Flashback Friday: Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985)

Welcome to the first "Flashback Friday", a special weekly post where I'll review and discuss a movie from the past. This week, we're having Michael J. Fox's mother hit on him while trying to give his father courage and defend against a bully.... all before he's even born. This week on "Flashback Friday": Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985).

The sad part about my Back to the Future experience is that the first thing that comes to mind is Doc Brown's Fancy Chicken Restaurant in Universal Studios. I remember going to the fast food stop in the pouring rain for dinner (it was quite good from what I remember). You can't help but hum along to the theme song as you walk around the park, too. Back to the Future was never really one of my childhood pastimes, but the older I get, the more I appreciate what the film did for sci-fi, Michael J. Fox, DeLoreans, and the movie industry in general.

Michael J. Fox's natural screen presence brought a sense of youthful innocence to the movie, an otherwise very complicated subject of accidentally changing the past which in turn completely changes the future. From a screenwriting point of view, its genius; no other film before it so expertly explained the consequences of changing the past.

I mean, think about it: Michael J. Fox's character, Marty McFly, travels back in time using Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)'s 1981 DeLorean and a "flux capacitor" to avoid getting shot by terrorists. In traveling, he ends up in 1955, at the point when his parents went to high school, and days before they fell in love for the first time. Marty meets his father, George, after watching him get harassed by local bully Biff. And, as they are walking home, Marty sees a car speeding towards George, and Marty dives to push his father out of the way before he can get hit.

The problem: the driver of the car is Marty's mom Lorraine, who, in hitting George, was supposed to fall in love with him during the recovery. This would lead them to the marriage that would one day conceive Marty and his two siblings. However, as he just prevented George from getting hit, Marty is subsequently hit by the car; and, therefore, Lorraine falls in love with him.

The irony stacks up as the film progresses, as Marty tries to warn a younger Doc Brown that he will be shot in the future, and Lorraine continues to fall for her future son while growing more distant from her would-be husband. It's a beautiful script, one that I appreciate the more and more I see the film.

The acting is top notch, and even by today's standards the visual effects are seriously realistic. The skateboard chase is still famous, and helped propel the at-the-time-brand-new skateboarding sport. Nothing beats getting to quote such phrases as, "1.21 gigawats", "We have to send you back to the future!", "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads", and "I am Darth Vader of Planet Vulcan". Plus, who can ignore the "Johnny B Goode" guitar sequence?

Back to the Future remains a landmark in the sci-fi genre: in 2008, it was listed as the #10 Best Sci-Fi Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute (it was also nominated for several other lists, including both 100 Greatest Movies of All Time lists).  It's a great film, and a movie of even greater importance in pop culture and the history of cinema. I highly encourage that you watch the film again. I promise that the older you get, the more you'll smile and the more you'll appreciate time traveling all over again.