Back to the Future is a 1985 American comic science fiction film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. Fox plays Marty McFly, a teenager who is sent back in time to 1955. He meets his future parents in high school and accidentally becomes his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents-to-be to fall in love, and with the help of scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown (Lloyd), he must find a way to return to 1985.
Zemeckis and Gale wrote the script after Gale mused upon whether he would have befriended his father if they attended school together. Various film studios rejected the script until the financial success of Zemeckis' Romancing the Stone. Zemeckis approached Spielberg and the project was planned to be financed and released through Universal Pictures. The first choice for the role of Marty McFly was Michael J. Fox. However, he was busy filming his TV series Family Ties and the show's producers would not allow him to star in the film. Consequently, Eric Stoltz was cast in the role. During filming, Stoltz and the filmmakers decided that the role was miscast, and Fox was again approached for the part. Now with more flexibility in his schedule and the blessing of his show's producers, Fox managed to work out a timetable in which he could give enough time and commitment to both.
Back to the Future was released on July 3, 1985, and became the most successful film of the year, grossing more than $383 million worldwide and receiving critical acclaim. It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, as well as an Academy Award, and Golden Globe nominations among others. Ronald Reagan even quoted the film in his 1986 State of the Union Address. In 2007, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and in June 2008 the American Film Institute's special AFI's 10 Top 10 designated the film as the 10th-best film in the science fiction genre. The film marked the beginning of a franchise, with sequels Back to the Future Parts II and III released in 1989 and 1990, as well as an animated series, theme park ride, several video games and a forthcoming musical.
Marty's Mysterious Disappearence
George remembered Marty and his mysterious disappearance and realizes his similarities to Marty. So what explains his casual acceptance of all of it? George McFly fundamentally believes that aliens interfered in his life in order to bring him and Loraine together. The prom where he knocks out Biff and falls in love with his wife is obviously the most pivotal event in his life. His experiences with the young Marty are so memorable to him that he even adopts his own son’s sayings, “If you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.” But the rest of the story makes no sense if you’ve been thinking about if for years. Where did Calvin come from? Where did he go? Who was he? Why was he wearing a life preserver? None of these things make much sense in isolation, but when you put everything that was Calvin Klein/Marty McFly together it starts to make a sort of creepy Nostradamus-like effect. Remember the scene where Marty wakes up his father dressed in the radiation suit and threatens him to comply with the plan? This is a small part of the movie, but I can’t imagine there would be a day that went by where George McFly didn’t think about it. What would happen in a few years when there was a popular science fiction villain named Darth Vader and also Star Trek that had a planet Vulcan? George McFly would see it and think that the entirety of pop culture had been infiltrated by extraterrestrials. How else could they have had knowledge of popular science fiction years before it was thought up on Earth? Why isn’t he surprised when he has a kid that eventually looks like Marty? Well, that guy was attempting to get him to be with Lorraine at the exact same time the alien visited him. Eventually he’d put two and two together. The Marty at that time was either a time traveller or an alien. This would also be confirmed at the end when Marty tells them not to be as angry at him for setting fire to the rug when he was 9. The moment that Marty set fire to that rug George McFly would have seen this like a confirmation of a prophecy. If you look closely at it near the end of the movie, it’s called “A Match Made in Space.” The cover features a boy who looks like George about to kiss a girl that looks like Lorraine being brought together by an alien wearing a radiation suit. I’ve always thought that George McFly’s book is just a re-telling of the whole film. George McFly wrote this book which is to him a non-fiction account of what happened to him, but to the world is a science fiction masterpiece by a little known author. This would be even further evidence by the fact that Old Man Peabody probably would have eventually told everyone in town that some alien had knocked down one of his pine trees and ruined his barn. Then he had to take a shot at it. To George, these rumors would only reinforce his own perception that the Marty he met in his youth was just a shape-shifting alien who was on a mission to make sure George married Lorraine. Back in 1976 when George arrived home to find Lorraine screaming and the kids running around all freaked out because the living room rug had burst into flames, he was furious. After he heroically puts out the fire, Marty starts crying and apologizing and saying it was an accident. Just as George is getting ready to kick some ass, he remembers something a good friend told him long ago: “If you guys ever have kids and one of them when he’s eight years old, accidentally sets fire to the living room rug, be easy on him.” Ever get that feeling that something is just too crazy to be a coincidence? Well, George did, and pardoned Marty, saying that he was just glad everyone was OK. Yeah, it was pretty strange, but he shook it off and dismissed it. Until…… 1977. George McFly is a huge fan of sci-fi, so you KNOW he was at the Star Wars premiere. Imagine his shock when none other than DARTH VADER appeared on the big screen! That’s right, the same Darth Vader who back in 1955. “… came down from planet Vulcan. And he told me that if I didn’t take Loraine, that he’d melt my brain.” Wait a second… the planet Vulcan? Darth Vader isn’t from Vulcan. Vulcan isn’t even in the Star Wars universe – it’s in the Star Trek universe, which, HOLD ON… how did Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan threaten him in 1955 when they hadn’t even been made up yet? THIS IS HEAVY. George was pretty freaked out, but he didn’t put all the pieces together until a few years later. One night George was sitting in his chair trying to read his copy of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” when Marty suddenly started blasting one of his favorite songs on the stereo – Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”. Marty – who had finally started looking more and more like George’s good buddy from 1955… His good buddy from 1955 who was also named Marty… who played that same song at his high school dance years before it was released… “1955 MARTY IS ACTUALLY MY FUTURE SON WHO WENT BACK IN TIME TO HOOK ME UP WITH HIS MOTHER!!!” It was all clear to George now! Everything made sense!! He was so, so very proud of his boy, yet he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell him so for many years, because George knew that nobody should know too much about his own density. If he told Marty that he knew what he knew before Marty had a chance to go back in time, the result could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe. Granted, that’s the worse case scenario. The destruction might, in fact, be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy… BUT STILL – he couldn’t risk it.
