Back To The Future Trilogy

Hanspostcard is hosting a movie draft from 12 different genres…this is my Movie Series entry.

I was telling someone the other day…if you wanted a movie to define a decade…except for John Hughes movies…Back to the Future would be the one for the 1980s.

This movie trilogy has been copied, parodied, praised, and analyzed. The original movie came out in 1985…the year I graduated, and it fit the times so well. 

Bob Gale, the writer,  is said to have taken inspiration from a look at his father’s yearbook and dreaming about meeting him when he was younger. The basic idea, later formed along with Zemeckis, was having the characters travel inside a refrigerator using the energy of a nuclear blast. After rewrites 

At the time we saw these future products that seemed unreal. Now many of them have become real…fingerprint activated payment devices, video-calling, augmented-reality glasses, wearable tech, intelligent home appliances, personal drones, hands-free gaming devices, and even hoverboards have made an appearance.

The movies left their imprint in a huge way. 

The first movie to me is the best. As far as liking them…my order from best to worse is the order they came in. The first one introduced us to the 2 main characters…Marty and Doc Brown. Marty’s parents and Biff were also important to the story.

The second movie really crosses itself out! After undoing a mistake by Marty…and I can’t blame him one bit for buying the sports book. The movie ends up where we left off…and then Doc ended up in the west and setup the 3rd movie. Plus, the movie predicted the Cubs winning the World Series and they were only off by one year. They predicted in 2015 and they won it in 2016.

The last movie was good but not as good as the other two. You have Marty and Doc in the old west plus a descendant of Biff to be the bad guy. You also get an appearance from one of the hottest rock bands of the 80s…ZZ Top. The series concludes when Marty is back in 1985 with Jennifer and they get a visit by Doc and family to finish things out.

It’s a movie (any of the three) that I can pick up on in the middle or near the end and watch. Watch these movies and you are back in the 80s…so go find a DeLorean and let’s go back and watch the premier.

I list the plots below…like we need any of them, but they are there just in case and yes there are spoilers.

Summaries by IMDB

Back To The Future 1985

It is the year 1985. Marty McFly, a mild-mannered high school student, stopped by Dr. Emmett L. Brown’s laboratory to play around with an amplifier. Then he receives a message from Doc that he needs help from him for Doc’s latest invention, the time machine made out of a DeLorean sports car that can travel through time instantaneously when it reaches a speed velocity of 88 MPH. Then, Doc was gunned down by Libyan Nationalists, Marty makes an effort to escape from the Libyans by using the time machine. Then Marty accidentally warps himself into 1955. Where he meets both of his parents when they were teenagers, then Marty unintentionally interrupts his parent’s first meeting together, he then finds a younger version of Doc and together they try to find a way to get Marty’s parents-to-be back together, and to get Marty back to 1985.

Back To The Future II 1989

This movie begins where Back to the Future ended; with Marty, Doc and Jennifer going into the future to help Marty and Jennifer’s children. After doing that they return to 1985. But when they arrive they discover that things are not as they remember it. There’s a casino which is owned by, of all people, Biff. Marty learns that his father was killed a few years ago and his mother is now married to Biff. Marty meets with Doc who thinks he knows what happened. Somehow Biff got his hands on a book from the future which has in it all sports results and he used it to bet on sports and amass his fortune. Marty said he considered doing that but Doc nixed it. Somehow the Biff from the future discovered about the time machine and Marty’s plan and used the time machine to give his younger self the book. So they have to find out when Biff got the book so they can take it away from him. So Marty goes to see him and confronts him about it and Biff also tells him that he was the one who killed George. Marty and Doc then go back to, of all places, 1955 on the day of the school dance. So Marty tries to get the book while trying to avoid being seen by Doc’s younger self and himself who’s getting ready to go back to 1985. Marty at times gets the book but when Biff calls him a coward, Marty gets incensed which leads to him losing the book so he has to try and get it again.

