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9 Back to the Future Cast Members on 1 Stage | 40th Anniversary Reunion Panel [Fan Expo Dallas]
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Jun 17, 2025
Experience the magic of Back to the Future at Fan Expo Dallas as the legendary cast reunites for the 40th anniversary! Join Claudia Wells (Jennifer Parker), Jeffrey Weissman (George McFly), Charlie Croughwell (Needles), Donald Fullilove (Goldie Wilson), Harry Waters Jr. (Marvin Berry), James Tolkan (Principal Strickland), Alan Howarth (Composer), Matt Clark (Sheriff), and Frances Lee McCain (Sarah Wilson) as they share behind-the-scenes stories, memorable moments, and their love for this iconic film. Don’t miss this unforgettable reunion celebrating one of the greatest time-travel films of all time!
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start a round of applause and keep it going because we got a lot of them first up Principal
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Strickland and you are prepared by Claudia [Applause]
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Wells next up he's the mayor and lights
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next up he's got that new sound we've been looking for listen to this it's Harry
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J next up it's Stella [Applause]
0:55
stella 23
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legendary sound effects man and composer in his own right
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home and last but certainly not least the man behind so many of our favorite
1:15
action sequences in the Back to the Future franchise as well as Michael J fox's filmography Charlie Crowwell
1:30
and that is all the time we have good night just kidding oh my god i can't tell you
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uh what this means to me this stage is like my Delorean that timeraveled me to
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be here with you this movie is the reason I exist personally and professionally so from the bottom of my
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back to the future love and heart and all the fans thank you for being here with [Applause]
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us normally normally um when you say it's with a heavy heart it means
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something negative but today it's with a heavy heart it means something really positive so um let's uh let's let's kick
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it off i have a question for each one of you uh Claudia thank you for being with us it's so special to see uh not one but
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both of our Jennifer Parkers here with her it should be it should be Yeah is is
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uh there you go yeah um it it really is so special as fans it's such a rare
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opportunity to see you both on stage last night um you there was you know pre- internet and so there was some
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confusion for fans when Back to the Future 2 came out and it wasn't you but I I would love for you to tell the very
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like heartwarming story of why you chose to step away uh with your mother for Back to the Future 2 okay I have two
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answers okay the first one's the truth and the second one is funny okay okay so
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my mom was uh diagnosed with breast cancer and lymphoma after I did Back to
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the Future one and uh she was fourth stage when she was
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uh diagnosed so I took her you know to radiation hospital and we used to play
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Jin Remy in the hospital and she was a smoker and she bribed the like orderly
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guys to get her cigarettes and she opened the window at USC North Nor Cancer Hospital and we
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would play Jin Remy while she's smoking her cigarettes in the hospital this was
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a long time ago and they let I'm going with that but um she it was it was a a
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difficult emotional time for me she changed
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um when she was ill and actually told me that I gave her cancer because I was uh
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um I don't know why so emotionally I was
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not in a place to do anything but deal with the horror at home and
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uh do the best I could to take care of her
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and I wasn't in a place emotionally to be able to act i need to be clean when
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I'm acting and I was Not so I said no and they were so nice
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and they kept waiting and they kept asking me and I just said no thank you but no and the funny thing
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is they cast Elizabeth Shu and Adventures in Babysitting was down to
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Elizabeth Shu me and Phoebe Kates and then I played Phoebe Kate's role in uh
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Fast Times that she did in the movie so Hollywood is just like
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crazy so the funny one
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is Marty did something again where he talks to the wrong people and does the
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wrong thing and he was warned not to by Doc and so Jennifer ended up having
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different parents right and then they birthed Jennifer and
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when Marty saw her she looked different but so did his dad mom was skinny and
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beautiful brother was in a suit so uh he didn't quite notice
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i love it well uh I I think it's safe to call you guest
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even though you're only with us one film it's such a delight to see you at all these events i I feel safe in uh
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crowning you the official cheerleader of the Back to the Future franchise definitely that yeah so we I just want
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to clarify one thing i understand and know and I'm certain there is no way I have the power to give
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anyone cancer so I did Just a little therapy but I got over it
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so we we do have a special treat i was waiting for the thumbs up that it was ready to go uh uh Mr jeffrey Wiseman you
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brought a a little special gift for all of us fans that has never before been
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seen is this on yeah is yours on yeah
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i've got hers because of the mishos going on with
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Chrisman Glover asking for million dollars and script approval uh I um
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stepped in because at the very last minute the 11th not the 12th hour I
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think I came in um I was originally told I was going to be a photo double like
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like Kevin Holloway was for Mike uh and uh and then because I was friends with
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Chris and I I call him i say "What's going on?" He didn't call me back until part three came out said you know they
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used my life mask and I give him my pictures and stuff so he could get his settlement so uh I was cut out i was
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kept secret uh and um the making of Back to
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the Future Carp 2 documentary had pretty much cut me out of it luckily the sound guy was a friend of mine and he gave me
