| Back to the Future | |
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Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan |
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| Directed by | Robert Zemeckis |
| Produced by | |
| Written by |
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| Starring | Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd Crispin Glover Lea Thompson Thomas F. Wilson |
| Music by | Alan Silvestri |
| Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
| Editing by |
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| Studio | Amblin Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 3, 1985 |
| Running time | 116 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $19 million |
| Box office | $381,109,710 |
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of Marty McFly, a teenager who is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955. He meets his future-parents in high school and accidentally attracts his future mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents-to-be to fall in love, and with the help of scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, he must find a way to return to 1985.
Zemeckis and Gale wrote the script after Gale mused upon whether he would have befriended his father if they attended school together. Various film studios rejected the script until the financial success of Zemeckis' Romancing the Stone, after which the project was set up at Universal Pictures with Spielberg as an executive producer. Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly when Michael J. Fox was busy filming the TV series Family Ties. However, during filming, Stoltz and the filmmakers decided that he was miscast, so Fox was approached again and he managed to work out a timetable in which he could give enough time and commitment to both; the subsequent recasting meant the crew had to race through reshoots and post-production to complete the film for its July 3, 1985 release date.
When released, Back to the Future became the most successful film of the year, grossing more than $380 million worldwide and receiving critical acclaim. It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, as well as Academy Awards, and Golden Globe nominations among others. Ronald Reagan even quoted the film in his 1986 State of the Union Address. In 2007, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and in June 2008 the American Film Institute's special AFI's 10 Top 10 acknowledged the film as the 10th-best film in the science fiction genre. The film marked the beginning of a franchise, with sequels Back to the Future Parts II and III released in 1989 and 1990, as well as an animated series, theme park ride, and several video games.
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Seventeen-year-old Marty McFly lives with his bleak, unambitious family in Hill Valley, California. His father, George McFly, is continually bullied by his supervisor, Biff Tannen, and his unhappy mother, Lorraine Baines McFly, is overweight and has a drinking problem. Marty's underachieving older siblings, Dave and Linda, also live in the household. When Marty and his band audition to perform at the high school dance, they are rejected. Despite this setback, Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer, encourages him to pursue the dream of being a rock musician. At dinner that night, Lorraine recounts how she and George first fell in love when her father hit George with his car.
Marty meets his friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, late at night at a deserted shopping mall where Doc reveals a time machine made from a modified DeLorean; the vehicle's time displacement is powered by plutonium, which supplies 1.21 gigawatts of energy to a device he calls the "flux capacitor". Doc also explains that the car travels to a programmed date upon reaching 88 miles per hour, using the date November 5, 1955 (the day he invented the flux capacitor), as an example destination. But before Doc can make his first trip, the Libyan terrorists from whom he stole the plutonium show up and shoot him. Marty attempts to escape in the DeLorean and unknowingly turns on the time machine. Reaching the speed of 88 miles per hour, he is transported back to the date programmed into the DeLorean, and finds himself without the plutonium needed for the trip back, leaving him stuck in 1955.
While exploring Hill Valley of 1955, Marty accidentally meets his teenaged father, George, who is being bullied by Biff. As George is about to be hit by Lorraine's father's car, Marty pushes him out of the way and is knocked out by the impact. As a result, a teenaged Lorraine becomes infatuated with Marty instead of George. Marty is disturbed by her flirtations and leaves to find the younger Doc of 1955. Marty eventually convinces Doc that he is from the future, and asks for help returning to 1985. Doc explains that the only available power source capable of generating the required 1.21 gigawatts is a bolt of lightning. Doc then sees the "Save the Clock Tower" flyer that Marty had received in 1985, indicating that lightning will strike the courthouse clock tower the following Saturday at 10:04 pm, and makes plans to harness the lightning strike to power the DeLorean's flux capacitor. However, when they observe a fading photograph of Marty with his siblings, they realize Marty, by preventing George from being hit by the car, has prevented his parents from meeting, jeopardizing his siblings' and his own existence.
Marty attempts to set George up with Lorraine, who only has eyes for Marty. To make his parents fall in love, Marty plans to have George "rescue" Lorraine from Marty's inappropriate advances on the night of the school dance. But a drunk Biff unexpectedly shows up, pulls Marty from the car, and attempts to force himself on Lorraine. George arrives as planned to rescue her from Marty, but instead finds Biff, who humiliates George and pushes Lorraine to the ground. Standing up to him for the first time, an enraged George knocks Biff out with one punch. A smitten Lorraine follows George to the dance floor where they kiss for the first time, assuring Marty's existence.
