Back to the Future opened 25 years ago today on July 3, 1985.  I can’t believe it’s been 25 years.  I saw Back to the Future during the Summer of 1985.  If it wasn’t opening day, it was very close.  My dad took me right after school to go see it.  I loved it.  That summer I saw it at least 8 or 9 more times in the theater.  I was able to do that because during the summer of 1985 our local radio station I-95 had a promotional movie night on Mondays where it was $1.95 to see a movie and soda and popcorn were $.99 each.  We went nearly every week.  And every time I saw Back to the Future again.  It was the spectacle of this movie that instilled in me a deep love for movies and watching them in the theater.  Back to the Future was really the first movie I consciously wanted to go see more than once while it was at the theater.  I’ve been a movie whore ever since and I’ve owned this movie and its sequels in nearly every home video format since.  I had the VHS, Laser Disc, DVD and I will soon have the Blu-Ray.

Speaking of Blu-Ray, before I get to the reviews, it was announced this week that the Back to the Future trilogy would be released on Blu-Ray on October 26, 2010.  Here’s the box art from DVDActive.com (click the image to see the whole article).

(Via DVDActive.com)

I love that cover. The extras are voluminous, too. It says it contains a new 6 part documentary, but previous releases had 3 part documentaries (which the article mentions are included as archival footage). So they filmed another “making of” documentary? Why?  These documentaries tend to be repetitive because there’s not much else to say about the making of these movies 25 years later. That juice has been squeezed. I’m more interested to know if the Back to the Future The Ride footage will be included.  Or the scenes filmed with Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly.  These are the things that have been missing from the last few releases of the trilogy.  Regardless I’m looking forward to see the new High Def transfer.

Now on to the movie reviews.

Back to the Future (1985) – Similar to when I watched the Karate Kid right before the remake opened, I am charged up after watching Back to the Future for the first time in a few years.  Like Karate Kid, it is a nearly perfect film.  Every scene is entertaining and all of the actors bring their A game.  Michael J Fox is great as Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd is also great as Doc.  This is good because the entire movie only plays if Doc and Marty have chemistry, and they do…in spades.  The entire movie is extremely entertaining and is edited to a very brisk pace from scene to scene.  It seems like almost every line early in the movie pays off at some point in the end.  I mean, this script is tight.  I found myself saying all my favorite lines along with the actors while watching the movie.  “What’re you lookin’ at, Butt Head.  Say ‘Hi’ to your mom for me.”  “A portable television studio.  No wonder your President has to be an actor, he has to look good on television.”  “Who in the hell is John F Kennedy?!”  It’s so much fun!  And the gag at the end with the flying Delorean is just as great as you remember, “Roads?  Where we’re going we don’t need…roads.”  I have the first DVD release of the trilogy which, I didn’t realize, does not have the To Be Continued… title card at the end of the first movie.  I know it was not a part of the original theatrical release of the movie, but it was a little disappointing not to see it.  It’ll be interesting to see if it’s on the Blu-Ray release.  So, I can happily say I wholeheartedly recommend this movie.  It’s a fun family romp that’s endlessly entertaining, never boring and just loads of fun to watch.  Let’s hope Hollywood doesn’t decide they need to remake it.  Because then I may have to activate Operation Burn Hollywood to the F’n Ground.  No one wants that.

