A ‘Back to the Future’ Sequel Implied That Marty Was Inbred

Everybody loves Back to the Future, the classic story of a suburban teen who drives a cocaine trafficker’s luxury car into the 1950s and inadvertently seduces his own mother. Fun for the whole family! 

Yeah, there’s a lot of creepy stuff going on in these movies that spawned a literal children’s Saturday morning cartoon— from Doc Brown’s multiple crimes to the fact that Marty and Doc’s adventures through time somehow doomed Princess Diana.

Obviously, the whole thing is based on a wildly uncomfortable premise, featuring a climax that requires our hero to make out with his own mother in order to preserve the integrity of the space-time continuum, while also ensuring that he’ll spend the rest of his life in intense psychotherapy. 

The original movie is so gross, a lot of people seemingly haven’t noticed that the third movie is also incredibly incestuous. 

In Back to the Future Part III, Marty travels back to the Old West, 1885 to be exact. But after falling down a hillside and bonking his head, Marty is taken in by his great-great-grandfather, Seamus McFly, and his wife Maggie. Seamus, like Marty, is played by Michael J. Fox, while Maggie is played by Lea Thompson, who also happened to portray Marty’s mom Lorraine Baines.

Either this is a remarkable coincidence, or it means that the McFly family is as inbred as the English Royal family. Back to the Future fans have pointed out that, based on this scene, George and Lorraine are likely second cousins. Meaning that if they ever make a Part IV, Marty will have to travel back to 1955 yet again and warn his parents that they share a family tree.

Back to the Future’s co-writer Bob Gale has addressed this question in the past, stressing that the intention behind the casting was merely to find a way to include Thompson, and also to ensure that all three movies share a “Mom is that you?” scene.

Gale admitted that he and the other filmmakers “thought about whether it made any sense” because “obviously, Maggie McFly and Lorraine Baines cannot be blood relatives.” So he subsequently suggested an alternative theory that, not unlike the first movie, is extremely Oedipal in nature.

“We did come up with a satisfactory answer,” Gale explained “It’s a well-known adage that ‘men are attracted to women who remind them of their mothers.’ Clearly then, when Seamus married Maggie, that insured that the McFly men would have a genetic trait that attracted them to women who bear a resemblance to Maggie or Lea Thompson.” He also pointed out that even Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer is “the same physical type!”

See nothing icky about that! McFly men are merely genetically predisposed to get the hots for women that bear an uncanny resemblance to their mothers.

The Back to the Future trilogy just hit Netflix this month. Judging from the success of Game of Thrones, the inbreeding plot line may actually help its streaming numbers. 

You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time you’re reading this).