Back to the Future
Back to the Future (titled Volver al futuro or Back to the future in Latin America and Back to the Future in Spain) is a 1985 American science fiction comedy film directed and written by Robert Zemeckis —Bob Gale also contributed as a screenwriter—, produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. It tells the adventures of Marty McFly, a rebellious and impulsive teenager who lives with his parents and accidentally travels back in time from 1985, his time, to 1955, the time his parents met. Finally, it changes the specific events of the original timeline when his parents met and fell in love. Because of this, Marty must enlist the help of Dr. Emmett Brown to reunite his parents, ensuring his own existence and that of his siblings.
Zemeckis and Gale wrote the script when the latter reflected on the possibility of becoming friends with his father if they had both attended the same school. Several studios rejected the script until the production of Romancing the Stone (1984), directed by Zemeckis, achieved box office success. Following this, the project was greenlit by Universal Pictures, with Spielberg serving as executive producer. Canadian singer Corey Hart was initially invited to audition for the lead role of McFly, but turned down the proposal., Eric Stoltz auditioned for the same role, just as Michael J. Fox was busy producing the television series Family Ties. However, during filming, the producers decided that Stoltz was not the right one for the role, so Fox again considered playing Marty McFly, managing to be able to participate in both Back to the Future and Family Ties. This type of production delay caused some scenes to be reshot during the post-production of the film, as long as it could be released on July 3, 1985.
Upon its release, Back to the Future became the most successful film of that year, grossing more than $380 million worldwide and garnering mostly positive reviews from critics. praised the performances by Fox, Lloyd, Thompson, Glover and Wilson, the script, the Silvestri Soundtrack, the songs by Huey Lewis & The News (especially The Power of Love), Zemeckis's direction, makeup and visual effects. It also won a Hugo Award in the category of "Best Dramatic Production" and a Saturn Award for "Best Science Fiction Film", in addition to receiving Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
As a legacy, it was even mentioned by Ronald Reagan in the 1986 State of the Union Address, while, in 2007, the Library of Congress chose it to be preserved in the National Film Registry and, finally, in 2008 the American Film Institute listed it as the tenth best science fiction film of all time in its AFI's 10 Top 10 list. The success of Back to the Future led to the production of a trilogy of films, completed by Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Back to the Future Future Part III (1990), as well as the creation of an animated series and the establishment of a theme park attraction (Back to the Future: The Ride).
In 2010, to mark its first twenty-five years of release, the original film underwent a remastering process in order to be released again in select UK cinemas (1 October 2010), United States (October 23), and Canada (October 23), to end that year in Mexico (November 5). The re-release coincided with the anniversary edition Back To The Future 25th Anniversary for DVD and Blu-ray video formats. On January 13, 2011, it was also released again in Argentina, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film in that country on that single day. February of that same year, it was screened at the Digital Film Festival of Canada in high definition format along with other similar films.
In 1989, a video game based on the first film developed by Beam Software and distributed by LJN was released for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) console. The game was criticized both for its gameplay and for the fact that it was not closely related to the movie. A slightly superior sequel to this same game was made for the same console.
Plot
1985
The story begins in 1985 with Marty McFly, a normal seventeen-year-old boy living with his family in fictional Hill Valley, California. His father is a failed man, shy and short-tempered, with a low-paying job where he has to endure constant abuse from his boss, Biff Tannen, who has made his life miserable since high school. Also, one of his uncles has a criminal record and has been arrested multiple times and his family has many debts. On October 25 of that year, Marty visits the house of his friend, an eccentric scientist named Dr. Emmett L. Brown, although "Doc" (as Marty usually calls him) is not there. Shortly before he had found out through a television news that someone had stolen plutonium. Upon entering Doc's house, he kicks his skateboard and it hits a box containing the plutonium that is hidden under the scientist's bed, although Marty is unaware. Shortly after, she receives a call from Doc asking her to meet him at 1:15 AM. m. in the Twin Pines Mall parking lot. Once he confirms the meeting with Doc, Marty leaves for the school.
Upon arriving at the institute, he meets his girlfriend Jennifer Parker (played by Claudia Wells), who informs him that Mr. Strickland—the principal of the institute, played by James Tolkan—is looking for him. After he finds them and disciplines them for being late to school, Marty reunites with his band The Pinheads to audition and play for the school dance, however they are rejected because they they played "too loud." Later Marty goes with Jennifer to the Plaza de la Corte, where they sit on a bench to later kiss. At that moment, a woman interrupts them to give Marty a brochure explaining a campaign carried out to repair the clock tower, which has been left unusable since it was struck by lightning at exactly 10:04 p.m. m. on November 12, 1955, stopping the clock at precisely that time. Jennifer then goes to her grandmother's house and Marty puts the brochure in her pocket.
Once the young man arrives home, he is shocked to find that his family's car has been wrecked by Biff, who had crashed into a utility pole while driving it that morning. Right there he runs into Biff admonishing George for not warning him that the car wasn't strong and bullying him about work. After this Biff arrogantly withdraws from the McFly house and the family proceeds to dinner. At that moment, Lorraine (Marty's alcoholic mother and George's wife) comments that he is frowned upon in society for girls to look for boyfriends, something that did not happen in her youth. She also talks about her first kiss with George during the "Glamour Ball Under the Ocean", stressing that fate had brought them together ever since their father (Marty's grandfather) ran over George with his car., event that caused their courtship.
Marty falls asleep after dinner and forgets about his meeting with Doc. However, Doc calls him on the phone to suggest that he take a video camera with him to the agreed location. Once the young man arrives, Doc asks him to film his new invention in detail, a time machine built on a DMC DeLorean car, which must reach an average speed of 88 miles per hour in order to travel through time.
To prove that the DeLorean really could travel in time, Doc does a first experiment in which he sends his dog Einstein one minute into the future. When the machine disappears from the place, leaving behind only two long lines of fire in the form of a skid, the scientist celebrates his achievement with tremendous happiness. Afterwards, he further explains to Marty how the machine works, telling him that time travel occurs thanks to a primordial device known as a flux capacitor .There is, however, a catch; the flux capacitor requires an amount of electrical energy equivalent to 1.21 jigowatts, which is generated by means of a nuclear reaction that generates the dispersion of the temporary flux, which Doc intends to accomplish by using plutonium. On a small time machine keyboard, Doc enters the date November 5, 1955, which turns out to be the day the idea for the capacitor came to mind. After adding the plutonium to a small lead-lined back compartment, he remembers that he must carry the extra plutonium in order to return. At that moment a group of Libyan terrorists appear on the scene, aboard a VW Kombi, since Doc had stolen the plutonium from them. The Libyans quickly kill Doc with an AK-47, right in front of Marty who watches in bewilderment from where he is hiding. When they discover it, they also try to shoot Marty, but the gun jams. To escape the dangerous encounter, Marty gets into the DeLorean and inadvertently activates the flux capacitor circuitry, the vehicle reaches a speed of 88 miles per hour and travels back in time thirty years into the past, specifically to the date Doc previously mentioned. had fixed with the keyboard.
1955
After traveling back in time aboard the DeLorean, Marty appears at the Twin Pines Ranch—in 1985 it turns out to be Twin Pines Mall—and ends up crashing into the farm barn, prompting the family who resides there woke up alarmed by the noise and left her home to investigate what had happened. After seeing the young man get out of the DeLorean with the anti-radioactive suit on top of him, they assume that it is an alien, since the farmer's son brought with him a science fiction comic with a character on the cover similar to him. Then, the farm owner starts shooting the young man with a shotgun but misses and the latter manages to escape, accidentally running over one of the farm's pine trees with the DeLorean. Later, the young man discovers that the plutonium shipment is running low and decides to hide the DeLorean behind a large sign where his Lyon Estates neighborhood will be located in the future on the outskirts of Hill Valley and drives into the city.
