After watching The Way We Almost Weren’t again with my daughters, I was stuck by the number similarities in this episode and the first Back to the Future movie.
- Lightning was the catalyst for time travel. Granted, they handled it very differently, but it was the same element.
- The central plot is the disruption of their parent’s big moment. In Hannah Montana it was first meeting, while in Back to the Future it was the first kiss.
- Once disrupted, the children begin to disappear, starting with the oldest. Marty was the youngest, but the photo with his older brother and sister showed them disappearing first.
- The first element to disappear was the hand. Both Marty and Jackson have shots of them looking directly through their hand in disbelief.
- Both Marty and Jackson mistakenly called their father “dad”, and changed it to “dad..dad…daddio“.
At first, I thought it was just coincidence. After thinking about it a bit more, I think it was an homage to Back to the Future, although rather subtle to most viewers.
Did you notice any other similarities between the two?
