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Back to the Future Part II

Revision as of 13:03, 24 February 2011 by Freddie R. Aldous (talk | contribs) (→‎Replacement of Crispin Glover)
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Back to the Future Part II
Backfu2
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Produced by Steven Spielberg
Neil Canton
Bob Gale
Kathleen Kennedy
Frank Marshall
Steve Starkey
Written by Robert Zemeckis,
Bob Gale
Starring Michael J. Fox,
Christopher Lloyd,
Lea Thompson,
Thomas F. Wilson
Music by Alan Silvestri
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) November 22, 1989
Running time 108 min.
Language English
Budget $40,000,000 USD
Preceded by Back to the Future
Followed by Back to the Future Part III
IMDb profile


"Getting back was only the beginning."
—Tagline for the film

Back to the Future Part II is a 1989 film and is the second part of the Back to the Future trilogy. It is the sequel to the first movie in the trilogy, Back to the Future. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale. This movie and the third part of the trilogy, Back to the Future Part III, were filmed simultaneously and released six months apart.

Synopsis

Off to 2015

Futurethree

Doc returns to 1985.

Picking up the story where Back to the Future left off the morning of October 26, 1985 , Marty McFly and Doc Brown leave Marty's house and time travel to the year 2015 to stop Marty's kids from destroying their lives. Since Jennifer has seen the DeLorean time machine and Doc decides that the matter concerns her as well, they take her along and depart; however, Biff Tannen also accidentally witnessed their departure. They arrive on October 21, 2015 where Doc is forced to tranquilize Jennifer because she asks too many questions about the future; the Doc's firm belief is that no one should be allowed to know too much about their own destiny or future.

Doc lands the DeLorean in an alley adjacent to the Courthouse Square. Doc and Marty take Jennifer out of the DeLorean and lay her to the side as she is still sleeping and as to not get in the way of the mission. Doc then explains the chain of events that led to the McFly's downfall and tells Marty the plan on how they will stop it from happening. Originally, Marty Junior is approached by Griff Tannen, Biff's grandson, and his gang and is asked to join in a robbery. The robbery is foiled and Marty Jr. takes the fall. Doc's plan is for Marty to impersonate his son and to tell Griff he will not join in. Marty follows the plan, even though it is almost messed up when Marty Jr. unexpectedly comes into the Cafe 80's. The gang gets angry and chases after Marty, much like the chase in 1955 involving Biff.

Using a hoverboard, Marty manages to escape the gang, and as a result, they crash into the courthouse and end up in jail, preventing the robbery. After changing the timeline, and remembering a conversation with the elderly Biff speaking about "Marty Sr." as the one who flushed his life down the toilet, Marty decides to buy the Grays Sports Almanac 1950-2000, which he finds in an antique store selling all sorts of memorabilia from the 20th Century. Marty sees the almanac as a way to make a little extra money and possibly keep his life from going to the toilet, but Doc catches him and puts it in the trash, berating Marty that he did not build a time machine for such trivialities as making money (even though in the first movie, Doc mentions that going to the future would allow him to "see who wins the next 25 World Series", athough he may have been joking at the time). The Biff of 2015 overhears the conversation and takes the almanac out of the trash.

Hilldale2015-1

Doc and Marty in Hilldale attempting to retrieve Jennifer.

Just as Doc and Marty are about to get Jennifer, two police officers find her still tranquilized, and based on her thumbprint conclude that she must be the 2015 Jennifer. The officers proceed to take Jennifer home and Doc and Marty must follow. When Jennifer gets inside the home, she gets scared and hides in a closet. Later, she moves to a bathroom where she sees that her family life is far from ideal. The Marty of 2015 gets a phone call from his colleague Needles, who goads him into cooperating in a profitable, but illegal, scheme. Marty agrees when Needles calls him "chicken", however, their boss at CusCo, Ito T. Fujitsu ("The Jitz"), has been listening in, and Marty is summarily fired. "The Jitz" fires Marty by sending a fax to him, bearing the words YOU'RE FIRED!!!, one of which is taken by Jennifer. Doc finally finds Jennifer and tries to sneak her out of the house. Unfortunately, Jennifer sees her future self and both faint from shock. While Doc is rescuing Jennifer and Marty goes walking about looking at his future residence, the Biff of 2015 has stolen the DeLorean and travels to some point in time. Just before Marty and Doc return with Jennifer, Biff apparently suffers a heart attack when exiting the DeLorean (a deleted scene showed him vanishing). He also accidentally breaks off the head of his cane and leaves it in the DeLorean. Doc then decides that when they return to 1985, he is going to destroy the time machine, believing that it has only caused disaster and misfortune.

1985A

Screen delorean biffs

Doc and Marty escape from Biff's hotel and casino.

