Back to the Future

Back to the Future 

1985 

Director: Robert Zemeckis 

Writer: Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale 

117 Minutes 

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back in time, disrupts his parent's meet-cute, and has to find the scientist that built the time machine fifteen years before he actually builds it otherwise Marty be erased from existence. 

“Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?”

Mixed with a major Oedipus complex, Back to the Future is one of the great pieces of storytelling throughout cinema. It holds true that the decisions we make as adolescents greatly affect us as adults. Though this film was nominated for best writing, sound, sound editing, and song “The Power of Love,” the Academy Awards went to Charles Campbell and Robert Rutledge for Best Effects and Sound Effects Editing. 

The scene above is two-fold. The first picture is Marty rolling up to Twin Pines Mall at the beginning of the movie to meet Doctor Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and Einstein, the dog. In the establishing shot, the Twin Pines Mall sign glows in the foreground, where then Doc explains the time machine to Marty. Doc recalls a time when that “whole area was owned by old Peabody” who wanted to raise pine trees. Then Libyan terrorist show up, then Doc is killed, and then Marty travels back into time. 

Of course, his time machine takes him back to the exact location he left from: the Peabody farm. Marty crashes into the barn, still in his yellow radiation suit, and awakes the entire Peabody family. They think he’s a Martian. Daddy Peabody takes out his shotgun and shoots at him, which prompts Marty to get the hell out of there. In a split second, Marty drives over the lawn and runs over one of the two pine trees in the front lawn. Daddy Peabody yells, “MY PINES!” 

He fires his last shot and explodes the mailbox. Marty ran over one of the Twin Pines. Fast forward to the third act and after he meets his father, kisses his mother, and sings “Johnny B. Good,” Marty travels back to the future and tries to stop the Libyan terrorist from killing his friend. He goes back to the mall. 

In picture two, you realize that the mall sign now reads Lone Pine Mall. It’s because of Marty's lack of environmental integrity that things are different. He destroyed two pines to make lone pine. And not only is the sign different, but his entire life is changed. Doc lives. Marty’s family thrives. And Marty takes his girlfriend up to the lake in his brand-new truck. Life, after this journey, is better. It's why we go to movies. 

Compliments to Cameron Birnie (set designer) for making this small choice have a larger meaning. 

My favorite lines though are as follows: 

Dr. Emmett Brown

Then tell me, "Future Boy", who's President in the United States in 1985?

 

Marty McFly

Ronald Reagan. 

Dr. Emmett Brown

Ronald Reagan? The actor? Then who's Vice-President? Jerry Lewis? 

Bravo, Mr. Zemeckis. Though, Jerry Lewis would have been fun in the post-cold war era.