Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:43, 11 December 2006

Template:Current Cinema COTW

Back to the Future
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Written by	Robert Zemeckis Bob Gale
Produced by	Bob Gale Neil Canton Kathleen Kennedy Frank Marshall Johnny Colla (uncredited)
Starring	Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd Lea Thompson Crispin Glover Thomas F. Wilson
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	July 3, 1985 (USA)
Running time	116 minutes
Language	English
Budget	US$19,000,000

Back to the Future is an American science fiction/comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released in 1985. It is about a young man who is accidentally sent into the past and jeopardizes his own future existence. The film was followed by two sequels, Back to the Future Part II (1989), and Back to the Future Part III (1990), forming a trilogy.

Back To The Future was written by Bob Gale and Zemeckis, and starred Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. The movie opened on July 3, 1985 and grossed $210 million at the US box office, making it the highest grossing film of 1985. On December 17, 2002, Universal Home Video released Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy on DVD and VHS.

Following the completion of the film series, three more spin-off projects surfaced. CBS TV aired an animated series, Back to the Future: The Animated Series and Harvey Comics (publishers of Casper the Friendly Ghost) released a handful of similarly styled comic books, although their stories were original and not merely duplicates of the films. In 1991, Universal Studios Theme Parks opened a simulator ride based on the series called Back to the Future: The Ride.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler On October 25, 1985, Marty McFly, a 17-year old high school senior, visits the home of his friend, an eccentric local scientist named Dr. Emmett L Brown, but finds that "the Doc" is not there. Marty soon receives a call from Doc himself asking him to meet him at 1:15 AM at Twin Pines mall. As Marty agrees, the clocks in Doc's basement chime the hour. When Doc Brown remarks that the clocks are 25 minutes behind, proof that an experiment was successful, Marty realizes that he is late for school.

After school, Marty plays lead guitar for the "Pinheads" in an audition to play at the school dance; but the band is rejected for being "too darn loud". Afterward, Marty confides in his girlfriend Jennifer, worrying that he will never get a chance to play for an audience. They are interrupted when a woman hands Marty a flyer about a campaign to save the clock tower of the local courthouse, which was struck by lightning at 10:04 PM on Saturday, November 12, 1955.

When Marty gets home he finds that the family car has been totaled by his father George McFly's supervisor, Biff Tannen, who complains that George had not told him the car had a "blind spot". He then coerces George into writing Biff's reports for work while making rude comments about Marty's mother Lorraine.

The family then has dinner, during which the viewer discovers that Marty's older brother Dave works at a fast food restaurant, his sister Linda has no love life, and his mother disapproves of girls chasing boys. She remarks that fate brought her and her husband together from her father hitting George with a car, and mentions their first kiss at the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance".

Marty meets Doctor Brown at the mall to witness a demonstration of Doc's latest invention: a time-machine made from a modified DeLorean sports car, which must reach 88 miles-per-hour in order to travel through time. Doc tests the car by sending his dog Einstein one minute into the future.

Overjoyed by this success, Doc demonstrates to Marty how the time machine works, entering several significant dates into the keypad, followed by November 5, 1955. Doc explains to Marty that this was the day that he came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, the device that makes time travel possible.

After Doc refuels the time machine, a group of Libyan terrorists arrive, from whom he stole the plutonium necessary to power the time machine. The Libyans kill Doc, but Marty escapes in the DeLorean, and inadvertently travels thirty years back in time to November 5, 1955. The plutonium necessary to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity required to make one jump in time is left in 1985.

Marty encounters many differences between 1985 and 1955, including a cleaner, less run-down ambiance in the town square. While searching for a younger Doc Brown, he meets his father and accidentally interferes with the first meeting of his parents--being hit by his grandfather's Chevy in his father's place. (George had been in a tree watching Lorraine undress.) Lorraine falls in love with Marty instead, calling him Calvin Klein because she sees the name on his underwear. He has dinner with Lorraine's family, claims that he has seen the episode of The Honeymooners on TV even though it is brand new, and meets his Uncle Joey, a future "jailbird" who loves being in his crib.

