It’s important to be thankful for small mercies. In the context of beloved 1980s film franchises, only one has escaped desecration by the Hollywood Death Cult … for now.
That as-yet unsullied franchise began with 1985’s Back to the Future, a time travel adventure flick written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and directed by Zemeckis. Featuring the temporal escapades of 80s kid-next-door Marty McFly – forever identified with Michael J. Fox – this movie stands out from the era’s other pulp-inspired sci fi series with a rather sophisticated plot and more personal themes. Yet it still manages to come off as life-affirming and wholesome.
It almost wasn’t, though. Tinseltown lore has it that the original draft of the script had a much darker tone. Originally, 1985 would have been a polluted, crime-is-legal hellhole more like the sequel’s 1985 A. And instead of a plutonium-powered DeLorean, the time machine was a refrigerator which Doc would’ve had to place at a nuclear bomb test to send Marty home.
And while I don’t have certain proof that this fridge nuking inspired one of the first 80s franchise profanations, I will point out that Steven Spielberg produced both movies and read Bob Gale’s original Back to the Future script.
Which goes to show that when it comes to writing, no idea is ever wasted, but some ideas should be.
Happily, the studio rejected the original script, and the final version brought us the beloved story we still have today.
This movie is pushing 40, so I won’t avoid spoilers in the synopsis.
Here goes …
Marty McFly is a rambunctious teen growing up in the town of Hill Valley, California. Despite his rock star ambitions, he seems to be living under a curse. That curse is his family, who’ve never amounted to anything in the town’s history.
Marty’s elders never miss a chance to remind him of that fact, and his parents never fail to bear out their low expectations. His father George is a nerdy doormat pitied by his alcoholic hypocrite wife and bullied by his sadistic boss Biff Tannen. It’s in this weird triangular relationship that the movie’s time and causality themes are subtly introduced. George, Lorraine, and Biff are stuck in the 50s, replaying their roles from high school over and over again. Their own choices and failings, not a time machine, have them caught in a vicious loop.
But a time machine just might get them out.
In the wee hours of the morning after losing a band audition and having his weekend ruined by Biff’s boorishness and his father’s cowardice, Marty gets a call from Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown (originally Von Braun). As established in the movie’s opening scene, the Doc is Marty’s best friend. And in many ways, he’s the father figure Marty lacks at home.
He’s also a card-carrying mad scientist.
We’re soon acquainted with that fact when Marty answers Doc’s call to meet him in the local JC Penney’s parking lot. There we learn that Doc has built a time machine out of a DeLorean. And ripped off a Libyan terror cell. But hey, how else are you gonna get your hands on weapons-grade plutonium?
What Doc intended as a documentary shoot for his time machine’s test drive goes sideways when the Libyans show up looking for their plutonium and revenge. Marty sees the Doc gunned down and escapes the same fate by the skin of his teeth – via an unplanned trip back to 1955.
Marty wastes no time throwing wrenches in the gears of his hometown’s idyllic past. He gains teen Biff’s enmity and manages to get hit by his grandfather’s car instead of his dad, drawing his mother’s affections to himself instead.
You can see how making his mom infatuated with him causes problems for Marty. Besides the weird reverse Elektra complex, he risks being retroactively erased from existence. In deep over his head, Marty seeks out the one man who can help him – Doc Brown, 1950s edition.
There’s just one wrinkle. 50s Doc hasn’t met Marty yet. It takes some convincing, but after sharing future knowledge no one else could’ve had, Marty wins Doc’s trust. The genius inventor agrees to help save a weird kid who, from his viewpoint, he just met.
The universe then proceeds to throw every obstacle it can in Marty and Doc’s way. They forgot to load the plutonium in 1985, so the time machine is out of juice. But thanks to a charity drive flyer, Marty knows the exact time when the town hall clock tower will be struck by lightning – a suitable alternate power source. While Doc makes the necessary mods to the DeLorean, Marty must play matchmaker to his own parents. Which proves quite the challenge since his repeated one-upping of Biff leaves his mom even more head-over-heels in love with her future son.
Marty decides to work on his dad. After several failed attempts to help George find his spine, the two hatch a foolproof plan for him to win Lorraine’s heart. She’s already going to the school dance with Marty, who will pretend to get handsy while parked with her outside the dance. All George has to do is swoop in, give Marty what for, and rescue Lorraine, who’ll be forever grateful to him.
Of course, when George marches up and throws the car door open, it’s Biff, not Marty, getting fresh with Lorraine.
Here it’s worth noting the subtle traces of the transcendent glimpsed at certain points in the movie. Lorraine wasn’t making out with Marty because on a deep level she sensed their real relationship. 1955 Doc doesn’t know Marty from Adam yet goes to enormous effort to help him at great personal risk.
And when George McFly sees Biff Tannen roughing up Lorraine, her pleas for help awaken something inside him. For the first time in his life, George summons the courage to stand up to Biff. And punch his lights out.
This is where a theme that runs throughout the series and ties it together comes to the forefront: love. George fails in his fatherly duties, but when given a second chance by his future son, his love for the family he doesn’t yet know he’ll have conquers his crippling fear.