Marty arrives at the clock tower where Doc is making final preparations for the lightning strike, and tries to warn Doc of his impending 1985 murder in a letter, but Doc tears it up without reading it, fearing it will lead to altering the future. A falling tree branch accidentally disconnects Doc's wiring setup that will carry the lightning's energy to the DeLorean, but Doc repairs the connections just in time to send Marty and the DeLorean back to 1985. Although Marty arrives too late to prevent him from being shot, Doc is still alive and admits to reading the letter anyway, and wearing a bulletproof vest.
Doc drops Marty off at home and leaves in the time machine to travel 30 years into the future. Marty awakens the next morning to find his home and family significantly changed; Lorraine is happy and physically fit, a self-confident George has become a successful science fiction author, Dave is now a businessman, and Linda no longer has trouble finding boyfriends. Most significantly, George and Lorraine now have a closer relationship than ever, while Biff has become an auto detailer/washer who is now very deferential towards George. Just as Marty reunites with Jennifer, Doc arrives, insisting they accompany him to the future to sort out a problem with their future children. Marty and Jennifer enter the upgraded DeLorean, now a hovercar powered by nuclear fusion, and Doc flies the time machine into the future.
Writer and producer Bob Gale conceived the idea after he visited his parents in St. Louis, Missouri after the release of Used Cars. Searching their basement, Gale found his father's high school yearbook and discovered he was president of his graduating class. Gale thought about the president of his own graduating class, who was someone he had nothing to do with.[1] Gale wondered whether he would have been friends with his father if they went to high school together. When he returned to California, he told Robert Zemeckis his new concept.[2] Zemeckis subsequently thought of a mother claiming she never kissed a boy at school, when in reality she was highly promiscuous.[3] The two took the project to Columbia Pictures, and made a development deal for a script in September 1980.[2]
Zemeckis and Gale set the story in 1955 because, they claimed, mathematically, a 17-year old traveling to meet his parents at the same age meant traveling to that decade. The era also marked the rise of teenagers as an important cultural element, the birth of rock n' roll, and suburb expansion, which would flavor the story.[4] Originally, Marty was a video pirate, the time machine was a refrigerator, and he needed to use the power of an atomic explosion at the Nevada Test Site to return home. Zemeckis was "concerned that kids would accidentally lock themselves in refrigerators", and the original climax was deemed too expensive. The DeLorean time machine was chosen because its design made the gag about the family of farmers mistaking it for a flying saucer believable. The writers found it difficult to create a believable friendship between Marty and Doc Brown before they created the giant guitar amplifier, and only resolved his Oedipal relationship with his mother when they wrote the line "It's like I'm kissing my brother." Biff Tannen was named after Universal executive Ned Tanen, who behaved aggressively toward Zemeckis and Gale during a script meeting for I Wanna Hold Your Hand.[3]
The first draft of Back to the Future was finished in February 1981. Columbia Pictures put the film in turnaround. "They thought it was a really nice, cute, warm film, but not sexual enough," Gale said. "They suggested that we take it to Disney, but we decided to see if any other of the major studios wanted a piece of us."[2] Every major film studio rejected the script for the next four years, while Back to the Future went through two more drafts. During the early 1980s, popular teen comedies (such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Porky's) were risqué and adult-aimed, so the script was commonly rejected for being too light.[3] Gale and Zemeckis finally decided to pitch Back to the Future to Disney. "They told us that a mother falling in love with her son was not appropriate for a family film under the Disney banner," Gale said.[2]
The two were tempted to ally themselves with Steven Spielberg, who produced Used Cars and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, which both flopped. Spielberg was initially absent from the project because Zemeckis felt if he produced another flop under him, he would never be able to make another film. Gale said "we were afraid that we would get the reputation that we were two guys who could only get a job because we were pals with Steven Spielberg."[5] One producer was interested, but changed his mind when he learned Spielberg was not involved. Zemeckis chose to direct Romancing the Stone instead, which was a box office success. Now a high-profile director, Zemeckis approached Spielberg with the concept, and the project was set up at Universal Pictures.[3]
