Movie Club Relaunch: Back To The Future II

WELCOME EVERYBODY TO THE RELAUNCHED DISCUSSION THREAD OF THE NEW MOVIE CLUB, DESIGNED TO RUN PARALLEL WITH R.O.C.K.S.
A big thanks to everyone that are joining us through all of this. It’s going to be an enjoyable ride!

To ease everyone back into this gently, we'll continuing with the "Back To The Future" saga, and this week we're doing part 2.

Remember any ideas for films to discuss are most welcome, and should be made on the Movie Club Introduction thread (the sticky one).

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that, whilst fans are obviously welcome to passionately discuss and give their views on these episodes, please remember to keep things on a friendly footing and respect your fellow posters.
Also, please do not post where or how to find the full movie online. And do not post asking others to PM it to you. You are however allowed to watch the movie in whatever manner you want.

This might be because I have only seen the first one a couple of times, but had the second and third movies recorded, but I think the second might be even better than the first. A lot of fun scenes. Especially the iconic hover board chase.

I've just watched it. I'm always in two minds about this one. One the one hand, this doesn't have the same level of character focus as the first and third, so it's harder to care what's happening, but on the other, there is so much going on in it, there's more time travel doings than in both of the others combined, so it's just as hard to look away for fear you'll miss something.

It's more like a series of shorts that build up, really. First we go to the future - sadly now even 2015 is in the past of course! - because Doc has seen what happens to Marty's family. This leads to some fun capers, but also a major plot hole. During the 2015 sequence, we hear about the Rolls Royce incident that wrecked Marty's career, why didn't Doc just warn Marty about that instead? (Because of course that would have meant we didn't get all the fun and action and suspense of parts 2 and 3!) And then of course old Biff appears on the scene, and by 2015, he's actually developed some brains. He realises the potential of the time machine, and goes back to make himself rich. This Biff is the most dangerous of them all, because he really knows what to do and how to do it.

So the return to 1985, and we're thinking, "that was fast", only to find that things are not as they should be. Old Biff has really done a lot of good for himself - and a lot of bad for everybody else. He even warned his younger self about Marty and Doc. So Marty finds out exactly when Biff got his hands on that sports almanac, and in so doing, the creators gave themselves a unique opportunity to break the fourth wall in the original movie, by interacting with the events of it - in some cases actually reusing the original footage.

Yes, it's back to 1955 again, and this is one thing that I always forget when watching the first one. These events from part 2 are happening around it! A very effective idea, because not only are they trying to restore their original timeline of 1985, they have to avoid messing things up here in 1955! The whole thing is very cleverly done, and the whole sense of relief as the newspapers change at the end makes up slightly for the lack of character focus.

But suddenly, just when it looks like that's the end, Doc gets zapped back in time! Marty is trapped in 1955, until he receives the letter. The guy asking him if he needs any help is a little contrived, but it was necessary for the response, "there's only one man who can help me!" - Doc's 1955 counterpart. And cut to the end of the previous movie. It doesn't have the same suspense here as it did originally, because we already know what's going to happen because it's already happened in our perception of the story. And suddenly Marty appears again, and Doc, understandably, is in a state of shock. Setting things up nicely for the finale - the trailer for which is included at the end as part of this movie, and very tantalising it looks too!

The thing with most time travel movies is that they work fine as a standalone movie, and most are planned that way. But when the movie becomes a success and sequels are made, then plotholes inevitably crop up. As Liam pointed out, it would have been a lot logical for Doc to warn Marty just about the Rolls Royce incident. Also what happened to Doc's big speeches from the first one about never messing with time travel? How many times he kept telling Marty that knowing about the future is a very bad thing. And in this movie he ignores all of his own warnings and decides to change the future with Marty. :confused

Again as Liam said, there's a LOT going on here! We start in 1985, travel to 2015, return to alternate 1985, go back to 1955. I liked the "futuristic" stuff that they showed in 2015. The "Jaws 19" trailer's tagline was very funny - "This time it's really REALLY personal!" LOL! :laugh It's 2017 now and I'm still waiting for the hoverboard! ;) But as a kid I found the alternate 1985 and many of the 2015 scenes to be quite disturbing. Just the "evilness" of everything was a bit unnerving. I guess that's why I didn't watch this one as much as I did parts I and III.

