Back to the Future
Back to the Future (1985)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson
Teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955 by eccentric genius Doc brown. He meets his parents in high school and accidentaly attracts his mother’s romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents to fall in love, while finding a way to return to 1985.
I never thought about it like that, I wonder if there would be as big a culture clash? I can’t imagine life without iPods and the internet. My idle time travelling fantasy would be to go back to even as late as 1990 with Wikipedia fully loaded on to my iPhone.
Forget sports books!! Imagine having the knowledge contained in wikipedia in the past!?
Plus Madonna plays the waitress in number 2.
Actually she doesn’t, but I was feeling jealous of your astounding cameo knowledge
I think Dan said in last week’s session regarding Scrooged that it was very hard to write something about the film because it was one of those perfect films and I’m finding the same thing happening this week with Back to the Future.
For me BTTF is an incredibly well rounded film that is perfectly cast, perfect pacing, great script, brilliant visuals and more than perfect soundtrack. So what more can you say than that? What is there to say that anyone who has watched this film doesn’t already know in their heart? Well hopefully something otherwise this week’s midnight movie club is going to be awfully bloody short!
So time for final thoughts then?…
Of course not! We’re the Midnight Movie Club! We can witter on about meaningless trivialities for hours without even drawing breath.
Hey, I just remembered some more cameos! Did you notice that Marty McFly’s uncle is the big brother from Wonder Years? Or that his sister is Ugly Betty?
I’ll prove it to you:
The actress is Wendie Jo Sperber, she was in 8 Simple Rules for four episodes, she’s actually been in a tonne of stuff apparently. But not Ugly Betty 
Actually I’ve got to say that the BTTF wikipedia page is a little lacking.
Is it me, or has Christopher Lloyd not aged at all in the 25 years since this was made? I saw him in the new Disney straight-to-DVD movie Snow Buddies recently and he looked exactly as old as he did in Back to the Future (*warning do NOT watch Snow Buddies if you can possibly avoid it*).
Perhaps it’s just testament to the skills of the makeup artists that they managed to age him realistically. But if it was then they certainly lost their skills by the time they got to Lea Thompson’s prosthetics. She looked just like Fat Bastard from the Ausin Powers films.
I am avoiding Snow Buddies now. I mean I was going to watch that tonight but now I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
You are completely right, Christopher Lloyd is timeless.
I found his aged makeup surprising actually, I never really paid attention until now that he had the makeup on in the 1985 time period. I’m glad they took care of that in the sequel with a rather clever plot device.
Lea Thompson’s prosthetics don’t hold up as well but are still passible in my opinion.
Dude we are so going to run a poll on this to confirm my absolute right’ness in this matter.
People will point and laugh at you in the street for saying something so absurd, your family will disown you, they will probably deport you… I hope they don’t do what they usually do and send you to Australia, we don’t need your ‘craving a BTTF part 4′ types here.
That’s what would have made BTTF more than perfect, some Al Leong in it.
Every film is better with Al Leong.
Loading ...Something that completely took me by surprise as I watched this time (I’ve seen this film a lot) was that in the cold harsh light of reflection Biff is an attempted rapist.
I mean that’s what is going on in that car, he’s essentially attempting to rape Lorraine. It’s something that I’ve never really considered before.They make a joke about how if it hadn’t been for Biff they never would have gotten together… yeah because he tried to rape your mother!?!?!?
Oh look the dude who tried to date rape Mum is waxing the car and accepting our packages?!?!?
Yes, very odd. However in the 50′s (and even 80′s) there was a different attitude to date rape and sexual crimes in general. it’s not completely inconceivable that such things would have been swept under the carpet.
But even given the social norms at the time you are right, you wouldn’t have him waxing the car.
Something else that struck me as a little flawed is the home made wooden scooter that Marty takes off that kid, that just happens to have perfect skateboard trucks and wheels and a convenient back pivot point thingie (there must be a proper name for that back pivot thingie).
I wonder what effect on skateboard sales this movie had. Quite a significant one I suspect.
I had the opportunity to go see it in person this spring, as on one of my long distance walks we stopped in a town that had one of the promotional models in a motor museum. But it was a Sunday and the place had just shut. I was devastated . They even had a couple of Batmobiles and an original A-Team van. Oh why is life so cruel?
We could have taken a tour of the pencil museum instead, but it just didn’t feel the same.
