Back to the Future Part III
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| Back to the Future Part III | |
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 Theatrical film poster |
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| 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) |
| Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
| Editing by | Harry Keramidas Arthur Schmidt |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | May 25, 1990 |
| Running time | 118 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$40,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | US$244,527,583 (worldwide) |
| Preceded by | Back to the Future Part II |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Back to the Future Part III is the third and final installment of the Back to the Future trilogy. The film is a science fiction western, using the time travel premise of the series to take Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) back to the Old West of 1885.
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[edit] Plot
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The film opens by replaying the conclusion of Back to the Future Part II, which is an altered version of the conclusion of Back to the Future Part I. Marty is stranded in 1955, but has received a seventy-year-old letter from Doc Brown. In the letter, Doc explains that he is trapped in 1885 as the technology required to repair the De Lorean would not be invented until 1947. The letter tells Marty where the De Lorean is, but gives him explicit instructions to not attempt a rescue. Instead, he is told to immediately return to 1985 and destroy the time machine in order to prevent further disruption of the space-time continuum.
With the help of Doc's 1955 counterpart, Marty uncovers the De Lorean from a mine. Nearby they discover a tombstone that reveals that Doc died just six days after writing Marty the letter, having been murdered by Biff Tannen's great-grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen "over a matter of $80." With the De Lorean restored to working order through the use of 1955 components, Marty and the 1955 Doc agree that Marty will go back to 1885 and bring the 1985 Doc back to his own time. Before leaving, Marty takes a photo of the tombstone.
After arriving in 1885 and surviving brushes with Native Americans, the cavalry, and a bear, Marty finds refuge for the night with his great-great-grandparents, Seamus and Maggie McFly, who are immigrants newly arrived from Ireland. When asked his name, Marty uses the alias "Clint Eastwood" to hide who he really is. Oddly, Maggie is played by Lea Thompson, who portrayed Marty's mother. This was done in part to allow the "Marty waking up after being hit on the head" scene to take place with Lea Thompson, just as in the other two films (wherein Marty wakes up discombobulated, and initially misbelieves that he is at home). The producers have stated that the scene should not suggest she is an ancestor of Marty's mother, and that a possible explanation is that "McFly men are genetically predisposed to be attracted to women who look like Lea Thompson"'[1]. Despite this resemblance, Maggie is slightly hostile toward Marty and appears more intelligent and downright than the scatterbrained, romantic Lorraine. It is from Seamus, who, while ignorant of Marty's relation to him, is perceptive of his guest's character, that Marty receives a "warm" welcome.
Marty later goes to Hill Valley to find Doc, who has taken an alter-ego there as a blacksmith. Once there, Marty has a run-in with Buford Tannen, who attempts to hang him in front of the partially-constructed courthouse as punishment for Marty's ignorant use of the much-despised nickname "Mad Dog". While acting in this scene, actor Michael J. Fox (who portrayed Marty) offered to try the stunt without standing on a box. He then miscalculated where his hand would slip between the rope and his neck, actually hanging himself and causing himself to pass out. It was originally thought that a connection existed between Fox's Parkinson's-disease symptoms and this incident.[2]
Doc rescues Marty and argues with Buford over whether or not Doc owes Buford eighty dollars. Doc then takes Marty back to his workshop, only to discover that the De Lorean's fuel line is broken, which is problematic as unleaded gasoline will not be available in Hill Valley until the early 20th century, whereas the nuclear fusion generator that empowers the time machine will not do the same for the car's engine. The Back to the Future Part III novelization explains that Doc drained all the fluids from the De Lorean before storing it in 1885 to prevent corrosion, thus clarifying that the option to obtain gasoline from the stored De Lorean (in 1885) was not available.
