Review of Back To The Future Trilogy (Collector`s Edition)

Introduction

Roads? Where we`re going, we don`t need roads.

Back To The Future was one of the hit movies of 1985. A fun and engaging time-travel-paradox adventure, it was successful enough to spawn two sequels shot back-to-back in 1989 which screwed up the space-time continuum even more.

Slacker Marty McFly (Michael J Fox replacing Eric Stoltz after a matter of days shooting) is possibly the only friend bar his dog of the local mad scientist Dr Emmet Brown. Doc Brown has a secret - he has built a time machine. Out of a DeLorean.

Marty finds himself fleeing backwards through time as things go seriously wrong and winds up in the week that his mother and father met, and discovers he has inadvertently stopped that happening. If he is to be born in the future, he has to get them together, which may be a taller order than he thinks.

In the second movie, he is forced to return to the past following a calamitous visit to the future, and the circumstances that propel him into the era of the Wild West for the third movie require more space for exposition than this review can afford.

The Back To The Future Trilogy is about the most entertaining time-travel story going. Admittedly that`s a small genre to be outstanding in, but BTTF outshines its rivals for sheer fun. Paradox is piled upon paradox and somehow Marty has to sort it all out without going cross-eyed.

Be thankful you can pop the third movie straight into your player when the second picture finishes, as movie audiences had to wait months for the denouement of the story.

Universal`s releases of the Back To The Future trilogy have not been without their problems in the past. An incorrect framing issue on the two later films resulted in a replacement campaign that took two goes to get it right. We can but hope that this set will not be problematic. I honestly can`t give any guarantees as Universal`s PR company only sent out the fourth extras disc to review. All comments on quality are based on that disc rather than the movies.

Video

The movies are (presumably) the same final corrected editions previously released by Universal as a three-disc set and reviewed by my colleagues in other reviews. From my own copy of the previous edition, the movies are presented in their original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. The extras disc is a joy to behold, and although the material comes from a number of sources in a variety of qualities, there is nothing to diminish the fun.

Audio

The movies are presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and DTS, which really gives your subwoofer a workout. The extras disc comes with sound in Dolby Surround 2.0.

Features

The three films come with their own selection of extras. The fourth extras disc is divided into three sections, one for each film, and commonly the sections have a Q&A session with director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale. These sessions are audio only (over a black screen)and last around 90 minutes apiece. The featurettes appear to have been shot as sections of a longer behind-the-scenes piece. I suspect the same kind of thought processes hacked the wonderful Bouzereau "Jaws" featurette into soundbites for the recent anniversary release in R2 of that picture.

Back To The Future:
A Conversation with Michael J Fox - a picture-in-picture of Michael J Fox reminiscing is overlaid on clips of Back To The Future. This runs for 13 and a half minutes. At the end of the sequence, my player locked out and insisted on showing me the Hebrew version of the "you wouldn`t steal a…" film and half a dozen foreign language copyright screens.
Deleted Scenes - These are presented in varying qualities from a number of sources in non-anamorphic 1.85:1. One sequence has a curious monochrome margin on one side, a second is a very poor, second-generation VHS quality, a couple of sequences are finished-product quality. There`s nothing that would have added greatly to the movie, but they are a lot of fun.
Excerpts from Screenplay - "pages" from the script, presented as a slide show.
Production Notes - textual notes about the ideas behind and the making of the film.

Back To The Future II:
Deleted Scenes - As with the first movie scenes, these are presented in non-anamorphic 1.85:1, but overall quality is much higher. Watch out for the strangely creepy shot of Biff phasing out of existence as his time-meddling catches up with him.
Production Design - Bob Gale gives an overview of the incredible detail built into the first two movies by the production designers.
Storyboards - Bob Gale explains the work of the storyboard artists.
Designing the DeLorean - Bob Gale tells the story of building the time-travelling DeLorean.
Designing Time Travel - Bob Gale continues the behind the scenes material with an explanation of the concepts behind the time travel sequences.
Evolution of Visual Effects Shots - a series of sequences are dissected as successive passes of special effects are added to make the final sequence as it appeared in the movie. Note that all the live action plates were shot full Academy frame, then masked down for the release.
Huey Lewis and the News Video: Power Of Love - the theme song from the movie. Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd guest stars)
Production Notes - more textual material on the second movie.

Back To The Future III:
The Making of Back To The Future III - an eight minute making-of featurette released in support of the movie at the time of its release.
Deleted Scene - Tannen kills Marshal Strickland (presented in non-anamorphic 1.85:1)
Designing the Town of Hill Valley - more behind-the-scenes from Bob Gale.
Designing The Campaign - fascinating alternate poster art.
The Secrets of the Back To The Future Trilogy - this is a half-hour tv special from 1990 in support of the release of BTTF3.
FAQs about the Trilogy - textual notes on the movies not covered in other parts of the extras.
Production Notes - more of the same.

Conclusion

Back To The Future was always a fun movie. When Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale revisited the story for a sequel, they found they had enough of a convoluted storyline to make a third movie. Taken as a trilogy, the entertainment value is more than trebled. Michael J Fox`s hero Marty is a flawed young man thrust into a mindboggling situation that would bring tears to the eyes of a timelord. Christopher Lloyd creates in Doc Brown one of the screen`s finest mad scientists, complete with a completely unique way of pronouncing the word gigawatt. With wonderful multiple roles for most of the actors involved in the adventure, your head is soon spinning with magnificent paradoxes. A classic trilogy of movies in every sense of the word.