Back to the future (film)

1985

Marty McFly is an ordinary seventeen-year-old American teenager who lives in 1985 in a dysfunctional McFly family in Hill Valley , California . His father George constantly suffers from the bullying and ridicule of his boss Biff Tannen , and his mother Lorraine is an overweight alcoholic. On the morning of October 24, 1985, on her way to school, Marty comes home to her friend, a scientist, Dr. Emmett Brown , nicknamed Doc, but doesn’t catch him. Doc calls Marty and asks to meet at 1:15 in the parking lot at the Two Pines shopping center in order to show him something amazing. At this moment, all the clocks in Doc's house begin to ring synchronously. Upon hearing the ringing, Doc rejoices, because his experiment ended successfully and now all his watches are 25 minutes behind. Marty realizes that she is late, says goodbye to Doc and on a skateboard, clinging to the bumpers of cars, quickly gets to school.

At school, Marty meets his girlfriend Jennifer, who also managed to be late. They catch the eye of Director Strickland, who writes out a receipt for being late for both, reminding Marty that his father has always been a failure and that he too will face such a fate. After classes, Marty and his musical team are auditioned, but the music committee does not accept his music. Jennifer advises him not to be upset and continue to make music. At that moment, an old woman gives Marty a leaflet urging her to keep the clock on the courthouse, which has been inoperative for 30 years after a lightning strike. In the evening at dinner, his mother talks about what their relationship was with his father and how they met when he fell under her father’s car.

Marty meets with Doc, as planned. He demonstrates to his young friend DeLorean DMC-12 , modified by him for a time machine . It works with plutonium generating 1.21 GW of power for a device that the inventor called a flux capacitor. Doc explains that to travel in time you need to reach 88 mph (142 km / h). Having put his dog Einstein in the car, he sends him into the future for exactly one minute. The dog returns safely, and then Doc shares his plans for the 25-year journey ahead (in 2010) with a video camera. However, at this moment he notices that the Libyan terrorists from whom he stole plutonium for a car when they ordered a nuclear bomb from him found him and their minibus was approaching the parking lot. Marty escapes by jumping into DeLorean, however, in front of his eyes, one of the terrorists shoots the unarmed Doc at point-blank range with a Kalashnikov assault rifle (which periodically jams). Terrorists are chasing Marty, and one of them is about to detonate Dr. Brown’s car from an RPG-7 grenade launcher, but at that moment Marty reaches 88 mph and disappears, moving on November 5, 1955, as this date was introduced by Doc in the counter (the day when he saw the vision of the condenser of a stream embodied in a time machine).

1955

Moving in time, Marty finds himself at Peabody Farm, on the site of which the Two Pines shopping center will later appear. The car flies into the barn at full speed. The owners wake up from the noise and run to the barn. Due to the anti-radiation suit that McFly put on when he helped Doku refuel the car with plutonium, the farmer's family takes Marty for an alien, and DeLorean for a spaceship. When fleeing a car from an angry owner armed with a hunting double-barreled shotgun, Marty accidentally knocks down one of the two pines near the farmer’s house (later in the future the shopping center will be called “Lonely Pine” and not “Two Pines”). Having decided that all this is just a nightmare, Marty goes home, but discovers that the area in which he lives (or rather, will live) is not yet built up. Marty hides the car behind the billboard of the new Lyon Estates district and sets off on foot to the city.

In the city, Marty finally makes sure that he was in 1955, having seen the date in the newspaper, then he enters a cafe where he meets his father George, Biff and his gang, at that time his peers. Watching George, Marty watches as he, climbing a tree, peeps through binoculars at the changing clothes of Lorraine and, falling off, falls directly onto the road under her father's passing car. Marty jumps to save him and takes a hit on himself. Waking up, Marty sees Lorraine, young and slender, who at first sight falls in love with him. She mistakenly calls him Calvin Klein , because this name is written on Marty's underpants. Marty dodges her harassment and, having lunch with the Baines family, sets off in search of Doc Brown.