Something that adds to the experience of watching BTTF is the attention to detail contained within. Especially with the subtle changes to the timeline. I never noticed it before that the chunk of ledge where Doc Brown nearly falls on the clock tower is missing later in the future when Marty returns to 1985.
There are the more obvious but clever nonetheless changes such as the Lone Pine Mall name change. I assume there’s a bunch more that I can’t summon up as I think about it now.
There’s another neat little reference at the start of the film which always catches my eye. When we first open the movie and see all the clocks ticking away, one of the clocks has a character hanging off the hands of the clock in very much the way that Doc would do so later in the film. It’s a neat little nod.
Actually I did also note the perfection of the opening sequence, where we do see all of the clocks indicating the owner of the room is obsessed with time. We also find out that he has used his family fortune to pursue his research via the news clippings, although why anyone would frame such awful news surprises me. Finally when Marty first enters, on his skateboard, the board rolls over to hit the plutonium case under the desk (or it might be his bed now that I think about it).
There’s just a LOT of set up in that scene which is very well done.
Yes. In fact the exposition in this movie is handled extremely well throughout. There is only one scene where it clunks a bit – the one where they are walking into the school and it is so obviously overdubbed.
And you’re also right about how wonderfully planned it all is. I can envisage the plotting sessions involving a hell of a lot of index cards pinned to a board with string linking up the various references and plot points. The planning for Back to the Future II must have been even more complicated! I imagine that’s why they decided to set number 3 in just one time period – to give their brains a rest.
Yeah I guess final thoughts are in order, I keep feeling like there should be something else for me to write but the proof is there on the screen, maybe we shouldn’t watch such good films
I’m happily going to give Back to the Future ten double shot soy flat whites out of ten. Perfect film, easy to watch over and over, can’t wait for the blu-ray.
Next week:
Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction
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Back to the Future, Christopher Lloyd, Dan, DeLorean, Doc Brown, Huey Lewis, Lea Thompson, Lee, Marty McFly, Michael J. Fox, Robert Zemeckis, ZZ top
Themocracy
Hey! No fair! That poll doesn’t seem to be working on my mac! I can’t vote for BTTF IV
Although I was able to vote at work a couple of hours ago.
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Lee Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 10:03 am
@Dan, works on my iPhone, maybe your Mac knows that you want to use it for evil?
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Dan Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 10:06 am
@Lee, I shall try voting using crome and safari too. Plus my iPhone. Plus Kerry’s iPhone
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BTTF IV? Bring it on!
One thing that always bothered me was Jennifer’s really dodgy wig in parts 2 and 3.
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Lee Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 10:45 am
@Insomniac Mummy, was she wearing a wig in those? I just thought it was 80s hair.
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Oh, man… BTTF is gold. Now I want to go watch it.
I have to bow to your powers of observation, Lee. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I don’t think I ever paid that much attention to the opening sequence with the clocks. Good eye.
Just to get under Dan’s skin a bit, I did go to the Universal Studios park in Hollywood some years ago and took the backlot tour. Parked in the lot on the edge of the tour was a Delorean they used in the film (along with a couple other cars… I think one was the Batmobile). The town square in the movie was a centerpiece on the lot. I heard a lot of trivia on that tour that I can’t seem to pull from the dusty, cobweb-ridden recesses of my brain, including a list of other movies (a long list, if I remember correctly) in which the square is featured. They also had an audience participation thing where somebody got to be Doc Brown in a replica of the clock scene (part of the “movie magic” section of the tour in a studio – not on the actual town square).
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Lee Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
@Jeff, to be fair I think someone may have pointed out the clock in question because I believe that it may be a replica of a scene from another much older film. But it works great in this context.
I’m jealous as I heard a rumour that the town square was burnt down in that fire so now I’ll never get to see it. It’s been redressed a few times but that clock tower is so iconic!!!
If you are into movie cars you should try and track down the Ghostbusters Ecto 1 documentary (it’s on the Blu-ray but may be else where online) – highly recommend it
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Dan Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
@Lee, It’s a buster Keaton film – but I can’t quite remember the name of it. I saw it recently however and it was very good indeed.
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Lee Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
@Dan, good man – I take back some of the things that were written on the ladies toilets wall.
I should check out that film some time – I’ve never been a huge Buster Keaton fan but then I’ve never really seen much of his work.
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Jeff Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 8:31 am
@Dan, Oh, the clock is a replica of the famous silent film gag (of which the Doc Brown stunt is an homage)? That’s awesome. Yeah, Lee, you should definitely check out that film, though I believe it’s Harold Lloyd, not Keaton, that pulled that one off (Safety Last).