Upon arriving in Hill Valley, Marty notices several changes from the time he came from. He immediately goes looking for the Doc from back then in order to find out how to return to his original time. However, he first enters a cafe and meets his father as a young man. He leaves the place shortly after being bothered by Biff. Marty decides to discreetly follow him until he stops in front of a tree, which he climbs to observe through a pair of binoculars through his bedroom window a young Lorraine changing her clothes. George suddenly slips from the tree and falls right into the street, where he is nearly hit by a vehicle driven by Lorraine's father, but is saved by Marty, the latter being hit and passing out on the spot. The fact causes an alteration in the way in which Lorraine and George met, which at first goes unnoticed by the young man. Lorraine helps him by taking him inside her house to recover from the accident. When she wakes up, she calls him saying "Calvin Klein" believing that it is her name because she has it engraved on her underwear. Immediately afterwards they go to dinner, but when Lorraine tries to seduce Marty, he is completely shaken by the insinuations of what, in short, was his mother, so he decides to say goodbye to the family and look for Doc. Doc's house, the scientist doesn't believe him about time travel, as the idea of the time machine had barely occurred to him by then. It isn't until Marty reveals how he imagined the condenser that he convinces the Doc and decides to help him by telling him that he shouldn't talk to anyone else if he doesn't want to alter his past and bring about changes in his future.. Marty pulls out a picture of his family from among his belongings, noticing that his older brother Dave is gradually disappearing from the image, which Doc assumes is because Marty's parents never married and so both Marty and his brothers never existed, so Doc suggests to the young man that they should solve this matter as soon as possible, since his brothers are going to disappear in the order in which they were born and unless Marty repairs the damage, this will be latest. After this, they go to the place where Marty hid the DeLorean and take the vehicle with them to the scientist's laboratory. After watching the recording of the first time travel with the machine, Doc is surprised to hear that it takes 1.21 jigowatts to perform time travel since nothing is known at that time. that is capable of generating such energy, with the exception of lightning. Just then, Marty pulls out the brochure from the clock tower and discovers that it details that lightning would strike just next week, coinciding with the "Glamour Ball Under the Ocean" that represents the only opportunity for their parents to fall in love and everything returns to normal in 1985.
The following Monday, Marty and Doc go to school, and Marty introduces his parents to the scientist. Doc tells him there must be a way to get the two of them to know each other and Marty remembers the dance. To fulfill his purpose of having George and Lorraine fall in love at the dance, Marty repeatedly tries to get George to ask Lorraine out but Lorraine refuses as he fears rejection, coupled with the fact that Biff is also interested in her. Due to this, Marty confronts Biff but at that moment the principal of the school stops them; then Marty turns to where George was, but he has left the place. Faced with George's reluctance, Marty decides to take more drastic measures and taking advantage of the fact that he knows that his father is a fan of science fiction, he disguises himself with the anti-radioactive suit that he brought to imitate an extraterrestrial being and thus threaten him in his home while you sleep. On the spot, Marty lies to George that his true identity is "Darth Vader, from the planet Vulcan"—one of the film's most notable scenes alluding to Star Wars and Star Trek—, and using his walkman forces him to listen to music by Van Halen. Frightened by the encounter with the supposed alien, George invites Lorraine the next morning, but at that moment Biff appears and interrupts them while they are talking. Again Marty interferes and annoys Biff by starting a fight with him. Marty manages to flee, although Biff chases him across the town square in his car. In the end after being evaded by Marty, Biff crashes into a parked truck carrying manure. Despite his best efforts, Marty's feat makes Lorraine fall even more in love with him leaving George without a chance. Given this, the young man plans to disappoint her right on the night of the dance.
On the night of the dance, Marty gives his mother a ride in Doc's car and tries to "wrestle" her. As planned, George is to show up at that time and rescue her from her. However, Lorraine kisses Marty and then Biff bursts onto the scene and pulls the young man out of the car, ordering his colleagues to lock him in the trunk of the car of the band that was playing at the dance at the time. Visibly delayed George arrives at the scene and assuming that it is Marty who is inside the vehicle, he discovers Biff harassing Lorraine. George orders Biff to leave Lorraine alone, but Biff attacks him by twisting his arm and pushing Lorraine when she tries to help George. At this, George becomes enraged and knocks out Biff, leaving him unconscious. Immediately afterwards George and Lorraine enter the institute to join the dance. Meanwhile, Marty manages to escape from the trunk where he was locked up and discovers that his brothers continue to disappear from the photograph that he brings with him. By then, the dance is almost over and his parents still haven't had their first kiss as they originally did. Taking advantage of the fact that the guitarist of the band injured his hand and cannot continue playing at the dance, Marty joins the band and goes to the dance. Finally, his parents kiss and the photograph is restored. Before saying goodbye, Marty plays the song "Johnny B. Goode" to a crowd of young people who were still in the days of the doo wop genre — at the moment when the young traveler is playing with the others. members of the dance band, Marvin Berry, the leader of the musical group, makes a phone call to his cousin who turns out to be Chuck Berry, the "original" composer and interpreter of said melody. a rock and roll song in a time when this genre did not yet exist, he leaves the dance but not before saying goodbye to his parents and then meeting with Doc and preparing his return to the future.
It takes Marty a while to get there, while Doc is fixing various cables to use in the DeLorean to carry out the trip to the future. Just as the young man is ready to leave, Doc discovers a letter inside his trench coat, in which the young man had written the details of his future death at the hands of Libyan terrorists. Doc refuses to have this information, stating that he should not change the story and tears up the letter without reading it. At that moment, the branches of a tree fall on the wiring and disconnect it from the terminals, so Doc puts the remains of the letter inside his trench coat and runs to fix the damage. The young man quickly tries to talk to the scientist about future events, but his opportunity is clouded as time runs out for his return and he is forced to get into the DeLorean and retreat to the established starting point near a motel called Blue. Bird. Arriving at the starting point, Marty places all the equipment that Doc previously prepared in his lab, which will send the lightning energy to the flux capacitor for the trip, but he also begins to get frustrated that he cannot alert the scientist to his imminent death at the hands of the Libyan terrorists, but he soon remembers that he has the time machine in his possession, so as a last resort, Marty decides to reconfigure the time circuits to return about ten minutes before his original departure in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall and thus warn the scientist before the attack happens again, but just then the DeLorean suffers a mechanical failure and shuts down, causing Marty to desperately try to start it again, before lightning strikes the tower. clock at 10:04 p.m. m. as planned and finally manages to start it in time and revs the DeLorean to full throttle. On the other hand, Doc suffers a series of accidents related to the wiring, but luckily manages to reconnect the wires to their respective terminals, before lightning strikes the clock tower directly at 10:04 p.m. m., whereupon he gets the DeLorean to travel back to the future.