Marty searches for Doc at the address from the directory, convinces him that he has arrived from the future, and asks for help to return to 1985. Doc explains that plutonium, which is needed to create 1.21 GW of power, is a rarity in the fifties, and only a lightning bolt can replace it. Marty recalls a leaflet from the future that said that lightning would strike at the courthouse on the following Saturday, November 12, at exactly 10:04 p.m. Emmett Brown takes on the task of bringing the teenager back to the future and warns: in order not to violate the space-time continuum , Marty should not communicate with anyone. However, Marty has already changed the course of history, interfering with the acquaintance of his parents. And now, according to Doc, he is obliged by all means to reduce them, otherwise he will simply disappear from being. Marty recalls that he has with him a 1984 family photograph, which captures himself with his brother Dave and sister Linda. With horror, finding that Dave has no head in the picture, he realizes that Doc is right.

All week Marty has been trying hard to make friends with George and Lorraine, but nothing has come of it - her mother only falls in love with Marty more and more, and simply ignores George. The reason for this is George’s indecision and his fear of Biff Tannen, his main adversary. Knowing George’s weakness for science fiction, Marty comes to him at night in an anti-radiation suit, and turning on the Van Halen music, introducing himself as an alien Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan , demands that George invite Lorraine to an evening school ball, threatening otherwise to “melt the brains”.

Meanwhile, Doc is developing a plan so Marty can return to 1985. The essence of this plan is as follows: to the lightning rod on the roof of the city hall building with a clock, the scientist will connect industrial cables, which he will then extend to two lampposts on both sides of the roadway. A rod will be installed on the roof of the time machine to receive a lightning discharge. The car with Marty, standing at the starting position, after driving into motion, will start to accelerate to the desired speed. And when at 22:04 the lightning will strike the lightning rod, disable the clock and go through the cables, and the machine’s rod will catch on to them, the discharge will go directly to the stream drive, which will lead to time travel.

George, on the other hand, is trying to invite Lorraine, but Biff has thwarted him. Marty is developing a plan whereby George must “save” Lorraine from the sexual harassment that Marty will arrange in the car when he and Lorraine arrive at the ball. However, at the decisive moment, a drunk Biff claims to be, pulls Marty out of the car, puts him in the trunk of another car and begins to actively pester Lorraine. Acting on a plan, George opens the car door, but instead of Marty discovers Biff in the car. However, George is no longer willing to back down. An embittered Biff wraps his hand, but George, determined, strikes Biff with the fist of his free hand in the jaw, which makes him unconscious.

Marty is locked in the trunk of a car belonging to the same group, to the music of which his parents first kissed. Trying to rescue Marty from prison, the band's guitarist Marvin Berry injures his arm. Marty agrees to replace him for a short while, but during the performance he notices how his brother and sister disappear from a family photo attached to the head of the guitar. He already feels his own hand begin to disappear, but at that moment Lorraine and George kiss. Marty wakes up, and all the relatives return to the photo. Marty is then asked to play something, and he plays Johnny B. Goode of Chuck Berry .

Back to 1985

Having finished his speech, Marty leaves to change clothes before returning home, not forgetting to say goodbye to Lorraine and George. Shortly before this, he wrote a letter to Doku to warn him of the impending Libyan attack. However, the indignant Doc breaks the letter without reading, for fear of changing his future for the worse. Obstacles arise before sending: either cables that break through a lightning bolt should fall into the machine’s streaming drive due to a fallen tree, or DeLorean will not start immediately. But at the last moment, Doc manages to fix everything, and at exactly 04:04 p.m. Marty successfully moves to 1985. Setting the timer ten minutes earlier, Marty arrives in his year, but does not have time to prevent the execution of Doc. Mourning a longtime friend, he notices that he woke up. Doc shows Marty a bulletproof vest and a letter glued from pieces and says that he nevertheless read it and managed to prepare for the execution. Doc takes Marty home, and sets off for the future. Marty wakes up in the morning and realizes that his house has become completely different, and his family has turned from poor to prosperous. His brother Dave has a prestigious job, his sister Linda is popular, Lorraine looks great, George has become a confident science fiction writer, and Biff has become a car washer working for the McFly family. While Marty and Jennifer meet near the garage, where Marty enthusiastically examines his new car, Doc from the future appears. He forces both Jennifer and Marty to go with him to the future (2015) to prevent some terrible events from the lives of their children. They get into a time machine that takes off and disappears.