But the main example of that theme is the time-spanning friendship between Marty and the Doc. Due to Marty’s alienation from his loser family, his relationship with Doc Brown resembles a favorite uncle-nephew bond more than friendship. Besides Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer, who’s an ancillary character, Doc is the only one who sees Marty’s potential, believes in him, and gives him chances to prove himself.
Ask yourself, would you trust a multimillion-dollar, nuclear time machine to a sixteen-year-old kid? Especially when said time machine’s misuse could destroy the galaxy?
Speaking of that last point, Doc’s high moral character deserves a few words here. Though eccentric and sometimes reckless, Doc Brown is always portrayed as having pure motives. He is a model scientist, not in the Big Men With Screwdrivers vein of Wells, but in the gentleman adventurer mold of Jules Verne – which the series makes explicit later. Doc has dedicated his life and his considerable talents to the advancement of human knowledge. And he’s consistent in stating that’s why he built the time machine, refusing every temptation to use it for personal gain.
Oh, and one piece of historical knowledge the Doc shows keen interest in is witnessing the birth of Christ.
Which he asserts to have occurred on December 25. Based.
And Doc’s principles aren’t just for show. His dedication to preserving the space-time continuum runs so deep as to tear up a letter that he’s told will save his life, just because it contains information about the future.
In the end, Doc succeeds in sending Marty home. The McFly family is made whole – and even elevated above their initial situation. And everyone lives happily ever after.
In the mood for another twisty time travel tale, with a healthy dose of horror?
Read my Dragon Award-winning adventure series!
As we got to the turn of the millennium I always thought it would be cute to make a remake of BTTF with the present now being 2015 and the past being 1985. If they had done that in 2016 they could have even used the exact same joke about Ronald Reagan, just swapping to Trump instead. (And honestly, how often does it happen that you have someone known 30 years before becoming president, but in a capacity where no one would believe he would become president?)
But of course by 2016 if they had actually remade it it would have been crap so I don’t mind that a remake never materialized.
Not to mention, the culture shock wouldn’t have been remotely as intense. That’s because 2015 was 1985, but with less social trust and more technological solutions in search of problems.
Hot Tub Time Machine is pretty much what you’re describing. The only real difference the Millennial character notices about the 80s is the rarity of cell phones, which he finds a mere inconvenience.
We wore out our VHS copy of this watching and rewatching as kids. I’m kinda surprised the Charlie Brown Christmas Special outlasted it.
VHS is the preferred format for this movie.
I’ve always loved this movie! My mom and dad rented it for a family movie night, and then my aunt and uncle came over and we all watched it. It was a great time.
Over the years, I’ve enjoyed it more and more because I think, in spite of a few possible plot holes*, and besides what you’ve already written about, it’s one of the tightest scripts and edited movies around. They really don’t waste a moment. The movie is just under 2 hours long and feels much, much shorter. Contrast that with the way the current MCU movies just go longer and longer, never getting trimmed of the useless stuff. Alan Silvestri’s score works hand in hand with Huey Lewis’ music, too. Just a lot of fun.
*I don’t count the time travel problems and paradoxes as plot holes. It’s time travel fiction. I’m not sure it’s possible to tell a time travel story in a 2 hour movie and not have any associated time travel plot holes. Maybe the movie Primer came the closest.
I do remember that time we rented it with the whole family, the first thing out of my dad’s mouth: “So, we’re supposed to believe Marty’s mom and dad don’t recognize the guy who changed their lives and got them together?” Also, what happened to the Libyans after their van flipped? Things 12 year old me always wondered about.
Everybody forgets that underlying this sci fi time romp is a chilling political thriller. Marty and Doc will have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of their lives.
I mean, I wouldn’t recognize my own son as that same guy. My reaction instead would be “You look exactly like that guy I knew for a few days in high school, that’s weird”.
Since time travel – to me – is of course impossible, I never would even dream that this was the same person. Wouldn’t be on the radar. How could you?
That was my take as well. If asked to sketch the face of someone I hung out with for a week 30 years ago, I’d probably only manage a rough likeness.
“Oh, and one piece of historical knowledge the Doc shows keen interest in is witnessing the birth of Christ. Which he asserts to have occurred on December 25. Based.”
And Chuck Berry only invented Rock n’ Roll because of a white dude from the future. Double based. 😀
Anyway, if you are taking requests. I’d like to hear your thoughts on “The Last Duel”. It was thumbed up by a few right-leaning people and while I have my own thoughts, I don’t want to prejudice you if you haven’t seen it.
This is the first I’ve heard of it. A quick search turned up that it was directed by, stars, and was distributed by people who hate me, I won’t be paying to see it.
That movie is something special. I worked in a computer lab in college, and if work was slow we’d sometimes watch a movie on one of the computers back in the corner out of the way. I brought in Back to the Future one day, and gradually everyone in the lab came over – I thought at first to complain about the noise but everyone instead pulled up a chair to watch, including foreign grad students that had never seen it. Everyone had a blast, and it remains one of the few good memories I have of my college years.
That right there is the mark of a superior film.