Back to 1985
Once he returns to 1985, Marty shows up ten minutes before his original departure, where he quickly tries to go warn the scientist of the impending attack by Libyan terrorists, however the DeLorean shuts down again, having run out of all energy in time travel. As he hastily tries to rip it off, Libyan terrorists show up in the parking lot of the "Lone Pine Mall" (a name change due to Marty accidentally running over one of the "twin" pines when he traveled to 1955) so the young man doesn't he has no choice but to hide and watch as past events repeat themselves in exactly the same way as in the beginning, where Libyan terrorists shoot Doc again, killing him. As the Libyan terrorists drive off chasing his past self in the DeLorean in the middle of the parking lot, Marty watches as his past self ends up accidentally traveling back to 1955 and watches as the Libyan terrorists' VW Kombi crashes into a local that was in the parking lot, Marty finally approaches where the immobile body of the scientist is found, believing that he has not been able to prevent his death again and begins to cry with sadness. However, Doc opens his eyes and gets up from the ground as if nothing had happened, where moments later he opens his anti-radioactive suit and reveals to young Marty that he was wearing an armored vest, at which point Marty does not seem to understand how the scientist managed to deduce these events, since in the past he did not have time to warn him about it, but at that moment Doc takes from one of the pockets of his suit the letter that Marty had written to him thirty years ago, giving the young man to understand that indeed he had read it after all.
Later, Doc takes the young traveler home, before heading to the year 2015. The next morning, Marty notices that his house is now much different than he remembered, much more luxurious and orderly, where he also he notices that his brother Dave now has a job in an office and his sister looks different too. Shortly after, his parents arrive and he tells them that they look younger and happier than he remembered. Likewise, Biff arrives, who is now an auto mechanic and rushes to hand him a copy of the science-fiction novel that Marty's father had written. The young man leaves the house and finds a new truck in his garage, the same one he wanted before leaving for the past, and suddenly Jennifer appears and suggests that they should both go out and drive it for the first time. But just then, Doc shows up in the DeLorean (which now has a modification that allows it to run on garbage, instead of the plutonium he stole from the Libyan terrorists) and tells them both to come with him immediately, for it warns them that their children will be in trouble in the future. Finally everyone gets into the DeLorean and Marty tells him that there is not enough stretch of road to reach the speed of 88 miles per hour; however, Doc points out that this isn't important, since they don't need them where they're going. The car begins to hover in the air, before turning around and disappearing into thin air. The plot continues in Back to the Future Part II.
Influences
According to Gale, the film The Time Machine, the television series The Twilight Zone, and the short story "A Crack of Thunder" were elements that significantly influenced the conception of Back to the Future. In his own words: «[...] I remember writing a story about time travel, possibly when I was in ninth grade, which was inspired by & # 39; The noise of thunder & # 39;. In college, I read a lot of Robert Silverberg's works, and his novel Up the Line made a big impression on me. It got me completely interested in the 'duplication paradox.'”
Equally, DC Comics comics served as inspiration for the plot, as stories like "What If Krypton Never Exploded?" —trans. lit: "What would have been if Krypton had never exploded?" or "What if Lois Lane Married Lex Luthor?" (“What if Lois Lane had married Lex Luthor?”)—were liked by both Gale and Zemeckis when they were young. Additionally, the former revealed that the production How beautiful it is to live, by Frank Capra, and the story "A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens, influenced the film. However, a greater influence of all these is observed in the continuations of Back to the Future.
Main cast
- Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly: the protagonist of the film. The actor was the first choice to interpret the young traveler in time, however Fox was engaged in that instant with the teleseries Family Ties. The following options of Zemeckis were actors C. Thomas Howell and Eric Stoltz, respectively. The latter had impressed the producers with their participation as Roy L. Dennis in Mask - which had not yet been released - so he was hired to assume the role of Marty. However, in the middle of the shooting stage, the directors fired Stoltz as he felt that it was not suitable for the paper. On the other hand, Fox was finally available to record the film once Stoltz allowed it, under some conditions (see section Bearing for more information). Once the actor read the script, he was fascinated with the plot and was impressed by the sensitivity of Zemeckis and Gale when he dismissed Stoltz, for despite all “they spoke very well of him”. Other celebrities considered for the role were Canadian singer Corey Hart — whom the filmmakers invited to perform a trial session; however, he rejected the proposal—, and actors C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio—who thought the film was only about "a young man, a car and plutonium capsules." In addition, Johnny Depp and John Cusack performed a test casting for this role.
- Christopher Lloyd as Emmett «Doc» Brown: the scientist who manages to establish time travel and best friend of Marty McFly. Lloyd was elected after the first choice of directors, John Lithgow, was unavailable. Likewise, actor Jeff Goldblum was considered for the role. After working with the actor in the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984), producer Neil Canton suggested that Lloyd was an appropriate choice for the role. At first, Lloyd rejected the role, but changed his mind once he read the script, in addition to the persistence of his wife to act in the film. During the shooting, Lloyd screened some scenes, primarily inspired by the scientist Albert Einstein and the composer Leopold Stokowski. As an additional detail, Brown pronounces the word "gigawatts" as "jigowatts", as this was the way a physicist spoke that word during a meeting with Zemeckis and Gale, at the time of reviewing the script.
- Read Thompson as Lorraine Baines: Marty's mother and George's wife. Thompson was chosen because he had starred along with Stoltz the film The Wild Life. The makeup he used during the first scenes of the film, during 1985, took about three and a half hours to make it look like he was 47 years old, when he was 23. In a similar way to Glover's case, despite having played Marty's mother, Thompson was born in the same year as Fox because the actor is greater than her, for just ten days.
- Crispin Glover like George McFly: Marty's father and Lorraine's husband. Zemeckis told Glover to improvise several of the gestures nerds George, as well as his trembling hands. The director frequently joked about it, saying: "I had to make it come to reason on countless occasions because Crispin was immersed in 50% of the time in his character interpretation." Despite having played Marty's father, in real life, Glover is almost three years younger than Fox.
- Thomas F. Wilson as Biff Tannen: the central antagonist of the film and bravado of the school George attends. Wilson was considered because the initial option, J. J. Cohen, was not very convincing in interpreting the role of the bravador Stoltz would face. Cohen was rehired to be part of as one of Biff's gang's beans. In the event that Fox had been hired from the beginning, Cohen would probably have been chosen for the paper, because he had the advantage that he was much higher than Fox, a contrast that would help make Marty's inferiority more compelling about Biff.
Michael J. Fox, interpreter of Marty McFly.
Christopher Lloyd, interpreter of Emmett Brown.
Crispin Glover, interpreter of George McFly.
Read Thompson, interpreter of Lorraine McFly.
Thomas F. Wilson, interpreter of Biff Tannen.
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Dubbing
Regarding the dubbing in Spanish, for Back to the Future two different dubbings were made; one of them produced in Barcelona for the Spanish version, while the dubbing for Latin America was made in Mexico. receives from his mother is referred to as "Levi Strauss" instead of the original "Calvin Klein". This not only applies to the Iberian translation, since the conversation of the same scene was also partially modified in countries like France where the nickname was "Pierre Cardin". This change is due to the fact that in the 1980s Calvin Klein was not a well-known brand in Europe. The dialogue modifications extend to the countries in which the tape was distributed and for which a translation was made in the language of the corresponding region.
Preproduction
Writing the script
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, who would later direct and produce Back to the Future, had already been interested in the idea of making a time travel movie, although they hadn't managed to map out what the central concept for such a film might be. > (Frenos rotos, coches locos en España y Autos usados en Hispanoamérica; 1980), which he wrote and produced. Already at his parents' house, he went to the basement and found his father's high school yearbook, learning that he had been the president of his respective graduating class. At that moment, he was left thinking about the president of his own class, a classmate with whom he did not live much, so he wondered if he and his father would have become friends if they had both attended the same school. together. Once he returned to California, he told Robert Zemeckis, director of Used Cars, about it. Interested in the concept, Zemeckis also thought of a mother of a family who complained that she had never kissed anyone. boy at her school, while in reality she was rather promiscuous in her youth. Both presented the project to Columbia Pictures, and reached an agreement with the studio, in September 1980, to complete a script.
