Time travels have become one of the most popular topics in movies and series, used by movies like ‘The Avengers’, ‘The Flash’ and ‘Interstellar’. Their popularity has even brought forth some casino online slots that feature the same theme.
However, the concept of time travel wouldn’t have the success it enjoys today without a single movie called ‘Back to the Future‘. Released in 1985, the film became the founding stone of most stories that use time travel.
So now that this idea is again on the rise, it seems like a good time to look back and learn more about the franchise that started it all.
A Difficult Beginning
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale created the idea of ‘Back to the Future’ in 1980, with both wanting to make a successful movie after many failures. After seeing the yearbook of his parents, Gale wondered if it was possible that he and his dad would have become friends if they ever met at the same age.
Gale passed this idea on to Zemeckis, and they both talked about how these memories of their parents would often contradict each other. Then, they decided that time travel would be the ideal device to connect the protagonist with their parents.
While the idea was made in 1980, the project wouldn’t see the light of day until many years later. Many studios were sure that Back to the Future could succeed, as time travel movies weren’t very popular back then.
Finally, in 1984, Zemeckis and Gale struck a deal with Amblin Entertainment, funded by their friend, Steven Spielberg. Zemeckis and Gale were anxious that the movie would fail but decided to, like in a casino online, and bet on this project.
The filming began with Eric Stoltz as the protagonist, Marty McFly. However, Zemeckis wasn’t convinced of his portrayal and decided to hire Michael J. Fox and reshoot all the scenes with him instead.
These reshoots raised the movie’s budget to $4 million, but it did pay off, as the film was an absolute success.
Success
‘Back to the Future’ made $385,510,132 worldwide and became the highest-grossing movie in 1985. The film was also loved by critics and earned an Oscar for Best Visual Effects and various BAFTA awards.
Four years after the first movie’s success, Zemeckis and Gale would gather the cast again and produce ‘Back to the Future II’ and ‘III’. While these didn’t gain as much money as the first one, they were still liked by the public and now enjoy good IMDB scores.
Time, Parents, and Fate
‘Back to the Future’ tells the story of Marty McFly, a teen who travels 30 years in the past using a time machine created by Emmet “Doc” Brown. Marty now has to cooperate with the 50s Doc to return to his era. He must also help his young father, George McFly, conquer his mother, Lorraine, before getting erased from existence.
While many people believe that the main focus of ‘Back to the Future’ is time travel, the film deals with three different topics.
Fear of the Future and Parents
Throughout the film, Marty is afraid of never succeeding in his dreams. Marty exclaims that he is scared of ending up like his dad, living in an unhappy marriage while being pushed by his supervisor, Biff Tannen.
After traveling back in time, Marty accidentally interferes with the events that caused his parents to meet. This causes him and his siblings to begin to fade away, since his parents were never together.
Seeing this, Marty decides to befriend his dad and help him woo Lorraine, so he doesn’t disappear from existence.
By interacting with his dad, Marty discovers that George also used to fear the future, but didn’t have anyone to support him. Marty decides not only to help him pursue Lorraine, but also to have more confidence in himself.
Idealization of the Past
Following Gale’s original idea, Back to the Future shows that the past is not always as lovely as people remember; sometimes, it might be far worse than the present.
In the first act, Lorraine tells Marty that she used to be more reserved in the day. She also tells him that she and George lived an incredible love story when they were young. But, when Marty travels back to that era, he finds none of this is true.
George used to be a stalker of Lorraine, while she was way more carefree than her depressed adult self. While Lorraine liked George, he often doubted himself due to his self-esteem issues, making them a very problematic couple.
Changing the Fates
One of the critical points of the ‘Back to the Future’ franchise is the butterfly effect, a theory that explains that a single change in the past can drastically alter the future.
By altering his parents’ fate, Marty almost gets erased from the timeline. However, he gets a second chance by helping George gain more self-confidence. He also tries to save Doc and avoid his future death in the 80s.
Marty’s actions are rewarded at the film’s end, with Doc surviving the attack and his parents living a happier life. However, doing this would also alter the fate of Marty’s future children, proving that there will always be consequences for changing the past.
Marty And Doc Walked So Others Could Run
‘Back to the Future’ wasn’t the first time travel movie, but it was the first to present the idea that people can change their fate and that the future is never set in stone. Said idea would be used years later in many other movies like ‘Interstellar’, ‘Avengers’, and ‘Men in Black’.
‘The Avengers’ even uses the plot of ‘Back to the Future’ to explain that altering the past would create new timelines instead of changing the original one, leading to the multiverse itself.
However, that same concept is briefly introduced in ‘Back to the Future II’. In the film, Marty visits a dystopian timeline where his father dies, and Biff controls everything in the town.
Without ‘Back to the Future’, many series and films wouldn’t have even existed or become as popular as they are today, making it one of the most influential in the sci-fi genre and a cinematic gamble that indeed changed the future.
