Movie Review – Back to the Future (1985)

What if traveling through time was as simple (and utterly cool) as hopping into a car, accelerating to a certain speed, and then crossing the space-time continuum?

Back in 1985, Hollywood released Back to the Future, a science-fiction / comedy film that gave us a new visualization of the concept of time travel along with its consequences.  Thanks to this movie, the DeLorean DMC-12 became one of the coolest cars of all time despite the car company’s troubles and ultimate failure.

Back to the Future is a story about an obsessive and innovative scientist named Dr. Emmett Brown who succeeds in his lifelong project of building a time machine.  His teenage friend, Marty McFly, is with him the night he tests the machine.  Unfortunately, terrorists also show up that night and Marty flees them in the time machine car, accidentally sending himself back to 1955.

Upon arriving in the past, Marty accidentally interferes in the moment when his parents meet and fall in love.  If they never get married, then Marty won’t exist in the future.  It’s a race against time for Marty to have the younger version of Dr. Brown to repair the time machine while Marty tries to get his parents together, all while being menaced by Biff Tannen, the town’s bully.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg, Back to the Future stars Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, the high school teenager who gets sent back to 1955.  Christopher Lloyd plays the role of Dr. Emmett Brown, the genius inventor of the time machine.  Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover have dual roles in the film, each of them playing the younger and older versions of Marty’s parents, Lorraine Baines / McFly and George McFly.  Thomas F. Wilson also has a dual role with the older and younger version of Biff Tannen, the high school’s bully.  Claudia Wells has the role of Jennifer Parker, Marty’s girlfriend, and James Tolkan plays the hard-ass high school principal, Mr. Strickland.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Back to the Future begins in October of 1985 as Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) arrives at Dr. Brown’s house one morning.  Doc isn’t home, so Marty helps himself to the massive speaker that Doc Brown built for Marty’s electric guitar.  Marty accidentally overloads the power to the amplifier and nearly destroys the garage when he plays the guitar.

Doc Brown calls the house and Marty answers.  He tells Marty to meet him in the parking lot at Twin Pines Mall the next morning at 1 am.  Just then all the alarm clocks in the house chime and Doc tells him that the clock experiment worked and all the clocks are twenty-five minutes slow.  Realizing he’s now late for school, Marty grabs his skateboard and rides across town, grabbing onto car’s bumpers for boosts in speed.

He arrives late and his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells), warns him that Mr. Strickland (James Tolkan) is on the prowl.  Strickland catches them and gives them each a tardy note, making it several in a row for Marty.  Strickland tells Marty that he’s a slacker just as his father was when he was in school.  He advises Marty to skip the band audition after school because he’s not any good.  Strickland tells him that, “No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley!”

After school Marty still auditions to have his band perform at the school’s dance.  The audition ends early as one of the judges (musician Huey Lewis) tells him that he’s just too loud.  This rejection devastates Marty as his goal in life is to be a rock star.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

After the audition, Jennifer tries to cheer him up and have him send in audition tapes to the music producers.  They’re in the town square when an activist asks them for a donation to save their town’s beloved clock tower.  She tells them that lightning struck the tower thirty years ago and donates are needed to keep it preserved.  Marty gives her some change and the activist gives him a “Save the Clock Tower” flyer.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty returns home that night as his father’s wrecked car is being dropped off on their driveway.  It turns out that his father, George McFly (Crispin Glover), had loaned the car to his supervisor at work, Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), and Biff got into an accident.  Biff bullies George into making him make the claim on his insurance and then having George get his suit cleaned.  Apparently Biff spilled beer on it when he crashed the car.  Biff also pressures George into writing his reports for him at work.  After George McFly caves into the pressure Biff leaves.

We later see the McFly family sitting around the dinner table.  Marty’s mom, Lorraine McFly (Lea Thompson) is an aged and weathered woman who doesn’t like Jennifer Parker along with the idea of girl’s calling boys or “sitting in parked cars” with boys.  His brother and sister are equally depressing along with his father, George.  Lorraine tells the story again about how her father accidentally hit George with his car, and she fell in love with him as he was recovering from the accident.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

That night Marty sneaks out of the house and heads to Twin Pines Mall.  He finds Einstein, Doc Brown’s dog, sitting outside a large van in the parking lot.  The van’s rear hatch opens and out rolls a heavily modified DeLorean DMC-12.  The gull-wing door opens and out pops Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd).  Doc Brown is thrilled to see Marty again especially since he’s about to show off his latest invention . . . a time machine.

