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Back to the Future This article is about the first Back to the Future movie. For information about the trilogy in general, see Back to the Future trilogy. is a 1985 film directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. The movie opened on July 3, 1985 with artist Drew Struzan creating the film series' distinctive artwork used on movie posters and in other marketing.

After the success of the film, its two sequels were filmed together, grossed US$210 million dollars at the US box office, making it the highest grossing film of 1985. On December 17, 2002, Universal Home Video released on DVD and VHS. The box sets did very well when released, despite certain framing issues.

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Marty McFly, a 17-year old senior in high school, and an avid skateboarder and electric guitarist, is invited by his friend Dr. Emmett Brown, a local scientist who is rather eccentric, to witness a demonstration of Doc's latest invention, his life's ambition: a time-machine made from a modified De Lorean sports car which must reach 88 miles per hour in order to travel through time. At first the car is successfully tested on Doc's dog, Einstein (named after Albert Einstein), who is sent one minute into the future. Following the test, a group of Libyan terrorists (from whom Doc has stolen the plutonium necessary to fuel the time machine, by promising to build them a bomb, but instead providing a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts), come looking for revenge. The Libyans open fire on Doc Brown, unloading a barrage of bullets into his chest. Marty escapes from the Libyans in the De Lorean; while doing so, he inadvertently travels back in time to the year 1955.

It is here that Marty accidentally interferes with the first meeting of his parents George McFly and Lorraine Baines, an act with seismic cosmic significance, as it jeopardizes Marty's own existence. This happens when Marty saves George from being hit by a car, after falling from a tree where he was using binoculars to watch a girl changing. It is then Marty (rather than George) who is taken inside Lorraine's house, where Marty meets his mother's family and has dinner with them. He then heads off to find the Doc of 1955, who is skeptical at first about Marty's account. Everyone seems to think Marty is serving in the coast guard because of the puffy orange down vest he wears which looks like a life preserver. Doc in 1955 is not yet a successful inventor; none of his inventions work at all. Doc in 1985 dialed-up the year 1955 because that was when he fell and had the vision of the flux capacitor ("which is what makes time travel possible"). Marty uses this information to explain to Doc how he bruised his head, thus convincing Doc that Marty really is from the future. Doc is then surprised and overjoyed when Marty shows him the flux capacitor in the time machine which actually works.

Marty has a snapshot of himself with his sister and brother, and 1955 Doc Brown discovers they're fading out, first Dave, the oldest, then Linda. Marty finds himself stranded, not having brought any additional plutonium back with him. Plutonium in 1955, Marty soon finds out, is "a little hard to come by". Fortunately, Marty has a flyer from 1985 that reproduces a news story that gives the Doc Brown of 1955 some valuable information.

With Doc's help, they find a way to send Marty back to the future: using a lightning bolt for power (since they do not have access to plutonium) that the newspaper reports will strike the clock tower at exactly 10:04 PM the following Saturday. They will rig the DeLorean to channel the lightning into the flux capacitor, sending Marty back to 1985. However, a greater problem has occurred: his mother is now infatuated with him, having never met his father and Marty has triggered a Grandfather paradox which will avert his own birth. Now Marty must not only put his parents back together, but do it before the lightning hits the clock tower.

While attempting to hook his parents up with each other, Marty has trouble with the school bully, Biff Tannen, who is also after Lorraine. In one instance, Biff and his cronies chase him while he gets a makeshift skateboard, and they crash into a manure truck. Unfortunately, this only makes Lorraine even more attracted to him. While trying to get George to ask her to the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance, Lorraine comes and asks Marty.

Marty realizes his best chance to have the two get together is at the school dance where George originally first kissed Lorraine, the night of the lightning storm. Marvin Berry (supposedly the cousin of Chuck Berry) and the Starlighters are playing. Marty's plan is to 'take advantage' of Lorraine in the car, so that George can rescue her, which would put him in a good light. But Biff shows up instead, gets in the car with Lorraine, and tells his gang to take Marty "around back," where they lock him in the trunk of a car they find there. When George does arrive, expecting Marty to be there, he finds out that Biff really is taking advantage of Lorraine. Biff laughs at the first punch and puts his arm in a twisting lock which almost breaks his arm. Lorraine tries to stop Biff by jumping on his back. George is infuriated when Biff pushes Lorraine to the ground, and he then knocks Biff out cold with one punch, and he and Lorraine head off to the dance just in time for Marty to see them when he has been freed from the car.

Once his parents are together, he's still not secure because they have to kiss on the dance floor, but the band's guitarist was injured getting Marty out of the trunk of the car, which would mean the dance is over. Marty volunteers to play the guitar, and during the first number, "Earth Angel", someone cuts in between George and Lorraine, and George seems to give up. Dave and Linda are long gone from the photograph and now Marty's beginning to fade out from the picture and he can look through his own hand as he feels the effect of his "erasure from existence".

George gets his gumption again, clouts the boy who cut in on him, and in a few seconds, kisses Lorraine. Marty's suddenly full of energy, and is playing the guitar expertly again, looks at the photo and sees Linda and Dave have reappeared. After Earth Angel is over, Marvin says "let's do something that really cooks!" So, Marty does "Johnny B. Goode" (by Chuck Berry); the young people love it, but Marty gets carried away, eventually deteriorating into typical early 1980s stage play (including kicking over his amplifier in imitation of The Who, laying on the stage kicking his legs in imitation of AC of Eddie Van Halen), resulting in a blank stare from the audience. Which ends with Marty telling the audience "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

Marty leaves the area, after talking with his parents and giving them the inspiration for his name. There are several problems Doc has with setting up the cables so that the time machine can travel back in time; a tree limb falls off the tree disconnecting the wire from the clock. Doc must climb the clock tower to re-connect the cords, and in doing so, pulls apart the connection further below, which he has to swing down on a rope to reconnect just in time for the lightning to hit the car sending it back to the future.

