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Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction comedy film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film 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 and accidentally attracts his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents to fall in love, and with the help of scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, he must find 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 financial success of Zemeckis' Romancing the Stone, after which the project was set up at Universal Pictures with Spielberg as an executive producer. Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly when Michael J. Fox was busy filming the TV series Family Ties. However, during filming, Stoltz and the filmmakers decided that Stoltz was miscast, so Fox was approached again and he managed to work out a timetable in which he could give 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, Back to the Future 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 Awards, and Golden Globe nominations among others. Ronald Reagan even quoted the film in his 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 film marked the beginning of a franchise, with sequels Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III released in 1989 and 1990, as well as an animated series, theme park ride, and video game.

Marty McFly is a teenager living with a bleak, unambitious family in Hill Valley, California. His father, George McFly, is constantly bullied by his supervisor, Biff Tannen, and his unhappy mother, Lorraine Baines McFly, has a drinking problem. Marty and his band audition to perform at the high school dance, but are rejected. Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, encourages him to pursue the dream of being a rock musician. At dinner that night, Lorraine recounts how she and George first fell in love when her father hit him with his car.

On the morning of October 25, 1985, Marty meets his friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, at Twin Pines Mall at 1:15 am at Doc's request. Doc reveals a DeLorean DMC-12 which he has modified into a time machine; the vehicle's time displacement is powered by plutonium which generates 1.21 gigawatts of power into a device he calls the "flux capacitor". Doc also explains that the car travels to a programmed date upon reaching 88 miles per hour. However, before Doc can make his first trip, the Libyan terrorists from whom he stole the plutonium show up and gun him down. Marty attempts to escape in the DeLorean, but, in the process, reaches the speed of 88 miles per hour and is transported back to November 5, 1955, a date Doc programmed into the DeLorean as an example destination. Marty finds himself without the plutonium needed for the trip back, and the car shuts down, leaving him stuck in 1955.

While exploring the Hill Valley of 1955, Marty accidentally meets his father, George, as a teenager who is being bullied by Biff. As George is about to be hit by Lorraine's father's car, Marty pushes him out of the way and takes the impact. As a result, a teenage Lorraine becomes infatuated with Marty instead of George. Marty is disturbed by her flirtations and leaves to find the younger Doc of 1955. Marty convinces Doc that he is from the future and asks for help returning to 1985. Doc explains that the only power source capable of generating the required 1.21 gigawatts is a lightning bolt. Marty then shows Doc the "Save The Clock Tower" flyer he had received the previous day, indicating that lightning will strike the courthouse clock tower the following Saturday at 10:04 pm. Doc makes plans to harness the lightning strike to power the DeLorean's flux capacitor. However, the two discover a complication when observing a fading photograph of Marty with his siblings: Marty has prevented his parents from meeting and has jeopardized his siblings' and his own existence.

In the following week, Marty attempts to set George up with Lorraine, but she only shows romantic interests in Marty. In order to make his parents fall in love, Marty plans to have George "rescue" Lorraine from Marty's overt sexual advances on the night of the school's Enchantment Under the Sea dance. However, the plan goes awry when a drunk Biff unexpectedly shows up, pulls Marty from the car, and forces himself on Lorraine. George arrives as planned to rescue her from Marty, but finds Biff instead. Biff subjugates George, but George stands up to him for the first time and knocks him out with a punch to the face. A smitten Lorraine follows George to the dance floor where they kiss for the first time, assuring Marty's existence.

Marty arrives at the scene of the anticipated clock tower lightning strike where Doc is making the final preparations. Marty attempts to warn Doc of his murder in 1985 in a letter, but Doc indignantly tears up the letter without reading it, for fear he will alter the future. The storm disconnects Doc's wiring setup that will capture the lightning, but the two repair the connections just in time for the lightning strike to send Marty and the DeLorean back to 1985. Although Marty arrives too late to prevent Doc from being shot, Doc reveals he had taped the letter back together and was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Doc drops Marty off at home and leaves in the time machine for the future. Marty awakens the next morning to find his home and family significantly improved and happier. Lorraine is physically fit, George has become a self-confident and successful science fiction author, Marty's brother Dave is now a businessman, and his sister Linda no longer has trouble finding boyfriends. Most notably, George and Lorraine now have the close relationship they never had, while Biff has become an auto detailer/washer and is now very deferential towards George. Just as Marty reunites with Jennifer, Doc arrives, insisting that they accompany him to the future to sort out a problem with their children. With Doc at the wheel, Marty and Jennifer enter the upgraded DeLorean, now a flying hovercar powered by nuclear fusion, and they go back to the future.