Marty finds Doc, who disbelieves his story until Marty mentions the flux capacitor. Doc tells Marty that his encounter with his parents jeopardizes Marty's own existence. A snapshot Marty carries of himself, Dave and Linda documents this peril: part of Dave, the eldest, appears to have been "erased" from the photo, soon to be followed by Linda, and finally, unless disaster is averted, Marty.

Doc does not know where to acquire plutonium, and the only other source of the necessary "1.21 gigawatts" of electricity needed would be a bolt of lightning. Marty shows him the flyer from 1985 that gives the exact time and place of a lightning bolt, one week away. Doc will build the device that will let them channel the lightning bolt into the flux capacitor, sending Marty back to 1985. Meanwhile, Marty must help his parents to fall in love, so that they will still have their first kiss at the dance--coincidentally also one week away, on November 12.

Marty tries to get George to ask Lorraine to the dance, but George is too nervous. They also have trouble with a younger Biff Tannen (the school bully), who is after Lorraine and forces George to do his homework. Biff harasses George, and Marty trips Biff in retaliation. Biff and his friends chase Marty in their car while he rides a makeshift skateboard, and they crash their car into a manure truck. The incident makes Lorraine even more attracted to Marty, and she asks Marty to the dance.

Marty accepts, but tells George his plan is to 'take advantage' of Lorraine in the car, so that George can rescue her. On the night of the dance, however, Lorraine is more than willing to let Marty take advantage of her, having snuck out some liquor for the event. (When Lorraine and Marty kiss, however, she is suddenly uncomfortable and says that it was like "kissing my brother".) Biff interrupts and gets in the car with Lorraine, while Biff's gang locks Marty in the trunk of singer-guitarist Marvin Berry's car. When George arrives, expecting Marty, he finds Biff harassing Lorraine instead. When Biff pushes Lorraine to the ground and laughs at her, George becomes infuriated, and knocks Biff out with a punch. George and Lorraine head off to the dance just in time for Marty to see them together, having just been freed from the car. Template:Sample box start variation 2 Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end Template:Sample box end Nevertheless, the photograph is still fading. Marvin Berry cut his hand open getting Marty out of the trunk, so the live music is seemingly over, robbing George and Lorraine of the opportunity to kiss on the dance floor. Marty volunteers to play the guitar instead. During the first number, "Earth Angel", another student cuts in between George and Lorraine. Dave and Linda are gone from the photograph and Marty begins to fade out too, both from the picture and in reality. George pushes away Dixon and then kisses Lorraine. Marty begins playing the guitar again with renewed strength. Linda and Dave have reappeared in the photograph, so Marty knows that the future is safe. At the band's request, Marty plays one more song, "Johnny B. Goode". Marvin Berry calls his cousin, Chuck Berry, and tells that he found the "new sound" Chuck was looking for. Marty does Chuck Berry's trademark duck walk, and then gets carried away imitating other guitar heroes: windmilling his arm and kicking over his amplifier in imitation of Pete Townshend, lying on the stage kicking his legs in imitation of Angus Young, playing behind his head like Jimi Hendrix, and tapping in the style of Eddie Van Halen. In the face of uncomprehending stares from the audience, Marty says, "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

Marty has a last chat with his parents and leaves to rejoin Doc Brown, who has suspended a cable from the top of the clock tower to channel the lighting into the DeLorean. Marty writes Doc a note warning him how he will die in 1985, but Doc discovers it and tears it up unread, refusing to endanger his future by knowing too much. A tree limb falls onto the cable, disconnecting it, so Doc climbs up the clock tower to fix it. Marty, with no more time to warn Doc, starts the car: he must reach a speed of 88 miles per hour and contact the cable just as the lightning strikes. He sets the time machine to take him back earlier than he left, so he can save Doc. Meanwhile, Doc fixes one wire only to disconnect another. He slides down the wire and reconnects it, just as the lightning hits the tower. Marty speeds through the electrified wire, sending the DeLorean back to the future.

Marty returns to 1985 ten minutes before he left, but the car stalls and he has to run to the mall, where he sees Doc being shot and himself driving the DeLorean back in time. The terrorists crash into a photo booth. Marty rushes down to Doc's body and turns away in tears, but Doc sits up, having worn a bulletproof vest under his radiation suit. He then pulls out the letter Marty wrote him, taped back together from the shreds he tore it into 30 years before.

