Back to the Future

This article is about the first film in the Back to the Future trilogy. For information on the series as a whole, see Back to the Future trilogy.

Back to the Future
Back to the Future film poster
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Written by	Robert Zemeckis Bob Gale
Produced by	Bob Gale Steven Spielberg Neil Canton Kathleen Kennedy Frank Marshall Johnny Colla (uncredited)
Starring	Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd Lea Thompson Crispin Glover Thomas F. Wilson
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Edited by	Harry Keramidas Arthur Schmidt
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	July 3, 1985
Running time	116 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$ 19,000,000

Back to the Future is a 1985 science fiction–comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg. Zemeckis wrote the story, along with Bob Gale. It stars Michael J. Fox as teenager Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as mad scientist Doctor Emmett L. Brown. Sent thirty years back in time in a De Lorean time machine, Marty inadvertently interferes with his parents' courtship and is forced to try and make them fall in love, or he will never be born.

The film opened on July 3, 1985 and 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 and Back to the Future Part III in 1990, forming a trilogy. On December 17, 2002, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and 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 and Harvey Comics 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. The ride closed on March 30, 2007 in Orlando, FL, and September 3rd, 2007 in Hollywood, California. The ride remains open at Universal Studios Japan.

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 "Doc" Emmett Brown (Lloyd), calls him, asking to meet him at 1:15 a.m. the following night. After school that day, a woman approaches Marty and 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 ago. Once he gets home, Marty finds his neurotic father George (Crispin Glover) being bullied by his supervisor Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson). At dinner, Marty's mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) recounts how she and George first met when her father hit George with a car.

Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, (Christopher Lloyd) and Marty McFly, (Michael J. Fox) watch in amazement as the De Lorean time machine vanishes one minute into the future.

That night, Marty meets "Doc" Brown in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall. The Doc shows him a De Lorean DMC-12 sports car, which he has modified into a time machine. The Doc explains to Marty that the time machine requires 1.21 gigawatts of power, generated by a plutonium-powered nuclear reactor, and 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 to Marty 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 and shoot him dead. Marty jumps in the De Lorean and is persued by the Libyans until he hits eighty-eight miles per hour and is thus transported back to 1955. When the car stalls shortly after his arrival, Marty abandons it and makes his way into town, finding that the town square now reflects the popular culture of the 1950s. Furthermore, George is now a nerdy teenager, Lorraine is a goo-goo-eyed schoolgirl and Biff is the school bully. In the critical moment when George was about to be hit by Lorraine's father's car, Marty saves George by taking the hit himself. This causes Marty to take his father's place as Lorraine's infatuation and prevents his teenaged parents from meeting.

Marty tracks down the Doc of thirty years ago and convinces 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. He plans to use cables to connect the clock tower to two lamp posts, which Marty will drive under in the De Lorean at eighty-eight miles per hour the moment the lightning strikes.

Doc deduces that Marty has damaged the time line by preventing 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 aggressive advances on the night of a school dance. Biff shows up and attacks the couple, and when George arrives, he realizes that instead of staging a rescue, he needs to save Lorraine for real, and stands up to Biff for the first time in his life, knocking him out with a single punch. Lorraine and George return to the dance together where they kiss for the first time, ensuring Marty's existence.

File:ClockTower1955.PNG

The clock tower gets struck by lightning at 10:04 P.M. on November 12, 1955

Before 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 coverall 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 and is no longer dominated by Biff. Just as Jennifer and Marty reunite, Doc arrives from the year 2015, appearing frantic about a problem with the couple's future children. Marty and Jennifer climb aboard the De Lorean and, aided by the technology of thirty years hence, the car lifts off into the sky.

Themes

The generation gap

The film explores the notion of a teenager being able to meet his parents when they were the same age as him, an encounter which would be impossible in real life. This plays on the generation gap, specifically the one between the Silent Generation and Generation X, and 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 a girl, but in 1955 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 and drank as a teen, behaviours which Marty has apparently avoided.

Cultural decline

The film also explores the differences between the 1980s and 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. The cultural clash between the 1950s and the later 20th century was later explored in the 1998 film Pleasantville.