Back to the Future Part II (1989) – Part II has fans divided.  Many actually hate it.  I admit, when I first saw it in the theater, I was a tad disappointed.  It hadbeen 5 years since the original came out and my enthusiasm had bubbled up to an unattainable level.  I enjoyed the movie but not as much as I’d hoped.  Some of it was the fact that the movie’s tone was a bit darker.  A lot of exposition and action was crammed into this movie.  The heroes traversed three separate time periods.  It was dizzying.  However, after years of watching this movie, it has slowly made it up into the second spot on my Back to the Future favorite list.  Watching Part II again for this anniversary, it only confirmed that I did really enjoy the movie.  The hover board chase in 2015, the alternate 1985-A and revisiting the first movie from a different point of view all make for a truly entertaining movie.  Plus, in my last few viewings of the trilogy, I’ve come to be really impressed with Tom Wilson’s performances as the different incarnations of Biff.  He is really funny, goofy and terrifying as the ever present bully.  He’s become a stand up comedian, and a pretty funny one at that.  Check out his Question Song on YouTube.  It’s hilarious. One gripe about this movie, it’s almost a bit too long. The stuff at Marty’s house in 2015 where Michael J Fox plays like 4 characters, that could have been cut in half. It’s not my favorite part of the movie and seemed more gimmicky and not necessary than the rest of the movie. I also don’t like how all of a sudden Marty hates being called a chicken. Where the hell did that come from? I realize it drives the whole “crash into the Rolls Royce” subplot but it’s off putting. Other than that, pretty much everything in 2015 (except the “old Marty” stuff) and most of the stuff in 1955 is great. I still really enjoy this movie. Quick trivia, in 2015, when Marty plays the Wild Gunman video game in front of two kids, one of those kids is Elijah Wood. I didn’t realize it until this very screening.

Back to the Future Part III (1990) – I myself have always been hit or miss on this movie. It depends on my mood. This time, however, I loved it. And surprisingly, my favorite part of the movie? Tom Wilson as Mad Dog Tannen. His lines are hilarious. He keeps calling Marty these long drawn out insults like “duded-up, egg sucking, gutter trash” or “gutless, yella turd”. He is hilarious and makes the movie for me. I really did enjoy the Old West setting and the scenes with the train pushing the Delorean were fun and entertaining. This screening was a surprise for me because usually when I think about watching Part III I groan a bit in my head because I think it’s tedious. I was wrong. It’s very entertaining and worth watching.

On the Back to the Future Part III disc, as an extra, was the 20 minute documentary Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy hosted by Kirk Cameron. It was cheesy, but it had a lot of interesting tidbits. It went in depth into how they filmed the hover board sequence and even showed a deleted scene. It was slight, but fun.

So, that’s my look back on the Back to the Future trilogy on the 25th birthday of the original movie. It was fun putting together all of these themed articles. Hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned, because next week I have a special article written in conjunction with Shawn Robare of Branded in the 80s. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Have a great holiday weekend everyone.

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They also had an exclusive subscriber cover. It featured the more traditional Struzan artwork from the poster.

Inside was a nice interview with Bob Gale and Steven Spielberg about making the film. Not much new information was gained by the interview, they mainly treaded the same ground as all the other documentaries and interviews they’ve given over the years. They talked about the genesis of the idea for the movie (Gale wondering if he would have been friends with his dad in high school) and Spielberg talked a bit about the troubles in getting Michael J Fox into the Marty McFly role (Fox was the original choice but couldn’t get out of Family Ties obligations).  Even the pictures were mostly retreads from the souvenir magazine and the Official Book of the Complete Trilogy.

It was a nice nostalgic article, though, that also featured “Viewing Guides” for all three movies with trivia items to watch for.

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The cover for the official book of the trilogy is above.  It was published in 1990 to coincide with the release of Back to the Future Part III (which celebrated its 20th anniversary this past May). As far as I know, Part II and Part III did not receive an official souvenir magazine like the original Back to the Future.  The closest we got would probably be the Back to the Future Fan Club newsletter which I discussed back in May.  So, with the release of the final movie in the trilogy, Universal compiled this “souvenir book” and had it cover all three Back to the Future movies.  The articles and pictures in this book are what you would normally find in a souvenir magazine, but here it’s on a nicer paper stock and bound in hardback.

The book is chock full of on-set pictures and details about the making of one of the greatest trilogies of all time.  The book has a lot of the photos from the Back to the Future souvenir magazine but it also includes lots of pictures from the other movies.  One of the cooler articles in the book is a two page spread on the Mattel Hoverboard (click the image to make it bigger and easier to read).