Doc drives Marty home, and then departs for the year 2015. In the morning, Marty discovers his house is different; there is a new BMW in the driveway (in place of the wrecked Nova), Linda has an active social life and Dave has an office job. Lorraine and George arrive home from playing tennis, both more fit and attractive, and more affectionate to one another, than when Marty left. Biff, who instead of being George's supervisor now has an auto detailing service, runs in with the delivery of George's first novel, a science fiction story called A Match Made In Space. Marty finds that the Toyota pick-up truck that he previously coveted is now his. As Marty and Jennifer are about to take a ride in the truck, Doc reappears in the DeLorean, telling Marty to come with him to the future, that something has got to be done about their kids. He hurries Marty and Jennifer into the car. Marty points out that there is not enough road to accelerate to 88 mph, but Doc says "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads," and flies off in the now fusion-powered and hover-converted car.

Template:Endspoilers

Cast

Michael J. Fox is, in fact, only ten days younger than the actress who plays his mother, Lea Thompson, and is almost three years older than his on-screen dad, Crispin Glover.

Production

Script

The inspiration for the film largely stems from Bob Gale, who discovered his father's high school yearbook and wondered whether he would have been friends with his father as a teenager.

Robert Zemeckis pitched the idea to several companies. Disney turned it down because they thought that a story involving a mother falling in love with her son was too risqué, even if it was a twist of time travel. All other companies said it was not risqué enough, compared to the other teen comedies at the time (see Porky's, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Revenge of the Nerds (1984)).

Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal Pictures, made many changes to the movie. "Professor Brown" was changed to "Doc Brown" and his chimp Shemp to a dog named Einstein. Marty's mother had previously been Meg, then Eileen, but Sid Sheinberg insisted that she be named Lorraine after his wife Lorraine Gary. According to one of the DVD commentaries, Sheinberg also did not like the title, insisting that no one would see a movie with "future" in the title. In a memo to Robert Zemeckis, he said that the title should be changed to "Spaceman From Pluto", tying in with the Marty-as-alien jokes in the film. Steven Spielberg replied in a memo thanking him for the wonderful "joke memo" and told him everyone got a kick out of it. Sid Sheinberg, too proud to admit he was serious, let the title stand.

In the original script, Marty's rock-and-roll caused a riot at the dance that had to be broken up by police. This, combined with Marty accidentally tipping Doc off to the "secret ingredient" that made the time machine work (Coca-Cola) caused history to change. When Marty got back to the 1980s, he found that it was now the 1950s conception of that decade, with air-cars and whatnot, all invented by Doc Brown and running on Coca-Cola. Marty also discovers that rock and roll was never invented (the most popular musical style is now the mambo), and he dedicates himself to starting the delayed cultural revolution. Meanwhile, his dad digs out the newspaper from the day after the dance and sees his son in the picture of the riot.

In the film's script the word "gigawatt" is spelled and pronounced "jigowatt". Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis had been to a science seminar and the speaker had pronounced it "jigowatt".

Doc Brown's "man hanging off a clock face" reprises the famous scene in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (1923).

Casting and filming

As Back to the Future's producers scouted locations on a residential street in Pasadena, Michael J. Fox was elsewhere on that street, filming his first starring feature role, Teen Wolf. The producers became interested in having Fox play Marty McFly. However, Fox initially had to turn down the part because another actor in Family Ties, Meredith Baxter-Birney, was pregnant at the time, and so Fox's character (Alex Keaton) had to "carry the show".

Production of the film began on November 261984 with actor Eric Stoltz portraying Marty McFly. Eventually, however, the filmmakers came to the conclusion that Stoltz was not right for the part. Stoltz had played it seriously, and they wanted a lighter touch on the character. They returned to the idea of Michael J. Fox, who this time worked out a shooting schedule that would not interfere with his television commitment. Fox spent his days rehearsing and shooting Family Ties, and then drove to the movie's set to film Back to The Future all night. The movie's day shots were filmed on weekends. Fox reportedly averaged only an hour or two of sleep each night during production, which was completed on April 201985, less than three months before the film's release.