Executive Sidney Sheinberg made some suggestions to the script, changing Marty's mother's name from Meg to Lorraine (the name of his wife, actress Lorraine Gary) and to replace Brown's pet chimpanzee with a dog.[3] Sheinberg wanted the title changed to Spaceman from Pluto, convinced no successful film ever had "future" in the title. He suggested Marty introduce himself as "Darth Vader from the planet Pluto" while dressed as an alien forcing his dad to ask out his mom (rather than "the planet Vulcan"), and that the farmer's son's comic book be titled Spaceman from Pluto rather than Space Zombies from Pluto. Spielberg dictated a memo back to Sheinberg, wherein Spielberg convinced him they thought his title was just a joke, thus embarrassing him into dropping the idea.[6]
Michael J. Fox was the first choice to play Marty McFly, but he was committed to the show Family Ties.[7] Family Ties producer Gary David Goldberg felt that Fox was essential to the show's success. With co-star Meredith Baxter on maternity leave, he refused to allow Fox time off to work on a film. Back to the Future was originally scheduled for a May 1985 release and it was late 1984 when it was learned that Fox would be unable to star in the film.[3] Zemeckis' next two choices were C. Thomas Howell and Eric Stoltz, the latter of whom impressed the producers enough with his portrayal of Roy L. Dennis in Mask – which had yet to be released – that they selected him to play Marty McFly.[1] Because of the difficult casting process, the start date was pushed back twice.[8]
Four weeks into filming, Zemeckis determined Stoltz had been miscast. Although he and Spielberg realized reshooting the film would add $3 million to the $14 million budget, they decided to recast. Spielberg explained Zemeckis felt Stoltz was too humorless and gave a "terrifically dramatic performance." Gale further explained they felt Stoltz was simply acting out the role, whereas Fox himself had a personality like Marty McFly. He felt Stoltz was uncomfortable riding a skateboard, whereas Fox was not. Stoltz confessed to director Peter Bogdanovich during a phone call, two weeks into the shoot, that he was unsure of Zemeckis' and Gale's direction, and concurred that he was wrong for the role.[3]
Fox's schedule was opened up in January 1985 when Meredith Baxter returned to Family Ties following her pregnancy. The Back to the Future crew met with Goldberg again, who made a deal that Fox's main priority would be Family Ties, and if a scheduling conflict arose, "we win". Fox loved the script and was impressed by Zemeckis and Gale's sensitivity in sacking Stoltz, because they nevertheless "spoke very highly of him".[3] Per Welinder and Bob Schmelzer assisted on the skateboarding scenes.[9] Fox found his portrayal of Marty McFly to be very personal. "All I did in high school was skateboard, chase girls and play in bands. I even dreamed of becoming a rock star."[7]
Christopher Lloyd was cast as Doc Brown after the first choice, John Lithgow, became unavailable.[3] Having worked with Lloyd on The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984), producer Neil Canton suggested him for the part. Lloyd originally turned down the role, but changed his mind after reading the script and at the persistence of his wife. He improvised some of his scenes,[10] taking inspiration from Albert Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski.[11] Brown mispronounces gigawatts as "jigowatts", which was the manner a physicist said the word when he met with Zemeckis and Gale as they researched the script.[9][12]
Crispin Glover played George McFly. Zemeckis said Glover improvised much of George's nerdy mannerisms, such as his shaky hands. The director joked he was "endlessly throwing a net over Crispin because he was completely off about fifty percent of the time in his interpretation of the character".[3] Due to a contract disagreement, Glover was replaced by Jeffrey Weissman in Part II and Part III.[13]
Lea Thompson was cast as Lorraine McFly because she had acted opposite Stoltz in The Wild Life. Her prosthetic makeup for scenes at the beginning of the film, set in 1985, took three-and-a-half hours to apply.[14]
Thomas F. Wilson was cast as Biff Tannen because the original choice, J. J. Cohen, was considered too unconvincing to bully Stoltz.[3] Cohen was recast as one of Biff's cohorts. Had Fox been cast from the beginning, Cohen would have probably won the part because he was much taller than Fox.[9]
