Back to the Future is a 1985 science fiction adventure film directed by Robert Zemeckis, co-written by Bob Gale and produced by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, as well as Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson. Back to the Future tells the story of Marty McFly, a teenager who is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955. He meets his parents in high school, accidentally attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents to fall in love, while finding a way to return to 1985.
Zemeckis and Gale wrote the script after Gale mused upon whether he would have befriended his father if they attended school together. Various film studios rejected the script until the box office success of Zemeckis' Romancing the Stone , and the project was set up at Universal Pictures with Spielberg as executive producer. Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly when Michael J. Fox declined as he was busy filming the TV series Family Ties , but during filming Stoltz and the filmmakers decided Stoltz was miscast so they asked Fox again and he managed to work out a timetable so he gave enough time and commitment to both: the subsequent recasting meant the crew had to race through reshoots and post-production to complete the film for its July 3, 1985 release date.
When released, it became the most successful film of the year, grossing more than $380 million worldwide and receiving critical acclaim. It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, as well as Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Ronald Reagan even quoted the film in the 1986 State of the Union Address. In 2007, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and in June 2008 the American Film Institute's special AFI's 10 Top 10 acknowledged the film as the 10th best film in the science fiction genre. The movie marked the beginning of a franchise, with Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III released back-to-back in 1989 and 1990, as well as an animated series and theme park ride.
Plot
Marty McFly is a teenager living in Hill Valley, California. He is the son of the cowardly George McFly, who is constantly bullied by his supervisor Biff Tannen, and the dowdy Lorraine Baines McFly. On the morning of October 25, 1985, his eccentric friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, calls him, asking to meet at 1:15 AM the following morning at Twin Pines Mall. After school Marty and his band audition to perform at the school dance but are rejected for being "too loud." Though Marty's confidence is shaken by this, as well as by the school principle's conviction that both he and his father are slackers and that "no McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley," Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, eggs him on and encourages him to pursue his dream of being a rock musician. At dinner that night, Lorraine recounts how she first met George when her father hit him with his car as George was "bird-watching".
That night, Marty meets Doc as planned in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall. Doc reveals a DeLorean DMC-12 which he has modified into a time machine, with a plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor generating the required 1.21 gigawatts of power. As Marty videotapes, Doc explains that the car travels to a programmed date and time upon reaching 88 miles per hour. Demonstrating how to program the machine, Doc enters in November 5, 1955 as the target date, explaining that it was the day he conceived the idea of the flux capacitor, the device which "makes time travel possible." Before Doc can depart for his planned trip into the future, the Libyan terrorists from whom he stole the plutonium arrive in a Volkswagen Bus and murder him. Marty drives away in the DeLorean, with the time machine activated and the Libyans in pursuit. In mid-chase, the DeLorean hits 88 miles per hour and is inadvertently transported back in time to 1955.
Marty hides the inoperative DeLorean and makes his way into the Hill Valley of 1955. Marty runs into his father George, then a teenager, and discovers him to be a peeping tom instead of a birdwatcher. As George is about to be hit by a car, Marty pushes him out of the way and takes the impact. The car turns out to be driven by Lorraine's father, resulting in Lorraine becoming infatuated with Marty instead of George. Marty is disturbed by her aggressive flirtations, and he flees from her home to find Doc Brown.
Using a camcorder, Marty shows Doc the recording of the 1985 experiment. Doc is aghast at the time machine's power requirements, telling Marty that the only possible source of that much power in 1955 is a bolt of lightning. Marty remembers that lightning will strike the courthouse tower the following Saturday at exactly 10:04 PM As a result, Doc begins planning how to harness the bolt's power. Doc also deduces that Marty, by saving his father from the accident, has prevented his parents from meeting. He instructs Marty to set things right or else he, along with his siblings, will never exist.
After several failed attempts at playing matchmaker, Marty eventually creates a plan to have George appear to rescue Lorraine from Marty's overt sexual advances on the night of a school dance. However, the plan goes awry when a drunken Biff shows up unexpectedly, pulls Marty from the car, and forces himself on Lorraine. As planned, George arrives to rescue Lorraine, but is shocked to find Biff instead of Marty. George, hearing Lorraine's pleas for help, refuses Biff's order to walk away and tries to fight him instead. Biff easily subjugates George, but when Biff shoves Lorraine, George finally snaps and knocks out his tormentor with a single punch. A smitten Lorraine follows George to the dance floor, where they finally kiss for the first time, affirming Marty's future.
Meanwhile, Doc connects a lightning rod from the courthouse tower to a power line rigged between two streetlights. The DeLorean, equipped with a modified trolley pole, is planned to hit the line when the lightning bolt strikes to receive enough power to travel time. Marty writes Doc a letter to warn Doc of his murder in 1985, but Doc indignantly tears up the letter without reading it, describing the dangers of altering the future. Doc's scheme is successful, and Marty returns to 1985, though he arrives too late to stop Doc from being shot. As Marty mourns Doc, Doc revives and opens his radiation suit to reveal a bulletproof vest. Doc discloses that he ignored his own warnings and taped the letter back together.
That morning, Marty awakens to find his home and family significantly improved. Lorraine is physically fit and is no longer prudish, George has become a self-confident and successful science fiction novelist, and Biff has become a servile toady to George. Just as Jennifer and Marty reunite, Doc arrives, insisting frantically that they must accompany him to defuse a problem concerning their future children. Once they enter the DeLorean, it converts into a hovercar, and the DeLorean rushes into the screen as the time machine activates, concluding the movie.
Development
Writing
Writer and producer Bob Gale conceived the idea after he visited his parents in St. Louis, Missouri after the release of Used Cars . Searching their basement, Gale found his father's high school yearbook and discovered he was president of his graduation class. Gale thought about the president of his own graduating class, who was someone he had nothing to do with. Gale wondered whether he would have been friends with his father if they went to high school together. When he returned to California, he told Robert Zemeckis his new concept. Zemeckis subsequently thought of a mother claiming she never kissed a boy at school, when in reality she was highly promiscuous. The two took the project to Columbia Pictures, and made a development deal for a script in September 1980.
Zemeckis and Gale set the story in 1955 because mathematically, a 17-year old traveling to meet his parents at the same age meant traveling to that decade. The era also marked the birth of rock n' roll and suburb expansion, which would flavor the story. Originally, Marty was a video pirate, the time machine was a refrigerator, and he needed to use the power of an atomic explosion at the Nevada Test Site to return home. Zemeckis was "concerned that kids would accidentally lock themselves in refrigerators", and the original climax was deemed too expensive. The DeLorean time machine was chosen because its design made the gag about the family of farmers mistaking it for a flying saucer believable. The writers found making Marty's friendship with Doc Brown believable difficult before they created the giant guitar amplifier, and only resolved his Oedipal relationship with his mother when they wrote the line "It's like I'm kissing my brother." Biff Tannen was named after Universal executive Ned Tanen, who behaved aggressively towards Zemeckis and Gale during a script meeting for I Wanna Hold Your Hand .
The first draft of Back to the Future was finished in February 1981. Columbia Pictures put the film in turnaround. "They thought it was a really nice, cute, warm film, but not sexual enough," Gale said. "They suggested that we t
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