Marty returns to 1985, ten minutes before he left due to his setting the time machine further back in time so he would have enough time to stop the terrorists. But the car dies when he gets back, and he has to run out to the mall, where he sees himself driving the DeLorean back in time, which happened at the start of the movie. He discovers that Doc took advice Marty had tried to give him before heading to the school dance: take steps to avoid terrorists killing him. Doc was still shot as Marty watched from a second point of view, Marty runs down, mourns Doc, but Doc sits up. He had put on a bulletproof vest and feigned death so that the time frame up to that point should stay roughly the same.

Doc drives Marty home, then heads for the future. In the morning, Marty discovers his house is different, there's a nicer car in the driveway, Linda and Dave are obviously living less "depressing" lives, and then mom and dad are much closer than he remembers, acting like schoolkids. A humble Biff (who instead of being George's supervisor, now runs an auto detailing service) runs in with George's first book, and the Toyota pickup that Marty admired Friday afternoon is now his. Right before the end Doc reappears in the DeLorean, telling Marty that something has got to be done about their kids, and takes him and Jennifer in the car. Marty points out that there is not enough road to get up to 88 mph, and Doc says "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads" and flies off in the car, which turns around and comes hurtling towards the screen at the end.

""Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) watching the first test of the time machine." "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) watching the first test of the time machine.

The series was very popular in the 1980s, even making fans out of celebrities like ZZ Top (who appeared in the third film) and President Ronald Reagan, who referred to the movie in his 1986 State of the Union address when he said, "Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of rousing wonder and heroic achievement. As they said in the film , 'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'" He also considered accepting a role in the third film as the 1885 mayor of Hill Valley but eventually declined. The hip, upbeat soundtrack, featuring two new songs by Huey Lewis and the News, contributed to the film's popularity. Lewis' "The Power of Love" became the band's first song to hit Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Sequels were not planned; the "To Be Continued..." caption, according to Zemeckis, was not added until the film was released to video at which time plans for a sequel (eventually two sequels) had been announced. Ultimately, the sequels did not fare quite as well at the box office. While the first installment grossed $218 million (making it the biggest-earning movie of 1985), Parts II (fall of 1989) and III (summer of 1990) made roughly $125 million and $90 million, respectively (still making the movies hits, but not major hits). It is usual for sequels to suffer from diminishing returns, and in this case the box office may have also been affected by Part III being released so soon after Part II.

producers were scouting locations on a residential street in Pasadena, Michael J. Fox was elsewhere on that street, filming what became his first starring feature role, lead role of "Marty McFly". However, Fox initially had to turn down the part because the producers of the television show wouldn't allow Fox's character on that show (Alex Keaton) to be absent from any episodes.

Production of the film began on November 26, 1984 with actor Eric Stoltz portraying Marty McFly. But after filming began, the filmmakers came to the conclusion that Stoltz was not right for the part. It is believed that they had, at that point, filmed about one third of the completed movie. They returned to the idea of Michael J. Fox, who this time worked out a shooting schedule that wouldn't interfere with his commitments on all night. The movie's day shots would be filmed on weekends.

Fox reportedly averaged only a hour or two of sleep each night during production. Shooting was completed on April 20, 1985, less than three months before its release.

Footage with Stoltz as Marty McFly still exists, according to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. One notable scene with Stoltz that was kept in the final film is the scene in the mall parking lot in which Marty is driving the time machine. Stoltz is at the wheel of the De Lorean in that scene. After the change in actors occured, it was decided to stick with the previously filmed footage for that scene, since the shots were fairly distant, with the driver's face not particularly visible.

More detailed still photos featuring Stoltz in the role can be found on the internet.

Marty starts his trip back in time in the parking lot of "Twin Pines Mall." Immediately arriving in 1955, he hits one of two pine trees. When he returns to 1985, the sign now reads "Lone Pine Mall." [1], the latter is much more common. According to DVD commentary, the use of the variant pronounciation is due to Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis hearing the word pronounced the former way at a science seminar.The nuclear reactor which powers the time machine bears at least passing resemblance to the 1958 Ford Nucleon concept car.This movie managed to pull Hollywood out of a slump that lasted 17 weeks, making it one of the longest in film history. Nevertheless, total revenues for 1985 were 7% less than in 1984.The DeLorean's California license plates say "OUTATIME". California vanity plates are typically limited to seven characters. the News; Lewis also makes a cameo early in the movie, as a judge choosing bands for the Hill Valley High School Battle of the Bands.When Marty poses as a spaceman to convince George to ask Lorraine to the school dance, he references three science fiction classics simultaneously in the line "My name is Darth Vader. I am an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan."The movie that won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1955, the year to which Marty McFly goes back in time, was called ; however, according to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, this is only a coincidence and was not a factor in naming the character.The entrance to Marty's family's subdivision "Lyon Estates" is surrounded by lion statues, inspired by similar statues to the western entrance of the Delmar Loop in writer Bob Gale's home town University City, Missouri in St. Louis. Furthermore, the French sister city of St. Louis is Lyon. Gale was also able to name the local Hill Valley sports teams after his high school and junior high school teams.The guitar that Marty plays at the dance is a Gibson ES-345 with a Bigsby vibrato unit. This guitar did not exist in 1955, and likely would not have been available with the Bigsby unit until about 1963. Additionally, his guitar sound is very distorted — unusual for a mid-fifties amp before any guitar distortion methods had been used.When Marty switches on Doc's amplifier in the first scene, the keyhole is marked 'CRM-114', a reference to the decryption device aboard the B-52 in In some TV broadcasts of the movie, the word "terrorists" has been censored and replaced by "nationalists".