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some footage which I'm going to show you guys now so uh it's going to start out um just wrapping up the old age makeup
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been in the chair for about two and a half hours here taking a quick break and then here comes the young George
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makeup you got turn that up can you turn that up you got
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sound well Harry is singing Earth right here and you guys need to know what's going on and uh had been calling me
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Kristen there we [Music] [Applause]
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[Music]
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go my
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darling i'm just a fool
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[Music]
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so you can tell by the profile it really is Chris's life mask that the makeup was based on up straight on it didn't quite
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look like him so that that's why they kept me in the background or out of focus or what have you um and so I I had
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to ask Bob Z to stop calling me Kristen on action so that's why you hear him say Leah for action on that one so there you
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have it that's kind of a a fan expo exclusive finally edition yeah
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all right Mr tolken no other single word in cinema history has made me become
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instantly iconic than slacker
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any slackers out [Applause]
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there that was I don't even have a question anymore that was perfect uh Donald uh Mayor Goldie Wilson uh
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uh you also became iconic um you know
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you you have so much kind of optimism in your moment and and and it's so
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representative in a really important way um did you expect to kind of uh have the
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character take on this this symbolism in that way absolutely not
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uh it's a it came as a humbling surprise to me um at 2010
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uh I saw on the internet that Claudia and Jeffrey and Michael and some other
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Chris and some other people were at a a Back to the Future reunion yeah back to the Future reunion i was in that
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movie years ago what do you mean reunion so I went on this thing that was pretty
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new to me at the time called the Google and I put in my name and I was
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"Holy cow it's because of each and every one of you in here that Goldie Wilson
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became a thing i had no idea." So thank you
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[Applause] Mr mr harry Waters Jr i see that you
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have not left Marvin Barry's fashion sense behind a bruise still it has not healed
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apparently man that was a deep cut it hasn't healed um your your role is also so pivotal uh
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I I you have since uh you're clearly still dressed in the park you've since performed at Enchantment on the Sea
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reenactment dances but what was it like to to actually be there and film the
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iconic Johnny be good scene it was the most fun you could have without any alcohol or
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drugs the most fun we had a live band every single day we had dancing girls
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well they were extras that would always dance with us and it was the first new thing that they were shooting in the
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movie because they had to reshoot everything with the other person who was there but the enchantment of the sea
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dance was the new shooting for everybody the crew Mr spielberg showed up and
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called me Marvin i was like "Yeah I'm Marvin." But everybody was happy so it was an amazing moment that's what I
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really always get to share with that because I got to dance and I got to sing and then of course Alvin Sylvester asked
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me if I wanted to sing the song and I went um aren't you getting somebody from like the four tops or temptations and
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the spinners but we went in there for 14 takes some people have heard this story and oh I got to tell you my friend um
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they put it together i did not hear it until we went to a screening of the movie and I
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screamed because it was like what so within that I have to say that
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one of the things that was also the best is that the the line that I get to sort of people remember me about is it's
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called Chuck it's Marvin
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[Music] [Applause]
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one take wow amazing
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and Francis uh you were of course known as a movie mom in Back to the Future but
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you are 80s movie mom royalty [Applause]
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back to the Future Loop Gremlin stand by me you also are '90s movie mom royalty
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cuz you were a movie mom in Scream as well um what is it like to be a
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generation's 80s movie mom shut up
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what was the question what was it like to to to be a generation's '8s movie mom
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i didn't know that I was a generation 80s movie until the
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2000s but it's fabulous i mean look what's come out of it uh it was a little
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ironic because I don't have children of my own uh I'm a I'm a mom to a lot of
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kids in a very different way i have lots of nieces and nephews great nieces and nephews and a great great nephew and
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soon to be a new great great but we don't know maybe right gender sex yet so so it it was um
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ironic and wonderful and uh I don't know how to answer that really
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how does it feel to be an icon
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i'm hungry i'm a little tired so Jeffrey I had a question for you that
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was answered in your setup video so we'll uh we'll come back to you because I have another one for you but Allan sir
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it is a real honor that you're here with us uh if you don't know Allan's uh you
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know uh he's a composer in his own right working with John Carpenter you worked on Baku Bonsai Beagle Juice Ray's Lost
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Arc Cter Gremlins with sound effects uh and a number of a number of iconic
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double stories but you got to work with composer Alan Sylvestri when you came in
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the kind of soundsscapes of Back to the Future had kind of been established from the first film in terms of what we think
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of of the Delorean and and things like that but you got to provide some pretty iconic sound effects for two and three