Marty uses Doc’s video camera to document the experiment.  Einstein is buckled into the car with a stopwatch and Doc uses a remote control to drive the car across the parking lot.  Everything is set.  Doc races the car towards them, and just before impact, the car reaches 88 mph and vanishes, leaving behind a twin trail of flames.  Doc is beyond thrilled as his experiment seems to have worked, though Marty doesn’t understand what just happened.  He thinks that Doc just disintegrated the dog.

One minute later the DeLorean re-emerges and slides to a stop.  He opens the door and Einstein is fine.  His stopwatch is now a minute behind Doc’s watch.  The time travel experiment is a complete success.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Doc Brown continues narrating for the camera and explains how the time machine works, talking about the time circuits, the display and the flux capacitor.  He enters in a few example destinations such as July 4, 1776 and November 5, 1955.  Doc explains that November 5, 1955 was the date he had a vision of the flux capacitor.  Doc then explains that the flux capacitor runs on plutonium as it needs a massive “kick” of energy to operate.  He further explains that terrorists from Libya gave him the plutonium and asked him to make them a nuclear bomb.  Doc Brown gave them a phoney bomb and used the plutonium for his time machine.  He and Marty don anti-radiation suits and reload the DeLorean with a fresh batch of plutonium.

Doc Brown’s plan is to leave that night and time travel into the future.  He’s about to depart when Einstein starts barking at something in the distance.  A van’s headlights turn on and Doc knows that they’re in trouble, and it’s not from law enforcement.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

The Libyan terrorists have arrived at Twin Pines Mall.  Somehow they found Dr. Brown.  The terrorists shoot the Doc and then try to kill Marty, but the machine gun misfires.  Marty jumps into the DeLorean and tries to make a getaway.  The terrorists keep up until Marty has an open area to really accelerate the vehicle.  He tries to push the car to ninety and forgets that it’s still programmed with a time destination of 1955.  The DeLorean hits 88 mph and in a flash Marty is transported back to November 5, 1955.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty is suddenly in an open field and crashes into a barn.  The farmer comes out to investigate.  When Marty opens the gull-wing door and emerges in his anti-radiation suit, the farmer’s family think that he’s an alien from outer space.  The farmer tries shooting him with a shotgun and misses.  Marty drives out of the barn and the farmer continues firing.  He finally drives off the property while flattening one of the two small pine trees by the farmer’s mailbox (NOTE – This changes the name of the shopping mall from Twin Pines Mall to Lone Pine Mall.)

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Trying to convince himself that it’s just a bad dream, Marty tries driving back home.  He’s shocked when he finds his neighborhood, only it hasn’t been constructed yet.  Marty tries to restart the car but it fails.  He then notices that the plutonium chamber is registering as empty.  Marty hides the DeLorean behind a billboard and then walks to the town square.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

At the Hill Valley town square, Marty is confused as the town looks like it’s still in the 1950s.  He sees everything from classic cars to a full-service gas station and references to records with old songs.  To top it off, the town’s clock tower chimes.  Marty finds a newspaper and discovers that the current date is November 5, 1955.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty heads to a coffee shop and finds an address for Dr. Emmett Brown in the phone book, but this address is listed in a different location than in 1985.  While in the coffee shop he meets his dad, George McFly, as he’s a teenager and being bullied by Biff Tannen.  Marty follows his dad and discovers George up a tree and spying on a teenage Lorraine.  He falls from the tree, and just before being hit by a car, Marty pushes him out of the way and gets hit instead.  George McFly flees the scene as the driver yells for his wife Stella to help him bring the boy inside the house.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty wakes up a few hours later and finds himself in Lorraine’s bedroom.  She’s already fallen in love and wants to get to know him better.  Disturbed by her flirtations, Marty is able to escape as Lorraine’s family sits down to dinner.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty manages to find Doc Brown’s mansion on the other side of town.  The only problem is that Dr. Brown knows nothing of Marty nor believes his story about being from the future.  When Marty reveals that the president in 1985 is Ronald Reagan, Doc Brown laughs Marty out of his house.  Marty convinces him that he’s being truthful when he talks about the bruise on Doc’s head, an incident that occurred that very day.

