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| Michael
J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas
F. Wilson, Mary Steenburgen |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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George McFly (Crispin Glover):
Lorraine, my density has bought me to you.
Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson): What?
George McFly: Oh, what I meant to say was...
Lorraine Baines: Wait a minute, don't I know you from somewhere?
George McFly: Yes! Yes! I'm George, George McFly! I'm your
density. I mean... your destiny.
Complications ensue when a teenager
starts travelling back and forth through time with a sports car
turned into a time machine.
 You
can say what you want about Hollywood output in the 1980s, but it
was a great time to be a teenage movie nut. The record-breaking
success of financial blockbusters Jaws and Star Wars
had ushered in an era of Hollywood filmmaking that catered almost
exclusively to the tastes of young adolescent males, and led to
an enormous onslaught of special-effects-filled science-fiction
comedies targeted at a teen audience. From high-profile blockbusters
like Ghostbusters and Gremlins to more forgettable
fare including *batteries not included and Weird Science,
almost the entire studio output seemed to be geared towards that
particular age group at that time.
No matter how impressed we were as young teen-agers back then, few
of these films have stood the test of time and can still be considered
good or - in many cases - even adequate pictures. Back to the
Future however marks a rare exception: while most comedies
from the mid-1980s now seem tremendously dated, this film's ingenious
plot and assured execution have made it a classic within its genre,
and one of the most beloved time-travel movies of all time. Not
only is its script a witty, well-constructed play on the ultimate
time-travel paradox (if I went back in time and prevented my own
birth, would I suddenly cease to exist?), it also works in many
layers of meaning. The Freudian subtext is obvious and is handled
delicately and tastefully, while the film's emotional strain focuses
on Marty's problematic relationship with his father, resulting in
a wish-fulfillment fantasy in which the child remolds the parents
into a more desirable shape and form.
 Michael
J. Fox is superb as the anxious, frustrated but supremely likable
Marty, and Lea Thompson and Christopher Lloyd play career-best roles
that will clearly be the ones they will remembered by. Special mention
however must go to Crispin Glover as Marty's nerdy dad, whose eccentric
mannerisms and controlled physical comedy bring his scenes to an
even higher level. He makes George McFly funny, sweet and sympathetic
without falling into the easy trap of making him the butt of many
jokes. Ultimately, his transformation is the narrative's ultimate
goal, and he brings it off perfectly. The story meanwhile manages
to juggle numerous countdowns, deadlines and complications without
the audience ever losing track of what's happening and why, which
is truly an accomplishment for such a complexly paradoxical plot.
The first sequel has considerably more difficulty keeping all of
its balls up in the air at the same time, and the narrative infamously
even screams to a halt halfway so Doc can draw a picture on a drawing
board, explaining what exactly is going on to a confused Mary and
an even more clueless audience. Its jumps back and forth between
wildly different alternate realities and time periods give the film
an erratic visual style, and the many detailed jokes about future
gadgets are rarely very amusing. One gets the feeling that the movie's
frenetic, overly involved plotting is little more than a smokescreen
to hide the vacuum that exists at the heart of the narrative. The
first film had a strong emotional undercurrent that dealt with Marty's
relationship with his father, expressed as a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
The second film's only character-based plot line is Marty's own
inability to resist challenges, which he must conquer in order safeguard
his future. Although this strand does provide a few engaging extra
plays on the series' central paradox, it isn't enough to give the
film an emotional subtext strong enough to give the movie the heart
that made the first picture so appealing.
 The
third and final film in the series does a much better job at this,
shifting the focus away from Marty towards Doc, whose charming romance
with Mary Steenburgen's character grounds the film in an understandable
reality. It also benefits from its single setting, which makes the
most of playful references to the Western film genre (even going
so far as to cast a whole roster of character actors familiar from
numerous classic Westerns in bit parts). Without the frenetic, unfocused
mania of Part II, the film feels a lot more like the original in
tone and spirit, even if it lacks the tremendous drive and novelty
of the first film. As a trilogy, the three films still play surprisingly
well. The weakest part is the middle one, which seems just right
for this particular trilogy, and the three films play off each other
very nicely with recurring dialogues, scenes, characters and motifs
that establish many layers of playful fun. The first film may be
in a league all its own, but this is one rare case in which the
two sequels do manage to fit together and form an amazingly consistent
narrative as a combined story. |
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 Initially
announced by Universal for a 1998 DVD release but subsequently dropped
off the list, then announced several times over subsequent years
only to be withdrawn again, the Back to the Future trilogy
was finally first released on DVD for Region 4 in August of 2002.
The (identical) Region 2 release followed in September, with a Region
1 box set scheduled for Christmas 2002. The Region 1 version is
expected to carry screen-specific audio commentaries from producers
Bob Gale and Neil Canton and some extra EPK material, all of which
was not included on the international release, but it will be without
the DTS audio from the Region 2/4 version. The Region 2 release
version served as a basis for this review.
The anamorphic widescreen image
is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 1.85:1. The prints for all
three films are astonishingly clean, with bright, natural colors
that seem only very slightly faded in some shots from the first
film. The third film looks the most impressive of the three, with
nicely saturated colors, fantastic detail and rock solid black levels.
The first two films do have some very fine film grain visible occasionally
(most notably during the opening credits), but overall, all three
films look pristine and nicely balanced.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound mix sounds full-bodied and is nicely directional.
Alan Silvestri's musical soundtrack benefits the most from the surround
stage, and his orchestral score is very nicely spread across a wide
surround field, given depth by well-chosen use of the rear channels.
