By Rick Anderson
For The Daily World
Some reviewers believe that the ingenious plot made “Back to the Future” a can’t-miss movie.
Actually, there were several ways it could have missed, as at least one of its sequels demonstrated. Sticking with the originally cast leading actor might have been one of the potential pitfalls.
Production on the 1985 comedy-fantasy began with rising young actor Eric Stoltz playing time-traveling teen Marty McFly.
Although Stoltz delivered a hilarious black-comedy performance as Lance the drug dealer in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 classic “Pulp Fiction,” his acting intensity at the time was deemed unsuitable for a light-comedy role.
After five weeks of shooting, Stoltz was fired and replaced by Michael J. Fox, who was already demonstrating his comedic chops in television’s “Family Ties.” Reported to have been director Robert Zemeckis’ first choice for McFly even prior to the hiring of Stoltz, Fox came through with a star-making performance and the film was a mega-hit.
“Back to the Future” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Hoquiam’s 7th Street Theatre.
With a resume that includes “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, “Forrest Gump” and the current Steve Carell release “Welcome to Marwen,” Zemeckis has specialized in films that blend fantasy with comic and/or dramatic elements.
Some of those work, some of them don’t and some sharply divide critics and audiences. “Forrest Gump,” for example, won a Best Picture Academy Award. To my mind, however, it’s an acquired taste that I’ve yet to acquire.
“Back to the Future” is one of those that does work — in large part because Zemeckis never allows the fantasy to overwhelm the basic story.
Fox’s Marty McFly grows up in the small town of Hill Valley, Calif., where he is raised by a gin-guzzling mother, Lorraine (played by Lea Thompson) and a terminally browbeaten father, George (Crispin Glover).
Understandably choosing to spend as little time at home as possible, Marty mostly hangs out with the eccentric inventor Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). Doc claims to have invented a time machine — a reconfigured DeLorean car powered by plutonium stolen from terrorists.
When the terrorists show up seeking vengeance, a series of events result in Marty and Doc being transported back to Hill Valley circa 1955, when Marty’s parents were still in high school.
To Marty’s horror, the teen-aged Lorraine develops a crush on him. That means Marty (with Doc’s help) must not only find a way to return to 1985 but also ensure his parents romantically unite.
Co-written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, the script has some fun with the 1955 townfolks’ befuddlement over Marty’s dress and taste in music — not to mention his claim that B movie actor Ronald Reagan will eventually become president.
Such a one-joke concept, though, might have eventually worn thin. The filmmakers were wise in turning their focus to Marty’s matchmaking efforts.
It helps greatly that Fox, Thompson and Lloyd were skilled comic actors. The weak link in the cast is clearly Glover.
Ideally, George McFly would be a shy but endearing nerd. Glover (who was three years younger than his on-screen son) has some many edgy tics and mannerisms, however, that it seems unlikely that a girl as popular as Lorraine would come within 100 yards of him.
Citing creative differences (including, of all things, the actor’s dislike of a happy ending for the original), Glover was dropped for the film’s two sequels. Another actor was hired to impersonate his character for the second installment.
“Back to the Future Part II” fell into the trap that the original avoided, sacrificing character development at the expense of frantic time-traveling episodes. It was critically panned, but the third installment fared better. It featured an improbable but nicely handled romantic subplot in which Doc Brown falls for an Old West teacher played by Mary Steenburgen.
Having demonstrated that he could transform Christopher Lloyd into a romantic lead, Zemeckis pulled the plug on the franchise. He undoubtedly realized that you can go back to the future only so many times.