Back To The Future III 1990

With the Almanac destroyed by Marty McFly and the timeline back on its original course, things are not all well. Dr. Emmett L. Brown and the time machine were somehow struck by lightning, and Marty somehow received a letter from Doc that he is okay, and in the year 1885. Marty and the 1955 Doc fix up the time machine after digging it up from a mine, then Marty discovers a gravestone with Doc’s name on it, indicating that he will be killed by a man named Buford Tannen (Biff’s great-grandfather). Marty makes an effort to travel to 1885 to save Doc from his bleak future. But Marty damages the time machine causing Marty and Doc to have to figure out how to get back to 1985. Unfortunately, this will not be easy with Doc madly in love with schoolteacher Clara Clayton, and with Tannen causing constant trouble for Marty and Doc.

 

 

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

32 thoughts on “Back To The Future Trilogy”

  2. “Back to the Future” works today as well as it did over 35 years ago: The gags, the details are good, the actors had fun. I don’t think the continuations were absolutely necessary, at the beginning was almost everything right.

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    1. The first movie does stand alone rather well on it’s own. It hasn’t aged bad at all…and it still is a lot of fun.

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  8. Absolutely LOVE this trilogy! Most people hated part two, but I found it very interesting. I read the book (an adaption from the screenplay) first, and was totally ticked that it was going to be “continued” in Part 3! (I didn’t realize there was to be a third film.) I loved the soundtrack for Part 3, but felt like that was the weakest of the three – ONLY because I felt the ending left me feeling like it was “called in.” I felt it should have been much more of an ending than it was.

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    1. I agree totally about the ending of part III… It was contrived a bit. I did like 2…don’t get me wrong but it’s funny because basically it cancellened itself out but we got to know the characters more.

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  11. I’ll never tire of these movies, though I wish I actually owned them (I’ve never had my own copies since I got rid of the VHS copies about 15 years ago), though streaming services mean that’s not really necessary.

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    1. I bought them a long time ago…if I catch one on TBS or whatever station I usually stop and watch the rest of it. The streaming services have changed the game.

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      1. Same – I watched from watched from whichever point whenever I caught them on TV. I think they were all on Netflix for a bit… not sure if they still are, but I’ll likely check over the weekend.

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  12. I just about mirror what ObservationBlogger said… I always have been a fan of my fellow Canuck MJF and I saw the original of this series in the theaters, so I guess it was ’85. I liked it a lot, though I must admit now I don’t remember it that clearly – I think I only saw it once more, back in the VHS days. Maybe time to revisit it. then I did see Part II, thought it was alright but didn’t really grab me like the first. So I never bothered with the third, seeing commercials for it looking like a Western turned me off it, whether fairly or not. But definitely a classic bit of ’80s history and a great premise… it’s surprising how many of the things in it are now here, like you point out. (Maybe also surprising, one thing that’s not is Deloreans!)

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    1. The 3rd one is a western but an 80s western…it’s a lot of fun but a little goofier than the others I believe but I liked it. One commenter liked it the best.
      I’m still waiting for a damn hover board! DeLoreans were cool looking but with a shaky history…I bet this movie boosted them at the time.

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      2. The guy himself that made them was in a lot of trouble…right? I think of one word when I heard DeLorean… that would be Cocaine

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  13. I saw the first and second films, which I loved, but never got around to the third. I think the only series in which I made a point to see every single film is Harry Potter, because I loved the books and it was fun watching the three main characters grow and mature over time. With every other series, whether it be Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, Alien or whatever, I eventually lost interest.

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    1. I liked the Harry Potter books and series also. I loved the last one except the way Harry killed him…I wish they would have followed the book.

      I am the definition of a completest. Even if something is beyond terrible…I have to watch the rest of them. I’m the same with collecting…it is a weakness!

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  14. I love all 3, though two probably could have been shortened a bit, though agree the first movie is total classic. I graduated in 1980 and I still feel the trilogy is everything that was good about 80’s movies/pop culture (ignoring the last came in 1990, I think) and I never tire of watching them every couple or 3 years. Ultimate feel-good.

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  15. The first is a decent film, despite how some of the scenes haven’t aged all that well. I never got too much out of either of the sequels, but they are fine for what they are. Also, congrats on 1,000 buddy! Way to go.

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