Back to the Future
This article is about the first film of a trilogy. See Back to the Future trilogy for the entire series. See John Mearsheimer for information on the 1990 foreign policy paper.Back to the Future is an
American adventure-
comedy film directed by
Robert Zemeckis and released in
1985. It is about a young man who is accidentally sent into the past and jeopardizes his own future existence. This story was continued with a sequel,
Back to the Future Part II, which was released in 1989; and another sequel in 1990,
Back to the Future Part III, forming a
trilogy.
Back To The Future was written by
Bob Gale and Zemeckis, and starred
Michael J. Fox and
Christopher Lloyd. The movie opened on
July 3,
1985 and grossed
US$210 million at the US box office, making it the highest grossing film of 1985. On
December 17,
2002, Universal Home Video released
Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy on
DVD and
VHS.
Following the completion of the film series, two more spin-off projects surfaced.
CBS TV aired an
animated series,
Back to the Future: The Animated Series, while
Harvey Comics (publishers of
Casper the Friendly Ghost) released a handful of similarly styled comic books, although their stories were original and not merely duplicates of the cartoon.
Marty McFly, a 17-year old high-school senior, is an avid
skateboarder and
electric guitarist. Marty is invited by his friend
Dr. Emmett Brown, an eccentric local scientist, to witness a demonstration of Doc's latest invention: a
time-machine made from a modified
DeLorean sports car, which must reach 88 miles-per-hour in order to travel through time. At first, Doc tests the car by sending his dog, Einstein (named after
Albert Einstein), one minute into the future. Following the successful test, a group of
Libyan terrorists (from whom Doc had acquired stolen
plutonium necessary to fuel the time machine, and in return gave them what they thought was a plutonium powered bomb that was actually a bomb casing filled with old pinball machine parts) come looking for revenge. The Libyans open fire on Doc Brown, unloading a barrage of bullets into his chest. Marty escapes from the Libyans in the DeLorean; while doing so, he inadvertently travels back in time to November 5, 1955.
In the past, Marty accidentally interferes with the first meeting of his parents
George McFly and
Lorraine Baines, an act with seismic cosmic significance, as it jeopardizes Marty's own existence. This occurs when Lorraine falls in love with Marty instead of George. Marty meets his mother's 1955 family and then heads off to find Doc, who is skeptical at first about Marty's account. Doc in 1955 is not yet a successful inventor. Doc in 1985 entered the year 1955 into the time machine because that was when he fell and had the vision of the
flux capacitor ("which is what makes time travel possible"). Marty uses this information to convince Doc that he really is from the future.
Marty carries a snapshot of himself with his sister and brother, and 1955 Doc Brown discovers they are fading out, first Dave, the oldest, then Linda. Marty finds himself stranded, not having brought any additional plutonium back with him. The plutonium is used to create the "1.21 gigawatts" of electricity used to power the flux capacitor. Doc explains that only a bolt of lightning has the sufficient power required. Marty was given a fundraising flyer from 1985 that recounts the story of how the town's clock tower was struck by lightning on November 12, 1955 - just one week away.
With Doc's help, they find a way to send Marty back to the future: using a lightning bolt for power that the flier reports will strike the clock tower at exactly 10:04 p.m. Saturday. They will rig the DeLorean to channel the lightning into the flux capacitor, sending Marty back to 1985. However, a greater problem has occurred: his mother is now infatuated with him, having never met his father and Marty has triggered a
Grandfather paradox which will avert his own birth. Now Marty must not only manipulate his parents back together, but do it before the lightning hits the clock tower.
While attempting to hook his parents up with each other, Marty has trouble with the school
bully,
Biff Tannen, who is also after Lorraine. In one instance, Biff and his cronies chase him while Marty gets a makeshift skateboard, and they crash into a manure truck. Unfortunately, this only makes Lorraine even more attracted to Marty. While Marty is trying to get George to ask her to their school's "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance, Lorraine comes and asks Marty to the dance.
