Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek 09.10.08: The Back to the Future Trilogy

Posted by Jordan Bruns on 09.10.2008

Put on your radiation suit, grab your plutonium pellets, and show your love for the flux capacitor...

Welcome to this week's edition of Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek! I'd like to start off by saying how pleased I was with last week's article and how well-received it was. I'd like to thank all the faithful readers who continued to give me insight as I struggled to find a voice.

This week I'm giving my ramblings on another hugely successful movie series that turned a young TV star into a Hollywood heartthrob, featured two soundtrack cuts by Huey Lewis and the News, and made DeLoreans cool. This week I give you my mad ramblings on The Back to the Future Trilogy…





My Mad Ramblings
Michael J. Fox had already achieved some level success starring in Family Ties, but it was this role (in which he replaced Eric Stoltz) that helped launch his movie career. Looking back it's hard to imagine anyone other than him in the role of Marty McFly. What is even more difficult to imagine is anyone other than Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown.

One of the reasons Back to the Future was so popular is because it uses time travel as a plot device to explore the generation gap. By inadvertently traveling back to 1955, Marty is able to see his parents as teenagers, thus fulfilling the wish many teenagers have of knowing what their parents were like at that age. Of course he wishes he didn't know, because he's now interfered with his parent's first meeting, and if he doesn't fix the situation, he'll never be born. To make matters worse, his own mother has a crush him- that's pretty risqué subject matter for a PG movie, but it's all handled very innocently.

Christopher Lloyd steals the show with his performance as the eccentric Doc Brown. His biggest quirk is the way he dramatically overanalyzes everything, even to the point of referring to a high school dance as a "rhythmic ceremonial ritual." Other notable performances include Thomas F. Wilson as Biff Tannen and Crispin Glover as George McFly. And Lea Thompson looks cute…well, at least as the young Lorraine.

An imaginative storyline, likable performances, a rousing score, and an overall sense of fun are what make this a must-see for any movie fan. Needless to say, those are exactly the ingredients that made Back to the Future one of the biggest hits of 1985.

Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale never intended to do a sequel, but the tremendous success of the original (and cliffhanger ending) made the lure too hard to resist. Unfortunately, it would take four years for a follow-up to materialize.





My Mad Ramblings
Zemeckis later admitted it was a mistake to put Jennifer in the DeLorean at the end of BTTF, as he didn't know what to do with her for the sequel. Plotting problems aside, I stated in my column on sequels that is my personal favorite of the series, and I'll reiterate that, as well as some other thoughts I gave on it the first time around.

What I really love about Part II is not only the fact that we see a satiric version of the future, but it's also the only movie in the series that really shows the consequences of time travel. The nightmarish alternate timeline is what turned some viewers off, but it's what I love most. Marty's dad is dead, his mom's married to Biff, Biff has become one of the richest men in the country, and poor old Marty is stuck in some Swiss Boarding School. Oh, yeah, Doc Brown's in the loony bin, and it was Biff who killed George McFly.

Speaking of George McFly, it's interesting to note that Crispin Glover did not reprise the role for either of the two sequels. He demanded too much money, so he was replaced by Jefferey Weissman. Weissman's face was deliberately concealed in his scenes so audiences would think it was Glover. Stock footage of Glover from the first movie was used for 1955 scenes at the end.

My only major complaint about Back to the Future Part II is that the cliffhanger ending is nullified by the trailer for Part III shown immediately afterwards. Audiences should have been left wondering what would happen in the next movie, rather than be shown scenes from it. Other than that, what we have here is a terrific follow-up to a modern day classic.





My Mad Ramblings
Filmed back-to-back with its predecessor, Back to the Future Part III took the series into unchartered territories, and could arguably be called the first and only time travel western. Marty must go back to 1885 to prevent Doc from being killed by notorious outlaw Buford Tannen. Is everybody in the Tannen family a thug or a bully? Don't they have at least one doctor or lawyer? Or even an EMT?

This is the weakest of the three, but that doesn't make it abysmal. In fact, it's quite enjoyable- it just had a lot to live up to. It's a lot of fun seeing Marty and Doc reverse roles this time around, as Doc falls in love and begins acting like a hormonal teenager, leaving Marty to fill the role of the sensible adult. It's particularly amusing to see Marty spouting Doc's catchphrase "Great Scott!" and Doc responding with Marty's line "This is heavy."

Back to the Future Part III resembles the original in terms of pacing and general premise- that of being stranded in the past and overcoming insurmountable odds to get back home. The climax aboard the locomotive is this movie's biggest flaw. It just seems to take forever. It's also very hard to believe that Doc would build another time machine after repeatedly cursing his invention of the first one… but they had to have one last scene together, so I guess it's forgivable. The irony is, after averting so much disaster, traveling through time actually improved the lives of everyone involved.

All in all, this was a satisfying way to bring the series to an end. Although not quite as good as the first two, it is in no way a disappointment. All three are classics in their own right, and are also shining examples of why people go to the movies in the first place.

That wraps up this week's edition of Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek. Until next time…