Doc makes several futile attempts to bring the car up to the required speed of 88 miles per hour, until he devises a plan to push the De Lorean with a steam locomotive. The only portion of the track that is straight and level enough for the plan ends at Shonash Ravine. Because a bridge across the ravine exists in 1985, Doc insists that they can avoid falling into the ravine by reaching 88 miles per hour before they hit the edge of the tracks. To better illustrate his proposal, Doc has created a toy model of the locomotive, the tracks, the time machine and a couple of key locations: the switch, where they will switch the locomotive to the incomplete track, and a windmill, which Doc calls their point of no return. Once they pass that, Doc says, "it's the future or bust!"
While surveying the tracks, Marty and the Doc see the town's new schoolteacher Clara Clayton on a runaway carriage. Doc saves her just before the carriage plummets into the ravine. The two fall instantly in love before Marty and Doc realize that Clara was 'intended' by the course of history to fall to her death, resulting in the ravine being renamed Clayton Ravine in memorial to her.
During Marty's time in the 1885 version of Hill Valley, several historical references are made to product inventions. Marty throws a pie plate manufactured by the "Frisbie" pie company; a reference to the origin of the Frisbee company. In another scene Doc talks to a barbed wire salesman at the saloon (barbed wire was an important invention in the American West). The salesman in the film bears some resemblance to Joseph Glidden, who patented the invention in 1874. It is unknown whether the film’s creators intended this resemblance.
Buford attempts to kill Doc at the festival dedicating the town's new clock tower, only to have Marty disrupt the attempt. Buford goads Marty to a gunfight, which Marty schedules for the morning he and Doc plan to leave for 1985. Pulling out the photo that he had taken in 1955, Marty discovers that Doc's name on the tombstone has been replaced by "Clint Eastwood" and realizes that he, and not Doc, is now 'intended' to die. As Marty and Doc camp out the night before they leave, Doc sneaks off to say goodbye to Clara. He tells her the truth about being the inventor of a time machine and his time travel, which she believes is just an excuse for abandoning her; both are crushed.
The next morning, Clara buys a one-way train ticket to San Francisco, but as the train pulls out she overhears a comment by a man who spoke to Doc about his love for her. Clara gets off the train and rushes to Doc's workshop, where she discovers the toy model of the time machine, then realizing he was telling the truth.
Meanwhile, Marty finds a despondent Doc in a saloon, whiskey shot in hand, babbling about the future. Marty asks the bartender how much Doc has had to drink, to which the bartender replies, "That's his first one." Realizing Doc is still sober, Marty tries to persuade Doc to return with him to 1985. Doc finally agrees to go with Marty, but when the others in the saloon propose a toast to the future, he downs the whiskey shot and passes out. As Marty and the bartender try to revive Doc with a concoction called "wake-up juice," Buford impatiently waits outside for Marty, calling him "yeller" to get him to come out. Marty, who until now has been unwilling to back down from a fight, refuses the challenge. Doc eventually revives, and he and Marty attempt to sneak past Buford, but are noticed by one of Buford's henchmen. Buford nabs the still-hungover Doc, but Marty escapes, taking refuge in a room with an iron stove.
Buford threatens to harm Doc unless Marty agrees to a duel. When Marty finally meets Buford, Buford lets Doc go and faces Marty for a shoot out. Marty refuses to use his gun because he knew that Buford was Biff's great grandfather and killing Buford would have erased all existence of the future Biff where in turn would have possibly eliminated the setting for Marty's parents to get together where Biff was a key factor. So he dropped the pistol to the ground. Buford shoots Marty and approaches him to gloat over his body, but Marty plays dead as he's wearing a self-made armor made from the stove's door, an idea inspired by the film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly which was seen in Back To The Future Part II. Marty beats up Buford, knocking him into an unfinished tombstone, and gets him arrested. Because the tombstone is the same one that would have been on Marty's grave, its destruction causes it to disappear from Marty's 1955 photo.
Continuing with their plan, Marty and Doc meet the train, steal the locomotive and push the De Lorean down the tracks with Marty in the car and Doc in the locomotive. As Doc climbs along the outside of the train to board the De Lorean, he sees that Clara, who has caught up with them, has boarded the locomotive. He goes back for her, making the decision to take her with him to the future. Clara, however, gets trapped while trying to get to Doc, and Doc decides to rescue her instead of boarding the De Lorean. Realizing that Doc now will not make it to the De Lorean in time, Marty sends the hoverboard, which he had kept in the De Lorean since his trip to 2015, to Doc, who uses it to rescue Clara. Marty sees Doc and Clara clear the locomotive on the hoverboard before he returns to 1985 in the De Lorean. The locomotive falls into the ravine and is destroyed.
