There was a comment somewhere about old movies and how Godfather didn’t count as old as it was made in 1974. I didn’t realise it was that old, and when I opened my Google Reader today, I realised time had passed by more quickly than I thought.

While I was busy dealing with some stuff at Battlezone and having an intellectual debate with Eric Canyon, one of my favourite artists in the world of sci fi, John Eaves, was posting this. For those too lazy to click, Back to the Future… it turned twenty five on Saturday.

I remember watching this film when I was a kid and loved every moment of it. It’s weird to think it’s almost as old as I am. For those who are ridiculous enough to have missed out, Back to the Future is the story of Marty McFly traveling back in time by accident after hijacking his mentor’s new invention after some Libyans get all shooty. He ends up in the 50′s, causes some havoc in the space time continuum by bumping into his parents, stopping the event that makes them fall in love.

With help from the 1950′s version of his mentor, Doc Brown, Marty struggles to repair the time line, the time machine and history as he knows it to avoid his family getting deleted from time.

The film had it’s struggles with Zemeckis having two big flops under his belt, the miscasting of Eric Stoltz being rectified by recasting him with their first choice, Michael J Fox and studios not wanting to touch it due to the fact that Marty finds himself in a situation where his teenager mother in the 50′s find him pumpable. But still, it became one of the most iconic and most loved movies of all time and was the biggest money maker in it’s release in 1985.

Casting Fox while he was still in Family Ties was a tough move for the young actor. He’d film for the TV show during the day then work on the movie at night and weekends, probably feeling like a Zombie with the lack of sleep but still pulling off an amazing performance. He wasn’t the only one working around the clock as the film was edited and rushed with crew working 24/7 to make it’s deadline.

Initially the film was going to be based around Marty being a video pirate, the time machine being a fridge and the climax of the movie being set in Nevada but budget concerns and some bizarre safety concerns helped put together some of the best elements of the film. Mainly placing it in a small town and making it revolve around the personal experiences of the cast of characters, which led to a set piece of the town square being built in 1950′s style before being trashed for the run down 80′s scenes.

…but the most iconic change was to switch the refrigerator into something a little more mobile.

Partly due to a joke in the revised script about a farmer mistaking the mode of transport for a flying saucer and partly with the logic that if you had a time machine, you’d want to be able to move around in it, the fridge was ditched in place of a Delorean. The bizarre gull winged extinct car which is somewhat of a collectors item these days, and the work on creating one of these lovely machines was so exact to the actual car that the builders were offered jobs working on future Delorean models.

Anyway, enough of factoids. The movie was considered too light by most studios, not good enough, too risque with the Marty-Lorraine angle and one of the producers was a head case who wanted the movie named Spaceman from Pluto. But now it’s still considered a most-own classic and has been one of the best and most loved movie of the past few decades.

The film was unleashed into cinemas on July 3rd 1985 and it’s success brought on two sequels with Part 2 featuring Marty and the Doc fixing the future, fixing the past and finding themselves in an alternate dimension while Part 3 saw Marty hunting down the Doc after he gets lost in time. Did I mention it had a cartoon too?

It’s astonishing that this twenty-five year old film still hold sup to this day and even the 80′s style doesn’t overshadow as it does in other movies of the time. I seriously don’t doubt this movie will be around for another twenty five years.

No related posts.

Tags: fantasy, geek, movies, sci fi