can be explained away. But every time travel story suffers from this, you’ve got to be willing to suspend disbelief.

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OldJames47@reddit

In 1985, the woman who tells Marty about the clock tower is trying to PREVENT Mayor Wilson from fixing it.

She wants to keep it broken. She’s probably one of those slackers Strickland warned us about.

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prstele01@reddit

Wait is this true?? I’ve seen the movie dozens of times and never picked up on that.

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Thenadamgoes@reddit

Yeah. It’s the fact she’s asking for money that makes it confusing. What does she want money for? Not to fix it?

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Sodamyte@reddit

she wants to buy the building to prevent the mayor from tearing it down/replacing it

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The_Real_dubbedbass@reddit

Lobbying.

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youfrickinguy@reddit

Yeah well I saw it in IMAX last month and noticed this in Doc’s collection of clocks for the first time ever….

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Luminaire_Ultima@reddit

Same thing here. Until I watched the movie in IMAX, and saw the clock, I never put it together that the climax had an homage to Harold Lloyd .

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

I wonder if he's related to Doc

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YOMAMACAN@reddit

I just watched this last night for the first time in at least a decade. She is wanting to preserve it broken for historical accuracy and is mad the mayor wants to fix it.

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Nadathug@reddit

I’ve seen this movie over 100 X and I never put that together. I guess I wasn’t really listening and thought someone was trying to tear down the building?

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ringobob@reddit

I thought the exact same thing. I think I was too young to pick up on what else "save the clock tower" might mean when I first watched it, and just never revisited the thought since.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

Same. Except I was fixated less on the lady and more on the folks back in 1955 in the days and weeks following the storm. As in, what component melted or broke in the tower which wasn't a quick repair job ?

Also, now that I think about it more, did this new alternate timeline have a perfectly fine working clock tower because the lightning was redirected into the flux capacitor?

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turtle553@reddit

Collecting money to do nothing

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PokerbushPA@reddit

Sounds like Congress.

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Sufficient_Turn_9209@reddit

Collecting money to preserve and restore it, yeah? Restoring something to historical accuracy costs way more than replacing it.

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

Weird. I’m in the exact same boat. I rewatched the movie last night and noticed the same thing.

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Unapologetic_Canuck@reddit

“Mayor Wilson is sponsoring an initiative to replace that clock.”

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DustedGorilla82@reddit

Mayor Goldie Wilson, I like the sound of that

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Jolly_Line@reddit

The omission here of the drawn out Maaaaayor is criminal!

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AdministrativeRisk34@reddit

Oooooover-acting! I can start ooooover-acting!"

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jaymoney1@reddit

I like the sound of that better. I hope he cleans up this town. Starting with the sweeping

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Jasion128@reddit

You can start by sweeping the floor

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johnvalley86@reddit

I'll take a Pepsi Free

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texan01@reddit

Listen pan you want a Pepsi you’ll have to pay for it!

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Jolly_Line@reddit

Gimme a Tab

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radarthreat@reddit

You gotta order something before I give you a tab

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DustedGorilla82@reddit

Just give me something without sugar

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texan01@reddit

Something without sugar…

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Cool_Dark_Place@reddit

gif

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twirlerina024@reddit

How can I give you a tab when you haven’t ordered anything yet?? [angrily chomps toothpick]

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youfrickinguy@reddit

Did that guy ever have any hair?

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OurHouse20@reddit

Eat lead, slackers!

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chamrockblarneystone@reddit

Was she trying to keep it broken for authentic history reasons or just tax payer reasons?

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BasvanS@reddit

Timeline preservation

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Bulky_Sir2074@reddit

This was the criticism of the “this is how we’ve always done it” trope in small towns.

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RockingInTheCLE@reddit

Hahaha just saw this movie in the theater tonight! Hadn’t seen it in forever. Good fun.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

I saw it home on Plex streaming from my local network. I ripped my DVD collection to MP4 files, but I only own this movie on VHS so I had to get creative 😜

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Feral_Sheep_@reddit

Mayor Goldie Wilson was trying to fix the clock in 1985. The Hill Valley Preservation Society was trying to stop him. Presumably, the Society has successfully blocked any previous attempts to fix the clock over the past 30 years.

