Enchantment Under the Sea



Enchantment Under the Sea was a high school dance that became a key sequence of events in the Back to the Future Universe. It was first depicted in Back to the Future in 1985.

Background
In 1985, Doc Brown's time travel experiment led to events resulting in his death at the hand of a terrorist group while Marty McFly, Doc's assistant was on hand. Marty used Doc's time machine, a modified DeLorean with a Flux Capacitor to escape the terrorists only to find himself in 1955.

While in 1955, Marty looked upon the Doc of that time period to help him get back home. In the meantime, Marty wound up inadvertently interfering with history, risking erasure of himself and his siblings by his parents never falling in love. Hill Valley High School's Enchantment Under the Sea dance is where they were meant to have their first kiss and Marty was going to need a plan.

The Dance
On Saturday, November 12, 1955 the dance commenced with Marty's plan involving having his future father, George McFly standing up for Lorraine Baines, Marty's future mother as Marty pretends to be aggressive with her. The plan did not go well at first with Biff Tannen showing up before George and having his gang keep Marty occupied while he attempted to have his way with Lorraine.

Marty would eventually escape his predicament in time to witness George, a young man who until that point had never really stood up for himself, doing so for himself and Lorraine, nailing a right cross punch that knocked Biff out.

Earlier, Biff's gang had deposited Marty in the trunk of a car next to the gymnasium which belonged to Marvin Berry and the Starlighters. Marvin freed Marty from the trunk, but messed up one of his hands, meaning he could not play guitar. Marty, somewhat notorious in 1985 for his guitar playing skills volunteered so George and Lorraine could still have their kiss.

After saving his future and setting about events that would change the dynamic between George, Lorraine, and Biff in the McFlys favor, Marty departed, cementing the legend of the young man who briefly arrived in Hill Valley to humble Biff, Marty's alias of Calvin Klein. Another circumstance of Marty's trip to 1955 was eventually saving Doc from being killed by the terrorists in 1985.

Return to the Dance
After a trip to 2015 ended with Biff of that time period gaining access to Gray's Sports Almanac and the DeLorean, Doc and Marty found themselves in an alternate version of 1985 where Biff lived as a king in Hill Valley, with Lorraine as his unhappy wife and George having been murdered by Biff years earlier. Getting the necessary information out of Biff before escaping him, Marty informed Doc of where and when they needed to go to retrieve the book from Biff and fix the timeline proper.

Finding himself back at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, Marty was now one of two versions of himself in attendance and along with avoiding his earlier self, now had the task of making sure to save himself and his past self while also taking the book from 1955 Biff, to whom 2015 Biff had given it to during his brief time traveling.

At the dance, Marty was able to save his earlier self, but Biff still managed to escape with the book, leading Marty to call on 1985 Doc to help. Together they would retrieve the book from Biff, changing the timeline back to what it had been prior to the 2015 trip.

Impact
The events of the dance and Marty's interference in the timeline ultimately led to a better future for himself and his family and with Biff being far less aggressive to the point of being supportive of the McFly family. Doc meanwhile was alive, but wound up stranded in 1885, leading to Marty needing 1955 Doc's help to go back for him.

After a series of events that further changed the timeline and led to Marty creating another legend, this time of the alias of Clint Eastwood, Marty was able to return to 1985 while Doc embarked on a new life of time travel and being a husband to Clara Clayton and a father to their children.

Danaverse Connection
In the Multiverse, the ripple effect went beyond just the Back to the Future Universe and its revised timeline. Circumstances from Marty's initial 1955 adventure caused timelines thought erased to become preserved which will tie into the Crisis War.

Information
Enchantment Under the Sea became a notable event in cinematic storytelling, not only because of the time travel elements and how they were presented in 1985's Back to the Future, but the fact that it would be revisited in Back to the Future Part II with even higher stakes. Another major example of this form of storytelling is in Avengers, Endgame, part of Marvel Timeline 29 when the heroes travel back to key moments in the past, including scenes from earlier movies like the Battle of New York from the Avengers (2012) and Peter Quill tracking down the orb containing the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy.

While technically, the story of the Back to the Future trilogy takes place over the course of a weekend in October 1985, many of its most important moments take place during Marty's times in November 1955, especially the night of November 12.