Tuesdays with Classics - Back to the Future

Welcome back to another addition of Tuesdays with Classics where I'll be bringing back some of the best classics known to cinematic history, they deserve a little extra spotlight I'd say. Last week we went over Space Odyssey and man did that bring back some memories. This week though, I want to do a movie that everyone is sure to have seen or at the very least heard of. I'm talking about Back to the Future. Yeah that's right, I said it. The way this movie was made will blow some minds. The production budget was 19 million, and after being the top grossing release of 1985, box office profit was over 381 million! Back to future offered so many 'easter eggs' and subtleties in the script that new things are still being discovered today. Later I will show you a couple examples.

  

Doc and Marty McFly

High schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn't have the most pleasant of lives. Harassed by his principal at school, Marty must also endure the caustic relationship between his father (Crispin Glover) and his mother (Lea Thompson), who in turn suffer the bullying of middle-aged jerk Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty's dad's supervisor. The one balm in Marty's life is his friendship with the abnormal scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who at the time is working on a time machine. After accidentally zapped back into the 1950s, Marty unknowingly interferes with the growing romance of his now-teenaged parents. McFly must now reunite his parents-to-be, or else he will cease to exist in the 1980s. It won't be easy, especially with the loutish Biff, now also a teenager, complicating matters. Beyond its fascinating special effects, the best element of Back to the Future is the performance of Michael J. Fox, who finds himself in the bad predicament of surviving the 1950s with a hip 1980s mindset.

One to the magnificent and brilliant subtleties:

This is one of my favorite subtleties (Left). In the beginning of Back to the Future, it shows this scene where you're at the "Twin Pine Mall". Later on the movie, Marty runs over a single pine tree shown is the picture on the way out while trying to escape. However, Towards the end, we come back to the same mall but notice the name of the mall this time  around. That's correct, "Lone Pine Mall". They even subtracted one pine tree from the mall's logo in response of Marty's incongruous driving charade.

While this may be a scene from Back to the Future II (Right) it is still justified as part of the BTTF franchise, also It's really remarkable how well organized and subtle the production team was and for that, should not go unnoticed. While retrieving money from this suitcase to give to Marty to buy new close in 1955, it shows the contents of what's inside, the scene lasted merely 5 seconds before switching but notice how precise the currency is. Every dollar is 100% legitimate and correct in appearance. They literally took the time and resources to gather every note from specific time eras to calibrate a true sense of actuality. That's the difference from a classic and just another regular movie. Taking the time and effort to do things no one else would even consider. They took a chance at this irrelevant and very subtle scene   but  thankfully people noticed and because of that, this movie is STILL being talked about, almost 17 years later. Bravo Back to the Future, bravo indeed.  

Back to the Future released July 3, 1985. Enjoyed!