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hyperRed13@reddit

Conspiracy theory: Doc founded the Hill Valley Preservation Society.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

Sounds expensive. Maybe that's where all of his family fortune went

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jep5680jep@reddit

Woah that’s heavy..

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Jolly_Line@reddit

Love it!

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Thenadamgoes@reddit

Oh shit that’s a good fan theory there.

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Bulky_Sir2074@reddit

This was a critique of the “this is how we’ve always done it here” trope, and making fun of it because it hadn’t always been that way but the towns knowledge of their own history was lost

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luke15chick@reddit

“Save the clock tower!!” Annoying shaking of tin can

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Physical-Name4836@reddit

Here ya go lady, here’s a quarter

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Sgt__Schultz@reddit

Thank you, don't forget to take a flyer!

SAVE THE CLOCK TOWER!!

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DBE113301@reddit

God, I love this sub.

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username32768@reddit

Meatball marinara?

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DBE113301@reddit

Well, I mean…unless you're a vegetarian, who doesn't love a good meatball marinara?

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

Thankfully in the new timeline the clock never got struck

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snuffy_smith_@reddit

There are starving people all over the country! I’m giving to the Salvation Army bell ringers! LoL

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ButterbeerAndPizza@reddit

The bigger question: “In 30 years, don’t let your son get arrested.” BTTF 2 becomes unnecessary.

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

Nah, Doc knows he’s trying to prevent that Rolls Royce accident.

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ButterbeerAndPizza@reddit

Oh - was that really it?! That makes sense!

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

Might be head canon, but I think Doc likes to play 4D chess.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

That's heavy

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OneInACrowd@reddit

I found the idea that a local government not fixing something for decades to be quite believable; especially if it is not a safety risk, legal or economic requirement. A town clock when everyone has a watch would have been a low priority for funding, and could have even devolved into it's own argument. Any person who tried to advocate for it being repaired would have be rebuffed with "well if they have money for that, then they can fix a, b, .. or c"

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

Now that is definitely plausible and realistic

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WhatTheCluck802@reddit

I coincidentally rewatched this on 11/12, the 70th anniversary of Back to the Future day.

Such a great flick. If it were to be remade now, my kids would be going back to my teenage years of 1995 which blows my mind. 🤯

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

I'm confused. Did you watch it on 11/12 without realizing what day it was, thus the coincidence, or is it just a coincidence that you recently watched it?

I think a lot of people either recently watched it, or they rewatched it specifically due to this post

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WhatTheCluck802@reddit

I mindlessly cued it up last Wednesday without realizing what day it was. I was delighted when I realized it happened to be that particular day.

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bascule@reddit

It’s 2015, Hill Valley Courthouse has its own village of shops and features an updated exterior, but the clock is still fried

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arteitle@reddit

The lightning strike is even part of the Courthouse Mall brand identity!

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

But in this timeline Doc channeled the bolt of lightning into the flux capacitor. The clock should have survived as none of the electrical current passes thru it.

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TacticusThrowaway@reddit

I like how the shops are underground so they don't have to actually build the sets.

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CanesFanInTN@reddit

One of Chattanooga’s most iconic sights is the Chattanooga Choo Choo, whose sign has been dark for the good part of a decade. There was some hope for it’s resurrection a few months ago, but it’s still a struggle

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

Save the Choo Choo. Don't fix it !

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mrnoonan81@reddit

It's a government building. They were still in the process of getting a signature for approval to consider getting it repaired.

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Morriganx3@reddit

Approval to create a committee to evaluate the pros and cons of assessing the need for repairs

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Shortbus_Playboy@reddit

A “concept of a plan”, if you will.

Damn, that franchise really did predict a lot of things.

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TacticusThrowaway@reddit

I'm pretty sure that kind of thing was already well known in the 80s.