Marty realizes his best chance to have the two get together is at the school dance where George originally first kissed Lorraine, the night of the lightning storm. Marty's plan is to 'take advantage' of Lorraine in the car, so that George can rescue her, which would put him in a good light. Lorraine reveals that she is more than willing to let Marty take advantage of her, having snuck out some liquor for the event. However, Lorraine and Marty kiss, which triggers Lorraine to say that kissing Marty was like "kissing my brother", which stops the possibility of Lorraine accidentally triggering an incestual relationship. Biff arrives instead of George, gets in the car with Lorraine, and tells his gang to take Marty "around back," where they lock him in the trunk of a car. When George arrives, expecting Marty, he finds Biff harassing Lorraine instead; Biff gets out of the car and almost breaks George's arm. When George sees Biff push Lorraine to the ground and laugh at her, he becomes infuriated with him and he knocks Biff out with a punch. George and Lorraine head off to the dance just in time for Marty to see they have reunited for the dance after being freed from the car he was locked in.
Marty is still not certain of his future without witnessing his parents' first kiss, however the band's guitarist, Marvin Berry, cut his hand open while getting Marty out of the car's locked trunk, which would mean the dance is over. Marty volunteers to play the guitar, and during the first number,
Earth Angel, someone cuts in between George and Lorraine. Dave and Linda are long gone from the photograph and Marty, to his horror, begins to fade out from the picture - and erase in reality (he watches his own hand and arm begin to disappear).
George pushes away the person who cut in, and then kisses Lorraine. Marty begins playing the guitar again with renewed strength, and realizes from the photograph that Linda and Dave have reappeared. While playing another song,
Johnny B. Goode, Marty gets carried away, eventually reverting into typical early 1980s stage play (including kicking over his
amplifier in imitation of
The Who, lying on the stage kicking his legs in imitation of
Angus Young, playing behind his head like
Jimi Hendrix and
tapping in the style of
Eddie Van Halen), resulting in a blank stare from the audience. Which ends with Marty telling the audience "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."
Marty leaves the gym after talking with his parents and giving them the inspiration for his name. Marty reaches the clocktower, where Doc has suspended a cable from the top of the tower to two lamp posts on the street below to channel the lighting into the DeLorean. However, a tree limb falls onto the cable, disconnecting the wire. Prior to climbing up the tower, Doc discovers a note from Marty in his coat pocket, warning him about his future death. Upset that Marty tried to warn him, Doc tears up the letter, saying that "the consequence could be disastrous." Doc climbs up the clock tower to reconnect the wires, while Marty charges toward the lamp posts with the DeLorean. While Doc connects the wire on top of the tower, he accidentally severs the connection to the lampost. Doc slides down the wire and reconnects the cable, just as the lightning hits the tower. Marty then speeds through the electrified wire, sending the DeLorean back to the future.
Marty returns to 1985, ten minutes before he left due to his setting the destination cooridinates back 11 minutes, so he would have enough time to stop Doc's impending death. But the car's starter stops working, and he has to run to the mall, where he sees himself driving the DeLorean back in time from the start of the movie, and causing the terrorists to crash into a photo booth. However, Marty is still unable to save Doc from getting shot. Marty rushes down to Doc's body and turns away in tears, but Doc sits up. He reveals he wore a bulletproof vest under his radiation suit. Doc then pulls out the letter Marty wrote him, taped up from 30 years before.
Doc drives Marty home, then heads 30 years into the future. In the morning, Marty discovers his house is different; there is a nicer car in the driveway, Linda and Dave appear much more successful (in the beginning of the movie the family is depicted much more like
working class people), and Lorraine and George are much closer and loving to one another (and a little more glamorous looking) than he remembers. A humble Biff (who instead of being George's supervisor, now runs an auto detailing service) runs in with the delivery of George's first novel, a work of
science fiction. Also, Marty finds that the
Toyota pick-up truck that he previously coveted is now his. Just as Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer are about to take a ride in the truck, Doc reappears in the DeLorean, telling Marty that something has got to be done about their kids, and hurries him and Jennifer into the car. Marty points out that there is not enough road to accelerate to 88 mph, but Doc says "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads" and flies off in the now hover-converted car, which turns around and comes hurtling towards the viewer to end the movie. The ending was reshot for the sequel
Back To The Future Part II because
Elisabeth Shue played Jennifer in the two sequels.