Script

Immediately after the release of the picture "Used Cars" Bob Gale visited his parents' house in St. Louis (Missouri). There, sorting out the basement, he found his father's school yearbook and found out that he was a headman in the graduation class. At that moment, Gale remembered the headman of his class and that he had never been friends with him. Then Bob asked himself - would he be friends with his father? Returning to California, Gale presented his idea to Robert Zemeckis ^[10] . He told a friend a story about how his mother claimed that she had never kissed boys at school, although, as it turned out later, in fact, she was not so conservative ^[11] . Then the authors began work on the script, which was proposed by Columbia Pictures in September 1980 ^[10] .

Working on the project, Zemeckis and Gale used a system in which all the basic ideas and plot details were recorded on cards. The first draft script of the film was ready after five months of work, and after another six months, the authors completed the second version, dated April 7, 1981. In it, Marty McFly is a musician who also earns video piracy, Doc Brown is a professor who works at the university in 1955. The scene is a small western city that has not yet received the name Hill Valley . A large freezer was supposed to be the time machine, but this idea was abandoned, believing that the children, watching a movie, could suffer by closing in the refrigerator. In the original scenario, Doc Brown from the 1950s did not know where to get 1.21 GW of energy, and decided that a source of such power could only be in a nuclear explosion. Heroes go to the nuclear station. Filming of this episode would be too expensive, so instead of it a plot move with lightning and a clock was invented. There were also a few minor differences in the script.

Numerous studios rejected the script ^[12] , considering it too childish and advising them to propose the idea of ​​the Disney studio, which the authors also refused, motivated by the fact that the love line between the son and mother is too provocative for their company. Finally, the film company Universal Pictures became interested in the project. The film was produced by Steven Spielberg, who previously worked with Gale and Zemeckis on the films “ I want to hold your hand ”, “ Used cars ” and “ 1941 ” - they did not become commercial hits, so Zemeckis decided that he needed to shoot a successful picture, directed the film " Novel with a Stone ", and the project "Back to the Future" finally received a "green light". Sid Scheinberg, head of Universal Pictures , demanded that Zemeckis and Gale change the script. Firstly, Marty's mother was supposed to get the name Lorraine (the wife of Heinberg himself was called that), and not Meg, as was originally the case in the script. Doku Brown relied as a companion dog instead of a chimpanzee. And finally, Scheinberg believed that the film with the word “future” in the title could not be box office, therefore he demanded to change it to “Space alien from Pluto” ( English Space Man From Pluto ). In the scene where Marty McFly claims that his name is Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan , he had to say "from the planet Pluto." Scheinberg sent the authors a memorandum. They conceded on the first two points, but categorically did not want to change the name. Executive producer Steven Spielberg came to their aid - he sent back: "Thank you, Sid, for a good joke - we laughed a lot." To maintain a reputation, Scheinberg did not insist on changing the name of the film.

Three years later, on July 11, 1984, the third version was completed, in which Marty was no longer a video pirate, and Professor Brown was now called Emmett Brown . The city where the events take place was named Elmdale . The time machine was DeLorean DMC-12 . In the fourth version, the script acquired all the main storylines that are found in the film. The most significant difference is the time of action, when Marty fell into the past (March, and not November 1955), and Doc had not yet invented the basics of the time machine - the “streaming drive”.

Casting

The first contender for the role of Marty McFly was the 23-year-old Canadian actor Michael Jay Fox , whom Zemeckis met in Pasadena on the site of the movie " Teen Wolf " when he was looking for places for full-scale shooting. Fox wanted to take part in Spielberg’s new project, which also starred Crispin Glover , with whom Michael had previously worked. However, Fox was busy in the series “ Family Ties ” ^[13] , and the producer of this show, Harry Goldberg, did not want to release the actor, fearing that this would negatively affect the success of the series. The premiere of the film was scheduled for May 1985, and at the end of 1984 it turned out that it was impossible to attract Fox to the shooting ^[11] . Other contenders for the role of Marty were Fox's 23-year-old Eric Stolz and the younger 18-year-old Sea Thomas Howell . The producers liked the Stoltz game in the movie The Mask (which by that time had not yet been released), and he was approved for the role. Due to the difficulties during casting, the start of filming was postponed twice ^[14] .