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with the hoverboard and the train so what was it like kind of collaborating with Allan um because the score is so
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not only musical but it it has a lot of sound effects built in but also to kind of put your own stamp on the the
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franchise with so many unique kind of props that needed soundness well you know I was I was casting I was put in
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the position of making these sound effects because I was a Star Trek guy i did Star Trek one through
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six future that was a good So the the sound effects editors approached me to
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be make special sound effects right there's little editors and all this other stuff but I was like a special
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sheet shop so we we had these things we had to make and we talked about the sound of making
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the hoverboard and I have a little video i don't know if it came through if we
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don't do it we can't but there was a PowerPoint to show but if it doesn't end we'll just keep going so the uh the idea
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was They told me they didn't want a synthesizer sound okay so everything I
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already had ready for him was like well that and they wanted to be acoustic or
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they said organic come from reality what am I going to do i don't know and one of
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the one of the sound effect says "Well how about a tuning fork?" I go "That's stupid."
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But I thought "Okay I'm gonna go." So I took a tuning fork you know and you hit it
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i took the tuning fork and I put it in front of the microphone and I twisted it [Music]
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and that became the sound of the hoverboard now put back into my synthesizers and all this stuff but the
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source the the gravity of it had to be real and that was what they were asking
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so yeah you could have just done it with your mouth you didn't even need the material yeah so so that was that was
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the course of events and and so I was around i made the the voices for the the talking guest computers uh that was
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funny and I had to go it was before all these computers we're talking about what is it
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834 86 but still no no pro tools no that stuff and and so I I I went for a
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company i found a company that was doing computer voices for systems down in San Diego i approached them and I got the
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computer voices from a real wow somebody that was doing advanced work and that's why it was lucky because right now you
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get the phone out of Google and it's some robot and you think it's a real person but we envision the clunkiness
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it's like like we said we always envision the the future to be pixelated we couldn't imagine 4K and 8K yeah so
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this is the whole idea of taking of taking your lens and looking to the future
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from that time and how it's not that way but at the same time amazing how much
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they got right too which is kind of crazy uh Charlie uh let's let's just get an applause for our our
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ST long overdue that that our Slack community is finally getting honored uh
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at the Academy Awards uh as as recently announced you were uh not only Michael J
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fox is st on all three Back to Future films but uh 17 of his films over 10
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years including Teen Wolf uh so you're good at basketball we know that um you
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know skateboard chases driving Deloreans riding horses marty McFly when you think of him he's not only such a physical
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character in his comedy but he's a physical character in his action we know what Michael brought to Marty but what
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did you bring of yourself to to Marty because you are part of you are Marty
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McFly you were part of that what made that character what it was on screen yeah i need to make it believable i'm
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not me when I'm performing for Mike I have to be Mike so I have to move the same way as him or Mark McFly everything
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I do has to be the same as he would do so I spend an enormous amount of time
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just watching him studying all of his you know little quirky
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idiosyncrasies so some of those things that you would hold his hand a certain
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way would which is different than the way I hold my hand doing something so I would have I did that um you know
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amongst a million other things the way he goes slides into a into a position the way he moves through space and time
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um the way his legs bend the way his arms go what's going on in his head is he scared is he anxious you know is he
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is he like I'm going to conquer the world today on this gag you know um so I had to be in the same place headsp space
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as him and understand the character and what the character was going through at that time so by studying all of his
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movements all day long every day um I I I got good at it um and that I think was
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the most important part of me meeting him and and it being believable and you watching a movie and not realizing that
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there's actually stunts being done by someone other than than him it's really important that you know when I got into
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the movie business uh you didn't know about stunt people stunt people were quiet they you never saw them they never
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talked about them they were never even given credit um so and I like that
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because it really fits you know you're supposed to think it's the actor that's that's performing these amazing stunts
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and oftentimes it is and Mike does i don't want to take anything away from him he's an amazing athlete and
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sometimes we would kind of be in a little bit of competition about who's going to stop the best you know and he'd
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go out be like I want to do this and I go "Okay well don't kill yourself in the process." And he would do it he'd come
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back and he goes "How was that?" I go "Well I've got to stop Mike." Well I'll do it if you can't do
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it you know he's like "No I can do it." Um so so that was my approach to
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the to the entire thing and Mike and I really you know just totally linked up it's like you know two brothers similar
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you know close to close same age and uh you know we we never really had to talk
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a lot we just understood each other and I think that was an important part of the whole thing and it still applies