Marty takes Doc to the billboard and shows him the DeLorean.  Sure enough, the time machine has a working version of the flux capacitor, something that Doc drew on paper for the first time that day.  They tow the DeLorean back to Doc’s mansion and try to figure out how to make it operational again.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Getting the car running again won’t be a problem.  It’s the power needed to run the flux capacitor and time circuits where they run into trouble.  They watch the home video of Doc’s time travel experiment, and younger Doc learns that the machine requires 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, something that’s not possible with 1955 technology.  That much energy could only be found in a bolt of lightning, but lightning is unpredictable.  Marty shows Doc the “Save the Clock Tower” flyer and the lightning problem is solved.

They have a week to get the time machine ready before lightning is going to strike the town’s clock tower.  Marty reveals that he accidentally bumped into his parents earlier that day and that he was hit by Lorraine’s father’s car instead of George being hit.  Both Marty and Doc realize that the future is being altered, and unless his parents get together, then Marty will cease to exist.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty goes to high school and tries to introduce George McFly to Lorraine Baines, but Lorraine is more interested in Marty instead.  Marty tries talking to his dad again during lunch and his dad begins sharing concerns about not being good enough for Lorraine.  He also reveals that he writes science fiction stories.  Across the lunch room, Biff Tannen keeps making his moves on Lorraine, clearly upsetting the teenage girl.  Marty stops him and the two of them almost fight until Mr. Strickland appears in the room.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

After school, Marty tries following George around town, but George keeps running away.  That night he sneaks into George’s house and wears his anti-radiation suit.  Marty pretends to be a being from outer space and “convinces” George to go to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance with Lorraine.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

George meets Marty at the coffee shop and Marty gives George advice on how to impress Lorraine.  George builds some confidence and then approaches her table and talks to Lorraine.  Things seem to go fine until Biff enters the coffee shop.  Marty trips Biff and attacks him before fleeing the restaurant.  Outside the restaurant there’s a massive chase sequence as Biff and his thugs pursue Marty as he’s on a makeshift skateboard.  The chase finally ends with Biff crashing his car into a manure truck.  Unfortunately for George McFly, Lorraine is more impressed with Marty than ever as he deals with Biff.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Back at the mansion, Doc Brown shows Marty a scale model of the town for which he uses to demonstrate his plan for getting the time machine to work.  He wants Marty to start driving the DeLorean at a precise time, taking into account the vehicle’s acceleration rate, arriving at a spot in the road near the clock tower as the vehicle hits 88 mph.  Lightning will then strike the tower and travel down a cable to the street where a hook at the back of the car will then redirect the electricity into the flux capacitor, providing enough power to power the time circuits.

After the experiment with the scale model, Lorraine shows up at the mansion seeking Marty.  She asks him to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance at the school, and he agrees to take her there.  Marty then goes to George’s house and convinces him to also show up at the dance.  He tells George that he’ll make Lorraine “angry” and George can step up, punch out Marty, and then rescue Lorraine, making him her knight in shining armor.  George is reluctant but agrees with Marty’s plan.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

On the night of the school dance and storm, Marty tries to warn Doc Brown about the future and him being shot by terrorists, but Doc refuses to listen.  He doesn’t want to interfere with his fate, however bad it may become.  Marty writes a warning letter to Doc warning him about the event with instructions for the letter not to be opened until 1985.  He leaves the letter in Doc’s coat pocket and then takes Lorraine to the school’s dance.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty drives Lorraine to the high school, and the two of them hang out in the car.  Marty is appalled when Lorraine drinks alcohol and smokes cigarettes.  He stops her and warns the girl that if she keeps up that behavior she won’t like her appearance in the future.  Lorraine also reveals that this isn’t exactly her first time “sitting in a parked car” with a boy, again surprising Marty.  Despite his mother preaching against that behavior in 1985, she participated in it in her youth.

