30 Films That Made Me Who I Am - #20

Back To The Future

     What is there to say that hasn't been said about this film, or indeed the whole series?  It's one of the best films to be released in the past 50 years, it's invited a whole new lexicon into our collective speech, and it's pretty darned funny too!  And to think, due to some happy incidences, we have the film that we have (I'm pretty sure) all seen.  To think, it almost ended up being a Disney film and we almost had Eric Stoltz as Marty instead of Michael J. Fox!  I don't like to think of either of those two possibilities.

     As I mentioned in an earlier installment of this series, the 1980s were great for family entertainment, which we don't have a huge amount of anymore.  Think of the great family films (not kids movies) that came out in the 1980s!  The Karate Kid, The Goonies, E.T., Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Explorers, Flight of The Navigator, Return To Oz, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure...  The list goes on and on.  Now what do we have?  Well, we HAD Harry Potter...  and that's the only really good series I can think of besides Pixar films.  Today we have a lot of kids movies, which aren't very good mostly, and a lot of stuff for older teenagers.  There's not much for everyone to enjoy, which is very sad, and it's one of the reasons I grow tired of the way Hollywood is running things into the ground.  You can have family films and still push the barriers.  Heck, Back To The Future is a great example of that!  

     Think about it.  This film has quite a bit of what I would call "low level swearing".  That is, such words like shit, damn, asshole, and bastard.  The movie has some slightly disturbing incestuous themes to it (which is why Disney dropped the movie).  Also, there's a bit of gun violence and sexuality to it.  And it's still got a PG rating.  And this was after PG-13 came around, so that can't be used as an excuse.  Everyone could see the film, and by the box office tally, pretty much everyone DID see the film.  Family entertainment doesn't have to die, Hollywood, you just need to make some good ones.

    I don't even remember when I first saw Back To The Future.  I was probably around five or so.  I remember I watched it less than the two sequels, because to a very young kid, it always seemed the least awesome.  I mean, part II had the cool futuristic stuff and used to be my favorite of the series because of that, and part III had the cool train and Marty accidentally stepping in poop!  Now, of course, my favorite is the first one, followed by III, and II is my least favorite, but still better than  most films out there.  Let's focus on the first movie though, as that's what made the list.  

    We all know the plot, so I'm not going to reiterate it here.  Suffice it to say that it's both very simple and very complex at the same time... and it's a whole lot of fun!  We all think of the 1950s as a very boring time in American history.  Kind of like we think of the 1980s now, probably.  The 1980s were when the teens of the 50s were getting into their 50s, and as we see at the beginning of the movie, a lot of them had let their hopes and dreams die.  I think now we see a lot of that with teenagers from the 1980s, who are now in their 40s and have teenagers of their own.  Everyone thinks life is going to be easier than it is, and as time goes on things get in our way and we stop chasing dreams in order to just lead a lower-quality life... as long as it's not as hard.  Though brimming with humor, the first fifteen minutes of the movie show Hill Valley in disrepair and Marty's parents living meaningless lives without happiness.  By the end of the movie, Marty himself brings his parents closer than they ever were, and makes his father a better person.  I still haven't decided if he changed his mother at all.  I'm still convinced she's banging some other guy on the side.  I mean who would settle for Crispin Glover?! 

     He also helps out his good friend, the inventor Doc Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd, who I'm sure we all thought was an old man when he was in this.  No!  He was actually only in his late 40s when he was in this.  Ah, the wonders of makeup effects!  Anyway, I think the whole series is more about Doc Brown than Marty.  Or at least, I was always more entertained and interested in him.  He had the best lines, the greatest facial expressions, and of course, the best car.  I can not think of anyone who could repeat the lines as well as Christopher Lloyd did, and my God, the facial expressions!  He's so animated!  For example, one of my favorite lines from the film:

That look he gives at the end makes that whole scene, man!  It's not that funny without it.  Thank God for Christopher Lloyd.

   But characters alone don't make a science fiction film.  Oh no.  The special effects in the film are pretty great too, though if you think about it, the first film doesn't have that many.  The ones it does have were pretty great for 1985.  Even the science is pretty smart.  I mean, sure, there's not really a flux capacitor, but I believe most, if not all, of the wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff is straight, unlike Moffat-era Doctor Who, so it's got that going for it.

     I wish I had been old enough to see this in theaters when it came out.  Alas, I was about a week or so old when this came out.  I may have seen the third one in theaters as I was 4 by time that one came around, but I don't remember it if I did.  My generation needs to remember to show our kids these movies, and not wait until they're teenagers.  By that point the movies seem antiquated and slow to the current generation.  Please don't wait.  I'll leave you with this: