Marty McFly accidentally goes back in time thirty years into the year 1955 with a time machine his friend Dr. Emmet Brown built out of a DeLorean. Marty needs to find a way to return to the year 1985 so he tracks Doc down in order to help him. Doc is pleased that he has successfully built a time machine after Marty shows him it. Marty runs into young versions of his parents and accidentally causes an interruption in them meeting each other. While he’s stuck in the year 1955 he has to find a way to make his parents fall in love with each other or he’ll cease to exist.
Blaine: Robert Zemeckis has always been fascinated with time travel because he believes it’s something we all fantasize about. He and his co-writer Bob Gale had been talking about making a time travel movie for years, but they never could figure out what would make a good subject for it. Bob visited his parents one day and he was looking through his dad’s old high school yearbook. He found out something about his dad that he never knew before and that was him being the president of his graduating class. He then looked at his dad and thought what if he was friends with him if they both went to high school together? That became the start to what Bob and Robert were looking for. He told Robert about it and Robert thought it sounded really interesting. Robert and Bob’s latest film at the time “Used Cars” wasn’t a box office hit, but Columbia Pictures loved it. The head of Columbia wanted Robert and Bob to give the studio there next idea for a movie. They set up a meeting and told him about this idea they had about a kid going back in time, meeting his parents when they were in high school and his mom falls in love with him instead of his dad. After that Robert and Bob were allowed to write the first drafts of the script at Columbia Pictures.
With their team work, Robert and Bob were able to develop a good script. They used index cards for whatever ideas they had like one saying “Marty going back in time” and the other saying "he invents rock and roll” because he loves it. Writing the screenplay for “Back to the Future” wasn’t fun, it was really hard to do. Columbia Pictures wasn’t interested in making the movie after they saw the first draft of the script. So Bob and Robert would go to other studios and they rejected it as well. They showed it to Steven Spielberg and he thought it was a very unusual story, but at the same time it showed all the dreams and desires your parents could ever have hoped for, but didn’t succeed because something held them back. Steven was all in favor of it and wanted to be on board to help get this made. Of course Robert and Bob wanted to leave Steven out of it because they worked with him before on their previous movies they did and they weren’t so successful. If “Back to the Future” didn’t become a success then they would think they got work because of Steven Spielberg always helps them. Steven understood that. People would recommend that they would have Disney take a look at “Back to the Future”, but even they didn’t want it because they couldn’t make a movie with a scene showing a kid and his mom in a car together and she’s coming on to him. Robert felt he needed to direct something and so he directed “Romancing the Stone” which became a success and made studio executives re-think “Back to the Future”. Robert felt they should go back to Steven Spielberg because he had support for it. With the help of Steven, “Back to the Future” got the approval it needed to get made.
The first character they casted for was Marty McFly and every young actor in Hollywood wanted to play him. They had a scouting crew look for the right actor. One person was in mind for Marty and that was Michael J. Fox. Problem was he wasn’t available. Michael was on a hit tv series known as “Family Ties”. It’s creator Gary Goldberg couldn’t release Michael from his contract and knew there was no way he could find the time to do both “Back to the Future” and “Family Ties”. So they went with Eric Stoltz instead and shot scenes with him for five weeks. The problem with Eric was that he wasn’t bringing any of the humor in his performance. Everyone thought he was a great actor, but he just wasn’t working out for them. Judging by the looks of that footage Eric didn’t show much a performance. He didn’t show much movement or a shocking reaction to him being in the year 1955 and seeing his parents at a young high school age. Marty was more meant for Michael because they felt he is Marty McFly. Robert Zemeckis decided to let Eric go and start from scratch and he was able to convince the studio to re-shoot the five weeks of work. They went back to Gary Goldberg and begged him for Michael J. Fox because he was the only one who felt right for the part. Gary was nice enough to let Michael look at the script and work up a schedule with the producers of “Back to the Future" for when Michael should be available. Michael loved the script and was all in favor of being apart of the project. He would work on “Family Ties” first for seven hours and then a station wagon would show up to drive Michael to the set of “Back to the Future” for night shooting. The station wagon would have a bed in the back so that Michael could get some sleep.