After 5 weeks of filming, when at least 1/3 of all the scenes with Marty were filmed, Zemeckis realized that Stolz was not suitable for this role. Producer Steven Spielberg and Zemeckis decided to replace the actor, even though the shootings increased the film's budget from 14 to 17 million. According to Zemeckis, Stolz played not just dramatically, he was "deadly dramatic." Stoltz himself also doubted that he was suitable for this role, in particular, he could not get a ride on a skateboard - he talked about this in a telephone conversation with Peter Bogdanovich ^[11] . In January 1985, his other star, Meredith Baxter , returned to the series “Family Ties”, which allowed the creators of “Back to the Future” to resume negotiations with Fox ^[15] . Goldberg allowed Fox to star in the film on the condition that, if necessary, his employment in the series, he would return. According to Zemeckis, Michael did not have to play, the actor was close to the image of Marty, while Stolz was a man of a completely different warehouse. Fox really liked the script, as well as the "high" reviews of Zemeckis and Gale about Stolz, despite the fact that he had to be fired ^[11] . Per Velinder and Bob Schmelzer assisted in setting up scenes on a skateboard ^[16] . According to Fox, Marty’s image “was close to him” - “everything I did at school was riding on the board, chasing girls and playing in a group. I even dreamed of becoming a rock star. " In one place in the film, you can still see Eric Stolz. In the scene in which Marty knocks Biff down with a blow (in a 1955 cafe) before the chase on a skateboard, Stolz’s fist is shown. It is also believed that in the scene in which Marty dives in DeLorean in the parking lot, fleeing the Libyans, Stolz is also shown ^[15] .

At the same time, it was planned to invite another actor to the role of Doc Brown - John Lithgow , known for the series “ The Third Planet from the Sun ”, but the actor was busy. Lithgow starred with Christopher Lloyd in the movie "The Adventures of Baccarat Banzai in the Eighth Dimension", where he played a mad scientist, and Christopher Lloyd - an alien. The second option was actor Jeff Goldblum . The image of Doc was mainly an improvisation of Lloyd ^[17] , played under the influence of the personalities of the scientist Albert Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski ^[18] . When producer Neil Canton offered the role to Lloyd, he first refused. However, the actor’s wife convinced him to accept the offer ^{[16] [19]} .

The 25-year-old Thomas F. Wilson was chosen to play the role of Biff Tannen instead of the 19-year-old JJ Cohen , since Cohen was almost the same build as Eric Stolz ^[11] , who played the role of Marty McFly initially, and Biff should have been more physically developed than Marty ^[16] . If Fox immediately began to play McFly, then Cohen could retain the role of Tannen, being larger than Fox. The creators of the picture decided not to change Wilson to Cohen after Fox came into the film. In the end, Cohen played one of Biff's henchmen.

18-year-old Claudia Wells ^[15] was supposed to play Jennifer with Eric Stolz. However, the filming dates were constantly shifted, and in the end she was not able to take part in them. In her place was invited actress Melora Hardin . However, if Stolz was suitable as Marty as a girlfriend, then Michael J. Fox did not, because she was taller than he ^[20] . For a long time, actress Jill Scholen was considered as the main contender for the role of Jennifer ^[21] . But in the meantime, Claudia Wells freed herself again and still agreed to execute it.

George McFly played Crispin Glover. Most of the characteristic movements - for example, shaking hands - were invented by Glover and Zemeckis already during the filming. The director joked: “I had to throw a network on him because his vision of the character was 50 percent different from mine” ^[11] . Due to disagreement over the terms of the contract in the second and third film, Glover was replaced by Jeffrey Wiseman ^[22] .

Lea Thompson got the role of Lorraine, as she had previously starred with Stolz in the film “Mad Life” - the producers noticed her in the film during the casting of Eric ^[23] . The styling of the “aging” makeup for the filming of the initial scene took three and a half hours ^[24] .

Filming

After the departure of Stolz, Fox took his place, participating in the project in between filming the television show "Family Ties" - mostly Fox starred in the film from 6 pm to 5 am. For sleep, the actor had only 5 hours a day. On Fridays, he starred from 10 pm to 6-7 am. Filming of scenes in nature took place on the weekend, since only on these days could he be shot in the daytime. It was an exhausting experience for the actor. Fox said ^[25] : “It was my dream to get into the cinema and on television, but I did not suspect that I would have to be there and there at the same time. What was happening seemed to me a strange road adventure, which I embarked on. " Once Zemeckis even said that “Back to the Future” is “a film whose filming will never end.” According to him, the shooting period continued constantly, night after night, he barely kept his feet from fatigue and lack of sleep. “In those days, I was in my worst form,” the director admitted ^[11] .