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today you know 40 years later we still have the same relationship it was so special to see yeah
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[Applause] absolutely together to see you both
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together was really really special i've seen double quite literally like a future um can I just say something yeah
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yeah please i went to high school and was in the drama department with Chris
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Glover and I did the same thing you did um my friend turned on the computer
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because I don't know how to use it and typed in my name and there was all these
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groups like talking from Japan to California to and so many people were
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saying like she's dead there was a whole there was a whole like
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death thing about me but they were saying all these different things and I was trying to figure out how to get into
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the groups and say "Hi I'm okay but I I don't use a computer so I
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wasn't able to do that." So you had to start doing conventions to prove
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so for fan expo this year um uh to in order to try and fit more fan questions
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in we had fans uh presubmit questions um and I will ask your questions here um
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we've selected some that are for the group uh so this question is from Isabelle in Temple Texas uh if you could
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have played any other character in the Back to the Future series just for fun who would you have wanted to play
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lorine all right that's good but I really really liked playing Jennifer
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yeah and I think Leah Thompson is so brilliant that I'm embarrassed I said that it's okay we won't tell her she's
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ready i changed my mind i would prefer to be my character all right i like it
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yes sir you know I've done a lot of these shows and I really mean it when I
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say I don't think we've ever encountered a group of people that are as
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friendly as as you people here in in Dallas [Applause]
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everything's big in Texas including our love for Back to the Future
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especially number three it's a blessing all right here we go uh anybody else if there's another character you
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could have played you're all really good as your characters i didn't meet anybody except for Michael
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when I was shooting the movie yeah yeah okay so look
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so I got called into the office um and I I I rode into Amblin and at this point
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you know ETN had been the biggest thing in the world stephen Spielberg was god in the movie business so I I go into AM
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and Amlin has this complex on the Universal Studio lot so the first thing I do is these huge Jurassic Park gates
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open up and it's like you could literally see the light go so I went into this meeting
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uh Bob Hill and one of the producers Neil Canyon and the first thing they asked me small talk the first thing they
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asked me was could I say so when you talk about what role
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would I have chances are I could have had I been
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able to sing you would have a gold record but I
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and the rest is
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history nobody could play Mayor Goldie Wilson
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except you so that was Well that was the genius of of the the producers and the director everybody that was cast in that
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film is absolutely perfect for the roles that they played in that film it's true it's true
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well I would have played Yuri too
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i'm Spartacus i love that song and I would have loved to have some
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uh there's another question for the whole group uh from Nathan in Brian Texas if you could leave one message for
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fans who grew up with Back to the Future and are now introducing it to a new generation what would you say
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[Music] maybe showing it to
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it's if you can think one message for fans who grew up it's it's a question that's essentially saying you know
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there's there's a generation of people who grew up with this movie but there's a whole new generation that are discovering it now um how would you
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introduce Back to the Future to the new generation what advice would you give young people about Back to the Future
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and what advice would you give young people let's hear that one
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what What advice would I give to young people concerning what
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don't be a slacker young people as far as young people and Back to the
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Future keep watching it [Applause]
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hi a lot of people don't know this uh but while we were shooting uh my wife
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Tom's wife Mike's wife and Charlie's wife all gave birth to baby boys while
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we were shooting a film i think Tom's mine and and Mike's were like just a couple weeks separated
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from each other and then yours was in October uh and I think that I don't know the mysticism of the universe of that
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new energy and the excitement as if we didn't have enough stress already it it I think helped propel this
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piece i just think there's something extraordinary why it's become this uh
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this iconic trilogy of one of the top 10 of all time now yeah absolutely you want
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to answer can I answer i I wouldn't tell them anything because
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children from any age love Back to the Future so much there's nothing you need
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to say the movie says it cuz every generation has a special experience when
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you just look in the audience it's the NBA dream the movie was made 40 years ago half of this room wasn't born
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it's it's a real right message too it's a really special movie that feels like a we all had our own milestone with it and
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then you get to pass it on and and there aren't a lot of movies like that um in that way it's really special for so many
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reasons but that reason in particular I just showed my daughter was here in the front row for the first
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time watching the movie theater but you just showed it to Well I had to wait for
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the right moment you just showed it to me everybody goes "Shame shame."