Following Stoltz's departure, Fox's schedule during weekdays consisted of filming Family Ties during the day, and Back to the Future from 6:30 pm to 2:30 am. He averaged five hours of sleep each night. During Fridays, he shot from 10 pm to 6 or 7 am, and then moved on to film exterior scenes throughout the weekend, as only then was he available during daytime hours. Fox found it exhausting, but "it was my dream to be in the film and television business, although I didn't know I'd be in them simultaneously. It was just this weird ride and I got on."[15] Zemeckis concurred, dubbing Back to the Future "the film that would not wrap". He recalled that because they shot night after night, he was always "half asleep" and the "fattest, most out-of-shape and sick I ever was".[3]
The Hill Valley town square scenes were shot at Courthouse Square, located in the Universal Studios back lot (). Bob Gale explained it would have been impossible to shoot on location "because no city is going to let a film crew remodel their town to look like it's in the 1950s." The filmmakers "decided to shoot all the 50s stuff first, and make the town look real beautiful and wonderful. Then we would just totally trash it down and make it all bleak and ugly for the 1980s scenes."[15] The interiors for Doc Brown's house were shot at the Robert R. Blacker House, while exteriors took place at Gamble House.[16] The exterior shots of the Twin Pines Mall, and later the Lone Pine Mall (from 1985) were shot at the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California. The exterior shots and some interior scenes at Hill Valley High School were filmed at Whittier High School in Whittier, California, while the band tryouts and the "Enchantment Under The Sea" dance were filmed in the gymnasium at Hollywood United Methodist Church. The scenes outside of the Baines' house in the 50s were shot at Bushnell Avenue, South Pasadena, California.[17]
Filming wrapped after 100 days on April 20, 1985, and the film was delayed from May to August. But after a highly positive test screening ("I'd never seen a preview like that," said Frank Marshall, "the audience went up to the ceiling"), Sheinberg chose to move the release date to July 3. To make sure the film met this new date, two editors, Arthur Schmidt and Harry Keramidas, were assigned to the picture, while many sound editors worked 24-hour shifts on the film. Eight minutes were cut, including Marty watching his mom cheat during an exam, George getting stuck in a telephone booth before rescuing Lorraine, as well as much of Marty pretending to be Darth Vader. Zemeckis almost cut out the "Johnny B. Goode" sequence as he felt it did not advance the story, but the preview audience loved it, so it was kept. Industrial Light & Magic created the film's 32 effects shots, which did not satisfy Zemeckis and Gale until a week before the film's completion date.[3]
Melora Hardin was originally cast in the role of Marty's girlfriend Jennifer, but was let go after Eric Stoltz was dismissed with the explanation that the actress was now too tall to be playing against Michael J. Fox. Hardin was dismissed before she had a chance to shoot a single scene and was replaced with Claudia Wells.[18]
Alan Silvestri collaborated with Zemeckis on Romancing the Stone, but Spielberg disliked that film's score. Zemeckis advised Silvestri to make his compositions grand and epic, despite the film's small scale, to impress Spielberg. Silvestri began recording the score two weeks before the first preview. He also suggested Huey Lewis and the News create the theme song. Their first attempt was rejected by Universal, before they recorded "The Power of Love".[15] The studio loved the final song, but were disappointed it did not feature the film's title, so they had to send memos to radio stations to always mention its association with Back to the Future.[3] In the end, the track "Back in Time" featured in the film, playing during the scene when Marty wakes up after his return to 1985, and again during the end credits. Huey Lewis himself cameoed as the school teacher who dismisses Marty's band for being too loud.[15]
Although it appears that Michael J. Fox is actually playing the guitar, Music Supervisor Bones Howe hired Hollywood guitar coach and musician Paul Hanson to teach Michael J. Fox to simulate playing all the parts so it would look realistic, including playing behind his head. Veteran session musician Tim May played the actual guitar parts with Mark Campbell doing the vocal work on "Johnny B. Goode" and Paul Hanson played the section at the beginning of the movie during the high school dance audition scene.
The original 1985 soundtrack album only included two tracks culled from Silvestri's compositions for the film, both Huey Lewis tracks, the songs played in the film by Marvin Berry and The Starlighters (and Marty McFly), one of the vintage 1950s songs in the movie, and two pop songs that are only very briefly heard in the background of the film. On November 24, 2009, an authorized, limited-edition 2-CD set of the entire score was released by Intrada Records.[19]
The movie features an Eddie Van Halen guitar track which Marty uses to convince George to ask Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.