Footage with Stoltz as Marty McFly still exists, according to Zemeckis and Gale. One notable scene that was kept in the final film is the one in which Stoltz as Marty drives the DeLorean in the mall parking lot. Since the shots were fairly distant, with the driver's face not particularly visible, the footage was retained.

Michael J. Fox had to learn to skateboard for the film. To find a coordinator for the skateboarding scenes, Bob Gale went to Venice beach and approached two skateboarders. One turned out to be European skate champ Per Welinder. The skater he was with became the stunt double for Eric Stoltz, but was later replaced in order to match Michael J. Fox's height.

Christopher Lloyd reportedly based his performance as Doc Brown on a combination of physicist Albert Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski.

Several key scenes were filmed on the Universal Studios backlot in what is now known as Courthouse Square. The setting of hundreds of other productions, including the current television show Ghost Whisperer, it has suffered major fire damage on two occasions since Back to the Future was made.

The DeLorean time machine

The time machine went through several variations during production. In the first draft of the screenplay the time machine was a laser device that was housed in a room. At the end of the first draft the device was attached to a refrigerator and taken to an atomic bomb test. Director Robert Zemeckis said in an interview that the idea was scrapped because he did not want children to start climbing into refrigerators and getting trapped inside. In the third draft of the film the time machine was a DeLorean, as Zemeckis reasoned that if you were going to make a time machine, you would want it to move. However in order to send Marty back to the future the vehicle had to drive into a nuclear test. Ultimately this concept was considered too expensive to film, so the power source was changed to lightning.

The DeLorean used in the trilogy was a 1982 DMC-12 model, modified to accommodate a more powerful and reliable Porsche engine. The base for the nuclear-reactor was made from the hubcap from a Dodge Polara. In the 2002 Special-Edition DVD of the BTTF Trilogy, it is incorrectly stated that the DeLorean had a standard 4-cylinder engine. The only engine available on this car was a 130 HP V6. Also, the production ultimately used three real DeLoreans: one for external drive/race scenes, one with a modified interior for entering/exiting the DeLorean, and one stripped down model for interior scenes only.

The DeLorean time machine is a licensed, registered vehicle in the state of California. While the vanity license plate used in the film says "OUTATIME", the DeLorean's actual license plate reads 3CZV657.

Music

Template:Sample box start variation 2 Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end Template:Sample box end The film's musical score was by Alan Silvestri, who later wrote music for Forrest Gump and numerous other films, many of them directed by Robert Zemeckis. The memorable themes in his Back to the Future Suite have since been heard in the film's sequels (also scored by Silvestri), in Back to the Future: The Ride, and as ambient music at the Universal Studios theme parks. The hip, upbeat soundtrack, featuring two new songs by Huey Lewis and the News, also contributed to the film's popularity. "The Power of Love" became the band's first song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for an Academy Award. Huey Lewis himself played the high-school band audition judge that rejects Michael J. Fox's band, The Pinheads, as they perform Power of Love. The film's soundtrack, which was available on CD, also included songs by Eric Clapton, Lindsay Buckingham, Etta James and others. Two 1950s hits Marty encounters when he arrives in 1955, Mr. Sandman by the Four Aces and the Fess Parker recording of The Ballad of Davy Crockett, were not included on the CD release. The material ostensibly by Marty McFly, Marvin Berry and the Starlighters was recorded by Harry Waters, Jr. as Berry and Mark Campbell as Marty McFly, and the guitar solo by Tim May.

Cultural impact

The series was very popular in the 1980s, even making fans out of celebrities like ZZ Top (who appeared in the third film) and President Ronald Reagan, who referred to the movie in his 1986 State of the Union address when he said, "Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of rousing wonder and heroic achievement. As they said in the film Back to the Future, 'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'" He also considered accepting a role in the third film as the 1885 mayor of Hill Valley but eventually declined.

Critical reception

Reviews were generally positive. Roger Ebert complimented the direction, writing that Zemickis "shows not only a fine comic touch but also some of the lighthearted humanism of a Frank Capra. The movie, in fact, resembles Capra's It's a Wonderful Life more than other, conventional time-travel movies. It's about a character who begins with one view of his life and reality, and is allowed, through magical intervention, to discover another."

