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- George: "Who...are you?"
- Marty: "Silence, Earthling! My name is Darth Vader. I am an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan!"
- — In George's room.
- Marty: "What made you change your mind, George?"
- George: "Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan, and told me that if I didn't take Lorraine out, that he'd melt my brain."
- Marty: "Yeah, well, let's keep this brain melting stuff to ourselves, okay?"
- George: "Oh, yeah. Yeah."
- — Discussing why George is going through with Marty's plan despite previous denial
Darth Vader was a fictional character that originated in the 1977 motion picture Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Alias of Marty McFly
For a full biography, see the article on Marty McFly.
Marty McFly used the alias "Darth Vader" in 1955 when portraying an alien being in order to convince his father, George McFly, to ask Lorraine Baines to the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance.
To portray "Darth Vader," McFly wore a radiation suit used for the handling of Doc Brown's stolen plutonium in 1985, and employed a Walkman playing the music of Eddie Van Halen as a torture device to ensure George's consent. In addition, Marty carried a hair dryer as a ray gun, threatening to "melt his brain" if he didn't ask Lorraine out. After delivering the instructions, Marty put George out with chloroform, and George slept until after noon.
Darth Vader, as portrayed in the film, was a pastiche of science fiction sources that were well known by the 1980s, but yet to be heard of in 1955. The name of the character would originate with the 1977 motion picture Star Wars, while the alleged home world of the alien, Planet Vulcan, would become known beginning in 1966 as the world from which Spock and Sarek hail in the television series Star Trek.
Darth was not unlike an alien on the cover of the Fantastic Story magazine at the side of George's bed. The unnerving experience not only led George McFly to choose to make the effort to pursue Lorraine, but also provided inspiration for his first novel, A Match Made in Space, published in 1985.
Behind the scenes
- The "Darth Vader" scene was originally much longer, and can be seen in its entirety as a feature on the DVD. The scene was skillfully edited to less than a minute. Footage of Marty turning on a hair dryer, telling George to take out Lorraine, chloroforming George, and climbing out the window to Doc's waiting car, was all cut from the film. In commentary, Bob Gale explained that "Darth's" commands, followed in the next scene by George's summary of the experience, were redundant.
- The scene in the film ends with Marty making a Vulcan-like sign after announcing that he is Darth Vader. George's agitated explanation of what made him change his mind summarizes most of Darth's speech, in comic fashion. The deleted footage explains such mysteries as why George wasn't in school that day, why a hair dryer seems to appear and vanish from Marty's belt between shots, and why George thought that "Darth" might be able to "melt" him or his brain.
- A few additional sci-fi references exist in the fourth draft screenplay, but never made it into the deleted scene. After "Darth Vader" introduces himself, George begins to think it's a dream. Marty replies, "This is no dream! You are having a Close Encounter of the Third Kind! You have reached the Outer Limits of the Twilight Zone!" After threatening George with the hair dryer, Marty's digital watch alarm goes off, and he treats it like a communicator, announcing, "Silence! I am receiving a transmission from the Battlestar Galactica!" (These references were reinstated by George Gipe for the novelization.)
Appearances
See also
- Darth Vader on Wookieepedia