To create the script, Zemeckis and Gale used a system of index cards, which were written down on small pieces of paper and added to a board in Gale's office, to highlight certain key ideas. plot in 1955 because they calculated that, in this way, a seventeen-year-old boy would travel back in time, thirty years ago (since 1985) to meet his parents when they were the same age. In addition, they were aware that aspects such as the status of youth as a notable cultural element, the birth of rock and roll and the expansion of the first suburbs in the United States, which would help to the development of the plot.
At first, the time machine was thought to be a cockpit, built from an old refrigerator—in early treatments of the script, the machine was a laser device housed in a room. However, Zemeckis was aware that children might begin to lock themselves in refrigerators to emulate time travel, so they persevered to come up with better ideas until they concluded that it would make more sense for the machine to be mobile in order to so carry it Although the machine was evaluated as a tracked tractor, due to the possibility of the vehicle traveling to places where there were no paved roads, the DMC DeLorean car model was ultimately chosen. The main reason for this choice was that it was ideally designed to include the joke about the farm family mistaking it for a UFO.
Also, Marty was initially an underground video seller, but the studio refused to accept this concept as the protagonist could not be someone who sold illegal movies. Also, the protagonist needed to use the power of an atomic explosion in the Nevada Test Site to return to his time, but the idea for this scene, which would constitute the original climax, also had to be scrapped as it was too expensive to produce.
On the other hand, the writers couldn't find a way to recreate the friendly relationship between Marty and Doc Brown in a believable way so they used the giant guitar amp as a link between the two; to resolve the issue of Marty's mother's attraction to her son, they wrote the line "It's like I kissed my brother." In turn, the last name of the antagonist Biff Tannen comes from the Universal executive Ned Tanen, who had behaved aggressively with Zemeckis and Gale during a meeting where he threw the script of the comedy Mad About Them (I Wanna Hold Your Hand, 1978), written by Gale, accusing him of being "anti-Semitic" even though the scriptwriter is Jewish. In an early draft, when Marty plays the tune of rock and roll at the dance, a riot ensues that is eventually stopped by the police. In addition, the Coca-Cola drink had an important role in the plot: when Marty advises Doc that this soft drink is what makes the machine work, the story changes since when he returns to the 1980s, he finds that Doc He has invented everything around him (highlighting some flying cars) and is also the founder of Coca-Cola. Even rock and roll doesn't exist, so Marty must himself start the cultural revolution among the youth of his generation. After the conclusion of the first script of Back to the Future, in April 1981, Columbia Pictures put the production on a turnaround process; in this regard, Gale commented: "[The producers] thought it was a fun, effusive and interesting film, but that It didn't have many sexual elements [...] They suggested that we take it to Disney, but we decided to see if any of the other studios might be interested in our project." From that moment on, each of the Hollywood studios rejected frequently the script, to the point that the project was halted for four years; during that period, the Back to the Future team had to re-edit the script twice. It should be noted that, in the early 1980s, popular box office teen comedies (such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Porky's) were productions with plots. "risque" and aimed at more adult audiences, which is why the script had consistently been rejected, being considered too "innocent". In the end, Gale and Zemeckis opted to take the project to Disney, however " we were told that a mother falling in love with her child was not an appropriate subject for a Disney-branded family film," according to Gale.
At one point, Gale and Zemeckis even thought of allying themselves with Steven Spielberg, who produced Used Cars and Mad About Them, both of which were box office flops. At first, Spielberg was not involved in the project as Zemeckis felt that if he directed another film under his production, then "they would never let me do another film again". Gale also said, "we were concerned that we were getting a reputation that we were two directors who got jobs just because they were friends with Steven Spielberg." In fact, one producer became interested in the project, but upon learning that Spielberg was not involved, he withdrew his proposal. Faced with such a situation, Zemeckis decided to direct the adventure film Romancing the Stone, which became a box office success upon its release in 1984. Due to the success of the film, Zemeckis was now in a position to go with Spielberg without feeling that another box office flop could affect his career as a director. After showing the project to Spielberg, he took it to Universal Pictures, which eventually gave the project the green light. Before beginning the shooting process, executive producer Frank Marshall suggested Neil Canton as a producer after considering all those involved in the project. the production that the incorporation of a second producer would turn out to be an element in its favor; after this, Canton heard about the film, read the script, and met with Zemeckis and Gale to begin production on the film.
One of the Universal executives, Sidney Sheinberg, made some suggestions to the script, such as changing the name of Marty's mother to "Lorraine", instead of "Meg" or "Eileen" as she was previously called in the script. script—in honor of his wife, actress Lorraine Gary—and replacing Doc's pet with a dog instead of a chimpanzee. Sheinberg also wanted the film's title to be Spaceman from Pluto (translation: Astronauts from Pluto ), according to a memo sent to Spielberg, being convinced that no successful film in the history of cinema had sported the term "Future " in her name. He is responsible for the scene in which Marty introduces himself to his father as "Darth Vader from the planet Pluto" —in a later script it was added that he was actually from Vulcano, in order to make a small gag > in reference to the aforementioned films—while dressed as a supposed alien—in the scene, Marty is accompanied by a song played by the American band Van Halen to scare George and wake him up loudly. Sheinberg also suggested in that I remember that the Farmer's Son comic was titled Spaceman from Pluto, instead of Space Zombies from Pluto. Spielberg jokingly responded to Sheinberg, saying that everyone thought the proposed title must be some kind of prank, so Sheinberg ultimately dropped the title.
Michael J. Fox's Pick
Michael J. Fox was always the first choice of Zemeckis and Gale to play the starring role of Back to the Future, however at the time the actor was involved in the film's production Teen Wolf (1985) and the comedy series Family Ties, whose producer, Gary David Goldberg, considered him essential to the success of the show i> (her character was that of Alex Keaton), especially since co-star Meredith Baxter had been absent from the show due to being pregnant, so she flatly refused to give him time to shoot the film. Back to the Future was originally planned to be released in May 1985, however, following Fox's commitment, the producers had to think of someone else for the starring role. Choice for the role was Eric Stoltz, who was cast after seeing him in the movie Mask. Due to the difficult audition process for the film, the start date to begin filming was delayed on two separate occasions. Although production began on November 26, 1984 and lasted for a month without setbacks, after five weeks of filming (and once Spielberg returned to the United States after a brief absence), Zemeckis decided that Stoltz was not the right person to play Marty. Although he and Spielberg realized that retaking the same shots already done with Stoltz would cost three million USD in addition to the initial budget of fourteen million USD, they decided to continue with this process. The former told the director that he felt Stoltz was not very funny and had instead given "an impressively dramatic performance". Soon after, Gale explained that, to him, Stoltz simply didn't fit the role, and Fox conversely had a similar personality to Marty's. In his words, it was as if Stoltz was uncomfortable riding a skateboard, while Fox was sympathetic to the idea. In fact, two weeks after the original production began, Stoltz confessed to director Peter Bogdanovich, during a phone conversation, that he wasn't entirely sure what direction Zemeckis and Gale were going, and agreed that it wasn't the right one. to play the character. On the other hand, Fox was further released from his contract when, in January 1985, Baxter returned to Family Ties. The Back to the Future team met again with Goldberg, who reached an agreement with them stressing that the actor's priority would in any case be the television series, and if any conflict arose in the schedule, then Fox would record only Family Ties.
