Back to the Future The Movie
Back to the Future is a 1985 science fiction–comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis & produced by Steven Spielberg. Zemeckis wrote the story, along with Bob Gale. It stars Michael J. Fox as teenager Marty McFly & Christopher Lloyd as mad scientist Doctor Emmett L. Brown. Accidentally travelling thirty years back in time in a De Lorean time machine, Marty inadvertently interferes with his parents' courtship & is forced to try to make them fall in love, or he will never be born.
The film opened on July 3, 1985, & grossed U.S. $210 million at the U.S. box office, making it the highest grossing film of 1985. The film was followed by two sequels, Back to the Future Part II in 1989 & Back to the Future Part III in 1990, forming a trilogy. On December 17, 2002, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the film on DVD & VHS as part of Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy.
Due to the film's success, three spin-off projects were made. CBS TV aired an animated series, Back to the Future: The Animated Series & Harvey Comics released a handful of similarly styled comic books, although their stories were original & 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. The ride closed on March 30, 2007 in Orlando, FL, & September 3, 2007 in Hollywood, California. The ride remains open at Universal Studios Japan.
For Sale : Back To The Future Trilogy [1985] DVD ~ Michael J. Fox Cost Including Postage and Packaging £21.99
Plot
Marty McFly (Fox) is
an average seventeen-year-old living in Hill Valley, California. On the morning
of October 25, 1985, his eccentric friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc"
Brown (Lloyd), calls him, asking to meet him at 1:15 a.m. After school that day,
a woman approaches Marty & his girlfriend Jennifer (Claudia Wells), asking for
donations to save the town's clock tower which has not run since it was struck
by lightning thirty years previous. Once he gets home Marty sees the family car
wrecked in the driveway & when he goes inside his house he finds his neurotic
father George (Crispin Glover) being bullied by his supervisor Biff Tannen (Thomas
F. Wilson). That night at dinner, Marty's mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) recounts
how she & George first met when her father hit George with a car.
Emmett
Lathrop "Doc" Brown, (Christopher Lloyd) & Marty McFly, (Michael J.
Fox) watch in amazement as the De Lorean time machine vanishes one minute into
the future.That night, Marty meets the Doc as planned in the parking lot of Twin
Pines Mall. Doc shows him a De Lorean DMC-12 which he has modified into a time
machine, explaining that it requires 1.21 gigawatts of power, generated by plutonium,
& that the car must be traveling at eighty-eight miles per hour to travel through
time. To demonstrate how one programs the machine, Doc enters in November 5, 1955
as the target date, explaining that this was the day he conceived of the flux
capacitor, which is "what makes time travel possible."
Before Doc can depart for his planned trip twenty-five years into the future, the Libyan terrorists he stole his plutonium from show up in a Volkswagen van & shoot him dead. Marty jumps in the De Lorean & is pursued by the Libyans until he hits eighty-eight miles per hour & is instantanously transported into the year 1955. The car stalls shortly after his arrival, so Marty abandons it & , after pushing the car to a secluded spot, makes his way into town, finding that the town square now reflects the popular culture of the 1950s & that his own parents are teenagers themselves. Biff is also a teenager & acts as a school bully, tyrannizing the young George.
In the critical moment when George was about to be hit by Lorraine's father's car, Marty saves his father by taking the hit himself. A goo-goo-eyed Lorraine becomes infatuated with him, but Marty is disturbed by her sexual advances & leaves to track down the Doc of thirty years ago. After managing to convince the scientist that he is from the future, Doc tells him that, aside from plutonium, the only possible source of enough power to send Marty back to 1985 is a bolt of lightning. Since Marty knows the lightning strike to the clock tower will happen the following Saturday, Doc concocts a way to harness the bolt's power.
More pressingly, Doc deduces that Marty has prevented his parents from meeting. Since Marty will not exist unless his parents fall in love, he finds that he is in danger of being erased from time. After several failed attempts, Marty eventually works out a plan to have George "rescue" Lorraine from Marty's advances on the night of a school dance. Biff shows up & attacks the couple, but George manages to defend Lorraine for real, knocking Biff out with a single punch. Lorraine & George return to the dance together where they kiss for the first time, ensuring Marty's existence. Doc, meanwhile, has used cables to connect the clock tower to two lamp posts, which he plans to have Marty drive under in the De Lorean, now sporting a lightning rod, at eighty-eight miles per hour the moment the lightning strikes.
