Harry Waters Jr.'s Marvin Berry claims to be the cousin of real-world rock and roll legend Chuck Berry in 1985's end of the first Back to the Future movie arguably sends an unavoidable ripple through time.
All the timelines in the Back to the Future trilogy interconnect to create a cerebral and sprawling temporal adventure. As far as time travel stories go, the first movie is relatively grounded. The 1950s setting allows for a fun and quirky story to unfold while acknowledging the real threat to Marty's future and possibly his very existence. During his iconic performance of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, Marty's run-in with the songwriter's supposed cousin raises a few key questions.
Back To The Future's Marvin Berry Wasn't Really Chuck's Cousin
Waters was playing a fictional relative of Chuck Berry
Marvin Berry and the Starlighters played a set at the high school at the end of Back to the Future, but such a man and his band never existed. Instead, Harry Waters Jr. is playing a fictionalized relative of Chuck Berry, although the movie makes sure to maintain the apparently genetic musical ability of the Berry family. Instead, it's just a fun moment to highlight what period Marty finds himself trapped in, as Marvin is roughly the same age as Chuck would have been during that era.
Marvin Berry's introduction to Back to the Future's falsified timeline is one of the most subtle and somehow also one of the most memorable.
Waters reprised his role in the 1989 sequel, but the actor went far beyond simply playing a musician. He is a singer in the real world as well, and it is actually him singing in the movies whenever Marvin is performing. This dual-threat ability made him seem very authentic not only as a fictitious musician, but also as a "cousin" of the one and only Chuck Berry. As far as minor storylines go, Marvin Berry's introduction to Back to the Future's falsified timeline is one of the most subtle and somehow also one of the most memorable.
Did Marty McFly Really Inspire Chuck Berry's Sound?
The true creator of "Johnny B. Goode" in Back to the Future lore is complicated
Marty breaks a huge unwritten time travel rule by performing a song that hadn't yet been written by its original composer - Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." The moment sets in motion a massive causality paradox. From a strictly linear perspective, Marty causes the song to appear for the first time in 1955, whereas the song itself wasn't actually released until 1958. Back to the Future then showing Marvin's phone call to Chuck with the instruction to "listen to this" implies that the song's original writer copied it from Marty, who only knew the song because he'd heard Chuck's version first.
Why Biff's Friends Call Marvin Berry's Bandmate A "Spook" In Back To The Future
The first Back to the Future movie is set mainly in the 1950s, and as such, certain crop up that are perhaps less common in the modern day.
Outside the movie, it's a temporal impossibility. In other franchises, such a paradox could rip apart the fabric of space and time. Thankfully, Back to the Future has a more fun-loving approach. However, abiding by the movie's rules, Marty's performance could easily be the inspiration behind "Johnny B. Goode," but the more reasonable explanation is that Chuck Berry had already written the song, and hearing what was presumably an unclear version of it down the phone encouraged him to take it public and eventually make it so that Fox's Back to the Future character could eventually get to know it.
Back to the Future
- Release Date
- July 3, 1985
- Runtime
- 116 minutes
- Director
- Robert Zemeckis
Cast
Michael J. FoxMarty McFly
Emmett Brown
WHERE TO WATCH
Back to the Future follows teenager Marty McFly as he is inadvertently sent back to 1955, where he disrupts his parents' meeting. With the assistance of eccentric inventor Doc Brown, Marty must restore the timeline by ensuring his parents fall in love and find a way back to 1985.
- Writers
- Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale
- Studio(s)
- Universal Pictures
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