The main condition that Goldberg put, to allow Fox to record the tape, centered on the scheduling of recording hours. In summary, the actor would continue recording the show as he normally had been doing, only now he could take advantage of the nights to record the film, having only the mornings of the weekends available to film the daytime scenes that required Back to the Future. Thus, Fox had to deal with a schedule where he filmed the series every weekday morning, while his scenes for the film were recorded from 6:30 p.m. m. until 2:30 a.m. m. On average, he only had two hours to sleep at night. In addition, every Friday he recorded from 10 p.m. m. until 6 or 7 a.m. m, and then he would travel every weekend to shoot the scenes on location, only when he was available during the day. Fox considered this pace of work to be very tiring for him, although "my dream was to be in the film and television business, although I didn't know I would be in both simultaneously. [It's] just a weird experience that I got involved in." Zemeckis concurred, exclaiming that Back to the Future was, in his view, a "film that wouldn't make it." as he recalled that night after night the film was being recorded without ceasing, so he was always "half asleep" and "fattier, out of shape and sicker than ever in my life".
Production
Settings
Throughout Back to the Future, different settings and environments are presented that affect the development of the plot, as well as elements that various characters deduce are not from their time. At the beginning of the film, several of the characters comment on various data that the viewer can capture and relate as the plot progresses; this forms a narrative technique called foreshadowing, which in Spanish means "foreshadowing".
During the 1950s, the time when most of the story takes place, Marty notices that the culture differs from his own time, so many characters are puzzled to see that their clothing is different from their own. used in that decade. Several of the predominant elements seen throughout the 1950s within the film were taken from real life, since many of them match the use of clothing and various musical genres. that were popular at that time, such as feminine polka-dotted garments or toupees. The song "Earth Angel" played by the group Marvin Berry and The Starlighters during the high school dance, is based on a musical genre called doo wop and considered one of the main ones in its style. Cadillac-brand cars and "space-age style" buildings appear, such as the Café de Lou. The school dance is also an important element in the plot, as it is Marty's last chance to make his parents fall in love; Although most Prom type dances are frequent in the United States, during the 1950s, these gatherings reached a certain splendor due to the economic enhancement that the country suffered after World War II..
Shooting
Although the exterior shots of Hill Valley were originally scheduled to be filmed in Petaluma, California, producer Gale explained that it would have been impossible to film those scenes there, or in any other public place, "because no city was going to allow the crew filming scene remodeled its surroundings to make it look like it was from the 1950s." Instead, they moved to Courthouse Square, a location previously used in other television and film productions and located on a lot outside of Universal Studios, to shoot most of the Hill Valley scenes, the main location where the context of the film takes place. Back to the Future. The crew “decided to shoot the 1950s segments first, and make the city look really cool and beautiful. Then they would just throw it all away, to make it the ugly, desolate set relative to the 1980s scenes." For the interiors of Doc Brown's house, they shot at the Robert R. Blacker House—a residence located in Pasadena, California. and included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 -, while the exterior shots for the same sequences took place at the Gamble house - the same as the previous one, a residence in Pasadena that belongs to the Register of Historic Places and that, In addition, it is considered a National Historic Landmark since the late 1970s. In turn, for the McFly house in 1985, the team moved to Roslyndale Avenue, in Pacoima, California, to record at the residence marked with the number 9303. For the 1955 version of it, the team went to the house number 1711 Bushnell Avenue, located in South Pasadena, California.
Exterior shots of Twin Pines Mall, and later Lone Pine Mall (from 1985) were filmed at the Puente Hills Mall in Industry, California. Twin Pines Ranch was recorded at the Golden Oak Ranch, located on Placerita Canyon Road in Newhall, California. It should be noted that said ranch is owned by The Walt Disney Company. Both the exterior and interior recordings of the local Hill Valley High School were filmed at Whittier High School, in Whittier, California, while the performance of the band and the "spell dance under the ocean" were recorded in the gymnasium of the Hollywood United Methodist Church. On the other hand, the scenes outside the Baines' house in the 1950s were shot on Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena, California, the same street where the McFly house was filmed in 1955. For the tower shots clock during the thunderstorm, the effect of the wind whipping through the city was created using a "McBride", later described by Gale as "an aircraft engine supported by a lifting platform", which the production located 50 feet (15 m) away from the area where the actors were. The noise caused by the engine was so loud that all the dialogue in that scene had to be recorded later, to be later edited and incorporated into the segment. For the filming of the film, an original cinematographic format of 1.85:1 was used and it was shot with anamorphic lenses from the Panavision company.
The design of the time machine fell to Andrew Probert, although Ron Cobb had initially been hired for the task, but had to turn it down because he had another work project. Immediately afterwards, special effects supervisor Kevin Pike was in charge of building the vehicle, with the guidance of Michael Scheffe in the process. of a refrigerator, an idea that would later be discarded in the following scripts. First, a fiberglass model was built, whose wheels were controlled by means of a remote control. To simulate the flight of the car in the air, it was attached to ropes that came from a crane and that is how they achieved this effect during filming. Several shots with the car were made by filming a scale model of the one built by Industrial Light & Magic, which had "its own electronic circuitry, which would power the flux capacitor, time indicators, headlights, and neon tubes." Certainly, in addition to these characteristics, these reproductions had an internal ventilation system to avoid heating them. All these scale versions were built to be filmed by a specific camera that would be in charge of recording them from a certain angle.
It should be mentioned that Fox commented that he had taken his performance as Marty very personally, noting several similarities between it and his time as a student: «All I did in high school was skate, date girls and play in bands. I always dreamed of becoming a rock star." Although Per Welinder and Robert Schmelzer provided assistance filming the skateboarding scenes, Fox was already a skateboarder with a command of skateboarding. skate, since in his student days it was an activity he used to do. Welinder even did some difficult takes while doing stunt doubles for Stoltz and Fox, respectively, along with stunt coordinator Walter Scott and Charlie Croughwell, Fox's stunt double.
Soundtrack
Previously, American composer Alan Silvestri had collaborated with Zemeckis on Romancing the Stone, however Spielberg disliked that film's soundtrack, so Zemeckis advised Silvestri to make his own. compositions for Back to the Future in a masterful and epic way, even with the low profile that the film had at that time —the team did not think primarily that the film would become a box office success— in order to impress Spielberg. Encouraged by this, Silvestri proceeded to record the material two weeks before the preview; already during this (with some scenes edited with part of the music created by Silvestri), Spielberg told Zemeckis that the music heard in the montage was "the right one for the film", without knowing that Silvestri had been responsible for it. his composition. In this period, the composer also suggested that the band Huey Lewis & The News was in charge of creating what, over time, would become the main song of the feature film. Although their first attempt was rejected by Universal, soon after their members recorded the song "The Power of Love", which fascinated the studio, although some executives were disappointed that the piece did not bear the same title as the film, so they had to send several memos to radio stations so that, once the time came to broadcast it on their radio signal, they would point out that it was the main theme of Back to the Future. the theme "Back in Time" would be used as the theme song in the film, playing both in the scene where Marty returns to 1985, as well as in the end credits. As an additional detail, Silvestri resorted to an orchestra made up of 85 musicians in total to compose the soundtrack, a figure that at that time was something out of the ordinary in that field, since smaller orchestras had previously been used. It should also be noted that Huey Lewis made a cameo in the film, acting as the school teacher who rejects Marty's band for playing loudly. In total, 18 minutes of scenes from the film were edited to incorporate the score. carried out by Silvestri. The original soundtrack used Dolby on the 35mm prints, equivalent to today's 5.1 surround.
