A-List: Back to the Future - Favorite Moments
By J. Don Birnam
October 21, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
When you tell people you write for a movies website, inevitably they will ask you for your favorite movie. It’s an impossible task, akin to trying to pick one favorite food or name a favorite child. One simply cannot compare horror movies to epic dramas or award winners to musicals. They are entirely different experiences.
But when push comes to shove, I always default to Back to the Future at or near the top of the list, and I’m not just saying that because of the occasion. The movie is well made throughout - every sequence is well considered, every reference is there for a reason, every moment is key. The lack of false notes combines well with the adventurous and exciting story and with two of my favorite thematic elements - nostalgic views of the past with exciting dreams about the future. Add to that two memorable and enduring characters, and the movie is one that lives for the ages.
It is for these reasons, I suspect, that many of us have seen the trilogy over three dozen times. And in those repeat viewings, it is the following sequences that stand out the most. Feel free to Tweet us your own favorite parts of the Back to the Future trilogy either here or here.
5. The arrival into 2015 in Part II.
We’ve explored some of the misses that the writers made in predicting what 2015 would look like, but we know that for the most part their predictions were tongue-in-cheek. And it is that tongue-in-cheek nature that makes the entire sequence of 2015 one of the cleverest of the entire trilogy.
There are all the predictions about the future, but then there is also the tying back of some of the classic elements from the first movie into a futurist spin, specifically the skateboard chase sequence turned into a hover board. Then, there is also the entire sequence of Jennifer being taken by the police to her house (and remarking of how great her plastic surgery must be), and all of the kitsch in that sequence.
There, we meet Marty and his two kids, both of whom are played by Michael J. Fox, we meet an older Marty, we pick-up a key fax (YOU’RE FIRED!!!) that reappears cleverly at the end of the entire movie, and we have the classic old Jennifer meets young Jennifer encounter. It’s memorable in that classic BTTF way - past meets present, future meets past, and the comedy that results from it.
4. Revisiting the dance of Part I, in Part II.
The Enchantment Under the Sea dance that is the pre-climax in Part I could have probably alone made the list. Michael J. Fox of Johnny B. Goode, the scene with Lorraine in the parked car when he discovers she’s a smoker and a drinker, and the goodbye scene between Marty and his parents are all a core part of the plot of the movie.
But it is in the smart revisiting of that scene from a different perspective in Part II that knocks it out of the park. Marty is searching for 1955 Biff to recover the 20th Century Sports Almanac, and the caper takes him back into the heart of high school dance (“it’s as if some moments had a cosmic significance that transcend time…”). He sneaks into Biff’s newly cleaned car (after the manure incident earlier in the week) and then follows the Almanac from the car to Principal Strickland’s office back to Biff’s pocket. In the process, he takes advantage of two key moments in the original dance sequence, when George punches Biff, and when the first 1985 Marty abruptly exits the dance on his way back to the future.
Overall, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a sequence successfully pulled off in a single or series of movies before. The originality of it lies in revisiting and taking advantage of the old sequence without altering it, and Zemeckis got this one very right.
3. Rediscovery of the present in Part I.
Meticulous is not a word that most people associate with popcorn movies, and a cheeky, nerdy movie like the BTTF trilogy is not the first thing that comes to mind when the words “precise moviemaking” are thrown around. But like other well-respected movies and trilogies, from the Star Wars series to The Lord of the Rings, BTTF is good because it was made very thoughtfully. Effort pays.
In the first movie, you have to pay very close attention to what is going on in the original 1985, because it will either figure in 1955, or in the rediscovered 1985. The best and perhaps smartest has to be the sequence that begins with Doc marveling with the construction of the mall where he is explaining the DeLorean to Marty, remembering that it used to be a vast field owned by “Old Man Peabody.” The smart observer (or obsessive watcher) will have noticed that the name of the mall was Twin Pines mall. Later, when Marty goes back to 1955, he drives almost immediately into a small pine and is attacked by Old Man Peabody, which we know because as he escapes, the mailbox clearly reads Peabody. But it is when Marty makes it back to 1985 and the mall parking lot that the screenwriters showed off their meticulous planning of detail - the mall is, of course, now called Lone Pine mall. Simple. Pure. Brilliant.
