#DOC BACK TO THE FUTURE MOVIE#
#DOC BACK TO THE FUTURE SERIES#

What makes Back to the Future shine all these decades later, both as a singular film and an appealing trilogy, is it was always about developing an intriguing story, as opposed to an open-ended milieu of content. Indeed, it’s even fair to look at the success of the trilogy and conclude that world-building is overrated. You can either help us or not, but the sequel is going to be made.’”įortunately, that sequel was made with most of the key players who turned the 1985 film into an enduring classic still in place, including Zemeckis and his co-writer/producer, Bob Gale, at the top of that list.

And the reality comes at you very quickly, which is ‘we’re making a sequel.

#DOC BACK TO THE FUTURE MOVIE#

But what happens when you make a movie this successful is it becomes a piece of real estate, it becomes a franchise. Said Zemeckis, “I would’ve had only the Doc and Marty be in the car, and then I could’ve put them on any adventure. He goes on to say that if he had planned on doing a sequel, he would’ve never put Jennifer in the final scene-hence why in the sequel, the character (recast with Elisabeth Shue) spends most of the film asleep on a front porch. My only hope for Back to the Future ever was that it would make its money back.” Everyone assumed we had this grand design like George Lucas did about Star Wars and had all these sequels. “The flying car at the end was a joke, and it worked as a great joke and a great payoff. “We never designed the first Back to the Future to have a sequel,” director Zemeckis confirmed on the 2002 DVD release of Back to the Future Part II. Even the “cliffhanger” ending of the first movie, with Marty, Doc, and the original Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells) piling into a now flying DeLorean to “do something about your kids,” was never meant to be more than a gag. Of course the irony in this is that Back to the Future was not planned as a trilogy this was a “universe” structured around only one story, with its sequels acting as mere expansions on those initial foundations.

#DOC BACK TO THE FUTURE SERIES#

Even innocuous, seemingly throwaway details in the first movie turn out to have unexpectedly delightful payoffs in the sequels, such as the Doc’s interest in discovering who will win the next 25 years’ worth of World Series games. Fox) and eccentric Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), the three movies’ narrative is as stainless as the steel doors on the DeLorean. With their economy of storytelling and strong fixation on characters, particularly lovable Marty McFly ( Michael J.

Whenever social media discussions about sequels or franchises that most smoothly told their sagas rear, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s little trio of time traveling adventures always spring to the forefront. Perhaps this is inevitable in an era where “shared universe” is part of the everyday vernacular, yet I cannot help but be amused when folks grow wistful over sequels with allegedly concrete roadmaps: franchises like Star Wars, Godfather… and the Back to the Future trilogy. In the last decade, it’s become a common refrain among fans and industry players alike: the filmmakers should’ve “planned it better.” This trilogy could’ve been mapped out those five sequels needed to be outlined first.

Doc back to the future