Back to the Future opened on July 3, 1985 on 1,200 screens in North America. Zemeckis was concerned the film would flop because Fox had to film a Family Ties special in London and was unable to promote the film. Gale was also dissatisfied with Universal Pictures' tagline "Are you telling me my mother's got the hots for me?" Yet Back to the Future spent 11 weeks at number one.[3] Gale recalled "Our second weekend was higher than our first weekend, which is indicative of great word of mouth. National Lampoon's European Vacation came out in August and it kicked us out of number one for one week and then we were back to number one."[5] The film went on to gross $210.61 million in North America and $170.5 million in foreign countries, accumulating a worldwide total of $381.11 million.[20] Back to the Future had the fourth-highest opening weekend of 1985 and was the top grossing film of the year.[21] This film received a 25th anniversary theatrical re-release in the U.K. and the U.S. in October 2010 to coincide with the Universal Studios Home Video 25th Anniversary DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases of the trilogy.[22][23] For its re-issue, Back to the Future was restored and remastered.[24] The Blu-ray release however was criticised for its packaging which made the discs difficult to safely remove without being damaged.
Back to the Future was critically acclaimed. Roger Ebert felt Back to the Future had similar themes to the films of Frank Capra, especially It's a Wonderful Life. Ebert commented "[Producer] Steven Spielberg is emulating the great authentic past of Classical Hollywood cinema, who specialized in matching the right director (Robert Zemeckis) with the right project."[25] Janet Maslin of The New York Times believed the film had a balanced storyline: "It's a cinematic inventing of humor and whimsical tall tales for a long time to come."[26] Christopher Null, who first saw the film as a teenager, called it "a quintessential 1980s flick that combines science fiction, action, comedy, and romance all into a perfect little package that kids and adults will both devour."[27] Dave Kehr of Chicago Reader felt Gale and Zemeckis wrote a script that perfectly balanced science fiction, seriousness and humor.[28] Variety applauded the performances, arguing Fox and Lloyd imbued Marty and Doc Brown's friendship with a quality reminiscent of King Arthur and Merlin.[29] The BBC applauded the intricacies of the "outstandingly executed" script, remarking that "nobody says anything that doesn't become important to the plot later."[30] Back to the Future appeared on Gene Siskel's top ten film list of 1985.[31]
As of April 2011[update], review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 61 reviews, certifying it "Fresh", with an average rating of 8.6/10 and the consensus: "Romantic, funny, and action-packed, Back to the Future is rousing entertainment for all ages."[32]
Back to the Future won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing, while "The Power of Love", the sound mixers (Bill Varney, B. Tennyson Sebastian II, Robert Thirlwell and William B. Kaplan), Zemeckis and Gale were nominated.[33] The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation[34] and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. Michael J. Fox and the visual effects designers won categories at the Saturn Awards. Zemeckis, composer Alan Silvestri, the costume design and supporting actors Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson were also nominated.[35] The film was successful at the 39th British Academy Film Awards, where it was nominated for Best Film, original screenplay, visual effects, production design and editing.[36] At the 43rd Golden Globe Awards, Back to the Future was nominated for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), original song (for "The Power of Love"), Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Fox) and Best Screenplay for Zemeckis and Gale.[37]
President Ronald Reagan, a fan of the film, 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.'"[38] When he first saw the joke about him being president, he made the projectionist of the theater stop the reel, roll it back, and run it again.[1] George H. W. Bush also referenced Back to the Future in his speeches.[39]
The movie ranked number 28 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.[40] In 2008, Back to the Future was voted the 23rd greatest film ever made by readers of Empire.[41] It was also placed on a similar list by The New York Times, a list of 1000 movies.[42] In January 2010, Total Film included the film on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.[43] On December 27, 2007, Back to the Future was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[44] In 2006, the original screenplay for Back to the Future was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 56th best screenplay of all time.[45]
In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed the AFI's 10 Top 10 – the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres – after polling more than 1,500 people from the creative community. Back to the Future was acknowledged as the 10th best film in the science fiction genre.[46]
Back to the Future is also among Film 4's 50 Films to See Before You Die, being ranked 10th.[54]
When the film was released on VHS, Universal added a "To be continued..." caption at the end to increase awareness of production on Part II. This caption is omitted on the film's DVD release in 2002.[11]
In 2010, episodic video game publisher Telltale Games announced that they were creating a new five-part title based on the films.[55] Bob Gale was a consultant for the game's script, and Lloyd provided voice work for the character of Doc Brown. The new game is set six months after the events of Part III, and was created for PC, Mac, PS3 and iPad.[56] The first episode was released in December 2010.[57]
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