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Back to the Future (Trilogy)

Of all the movies about time travel ever made, the "Back to the Future" trilogy is probably the most accessible. The fate of the world isn't at stake, nor does a bizarre machine whisk our hero off to distant times on incredible adventures. What the "Future" trilogy offers is a glimpse of the various stages of life of a small town and its inhabitants, but it's magic is more intimate than that. Instead of watching Marty McFly travel through time, we see time travel around him. Our television sets become our DeLoreans, and we have the opportunity to explore the past as Marty walks through it. Time travel is new and fresh and scary. We meet people we know, but they are complete strangers. And we experience a sense of fate as the movie presses toward its conclusion without regard to any action we might take. ***

At least, that's how the first movie feels. The second film just feels like a movie. Where the original explores the idea that our parents were typical teenagers in their youth, "Part 2" doesn't explore any ideas at all. We get a glimpse at the year 2015, which is thankfully played as a joke because it doesn't work on any other level, and Biff's manipulation of the past turns the Hill Valley of 1985 into a run-down Las Vegas, but none of this is particularly compelling. Caution against messing with the past is hardly an original concept and had been a staple of science-fiction for decades by this point. Lacking any philosophical, comedic, or scientific depth, it feels like nothing more than a plot device for an action movie. ***

Things brighten up, though, as we move into perhaps the most entertaining half-hour of the series. With 1985's Hill Valley a trash heap, Marty must return to 1955 to undo whatever changes Biff made. Suddenly Marty finds himself walking a fine line through a maze of potentially disastrous meetings with not only his parents but also himself. Transpiring around him are the events of the first movie that barely managed to work out in Marty's favor. Even the most innocent slip this go-round could throw off the whole balance of time. This is one of the most brilliant uses of special effects I have ever seen in a film. We actually get a full dose of something we only caught a glimpse of in the original movie: we get to watch the first film from a different angle. Not only are the effects flawless, but they also bring to life a world that can only exist in the movies. This is what a good sequel should be. ***

So now we come to the final installment of the trilogy, and the series runs completely off-track. The second film ends with a cliffhanger (Doc is in the Old West and Marty is trapped in 1955), but the third film quickly and easily resolves it. It would have been so much more fun to have Marty spend some time in 1955 trying to find a way back to save the Doc before eventually finding the DeLorean. Remember, he just wrecked Biff's car, and other people think he's a pickpocket. We could have had some great times there. Alas . . . ***

The real problem with the third installment, though, is not in the storytelling (which is much stronger than in part 2) but in its dark tone. Almost all the fun has been drained from the series by this point. There are still a few jokes, but Biff is no longer available for comic relief (Buford's mean, not stupid), and it's impossible to feel hope for these characters with the ever-present hand of Death looming over them. Near the end, Clara boards a train to demonstrate her undying love to Doc. She doesn't know that the train is headed off a cliff, but we do. We should be smiling and cheering for love to prevail, but the overriding emotion is antipathy that this woman has unwittingly placed both herself and our beloved Doc in extreme danger, possibly even jeopardizing Marty's only chance to ever return home. When the situation is resolved do we feel happy or simply relieved? We also are left to wonder why Doc created another time machine, considering all the trouble the first one caused. The final scene appears to be nothing more than an attempt at a happy ending to an otherwise dreary ride. ***

Overall, it's hard not to be disappointed in the trilogy, as it finishes with only a fraction of its initial magic. It is nice to have all three films available, giving us the opportunity to see the foreshadowing and intentional parallels employed throughout the series, but for many viewers, the original film is the only keeper.

The color saturation is good, consisting of adequate to vivid hues (stronger in the second and third movies). Contrast is strong, with dark blacks, bright whites, and good shadow detail. A few scenes in the first film retain a graininess that betrays their age, and we are treated to a speck or two on the image, but the majority of the scenes look good, if not n

ew. The second and third films have a consistently clean picture. *** It should be noted that the original release of the DVD contained framing errors on scenes in the second and third movies. Obviously this affects only the widescreen version, and most people will not notice the difference, but Universal has since fixed the problem and offers replacement discs to anyone who purchased a defective set. ***

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. The sequels are more action-oriented than the original, but none of the films have much of a surround presence. Only a few scenes utilize the rear speakers for anything other than music, and the .1 LFE is hardly used in any of the films. Front-end separation is excellent, though, and the sound is consistently crisp and clear with understandable dialogue.

