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do you think needles will be in any episodes?

yoman45135yoman45135
edited April 2011 in Back to the Future
He wasnt a big character in the triology but so far i think we have seen every character except needles and his gang.

He annoyed me quite a lot in the trilogy but i think it would be quite cool to see him in the upcoming episodes.
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Comments

  • PrivateJokerPrivateJoker
    edited March 2011
    I hope not. He was a weak character that had zero development, other than "being a bad influence on Marty." Very unimportant, other than a plot device.
  • yoman45135yoman45135
    edited March 2011
    true althought you have to admitt some fans would be pretty excited :D
  • Alien_XIIIAlien_XIII
    edited March 2011
    Needles was mentioned in ep 2 as another good reference
  • PrivateJokerPrivateJoker
    edited March 2011
    He was really only in Episode 2 and briefly at the end of Episode 3. He was Marty's modern and future foil. Both ways it does not matter. I'd rather see Biff's mystery son.
  • yoman45135yoman45135
    edited March 2011
    or daughter...
  • yoman45135yoman45135
    edited March 2011
    Alien_XIII wrote: »
    Needles was mentioned in ep 2 as another good reference

    what bit i never came across it?
  • Alien_XIIIAlien_XIII
    edited March 2011
    When you talk to Edna and ask about what happened around. She will mention guy name Needles who crashed his car
  • yoman45135yoman45135
    edited March 2011
    In 1931?
    or do you mean in episode 1 when shes a old women in 1986
  • Alien_XIIIAlien_XIII
    edited March 2011
    Alien_XIII wrote: »
    Needles was mentioned in ep 2 as another good reference

    as i said before ^^
  • yoman45135yoman45135
    edited March 2011
    Alien_XIII wrote: »
    as i said before ^^

    oh ok, just a refrence then. i ment as a proper character but ok...
  • Solid MikeSolid Mike
    edited March 2011
    Well because its flea and all, maybe a relation to the char is more viable. maybe :O
  • TromeritusTromeritus
    edited March 2011
    I kinda hope so, in the next season if not this one.
  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited March 2011
    PrivateJoker wrote: »
    I hope not. He was a weak character that had zero development, other than "being a bad influence on Marty." Very unimportant, other than a plot device.

    Yes, of course he had zero development, but I think he had a very good place in the movie. After all, he was welcome villain relief from an endless Biff parade. A character who showed us that Marty wasn't without fundamental weaknesses too, that was Needles' role.
  • PrivateJokerPrivateJoker
    edited March 2011
    Vainamoinen wrote: »
    Yes, of course he had zero development, but I think he had a very good place in the movie. After all, he was welcome villain relief from an endless Biff parade. A character who showed us that Marty wasn't without fundamental weaknesses too, that was Needles' role.

    One major issue though, and this is with both parts 2 and 3 in particular. They got way way too carried away with Marty "not like being called a chicken". And thats pretty much what Needles does to him in the future, than he learns he can "back down" from a stupid challenge. Prob my least favorite part of the movies, but I might be over-analyzing it.
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited March 2011
    I wanted to write Needles into episode 3, but it was looking to be too big of a hassle to get the rights and budget it in. We weren't sure about how well received the character would be as Needles is typically only really liked by fans of Flea and RHCP (like me.) In the end, I rewrote the Needles role into another anti-Marty character. I'm sure once you play, you'll guess who was supposed to be Needles. You can always mute the volume and read it yourself doing your best Flea impression... it kinda still works.

    Some things just don't work out the way you hope. :rolleyes:

    PS - a silly line that landed on the cutting room floor:
    "Oh, hey, McFly... whatcha hungry for... chicken?"

    Context will make sense once you play the game. ;)
  • Michael J Fox is CanadianMichael J Fox is Canadian
    edited March 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    I wanted to write Needles into episode 3, but it was looking to be too big of a hassle to get the rights and budget it in. We weren't sure about how well received the character would be as Needles is typically only really liked by fans of Flea and RHCP (like me.) In the end, I rewrote the Needles role into another anti-Marty character. I'm sure once you play, you'll guess who was supposed to be Needles. You can always mute the volume and read it yourself doing your best Flea impression... it kinda still works.

    Some things just don't work out the way you hope. :rolleyes:

    PS - a silly line that landed on the cutting room floor:
    "Oh, hey, McFly... whatcha hungry for... chicken?"

    Context will make sense once you play the game. ;)

    I wish I got here before this post :)

    Anyhow while a minor character, he is stil an important one; he causes marty to get fired and the automobile accident. Not sure what his place would be in the game though since marty is willing to back down.
  • yoman45135yoman45135
    edited March 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    I wanted to write Needles into episode 3, but it was looking to be too big of a hassle to get the rights and budget it in. We weren't sure about how well received the character would be as Needles is typically only really liked by fans of Flea and RHCP (like me.) In the end, I rewrote the Needles role into another anti-Marty character. I'm sure once you play, you'll guess who was supposed to be Needles. You can always mute the volume and read it yourself doing your best Flea impression... it kinda still works.

