The Case That Goes Back to the Future (1985)

Ever since HG Wells penned The Time Machine in 1895, the time travel subgenre of Science Fiction has captured the imaginations of countless people. Although the concept of time travel in fiction was not new, Wells’ idea of time transportation in a stylish machine was novel. Whether you have a nostalgic longing for the past or an undying curiosity about the future, it’s probably safe to say that we’ve all wondered: what would I do if I could travel through time? 

Almost 100 years after Wells’ concept was put into print, writer and producer Bob Gale was visiting his parents when he came across his father’s yearbook. Flipping through the pages of his parents’ past made him wonder if he would have been friends with his dad in high school–and then he wondered, what would it be like to find out? With a screenplay idea in mind, Gale spoke to his friend Robert Zemeckis. The two had already been working on a concept for a time travel movie with an eccentric professor character, but they couldn’t make the story work. With this new idea, the two started writing one of the most iconic films of the 20th century: Back to the Future. 

So, let’s hop on our skateboards and swing back to Hill Valley in 1985 (and 1955) and learn what it takes to get back to the future. 

SUMMARY 

  • Marty McFly is your average teenager. He likes rock music, he skateboards, he has a crippling fear of failure, and he hangs out with an eccentric inventor named Doc Brown. One night, Doc calls Marty to join him at the mall for a scientific discovery. Doc reveals to Marty that he has uncovered the secrets to time travel, and crafted a working time machine from a Delorean. Things go south when Doc gets murdered for stealing the Plutonium needed to make time travel possible. To escape the chaotic scene, Marty hops in the Delorean and accidentally travels back to 1955. Without the Doc Brown of the future, and with no Plutonium in sight, Marty must find a way to travel back to the future. 

MAKING OF

  • As Robert Zemeckis was working on Back to the Future, his own future in the film industry seemed up in the air. He had directed a few flops, and he was facing a dry spell. When Steven Spielberg expressed interest in producing Back to the Future, Zemeckis essentially turned him down, saying that he was afraid of creating another flop. 

    • Zemeckis and Gale went to studios all over Hollywood with the screenplay and was turned down again and again. Teen comedies at the time were much racier and R-rated, and no one was interested in a PG teen film. Disney was the only studio that thought the movie was TOO risqué because of the plot between Marty and his teenage mother. 

    • But, Zemeckis was lucky enough to direct a hit film in 1984 called Romancing The Stone. As the praise rolled in for that feature, so did the offers to make Back to the Future. But, Zemeckis decided that the person he should go with was the man that believed in the story all along, Steven Spielberg. So shooting began at Universal Studios soon after. 

  • Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale started writing Back to the Future in 1980, although they had been tossing around ideas for the screenplay for a couple of years. Inspired by the rules of time travel laid out in HG Wells’ The Time Machine, they decided that Doc Brown’s time machine would only travel in time and not in space. 

    • Originally, the time machine was a chamber, akin to a refrigerator. It permanently sat in Doc Brown’s lab, except when the characters loaded it into a pick-up truck. In an earlier draft of the story, Marty needed the power of a nuclear explosion to get the machine working again. So, he and Doc Brown were to bring the chamber to a testing site for nuclear bombs. Universal told Zemeckis and Gale that they would not have the budget to shoot on location and create such an explosion, so the entire ending had to be re-worked. 

    • Running into this budget issue actually made the film better, as the two men decided that it made much more sense for the time machine to be mobile. As Gale and Zemeckis reworked the story, DeLorean Motor Company was filing for bankruptcy. Their founder, John Z DeLorean, was facing drug charges at the time. Gale and Zemeckis thought it would be perfect for the film because the car itself looked similar to the 1950s depictions of space ships in comics and films. So the change was made, and the time-traveling DeLorean was born. 

    • The yellow, red, and green lights in the DeLorean paid homage to The Time Machine (1960). In that film, the machine has three lightbulbs of the same colors. 