The series was very popular in the 1980s, even making fans out of celebrities like
ZZ Top (who appeared in the third film) and
President Ronald Reagan, who referred to the movie in his 1986
State of the Union address when he said,
"Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of rousing wonder and heroic achievement. As they said in the film Back to the Future
, 'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'" [
1] He also considered accepting a role in the third film as the 1885 mayor of
Hill Valley but eventually declined. The hip, upbeat soundtrack, featuring two new songs by
Huey Lewis and the News, contributed to the film's popularity. "
The Power of Love" became the band's first song to hit number one on the
Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for an
Academy Award.
Sequels were not initially planned. Zemeckis later stated that the original ending to the first film would have been rewritten so that Marty's girlfriend would not have been included. In addition, the "To Be Continued..." caption, according to Zemeckis, was not added until the film was released to video at which time plans for a sequel (eventually two sequels) had been announced (the filmmakers chose to omit the caption from the 2002 DVD release). Ultimately, the sequels did not fare quite as well at the box office. While the first installment grossed $218 million (making it the biggest-earning movie of 1985), Parts II (fall of
1989) and III (summer of
1990) made roughly $125 million and $90 million, respectively (still making the movies hits, but not major hits). It is usual for sequels to suffer from diminishing returns, and in this case the box office may have also been affected by Part III being released so soon after Part II.
As
Back to the Future's producers were scouting locations on a residential street in Pasadena, Michael J. Fox was elsewhere on that street, filming what became his first starring feature role,
Teen Wolf. The producers became interested in having Fox play
Back to the Future's lead role of "Marty McFly". However, Fox initially had to turn down the part because the producers of the
Family Ties television show wouldn't allow Fox's character on that show (
Alex Keaton) to be absent from any episodes.
Production of the film began on
November 261984 with actor
Eric Stoltz portraying Marty McFly. But after filming began, the filmmakers came to the conclusion that Stoltz was not right for the part. Stoltz had played it serious, but they wanted a lighter touch on the character. It is believed that they had, at that point, filmed about one third of the completed movie. They returned to the idea of Michael J. Fox, who this time worked out a shooting schedule that wouldn't interfere with his commitments on
Family Ties. Fox would spend his days rehearsing and shooting
Family Ties, and then drive immediately over to the movie's set and film
Back to The Future all night. The movie's day shots would be filmed on weekends.
Fox reportedly averaged only an hour or two of sleep each night during production. Shooting was completed on
April 201985, less than three months before its release.
Footage with Stoltz as Marty McFly still exists, according to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. One notable scene with Stoltz that was kept in the final film is the scene in the mall parking lot in which Marty is driving the time machine. Stoltz is at the wheel of the DeLorean in that scene. After the change in actors occurred, it was decided to stick with the previously filmed footage for that scene, since the shots were fairly distant, with the driver's face not particularly visible.
More detailed still photos featuring Stoltz in the role can be found at BTTF.com. [
2]
The film sparked discussion in magazines and fanzines over the nature of alternate timelines.
Starlog magazine, in particular, ran an article soon after the film's release in which the ramifications of time travel are discussed. During the first scene at the mall, just before Marty makes his first time-jump, eagle-eyed viewers can spot a shadow moving amongst some trees in the background. The shadow is barely visible between Doc Brown's leg and the bumper of his van (moving from right to left) when he throws away his revolver in surrender to the Libyans. The
Starlog article postulated that this might be another Marty arriving just as what occurs at the end of the film; the question the article asks is whether this is the same Marty whose adventures we follow in the film, or an alternate Marty who is arriving to discover that, in this timeline, the Doc is truly dead.
A more plausible explanation is that this is the shadow of Doc Brown's revolver. The shadow appears at the exact moment that Doc tosses the revolver and disappears at the instant the revolver hits the ground. The shadow is also moving right to left just like the revolver.