Bass response is reasonable but could have been stronger, as the
music (especially Huey Lewis's well-employed hit The Power of
Love) can sometimes sound a little thin and disembodied. This
is most obvious in the first film, both sequels tend to utilize
the bass channel much more fully. Dialogues for all three movies
often have rather limited fidelity and sometimes suffer from some
mild distortion. This problem however lies solely in the source
material. The DTS audio mix included on this release of course has
the same problem with many of the dialogues, but is still the more
impressive mix thanks to its higher bit rate, which allows for a
stronger surround presence and more precise directional effects.
There is no light-and-day difference between the two mixes, and
it's even difficult to make a precise side-by-side comparison because
on-the-fly switching between the two tracks has been disabled and
the DTS is nearly 10 dB louder than its DD counterpart. But it's
clearly the more powerful mix of the two, with better control and
a brighter, more direct sound.
The trilogy has been a long time coming on DVD, and because one
of the reasons for the long delays was apparently the DVD producers'
wish to include the original footage shot with Eric Stoltz as
Marty, it comes as a disappointment that they ultimately were
not able to obtain the rights, apparently due to the fact that
Stoltz himself fought them tooth and nail over this issue. Also,
the Region 1 release has been announced as having some additional
extras on top of those included in the international version,
but will therefore forego the DTS audio included here. So let's
round up the items that have been included...
The first film in the trilogy has an audio commentary track
from writer/director Robert Zemeckis with writer/producer Bob
Gale, though it's not the usual screen-specific sit-down session
one might expect. It's an interview conducted with the pair before
a university auditorium audience in which they both answer a large
number of in-depth questions about the film's screenplay development,
production and sequels. It runs about an hour-and-a-half, therefore
ending just over twenty minutes before the film does, and although
it's a little different it rarely has any direct bearing to what
is happening on-screen, it does provide an enormous amount of
excellent background information, all of which is great fun to
listen to.
An excellent general look at the production is offered by the
new Laurent Bouzereau-produced documentary 'Making the
Trilogy', which is split across the discs into three fifteen-minute
episodes. New interview footage of Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale,
Michael J. Fox and Lea Thompson forms the basis for these disappointingly
short but nicely paced and highly informative mini-documentaries,
and the first one even manages to cover the Eric Stoltz-debacle
fairly thoroughly with some still images of him in character as
Marty during initial production. For the first two films, the
much more mundane promotional featurette has been included,
and though they are highly superficial affairs, they do include
generous amounts of behind-the-scenes footage and on-set cast
interviews.
All three discs include separate selections of outtakes,
with the usual humorous flubs and practical jokes, and deleted
scenes, of which some minor further additions will be added
to the upcoming Region 1 release. Also included for all three
movies are storyboard-to-film comparisons for two scenes,
with the storyboard designs presented in the top half of the screen
and the final footage running in the bottom half. Extensive image
galleries are divided into three major sections for each film:
'Marty McFly's Photo Album', which features a large number of
cast portraits and promotional stills; 'Behind the scenes', featuring
many images of Zemeckis and Gale working with the cast and crew
on-set; and 'Production design', with numerous highly detailed
conceptual and final design work for the time machine and various
locations. The third disc has an additional gallery containing
a wide variety of unused poster art. Each disc also carries the
theatrical trailer for the film, although it's actually
the teaser trailer for the first film: there was never enough
time to do a full trailer for the original ahead of the tightly
scheduled release date, so this was the only one ever screened
in America. It's too bad however that the excellent theatrical
trailer that played on European screens hasn't been included here.
In addition, the third disc has a promotional trailer for the
upcoming DVD release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Besides the aforementioned categories of extras included for each
of the films, there are a few that are unique to each film as
well: on disc 1, footage from the original make-up tests
has been included for Christopher Lloyd, Thomas F. Wilson and
Lea Thompson (who actually attempts to keep on talking in character
throughout the camera test). For the second film, there's a fairly
silly one-minute item called hoverboard location test.
The third film includes the music video for ZZ Top's track
Doubleback, which includes lots of footage from the third
film.
All in all, the package adds up to an impressive amount of extras.
It's a relief in any case to see that Universal has done right
by the whole trilogy by packing all three films with similar extras
rather than simply focusing on the first film and adding the other
two as an afterthought. It's a disappointment that the much-publicized
Eric Stoltz footage didn't make it onto the release, but that
apparently wasn't for lack of trying. The meager running time
of the new documentaries is actually more of a shame, as the first
film in particular simply demands a lot more attention than it's
been given here (an hour for the first film's documentary would
have been great, with another half-hour for each sequel). Fans
of the film would probably also have liked to experience a little
more on the special effects, which are all but ignored for all
three pictures. And finally, the fact that the Region 1 version
will have screen-specific audio commentaries for all three films
may prove hard to swallow for the true fan (though this remains
a difficult choice, as the international release has that DTS
track that will be missing from its American counterpart). In
any case, the long wait is over and Back to the Future
has finally landed on DVD in a box set that can be considered
rock solid by any reasonable measure.
 The
main menu screens on all three discs are preceded by a swift montage
of shots from the film. Each main screen has a nicely animated,
metallic logo and the Hill Valley bell tower in the period most
typical for that particular film as its central image. Animated
transitions with footage from the film lead into the subsequent
menu screens. On-the-fly switching between the available audio tracks
has been disabled.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
September 23, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on Back
to the Future.
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