The scenes on Hill Valley City Court Square took place in the famous scenery of the courthouse at Universal Studios. Bob Gale recalled that it was then impossible to shoot in kind, since "no city would have allowed to turn his main street into a hello from the fifties." The creators decided to first shoot a “beautiful and new” version from the 1950s, and then “completely age” to make it look dirty, for scenes in the 1980s. For the appearance of the Browns' mansion, they used Gamble House ^[26] , and for the interiors, Robert R. Blacker House.

Filming of the Two Pines supermarket (later the Lonely Pine) took place at the Puente Hills Mall parking lot in an industrial city in California. The facade of Hill Valley School was filmed at the Whittier High School in Whittier, California, where former US President Richard Nixon studied. And the dance scene was filmed in the United Methodist Church of Hollywood. The scenes outside the Baines' house were filmed on Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena, California ^[27] .

Filming ended 100 days later, on April 20, 1985, and the release of the picture was postponed from May to August. However, after extremely high audience ratings at the first test viewing - according to Frank Marshall, “the audience almost jumped to the ceiling with delight, never saw such a thing” - the release of the film was scheduled for July 3. To be on time, the editors Arthur Schmidt and Harry Keramidas worked 24-hour shifts. 8 minutes were cut from the final version, including a scene in which Marty sees his mother cheating on an exam, and George is locked in a telephone box; the scene with Marty in the role of "Darth Vader" was also reduced. Zemeckis nearly cut out the scene with the song “Johnny B. Goode”, but the audience liked it, so it was decided to leave it.

Special Effects

After completing the main shootings, the Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) special effects studio, founded by George Lucas, in 8 weeks created all the special effects - DeLorean flight, lightning striking into the clock, and others. It is noteworthy that for the scene in which Marty's brother and sister appear in the photo, ILM made a guitar neck 3-4 times larger than usual and used an enlarged photo. This was the only opportunity to realize such an effect in 1985. In total, the studio created 32 visual effects for the picture, which were modified at the insistence of Gale and Zemeckis until the very end of the shooting period ^[11] .

Music

Composer Alan Silvestri previously worked with Zemeckis on the film " Novel with a Stone ", but then Spielberg did not like the finished version of the music. Zemeckis advised Silvestri to write more solemn and epic music, despite the relatively small scale of events in the film itself. Silvestri began working on a new version two weeks before the first pre-screening. He also suggested using the song by Huey Lewis and his band “The News” as the title track of the film. The first song, written by the group, was rejected by Universal Studios, and then they recorded the song The Power of Love ^[25] . The studio bosses liked it, but they noted that the name of the film is not mentioned in the text, and this was significant, since usually the studio sent soundtracks with the title name to radio stations as an advertisement for the picture ^[11] . As a result, the song " Back in Time " was used in this capacity, which sounded in the scene of Marty's awakening and in the final credits of the picture. At the beginning of the film, where Marty McFly participates in the competition, singer Hughi Lewis , the author of the songs “The Power of Love” and “Back in Time” used in the film, appears as one of the judges. It is he who, when Marty plays The Power of Love, stops the music and says: "I'm afraid you play too loud."

Although it seems that Michael J. Fox himself plays the guitar in the dance scene, the musical supervisor of the painting, Bons Howie, hired musician Paul Hanson as a teacher for Fox who only pretended to play the guitar - while working with actor Hanson achieved maximum realism in imitation of the game.

The initial release - the soundtrack with songs from the picture - contains only two compositions written by Alan Silvestri, both songs by Huey Lewis and “The News”, songs by the fictional Marvin Berry and the band “The Starlighters” (Marty McFly’s name is also on the list of tracks) a retro 1950s song called “The Wallflower (Dance With Me Henry)” and two pop songs that appear in the background. On November 24, 2009, a limited edition with all the music written by Alan Silvestri went on sale. The publisher is the label "Intrada Records" ^[28] . The music for the film Back to the Future was released on audio tapes in the USA by MCA Records in 1986 and distributed worldwide. In the USSR, in the same year, it was released on records by Melody and was widely distributed on audio cassettes.