This page is a great resource for one of the trilogies most memorable, and controversial, props.  The text describes how they filmed the famed hoverboard chase in downtown Hill Valley 2015.  The chase was filmed in at least five different ways and no two consecutive takes were done the same way.  Some takes were done with the actors suspended from wires with the board attached to their feet, other takes required the actor to stand on a board that was suspended from wires.  Still other takes required a crane rig with a steering wheel to be piloted by a crew member while the actors were suspended from a harness.  This last one was used to execute turns and spins while on the hoverboard.  It’s amazing the amount of work that went into this one sequence.  The page even makes a mention of the infamous Zemekis interview in which he stated that hoverboards were real and the only reason we didn’t have them was because parent groups were blocking their distribution.  This, of course, resulted in kids all over the world to lose their damn minds over the idea that parents were actually keeping something as awesome as a hoverboard from becoming a reality.  For years afterwards kids wondered, “Why?  Why, if my parents loved me, would they not want me to be happy.  Because clearly, I won’t be happy until I have a f’n HOVERBOARD!!!”  Zemekis eventually had to crush all the kids’ hopes and dreams of a happy life by telling them that he was, in fact, lying and hoverboards are not real. And neither is the Easter Bunny.  Or Santa.  Now get a job.

In the very middle of the book in a nice two page spread we get an official movie timeline for the entire trilogy.

You can click the image to make it bigger.  This timeline clearly delineates where the time machine traveled and in which movie.  There is even a legend enumerating the time travel events which are then labeled in the timeline diagram appropriately.  Very interesting.  I never really thought about the 1985 at the end of the original Back to the Future as actually being 1985-2 since it is noticeably different than the 1985-1 that started the movie.

Aha, finally!  Deleted scenes from the movies.  Well, from the first movie.  And it’s only two of them.  But that’s two more than we got in the souvenir magazine.  Here’s the two page spread discussing deleted scenes.

You can click the image to see it bigger on Flickr.  In the center of this spread you can see a black and white image from a cut scene involving Lorraine (Lea Thompson) cheating on a test.  It happens when Marty and Doc are strolling through Hill Valley High talking about the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.  Marty catches his mom in the middle of cheating on a test (he’s looking through the window of the classroom).

You can also see in the lower right hand corner a black and white still of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly.  Famously, Steven Spielberg wanted Michael J Fox as Marty.  However, the producers of Family Ties wouldn’t let Fox take time off for filming because Meredith Baxter Birney was already taking time off to have a baby.  So Spielberg and Zemekis chose Stoltz as their Marty.  Several weeks of filming commenced and as soon as the producers watched the dailies, they knew Stoltz looked too old and was way too intense for the role of Marty McFly.  So they went back to the Family Ties producers and by this time Fox was allowed to leave as Birney had returned from her maternity leave.  However, Fox still had to work around his daytime Family Ties schedule so he was filming Family Ties all day and Back to the Future at night.  The footage of Stoltz as Marty has never been seen aside from still photographs like you see above.  One can only hope that this footage would be included on any ultimate collection DVD/Blu-Ray  released in the future. You can see more of this casting switch in the below video from a documentary on Back to the Future.  Unfortunately they gloss over Stoltz’s involvement and show no actual footage.

The next two page spread includes unused poster concepts by Drew Struzan for the original Back to the Future movie.

Once again, click the above image to see it bigger on Flickr.  These concepts are a fascinating look at what could have been. As iconic as the original movie poster was, I love looking at these concepts as they are so completely different than the final design.  My favorite may be the one on the far right.  The blues and reds are really cool.  I also like the next one to the left of that with the giant clock face.  Very interesting where the poster could have gone, but I still love the one they wound up using instead.

Another great reference for deleted scenes and behind the scenes info from Back to the Future is the 1990 documentary The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy hosted by Kirk Cameron.

For twelve years, the deleted scenes on this documentary were only available on this VHS. Universal finally released this documentary as a special feature on the 2002 release of Back to the Future Part III.  Despite that, it’s still a rarely seen treat for Back to the Future fans. This documentary contains a scene of 1955 Doc Brown going through the 1985 Doc Brown’s suitcase and finding a hair dryer and a Playboy.