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 and wonderful" for 1955 and then "trashed it down" for the 1985 scenes. Gale explained that this was the result of Twin Pines Mall being built in the outskirts and consequently killing the businesses downtown. However, Gale stated that he and Zemeckis did not intend the film as 1950s nostalgia and 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 and wondered whether he would have been friends with his father as a teenager. His father was class president and pretty much the "big guy on campus", while Bob was on the other end of the social barometer - more of a nerd. Gale and Robert Zemeckis originally wrote the script in 1980 but struggled to find the time to make it. Steven Spielberg read it when Gale first had the idea and 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 and Revenge of the Nerds).

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. 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 was 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. The time machine is not built around a De Lorean DMC-12, and 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" reprises the famous scene in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (1923). The fact that Christopher Lloyd and 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 and pronounced "jiggawatt" (/dʒɪgæwɑt/). Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis had been to a science seminar and the speaker had pronounced it jiggawatt. This is an uncommon although accepted pronunciation of the word "gigawatt", not an error.

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 thus the shows 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, and 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 and the writer/directors agreed that Stoltz was a fine actor, but unfortunately 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.

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 and Gale, and there was at least one "teaser" movie poster released with Stoltz's name and face visible. 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 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 and conductor Leopold Stokowski. The extreme difference in height between Lloyd and Fox meant Doc's character was given a distinctive hunched-over look.

To play their roles at the age of 47, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson had several hours work of make up added to their faces and extra layers of skin.

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 had suffered major fire damage on two occasions since Back to the Future was made. 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 California.

Music

The film's musical score was composed by Alan Silvestri, who later wrote music for Forrest Gump and 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 and Part III, which were also scored by Silvestri, in Back to the Future: The Ride and as ambient music at the Universal Studios theme parks. The hip, upbeat Back to the Future 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 portrayed the high-school band audition judge that rejects Marty's band, The Pinheads, as they perform "The Power of Love".

The film's soundtrack, which was available on CD, also included songs by Eric Clapton, Lindsey Buckingham, Etta James and 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 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 Marvin Berry and Mark Campbell as Marty McFly, and the guitar solo by Tim May (Campbell and 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 and 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 and Back to the Future Part III in 1990, forming a trilogy. On December 17, 2002, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and 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% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 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 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.'" In fact, when he first saw the joke about him being president, ie. "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, and 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. These were shot at Warner Bros. backlot and not Universal where the 1985 movie was shot. Using both new and 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 would have been in 1955, which was two years before the launch of Sputnik.

In these commercials the bruise on Doc's head is on the wrong side of his forehead. The reason for this is the whole video image is backwords. The Warner Bros. backlot buildings behind Doc are also reversed. This has been proven by "Mr. Foster" on the Bttf.com message board.

Other references

In the 2007 Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code", the Doctor uses Marty's predicament in Back to the Future to illustrate to Martha Jones that it is possible for the world to come to an end in the year 1599, even though Martha was born centuries later.

In an episode of Family Guy named "Meet the Quagmires," Brian and Peter go back to the 80's (instead of the 50's). The Newport Country Club Dance mimics the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. Brian plays guitar and sings the song "Earth Angel," where Peter and Lois first kiss, then afterwards plays "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. A person named "Marvin Astley", supposedly Rick's cousin, called him and tells him he's found the mediocre sound he was looking for.

In the 2001 film Donnie Darko, the titular character is discussing time travel with his science teacher. He mentions using a DeLorean as a time machine, and then strays from the conversation for a moment saying "I love the way that movie was shot, it's so...futuristic."

In an episode of the Fairly Odd Parents Timmy Turner goes back in time with his time-scooter to figure out when and how Crocker's worst day was, and he goes back to the Ninties, Eighties, and Seventies. While going back in time, he stops at the Eighties, and when he gets there and appears, a De Lorean disappears as the tires flame (A reference to when Marty goes back to the future and past).

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 DeLorean with Marty and Doc, which created logistical problems in plotting the other films. 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, 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) and Back to the Future Part III (Spring 1990) made roughly $118 million and $88 million, respectively.

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 and Oceania (VHS & DVD)
• December 2002 North America (VHS & DVD)

See also

• Grandfather paradox
• 1980s in film

External links

• Universal Pictures site
• BTTF.com
• BTTF Frequently Asked Questions written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis
• Back to the Future Filming Locations
• Back to the Future at IMDb
• ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› Back to the Future at AllMovie
• Back to the Future at Rotten Tomatoes
• Back to the Future at Yahoo! Movies