*
Billy Zane makes his first on-screen appearance in this film as "Match", one of Biff's cronies. He also had a brief appearance in
Back to the Future Part II.
*Michael J. Fox had to learn to skateboard for the film.
*Michael J. Fox is only ten days younger than
Lea Thompson, the actress who plays his mother, and is almost three years older than his on-screen dad,
Crispin Glover.
*The time machine has been through several variations. In the first draft of the screenplay the time machine was a laser device that was housed in a room. At the end of the first draft the device was attached to a refrigerator and taken to an atomic bomb test. Director Robert Zemeckis said in an interview that the idea was scrapped because he did not want children to start climbing into refrigerators and getting trapped inside. In the third draft of the film the time machine was a
DeLorean, but in order to send Marty back to the future the vehicle had to drive the DeLorean into an atomic bomb test. Zemeckis believed that if you were going to make a time machine, you would want it to move.
*When the DeLorean goes back in time for the first time, it stops by crashing into a barn, which we soon learn belongs to a farmer named Peabody. We know this because as the DeLorean speeds off the property to escape being shot, we see buckshot shatter the mailbox bearing his name, and because Doc had remarked to Marty, "...old man Peabody used to own all of this [land]." Farmer Peabody's son is named Sherman. Sherman was the name of the little boy time traveler in each of the
"Peabody's Improbable History" sections of
Jay Ward's cartoon show,
"The Bullwinkle Show" (1961). The dog who "owned" Sherman and the time machine was named
Mr. Peabody.
*The "main street" is the same one used in several films, including
Gremlins (1984) and
Bruce Almighty (2003).
*Rock star Huey Lewis, who wrote "The Power of Love" for the movie, makes a cameo as the man with the megaphone who tells Marty and his band, "I'm afraid you're just too darn loud" at their high school audition. They are playing Lewis' song during the audition.
*When Marty takes Marvin Berry's place at lead guitar during the school dance, he plays
Johnny B Goode. During the performance, Marvin makes a phone call to his cousin, Chuck, who is "looking for a new sound". This is a reference to rock and roll legend
Chuck Berry, who would go on to write Johnny B. Goode that same year.
*According to the
Universal Studios back lot tour, the clock tower is the same one that is seen in the movie
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). The area is referred to as Mockingbird Square, and it is a stone's throw away from other famous filming locations, such as the exterior of the
Psycho (1960) house and the "
Red Sea" that was used in
History of the World: Part I (1981) (it is incorrectly sometimes noted as where
The Ten Commandments (1956) was filmed).
*The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Converter, which is sitting on the DeLorean when Doc returns from the future, is made from (among other things) a Krups coffee grinder.
*The script never called for Marty to repeatedly bang his head on the gull-wing door of the DeLorean; this was improvised during filming as the door mechanism became faulty.
*The school that served as Hill Valley High was
Whittier High School in
Whittier, California, just outside of
Los Angeles. It's
Richard Nixon's
alma mater.
*The Twin Pines Mall is, in fact, the
Puente Hills Mall in the City of Industry, California.
*In the film's script the word "
gigawatt" is spelt "jigowatt". Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis had been to a science seminar and the speaker had pronounced it "jigowatt".
*The device in Doc Brown's lab that Marty plugs his guitar into is labeled "
CRM-114", which was the name of the message decoder on the
B-52 in
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), directed by
Stanley Kubrick* During the intial car chase at the beginning of the movie the odometer on the DeLorean reads 3,306 miles. At the end just before the lightning strike it reads 3,305 miles.
*A marketer hoped to get a prominent placement for California Raisins somewhere in the film. He suggested putting a bowl of raisins on a table at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. He had also told the California Raisins board that this would do for raisins what
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) did for Reese's Pieces. Bob Gale informed him that a bowl of raisins would photograph like a bowl of dirt. The only thing that appears in the film is Marty jumping over Red, sleeping on a bench that is advertising California Raisins.
*The date Marty travels back (November 5th) is also used in the movie
Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982).