List of songs from the official soundtrack album:

1. “ The Power Of Love ” by Huey Lewis & The News
2. "Time Bomb Town" by Lindsey Buckingham
3. "Back To The Future Theme." Composer - Alan Silvestri
4. "Heaven Is One Step Away" by Eric Clapton
5. Back in Time by Huey Lewis & The News
6. "Overture." Composer - Alan Silvestri
7. “The Wallflower (Dance With Me Henry)” performed by Etta James
8. "Night Train" performed by Marvin Berry & The Starlighters
9. " Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine) " performed by Marvin Berry & The Starlighters
10. Johnny B. Goode by Marvin Berry & The Starlighters

The film also sounded several tracks that were not included in the official soundtrack. Among them is an instrumental rock version of the song “ The Power Of Love ”, which Marty plays with his fictional band “The Pinheads”. The classic March of The Washington Post by John Philip Susa sounds to accompany the election campaign of Mayor Red Thomas. Song “ Mr. Sandman ”from The Four Aces’s repertoire plays in the main square when Marty first appears on the streets of Hill Valley in 1955. “The Ballad Of Davy Crockett”, performed by Fess Parker , sounds at Café U Lou. The ballad “Pledging My Love” by Johnny Ace can be heard in the car during the “date” of Marty and Lorraine. In addition, the film used a fragment of a composition written by Edward Van Halen - Marty wakes her sleeping George, putting on his headphones.

Products

Hidden movie ad

For the film, several contracts were signed for the positioning of advertising products - “ Pepsi ”, “ Texaco ”, “ Toyota ”, “ Nike ”, “ Calvin Klein ”, “ Converse ”, etc. Also in the film all the video equipment on which the logo is visible - JVC brands. This is Doc’s video camera, the TV, which is sold in the antique part in 2015 in the second part, the monitors of virtual waiters in the Eighties cafe, the plasma panel in the future Makflayev’s house, the television that Biff from the 1985 alternative watch with the girls in the jacuzzi in the second film .

Other products

Based on the film, two video games were released. The first, Back To The Future , was developed by Software Images and published by Electric Dreams Software in 1985 in the UK. The game was released on the platforms ZX Spectrum , Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC . The player controls the character Marty, who must avoid Lorraine and save George from the hooligans. The product received a low rating from critics and fans.

The development of Back To The Future, Part I , released in 1989 by Software Images, was developed by LJN Toys and Electric Dreams Software. The game was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System and has also been criticized by the gaming community. Even Bob Gale advised against buying this game ^[29] .

Sequels

"Back to the Future 2" was released on November 22, 1989. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but became as financially successful as the first part. The film became the third in the list of the most profitable films in the world box office.

Premiere

The premiere of the picture took place on July 3, 1985 in 1200 cinemas in North America. Zemeckis was worried that the film would fail because Fox was busy filming the full-length film Family Ties in London and could not participate in the advertising campaign. In addition, Zemeckis did not like the fact that Universal Studios chose the phrase “Do you want to say that my mother has gotten into me?” As the slogan of the picture ( Eng. Are you telling me my mother's got the hots for me? ). Nevertheless, the picture of 11 weeks lasted on the first line in the box office ^[11] . Gail notes that “on the second weekend, fees increased. Then in August “ European holidays ” came out, pushing us from the first position, but a week later we returned to first place ” ^[30] .

The fees in North America amounted to 210.61 million dollars , and abroad - 173.2 million. The total fees amounted to 383.87 million dollars. The film was the fourth largest premiere weekend in 1985 and the highest grossing film of the year ^[31] .

The film was re-released at the box office on the occasion of the 25th anniversary in the United States and Great Britain in October 2010. Universal Studios Home Video also released a DVD gift edition and a Blu-ray trilogy ^{[32] [33]} . On this occasion, the film was restored and restored ^[34] . As part of the “Time-tested” project, the film was re-released in Russia on June 27, 2013 ^[35] .

Criticism

The film received mostly flattering reviews from critics. According to the Metacritic website , which is based on 12 reviews, the average film rating was 86 out of 100 ^[36] . The site " Rotten Tomatoes ", citing 68 reviews of critics, displays an average rating of the film - 8.6 out of 10, noting 96% of the positive ratings. At the same time, the site highlights 11 reviews of leading critics ( English Top Critics ), of which 82% give a positive rating to the film (average rating - 7.2 out of 10) ^[37] .