  • Production began in November of 1984 with actor Eric Stoltz in the lead, playing Marty McFly. Even though Michael J Fox had been the studio’s first choice for the role, he was too busy filming Family Ties and Teen Wolf. As filming began, Robert Zemeckis felt that even though Stoltz was a great actor, he didn’t fit the part as well as they had hoped. So, they reached out to Michael J Fox to see if they would work out a filming schedule. Fox decided to work around the clock, sometimes only getting 1-2 hours of sleep a night so that he could play the lead role. 

    • Fox and the other actors did many of their own stunts, so filming could be pretty grueling on the body. He and Zemeckis would say, “Pain is temporary, film is forever.” 

    • Christopher Lloyd was the obvious choice for Doc Brown. He played the role as a combination of Albert Einstein and the composer Leopold Stokowski, which explained his wild white hair and grand gestures. 

      • One of the biggest questions surrounding the film is the origin of Marty and Doc’s relationship. Bob Gale has stated that they imagined that the two met when Marty broke into Doc’s lab after hearing urban legends about his crazy inventions. The two then became friends, with Marty sometimes helping Doc out with experiments. You can even see in the movie that Doc Brown has his own business. 

  • Gale and Zemeckis chose the 1950s for a couple of reasons. One, it made mathematical sense that Marty’s parents met in the 1950s. Also, they wanted Marty to invent skateboards and rock n roll. Also, the 1950s was the beginning of American teen culture, when teenagers had the power to influence trends with their buying habits. When Marty lands in 1955, he’s horrified to discover that he has unwittingly disrupted the love story of his parents. His mother, played by Lea Thompson, falls in love with Marty instead of his father, played by Crispin Glover. 

    • Thompson appears at the beginning of the film with make-up and prosthetics that make her look 30 years older. One time while filming, she accidentally went home with her “old woman” make-up on, scaring her mother. 

    • Actor Tom Wilson played the bully Biff Tannen. The name of the character actually came from a producer who once got so angry with Zemeckis and Gale that he threw their script on the floor. 

  • One of the biggest challenges that production designer Laurence Paull faced was creating the 1950s aesthetic for an audience that might remember the time period. At this point, the 50s had been recent enough that almost no other movies took place in the time period. Paull and his team built the 1950s sets first, using styles and colors from even earlier decades like the 40s and 30s so that nothing would look too modern. Many of the crew said that the set reminded them of where they grew up. 

    • After the 1950s scenes were complete, the crew made the same set look run down and dirty, covering it with graffiti. 

  • Other parts of the film, like the scene at Twin Pines Mall, were shot on location. Production had to wait until after Christmas because the mall was still active, and there would be Christmas decorations and people everywhere. So they waited until January and would start filming after 10 pm when the mall closed. 

  • Despite how it might seem, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis did not write the first Back to the Future with sequels in mind. At the end of the film, they added a scene with Doc Brown returning from the future in a flying DeLorean. This was meant to be a gag and was not supposed to set up a sequel film. But because the first movie did so well, plans for two sequels were underway. The next two movies would be shot back-to-back, with Back to the Future 2 releasing in November 1989, and Back to the Future 3 on May 25th, 1990. 

MUSIC

  • The composed music does not enter into the film until about 24 or so minutes into the movie. The film begins quietly with just the sounds of ticking clocks to establish Doc Brown’s obsession with time. 

  • Alan Sylvestri composed the music for Back to the Future which helped to launch his career. He and Robert Zemeckis wanted the score to feel as big as possible, so he conducted an orchestra of 90 people. At the time, it was the biggest orchestra in the history of Universal. 

  • Some of Sylvestri’s notable films are Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Polar Express (2004), and some of the Avengers films (like Captain America.)

    • In preparation for the 30th Anniversary, concert producers had expressed interest in featuring Back to the Future. Since there is no composed music for the first half of the film this posed a problem. Sylvestri’s agent then suggested that he write more for the beginning of the movie. Since he knew the film was important he was nervous. However, when he discussed the idea over dinner with Zemeckis and Bob Gale, they straight away said it was a great idea! 

    • The new pieces composed weren’t entirely brand new, Sylvestri for many refurbished themes from the entire trilogy to foreshadow.