Regarding the shots in which Marty plays the guitar in the dance scene, Michael J. Fox seems to play it with ease —making it appear that he has a wide command over it—, the truth is that the musical supervisor Bones Howe hired guitar consultant and fellow musician Paul Hanson to teach Fox how to realistically simulate playing the piece, including the segment where he plays the guitar behind his head. Meanwhile, session musician Tim May was in charge of playing all the notes on the guitar, and in turn Mark Campbell did his part with the vocal part in the interpretation of the song "Johnny B. Goode". Finally, Henson played the guitar in the school dance audition scene early in the film.
Distributed by MCA Records, the 1985 original soundtrack compilation included only two tracks taken from Silvestri's compositions for the film, as well as Huey Lewis's tracks, songs performed by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters (featuring Marty McFly), a classic 1950s song played in the film and two pop style songs played very briefly in the background. Artists featured in the set include Huey Lewis & The News (who performs two songs), Eric Clapton, Lindsey Buckingham, The Four Aces, Fess Parker and Etta James, the latter each with a song but who are not listed as performers in the material's respective credits. Since its debut on the market, there have been several re-releases of the Back to the Future soundtrack; the first one occurred in 1985 (in CS format), followed by the editions of 1987 (also in CS), 1990 (in CD), three more editions in 1991 (one in CS, another in LP and the rest in CD), and the last in 1992 (on CD). On November 24, 2009, an official limited-edition release, including a two-CD set of the entire compendium of the soundtrack, released by Intrada Records. At the time, The song "The Power of Love" peaked at number six on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and was nominated for an Oscar in the "Best Song" category. original", while "Back in Time" reached third place on the Mainstream Rock Tracks list. In turn, the soundtrack peaked at number 12 on the ranking Billboard 200. Below are the songs that appear on the original soundtrack of the feature film:
| CD 1 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N.o | Title | Duration | ||||||||
| 1. | «The Power of Love» | 3:43 | ||||||||
| 2. | «Time Bomb Town» | 2:45 | ||||||||
| 3. | «Back to the Future» | 3:17 | ||||||||
| 4. | «Heaven Is One Step Away» | 4:08 | ||||||||
| 5. | "Back in Time" | 4:17 | ||||||||
| 6. | «Back to the Future Overture» | 8:16 | ||||||||
| 7. | «The Wallflower (Dance With Me Henry)» | 2:41 | ||||||||
| 8. | "Night Train" | 2:15 | ||||||||
| 9. | «Oh Angel» | 2:59 | ||||||||
| 10. | "Johnny B. Goode" | 3:05 | ||||||||
| 37:26 | ||||||||||
Post Production
Filming ended after one hundred days of shooting, on April 20, 1985, and as a result Zemeckis and the production team decided to push the film's release from May to August of that year. However, after a successful test screening -producer Frank Marshall, one of those present at the show, mentioned: «I have never seen a trailer like this [...] the audience was It went up to the ceiling»—, Sheinberg chose to advance the premiere to July 3 of that year. To make sure this was possible, two editors (Arthur Schmidt and Harry Keramidas) were hired for the editing process of the scenes as well as several sound editors who worked in shifts 24 hours a day, without interruption, on the movie. In the end, eight minutes of source material were cut, including scenes where Marty watches his mother cheat on a test, as well as one where George gets trapped in a phone booth before rescuing Lorraine, and a few extra shots. from the scene where Marty pretends to be Darth Vader. Zemeckis almost left out of the definitive edition the sequence where Marty performs the theme song "Johnny B. Goode" at the high school dance, feeling that it prevented the progress of the story, but to those attending the test screening They liked it so much that they preferred to keep it in the film. The entire process of adding sound effects was completed just one day before the formal release of the film in American theaters. It is also essential to mention that Industrial Light & Magic created the film's 32 special effects shots, which Zemeckis and Gale were not satisfied with until a week before the film was fully completed. The illustrations (posters, one-sheets, book covers, VHS and DVD covers, etc.) of the film were made by Drew Struzan.
Launch and reception
Marketing
In the comments section of the DVD trilogy, Zemeckis and Gale talked about the different uses placement advertising had on Back to the Future. The first of these consisted of an agent from the study being in charge of carrying out an agreement with an advertiser in order to show one or several products on the tape in exchange for a fee, without any control by the director. At that time, the director realized that Universal had just created a department specialized in this type of advertising, whose purpose was to negotiate with different advertisers to include a product in some scenes. He later commented on it: “The lesson I learned from all this and the subsequent sequels is that I will never do placement advertising again… I will never accept money for it again. It's like you've acquired another creative person [...] You've got another producer." you spend in the film as an advertisement for the company. Since raisins didn't work very well on stage, it was decided to include a shot of a homeless man lying asleep on a bench at a bus stop, listening to the radio and reading an ad about California raisins.. To fit in with the rest of the film, it was determined that Marty, returning from 1955, would run into this unique character. "When the company saw the scene, they got pretty upset," Gale added, which is why the money was refunded.
Another form of advertising, under the control of the producers, focused on specific brands and logos that would make the film more realistic. According to Zemeckis: “In terms of image creation in the past, one of the ways to achieve a more realistic effect was through trademarks. We made a conscious effort to get producers to include a different logo in the 'past' of the movie. For example, in the movies of the 1960s and 1970s, the practice used to be that a car would pull up to a service station, and the place had no name at all. It's ridiculous. Someone has to own that establishment." For Back to the Future, we proceeded to investigate all those logos that had notably changed their design in 1985, comparing them with their 1955 versions. Cola, the producers chose to use the images of Texaco and Pepsi, since the logos of the latter had changed substantially compared to 1955.
In the film, Pepsi products are seen on a table, as well as a Toyota van at a Texaco station, Löwenbräu and Budweiser beers displayed in vans driving through the streets in 1985 (plus some beers non-alcoholic, at the McFly's), Popov brand vodka (specifically, in a scene featuring Lorraine), Scott Paper Company toilet paper, Raid bug spray, Kellogg's cereal, Wonder Bread Company bread, Pizza Hut and Nike, a cassette player from the Japanese brand Aiwa, among other products.
Fundraising
Back to the Future opened in a total of 1,200 theaters in the United States on July 3. As a curious detail, in the film it is said that the first time travel occurs on October 26, 1985, so its premiere occurred a couple of months before the events took place. In conclusion, those who came to see the film before October 26 were practically seeing the "future", which is in keeping with the theme of the film. On the other hand, Zemeckis was concerned that the film would be a flop on its release, due to Fox being away and having to film a Family Ties special in London, which meant he couldn't make it. could properly promote the film. Similarly, Gale was dissatisfied with the tagline that Universal Studios associated with the film: "Are you telling me that my mother has fallen in love with me?" Despite the above, the film was positioned for eleven weeks at number one on the box office charts in that country. Gale later mentioned that "our second weekend we did even better than the first, which indicates that word of mouth advertising worked in a great way. National Lampoon's European Vacation came out in August, and it took the number one title from us for a week, but then we went back to our top position." On its opening weekend it won 11 $152,500, playing in 1,420 theaters in the United States. In total, it grossed $210,609,762 in the United States, as well as an additional $170.5 million in other countries, for a final amount of $381,109,762 worldwide. It should be noted that Back to the Future ranked fourth in the most successful opening weekend openings that year, ultimately becoming the highest-grossing film of 1985. In addition, it is the most successful film in the franchise of the same name, followed by Back to the Future Part II, with $118.4 million.