Roger Ebert , in particular, noted that the picture has something in common with the work of Frank Capra , especially with the film “ This Beautiful Life ”. Speaking about the role of Zemeckis, Ebert did not fail to pay tribute to the producer of the project ^[38] :

“... Perhaps it’s worth considering whether Spielberg should follow the example of the great studio bosses of the past, distinguished by their skillful choice of the right director for the right project. In this project, thanks to this combination, everything turned out with charm, intelligence and a lot of laughter. ”

Original text

... Maybe it's time to wonder if Spielberg is emulating the great studio chiefs of the past, who specialized in matching the right director with the right project. This time, the match works with charm, brains and a lot of laughter.

Janet Maslin from The New York Times notes the skill of Zemeckis, who is able to unfold the plot without letting him go too far ^[39] :

"He reveals the storyline with the ingenuity that suggests that funny bizarre fables will wind up for them for a very long time."

Original text

He handles Back to the Future with the kind of inventiveness that indicates he will be spinning funny, whimsical tall tales for a long time to come.

Christopher Null, who saw the film for the first time as a teenager, called it “the quintessence of the 1980s, science fiction, adventure, comedy and romantic history - all this fit perfectly into one movie set for children and adults” ^[40] . Dave Ker of Chicago Reader noted that Gale and Zemeckis scripted “science fiction, drama, and humor perfectly balanced.” ^[41] Variety Magazine praised Fox and Lloyd in the lead roles, comparing Marty and Dock's friendship with the friendship of King Arthur and Merlin ^[42] . “BBC News” appreciated the intricacies of “quality written and executed” script, noting that “in the dialogs no hero says anything that might be superfluous for the further plot” ^[43] .

Rewards

At the 58th Academy Awards in 1986, the painting won only one statuette in the category " Best Sound Editing " (Charles Al Campbell and Robert R. Rutledge). For Campbell, this was the second Oscar; he received his first statuette three years earlier for his work in Spielberg’s film “ Alien ” (three years later Campbell will receive his third Oscar for Zemeckis’s film “ Who Framed Roger Rabbit ”). The film “Back to the Future” received three more nominations: the song “The Power Of Love” was nominated as “ Best Song to the Film ”. Bill Varney, B. Tennyson Sebastian II, Robert Thirlwell and William B. Kaplan received the nomination in the category " Best Sound ", and Zemeckis and Gale received the nomination for " Best Original Screenplay " (the award went to the screenwriters of the film " Witness ") ^[44] .

The film won the Hugo Award for Best Performance ^[45] and Saturn for Best Fantastic Film . Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Leah Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, composer Alan Silvestri, Robert Zemeckis, costumers and visual effects creators were also nominated for the Saturn Award ^[46] .

The film received nominations at the 39th BAFTA Awards in the categories: " Best Film ", " Best Original Screenplay ", "Visual Effects", "Best Artistic Work" and " Best Editing " ^[47] . At the 43rd Golden Globe Award Ceremony, the film was nominated for Best Comedy / Musical , Best Song (The Power Of Love), Best Actor (Michael J. Fox) and Best Screenplay (Zemeckis and Gail) ^[48] .

Recognition

The film was included in the list of 10 best films of 1985 according to Gene Siskel ^[49] . The first part of the trilogy periodically appears also in the top ten films according to users of the KinoPoisk and Internet Movie Database sites.

The painting was one of the favorite films of US President Ronald Reagan . He liked the film so much that he included a link to it in his appeal to the nation in 1986: “And as it was said in“ Back to the Future “:“ There are no roads where we go. ”

The episode, in which Doc in 1955 asks Marty who will be the US president in 1985, and laughs at him, not believing that the actor will become president, at the first viewing, Reagan asked to be expelled several times (in the next episode, when Doc was convinced that his guest really came from the future, seeing in his hands an amateur JVC GR-C1U video camera with an integrated player, which he mistook for a “portable television studio,” said: “It’s not surprising that an actor should be your president, he needs Look good on TV. ”) Subsequently, there were negotiations on the filming of Reagan in the third part of the trilogy as the mayor of Hill Valley , but the plan was not realized.