SOUNDTRACK

  • One distinct aspect that makes this movie special is the appearance of two Huey Lewis and the News songs written specifically for the film. 

  • Gale, Spielberg, and Zemeckis met with Lewis and expressed their high interest in having him write a song for the film, as Marty McFly’s favorite band in the film is Huey Lewis and the News. Lewis responded, “I'm flattered, but I don’t know how to write for film. Plus, I didn’t fancy writing a song called Back to the Future.” 

    • When Zemeckis assured him that the song did not need to be named that, Lewis caved and ended up writing two songs for the film. They were “Power of Love” and “Back in Time.” Power of Love ended up in the number 1 slot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

  • Christopher Lloyd and the Delorean also appear in the music video for “Power of Love.”

AWARDS/RECEPTION 

  • While making the film, producer Steven Spielberg said that if he had a time machine, he’d go forward in time to see if the movie would be a success. Thankfully, the film did well with a budget of approximately $19 million and a gross worldwide final of about just over $383 million. There were some critics, however, that were not fans. One was a Los Angeles Times reviewer, Sheila Benson, who called the ending hollow and materialistic.

  • Many others enjoyed the film and compared it to the fantasy travels in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful life.” Roger Ebert who gave the film 3.5 stars said  “It's about a character who begins with one view of his life and reality, and is allowed, through magical intervention, to discover another.”

  • Variety’s Ray Loynd wrote in 1985 that the “Film is also sharply anchored by zestful byplay between Fox’ Arthurian knight figure and Christopher Lloyd’s Merlin-like, crazed scientist.”

  • The Special Effects team Charles Campbell and Robert Rutledge won an Oscar for Back to the Future! There were actually very few visual effects shots in the film. The movie was also nominated for Oscars for best writing, best sound, and best music: original song. 

FUN FACTS

  • When asked about a favorite scene in 2010 MJF brought up the bedroom scene where he was being seduced saying, “All that stumbling around I did was a direct reaction to all the pressure Lea was putting on me with the eyes and the intensity of what she was doing. It was so fun to work with someone that good.”

  • Back to the Future was such a prominent part of pop culture that a VHS copy of the film was buried in the Nickelodeon Time Capsule, which will be unearthed on April 30th, 2042. 

  • Huey Lewis and the News make a guest appearance as the administration that turns down the band for the battle of the bands in their audition. The singer originally said no to appearing on screen, but eventually agreed as long as he was in disguise and went uncredited. 

    • While he was filming he said, “MTV can’t see this, or I’m finished” referring to his very professional hair, make-up, and suit.

  • For years after shooting Back to the Future, Fox would accidentally refer to other people as “doc” while acting in other movies. 

  • Just before filming began, the head of Universal Sid Sheinberg sent a memo to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. He didn’t like the name Back to the Future and instead asked them to change the name of the film to Space Man from Pluto. Steven Spielberg responded to the memo with his own, saying “Sid, thanks for your most humorous memo. We all got a big kick out of it. Thanks, Steven.” And luckily, they never had to change the name of the film. 

  • In the very first scene of the film, the camera pans around a room filled with clocks. One of them depicts a man hanging from the clockface. This is an homage to one of the most famous moments of the silent film era when Harold Lloyd hung from a clock in his film Safety Last! BUT it’s also foreshadowing the climax of the film when Doc Brown hangs from the clock tower as Marty attempts to harness the lightning and head back to 1985. 

Back to the Future is a bonafide classic. For over 35 years, this film has enchanted audiences with its off-beat and lovable characters, its humor, and its fascinating storyline with more set-ups and pay-offs than any film in recent history. It’s true: almost every moment that gets set up at the beginning of the movie comes back at the end, even after you’ve forgotten about it. 

Back to the Future was a film many years in the making, that got rejected by nearly every studio in Hollywood and almost never found its way to the big screen. It breathed new life into Robert Zemeckis’ and Bob Gale’s careers and launched Michael J Fox into super-stardom. But even more than that, Back to the Future is a film and a franchise that has delighted audiences since its debut. It’s a fun, exciting story that connects us all to the past, no matter how much farther into the future we go.  

Adam Osburn