Back to the Future Part III

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For the video game based on this film, see Back to the Future Part III (video game).
Back to the Future Part III
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Produced by Steven Spielberg
Written by Robert Zemeckis,
Bob Gale
Starring Michael J. Fox,
Christopher Lloyd,
Mary Steenburgen,
Thomas F. Wilson,
Lea Thompson
Music by Alan Silvestri
James Horner (Universal logo only)
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) May 25, 1990
Running time 118 min.
Budget US$40,000,000
Preceded by Back to the Future
Back to the Future Part II
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Back to the Future Part III is a science fiction western comedy film starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd that opened on May 25, 1990. It is the third and final part of the Back to the Future trilogy, following Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The time machine in 1885
Enlarge
The time machine in 1885

Like Back to the Future Part II, Back to the Future Part III picks up at the moment where its predecessor left off. Doc Brown has been accidentally sent back to 1885 by a lightning bolt. However, he is able to send Marty a letter, telling him where the time machine is. He encloses instructions for Marty not to come for him and to destroy the time machine once he returns to 1985. Marty works with the 1955 Doc, and they recover the DeLorean from a mine. Before leaving the mine, they discover the tombstone that shows where Doc was buried in 1885. Doc has been shot in the back by Biff's great grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen over a matter of $80.

They haul the car back to Doc's mansion and restore it to working order. However, since adequate parts for a DeLorean car would not be accessible in 1955, the 1955 Doc had to fix it up with parts from that era. The DeLorean is now equipped with new whitewall tires, and a series of vacuum tubes to replace the damaged time circuit control microchip, which, due to the damage, could not get Doc back to 1955 himself. The time machine's flying circuits were also damaged, so the car will never again have the flying capabilities it had in Back To The Future Part II. Instead of going back to 1985 as ordered, Marty goes back to 1885 to rescue his comrade. After surviving scares from Indians, a bear, and even the cavalry, he finds refuge with his own great-great-grandfather Seamus McFly (also played by Fox). He introduces himself as Clint Eastwood, and Seamus, followed reluctantly by his wife, agree to help Marty find his "Blacksmith Friend". Marty finds out where the Doc lives and the two are set to return home, only for Marty to tell Doc that he ripped the DeLorean's fuel line. Marty is unconcerned, believing they can use the 2015 model "Mr Fusion" to draw energy from any object placed inside to power the time machine, but a devastated Doc tells Marty that Mr Fusion only powers the time circuts and Flux Capacitator. The actual car has always run on Unleaded Gasoline and always will. "There won't be a gas station around until sometime next century...", hence they are out of gas and out of luck.

Audio sample:

Doc devises a plan to push the DeLorean with a train locomotive across a bridge (over what would later be called Clayton Ravine) that has not been completed yet, but will be in use in 1985. However, Doc finds himself infatuated with the town's schoolteacher Clara Clayton, and Tannen, initially intent on shooting Doc in the back, is now hellbent on killing Marty. Marty is able to defeat Tannen (using a trick from an Eastwood movie, A Fistful of Dollars, which was foreshadowed in the second movie) and persuade Doc to come back with him. However, Clara sneaks aboard the train as they attempt to push the De Lorean back to 1985. As Doc is climbing on the outside of the train to reach the DeLorean, Clara blows the train's whistle. Doc goes back for her, making the decision to take her back to the future. Clara slips while trying to reach him, but Marty is able to slip Doc the hoverboard he took back with him from 2015. Doc rescues Clara and presumably floats back to Hill Valley. The DeLorean then hits 88 mph just before it hits the edge of the ravine, sending Marty back to the future by himself.

Upon arriving back to the year 1985 on Eastwood ravine (named after Marty's pseudonym), the DeLorean is hit by a train and destroyed. Marty reunites with his girlfriend Jennifer and his family at home - in relief that everything had returned to the now-normal 1985 after the events of Back to the Future Part II. On their way to the wreckage in Marty's truck, Marty runs into Needles and his gang, who challenges him to a speed race the minute the light turns green. Jennifer tries to persuade Marty not to accept it, but when Needles calls Marty a "chicken", Marty looks like he is going to take the challenge. However, using his mind, he escapes the challenge by shifting the truck into reverse; he then discovers that if he had gone on with the race, he would have hit a Rolls Royce (see Marty McFly page). In the second film while in 2015, Jennifer had overheard Marty's mother and daughter talking about how Marty was sued by the driver, injured his hand, and gave up his dream of being a rock star.

He returns to the DeLorean's wreckage site with Jennifer. Thinking he would never see Doc again, Marty is in for a surprise as the railroad crossing lights activate without a train in sight. Doc returns before his very eyes in a new time machine, fashioned in the form of a modified 1880s-era locomotive. Doc is now married to Clara and they have two sons, Jules and Verne (named after Clara and Doc's favorite author, Jules Verne). Doc assures Marty that everything is back to normal in all times and that the future is not set in stone and that it is "Whatever you make of it." After Marty inquires where Doc is headed next, and the inventor replies that he won't be returning to the future, as he has already been there. The train itself lifts off of the track and turns around in midair, much like the DeLorean did in part 1, accelerates toward the viewer, and vanishes into another time as the movie ends. But it is never explained how Doc and Clara managed to make a time-traveling, flying, rocket locomotive, since Doc says technology has not yet advanced far.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Release and recognitions

The movie grossed US$23 million in its first weekend of US release and $87.6 million altogether in US box office receipts – $243 million worldwide. It was not as successful as the second film but was not a disappointment either, especially given that it was released only six months after the second film. On 17 December 2002 Universal Studios released Back to the Future Part III in a boxed set with the first two films on DVD and VHS which did extremely well. In the DVD widescreen edition there was a minor framing flaw that Universal has since corrected, available in sets manufactured after February 21, 2003.