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sjd208@reddit

We kept it gray. (Insert Futurama)

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WiseDirt@reddit

gif

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TwistingEcho@reddit

My statutory authority just received a decent government grant. We're spending 100k on a person to handle the procurement process despite already having quotes returned and decisions made. Love me some red tape... Just that money alone could bring my venue up to minimum and get a nice RoI before long. (Art Centre, Live Theatre, Cinema)

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arteitle@reddit

While at the same time the Hill Valley Preservation Society was actively campaigning against repairing it.

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sirdrumalot@reddit

I thought that was kinda funny that someone would be AGAINST fixing it until I worked in state government. I understand balancing progress vs. historical preservation, but some people will argue against doing anything to better their neighborhood.

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radiometric@reddit

It's the same reason the car stalls and Marty is delayed until after the alarm goes off, so that he hits the wire at the exact instance the wire is electrified: There is a greater force helping them out. Several other key events are revealed to be manipulated in the sequel. There's a video game that's basically BTTF4, from Telltale as well.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

I'm not sure how I feel about that

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Lavender_r_dragon@reddit

i like the fact that we all know what this vague post is talking about lol

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Possible-Tangelo9344@reddit

These things take time.

The Committee to Recommend a Committee be Formed to Consult and Discuss Future Potential Clock Repairs did recommend a committee be formed to discuss the best way to determine how to decide whether a Committee to Repair the Clock Tower was fiscally responsible, though.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

🤣

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Smorgas_of_borg@reddit

Also, it's an entirely mechanical clock. What would lightning have done to break it?

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Rhizobactin@reddit

What bugs me about the movie is why the sports almanac would be a definitive unchanged reference that doesn’t change based upon the bets of one person.

Prior events would change the future and someone winning huge windfalls of money would definitively change public behavior.

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jasonrubik@reddit (OP)

Perhaps Biff only spent money locally and thus his influence didn't extend far enough to impact sporting events which occurred in far away cities

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cartoonchris1@reddit

You’ve never lived in a poor, small town, I see.

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Affectionate-Cut4828@reddit

I love how not once was the title of the movie mentioned yet we all know what's being talked about lol

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Epicardiectomist@reddit

Small towns have a funny way of turning something simple into a badge of honor. It's not unthinkable at all that the town didn't have the money to fix it, but then the townsfolk began to see the stalled clock as quirky. By the time 1985 hits, everything is dirty and rundown, like a town that has no money.

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NuttyIrishman1916@reddit

Serious answer: a large mechanical clock like that is likely one of a kind in terms of the guts being custom made for that building when it was installed. Every large clock tower mechanism like that in the world is unique.

For it to stop working because of a lightning strike must mean parts were melted and fused, meaning that fixing it would involve finding a gargantuan clock making expert and commissioning new pieces the size of automobiles to be custom made. That would be a very expensive job for a small town, and for very little utility (by the time of the lightning strike, wrist watches where ubiquitous and electric clocks were being hung out every wall in every home). That the town would have just decided it probably wasn't worth fixing is not the least bit unreasonable.

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AxelNotRose@reddit

Yes, but didn't Doc build the clock? He could have just fixed it for free.

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FoppyRETURNS@reddit

Probably too many commercial breaks to have given that too much attention.

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donttrustthesoup@reddit

The lightning would have welded all the metal parts together and turned it into a giant dangerous sculpture in the sky.

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TheVelcroStrap@reddit

That’s the most realistic thing about the film, urban decay. No, many places wouldn’t fix the clock tower. The historical society were lucky the building was still in use.

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Bulky_Sir2074@reddit

Because the town was corrupt and it was symbolic of the slow and unnoticeable decay of a town when cronyism and bullies, and general anti social behaviors become accepted, and eventually encouraged

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karlverkade@reddit

Exactly. It’s lost a little bit in the watching of the trilogy because alternate 1985 becomes so incredibly bad, but the first movie does make it a point to show a town kind of rundown and in a slow state of modern decay. The purpose being to have a stark contrast when we see the town as quaint and vibrant in 1955. The unfixed clock tower is part of that rundown modern motif, a symptom of the rundown town, or perhaps even a symbolic plot element of urban sprawl and decay.

Or maybe it just made the plot more fun.

