Time After Time: The 30th Anniversary of “Back to the Future, Part II”

By Michael Lyons

Ok, so we never got a future filled with flying cars, hover boards and “Jaws 19,” but there is something that “Back to the Future, Part II” got right: it showed us what a creative, inventive and original sequel should look like.

Dismissed as “too confusing” and “just an excuse to make Part III,” on its initial release, this second installment of the time traveling adventures of Marty McFly  (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) has gained quite the following through the years and many count it as one of film’s best sequels.

Released on November 22, 1989, this month marks 30 years since “Back to the Future Part II” debuted and like time itself, so fleeting in these films, it’s hard to believe that the time from this sequel to now is the same span of time Marty time travelled back to in the original film!

The anniversary is also the perfect time to look back at wizardly director Robert Zemeckis’ imaginative sequel.

“Back to the Future, Part II” picks up exactly where the original leaves off with Doc Brown picking up Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elizabeth Shue, taking over for Claudia Wells, who originated the role) and taking them into the future (all the way to 2015, which is now in the past - “heavy!”).

Here among the flying cars, self fitting clothing and the “retro” Cafe ‘80’s, Marty and Jennifer see the reason they’re there: their kids are in trouble and may wind up going to jail.  With Doc’s help, Marty is able to prevent his kids from going to prison and changes their future path.

After this, Marty buys a Sports Almanac at an Antique Shop and with sports scores through the years, he figures he can make a killing through betting.  But, unbeknownst to him, Biff, (Thomas F. Wilson) now an old man, steals the Almanac and the DeLorean, going back in time to give the Almanac to his younger self in 1955.

Old Biff sneaks back the DeLorean and Marty and Doc return to 1985, only to find that they’ve returned to an “alternate time line,” where the town of Hill Valley is a slum and Biff has become a Donald Trump-like billionaire (talk about foreshadowing) who owns a high-rise casino, thanks to his Almanac sports wins.

Here, “Part II” becomes like an eerie “It’s a Wonderful Life”-like version of the original film, with Marty stumbling through nightmarish versions of familiar settings.

It’s also here that Doc explains to Marty (and to the audience) why 1985 now looks so different.  Using a chalkboard and drawing time lines, Doc explains that Biff having the Almanac has changed all that they knew about 1985.

It’s a smart moment of “story exposition dump,” as Marty and Doc realize that they need to go back to 1955 and get the Almanac away from young Biff, which they do.

And, if the story so far hasn’t seemed like such a labyrinth, Zemeckis once again breaks the boundaries of special effects with Fox and Lloyd inserted into scenes from the original film.

This is a major way that “Part II” pushes limits, with actors not just acting in the same scenes as themselves, but also interacting, as well (gone are the “split screen double” days of Disney’s “The Parent Trap”).  This earned the film a well-deserved Oscar Nomination for Visual Effects.

More than just effects, “Part II” pushes limits with its dizzying maze of a story.  It would have been easy for Zemeckis and his co-writer Bob Gale, to have Marty and Doc travel to another time period or set the entire story in the future, but with this, they decided to take a chance and do something different, at a time when most sequels were content with just repeating the original.

In many ways, “Back to the Future, Part II,” (which was filmed back-to-back with “Part III”) was one of the first film franchises, attempting to build an entire “world.”  If all involved wanted to, the series could have kept going.

The film also has a thoughtful message, attempting to make a statement of how our actions, right or wrong, can have ripple effects for many and for years after.  And that, more than effects or a vision of future shock, is probably why “Back to the Future, Part II” is still discussed thirty years later.

Now, if we could only get that 19th sequel to “Jaws”...

Sources:

Wikipedia