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There's some questionable things between her mom and her son that she has
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which is why Disney passed over
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so I did I did um my first Delorean car show with my son Sebastian who was 12
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and when I was with Bob Hill and one of the audience members said "How do you
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feel about your mom in the movie?" And he said "Well I haven't seen it yet."
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And the whole audience is like
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and so one of the guys gave him uh the movie and I I he's pretty much seen it
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when we do ComicCon's things with me i I don't know if he
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actually I mean I'm not going to like say sit down and watch all my TV series
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yeah well a whole new generation will have a chance to see it properly on the big screen uh it's the 40th anniversary
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so I think there's plans for it to come back to theaters I'm sure at some point so if uh if you are feeling shame make
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sure that you fix that this year yeah um here's another fan question uh
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what historic if you had a Delorean time machine what historical event would you travel back to
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ask me one more time i want to get this right if you had if you had a delay time machine what historical event would you
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travel back to travel back to or forwards to but it
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seems trickier
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i'd go back to building the pyramids building pyramids whoever would design that had some
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really super stuff going on remember they called them gods but maybe
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they were just ancient aliens and all that stuff that very much interest me i
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check that out
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i would go everywhere and see what's going on whether it went
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to the beginning of time and fast forward until the now and then up to the
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future i want to see it all hello Jeffrey i want to know what I asked we'll go down the line here oh
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great uh I would you know Charlie I like Charlie's answer because there's so many
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time periods I would go to i'd love to go you know to Sun Records recording studio and see those guys record i'd
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like to go meet my grandfather who died before I was born i would like to go and see an original Shakespeare production
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at the Globe you know all I like your answers I go a bunch of places
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my turn your turn okay I'll I'll pick one um it just
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popped into my head i think the time between World War I and World War II there's something about that time frame
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which was we still in the throws of some depression of the depression or uh and
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but also moving toward a real optimistic time in this country
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um and I also feel like there's something about it that is similar that
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period of time similar to what we were facing coming out of World War
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II in the period between then and now and the 80s were sort of in the middle
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of that period this is becoming a thesis sorry but it's all right
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um but there's something about wishing you could go back to a time when things
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should have gone in a better way and they didn't and having a real wish
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to go back and change the course of history which is of course what does
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happen in Back to the Future in such a beautiful way but in a very intimate family kind of way um but that I think
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that the country at that time was still young enough and close enough in time that the a lot of reparation could have
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been done in that period of time that was not done and so we're as will happen
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we're historically paying the price as we go forward um and that was one of the beautiful messages of of the film in
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Back to the Future was that they they really did Marty had a chance to go back
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and keep them from being erased as people and bring them forward into a
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more optimistic future and we have to remind ourselves that that opportunity is always present yeah absolutely as
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long as there is optimism in human life you know that that's a possibility
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[Applause] good luck following that up buddy thank
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you Francis for laying that out there i just want to know that I would not want to go back i want to go to the future
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yes yes is done
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when he gets 88 miles per hour we're going to see some serious all right we're going to go to the
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future i I mean my dad is 97 so he has seen a whole century so he's told me
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enough stories that I don't need to go back we're both looking forward to going into the future i love
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it stole my just like he stole my role anyway
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yeah so so so so yeah man the future i'm literally trying to get at least some
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years in the future where these dag on cars really fly
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i would absolutely go to excuse me I would go to meet Jesus
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Christ and hang out with him for three years or actually I would go when he was
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born and hang out with him when he was a carpenter and then watch the whole thing
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and I would be one of the people that hung near him that's what I would do just want to
35:58
if you remember that is one of the as Doc is showing Marty he's putting in all these red letter dates in history
36:04
science and he says uh the birth of Christ so yeah oh can I say one quick thing sure yeah my daddy was in World
36:10
War II and he was in the 10th Mountain Division wow
36:18
as I'm a human
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