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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?

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