Returning to 1985, Marty and Doc quickly realize that their time has been mysteriously altered. Hill Valley is now a dilapidated, crime-infested, corrupt hell-on-earth with the courthouse now turned into Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel, attached to which is the Biff Tannen Museum (where a sign out front informs visitors "Smoking Required"). Biff has become a rich and powerful man, and is now married to Marty's mother, Lorraine, who is an alcoholic and has major plastic surgery because Biff made her. Doc has been committed to a psychiatric hospital and Marty's father George was murdered in 1973. Doc discovers the bag the Gray's Sports Almanac came in and old Biff's fist-shaped cane handle, revealing Biff had given the book to himself sometime in the past, thus changing his future. Marty confronts Biff to find out when and where he got the almanac, which turns out to be on November 12, 1955, the same date that Marty traveled back to 1985.

Chased to the rooftop, corrupt Biff taunts Marty by mentioning he was the one who killed his father. Marty, pretending to be exasperated, 'jumps' from the roof. Doc in the (hovering) DeLorean catches him and knocks Biff out with the gull-wing door.

Back to 1955

85docincourthousesquare

1985 Doc inspects his younger self's experiment.

The two of them go back to 1955. Marty, operating incognito, jumps into the back of Biff's car and witnesses the event where the Biff of 2015 gives the teenage Biff the sports almanac. Marty unfortunately becomes trapped in Biff's garage and must remain there until Doc can free him or Biff returns for his car.

Just as Doc arrives at the Tannen's house, Biff gets into his car to go to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. At the dance, Marty continually tries to obtain the almanac. He gets it after his father George knocks out Biff, but is soon spotted by Biff's cronies who mistake him for "Calvin Klein." They chase Marty backstage where he is able to stop them from attacking his earlier self by dropping sandbags on them, knocking them cold. However, in a confrontation with Biff where he calls Marty a "chicken", Marty gets knocked out when he is hit by the door as his earlier self leaves to meet with the 1955 Doc at the clock tower, and Biff gets the almanac back. Eventually, Biff drives off in his newly cleaned car, and Doc and Marty follow him in the DeLorean. Hanging onto the side of the car with the aid of the hoverboard, Marty finally grabs the almanac and is rescued by Doc from being run over by furious Biff's car and Biff crashes into a truck full of manure again. As the rainstorm from the end of the first film begins, Marty burns the almanac to cinders, thus repairing the future.

As revealed earlier in the film, Doc accidentally turns on the time circuits while taking off, which were malfunctioning and flashing the "Destination Time" as January 1, 1885. As Doc attempts to land the DeLorean, the car is suddenly struck by lightning, activating the flux capacitor and sending him back to the year 1885. A few seconds later, a Western Union delivery man appears with a letter. The letter was given to Western Union with the explicit instructions to deliver it to Marty "at this exact location, at this exact minute, November 12, 1955". Marty tears open the letter to find out it is in fact from Doc, who is trapped in 1885. Marty rushes off to find the 1955 Doc, who has just succeeded in sending the other Marty back to 1985. Upon seeing that Marty has returned from the future, Doc says "Great Scott!" he faints and the screen fades out with the words, "To be concluded..."

Deleted footage

Biffsdeath

Biff Tannen caused himself to be erased from existence.

In scenes deleted from the film, Biff Tannen of 2015 fades out of existence (much like Marty was in the original movie when interfering with his parents' meeting) once arriving in the future, having been erased from existence in that time period. This can be explained for two different reasons. First, these events created a time paradox. Having created an alternate timeline by giving his younger self the almanac, the old Biff from 2015 no longer existed, once 2015A became part of the 1985A timeline. Another possibility is that Lorraine, in 1996 of the alternate timeline, shot and killed Biff. These events are never depicted in the trilogy, although Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale suggest this theory as a way of explaining Biff's "disappearance."[1]

The scene is notable in that Biff started to fade out as Marty and Doc Brown flew off in the DeLorean and only disappeared completely after the sound of the "time burst" is heard. Presumably, had Marty and/or Doc discovered Biff's cane head in the time machine, which Biff broke off when he exited the car, they could have aborted the trip to 1985 and restored the timeline. Had this occurred, Biff would have faded back into existence, much as Marty did in Part I, after his father kissed his mother.

While exploring 1985A's run down Hill Valley, Marty encounters the High School which is fenced off and in ruins, following the fire mentioned by the 1985A equivalent of Principal Strickland. The 1989 novelization reinstates this scene.

While in 1985A's run down Courthouse Square, Marty encounters the 1985A version of his brother Dave; a drunk and ramshackle bum. According to the DVD commentary by producers Gale and Neil Canton, the scene was deleted because Wendie Jo Sperber, who played Marty's sister in the first film, was pregnant at the time and thus could not be featured in the sequel; they felt that if Marty's brother was seen, people would wonder what happened to his sister as well. The scene did appear, however, in the novelization.