    Some things just don't work out the way you hope. :rolleyes:

    PS - a silly line that landed on the cutting room floor:
    "Oh, hey, McFly... whatcha hungry for... chicken?"

    Context will make sense once you play the game. ;)



    well at least i know he isnt the mystery character at the end, thanks for the answer... if you did answer to what i asked... simply thanks :D
  • ScnewScnew
    edited March 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    I wanted to write Needles into episode 3, but it was looking to be too big of a hassle to get the rights and budget it in. We weren't sure about how well received the character would be as Needles is typically only really liked by fans of Flea and RHCP (like me.) In the end, I rewrote the Needles role into another anti-Marty character. I'm sure once you play, you'll guess who was supposed to be Needles. You can always mute the volume and read it yourself doing your best Flea impression... it kinda still works.

    Some things just don't work out the way you hope. :rolleyes:

    PS - a silly line that landed on the cutting room floor:
    "Oh, hey, McFly... whatcha hungry for... chicken?"

    Context will make sense once you play the game. ;)

    I'm curious, what would you have to have budgeted in if it was Needles? Do you only have the rights to some of Back to the Future but not all of it? Or is it something to do with Flea's likeness?
  • Shadowknight1Shadowknight1
    edited March 2011
    Scnew wrote: »
    I'm curious, what would you have to have budgeted in if it was Needles? Do you only have the rights to some of Back to the Future but not all of it? Or is it something to do with Flea's likeness?

    Considering that they probably had to pay for the rights for many of the other characters, as well as the DeLorean trademarks(or else there would be no DMC on the front of the time machine), they probably had to cut it somewhere.
  • yoman45135yoman45135
    edited March 2011
    Shadowknight1 wrote: »
    Considering that they probably had to pay for the rights for many of the other characters, as well as the DeLorean trademarks(or else there would be no DMC on the front of the time machine), they probably had to cut it somewhere.

    Yeah thats true, althought it would been intresting to see him briefly in one of the episodes
  • PrivateJokerPrivateJoker
    edited March 2011
    Considering they are licensing the franchise, which owns all the rights to the fictional character's likenesses, getting Needles, a minor character when compared to EVERY OTHER MAIN CHARACTER! It seems that its likely that the musician Flea did not want to reprise his role, more than likely.
  • zounds!zounds!
    edited March 2011
    I'm just going to go ahead and imagine that after barely missing the Rolls Royce, Needles and his gang cheered and high fived and then flew off a cliff, never to be seen again. :D
  • Shadowknight1Shadowknight1
    edited March 2011
    PrivateJoker wrote: »
    Considering they are licensing the franchise, which owns all the rights to the fictional character's likenesses, getting Needles, a minor character when compared to EVERY OTHER MAIN CHARACTER! It seems that its likely that the musician Flea did not want to reprise his role, more than likely.

    You know, TellTale still had to get permission from Michael J. Fox to use his likeness as Marty McFly.
  • Michael J Fox is CanadianMichael J Fox is Canadian
    edited March 2011
    Shadowknight1 wrote: »
    You know, TellTale still had to get permission from Michael J. Fox to use his likeness as Marty McFly.


    And if course we all know the fiasco when universal tried to use Crispin Glover's likness in part II without his consent.
  • ELB1985ELB1985
    edited March 2011
    I haven't played episode 2 or 3 yet!!! But I seen the new jennifer it would be cool to see Needles being the new boyfriend...that would piss marty off some!

    Am i kinda right? wait no don't tell me.
  • RAnthonyMahanRAnthonyMahan
    edited March 2011
    One thing that strikes me as odd, though. OK, so you couldn't use Needles because you couldn't acquire the rights to Flea's likeness. Instead you use
    Leech (spoiler tag to be courteous to those who haven't played Episode 3 yet)
    as a Needles stand-in. He even looks like Needles.

    The thing is, since you've made a model that looks like Needles, why couldn't he just be Needles? Whatever you call him, he still looks like Flea. But eh, copyright law can be weird sometimes. :p

    Also, I had no idea Flea played Needles before this thread. Weird.
  • Michael J Fox is CanadianMichael J Fox is Canadian
    edited March 2011
    RAnthonyMahan wrote: »
    One thing that strikes me as odd, though. OK, so you couldn't use Needles because you couldn't acquire the rights to Flea's likeness. Instead you use
    Leech (spoiler tag to be courteous to those who haven't played Episode 3 yet)
    as a Needles stand-in. He even looks like Needles.

    The thing is, since you've made a model that looks like Needles, why couldn't he just be Needles? Whatever you call him, he still looks like Flea. But eh, copyright law can be weird sometimes. :p

    Also, I had no idea Flea played Needles before this thread. Weird.

    Yeah its very obvious that character was orignally written to be needles. They should have called him
    fleach
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited March 2011
    RAnthonyMahan wrote: »
    One thing that strikes me as odd, though. OK, so you couldn't use Needles because you couldn't acquire the rights to Flea's likeness. Instead you use
    Leech (spoiler tag to be courteous to those who haven't played Episode 3 yet)
    as a Needles stand-in. He even looks like Needles.

