Thursdays at the Theater XI: The Return

Thursdays at the Theater Vol XI: The Return to the Future!

Hello there Titans! It’s been awhile since you last saw this feature written and uploaded, and after a strenuous first month back at school I am finally able to continue on writing for the paper. And so, the saga continues!

I don’t know how many of you are aware of the significance of yesterday. Yes, not only did the Jays win the game, but it was also the day of the fictional account of Marty McFly, his girlfriend and Doc Brown travelling to the year 2015 as recorded in Back to the Future: Part II. The exact date? October 21st, a Wednesday, and they arrived exactly at 4:29 PM! They went where they would not need roads, and thus, the joke of the future was born, bound to culminate yesterday where we live in a time that’s much different than what Zemeckis and co. imagined back in the 80’s when they were making the Back to the Future trilogy.

Seeing as I don’t foresee a better opportunity to talk about Back to the Future more in-depth, I’m going to do just that. I covered this movie a little bit back in one of the earlier volumes when the 30th anniversary rolled around, but this time we’re going more than skin-deep. We’re going to go at a steady speed of 88 miles per hour, upon which we will use the plutonium I keep in my locker and go back into the past where I made that Thursdays at the Theater entry. So come along, join me on an adventure! I’ll just need a retrofitted Delorean that can time-travel, please! You don’t have that? Okay, never mind!

You know, just as a side-note, I could talk about the fact that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken pre-sale records in terms of tickets, but maybe we’ll save that for later. Besides, I plan to talk about the movie right before it releases. ON THE SEVENTEENTH OF DECEMBER. A DAY BEFORE IT RELEASES. Great Scott!!!

But enough about Star Wars, this post is about Back to the Future, so let’s talk more about that! To be clear, I’m going to be summarizing my thoughts on this series of films overall, along with telling some fun little tid-bits of behind the scenes info.

Starting with Back to the Future: Part II: Since the 2015 segment in that movie is why we’re talking about this now, let’s remember that they made some pretty bold predictions about where we would be in the year of 2015. In reality, there have only been experiments about floating cars, and we actually do have hoverboards although not quite the same as what was shown in the film, but it surprisingly got more things right than you might expect. Such things as the thumb-print scanning, having flat-screen TV’s, etc. Seeing as this is a film released in 1989, it was bound to fall short on predictions. We of course do not have giant holographic sharks, weird clothing that was really a subset of 80’s culture, or hoverboards readily available to everybody. Shocker. But the fact that they did get a few things right is actually very impressive.

Moving on from that, did you know that originally Michael J. Fox wasn’t cast as Marty McFly? It was actually this other guy named Eric Stoltz, and they pretty much filmed the whole movie with him as the lead, including a cut scene where Marty would escape from detention by setting off the sprinklers with his lighter. However, upon seeing the footage the filmmakers agreed that Stoltz’s rendition of the character was just a bit too serious and clashed a bit with the light-hearted tone of the film. This caused them to scrap most of the footage of him save for the shots of Stoltz driving a car from a distance, and recast the role of Marty to Fox by Spielberg himself, who’s the executive producer of these movies. Obviously, while Stoltz may or may not disagree, this probably worked out the best for everybody.

Another cool fact is that the Delorean, which was a car that every child of the 80’s wanted, wasn’t in the film’s initial draft. Instead, the time machine was going to be a refrigerator, one of the old ones that you locked instead of kept closed with magnets. However, concerns over the fact that kids may so readily jump in a fridge and accidentally lock themselves in and freeze to death in the hopes of travelling back in time caused the shift to the Delorean. This created a staple of geek culture in terms of collector’s items. Change isn’t always for the best though, because there was also concern from the studio that the word ‘Future’ in a title would scare audiences away, and they actually tried to change the tile from Back to the Future to The Spaceman from Pluto. It’s not a troll, it’s not a joke, it’s real. Trust me, Google’s your friend, look it up yourself. You probably used Google to get here in some capacity anyways! I wish I was that good at making stuff up, I need to if I’m going to become a better writer.

One last little fun tidbit for the road is that the script for the original film was rejected over 40 times by every single studio. I repeat, over 40 times, and some more than once according to the film’s screenwriter Bob Gale. Imagine that man, having a script rejected so much and then finally getting it made with no idea that you were literally creating history, a landmark in human culture. Now that’s astonishing.

Moving on from that, let’s get into what I think about the movies: I love ‘em, they’re all great. Even the third one which, admittedly, is kind of looking for a way to stretch things out, has this sense of fun and adventure to it you just don’t get in other movies, which is helped by Fox as the heroic yet affable Marty McFly, and Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown, the eccentric yet captivating scientist with a passion for the sciences whose just kooky enough to pull off the impossible in time travel. You have Biff Tannen, who is just the epitome of movie bullies; I mean, he has no real depth whatsoever but that doesn’t matter because he just symbolizes everything you shouldn’t be: Lazy, arrogant, rude, foolish and above all else pathetic. However, the character has enough comedy to him so he can be enjoyed by the viewer as this big doofus. It also helps that he’s based on Donald Trump, so when you have a guy like that, you know you’ve got the most mundanely sinister of villains possible. You have Crispin Glover as Marty’s dad (who didn’t return for the sequels, so they had to recast the role and use archived footage), Lea Thompson as the Marty’s mother, and even Elisabeth Shue as Marty’s girlfriend! So obviously there’s a lot of talent involved in these movies. If you haven’t seen them, I recommend that you do. Trust me, there are going to be on a bunch of different stations because of the whole 2015 thing in the second movie, and you can even go to specific theaters where they’re playing the whole trilogy in celebration of that if you want to see it on the big screen.

In the end guys, Back to the Future is great and is going to be remembered for decades to come as this property, this story that really found it’s roots within a whole generation to be shared for their children to watch as well. If you have not seen these movies, PLEASE do yourself a favor and watch them. I guarantee you’ll love the first one. Maybe you’re not such fans of the second and third films, but I can tell you for certain that the first movie is worth it, and is beloved by everybody. After all, the future isn’t written yet!

That’ll do it for this article guys, I really appreciate you reading it. It took me a while but if I say so for myself, I came back swinging! So, that’ll be it for me today. If you want to read more stuff on this blog, you can just explore around. If you don’t have the time and want to stay up to date on what we’re doing, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and see our crazy adventures encaptured in pictures on our Instagram account. Listen, me and a bunch of the other guys and gals at the paper are going to be leaving this year as we are Grade 12’s, so we’d really appreciate it if some new blood would pop on down to room 303 every Wednesday if they want to contribute to the newspaper. We’ve gotten this thing going and we don’t just want it to stop dead in its tracks when we leave, so please, if you think you’ve got some talent as a photographer, a writer, or both and have some spare time, then come see us! And until next time Titans, stay strong!

#movies #entertainment