Release details

Back to the Future Part II earned $27 million in its first weekend of U.S. release (November 22, 1989) and $118 million total US gross – $332 million worldwide. However, this was still short of the first film's gross, and the film experienced a drop of over 50% in its second weekend, a steep figure at the time. The same fate occurred in Part III, which came out only six months later. On December 17, 2002 Universal Studios released all three movies in a three disc DVD and three tape VHS boxed set which sold extremely well when it was released. In the DVD widescreen edition there was a minor framing flaw that Universal has since corrected, available in sets manufactured after February 21, 2003.

Home Video Release History

Main cast

The characters of George McFly and Jennifer Parker were played by actors different from those of the original film, requiring that some previous scenes be reshot.

Replacement of Crispin Glover

As Bob Gale states in the DVD commentary, actor Crispin Glover was asked to reprise the role of George McFly in this film. Glover indicated interest, but demanded a salary the producers felt was unreasonable – as well as having script approval. Glover reportedly refused to budge, so he was dropped from the picture. Glover later insisted in a 1992 interview on the Howard Stern Show that he and Zemeckis had had some "creative disagreements" over the character, and felt that the director simply wanted an actor who was more pliable. He also said that the salary offered was "really low" (reportedly around $50,000), and that he was certain they never really wanted him back.

As a result, the filmmakers found inventive ways of avoiding showing the character's face in the movie, despite the fact that George McFly was in certain key scenes and has dialog lines. During all scenes in which the George McFly character appears in both this film and Back to the Future Part III, he is played by Jeffrey Weissman and seen wearing sunglasses, from the back, upside-down, or out of focus in the background. This was to prevent audiences from realizing that George McFly was played by a different actor. However, producers also reused footage from the original Back to the Future that included Crispin Glover's portrayal of George McFly, listing him in the movie's closing credits as 'George McFly in footage from Back to the Future'. Glover sued Universal for compensation, on grounds that his contract for the first film did not allow subsequent uses of his portrayal of George McFly in new films, and that the footage had been used without his permission and without his receiving any payment. The day before the lawsuit went before a judge, Universal quietly settled the case, paying the actor an undisclosed sum. Glover would not reveal the amount during his Howard Stern Show appearance, but did suggest the real reason for the settlement was that Universal was reluctant to "open up their accounting books to the public" during the trial. The Screen Actors Guild later rewrote their rules regarding the derivative use of actors' works in films or TV series, requiring the studios and networks to give appropriate payment and credit to the actors.

Replacement of Claudia Wells

Claudia Wells, who had played Marty McFly's girlfriend "Jennifer" in the original Back to the Future, reportedly had personal problems and opted to drop out of acting in 1987. The producers reluctantly cast Elisabeth Shue for the part, which required reshooting the closing scenes of Back to the Future for the beginning of Back to the Future Part II. A comparison of both films reveals that Shue appears to be considerably older than Wells (and slightly taller than Michael J Fox).

It was more than a decade before Claudia Wells returned to Hollywood, with a starring role in the 1996 independent film Still Waters Burn. She is one of the few actors not to make an appearance during the 2002 "behind the scenes" documentaries on the Back to the Future Trilogy documentaries on DVD.

Rumors and urban legends

Hoverboard

Marty, from the ankles down, riding a Hoverboard in 2015

During an interview, director Robert Zemeckis jokingly said that the hoverboards (flying skateboards) used in the movie were real. A surprising number of people thought he was telling the truth and demanded them at toy stores. After the release of Part III, Zemeckis had the opportunity to explain in another interview that all of the flying scenes were accomplished by suspending the boards using wires. There was even a high demand for the Nike Sportshoes Marty wears with automatic shoe-laces, which fans thought to be real. (Unfortunately, as far as is known, Nike have no plans to develop such a shoe!)

After the Florida Marlins beat the Cleveland Indians in the 1997 World Series, a rumor began to circulate that the movie predicted the Series' result; however, this was not the case. No mention is made of Florida winning the World Series at all, and the only mention of a Florida-based team is in a news broadcast which announces that the National League Chicago Cubs beat an American League "Miami" team with an alligator logo (not a marlin) in the 2015 World Series (a joke at the Cubs' expense; they had not, and still have not, won the World Series since 1908).

The Cubs' opponent was referred to only as "Miami" because there was no Major League Baseball team in Florida at the time of the movie's filming. Instead, the movie was predicting that a team (most likely in the American League) would be in place there by 2015. The prediction was made because of persistent talk of the relocation or expansion of a team to Florida at the time (which was also part of the plot for the 1988 film Major League. Since then, two expansion teams have been placed in Florida: the Marlins (1993) and the American League Tampa Bay Devil Rays (1998).