Biff Tannen suddenly arrives and pulls Marty out of the car.  He punches him in the stomach and has his goons lock Marty in the trunk of somebody else’s car.  The car they choose actually belongs to the band which is currently in the car on break.  A few band members chase off Biff’s goons while the others try to free Marty from the locked trunk.  Meanwhile, Biff tries to take advantage of Lorraine while inside of her car.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

George McFly arrives in the parking lot as planned and he sees activity in Lorraine’s car.  Expecting to see Marty, George opens the door and finds Biff.  Biff warns him to walk away but George refuses.  Biff attacks George and tries to break his arm until Lorraine distracts him.  George finds the strength and courage to punch out Biff, ending his reign of bully once and for all.  Impressed with George’s courage, Lorraine goes with him to the dance.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty is freed from the trunk of the car, but the process slices the lead guitar player’s hand.  Marty gets on stage and plays guitar for the song “Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine).”  He watches as George has to confront a second classmate for the right to be with Lorraine.  George succeeds and wins Lorraine’s heart.  They finally kiss and Marty’s future existence is secured.  The band members feel good and want to have fun with the crowd, so Marty plays “Johnny B. Goode.”  The song thrills the crowd until Marty takes his alternate version too far.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

After the songs, Marty sees Lorraine and George again before leaving the school.  Lorraine tells him that she’s going home tonight with George, and George thanks Marty for everything that he has done for him.  After Marty leaves Lorraine comments about how she likes the name Marty.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty changes clothes and meets Doc Brown at the DeLorean.  They try to part ways until a tree branch falls and disconnects the cable from the clock tower.  Doc races up the tower and lowers a rope for Marty to attach the cable.  They’re both running out of time and Marty is forced to take the car down the street to the starting line.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Fearing that Doc Brown won’t read his letter, Marty changes the destination time to give him a few extra minutes in 1985 to try to save Doc from the terrorists.  The car suddenly stalls and Marty has a hard time restarting the engine.  The start timer sounds and Marty finally gets the engine to start.  He puts the DeLorean in gear and races towards the clock tower.  Meanwhile, Doc has problems but manages to re-connect the cable at the last second.  Lightning strikes the tower and flows down the cable just as the DeLorean makes contact.  The process works and Marty is sent back to 1985.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Back in 1985, Marty is thrilled when he climbs out of the car and everything in the town square looks normal to him.  He sees the Libyans and tries to restart the DeLorean, but it fails again.  Marty is forced to run across the town to the shopping mall (now renamed Lone Pine Mall).  He arrives just in time to see the terrorists shoot Doc.  Marty then watches his former self travel back in time as the terrorists crash into a small building.

Marty runs down the hill and is in shock, thinking that his friend is dead.  But he’s not.  Doc Brown slowly rises and reveals a bullet proof vest.  When Marty questions how he knew, Doc pulls out Marty’s letter from 1955.  After refilling the plutonium and restarting the DeLorean’s engine, Doc gives Marty a ride home.  Doc then races down the street and time travels thirty years into the future.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty wakes later that morning and is shocked when he sees that his parent’s house has changed.  Suddenly the house looks nicer and his brother and sister are now successful people.  His parents return home and again Marty is impressed by how young and youthful they look.  Apparently punching out Biff really boosted George’s confidence back in 1955, and George was able to make something out of himself.  Biff is outside the home and busy waxing George’s BMW.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

Marty opens the garage and discovers the new pick-up truck he was dreaming about while standing outside the clock tower with Jennifer.  Jennifer arrives and asks him to go for a ride.  He’s about to go with her when some familiar flashes of light appear from the street.

Back to the Future (1985) – (c) Universal Pictures

It’s Doc Brown and he’s back from the future.  There’s trouble in the future and he desperately needs Marty’s help.  Doc Brown takes some garbage and puts it into Mr. Fusion, the new power source for the flux capacitor.  He has both Marty and Jennifer get into the DeLorean and the three of them pull onto the neighborhood street.

Back to the Future ends with the DeLorean rising into the air and Doc Brown, Marty and Jennifer travelling into the future.

So is Back to the Future a good movie?

Back to the Future isn’t just a good movie.  It’s a legendary one.  It’s a film that sparked two more sequels, an animated television show, a major theme park attraction, and a few video games.  The characters and time travelling DeLorean have also been idolized by millions of people since the movie was released back in 1985, nearly thirty years ago.

