Chapter 88: Pooled Clashes
Alexander was meeting once again with Curious Bob and meeting Director Zemeckis for the first time.
Curious Bob Gale, co-created, co-wrote, and co-produced the Back to the Future Trilogy with the director, Robert Zemeckis. With re-life intervention, it would seem that he was limitedly delegated into the position of a screenwriter.
Their interrogative first meeting must have led to that scenario because Curious Bob felt left out as Robert was set to direct the film under Mr. Creed's deal. Meanwhile, poor him could only transcribe a boy's picture book into a script.
For someone who could take pride in saying that the Back to the Future idea came to him by coming across Daddy Gale's yearbook, Curious Bob must have been heartbroken to know that the most accepted version would probably be about a mourning 9-year-old wanting a time machine to meet them back in time.
What if he went to high school with his father? Would he like his father if they went to school together? Would they have been friends? It was the same set of hooking questions that drive the film but his yearbook story would always be trumped by a semi-orphaned child's sob story.
Alexander had no consolation for curious Bob as his glory had already been diminished without his knowing.
As for Robert Zemeckis, Alexander could only say that the guy had it much easier than his friend.
Gale and Zemeckis are longtime friends and collaborators and Back to the Future was a film that they were planning for a long time before it became a reality.
The duo made 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and 'Used Cars' together early in their careers. Both films were well received, but they didn't earn the kind of box office returns everyone wanted.
Zemeckis and Gale wrote some movie for director Spielberg, and that is still known today as one of Spielberg's biggest financial failures.
They both had a lot of ups and downs but Alexander knew that the duo's greatest break-out success was Back to the Future.
However, their paths would go quite differently from there as Curious Bob seems to be stuck with BttF while Robert was flying off with many innovative successes in film-making.
Between the two, Curious Bob was marginally less interesting to Alexander while he had already designated the unmet Robert as Innovative Bob or perhaps Innovative Rob... for a much better distinction.
In any case, the duo was interesting in their own rights and Alexander was just echoing whatever interest they had on him.
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The studio waiting went on and it ended when two textbook 80s guys with Stan Lee glasses went in to check on the crew's preparation progress.
After they did that, they noticed the business-suited Mr. Creed and of course, the not-to-be-missed young and handsome kid right beside him.
The duo was excited and they went forward to convene. These director and screenwriter duo had long wanted to meet the story booker that the producer had kept them at bay for quite some time.
"Hello, you must be Alex." Robert gestured with a greeting. "My name's Robert Zemeckis, the director who loves your vision and would do his best to make it into films."
"Hello, Director Zemeckis." Alexander was textbook Alexander with his stale greetings.
"I'm Bob Gale in case you forgot about me from last time." Curious Bob seems to not want to be left out as he greeted.
"I remember." Alexander simply said and then proceeded to wait for what they were about to say next.
"Have you read the script, little guy?" Innovative Rob asked with curiosity. As much as he considered Back to the Future as their brainchild there was no doubt that this child's input was phenomenal in its creation.
"I have and I think it is better than my picture book." Alexander said while waving the script in his hand.
"Haha! I wouldn't discount that little project of yours. Robert loved the sketches you made as it helped out a ton with our progress in making the movie." Curious Bob explained and exposed his friend's great appreciation to the well-crafted stories and sketches.
"Your welcome, I guess." Alexander could only say. It would seem that this duo didn't hold some grudge as they were lulled by the coincidences and somewhat refined 'work' he had done.
Well, in any case, the first greetings were done and the idea back and forth commenced.
It would seem that aside from Curious Bob, director Rob was incessantly curious about him as well.
Old Sullivan could only take a step back as he watched these creative people clash with insights about the story.
It didn't stray much from the old man's expectation though, as the adult men were pining to ask Alexander about whatever they could ask for the creation of the phenomenal time travel story.
Alexander's answers were on point and succinct to every question while the adult duo seems to be enlightened from whatever they gleaned from the boy's clearly perfunctory answers.
Their topics mostly delved into the trick, and the difficulty, of doing an effective time travel story.
There are geeky stuff like figuring out all the paradoxes and how to change history. There are even discussions about plutonium, the flux capacitor, and the DeLorean perfection.
Of course, Alexander didn't really dive much into the science stuff but stuck more into answering questions like how the hook was created and drove the entire tone of the stories.
A kid going to high school with his parents, just sort of lent itself to a family-friendly tone that Zemeckis and Gale had been going for.
They hungered for questions while Alexander simply gave them the answers that they sought.
From Sullivan's perspective, it was akin to the many scenes of an adult patiently answering the questions of excitable and curious children.
The weird thing is that 9-year-old Alex was the figurative adult while the adult Rob and Bob became the figurative children whose curiosity knows no bounds.
Fortunately, everything was only symbolic and the adults knew how to contain themselves.
Rob and Bob found satisfaction and could only blame the protective grandpa producer for not bringing Alex to enlighten them on a lot of things.
Rob and Bob may have already gotten some gist of how the films were going to be presented, adding Alexander's insight on it still proved useful for strengthening the core concept of the trilogy.
Sullivan could only admit defeat at their blame while Alexander had already exceeded his daily quota of socializing and just wanted to be reclusive once again.
Nevertheless, Alexander was caught up on a lot of things related to their filming progress and their preparation process to get to where they are at.
In the end, whatever the four of them' thoughts on this questioning clashes were, the films would be made better for it.
Producer, director, screenwriter, and the unconventional story booker persona had pooled themselves together and the Back to the Future trilogy was the creation that their collaboration would elevated-ly develop.