Back to the Future. An iconic piece of cinematic history. One of the best time travel movies of all time. A beloved comedy movie. …There’s not much about Back to the Future that we don’t love.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things about the adventure movie that raise question marks. (We’ve always wondered how exactly the friendship between a high-school student and a disgraced scientist came to last so long, but that’s a matter for another day.)
However, over the years, one aspect of the movie has stood the test of time as a resounding, ‘Huh?’, and has always successfully weirded fans out.
Need we remind you that, once Marty travels back to the 1950s, he encounters the younger versions of his mother and father, with the mother forming something of an…intense feeling for the ’80s teen.
A major part of the Back to the Future subplot involves Marty having to convince his parents to fall in love in order to secure his own existence. But the task becomes increasingly harder when it comes to light that his mother actually has a crush on him.
It’s an icky plotline that even the charming, quicky comedy of Back to the Future can’t quite make us forget. And now, in the midst of his new movie, Still: A Michael J. Fox movie, Fox himself has acknowledged the strangeness of that particular idea.
“There’s something about it that people still respond to because it’s so weird…” he said [via Variety]. “Not to be crude, but it’s a movie about almost f—ng your mom and she’s totally ready for it. Even at the time, I realized it was bizarre — plus Lea was pretty cute.”
His candid opinion is a reminder that even though audiences had to suffer through those cringey scenes, Michael J. Fox had to live them.
See what we thought of his emotional documentary with our Still A Michael J. Fox movie review, or check out our list of the best ’80s movies or best teen movies. For something more modern (hold the incest), check out all the new movies coming out this year, and the best movies of all time.