Bob Gale is the big name here. He is involved in virtually every major bonus feature included in the set. ***

The Past - Each disc contains a vintage "Making of . . ." featurette for the current movie, offering us a glimpse of what it took to make this movie happen. These touch on all the major aspects of filming, from set decorating to make-up. They have some neat footage but not much meat to them. These featurettes have not been restored and are very rough. ***

The Present - Broken into three parts across the disc set, the "Making of the Trilogy" documentary features a look back at the fun and the pain of bringing this classic series to the screen. Some of the information is repeated from the first feature, but this documentary goes into more detail, as the men behind the movies recall the obstacles they had to overcome and the circumstances that led to the movies' final forms. As nice as it is, this isn't as in-depth as it could have been, and there are things about the filming process that are mentioned in the audio commentaries but would have more interesting if we had actually seen them included here accompanied by still photos if footage didn't exist. Maybe I'm whining and falling into the "the more you get, the more you want" syndrome, but sometimes it feels like the documentary was more obligatory than anything else. It isn't shallow per se, but considering how long it took for the movies to be released, and considering that this is supposed to be the definitive edition, it seems like more could have been done. ***

Being spread out across the three discs, the intent was obviously to create self-contained special features that would complement the relevant film but would also add up to a single, complete documentary. It's a neat concept, but for some reason much of the second chapter is spent talking about the dance scene in the first movie. Of course, the dance scene appears in the second film, too, but apparently time considerations were more of a factor in break-points than logistical considerations were. That's not a complaint. It's just kind of weird that the other features on the discs relate only to the relevant film but the "Making of the Trilogy" lags behind. ***

Each disc has a collection of deleted scenes (only one scene for the final disc) and outtakes from the relevant movie. The outtakes are funny, if standard fare, and the deleted scenes are great. Well, the quality is horrible, but we have the choice of watching them with their original soundtracks or with Bob Gale's commentary, and scenes which were only partially deleted are shown in full, allowing us to see how they were originally intended to be. ***

There is a "candid" interview with Michael J. Fox on the first disc. This is a great interview, but I would have preferred to watch the whole thing on its own. As it is, you must use your Select (or OK or Enter) button when a brief--and I do mean brief!--icon appears on the screen. Then Michael J. Fox appears picture-in-picture against the current scene. This is a completely unnecessary distraction with not only the video of the movie playing behind him but the audio as well. Also, the interview is quite short, and the segments end early in the film. Why, then, do we need to play the whole movie just to see it? Actually, we don't. When you start the film, be ready to hit the button on your remote. The icon of a clock will appear at the bottom of the screen in the opening shot. Once you get into the interview, you're set. As each segment ends, skip ahead to the next title using your Skip button (you may need to press it twice if you do this too soon). This method will save you plenty of time and aggravation. ***

The second and third discs contain mini-documentaries covering production design, storyboarding, as well as designing the promotional campaigns, the DeLorean, the look of time travel, and the development of the special effects (scenes are looped, with each pass adding more effects). These brief inserts as a whole are at least as interesting as the "Making of the Trilogy" documentary. ***

There are two special features addressing the questions many people have about the series. One is a live-action Q&A session hosted by Kirk Cameron called "The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy." Half of this feature is a waste of time. Most questions are along the lines of "What type of woman would fall in love with Doc Brown?" The remaining questions are intelligent and are accompanied by some neat footage, but these questions are duplicated in the still-frame feature "Most Frequently Asked Questions, Answered." This feature may not address every question we have about the series, but it does tackle some big ones, and it confronts them head-on. This is the feature fans have been waiting for. ***

Another great feature that really is done well is the animated anecdotes. These play like VH-1 pop-up videos (without the sound effect), jumping in frequently during the movie to tell us everything from what song is playing in the background to visual gags we may have missed. I absolutely love this feature, and I think every DVD should employ it. It definitely beats the standard still-frame production notes. The notes were perhaps less interesting in the third installment, and it would have been nice to have more of them in general, but for a relatively new idea on DVD they were quite good. (Discs 2 and 3 had occasional glitches in the anecdotes, but this may very well have been a compatibility issue with my player--there is a warning of that possibility on the screen where you turn them on.) ***

As for the rest, the hair/make-up tests are mind-numbing, and the hoverboard tests are only slightly more interesting. These pieces should have been worked into the documentaries as background footage. The Huey Lewis and ZZ Top music videos sound good, but the images have not been restored and are very rough, with ZZ Top's video looking worse because of its special effects shots. Michael J. Fox makes a plea for funding to find a cure for Parkinson's disease, and we are told of other films we also might enjoy--lesser known films we might have overlooked, like "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park" and "E.T." ***

Finally, there are photo/image galleries, production notes, and biographies, for those who are interested in such things. ***

A brief word about the menus is in order. Sometimes the navigation is less than intuitive. While there may be three menu screens of bonus features, the layout can lead you to believe there's only one. If you get confused and think you may be missing something, just follow the arrows, and you'll be fine.

The first audio commentary really isn't one, which is why it is listed as an interview above. It's an audio-only question/answer session with Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale that runs as an alternate soundtrack. But while the Q&A session of each disc relates to the movie at hand, the moments at which the "commentary" actually relates to the current scene are rare and entirely coincidental. As a result, the movie is often more of a distraction than a reference. I'm not quibbling about the commentary--don't get me wrong! It's entertaining and informative if a bit slow in some places, but a lot of the information is getting repetitive at this point (how often do we need to be reminded that the original movie was supposed to take Marty to a nuclear test range?), and I can't help but think that this would have worked better as a soundtrack to a still-frame presentation. That would have made a neat fourth-disc special feature, put together in a single chapter instead of broken across the three discs. ***

Also note that the sessions are considerably shorter than the films they play against, so even though the second and third films may approach two hours in length, the commentaries are nowhere near that long. ***