It doesn’t end there, of course. The entire rediscovery by Marty of his family, his successful father having written a novel based on the sequence in 1955 when Marty tricks him into thinking he’s an alien, his mother slimmer and more in love, Biff a nincompoop who can no longer bully George, etc. - all are welcome and clever redefinitions of the present reality.
And, after all, who has never dreamt of altering the past for the better?
2. The train-chase climax of Part III.
I haven’t spoken much about Part III of the trilogy, which actually is my second favorite because of how different it is. But if there is one sequence that stands out and nearly becomes the best moment in the entire series, it’s the contraption that Doc concocts to get him and Marty back to 1985.
Unable to accelerate the DeLorean because of a lack of a gasoline, Doc and Marty realize they have to push it. And, in the Wild West, a locomotive is of course the best way to do it. Things get complicated, of course, with the appearance of Clara, Doc’s love interest in Part III. Clara, having previously run away from Doc when she heard of his tales of time travel, realizes the error of her ways, and goes searching for Doc Brown and Marty.
What follows is an exciting, heart-pounding sequence that includes a horse chase scene, a runaway locomotive, the hover board (thus successfully incorporating elements from all three movies - brilliant), and a too-close-to-call finale that is not what you expect except for the fact that the DeLorean ends up at the bottom of Chavez ravine (which becomes Eastwood ravine, given that Marty’s 1885 persona is believed to have died there).
Not only is the sequence exciting and well-executed, it is a fitting homage to what is undoubtedly and unarguably the most iconic sequence from this most iconic franchise…
1. The climactic scene of Part I.
One could write a long essay about the brilliance of the climactic scene in the first Back to the Future movie, and about its overall significance to the trilogy.
While some scenes like the Enchantment Under the Sea dance are revisited once or twice, it is this sequence that appears near the beginning or end of all three movies in the franchise. And for good reason.
As you undoubtedly recall, the scene involves Marty driving the DeLorean from a predetermined spot, accelerating it at 88 mph, and striking a cable that Doc has built from the Hill Valley Clock Tower through two lampposts at precisely 10:04 p.m. when it is struck by lightning, to be sent back to the future. The “struck by lightning” metaphor of it is obvious enough - their chances are one in millions and all must go right. On its own, then, the sequence is the most exciting, nail-biting part of the movie by many miles.
But it goes further than that. For one, it nicely sums up the core of the main characters. Doc is a brilliant scientist, but he is also somewhat of a kooky mad scientist with the same number of hare-brained ideas as working ones. From the mind-reading contraption in 1955 to the dysfunctional audio system in 1985, quirky errors are a Doc trademark. In this sequence, however, a key error permits Marty to make it safely back to 1985. Marty was supposed to start accelerating at the moment an old-fashioned alarm clock went off, in order to make it to the cables at 10:04. But the DeLorean continued to act up, and Marty was at least 5-7 seconds late in accelerating the car. But he makes it anyway, which tells us that Doc must have screwed up the calculation.
At the same time, Doc’s wiliness and his ingenuity for improvisation are showcased in the too-close-for comfort call of Doc reattaching the cables when a falling tree dislodges one, complete with an Indiana Jones-like zip line to the street at the last crucial moments.
Meanwhile, Marty’s character is also nicely summed up here - his worries about others, for the most part, as evidenced by his desire to save Doc from the untimely fate he was destined for at the hands of the Libyans in 1985. Marty, on his own, devices a way to go back earlier than planned at help doc. And he then follows Doc’s instructions, fearful but brave, reckless yet somehow cautious, all the endearing characteristics of Marty’s character.
The scene is then revisited at the end of Part II, when Marty has found out that the 1985 Doc has been sent back to 1885 and decides to turn to the 1955 Doc for help. Doc’s reaction there is classic (ending of course with Great Scott!) and provides a great cliffhanger for the third period. In turn, the third movie reopens with that same sequence which, somehow, rather than grow old and repetitive, has turned into essentially the leitmotif of the entire work.
So, 30 years after the first of this franchise, and on the day in the future to which Marty and Doc’s adventures took them, the question in all fans’ minds has always and will continue to be: could they possibly ever make a fourth movie?
Hey, if it’s worked for the Star Wars franchise…but that’s a subject for another retrospective, at another time.
For now, we are Outtatime.