In 1990, the movie won a Saturn Award for Best Music for Alan Silvestri and a Best Supporting Actor award for Thomas F. Wilson. In 2003, it received AOL Movies DVD Premiere Award for Best Special Edition of the Year, an award based on consumer online voting.

[edit] Cast and crew

[edit] Cast

[edit] Crew

[edit] Additional notes

In order to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article's trivia section requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.

[edit] Universal logo

Universal Pictures had selected Back to the Future Part III to feature its then-new computer generated logo for the first time. This was in celebration of the studio's 75th Anniversary. The logo featured the UNIVERSAL rolling in from the right angle of the animated globe. It also featured a light orchestral tune by film composer James Horner. Universal continued using this logo up until 1997, when a more modern-looking revamp of this logo (and new music) was introduced.

According to the DVD audio commentary, Bob Gale had originally suggested that the studio should use the Universal logo from the 80s so that all three films would be consistent. But Universal executives wanted to use the new logo, because they felt that Back to the Future Part III would be the studio's biggest film of 1990.

[edit] Other notes

  • When Marty arrives in 1885 and an arrow hits the gas line of the DeLorean, causing all of the fuel to leak out, fans often criticize the film for failing to have Marty siphon gas out of the other version of the car - the one that is still buried in the mine and which Marty will one day unearth (and from his point of view, already has) in 1955. However, it is unlikely that this car has any gas in it; when storing a car for long periods of time, one drains out all the fluids (including gasoline), and Doc would surely have done this before burying the car in the mine. Also, Marty would not want to risk damaging the other DeLorean because it would leave him with no car to use in 1955.
  • In 1955, while fixing the time circuits, Doc sneers and remarks, "No wonder this circuit failed; it says 'Made in Japan'." Marty replies, "What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan." His remark is based on the reputation of Japanese products that, until the "Golden '60s economic miracle", the products were often cheap and poorly made. By the 1970s (and even today), Japan has become one of the world leaders in technology.
  • Doc tells Marty that his family, the Von Brauns, arrived in the United States in 1908, but changed their name to Brown as a result of World War One. Wernher Von Braun was a German scientist who is responsible for the design for the infamous V2 Rocket of the second World War, as well as assisting the Americans in their race to space in the 1950s.
  • After Doc asks Marty who Clint Eastwood is, Marty looks at the poster next to him and says, "That's right; you haven't heard of him yet." The poster is for Revenge of the Creature, which starred Clint Eastwood in his first movie. Eastwood was not offended at having his name used in this film, and was reportedly rather amused at the notion.
  • The clothes that Doc wears in the final scene in the movie were modeled after the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz.
  • A scene with Buford Tannen killing Marshall Strickland was filmed but not included in the movie, though it was retained in the novelization (and later as a bonus scene in the 2002 DVD release). Therefore, there was no explanation in the actual film why it was not Marshall Strickland who arrested Tannen at the end of the film. Because of the loss of this scene, this is probably why Tannen is charged with robbing the Pine City stage on-screen (the line being simply redubbed in post-production), rather than with the murder of Marshall Strickland as in the book.
  • Gasoline, while not commonly available at gas stations in 1885, would still have been relatively easy to come by, as it was collected and burnt as a nearly useless waste byproduct of petroleum processing to obtain lamp oil and kerosene, which were more valuable. However, with the time restraint placed by Doc's impending death, it may have been impossible to travel to an oil processing plant and return in time.
  • While shooting the stunt where Marty is being hanged by Tannen and his gang, Fox offered to try the stunt without using a box to stand on. He then miscalculated where his hand would slip between the rope and his neck, actually hanging himself, causing him to pass out.
  • Doc says during the movie that Marty and he could use the DeLorean on ice to make it past 88 mph, but ice wouldn't appear until winter. However, after Bufford Tannen is put in jail, they could have waited as long as they want, but the argument of the movie was that the train was the last and only hope.
  • 1885 was the year that the Dr Pepper was invented, in Waco, Texas.

[edit] Video and computer games

Main article: Back to the Future video games

LJN released an NES game called Back to the Future II & III, a sequel to their game based on the first movie. An arcade Back to the Future Part III game was also released that would eventually be ported to several home video game systems, including the Sega Genesis.

[edit] References in other media

  • In an episode of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show when the family travels back in time to the old west, when main character and father Wayne Szalinski is asked his name by the town's inhabitants, he says it's John Wayne. When his wife gives him a look of disbelief, he says that if Marty could be Clint Eastwood in Back to the Future Part III, why could he not be John Wayne.
  • In the episode E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) of The Simpsons, Homer is worrying about a duel the next morning whilst looking at a tombstone with his own name on it.

[edit] See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] External links

These links were last verified 27 November 2006


Back to the Future trilogy
Back to the Future | Back to the Future Part II | Back to the Future Part III
Timeline | Hill Valley | Animated Series | The Ride | Video games | Characters
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