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Far_Cut_@reddit

Can we all just agree this is our favourite movie?

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Lazy_Mood_4080@reddit

Unfortunately, for me it's Inconceivable that you'd suggest a different movie from my actual favorite.

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RushBubbly6955@reddit

gif

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radarthreat@reddit

Either this or Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

No argument here

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RushBubbly6955@reddit

I love how there’s no movie title in the post title or question/post section and we all know exactly what movie you’re referencing lol

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elegantlywasted1983@reddit

Bureaucracy 🫶

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sam56778@reddit

It was a funds issue, otherwise they wouldn’t be collecting money for it.

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BigBoxOfGooglyEyes@reddit

I live in a town that had a busted clock tower for decades. That's the most realistic part of the movie. Getting it repaired/restored was going to cost an arm and a leg and it actually ended up being cheaper to replace it.

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LustLacker@reddit

Actually quite a common thing.

Clockwork masters in the 1880s build something that fails in the 1950's. Can your town find an expert you can afford to repair it?

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C-ute-Thulu@reddit

Probably too expensive to fix at first but eventually it became neat local color

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MLDaffy@reddit

In my city we had a huge clock on top of court house kinda like BTF but it was digital clock. It would show time and temperature and you could see it from anywhere in city. It broke in early 2000s and they never did fix it. Sad actually 😢

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BlueProcess@reddit

Not in the budget. People have watches nowadays. We just can't justify this expenditure when we need to replace the tile system to prevent flooding.

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rosujin@reddit

Because otherwise, the movie couldn’t happen.

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RalphMacchio404@reddit

Its also a commentary on the urban decay that was prevalent in the 1970s and 80s as white flight to the suburbs massively hurt the tax revenues of cities.

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limelight022@reddit

I think it was because it was considered a historical moment for the city. Remember that Marty had a flyer about the lightning strike which he gave to doc which gave him the idea to use it for the delorean.

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Jolly_Line@reddit

The complexity is so well written. It took me until a young adult and a dozen viewings for me to finally understand the lightening experiment “permit” situation. I understood enough about permitting, but was totally confused how the city would approve this and / or even have a category of permit to cover it.

“Yeah, Ive got your permit right here” is a subtle and out of focus, background interaction of Doc paying off the cop.

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LeopardCoin@reddit

I always thought he was trying to stall him, or just take so long searching for his "permit" that the officer would just roll his eyes and say "ok, just do what you have to do" or something like that and leave him alone. But I finally understood what was going on when I saw the film for the umpteenth time when it was playing in theater a few weeks ago.

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Jolly_Line@reddit

Right? IIRC you can even make out him thumbing out bills from a roll

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Cool_Dark_Place@reddit

Probably where a big chunk of his "family fortune" went... 30 years of paying the cops off just so they'd leave him alone!

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OldJames47@reddit

I didn’t think of a bribe, but that makes complete sense.

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xRVAx@reddit

If you think about the timeline of regional development in Hill Valley, 1955 was the beginning of the end for downtown.

I mean, the new residential neighborhood on the edge of town was "coming soon," and as people started living outside of downtown, the developers realized that instead of going downtown, shoppers would flock to a shopping center mall if they built one on the Lone Pine (or is it Twin Pine?) farm.

After the new mall was built in the 70s, downtown was done for. With crime and homelessness rampant in the city center, there was no reason for anyone to go there, much less fund the repair of a decaying clock tower.

By 1985, at the height of the crack epidemic, it's surprising anyone would even be walking around downtown.

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

Well yeah, Hill Valley was just a bunch of empty buildings, adult video stores, loan sharks, charity shops, a shady used car dealership, a sketchy church in the old theater and that one Jazzercise place. The place was run down af.

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peloquindmidian@reddit

In my city we don't have a clock tower, we have the county Courthouse in the center of our square where a clock would be if we had one.

The city can't do shit about anything on that land. It's up to the county to fix, or not fix, anything there. Including the fucking sidewalks you dickholes

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Majestic_Market2006@reddit

Is this economy?!

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Walter_Padick@reddit

I sure know what you're talking about