The
clock tower gets struck by lightning at 10:04 P.M. on November 12, 1955Before
Marty can leave, Doc finds a letter in his coat pocket that Marty had written,
warning him about his future assassination by the Libyans. Doc rips up the letter
without reading it, knowing the dangers of learning about the future. Marty adjusts
the time machine to take him back ten minutes early so he can warn Doc right before
he is killed. Upon his arrival in 1985, Marty sees the Libyans shoot Doc again,
but Doc then unzips his radiation suit to reveal a bulletproof vest. He pulls
out Marty's letter from 1955, which he had taped back together.
The next morning, Marty finds his family has been changed for the better. Most notably, George has become self-confident & is no longer bullied by Biff. Just as Jennifer & Marty reunite, Doc arrives from the year 2015, appearing frantic about a problem with the couple's future children. Marty & Jennifer climb aboard the De Lorean & , aided by the technology of thirty years hence, the car lifts off into the sky.
The generation gap
The film explores the notion of a teenager being
able to meet his parents when they were the same age as he, an encounter which
would be impossible in real life. This plays on the generation gap, specifically
the one between the Silent Generation & Generation X, & the resulting inability
many teenagers have to imagine that their parents lived through adolescence as
well.
The film's general theme regarding Lorraine seems to be that she was not as wholesome in her youth as she would later claim. Specifically, she tells her kids in 1985 that she didn't so much as call a boy when she was young, but in 1955 she is shown to be much more flirtatious, stating that she has often "parked" with boys. This theme is also explored to a lesser degree with George, who Marty discovers was a "peeping tom" in 1955. Marty also finds that his mother smoked & drank as a teen, behaviors which Marty has apparently avoided.
Cultural
decline
The film also explores the differences between the 1980s & the 1950s.
This is most obviously seen through the "fish out of water" humor elicited
from the culture shock experienced by Marty as he attempts to function in a version
of his own town that he is unfamiliar with. The 1955 Doc's absurdly inaccurate
predictions of life in 1985 contrast the typical 1950s expectations of the future
with the actual "future" seen in the 1985 scenes.
One of the main elements of the story is showing how "everyone's hometown," represented by the fictional Hill Valley, had changed since the 1950s. Many subtle features of the town which play no part in the main plot are referred to or mentioned in both time periods. Gale had this as part of the story from a very early stage. He later developed this idea of change into a major plot point by having the courthouse clock being struck by lightning as what sends Marty back to 1985.
The general theme appears to be that in 1955 Hill Valley was a nicer place. It is made clear that this was the film makers' intention since Gale states that they specifically made the town square "pristine & wonderful" for 1955 & then "trashed it down" for the 1985 scenes. Gale explained that this was the result of Twin Pines Mall being built in the outskirts & consequently killing the businesses downtown. However, Gale stated that he & Zemeckis did not intend the film as 1950s nostalgia & that they reached the conclusion that a 1980s teenager thrust into the 1950s would not enjoy it.
Production
Script
The inspiration
for the film largely stems from Bob Gale, who discovered his father's high school
yearbook & wondered whether he would have been friends with his father as a teenager.
His father was class president & pretty much the "big guy on campus,"
while Bob was on the other end of the social barometer—more of a nerd. Gale
& Robert Zemeckis originally wrote the script in September 1980 but struggled
to find the time to make it. Steven Spielberg read it when Gale first had the
idea & asked Zemeckis a number of years later what had happened to it. The year
1955 was chosen because it was the era that teenage culture was born.
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 in a twist of time travel. All other companies said it was not risqué enough, compared to other teen comedies at the time (such as Porky's, Fast Times at Ridgemont High & Revenge of the Nerds).
Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal Studios, made many changes to the movie. "Professor Brown" was changed to "Doc Brown" & his chimp Shemp to a dog named Einstein. Marty's mother had previously been Meg, then Eileen, but Sheinberg insisted that she be named Lorraine after his wife Lorraine Gary. 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" & told him everyone got a kick out of it. Sheinberg, too proud to admit he was serious, let the title stand.
In the original script, Marty's rock 'n roll performance 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 1985, he found that it was now the 1950s conception of that decade, with air-cars & whatnot, all invented by Doc Brown & running on Coca-Cola. Marty also discovers that rock & roll was never invented (the most popular musical style was the mambo), & he dedicates himself to starting the delayed cultural revolution. Meanwhile, his dad digs out the newspaper from the day after the dance & sees his son in the picture of the riot. The time machine is not built around a De Lorean DMC-12, & the power source for Marty's trip back to 1985 comes from atomic testing, rather than a lightning strike.