*
Wendie Jo Sperber, who played Linda McFly, was in fact three years older than Lea Thompson, who played her mother, and six years older than Crispin Glover, the actor who played her father.
*According to
Back to the Future Part III (1990), the clock in the clock tower started running at 8:00 p.m. on September 5, 1885. The date is provided by the caption on the photograph that Doc Brown gives Marty at the end of Back to the Future Part III (1990). The time is provided by the mayor in Back to the Future Part III (1990), who starts it. The lightning strikes the clock tower at 10:04 p.m. on November 12, 1955. This means that the clock tower operated for exactly 70 years, 2 months, 7 days, 2 hours, and 4 minutes.
*The newscaster on TV in the opening sequence is
Deborah Harmon, who appeared in director Robert Zemeckis'
Used Cars (1980).
*The license plate on a car outside the band audition (which says "FOR MARY") is a tribute to Mary T. Radford, personal assistant to second unit director
Frank Marshall.
*Doc Brown's "man hanging off a clock face" depicts the famous scene in
Harold Lloyd's
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947), which itself is a remake of Harold Lloyd's film,
Safety Last! (1923) and was also a scene from Charlie Chaplin's black and white comedy films.
*Displayed prominently at the head of Marty's bed is a brightly colored magazine named "RQ." This is "Reference Quarterly," of interest only to professional librarians.
*The mall where Marty McFly meets Doc Brown for their time travel experiment is called "Twin Pines Mall". Doc Brown comments that old farmer Peabody used to own all of the land, and he grew pines there. When Marty goes back in time, he runs over and knocks down a pine tree on the Peabody's property. When he comes back to the mall at the end of the film, the sign at the mall identifies the mall as "Lone Pine Mall".
*The dialogue where Lorraine says that when she grows up she'll let her kids do anything they want was cut. That dialogue is re-inserted in
Back to the Future Part II (1989) when the second Marty creeps past the car the first Marty and 1955 Lorraine are in. Lorraine states she'll let her kids do anything. The Marty in the car replies, "I'd like to have that in writing" and the Marty sneaking by responds with "Yeah, me too."
*Another deleted scene shows Marty peeking in on a class in 1955 and seeing his mother cheating on a test.
*The scene where Marty asks if he and Jennifer become "assholes" in the future was re-shot for television so that they ask if they're "jerks" instead.
*Doc Brown's dog Einstein arrives from the world's first time-travel excursion at 1:21am. Coincidentally, the DeLorean requires 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to travel through time. 121 is the square of the number 11.
*The DeLorean time machine is a licensed, registered vehicle in the state of California. While the vanity license plate used in the film says "OUTATIME", the DeLorean's actual license plate reads 3CZV657
*The chime of the Clock Tower in 1955 is intentionally the same as the chime in the 1960 movie
The Time Machine (1960) based on the story by
H.G. Wells.
*The space alien gag first appeared in the screenplay's third draft, with the primary difference being that it was to be done to Biff.
*When Robert Zemeckis was trying to sell the idea of this film, one of the companies he approached was
Disney, who turned it down because they thought that the story of a mother falling in love with her son (albeit by a twist of time travel) was too
risqué for a film under their banner. In fact, Disney was the only company to think the first was risqué. All other companies said that the film was not risqué enough, compared to other teen comedies at the time (e.g.,
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982),
Revenge of the Nerds (1984), etc).
*Character name of Emmett comes from the word "time," spelled backwards and pronounced as syllables (em-it).
*Doc Brown's middle initial is "L" but no name was ever actually given. Bob Gale, the film's writer, was asked about this and gave him the name "Lathrop" (almost "portal" backwards - see above).
*A very brief scene was cut in-between the scenes of the McFly family dinner and Marty being woken up by Doc's phone call. It involved Marty preparing to send his demo tape to a record company. Marty decides not to do it, and leaves the empty manila envelope on his desk. In a scene that remains in the film, he goes to breakfast with the manila envelope sealed, suggesting he decided to send it in.