Upon Marty's arrival in 1985 over what is now named Eastwood Ravine after his own psuedonym of Clint Eastwood, the De Lorean is crushed by a freight train. Marty narrowly escapes the same fate, but believes that he will now never see Doc again, as the only means of getting Doc back from 1885 has been destroyed. Marty returns home to find everything the way it was at the end of the first movie, minus Doc and the De Lorean. He also finds Jennifer safe on her porch just as Doc had predicted. After picking up Jennifer, Marty encounters a group in another car, driven by 17-year-old Needles, who was 47 and a colleague of Marty in 2015 from Part II, who challenges him to a drag race, even calling him 'chicken' in an attempt to goad him. However, just like he did in 1885, Marty declines the challenge, averting an accident and erasing their last indicator of the future — a memorandum that Jennifer had brought back from 2015. Jennifer, who remembers her own time-travels shown in Part II, is told the whole story upon questioning Marty.
Marty and Jennifer return to the track where they see the De Lorean's remnants and are surprised by the arrival of a new time machine piloted by Doc: a heavily modified 19th-century steam engine covered by devices that may or may not be meteorological instruments designed to interpret weather conditions, whose purpose would be (given Doc's passionate desire for exact knowledge) to reveal how much work is needed to reach 88 m.p.h. Doc has married Clara, and the couple have two children, Jules and Verne. Doc returned to 1985 to get Einstein as well as see Marty again, showing that he wasn't stuck in 1885 after all. Doc gives Marty a souvenir, a framed photo of the picture they took in front of the future clock of the clock tower. When Jennifer asks Doc about the meaning of the now-blank memo, Doc cheerfully interprets it to mean that they can now create their own future, as it has not been written yet. As Marty and Jennifer watch, the train lifts off the track and flies away, mirroring the De Lorean in Part I.
[edit] Cast and crew
[edit] Cast
- Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly (aka "Clint Eastwood") and Seamus McFly
- Christopher Lloyd as Dr Emmett "Doc" Brown
- Mary Steenburgen as Clara Clayton
- Thomas F. Wilson as Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen and Biff Tannen
- Lea Thompson as Maggie McFly and Lorraine Baines McFly
- James Tolkan as Marshal James Strickland
- Elisabeth Shue as Jennifer Parker
- Jeffrey Weissman as George McFly
- Matt Clark as Chester, the bartender
- Dub Taylor as Saloon Old-Timer #1
- Harry Carey, Jr. as Saloon Old-Timer #2
- Pat Buttram as Saloon Old-Timer #3
- Burton Gilliam as Colt Gun Salesman
- Richard Dysart as Barbed-Wire Salesman
- Michael Peter Balzary (Flea) as Needles
- ZZ Top as the band at the dance
[edit] Crew
- Robert Zemeckis: director/screenwriter
- Bob Gale: producer/screenwriter
- Neil Canton: producer
- Kathleen Kennedy: producer
- Frank Marshall: executive producer
- Steven Spielberg: executive producer
- Steve Starkey: associate producer
[edit] Release
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. On December 17, 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.
The film received a Thumbs Up from Gene Siskel and a very marginal Thumbs Down from Roger Ebert on Siskel & Ebert.
[edit] Video and computer games
LJN released an NES game called Back to the Future Part 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] See also
- Back to the Future timeline
- Back to the Future trilogy
- Back to the Future
- Back to the Future Part II
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official Universal Pictures site
- BTTF.com
- BTTF Frequently Asked Questions written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis
- Back to the Future Part III at the Internet Movie Database
- Back to the Future: Part III at Allmovie
- Back to the Future: Part III at Rotten Tomatoes
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