Huey Lewis and the News – “The Power of Love” music video

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Huey Lewis and the News – “Back in Time” live performance

Back to the Future is wildly imaginative, it has a great cast of characters, the soundtrack is awesome, the DeLorean is still amazing after all of these years, and the film is just plain fun.  Sure, there are a few small problems here and there (especially with the timing of the end sequence with the DeLorean and the lightning bolt), but those issues are minor.

Back to the Future (1985) – movie teaser

Back to the Future is a solid 1980′s film and has all the charm from that glorious era of movies, music and culture.  Through in some “modern” rock music from Huey Lewis and the News and there you go.  Back to the Future‘s soundtrack and Alan Silvestri’s music score are both outstanding and help enhance the power of this movie.

Back to the Future (1985) – movie trailer

After watching great movies like this one, it’s fascinating watching documentaries and reading stories about the production and alternate concepts (and actors) for the film, such as Eric Stoltz being the original version of Marty McFly.  Part of the movie was filmed with him in the role before the switch was made to Michael J. Fox.

The wild success of Back to the Future and its sequels helped push it to becoming a highly popular theme park attraction at the Universal Studios theme parks.

Back to the Future: The Ride opened at Universal Studios Florida on May 2, 1991.  The ride building is themed to being the Institute of Future Technology, a corporation run by Dr. Emmett Brown.  Doc Brown has invented several new inventions at the Institute including an eight-passenger time travelling DeLorean that also happens to be a convertible.  The Institute has a program that allows guests to travel one day into the future.  That’s what we’re doing until Biff Tannen starts showing up on the security cameras.

Biff wrecks havoc and constantly taunts the security guards inside of the Institute.  In the ride’s preshow we see Biff trap Doc Brown inside of his office.  It’s revealed that some of the Institute’s scientists were conducting an experiment back in 1955, and somehow Biff stowed away in one of the time machines.  Biff then steals the two-passenger version of the DeLorean and heads out for a little joy ride.  Doc Brown has us visitors ride along in the eight-passenger version of the car as Doc pilots it by remote control.  Our objective is to bump into Biff Tannen’s DeLorean as the impact of two time machines will send them both back to their point of origin here at the Institute.  It seems simple enough.

Back to the Future: The Ride is a simulator-style ride that uses individual ride vehicles that face towards a massive Imax screen.  After boarding the car we track Biff’s location to the year 2015, so off we go.  We zoom into the future and fly around the futuristic version of Hill Valley in our hovering DeLorean.  It’s all straight out of Back to the Future, Part II.  This segment ends when Biff jumps through time again.

Next we fly through a frozen version of Hill Valley back in the ice age.  We go through a massive cave and Biff attempts to knock columns of ice onto our car, but he misses.  Biff makes another time jump and we try to follow, but the engine stalls.  Our car falls down into a ravine and the engine catches before we smash into an icy river.  Doc throws the car into reverse and we reach the time jump speed.

After that jump we’re even further back in time as the ice age has been replaced by a giant volcano.  We follow Biff into a tunnel and face two Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs.  One of them tries to eat us and then spits us out of its mouth.  The other dinosaur bites and damages Biff’s car.  He’s disabled while hovering over a river of magma.  His car goes over the edge of a lava waterfall and we follow, finally hitting his car just as we reach 88 mph.  Sure enough the impact sends both of our vehicles to the Institute.  After landing Biff is quickly hauled away by the Institute’s security team.

Back to the Future: The Ride in Universal Studios Florida closed on March 30, 2007 to make way for The Simpsons Ride.

Back to the Future (1985) – 2010 re-release TV spot

Mr. Strickland – “No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley!”
Marty McFly – “Yeah, well, history is gonna change.”

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Marty McFly – “Wait a minute, Doc. Ah… Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?”
Dr. Emmett Brown – “The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”

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Dr. Emmett Brown – “If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour… you’re gonna see some serious shit.”

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George McFly – “Last night, Darth Vader came down from Planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn’t take Lorraine out, that he’d melt my brain.”

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George McFly – “Hey, you! Get your damn hands off her!”