*The house used for Doc Brown's home is the
Gamble House at 3 Westmoreland Ave., Pasadena, California. It was the home of the Gamble family until 1966, when it was turned over to the University of Southern California. It is now a historical museum.
*Earlier versions of the script had the time machine getting the required power from a
nuclear test in the
Nevada desert. The scene was considered too expensive to film, so the power source was changed to lightning.
*Canadian pop singer
Corey Hart was asked to screen test for the part of Marty.
*When Marty is trying to restart the DeLorean in 1955 as he prepares to return to the year 1985, the car's headlights flash the
Morse Code for "
SOS".
*The opening sequence with the ticking clocks is a direct lift from
The Time Machine (1960).
*The DeLorean used in the trilogy was a 1981 DMC-12 model, with a 6-cylinder PRV (Peugeot/Renault/Volvo) engine. The base for the nuclear-reactor was made from the hubcap from a Dodge Polaris. In the 2002 Special-Edition DVD of the BTTF Trilogy, it is incorrectly stated that the DeLorean had a standard 4-cylinder engine.
*
C. Thomas Howell was considered to play the role of Marty McFly.
*Apparently
Ronald Reagan was amused by Doc Brown's disbelief that an actor like him could become president, so much so that he had the projectionist stop and replay the scene. He also seemed to enjoy it so much that he even made a direct reference of the film in his
1986 State of the Union Address: "As they said in the film Back to the Future,
Where we're going, we don't need roads.*In the opening sequence, all of Doc's clocks read 7:55 (25 minutes slow) except for one clock. It is on the floor next to the case of plutonium and it reads 8:20.
*
Alan Silvestri's orchestra for the score of the film was the largest ever assembled at that time.
*Ron Cobb was originally hired to design the DeLorean time machine but left for another project and was replaced by Andrew Probert.
*When Lorraine follows Marty back to Doc's house, she and Doc exchange an awkward greeting. This marks the only on-screen dialogue that Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson ever have, though they have appeared together in five movies and one TV movie.
*
Melora Hardin was briefly cast as Jennifer when
Claudia Wells initially dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, but was fired because she was taller than Michael J. Fox.
*In the original script, Marty's playing rock and roll at the dance caused a riot which had to be broken up by police. This, combined with Marty accidentally tipping Doc off to the "secret ingredient" that made the time machine work (
Coca-Cola) caused history to change. When Marty got back to the 1980s, he found that it was now the 1950s conception of that decade, with air-cars and what-not (all invented by Doc Brown and running on Coca-Cola). Marty also discovers that rock and roll was never invented, and he dedicates himself to starting the delayed cultural revolution. Meanwhile, his dad digs out the newspaper from the day after the dance and sees his son in the picture of the riot.
*In the French version, when Marty wakes up in 1955 in his young mother's bed, she calls him
Pierre Cardin instead of
Calvin Klein. In the Italian and Spanish versions, she calls him
Levi Strauss.
*When this movie was previewed for a test audience,
Industrial Light and Magic had not completed the final DeLorean-in-flight shot, and the last several minutes of the movie were previewed in black and white. It didn't matter, as the audience roared in approval of the final scene anyway.
*
Universal Pictures head
Sid Sheinberg did not like the title "Back to the Future", insisting that nobody would see a movie with "future" in the title. In a memo to
Robert Zemeckis, he said that the title should be changed to
"Spaceman From Pluto", tying in with the Marty-as-alien jokes in the film. Sid Sheinberg was persuaded to change his mind by a response memo from
Steven Spielberg, which thanked him for sending a wonderful "joke memo", and that everyone got a kick out of it. Sid Sheinberg, too proud to admit he was serious, gave in to letting the film retain its title.
*
John Lithgow and
Jeff Goldblum were considered for the role of Doc Brown.
*The two red labels on the flux capacitor say "Disconnect Capacitor Drive Before Opening" (at the top) and "Shield Eyes From Light"
*When Marty pretends to be
Darth Vader from the planet
Vulcan, he plays a tape labeled "
Van Halen" to scare George out of his sleep. It is an untitled
Edward Van Halen original written for a movie called
The Wild Life (1984) which featured
Lea Thompson.
