Back In Time

Back To The Future (Zemeckis, 3 July 1985, USA) stemmed from the idea: what would it be like to see and interact with your parents as teenagers? One logical way to approach creating a story about that is by traveling back in time. Both Zemeckis and Bob Gale (writer) thought that the character could not just come into the past through wishing or being hit on the head such as in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Tay Garnett, 22 April 1949, USA) but through something much more plausible, like a machine. The biggest influence on Back To The Future was The Time Machine (George Pal, 17 August 1960, USA) which brought the idea that with time travel you travel through time but not space. Many films involving time travel had the travelers going from California to ancient Rome. This idea of time travel did not seem genuine to Zemeckis and Gale, so they stuck to the idea of centering it around one location: Hill Valley.

What makes this film fall into the realm of Science Fiction is the notion of traveling back in time by means of mechanics and science. Also in the film you see many references to outer space and aliens, such as when Marty drives the time machine into the barn and the boy shows the dad the cover of a sci-fi comic book with a spaceship that looks similar to the time machine. Another cameo appearance of the sci-fi genre in the film was Marty’s dad as a teenager was writing stories about outer space. This movie is kind of at the further end of the sci-fi spectrum. Time Travel seemed to be just a logical mode to get to the real idea of being able to see your parents as teenagers.

This film was a Hollywood production, but it took a while to get it into production. Prior to Back To The Future, Zemeckis and Gale had made two movies (Used Cars and I Wanna Hold Your Hand) that were major flops and it was only after Zemeckis directed the box office hit Romancing the Stone (Zemeckis, 30 March 1984, USA) that studios started wanting to do Back To The Future. He then went back to Spielberg to produce, whom from the beginning, had faith in the story. The studios also had a problem with the film’s content; everyone seemed to think the film was too soft. The popular teen movies at the time were much more R rated. They wanted it to be more like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling, 13 August 1982, USA) or Animal House (John Landis, 28 July 1978, USA). Then there was Disney who thought the somewhat incestuous relationship between Marty and his teenage mother was far too dirty.

The film is set in the present (the 1980’s at the time of production) they had Marty traveling back to the year 1955. They meticulously researched everything about that era to get the look just right. They portrayed as many easily identifiable 50’s icons as they could to really make the place feel real. The time machine itself had a real authentic appearance in relation to Doc. Brown, whom created it. Christopher Lloyd based his character to be a cross between Einstein and Leopold Stokowski and wanted to have a real excentric look. The time machine is meant to look like something that was built in his garage. Pieces of an airplane and other blinking buttons and switches really gave the feel of a machine that could possibly transport someone through time. Although there was much doubt in the ideas of the film it quickly became a box office hit. Through all the doubts in film about what would be popular to the audience, Zemeckis and Gale stuck to their instincts and ended up creating a film that captured everyone’s imagination no matter the age.