In late 2010, the film was re-released in select theaters in the UK, US and Mexico to commemorate its twenty-fifth anniversary of the original release, coinciding with the release of the corresponding commemorative editions on DVD and Blu-ray. For its re-release, the original version of Back to the Future underwent a digital restoration and remastering process. The film was re-released in Argentina at the beginning of 2011, as in Peru.
Criticism
Anglo-Saxon and other countries
Upon its release, the film was praised by most critics; In a compilation of the evaluations made to Back to the Future on the Rotten Tomatoes review site, the film achieved a score of 97%, out of a total of 58 critics, where it was concluded that that "[it is a production] romantic, funny and full of action [...] it is pure entertainment for audiences of all ages". The American Roger Ebert considered that the plot of Back to the Future coincides with several themes dealt with in Frank Capra's films, especially the film How Beautiful It Is to Live, adding: "[Producer] Steven Spielberg emulates the true past of cinema films classic Hollywood, as it focused on the right director (Robert Zemeckis) along with the right project". It should be mentioned that the same similarity with the Capra productions, referred to by Ebert, was highlighted by the British website Time Out. Janet Maslin of The New York Times newspaper noted that the film has a balanced storyline, saying "it's a cinematic inventiveness of humor and long fantasy stories that will live on as a legacy for a long time". logistically beautiful and an almost inhumanly perfect confluence of internal logic and external forces [...] Probably the best scripted blockbuster in all of Hollywood history”, while Dave Kehr, from Chicago Reader, commented in his review that Zemeckis and Gale wrote, in his opinion, a perfectly balanced script between science fiction, seriousness and humor. Variety magazine praised the performances, focusing especially on those of Fox and Lloyd whose characters, Marty and Doc Brown, reminded him of the close relationship between King Arthur and Merlin. James Berardinelli of the ReelViews website noted in his review: "Back to the Future became a success because it has a compelling premise, a terrific cast and exemplary execution. It's the kind of chemistry that, rarely when it comes to fruition, can't be replicated—as the filmmakers discovered when they recast Back to the Future Part II for Back to the Future Part II. The magic lasted for just one movie and that's the one to constantly remember." Despite this, Film.com critic John Hartl evaluated it negatively when he commented that: "[The story is] so busy her attempt to be witty, which stumbles on her own naiveté".
Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com, who saw it as a teenager, called it "a quintessential 1980s film that blends bits of sci-fi, action, comedy, and romance; all of that contained in an ideal little package that both children and adults can devour". out of 5/5 stars: "Bluntly speaking, if you don't like Back to the Future, it's hard to believe you'd like the movies." Similarly, the BBC highlighted the intricate complexity with which the script was "extraordinarily executed", noting the fact that "no character says any line that is not important to the events that follow in the same film". British newspaper The Guardian noted: "the counter-Freudian drama is sustained with easy wit and flair, like a comedy disguised as Shakespeare, as well as making Fox a big [film] star", while the Radio Times > detailed: "This irresistible combination of dazzling effects and good comedy propelled Michael J. Fox to stardom and Ro bert Zemeckis to the list of the best directors in Hollywood".
Hispanic American and Spanish
Like the English-language press, most of the Spanish-language critics overwhelmingly praised the film during its theatrical release; the critic of the FilmAffinity.com website, Pablo Kurt commented that it is a "masterpiece of teen cinema. Fun, original and very entertaining." Similarly, Eduardo Guzmán, from the LaQuintaDimensión.com site, even made a comparison between scientific time travel, in contrast to the fictional one, to which he alluded: "It has been criticized that this The film ignores the now famous 'grandfather paradox', if Marty avoids falling in love with his parents, he will never be born... and if he was never born, how could he travel back in time and avoid falling in love with his parents?». Regarding the above, he considered that the plot prevents the viewer from becoming interested in said topic during the film, since "the accelerated pace at which the adventure runs prevents us from dwelling on these reflections and from sharing the paradoxical nature of the plot in a completely natural way." ». The site CalCuadrado.com mentioned various stages of the film's production and added in its writing: «[it has] a series of electrifying ingredients, such as light comedy as well as black, who laughs at historical events; the fantastic elements witness incredible special effects; and a narration that has a new plot twist in the science fiction genre with adventure and suspense as its best allies". Alberto Santaella, from the Extracine.com site, made a criticism of the impact that the film has made over the years, and with it the influence it has received throughout the history of cinema, since «there are films that become classics due to their very high cinematographic level [...] but there are others who do it simply by "popular acclaim""; In the same way, he praised that certain phrases on the tape have been reflected both in the public and in the "celluloid": "phrases like "Are you a chicken McFly? & # 34; or "Have you built a time machine with a De Lorean?" they are already part of the history of cinema". unbeatable results at the box office. Skilful and very well made comedy, supported [in] the possibilities of its brilliant script". On the contrary, the Arlequín.com website was little in favor of the film, mentioning negatively that, although it is liked by many, some consider it a "repetition", since "it is nothing more than an optimistic comedy typical of Frank Capra, only that it is laced with sci-fi and postmodern humor"; however, he positively criticized its plot since "it is a film without pause, where all the scenes work with millimeter efficiency, and it is impossible to get bored."
Awards
Back to the Future won an Oscar in the category of "Best Sound Editing," while "The Power of Love," sound designers Zemeckis and Gale were also nominated — the latter in the category of "Best Original Screenplay". The film also won the Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation", and the Saturn for "Best Science Fiction Film"; Michael J. Fox along with the special effects designers won in several of their categories. Zemeckis, composer Alan Silvestri, costume designer, and supporting actors Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson, and Thomas F. Wilson were also nominated at the latter awards ceremony, which took place in 1986. Back to the Future It also earned several nominations during the 39th British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, where it was nominated for "Best Film", "Best Original Screenplay", " Best Visual Effects", "Best Production Design" and "Best Editing". At the XLII Golden Globes ceremony, the film was nominated for "Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy", "Best Original Song" (for " The Power of Love"), "Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy" (for Fox) and "Best Original Screenplay" (for Zemeckis and Gale).
The following is a list of the different awards and nominations that the film received after its international screening.
| List of awards and nominations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Home Format
In 1986, Back to the Future was released on CED, and three years later it did its thing on VHS; on the latter, Universal added the caption "To be continued... »at the end of the credits to increase the public's expectation around a second part. However, the header was omitted from the DVD version released in 2002. In 2002 the complete trilogy was released in the same format. In 1993 a Japanese version was released on laserdisc with the complete trilogy, which also includes additional material with interviews, previously unseen scenes and a question and answer session conducted by actor Kirk Cameron. A collection of all three films was released on Video CD at the same time.
On December 2, 2002, the film was released on DVD, which included a copy of the tape along with bonus material including interviews with Gale and Zemeckis, production notes, deleted scenes, photo galleries, and more. Three years later, in 2005, a package with the complete trilogy was released in the same video format, and a total of three discs, with a widescreen aspect ratio. In 2009, the film obtained a new DVD re-release, only this time it was in the form of a "special edition" two-disc package, which includes the copy of the film along with the Back to the Future: The Ride simulator, a preview of Back to the Future II hosted by actor Leslie Nielsen and a documentary on the making of Back to the Future.
In 2010, commemorating its first twenty-five years of release, the trilogy was re-released as a seven-disc package that includes a digital copy of each film on Blu-ray format. Each disc contains audio commentary by Zemeckis and Gale, as well as deleted scenes, documentaries, and photo galleries.