*Voted number 7 in channel 4's (
UK) "Greatest Family Films"
*The inspiration for the film largely stems from
Bob Gale discovering his father's high school yearbook and wondering whether he would have been friends with his father as a teenager.
*There are only about 32 special effects shots in the entire film.
*The production ultimately used three real DeLoreans: one for external drive/race scenes, one with a modified interior for entering/exiting the DeLorean, and one one stripped down model for interior scenes only.
*It took three hours in make-up to turn the 23-year-old Lea Thompson into the 47-year-old Lorraine.
*Playing at the Hill Valley cinema is
Cattle Queen of Montana (1954) starring
Barbara Stanwyck and
Ronald Reagan; the latter of course was the
President of the United States in 1985, the year the film was made.
*The
"Tales From Space" comic book reappeared in at least two episodes of
Oliver Beene (2003).
*Though the film
Marty (1955) won the
Academy Award for
Best Picture in 1955,
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale say in the DVD Q&A session that they were not aware of this fact when they named their main character Marty.
*The coincidences with the film Marty (1955) are not limited to the name of the protagonist; note that in both films, the cafe-owner's name is Lou.
*The lion statues in front of the Lyon Estates subdivisions were inspired by two like statues in the
University City Loop in
St. Louis, where writer
Bob Gale grew up.
*
Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal Pictures, requested many changes to be made throughout the movie. Most of these he got, such as having "Professor Brown" changed to "Doc Brown" and his chimp Shemp changed to a dog named
Einstein. Marty's mother's name had previously been Meg and then Eileen, but Sid Sheinberg insisted that she be named Lorraine after his wife Lorraine Gary.
*Marty's
Guitars used throughout the movie:
**Erlewine Chiquita ("big amp" sequence)
**Ibanez black Strat copy (scenes of Marty's band performing in the 80s)
**Gibson ES-335 (Marty performing at the dance)
*The Gibson ES-335 guitar that Marty plays in the dance sequence is not historically accurate, as that particular guitar was not introduced until 1958, three years after the period that the movie takes place in. There are also certain noticeable discrepancies between the guitar played in the dance scene of the first film and it's sequel. These differences can be seen in the second film as they spliced footage from the first film with newly shot scenes for Back to the Future Part II.
*Doc's phone number in 1955 is Klondike 54385. The letters "K" and "L" are both on the digit 5; thus, the number still begins with the 555- prefix, indicating a fictional number.
*When the McFly family is sitting down for dinner before Marty travels back in time (early in the movie), Michael J. Fox is seen drinking a can of
Pepsi, which he was a major endorser of in the '80s and '90s.
*Director Robert Zemeckis used the same beginning as The Time Machine (1960) as a homage to that film. Having the destination timeframe, current timeframe and recently departed timeframe readouts on the panel in red, green and yellow LEDs respectively was a nod to the time machine from that film having red, green and yellow lights on the top of its console.
*
Christopher Lloyd based his performance as Doc Brown on a combination of physicist Albert Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski.
*
Bob Gale explains that, to find a coordinator for the skateboarding scenes, he went to
Venice beach and approached two skateboarders. One turned out to be European skate champ,
Per Welinder, and the skater he was with became the stunt double for
Eric Stoltz, but was recast when they recast the role of Marty McFly in order to match Michael J. Fox's height.
* In the animated show
The Fairly Oddparents, in the episode "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker", the
Delorean is seen there for a brief moment when Timmy, Cosmo, and Wanda travel to the 80's.
* In recent television airings of the film on
TNT, the scene where Marty writes the letter to Doc Brown is edited to remove the mention of the word "
terrorists," and the word is not visible when the letter is shown.
*
1980s in film*
1950s Nostalgia Films*
Official news site offering officially licensed memorabilia.*
Official Universal Pictures site advertising the trilogy.*
MovieTourGuide.com - Maps and Directions to Back to the Future Filming Locations*
Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies - Back To The Future*
Filming Location