Doc Brown Suicidal
Another theory suggests that Doc Brown was suicidal and attempted to use his time machine to kill him but found the will to live after it actually worked. Unfortunately, he was killed by the Libyans immediately afterwards.
Back to the Future III Marty
Ok here is a theory. In the 3rd installment of the series, Marty travels back to the old west in the year 1885 to go and save Doc before he is shot by Buford Tannen. Before he leaves however, Marty and Doc stumble upon the gravestone of Doctor Emmet Brown. "Died on September 7th, 1885. Shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of 80 dollars, Erected in eternal memory by his beloved CLARA." This gravestone opens up a HUGE discussion at my house, so I'm going to bring this here. Think ahead to the ravine incident, Clayton Ravine was named after the teacher who went over that ravine, Her name was Clara Clayton, When Marty went back, Doc was able to save Clara from going over that ravine, therefore leading up to it be named Eastwood Ravine after "Clint Eastwood" went over. Here's my question, If Clara went over that ravine, how is Clara able to be Doc's beloved Clara if Doc was never there to save her in the first place? The gravestone says it all, Clara was his love interest, and Doc Brown died. It makes no logical sense because before Marty went back, Clara went over the ravine and Doc Brown was shot. Another key point to note is that Clara went over 5 days BEFORE Doc Brown was shot, so she could not have been his love interest unless he saved her, but as the gravestone says, Clara was his love interest, the same Clara that went over the ravine before his death. Argue away, and come up with an explanation.
It could be that he would have saved her anyway, despite himself, and without Marty's goading.
Marty Dies in Back to the Future II
Back To The Future Part II is the movie that most clearly demonstrates the dangers of time travel. With the simple act of buying a future sports almanac, Marty McFly accidentally creates a timeline where his dad is murdered, his creepy, old best friend is insane, and his mom suddenly looks like she's starring in Backdoor Vegas MILFs XXX. This is made doubly uncomfortable due to the fact that his mom spent the entire previous film trying to have sex with him.
Of course, all of this time-traveling horror takes a backseat to the part when Marty dies multiple times. If you're having difficulty remembering that scene, it's because it never explicitly happens, but according to a theory we believe should be credited to Reddit user Hootinger, Marty originally got killed in the scene where he's chased through a tunnel by Biff Tannen's car, only to be saved by Doc Brown through the necromancing magic of time travel.
There's actually more than enough subtle clues pointing in the direction of "Biff ran Marty down in the street like a stray dog for stealing his magic book" to make us wait in the car the next time a crazy old hermit kidnaps us through history. First of all, this theory actually fixes a plot hole in the movie. During the climactic chase scene, Marty is about to disappear beneath the tires of Biff's muscle car but is saved at the last minute by Doc Brown, who lowers a rope made of construction flags down from the flying DeLorean to carry Marty to safety. Biff, in turn, crashes into a truck full of shit, because shit is funny and Biff is a terrible person.
But how did Doc know exactly where and when to drop the rope? He had no idea Marty was in trouble, and there's no way he could've seen the chase while zooming around in the sky, because Biff was chasing Marty through a tunnel (more specifically, the tunnel to Toontown). The only logical explanation for Doc knowing exactly where to show up to save Marty is that he's already seen it happen, meaning Marty has already been killed by Biff in an alternate timeline. Doc witnessed our plucky time-skipping hero get crushed like a denim grape beneath the wheels of Biff's rapistmobile, and then used the DeLorean to go back in time and prevent the tragedy from happening.
For all we know, what we see in the film isn't the first time Marty has been killed. Doc might be on his 176th Marty-rescuing attempt, which means Back To The Future Part II could be packed with dead Martys stacked all the way to the ceiling, and we would never know.
Doc never tells Marty about all this, because why torture him with that knowledge? No one really wanted to see a Back To The Future Part II to begin with, let alone a Back To The Future Part III where Marty is emotionally crippled by the existential terror of his own mortality.