Michael proved that he was everything Robert Zemeckis and the producers wanted in Marty McFly. Marty was written to be a reactive character who reacts to everything around him in the year 1955 because he’s a stranger in a strange land. Michael understood that he was supposed to put humor in his reaction. Another thing about Marty is that to me he is someone who becomes more closer to his parents by spending so much time with them when they’re teenagers. He learns that his father liked to write his own science fiction stories in his youth, but he was afraid that no one would respect his creativity and Marty understands that because not a lot of people like his rock and roll.
For the parents they looked for young people between the ages of 18 to 25 who would want to act old. Lea Thompson was doing a movie called “The Wild Life” and Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg were visiting the set one day and saw Lea. They called Lea in to audition and she blew them away during the first test they did of her with makeup on to look like she was fifty. They had to have humor for when Lorraine is talking about how she never was chasing after boys when she was a teenager and then have it turned into her being sad because of how bad her life had become.
They knew Crispin Glover was right for George McFly because of his unusual way of talking and strange mannerisms. Michael J. Fox had worked with Crispin before and loved working with him. The thing about Crispin’s performance as George that always makes me laugh is when he is panicking after Marty pays him a visit during the night pretending to be a being from another planet and orders him to ask Lorraine out or he’ll melt his brain. Thomas F. Wilson was a very nice guy and is not anything like his character Biff Tanner. He was able to do a good job of acting like a big jerk who is tough on ya.
Christopher Lloyd’s agent had sent him the script for “Back to the Future” while he was doing a movie. Christopher had no interest in reading it because he felt it was something he wouldn’t want to do. A friend of Christopher's thought he should at least take a look at it because it could be good. Christopher Lloyd decided to meet with Robert Zemeckis and when they met for the first time, Chris thought of Robert as a engaging and intelligent guy. So Christopher thought that if Robert Zemeckis was going to direct this movie then he would be in good hands and so he gave it a shot. Christopher was curious to know what his character was going to look like and what are his characteristics. He suggested to Robert that he’d be something like Einstein and Leopold Stokowski and he was ok with that. Chris took things very seriously and no one knew how he was going to act until the cameras started rolling. He thought of Doc as having this excitement and being energetic.
While Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale were writing the first drafts of the script the time machine was a time chamber, but they weren’t satisfied with it and so then they were trying to figure out what the time machine should be and look like. Then Robert thought of it being mobile and weeks later it was official to them that the time machine would be a DeLorean. Robert and Bob wanted it something that could pass for a time machine, but also look like it was built in a garage and look cool. They had three versions of that car and one of them would be for stunt work like when it first arrives in 1955 and crashes into a barn. One of the things that pleased the cinematographer Dean Cundey was to see the car for the first time in the movie. He wanted to get all the details as it was coming out of the truck. Michael J. Fox didn’t like being in that car because he would jam his knuckles on that metal box whenever he used the clutch stick. Another thing Robert and Bob were trying to figure out was what time travel would look like. They met with ILM and they had some ideas. Then Bob and Robert thought that maybe it shouldn’t be about the visual effects or how long it takes to travel through time. They thought time traveling should be instantaneous and just go in a snap. ILM had thought of the bolts showing up as soon as you’re about to travel through time and fire going through as soon as you’re gone.
The people at Universal studios loved the title “Back to the Future” except for the head of the corporate company, Sid Sheinberg. He couldn’t understand what the title meant and thought that people wouldn’t understand it as well. He recommended they call it “Spaceman From Pluto” and that worried Robert Zemeckis. He told Steve to stop him from ruining it. Steven wrote a note saying they thought it was a joke and they thank him for that. Nothing happened after that so they got to keep their original title.