Doc Brown's "man hanging off a clock face"-themed clock reprises the famous scene in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (1923). The fact that Christopher Lloyd & Harold Lloyd have the same last name, however, is merely a coincidence.
Pronunciation of gigawatt
In
the film's script the word "gigawatt" is spelled & pronounced "jiggawatt"
(/d??gæw?t/). Bob Gale & Robert Zemeckis had been to a science seminar &
the speaker had pronounced it jiggawatt. This is an uncommon although accepted
pronunciation of the word "gigawatt," which is usually pronounced with
a hard g, & not an error.
Casting & 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 (in which he was starring
at the time), Meredith Baxter-Birney, was pregnant at the time, & thus the show's
producers were looking to Fox's character (Alex Keaton) to "carry the show."
Production of the film began on November 26, 1984, with actor Eric Stoltz portraying Marty McFly, & reportedly shot for more than four weeks, until the return of executive producer Steven Spielberg, who was out of the country at the time. After seeing a rough cut, Spielberg & the writer/directors agreed that Stoltz was a fine actor, but he was unfortunately not right for the part. Stoltz had played it seriously, & 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 & shooting Family Ties, & 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 20, 1985 , less than three months before the film's release.
Much of the original footage was retained for the film, for shots in which Eric Stoltz was not visible. Bob Gale later explained that some dialogue scenes with other actors were from the original shoot. A few long shots with Stoltz as Marty McFly still exist in the film, according to Zemeckis & Gale, & there was at least one "teaser" movie poster released with Stoltz's name & face visible. One notable scene that was kept in the final film is the one in which Stoltz as Marty drives the De Lorean 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 ride a skateboard for the film. To find a coordinator for the skateboarding scenes, Bob Gale went to Venice Beach & approached two skateboarders. One turned out to be European skate champ Per Welinder. The second skater 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 & conductor Leopold Stokowski. The extreme difference in height between Lloyd (6'1") & Fox (5'4") meant Doc's character was given a distinctive hunched-over look.
To play their roles at the age of 47, Lea Thompson (Lorraine), Crispin Glover (George), & Thomas F. Wilson (Biff) had several hours' worth of make-up & extra layers of skin added to their faces; all three actors were therefore able to play their characters' younger selves as well.
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 filmed. The Courthouse Square backlot at Universal Studios was used for both time periods, with the 1955 scenes filmed first so that the location could be "trashed down" for the 1985 scenes. The scene where Marty McFly discovers that Doc Brown has a time machine was filmed in front of the Puente Hills Mall in Puente Hills, California.
Music
The film's musical score was composed by Alan
Silvestri, who later wrote music for Forrest Gump & numerous other films, many
of them directed by Robert Zemeckis. The themes in his Back to the Future Suite
have since been heard in Back to the Future Part II & Part III, which were also
scored by Silvestri, in Back to the Future: The Ride & as ambient music at the
Universal Studios theme parks. The hip, upbeat Back to the Future Soundtrack,
featuring two new songs by Huey Lewis & 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 & was nominated for an Academy Award. Huey
Lewis portrayed the high school band audition judge that rejects Marty's band,
The Pinheads, as they perform "The Power of Love," for being "too
loud." Lewis had an additional cameo appearance as the man who walks past
Marty upon his arrival in town.
The film's soundtrack, which was available on CD, also included songs by Eric Clapton, Lindsey Buckingham, Etta James & others. It used the largest orchestra ever assembled by Universal Pictures. Two 1950s hits Marty encounters when he arrives in 1955 ("Mr. Sandman" by The Four Aces & 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 & the Starlighters was recorded by Harry Waters, Jr. as Marvin Berry & Mark Campbell as Marty McFly, & the guitar solo by Tim May (Campbell & May received a Special Thanks acknowledgment in the film's end credits, with the recording credit going to the fictional characters). Berry's group also plays the song "Night Train," first recorded by Jimmy Forrest in 1951.
Reaction
The film
opened on July 3, 1985 & grossed U.S. $210 million at the U.S. box office, making
it the highest grossing American film of 1985. The film was followed by two sequels:
Back to the Future Part II in 1989 & Back to the Future Part III in 1990, forming
a trilogy. On December 17, 2002, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released
the film on DVD & VHS as part of Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy.