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 graduating 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, they claimed, mathematically, a 17-year old traveling to meet his parents at the same age meant traveling to that decade. The era also marked the rise of teenagers as an important cultural element, 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 it difficult to create a believable friendship between Marty and Doc Brown 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 toward 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 take it to Disney, but we decided to see if any other of the major studios wanted a piece of us." Every major film studio rejected the script for the next four years, while Back to the Future went through two more drafts. During the early 1980s, popular teen comedies (such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Porky's) were risqué and adult-aimed, so the script was commonly rejected for being too light. Gale and Zemeckis finally decided to pitch Back to the Future to Disney. "They told us that a mother falling in love with her son was not appropriate for a family film under the Disney banner," Gale said.

The two were tempted to ally themselves with Steven Spielberg, who produced Used Cars and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, which both flopped. Spielberg was initially absent from the project because Zemeckis felt if he produced another flop under him, he would never be able to make another film. Gale said "we were afraid that we would get the reputation that we were two guys who could only get a job because we were pals with Steven Spielberg." One producer was interested, but changed his mind when he learned Spielberg was not involved. Zemeckis chose to direct Romancing the Stone instead, which was a box office success. Now a high-profile director, Zemeckis approached Spielberg with the concept, and the project was set up at Universal Pictures.

Executive Sidney Sheinberg made some suggestions to the script, changing Marty's mother's name from Meg to Lorraine (the name of his wife, actress Lorraine Gary) and to replace Brown's pet chimpanzee with a dog.Sheinberg wanted the title changed to Spaceman from Pluto, convinced no successful film ever had "future" in the title. He suggested Marty introduce himself as "Darth Vader from the planet Pluto" while dressed as an alien forcing his dad to ask out his mom (rather than "the planet Vulcan"), and that the farmer's son's comic book be titled Spaceman from Pluto rather than Space Zombies from Pluto. Spielberg dictated a memo back to Sheinberg, wherein Spielberg convinced him they thought his title was just a joke, thus embarrassing him into dropping the idea.

 Casting

Michael J. Fox was the first choice to play Marty McFly, but he was committed to the show Family Ties.Family Ties producer Gary David Goldberg felt that Fox was essential to the show's success, particularly with co-star Meredith Baxter on maternity leave, and refused to allow him time off to work on a film. Back to the Future was originally scheduled for a May 1985 release and it was late 1984 when it was learned that Fox would be unable to star in the film. Zemeckis' next two choices were C. Thomas Howell and Eric Stoltz, the latter of whom impressed the producers enough with his portrayal of Roy L. Dennis in Mask – which had yet to be released – that they selected him to play Marty McFly. Because of the difficult casting process, the start date was pushed back twice.

Four weeks into filming, Zemeckis decided Stoltz was miscast. Although he and Spielberg realized reshooting the film would add $3 million to the $14 million budget, they decided to recast. Spielberg explained Zemeckis felt Stoltz was too humorless and gave a "terrifically dramatic performance." Gale further explained they felt Stoltz was simply acting out the role, whereas Fox himself had a personality like Marty McFly. He felt Stoltz was uncomfortable riding a skateboard, whereas Fox was not. Stoltz confessed to director Peter Bogdanovich during a phone call, two weeks into the shoot, that he was unsure of Zemeckis' and Gale's direction, and concurred that he was wrong for the role.

Fox's schedule was opened up in January 1985 when Meredith Baxter returned to Family Ties following her pregnancy. The Back to the Future crew met with Goldberg again, who made a deal that Fox's main priority would be Family Ties, and if a scheduling conflict arose, "we win". Fox loved the script and was impressed by Zemeckis and Gale's sensitivity in sacking Stoltz, because they nevertheless "spoke very highly of him". Per Welinder assisted on the skateboarding scenes,  Fox found his portrayal of Marty McFly to be very personal. "All I did in high school was skateboard, chase girls and play in bands. I even dreamed of becoming a rock star."

Christopher Lloyd was cast as Doc Brown after the first choice, John Lithgow, became unavailable.Having worked with Lloyd on The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984), producer Neil Canton suggested him for the part. Lloyd originally turned down the role, but changed his mind after reading the script and at the persistence of his wife. He improvised some of his scenes, taking inspiration from Albert Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski. Brown pronounces gigawatts as "jigowatts", which was the manner a physicist said the word when he met with Zemeckis and Gale as they researched the script.

Crispin Glover played George McFly. Zemeckis said Glover improvised much of George's nerdy mannerisms, such as his shaky hands. The director joked he was "endless[ly] throwing a net over Crispin because he was completely off about fifty percent of the time in his interpretation of the character". Due to a contract disagreement, Glover was replaced by Jeffrey Weissman in Part II and Part III.

