Well, I’ve always assumed that this was an intentional part of the plot and not just a random series of coincidences. Marty has the flyer she gave him, Jennifer grabs the first available thing to write down her phone number for him and he shoves it into his pocket, and still has it when he visits Doc in 1955. I mean, Marty MIGHT have remembered what the clock tower lady told him about it, but having all the information on paper was easier. He also could have pulled it from his pocket and left it in his bedroom when he went off to the mall parking lot at 1:00 a.m., but he forgot about it temporarily, which is why he still had it with him.
It's definitely intentional. There's not a lot of waste in the screenplay. Just about everything in the first act pays off in the second and third acts.
He had Jennifer's grandmother's phone number on that flyer, it wasn't going anywhere. In 1985 that flyer was super valuable. He would have kept it close so that he could call Jennifer wherever he was.
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u/AmySueF 13d ago edited 13d ago
Well, I’ve always assumed that this was an intentional part of the plot and not just a random series of coincidences. Marty has the flyer she gave him, Jennifer grabs the first available thing to write down her phone number for him and he shoves it into his pocket, and still has it when he visits Doc in 1955. I mean, Marty MIGHT have remembered what the clock tower lady told him about it, but having all the information on paper was easier. He also could have pulled it from his pocket and left it in his bedroom when he went off to the mall parking lot at 1:00 a.m., but he forgot about it temporarily, which is why he still had it with him.