Another challenge was recreating the 1950s. They had to find a lot of those old fashioned cars, clothing and do some research of what things were like back then. They scouted locations in Northern California for Hill Valley because it had 50s feel to it, but they decided to use a back lot for the space they needed. Using the backlot became useful because they could do whatever they wanted. They would make things a bit dirty and awful in the 1980s and make the 1950s look kind of phony-looking. The clock tower basically existed except for the top of it. The clock was added on to it along with the two cats of the side. Those cats were from another movie called “Cat People” and the production designer found them in the stock units department. There was a lot of pavement in front of the building and no grass at all. They put a large bed of grass and added a monument to soldiers from World War II.
Sending Marty back in time was originally going to happen at a nuclear test site because the time machine is powered by plutonium order to send it through time, but it was too expensive to make a sequence like that and so they ended up not doing it. Robert thought of a better idea that it happen when the lightning hits the clock tower and having a cable be attached to it from the bottom for when the car hits in order to send Marty back to 1985.
It was scary for Christoper Lloyd to shoot that sequence because he was up that high and he was afraid he was going to fall. He didn’t have to act in that scene because he was terrified in real life. They duplicated that set piece on Stage 12 at Universal so that they could do close up shots of Christopher trying to reattach the cable. “Back to the Future” was coming up to a tight schedule and so they hired a second editor to help edit the movie. Michael J. Fox had a feeling he didn’t do so good in the movie because he was very tired and exhausted after going back and forth doing two things at once. I think he was able to pull it off and do his job professionally. His performance as Marty McFly makes me want to play the character next to Dr. Emmett Brown.
They had a sneak preview of the movie and a lot of people would show up because Michael J. Fox was in it. It surprised Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale because they didn’t realize how big of a star Michael was from “Family Ties”. It gave them something to hope for like this might be their biggest and most successful film they’ve ever done compared to their previous films. The movie was originally set for a August release date in 1985, but the studio changed it to July 4 because they wanted people to see this movie through the rest of the Summer.
People didn’t know what “Back to the Future” was about except that Michael J. Fox and Christoper Lloyd were in it. They almost thought that Doc killed his dog when the car disappeared, but when it came back it was clear to them that it was a time machine. They were really getting into the movie as it continued and they rose up in their seats with a positive reaction as they were watching the car fly in that last scene. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale didn't have a sequel in mind even though the ending showed Doc showing up at Marty’s house telling him he has go back to the future because Marty’s kids are in trouble.
My rating on “Back to the Future” is five out of five stars.
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Plot: Peter wants to party again and wishes he could go back to his teen years and just party instead of dating Louis. Death shows up after the bartender has a nasty fall, but it becomes a false alarm. Peter asks Death if he could help him go back in time and be eighteen again. Death agrees to it for only one night. Death takes Peter and Brian back to the year 1984 where Peter is in his younger body. Peter calls off a date with Louis, parties with Cleveland, plays Pac-Man and makes out with Molly Ringwald. Peter’s time is up and Death brings him and Brian back to the present. Peter sneaks into the house and into bed. The next morning Peter finds out he is married to Molly Ringwald instead of Louis. Quagmire went out with Louis that night Peter blew off their date and she fell in love and married him instead. She also brought three of his children into the world. Peter feels like he has made a terrible mistake and he needs a way to summon Death in order to fix things with Louis.
Jane Jetson falls on the sidewalk and dies after George pushes her out of the hover car because she tried to steal his wallet. Death shows up and Peter asks for him to go back to 1984 and fix things with Louis. Peter manages to screw up a few times and keeps asking Death to repeat it. Cleveland shows up and says there is going to be a really awesome party. Peter goes to the party forgetting he had a date with Louis. Peter goes to Louis’ house and apologizes, but she says it’s too late. She is getting ready to leave for the Country Club Dance with Glenn Quagmire. Peter must save his marriage by going to that dance and convince Louis how much he loves her. Peter almost gives up after Louis refuses to dance with him, but then he knocks Glenn out by smacking him in the face and shows Louis how much he means to her with a kiss. Louis realizes that Peter does care for her and Peter realizes that Louis is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Peter asks Louis if she’ll be his wife, her answer is yes and things go back to normal.