Legacy
Former United States President Ronald Reagan, then in office when the film was released, declared himself a fan of it, even alluding to the film in his 1986 State of the Union Address, commenting that "it has never There has never been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of poignant wonder and heroic deeds. Well, as they said in one of the scenes: "Where we're going, we don't need roads." again the scene where the protagonists joked by questioning the truth that Reagan was president of the United States in the 1980s. Similarly, George H. W. Bush made several references to the tape during his speeches as president.
The film peaked at number 28 on Entertainment Weekly magazine's list of The 50 Best High School Movies. In 2008, Back to the Future was positioned in the 23rd place of the "greatest films ever made", a list created based on the opinion of the readers of the British magazine Empire . in a list made by the newspaper The New York Times, which lists nearly 1,000 titles. In January 2010, the British publication Total Film included it on his list of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.
On December 27, 2007, Back to the Future was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress for being "aesthetically, culturally, and historically important." A year earlier, in 2006, the film's original script was chosen by the Writers Guild Award as the "56th Best Screenplay of All Time". On the other hand, Back to the Future is in the tenth position of the list made by the British channel Channel 4 entitled 50 movies you should see before you die . Similarly, in 2008 the magazine Empire chose Marty as one of the hundred best movie characters.
In June 2008, the American Film Institute released a list titled AFI's 10 Top 10 (consisting of a compilation of ten films divided into ten different categories, based on the "classic" genres of American cinema), after polling more than 1,500 people involved in the creative side of film. Back to the Future was listed as the 10th best film in the science fiction genre. Similarly, the film was shortlisted for most of the AFI 100 series lists. years..., produced by the AFI, among which are 100 years... 100 movies, 100 years... 100 movies (10th anniversary edition), 100 years... 100 sentences per «Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads" delivered by Dr. Emmett Brown, being twice selected for the list of 100 Years... 100 Songs to the Tunes of "The Power of Love" and "Johnny B. Goode", 100 years... 100 passions, and 100 years... 100 smiles.
The British pop rock group McFly takes its name, as a tribute, from the protagonist of Back to the Future; the band was named like that, since according to the comments that Harry Judd -drummer of the group- made during an interview, he admitted that the members of the band kept a certain fascination for Marty McFly and the trilogy in general.
The success of the feature film greatly increased the popularity of the DeLorean automobile model; As an anecdote, Gale and Zemeckis received a letter from John DeLorean, creator of said model, in which he thanked them for using his car in Back to the Future. Regarding the relaunch of the film, Due to its 25th anniversary since it was released in theaters, several Internet sites reviewed what they liked the most about the trilogy in general, focusing primarily on the first installment; the Mexican site Chilango.com made a list of the 25 things that its team of editors has liked the most over time, entitled "25 years after its premiere, 25 signs of our love for the McFlys"; among the things that are mentioned, there is talk about scenes, characters and phrases that throughout the plot have their "fit" as if it were a puzzle. In turn, the anniversary motivated several critics to review it again, but this time in a way focused on the quality of remastering, as well as in its digital format. The Peruvian site ElComercio.com showed a video in which Michael J. Fox is shown promoting a meeting between the actors who participated in the recording during the Scream Movie Awards; Similarly, the same video was played during said ceremony.
Back to the Future has had multiple references, allusions, parodies and other appearances, in various media, both in other productions within the film industry and in many other audiovisual works outside of it, as are television programs and even in video games. Examples that might be mentioned include The Simpsons, Phineas & Ferb, The Fairly OddParents, Donnie Darko, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Half-Life 2 , Duke Nukem 3D, The Big Bang Theory, Clockstoppers, The Butterfly Effect, South Park, Ghost Rider, No More Heroes, Driver: San Francisco, Rick and Morty, among others.
Novels, TV series and video games
Simultaneously with the film's release, Berkley Books released an official novel as a literary adaptation of the film, Back to the Future: a novel, written by George Gipe. Although Gipe was based exclusively on the script for Back to the Future, this publication was characterized by having some differences in terms of the film, since it added unpublished scenes, characters and places that do not appear in this film. the latter. That same year, Berkley Books released another children's-oriented novel titled Back to the Future: The Story, which was edited by Robert Loren Fleming and is considered an adaptation of the novel by Gipe. In 1990, Mallard Press published an anthology of the complete trilogy, titled Back to the Future: The Official Book of the Complete Movie Trilogy, which was written by Michael Klastorin and Sally Hibbin, the which was launched simultaneously with Back to the Future III. That year also saw the publication of four magazines, listed under the title of Back to the Future Fan Club Magazine, which include interviews with the cast and crew of the films as well as photography unpublished images of the actors. In 2010, Sorcha Ní Fhlainn published The Worlds of Back to the Future: Critical Essays on the Films, which is a critical analysis of the different elements and themes exposed in the film. Back to the Future trilogy, covering philosophical, literary, musical, cultural and scientific aspects.
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In September 1991, the television series Back to the Future premiered, an animated production produced mainly by Universal Cartoon Studios —a division of Universal Studios— and Amblin Entertainment. The show ran for a total of two seasons, each consisting of thirteen episodes, concluding its original broadcasts on CBS in November 1992. The series was later broadcast on ABC (1993) and FOX (2003). Its plot centers on the adventures of Marty and his girlfriend, and Doc Brown's family, along with the dog Einstein. In 1992 and 1993 he won four Daytime Emmy Awards, related to sound editing. At the same time as the television series was broadcast, Harvey Comics carried out the publication of a series of seven comics based primarily on the show animated, which concluded in 1993.
As for video games based on Back to the Future, the first of them, Back to the Future, was released in 1989 for the Nintendo NES, published by LJN and developed by Beam Software. Likewise, three other versions were released for the Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum systems, MSX —distributed by Pony Canyon— and MSX2 —exclusive for Japan—. There is a modified version of the game engine used in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City titled Back to the Future: Hill Valley, as well as a different one based on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which are available for virtual download. There is also a minigame called Back to the Future - The Ride under the title Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure , distributed in 2001 for the Nintendo GameCube console. In 2010, the Telltale Games company announced the production of an episodic video game made up of five independent parts, all of them based on the film trilogy on the occasion of the 25th anniversary. Gale advised the development of the script used in the game, in addition that Christopher Lloyd lent his voice to play Doc Brown in its digital version. The game is set within the original storyline, six months after the events of Part III, and has been adapted for PC, Mac, PS3, iPad, and Wii platforms. was released on December 22, 2010. A pinball version titled Back to the Future: The Pinball was produced in 1990.
In an interview at the end of 2010, Gale commented that only the films are considered canonical and that the other productions —novels, video games, TV series, etc.— tell “alternative” stories to the main plot, and therefore both are not official.
Back to the Future: The Ride
In mid-1991 the attraction Back to the Future: The Ride opened at Universal Studios Florida theme park, which was basically a simulator where Doc Brown tries to trap Biff Tannen aboard the DeLorean. In 1993, a similar attraction opened at Universal Studios Hollywood, and finally in 2001 a final attraction opened at Universal Studios Japan. In the first two parks the attraction was closed in 2007 to be replaced by The Simpsons Ride, while in Japan it was replaced by Despicable Me Minion Mayhem.
It should be noted that at Universal Studios Hollywood there was a theme restaurant inspired by the Back to the Future trilogy called Doc Brown's Chicken, where four varieties of fried chicken and central character is Doc Brown.