Why Don’t Marty’s Parents Recognise Him? (Back to the Future Explained)

I’m this video I will be looking at and explaining a Back to the Future plot hole that has confused fans for years. Why don’t Marty’s parents recognise him in the alternative 1985.

[barkerave]

Martys parents saw him almost every single day for 17+ years grow from a baby to a young man. Any sense of familiarity would likely just feel parental / maternal.

[stevenkawleski]

The biggest plothole is that they dont name his older brother "marty" instead of him

[christopher]

It would've been funny if Marty's parents named him Calvin in the new timeline. Then at the end of the movie they could've said, "He was gone as soon as he arrived, but you always reminded us of him."

[tyleroreilly]

The one that always got me is how he returned to the same house. If the parents were more successful in this future, don't you think they might have moved into a different, possibly more affluent neighborhood? Wouldn't it be a case of Marty returning to the house he knew, only to find complete strangers living there? Makes you think.

[themashugana]

I used to wonder about this too, but now that I'm 47 years old, I can completely understand why Marty's parents don't recognize him. to remember a face from 30 years ago would be very difficult, especially if it's someone you've only spent a week of your life around.

[frankdominguezjr]

I didn't recognize my ex-wife yesterday. She was with her new husband and two kids. I was with her for years and knew her deepest darkest secrets and I passed her right up, but Marty's parents are supposed to remember some guy they saw for a week 30 years ago?

[dadmmoris]

I feel like the bigger plothole is the likelihood of Marty being born again - he changed the way his parents met but yet they still had the exact same 3 children born at the same time

[astroplayeru]

"marty....thats a nice name" that's lorraine's line after marty says goodbye to them when the dance is over. he also mentions the fire on the living room rug. they had to have remembered him enough to name their son after him, as well as marty predicting that he set their house on fire by accident.

[Dark_Kevlarian]

The bigger question to ask is, "Why doesn't Biff recognize him?" The entire trilogy is really about Marty and Biff fighting each other for timeline dominance in which Biff always comes out worse off than before with this ONE, specific asshole (Calvin Klein) getting in the way every time. To be honest, Marty's interference of Biff's life is FAR more ingrained and interconnected than it is with his parents.

[Asianwaste]

I also like to think that George and Lorraine would see the actual Calvin Klein on TV when his fashion empire gets established. They think "Well look at that, I knew Marty was going to be someone." and that would distort their memory of what Calvin looked like.

[davidm]

So the question is "Why don't they recognize someone they knew 30 years ago, knew just for 7 days, and had no photos of?"

Also, Marty looked totally different as a baby and slowly changed to look more like "Calvin" over the years. By that time it was like the Frog in the Pot and they never noticed him slowly turning into that old friend.

[trappervz]

You can also consider the fact that they watched Marty grow up, slowly becoming who he is in 1985. I would speculate that the image in their memory is completely different than how Marty looks.

[Valynis]

There's also the other side of the medal, being, they witnessed their son grow from 1969 to 1985, which would make the association with that kid from way back when all the more difficult. Making the leap to time traveller son is pretty big. It would be interesting to see if George put the 3 clues Marty left him about time travel (Darth Vader, Vulcan, vulcan salute) in his first book, that would risk tipping him off, not mentionning how it could change the new timeline (Star Wars's villain having a new name to evade copyright infringement, for exemple.)

[wettuga]

Lorraine would definitely remember Calvin, not because he was only present for one week in their lives, but because he imprinted memorable moments in her:
- he was the first teen to sleep on her bed/bedroom;
- she had a crush on him;
- he did memorable things like skating around (isn't he dreamy?) in the town square and making Biff crash his car into a manure truck;
- he played weird music at the school dance that made everyone think WTH?
George on the other hand would probably not remember Calvin because their interactions were short. If he DID remember Calvin vividly, he would probably divorce Lorraine after realizing that Marty looks EXACTLY like Calvin, which would probably lead George to believe that Lorraine had an affair with Calvin sometime after their 2nd child was born.

[screwielewie]

For me the biggest plot hole of this movie is: how the hell did a teenage dude who's into skateboarding and rock music and has seemingly no interest in science became totes besties with an elderly eccentric scientist?

[canonical]

in 1985 George tells Marty 'A wise man once told me, "if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything"' That wise man was Marty (in 1955) so George was influenced enough by 1955 Marty to remember that.

[fredlight]

For those old enough to remember back 30 years back, memories that far back of a single week or days aren't really that strong, even for important events. Unless you have photos or videos of someone, memories degrade and old memories of people get jumbled up a little and replaced. 30 years on, you could show them a photo of Eric Stoltz playing Marty and they'd swear that was the guy they met.

[dr_jaymz]

I think that Martys appearance as he grew up would change so slowly from no resemblance to a close resemblance that they wouldn't notice. If you look back at photos from 30 years ago of people you know, they look impossibly young and different to how you remember them. Finally, you wouldn't expect to find someone that looks like someone from 30 years ago, although if they saw him looking 30 years older they might have a flashback.

[GovtWatchdog]

Technically, Marty should’ve disappeared immediately after he pushed George out of the way.

[parula]

Great analysis. So many good points but the one that stuck with me was that any resemblance between Marty and “the kid that helped them meet” would never have been explained by “ Our son Marty must have travelled back in time to help us get together” by the parents. Most people just don’t think that way. We all know people now who resemble kids we went to school with, and we just think “that person looks like a kid I went to school with”!