So that’s my look at the Official Book for the Back to the Future trilogy.  I bought it many years ago but it can still be found fairly cheap, I believe on eBay.

Oh, before I go, here’s a look at the back cover of the book.

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In the ’80s it was fairly common practice to release souvenir magazines and books with the release of big tent pole movies. These magazines would provide story details, lots of movie stills and some behind the scenes info to help promote the movie. Along with these magazines studios would release poster books as well as novelizations.  Movies like Aliens, Rambo, Superman II, Star Trek IV, Gremlins and many others received both souvenir magazines and poster magazines.  As an example, I myself have the 1989 Tim Burton Batman official souvenir magazine (see above) as well as the movie novelization.  I also have the James Cameron directed Aliens movie magazine (to be used in a future article).  Shawn on Branded in the 80s did a great writeup on the Goonies Official Souvenir Magazine.  The Goonies magazine that Shawn talked about was a goldmine of deleted scenes and concepts as you can see here.  The Aliens and Batman magazines I have don’t have as much behind the scenes or deleted scenes depicted in the many, many movie stills within.

Anyway, talking about movie souvenir magazines, today I want to take a look at the Back to the Future Souvenir Magazine.

Released in the Summer of 1985, this was used to promote the movie’s release (as all souvenir magazines tend to do). I bought it off the rack at our local Western Supermarket because I loved the movie (which I literally saw 10 times in the theater).  However, my copy was read so often it literally disintegrated in my hands after a few years. It took me a while, but I finally was able to replace my copy with a new, very near mint copy (including the poster!).

As you can see, the cover is nice and bright with a great image of the Drew Struzan poster art.  It’s interesting to note that the logo for the movie on this magazine is missing the light blue outline that can be found on the finished theatrical poster.  It makes for a visual difference and I like it.

Inside you can find tons of movie stills.  Here’s an image of the first page, the title page.

You have to love the funky aqua and pink color scheme. So totally ’80s.  The text in this section gives a brief overview of the movie’s plot, just before the rest of the magazine does the same thing.

In the middle of the magazine is a giant, fold out poster. I scanned it in four parts and stitched it back together (with varying degrees of success).

The poster has a nice image of the time machine on top with some movie facts about the vehicle and the scale model used by ILM inserted into the very top. On the bottom you can see some early pre-production art on both the time machine and the effects of time travel on the car. To see these bigger, click on the images.

Here’s the final page of the souvenir mag with some random pictures of the main cast.  The rest of the magazine is filled with movie stills from various points in the movie, nothing you can’t see if you watch the movie.  Unfortunately nothing that was removed from the movie during post production (unlike in the Unofficial Book of the Trilogy, which I’ll talk about later) was included in this magazine.

Here’s the back cover of the souvenir magazine. Great image of the back of the Delorean and, randomly, the words to the other Huey Lewis song on the soundtrack, Back in Time. I’m surprised they didn’t use the Oscar nominated Power of Love, but I guess Back in Time better fits the theme of the movie.

Overall, this book is fantastic with lots of cool color images and factoids about the movie.  I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more “behind the scenes” info and artwork/photos from deleted scenes or concepts.  Regardless, this is definitely a blast from the past for me as I bought it when it was new and vividly remember reading and drawing pictures from the photos inside.  A great scrapbook of the movie.

Stay tuned. More articles coming this week celebrating the Back to the Future 25th Anniversary.

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The original Back to the Future opened in theaters on July 3, 1985.  That’s right, people, my favorite (and hopefully yours) time travel trilogy turns 25 years old on Saturday.   Crazy, right?  Especially since the 20th anniversary of Back to the Future Part III happened just this past May and the 20th anniversary of Back to the Future Part II happened in November.  Wow, I’m getting old.  I saw all three of these movies in the theater.

In celebration, this will be Back to the Future week on the blog.  In much the same way I did for the Part III celebration, I’ll have two or three articles pertaining to Back to the Future this week culminating in a review of the original movie on Saturday.  So sit back, relax, and let me get this blog up to 88 mpg, where you’re going to see some serious sh*t.