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The 1985 science-fiction comedy directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Michael J. Fox.
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Even though Robert Zemeckis was a filmmaker that Steven Spielberg liked and wanted to succeed, in the early 1980s, Zemeckis was on the verge of watching his film directing career come to a crashing end. Zemeckis had several films under his belt, but all of them had been flops at the box office and had received mostly negative critical reviews. In the early 1980s Zemeckis was probably best known as one of the co-writers of 1941, the only critically-panned film of Spielberg's early film career. Things changed in 1984 with the success of ROMANCING THE STONE. Zemeckis was being hailed and peopled wanted to know what the young filmmaker would do next. Initiated and supported by Spielberg, Zemeckis decided to go back to a story he had written years earlier with Bob Gale and thus BACK TO THE FUTURE came to be.
+5
The idea for BACK TO THE FUTURE was spawned by Bob Gale after a visit to his hometown of University City, Missouri where he spent some time looking through his parents' high school yearbooks and wondered what it would be like to go back through time and meet his parents when they were teenagers.
In the film, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is an average student and aspiring musician that finds himself trying to come to find a balance between the middle-class existence he lives in and following his dreams of becoming a rock star and marrying his sweetheart Jennifer (Claudi Wells). Besides music, Marty spends a lot of his free time helping out his good friend, the local crazy scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd). Doc Brown has finally succeeded in creating a revolutionary invention and needs Marty's help. The invention turns out to be a time machine fitted into a Delorean. The flux capacitor, the device that causes time travel possible, needs a tremendous amount of energy and in 1985 that means it runs on plutonium. Doc stole the plutonium from a group of Libyan terrorists who wanted him to make a nuclear bomb for them. Unfortunately, the Libyans track Doc down and kill him. They try to kill Marty, too, but he escapes in the Delorean and finds himself hurtling back through time to 1955. The only person who can help him is the Doc Brown from 1955. Marty kind of likes the era, but then he discovers that time travel is more dangerous than he ever imagined when he accidentally keeps his parents from having their first meeting. That encounter threatens Marty's own existence and before he can get back to the future, he has to get his parents to get back together.
BACK TO THE FUTURE was the highest grossing movie of 1985 and remains one of the most popular films of all time. It's not difficult to see why. The film has a great story and is full of great character portrayed by amazing group of actors. Most people can strongly relate to the characters in the story and regardless of when a person grew up, we can all relate to the feelings of Marty longing to have a stronger relationship with his family and get back home or with his father George (Crispin Glover) having to go through high school dealing with a bully or with Lorraine (Lea Thompson) longing to have a strong man in her life who will protect and defend her. Of course, there's also the whole element of time travel. I think most people are fascinated by the idea, even if many of us would never choose to travel through time if we had the opportunity.
As a time travel movie, the BACK TO THE FUTURE films stand alone. They are some of the few movies that set up rules for time travel and follow those rules through most of the series. There are very few films who illustrate the inherent dangers of traveling through time as well that BACK TO THE FUTURE does.
BACK TO THE FUTURE is a movie that everyone should see at once in their life. It has a broad base of appeal because it has just the right mixture of action, romance, and sci-fi. Highly recommended.
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More Back to the Future reviews
review by Captain_Couth.
May 15, 2009
Back to the Future is the film that launched Michael J. Fox's career into the stratosphere. This film not only made him into an eighties superstar but it also made Back to the Future a part of Americana and a slight fixture upon Hollywood for a few years there after. This film was so successful that it was made into a trilogy. The film follows a high school student Marty Mc Fly (Michael J. Fox) who's not pleased with the way his life has been going. He always feels that there's … more
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review by shoyu1.
May 15, 2009
Here we are, it's 1985 and we're being introduced to Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his inventor friend Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) not sure how these two became friends, but there you go. Anyway, Dr. Brown is famous (rather infamous) for his crackpot ideas - The auto dog feeder, clocks that are exactly twenty five minutes slow, and so on... Until he invents the flux capacitor - it's what makes time travel possible. So, after making a deal with some terrorists to acquire plutonium, we … more
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review by MichaelN.
May 13, 2009
This movie was made in the mid 1980's and is still just as fresh today as when it was first released. My young children who weren't even born till more than 10 years after this movie came out, like to watch it over and over again. Last year we were in Universal Studios Orlando and they were so excited to see the Delorian on display outside the Back to the Future Ride. And everyone seems to remember the flux capacitor! Christopher Llloyd and Michael J. Fox give the performances of their career. A … more
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Compliments (1)
This movie was made in the mid 1980's and is still just as fresh today as when it was first released. My young children who weren't even born till more than 10 years after this movie came out, like to watch it over and over again. Last year we were in Universal Studios Orlando and they were so excited to see the Delorian on display outside the Back to the Future Ride. And everyone seems to remember the flux capacitor!Christopher Llloyd and Michael J. Fox give the performances of their career. A … more
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tomtom13
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About this movie
Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis topped his breakaway hit Romancing the Stone with this joyous comedy with a dazzling hook: what would it be like to meet your parents in their youth? Billed as a special-effects comedy, the imaginative film (the top box-office smash of 1985) has staying power because of the heart behind Zemeckis and Bob Gale's script. High schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, during the height of his TV success) is catapulted back to the '50s where he sees his parents in their teens, and accidentally changes the history of how Mom and Dad met. Filled with the humorous ideology of the '50s, filtered through the knowledge of the '80s (actor Ronald Reagan is president, ha!), the film comes off as a Twilight Zone episode written by Preston Sturges. Filled with memorable effects and two wonderfully off-key, perfectly cast performances: Christopher Lloyd as the crazy scientist who builds the time machine (a DeLorean luxury car) and Crispin Glover as Marty's geeky dad. Followed by two sequels. --Doug Thomas
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Cast:
George "Buck" Flower,
Elsa Raven,
Christopher Lloyd,
Boyd "Red" Morgan,
Jamie Abbott,
James Tolkan,
Lisa Freeman,
Michael J. Fox,
Crispin Glover,
Lea Thompson,
Wendie Jo Sperber,
Claudia Wells,
Thomas F. Wilson,
Thomas J. Wilson,
Marc McClure,
George DiCenzo,
Frances Lee McCain,
Jason Marin,
Paul Hansen,
Will Hare,
Deborah Harmon,
Huey Lewis and the News,
Cristen Kauffman,
Robert Krantz,
Donald Fullilove,
Courtney Gains,
Norman Alden,
Ivy Bethune,
Maia Brewton,
J.J. Cohen,
Jeffrey Jay Cohen,
Read Morgan,
Jeff O'Haco,
Sachi Parker,
Gary Riley,
Casey Siemaszko,
Harry Waters, Jr.,
Billy Zane,
Katherine Britton,
David Harold Brown,
Lee Brownfield,
Robert de Lapp,
Richard L. Duran,
Jason Hervey,
Karen Petrasek,
Tommy Thomas,
Lloyd L. Tolbert,
Granville "Danny" Young,
Lee McCain,
Johnny Green,
Elizabeth Chambers
Director:
Robert Zemeckis
Genre:
Sci-Fi,
Fantasy
Release Date:
July 3, 1985
MPAA Rating:
PG
Screen Writer:
Bob Gale
Runtime:
1hr 56min
Studio:
Universal Studios
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