The rumors started again in 2003 when the Marlins defeated the Cubs in the NLCS. But again this ignores the following facts:

  • The movie was predicting the World Series, not the NLCS.
  • The movie predicted the Cubs defeating "Miami," not the other way around.
  • The scene takes place in 2015, not 2003.

Awards

The movie won a Saturn Award for Best Special Effects for Ken Ralston (the special effects supervisor), a BAFTA Film Award for Ken Ralston, an internet-voted 2003 AOL Movies DVD Premiere Award for the trilogy DVDs, a Golden Screen, and a Young Artist Award. It was nominated in 1990 for an Academy Award for Visual Effects.

Most visual effects nominations were due to the development of a new computer-controlled camera system, called VistaGlide, which was invented specifically for this movie — it enables one actor to play two or even three characters in the same scene while the boundary between the sections of the split screen and the camera itself can be moving.

A closer look at VistaGlide

Trivia

  • The original script for Back to the Future Part II had Marty and Doc Brown go back to 1967 instead of 1955, had Mr. Fusion destroyed, with Marty and Doc Brown having to fly the DeLorean over the Grand Canyon. (See the original draft in External Links)
  • Some of the footage for the opening title cloud scenes were created by Industrial Light & Magic for the 1982 Clint Eastwood film Firefox.[2]
  • Many of the cars that appear in the future scene are modified for the film or concept cars. Examples include Ford Probe, Saab EV-1, Citroën DS, Pontiac Banshee Concept, Pontiac Fiero, Volkswagen Beetle and Griff's BMW 633CSi.[3] Also appearing is the StarCar from the 1984 film The Last Starfighter, and many vehicles were also used in the 1982 classic Blade Runner.
  • When Marty demonstrates the "Wild Gunman" machine, the boy in the red shirt watching is future The Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood, making his acting debut.
  • In this film, George McFly is portrayed by an actor ten years older than that of the original. (Since Jeffrey Weissman is six years older than Crispin Glover, and this movie was made four years after the original).
  • In the alternate 1985, the newspaper that had the story about Doc being declared insane had an article titled "Nixon to Seek Fifth Term; Vows End to Vietnam War by 1985." When the original 1985 was restored, Doc was featured as being commended (instead of committed) and the Nixon article was changed to "Reagan to Seek Second Term; No Republican Challengers Expected." This was a reference to Alan Moore's acclaimed comic book series, Watchmen, which is also set in an alternate October 1985; however, in that story the Vietnam War ended in 1971. In reality, Ronald Reagan won his second term in 1984.
  • When the DeLorean is struck by lightning and sent backwards in time, flames in the shape of a backwards number 99 appear in the sky. This is the same fire trails that appear when the time machine disappears at every occurrence of time travel. The reason for the twin loops in the sky is the DeLorean doing a backflip in the air due to the power of the strike.
  • The film ends with a "trailer" for Back to the Future Part III because Zemeckis was so frustrated with the cliffhanger ending of The Empire Strikes Back that he wanted to let the audience know the story would complete in six months, not three years later. The Tagline Coming Summer 1990 was removed from the VHS release and the 2002 DVD release, but on the recent 2010 DVD/Blu-Ray release, it was retained.
  • As Bob Gale mentions in the audio commentary, he said that the trailer appearing to advertise Back to the Future Part III was taken from the device used to advertise The Four Musketeers within The Three Musketeers.
  • On December 12, 2008, Marty McFly's Hoverboard was sold at an auction between $30,000 and $50,000.
  • The sports scores Biff hears on the radio are actual scores from that day. [4]

Video games

Several video games based on the movies were released. See Back to the Future video games for a list.

References

  1. ↑ FAQs about the trilogy (2002/2009 Back to the Future Part III DVD, 2010 DVD set Bonus Disc)
  2. ↑ http://www.zidz.com/script_comment2.php
  3. ↑ http://www.imcdb.org/movie_96874-Back-to-the-future-Part-II.html
  4. ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2008/07/26/entertainment/photoessay4296728_0_11_photo.shtml
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External links


v - e - d
Back to the Future film series logo
Media
Films: Back to the Future • Back to the Future Part II • Back to the Future Part III • Back in Time

Music: Back to the Future • Back to the Future Part III • The Back to the Future Trilogy (soundtrack)
Video games: Back to the Future (1985 computer game) • Back to the Future (video game) • Back to the Future Part II • Back to the Future Part III • Back to the Future Part II & III • Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure • Back to the Future: The Game • LEGO Dimensions
Other media: Back to the Future: The Ride • Back to the Future: The Animated Series • Back to the Future (musical) • Back to the Future: The Pinball

Characters
Marty McFly • Emmett Brown • Biff Tannen
Universe
DeLorean time machine • Hill Valley • Hoverboard • Nike MAG
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