We’ve got to go back—back to the future! (#SFWApro)

Rewatching BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985), it remains one of the most charming movies I’ve had to view for my time-travel book. Michael J. Fox is absolutely winning as Marty McFly, a teenager saddled with an embarrassing loser family until he takes a ride in Christopher LLoyd’s time machine (the idea of converting a DeLorean automobile into a time machine is, I imagine, funnier to those of us who were around when DeLoreans were new) back to the 1950s. To his horror, he discovers not only has he prevented his parents’ (Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover) “meet cute,” but his mother is now crushing on him. Can Marty restore time before he ceases to exist? Even if does, can he find a way back to the future?
The film has its flaws. The sign of time changing is a photo of Marty and his siblings which shows them gradually fading away, one by one. Temporally, that doesn’t make sense, even though it’s dramatically effective. As others have pointed out, how come his parents never notice how much their kid looks like that guy who brought them together in high school? And the Arab terrorists who play a minor role in the film are a purely gratuitous bit of Arab-bashing. Despite all that, it’s a warm, winning movie with a terrific cast and a lot of laughs. “I’m sure that in 1985, there’s plutonium for sale in every corner drugstore.”
BACK TO THE FUTURE II (1989) has Marty and his girlfriend (Elizabeth Shue) travel with Doc into the future where we learn Marty’s life doesn’t turn out so well. Unfortunately, his decision to steal a 2015 sports almanac so he can change fate by placing winning bets goes very wrong when Biff (Thomas F. Wilson, a character introduced in the first film) gets his hands on instead. When Marty returns to 1985, Biff is the wealthiest man alive and there are worse shocks in store … can Marty fix history again? This was funny on first viewing but even then it didn’t have the warmth of the original. Rewatching, it feels highly mechanical rather than clever, as everyone darts back and forth through time and around the vents of the original film, as do the repeated slapstick bits (too many people jump Marty only to smash everything around him instead). On top of that, Wilson is just too obnoxious for such a large role. “It could be that point in time is the temporal junction of the entire space-time continuum—on the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence.”
At the end of II, Marty finds himself trapped in the 1950s while Doc is equally trapped in the 1800s. In BACK TO THE FUTURE III (1990) Marty discovers Doc is fated to be gunned down by Biff’s ancestor, and finds a way to travel back in time once again to avert it. Getting them back to the future becomes even more complicated when finds himself falling in love with school-marm Mary Steenburgen. This handily redeems the series, getting away from the tricks and games of the second film to a simpler and warmer story that wraps up everyone’s story nicely (though they still launched an animated Saturday morning Back to the Future series a couple of years later). “I understand that because you know I’m partial to the writings of Jules Verne, you resort to these mendacities so you can have your way with me!”
(All rights to poster with current holder)