Even the sequences where Marty's mum has the "hots for him" is regarded as "up-beat... without ever becoming uncomfortable." The BBC applaud the intricities of the "outstandingly executed" script, remarking that "nobody says anything that doesn't become important to the plot later."

This movie ranked number 28 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies. As of December 2006, Back to the Future received a very respectable 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The most critical reception likely came from the Cumberland Time Travelers Society lead by Sir Duane McMinn, an alleged time traveler from the year 1345. He was allegedly born in Scotland in 1328 and was gifted with the ability of fortune telling. In order to escape death, he time traveled to modern times to survive. He argues that time travel can only be achieved through repeated head trauma, at which point strong minds would be able to manipulate the space-time continuum. SIDE NOTE: Sir Duane has been hospitalized over 40 times.

Series continuity

Sequels were not initially planned. Zemeckis later stated that the original ending to the first film would have been rewritten so that Marty's girlfriend would not have been included. In addition, the "To Be Continued..." caption was not added until the film was released to video by which time plans for a sequel (eventually two sequels) had been announced (the filmmakers chose to omit the caption from the 2002 DVD release).

Ultimately, the sequels did not fare as well at the box office. While the first installment grossed $210 million (making it the biggest-earning movie of 1985), Parts II (fall of 1989) and III (summer of 1990) made roughly $118 million and $88 million, respectively (still making the movies hits, but not major hits).

See also

• Back to the Future timeline
• Back to the Future trilogy
• Grandfather paradox
• 1980s in film
• 1950s Nostalgia Films

References

1. "Top grossing movies for 1985 in the USA." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). 9 December 2006.
2. Haflidason, Almar. "Back to the Future DVD (1985)". Retrieved 2006-11-29.
3. ^ Robert Zemickis and Bob Gale, Q&A, Back to the Future , recorded at the University of Southern California
4. "Back to the Future: FIRST DRAFT". 24 February 1981. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
5. "Frequently Asked Questions". bttf.com. Retrieved 2006-11-29.
6. "Universal Studios Hollywood History File: November 6 1990". thestudiotour.com. www.theatrecrafts.com/. Retrieved 2006-12-01. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
7. "PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN'S ADDRESS BEFORE A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS ON THE STATE OF THE UNION". February 4, 1986. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
8. Ebert, Roger (July 3, 1985). "Back to the Future". Retrieved 2006-11-29.
9. Panton, Gary (1st May 2003). "Back To The Future (1985)". Movie Gazette. Retrieved 2006-11-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. ^ "Back to the Future (1985)". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2006-11-29.
11. "The 50 Best High School Movies". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
12. "Back to the Future." Rotten Tomatoes. 9 December 2006.

External links

These links were last verified 5 September 2006.

• Official Universal Pictures site
• BTTF.com
• Back To The Future Trilogy Argentina
• BTTF Frequently Asked Questions written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis
• Back to the Future at IMDb
• Movie Locations Guide.com - Maps and Directions to Back to the Future Filming Locations
• Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies - Back To The Future
• Back to the Future on Rotten Tomatoes.com

v t e Back to the Future
Films	Back to the Future (1985) Back to the Future Part II (1989) Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Characters	Marty McFly Emmett "Doc" Brown Biff Tannen
Music	"The Power of Love" "Back in Time" "Doubleback"
Video games	Back to the Future (1985) Back to the Future (1989) Back to the Future Part II (1990) Back to the Future Part II & III (1990) Back to the Future Part III (1991) Back to the Future: The Game (2010) Lego Dimensions (2015) Funko Fusion (2024)
Other media	Theme park attraction TV series The Pinball Transformers crossover Back in Time musical
Universe	DeLorean time machine "Great Scott!" Hill Valley Hoverboard Self-tying shoes
Legacy	The Earth Day Special Rick and Morty Nike Mag
Category

• Best Science Fiction Film Saturn
• 1985 films
• Adventure films
• American films
• Back to the Future
• Films directed by Robert Zemeckis
• Universal Pictures films
• Hugo Award winning works
• English-language films
• Time travel films