Critics
Reviews
were generally positive. Roger Ebert complimented the direction, writing that
Zemeckis "shows not only a fine comic touch but also some of the lighthearted
humanism of a Frank Capra." Even the sequences where Marty's mom has the
"hots for him" are regarded as "up-beat... without ever becoming
uncomfortable." The BBC applauded the intricacies 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 had received a very respectable 95% overall rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 98% rating from the users. In 2006, Back to the Future was voted the 20th greatest film ever made by readers of the Empire.
Cultural
impact
The series was very popular in the 1980s, even making fans out of celebrities
like Huey Lewis & the News & ZZ Top (who appeared in the third film) & 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 & heroic achievement. As they said in the film Back to the Future,
'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'" In fact, when he first saw the
joke about him being president, i.e. "Ronald Reagan? The actor? Ha! Then
who's Vice President, Jerry Lewis?", he made the projectionist of the theatre
stop the reel, roll it back, & run it again. He also considered accepting a role
in the third film as the 1885 mayor of Hill Valley but eventually declined.
DirecTV
commercial
In early 2007, two commercials for the DirecTV satellite TV service
began airing based on the film. Using both new & old footage, the spots recreate
Marty's climactic departure from 1955, with Doc addressing the viewer, lamenting
the fact that he has failed to advise Marty to subscribe to the service upon his
return to the future. The longer of the two, touting improved technology, ends
with Doc running down the street yelling "Impossible? That's what they said
about my flux capacitor!" while the shorter commercial has him declaring
the service "TV from outer space!" The latter line presumably refers
to how advanced the concept of satellite television (or even satellites in general)
would have been in 1955, which was two years before the launch of Sputnik.
Series
continuity
Sequels were not initially planned. Zemeckis later stated that had
sequels been envisioned, the first film would not have ended with Jennifer traveling
in the De Lorean with Marty & Doc, which created logistical problems in plotting
the other films. In addition, the "To Be Continued..." caption was not
originally intended in the film (the filmmakers chose to omit the caption from
the 2002 DVD release, & the only showing of the caption is on the three-part documentary
of the series on the DVD).
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), Back to the Future Part II (Fall 1989) & Back to the Future Part III (Summer 1990) made roughly $118 million & $88 million, respectively. Part III received generally more favorable reviews than Part II.
Home
video release history
November 30, 1986 (VHS & LaserDisc)
January 25,
1987 (VHS & LaserDisc)
May 18, 1987 (VHS & LaserDisc)
December
15, 1990 (VHS)
May 27, 1995 (VHS & Compact Disc)
March 9, 1999 (VHS,
Compact Disc & LaserDisc)
May 7, 2000 (VHS)
August 2002 Europe & Oceania
(VHS & DVD; complete trilogy boxed set)
December 2002 North America (VHS
& DVD; complete trilogy boxed set)
Back to the Future Part II
In
Part II, Doc Brown travels with Marty to the year 2015, where he has discovered
Marty's family is in ruins. Marty buys a sports almanac containing the outcomes
of 50 years worth (1950-2000) of sporting events. However, Doc catches him and
throws the almanac in the trash, where the aged Biff Tannen finds it. While Marty
and Doc are at Marty's future house, Biff steals the DeLorean and gives the book
to himself at some point in the past. When Doc and Marty return to 1985, they
find that Biff has used the almanac's knowledge for financial gain, which allows
him to turn Courthouse Square into a 27 story casino, "own" Hill Valley
which becomes a crime and gang infested town, get away with the murder of Marty's
father - George McFly - and later marry Marty's mother. Marty learns that Biff
was given the book by an old man in 1955, so he and Doc go back to that date in
order to steal the almanac from Biff before he can use it to destroy their lives.
They accomplish this in a complex fashion, often crossing their own past-selves'
paths. When the duo are about to travel back to 1985, a lightning bolt strikes
the DeLorean and scrambles the time circuits, sending Doc back to 1885 and leaving
Marty stranded in 1955.
Back to the Future Part III
After finding out
that Doc Brown is trapped in 1885, Marty sets out to find the 1955 Doc to help
him fix the DeLorean (which has been waiting for him in a mineshaft for 70 years)
and restore it to working order. Learning that Doc dies shortly after his arrival
in 1885, Marty travels back in time to save Doc (who becomes a blacksmith) and
bring him back to the future. Unfortunately, Marty rips a hole in the fuel line,
rendering the DeLorean immobile. Furthermore, Doc falls in love with schoolteacher
Clara Clayton, and considers staying in 1885. Marty must convince Doc to come
back with him and find a way to get back to his time before it's too late.
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