btothef:

Okay this book does the “new chapter pages start half-way down” thing and even though it’s short, this page is remarkable in that each paragraph has something nutty with it.  LET US BEGIN:

PARAGRAPH 1

We’re finally meeting Doc for the first time!  All we know about him so far is that Strickland considers him a child that never grew up, and he’s pals with Marty.  Let’s play this game again: how would you introduce Doctor Emmett Brown?  With something sciency?  Maybe something wacky?  Hah hah no OBVIOUSLY you have him talking to himself about how old he is:

“If only I don’t die of a heart attack or a stroke first,” Dr. Emmett Brown muttered aloud.

Yes.  Meet Doc Brown… ladies.

PARAGRAPH 2

He was close to seeing his dream become a reality.  No doubt about that.  One by one the scientific and physical obstacles had been eliminated.  Was this to be “the day”?

I love “the day” being in quotation marks: it’s like Gipe isn’t actually 100% sure this is a real expression, so he uses the quotes as insurance.

Hey, who wants to go surfing?!  As we teens say, it is time to “hang ten”.

 -Surfer George Gipe?

PS: If these two paragraphs I’ve quoted seem awkward together, don’t blame me!  I’m not cutting anything out!

PARAGRAPH 3

“Don’t count on it,” he replied to himself.  There was no use getting too high, he reasoned.

TRUE FACTS: I would like this book 100% more if he’d written

There was no use getting too “high”, he reasoned.

TRUE FACTS 2: I would like this book 1000% more if he’d written

There was no use getting too “high”, he “reasoned”.

 PARAGRAPH 4

At sixty-five, he was one of the nation’s most talented and most unheralded inventors.  In fact, no one except Marty McFly even knew of his accomplishments, but that didn’t matter.  Soon all that would change.  His lifetime of struggle, of being the recipient of ridicule, would suddenly turn golden.

Movie Doc is adorable: he’s really excited about science, doing research for its own sake, and (in the 50s when he finally believes Marty’s story) sincerely excited that one of his inventions will work out SO WELL.  I never got the impression (even in unaltered 1985 Prime) that he was building the time machine to show them (to show them all!!) how wrong everyone was ridicule him.  Movie Doc just really loves science and doesn’t care what anyone thinks!

In contrast, Book Doc is introduced as living more in mad scientist territory, all old and interested in revenge.  He’s no longer chaotic good, he’s more… neutral crazy, I guess?  That’s not really an alignment though.  DON’T TELL ANYONE