Back to the Future (1985)
Universal Pictures· USA· 116 min· English
Directed by Robert ZemeckisMusic by Alan SilvestriCinematography by Dean Cundey
Synopsis
Teenager Marty McFly is accidentally blasted from 1985 to 1955 in a time machine his friend Doc Brown built out of a DeLorean. Stranded with no plutonium, he derails his own parents' first meeting — and has one week to make his father fall in love with his mother, or he'll never be born.
Review
Back to the Future is the most perfectly constructed crowd-pleaser Hollywood has ever produced. Zemeckis and Bob Gale's screenplay is taught in writing programs as a machine with no wasted parts: every joke in 1985 is a setup for 1955, every payoff detonates on schedule, and the clock-tower climax stacks failure on failure with sadistic precision. If story structure were an Olympic event, this is the routine that ends with a perfect ten and a lightning strike.
Michael J. Fox — cast weeks into production after Eric Stoltz was let go, shooting the sitcom Family Ties by day and this by night — brings a comic panic that makes Marty the ideal audience surrogate. Opposite him, Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown turns exposition into physical comedy; the film's most complicated science lectures are delivered at a full sprint, wide-eyed, and you follow every word.
And beneath the flawless engineering is something oddly poignant: a kid discovering his parents were young once, that they were scared and horny and hopeful, and that a single act of courage can echo down a family for thirty years. Add the era's most beloved movie car and Alan Silvestri's soaring fanfare, and you have the rare blockbuster with no expiry date. Where it's going, it doesn't need roads.
Trivia & Color Notes
The DeLorean
The time machine is a DMC-12, the stainless-steel gull-winged sports car produced 1981–83 by John DeLorean's ill-fated company — only about 9,000 were made. Earlier drafts used a refrigerator; Zemeckis feared kids would climb into fridges, and a car that had to hit 88 mph was funnier anyway.
The Eric Stoltz eraser
Eric Stoltz shot Marty for five weeks before being replaced — his takes deemed too dramatic. Reshooting cost millions, and Michael J. Fox filmed his sitcom by day and the movie by night on four hours of sleep.
1.21 jigowatts
'Gigawatts' was mispronounced 'jigowatts' because that's how a physicist consultant said it in a meeting Zemeckis and Gale attended. 1.21 GW is roughly one large power station — or, as the film correctly notes, one bolt of lightning.
Ronald Reagan, twice
Doc refuses to believe an actor is president in 1985. Reagan reportedly loved the joke so much he had the projectionist rewind it — and quoted the film ('where we're going, we don't need roads') in his 1986 State of the Union address.
One town square, two eras
Hill Valley's square is Universal's Courthouse Square backlot, dressed as pristine 1955 first, then aged into shabby 1985 — the film shot the past before the present so the decay could be applied rather than removed.
The flux capacitor is proud technobabble, 1.21 'jigowatts' is a real (mispronounced) unit — about the output of a large nuclear plant, amusingly deliverable by a lightning bolt as the film claims — and 88 mph is pure numerology. The film's timeline model (changes propagate, photographs fade, you can erase yourself) is philosophically incoherent but dramatically ideal. Honorable mention: using a lightning strike as a precisely-timed power source with a wire and a hook is exactly the kind of insane engineering a 1955 physicist might actually attempt.
🎵 Soundtrack
Music by Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestri's score — his first blockbuster — gives a teen comedy the brass of an epic; the main theme is now shorthand for adventure itself. Huey Lewis's 'The Power of Love' went to #1, and Marty inventing rock 'n' roll with 'Johnny B. Goode' is the film's cheekiest time loop.
🔗 This film connects to…
Cast & Crew
Director
Writer
Producer
Composer
Cinematographer
Cast
- Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly
- Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown
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