Lea Thompson was cast as Lorraine McFly because she had acted opposite Stoltz in The Wild Life. Her prosthetic makeup for scenes at the beginning of the film, set in 1985, took three-and-a-half hours to apply.

Thomas F. Wilson was cast as Biff Tannen because the original choice, J. J. Cohen, was considered too unconvincing to bully Stoltz. Cohen was recast as one of Biff's cohorts. Had Fox been cast from the beginning, Cohen would have probably won the part because he was much taller than Fox.

 Production

 

Courthouse Square as it appeared in Back to the Future.

Following Stoltz's departure, Fox's schedule during weekdays consisted of filming Family Ties during the day, and Back to the Future from 6:30 pm to 2:30 am. He averaged five hours of sleep each night. During Fridays, he shot from 10 pm to 6 or 7 am, and then moved on to film exterior scenes throughout the weekend, as only then was he available during daytime hours. Fox found it exhausting, but "it was my dream to be in the film and television business, although I didn't know I'd be in them simultaneously. [It] was just this weird ride and I got on."Zemeckis concurred, dubbing Back to the Future "the film that would not wrap". He recalled that because they shot night after night, he was always "half asleep" and the "fattest, most out-of-shape and sick I ever was".

 

Lyon Estates set used in the film

The Hill Valley town square scenes were shot at Courthouse Square, located in the Universal Studios back lot. Bob Gale explained it would have been impossible to shoot on location "because no city is going to let a film crew remodel their town to look like it's in the 1950s." The filmmakers "decided to shoot all the 50s stuff first, and make the town look real beautiful and wonderful. Then we would just totally trash it down and make it all bleak and ugly for the 1980s scenes."The interiors for Doc Brown's house were shot at the Robert R. Blacker House, while exteriors took place at Gamble House. The exterior shots of the Twin Pines Mall, and later the Lone Pine Mall (from 1985) were shot at the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California. The exterior shots and some interior scenes at Hill Valley High School were filmed at Whittier High School in Whittier, California, while the band tryouts and the "Enchantment Under The Sea" dance were filmed in the gymnasium at Hollywood United Methodist Church. The scenes outside of the Baines' house in the 50s were shot at Bushnell Avenue, South Pasadena, California.

Filming wrapped after 100 days on April 20, 1985, and the film was delayed from May to August. But after a highly positive test screening ("I'd never seen a preview like that," said Frank Marshall, "the audience went up to the ceiling"), Sheinberg chose to move the release date to July 3. To make sure the film met this new date, two editors, Arthur Schmidt and Harry Keramidas, were assigned to the picture, while many sound editors worked 24-hour shifts on the film. Eight minutes were cut, including Marty watching his mom cheat during an exam, George getting stuck in a telephone booth before rescuing Lorraine, as well as much of Marty pretending to be Darth Vader. Zemeckis almost cut out the "Johnny B. Goode" sequence as he felt it did not advance the story, but the preview audience loved it, so it was kept. Industrial Light & Magic created the film's 32 effects shots, which did not satisfy Zemeckis and Gale until a week before the film's completion date.

 Music

Alan Silvestri collaborated with Zemeckis on Romancing the Stone, but Spielberg disliked that film's score. Zemeckis advised Silvestri to make his compositions grand and epic, despite the film's small scale, to impress Spielberg. Silvestri began recording the score two weeks before the first preview. He also suggested Huey Lewis and the News create the theme song. Their first attempt was rejected by Universal, before they recorded "The Power of Love". The studio loved the final song, but were disappointed it did not feature the film's title, so they had to send memos to radio stations to always mention its association with Back to the Future. In the end, the track "Back in Time" featured in the film, playing during the scene when Marty wakes up after his return to 1985, and again during the end credits. Huey Lewis himself cameoed as the school teacher who dismisses Marty's band for being too loud.

Although it appears that Michael J. Fox is actually playing the guitar, Music Supervisor Bones Howe hired Hollywood guitar coach and musician Paul Hanson to teach Michael J. Fox to simulate playing all the parts so it would look realistic, including playing behind his head. Veteran session musician Tim May played the actual guitar parts with Mark Campbell doing the vocal work on "Johnny B. Goode" and Paul Hanson played the section at the beginning of the movie during the high school dance audition scene.

The original 1985 soundtrack album only included two tracks culled from Silvestri's compositions for the film, both Huey Lewis tracks, the songs played in the film by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters (and Marty McFly), one of the vintage 1950s songs in the movie, and two pop songs that are only very briefly heard in the background of the film. On November 24, 2009, an authorized, limited-edition 2-CD set of the entire score was released by Intrada Records.

The movie features an Eddie Van Halen guitar track which Marty uses to convince George to ask Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.