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Dan Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 8:39 am
@Dan, Damnit – there goes my credibility. i was close though.
i saw safety last about 6 months ago – it was a lot longer than I was anticipating.
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This was a great review, and I’m glad that I don’t have to track you both down and wreak bloody vengeance.
I support the idea of a fourth BTTF film, but only if it was done right. Just like I want a sequel to Ferris Bueller where he takes a day off of work and takes his kid out of school, and Rooney is still principal.
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Lee Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
@Avitable, at this stage I’m now more concerned that there are at least three people who don’t care about BTTF and are waiting on an ewok film?!?
There was some talk about the Bueller sequel but I guess it’s now got zero chance of being made.
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Dan Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 9:31 am
@Avitable, another Ferris Bueller film would be wonderful – although without John Hughes I’m not sure I’d support it now.
As I think I’ve mentioned to you before, they did make a Bueller TV show. i never saw it, but I imagine it was awful.
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Lee Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
@Dan, the show wasn’t good if I remember correctly – Parker Lewis can’t Lose was a superior offering.
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it really is an awesome movie.
btw..can’t wait for the cannonball run review, I saw that one a lót on tv.
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Dan Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 7:17 am
@Arjan, You should re-watch it so you’re up to speed
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Best film of the 80s. With added Huey too!
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Dan Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 7:16 am
@Rol, aye, Huey rules.
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BTTF is one of my all time favorite movies. Excellent review by the way. Except for the bit when Mr Hughes expresses his distaste for music from the 80s. Heresy. The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode etc. Are you even alive inside?
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Dan Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 7:15 am
@Kevin Spencer, apparently not. although in my defense I prefer a slightly more upbeat type of music. But the Smiths et al never really showed on my radar back then.
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[...] Club recently then head on over as this week we’re discussing the ultimate 80’s classic Back to the Future. And if you haven’t already, you can download the historic (ahem) first episode of our [...]
Marty McFly made me want to learn guitar, for about twenty minutes. I loved BTTF, but wouldn’t want a IV, to be honest II and III can be deleted for me.
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Dan Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 8:38 am
@SingleParentDad, II and II are great films. Rare among sequels in that they compare well to the original.
As for guitar – i keep telling you it’s ukulele you need to learn man.
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SingleParentDad Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 8:49 am
@Dan, Perhaps it was just me, I thought they were shite. But I know nothing. I like the Beverly Hills Cop sequels FFS.
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Oh, and to prove my knowledge of useless 80′s trivia, Wendie Jo Sperber was a regular in Bosom Buddies, with Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari. She was the only one who knew that the boys were cross-dressing.
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Dan Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 9:32 am
@Jeff, That’s mighty fine trivia-fu indeed.
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[...] 7:30pm Back To The Future (Ch 10) – You’ve all no doubt seen it plenty of times before, but why should that stop you seeing it again? [...]
I was very very young (of course) when I watched this film at the cinema. I absolutely loved it. It remains my favourite film of all time and that will never change.
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Dan Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 6:41 pm
@Rosie Scribble, I’m not sure I’d classify 24 as “very young’
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Lee Reply:
January 2nd, 2010 at 10:01 am
@Rosie Scribble, Jealous.
I wish I’d seen this a the cinema. I wish they would show these films at regular cinemas every once and a while, surely they wouldn’t lose money.
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I’d like to add that Laura, on General Hospital, married Luke, her rapist. Very realistic.
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Dan Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 6:40 pm
@Erin @ Fierce Beagle, I have no idea who you are talking about, but I’ll just nod and smile politely.
Actually soaps are pretty notorious for having very short memories when it’s convenient to moving the plot in directions that the writer wants to go. It always amuses me how few relatives that have moved away come back for family weddings for example
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Lee Reply:
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:59 am
@Dan, LOL I had no idea either – I’ve heard of General Hospital though. Seems like a stretch though even for a soap.
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I don’t think I’ve ever watch BTTF. I’ve sat in the room whilst it was on but never actually watched it, if you know what i mean. i feel compelled to go do just that now though, great review. I love this blog,.
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Lee Reply:
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:57 am
@Heather, Oh wow, being able to watch BTTF for the first time, that’s going to be a treat. I know exactly what you mean though, there are a bunch of films that I have only partially seen, in fact The Goonies was one such movie until semi recently that I hadn’t actually watched all through.
BTTF though is one of those films that I have no reservations suggesting it.
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