    The thing is, since you've made a model that looks like Needles, why couldn't he just be Needles? Whatever you call him, he still looks like Flea. But eh, copyright law can be weird sometimes. :p

    Also, I had no idea Flea played Needles before this thread. Weird.
    So, this "Needles stand-in" was indeed meant to be Needles. We landed on the idea of letting AJ do the voice... this episode was bursting at its budgetary seams, btw... and we were in the sound studio ready to commit to one of AJ's audition voices... unfortunately, none of his audition voices were a Flea-sound-a-like. But we really liked his sort of Judd Nelson read. It was too much of a risk to say to AJ, ok-- cold read this script doing your best Flea impression. Plus, it would have put his voice into a high register too similar to his Marty voice.

    I wish we could have just committed to Needles. Bob Gale even said during a script review that he was obviously meant to be Needles-- just make him Needles. But in the end, we just couldn't make it work... the planets were not aligned.

    Consider it the Eric Stoltz of the game.
  • RAnthonyMahanRAnthonyMahan
    edited March 2011
    Hmm, I didn't think about the voice issue. That makes sense, then.
  • PrivateJokerPrivateJoker
    edited March 2011
    Thats interesting...well with that said, Leech sounds like he could have easily been one of the featured extras driving in the car with Needles when he challenges Marty to the car race. (Think Needles second in command, or analogy would be one of Biff's goons). Too bad that it couldn't have been the actual Needles (seeing as that would have been more fan service to tie into the movie), but it played out really well. The usage of Biff couldn't have been done better. Though I thought the "lameness" of the alternate 1986 was a bit distracting at first, it was a pretty novel idea.

    That said...Claudia Wells brought alot of love and spirit into the game!!
  • Cojo the MonkeyCojo the Monkey
    edited March 2011
    I thought I saw Needles as one of the cariactures in the speakeasy in Episode 2. Did anyone else?
  • LuigiHannLuigiHann
    edited March 2011
    I was fine with Leech in this episode. Needles in BTTF2 basically came out of nowhere, so I didn't have a problem with Leech being introduced similarly. We didn't really see any of Marty's other 1985 friends in the movies.

    It would have been nice to have some incidental dialog that explains who Leech is relative to Marty, and perhaps to mention Needles in that conversation if they were friends (or brothers, even). To be honest you probably could have called this guy Needles even with his different voice, it wouldn't have bothered me, although I can see how it might bother other people. I'm pretty laid back about this stuff, but I prefer a unique and well-acted voice over a bad impression I'll tell you that.

    It also would have been funny to use one of Marty's unnamed bandmates from the beginning of the first movie in this role. They don't have speaking parts and nobody remembers much about them in particular, so you could have done whatever you wanted with them, really.
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited March 2011
    Scnew wrote: »
    I'm curious, what would you have to have budgeted in if it was Needles? Do you only have the rights to some of Back to the Future but not all of it? Or is it something to do with Flea's likeness?

    It's complicated. And it's less about Flea and more about the limits of our production process. We just didn't have the time and resources to do the character of Needles justice, so we made a decision about the character that allowed us to move forward onto more important issues.
  • MaccoMacco
    edited March 2011
    Well, Needles' voice wouldn't have been a problem anyhow.
    Guy had allergic reaction going on all the time, which alters ones voice. And it would have an effect on ones overall activeness, too. So Needles wouldn't have been a Duracell Bunny from hell, but would have been calmer, which would make his voice lower.
    I think.
  • Shadowknight1Shadowknight1
    edited March 2011
    Needles WAS mentioned though in passing. Lorraine says that she's polishing the statue because Needles' mom did something...I can't remember what exactly though.
  • PrivateJokerPrivateJoker
    edited March 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    It's complicated. And it's less about Flea and more about the limits of our production process. We just didn't have the time and resources to do the character of Needles justice, so we made a decision about the character that allowed us to move forward onto more important issues.

    Well hopefully this game will be very successful so your production process can experience expansion and growth.

    PS- Claudia Wells was way way way more important than Flea. LOL ;)
  • TheHuttTheHutt
    edited March 2011
    BTW, did Leech by any chance based on the model of Zane from EP2? Because he did look a bit like him (except for the Flea'esque teeth gap).
  • OrigamiOrigami
    edited March 2011
    I think it somehow worked that it's not Needles.

    1) It adds a new character to the BttF universe. To me Needles was never super important. Like someone else already mentioned he just 'appeared' in Bttf2.
    We never did get to see a lot of Marty's friends and acquantances, only his band members and well...Needles. At least him knowing one more fellow teenager makes it more believable he is this popular teen.

    2) Everyone seems to be affected by the alternate time-line. If this character was Needles then he was the only character that didn't undergo a change in personality. With Fleech we can assume he was somewhat different in the original time-line.
  • StraythStrayth
    edited March 2011
    It's Needles' brother.

    Fixed.
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited March 2011
    TheHutt wrote: »
    BTW, did Leech by any chance based on the model of Zane from EP2? Because he did look a bit like him (except for the Flea'esque teeth gap).

    Actually, Leech is a true anti-Marty.

    Not only is he voiced by AJ, Leech's head model is completely recycled from... Marty.
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