I would say that Biff was the real spotlight stealer in this one. He aced all three of his roles - as the intelligent old man, as the dumb teen and as the evil tycoon. The interaction between the smart old Biff and the dumb teenage one was truly rib-tickling! "Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here!" LOL! :roflmao

I have to give credit to the filmmakers for coming up with a completely different storyline for this. They could have just as easily retreaded the basic plot of part I (as many sequels tend to do). But they chose to do something completely different and quite a bit bold if I might say so myself. The sequel explored the "disastrous consequences" that Doc Brown was talking about in the first one.

I think Doc's willingness to meddle with history does have its roots at the end of the first film, when we discover he had read the note after all and worn a bulletproof vest, and Marty pulled him up on it, and Doc explained he figured what the hell.

I agree that Biff is the character that gets explored more here. The way it's done does work. We get to see three different ages of Biff, as well as his grandson, Griff, who is the nemesis of Marty's future son. Interesting one thing that was never explored was Biff's son, who would have been Marty's natural arch-enemy in 1985. I guess the closest we get to this is the character Needles, but he doesn't appear to be any relation.

Maybe one of the next R.O.C.K.S. we should do is the BTTF cartoon series. :)

"LiamABC, post: 120147, member: 25438" said:

I agree that Biff is the character that gets explored more here. The way it's done does work. We get to see three different ages of Biff, as well as his grandson, Griff, who is the nemesis of Marty's future son. Interesting one thing that was never explored was Biff's son, who would have been Marty's natural arch-enemy in 1985. I guess the closest we get to this is the character Needles, but he doesn't appear to be any relation.

Very interesting point you make. And one I admit I never thought of until you mentioned it now. Since Marty's main nemesis has always been some relative of Biff, it is odd that the old Marty got "paired up" with Needles. Logically it should have been Biff Jr. Maybe the role was too small or maybe the filmmakers didn't want to over-saturate the movie with Biffs. :biggrin

Funny thing is, I've read that the actor who played Biff REALLY doesn't like to talk about anything BTTF. He even avoids conventions and fans.

"Mark M, post: 120149, member: 5058" said:

Maybe one of the next R.O.C.K.S. we should do is the BTTF cartoon series. :)

There was a cartoon series? I had no idea. I do remember a BTTF NES video game. It was pretty bad. Made by the one and only LJN. ;)

"Wilycub, post: 120150, member: 25043" said:

There was a cartoon series? I had no idea. I do remember a BTTF NES video game. It was pretty bad. Made by the one and only LJN. ;)

Yes. Here is the trailer. It had 26 episodes.
[MEDIA=youtube]luvP9AKlXfs[/MEDIA]
I remember seeing a couple episodes but I can't say it really interested me all that much especially considering the other cartoons that were being broadcast at the time.
Did you know Teen Wolf also had a cartoon series. :)

Thanks for the trailer link! Do you remember what the setting was for those episodes that you saw? Were they set n the past, present or future? I'm guessing that the show probably involved a lot of time travelling.

I think I recall seeing a bit of the Teen Wolf cartoon. But that was a very long time ago. It's interesting how many live action movies led to spin-off cartoons in the 80s and 90s. Apart from the BTTF and Teen Wolf we also had The Real Ghostbusters, Rambo, Mr. T, The Addams Family, James Bond Jr., Bettlejuice, Ewoks

"Wilycub, post: 120158, member: 25043" said:

Thanks for the trailer link! Do you remember what the setting was for those episodes that you saw? Were they set n the past, present or future? I'm guessing that the show probably involved a lot of time travelling.

I think I recall seeing a bit of the Teen Wolf cartoon. But that was a very long time ago. It's interesting how many live action movies led to spin-off cartoons in the 80s and 90s. Apart from the BTTF and Teen Wolf we also had The Real Ghostbusters, Rambo, Mr. T, The Addams Family, James Bond Jr., Bettlejuice, Ewoks

I recall one episode that was about A Christmas Carol in the time of Charles Dickens. This episode may also have been about Vern getting bullied or that might be another episode.

Oddly enough I downloaded the series of Mr. T a couple days ago. Other cartoons based on live action movies in the 80's/90's included Robocop, Conan the Adventurer, Toxic Avenger. and Chuck Norris and the Karate Commandos.

"Mark M, post: 120159, member: 5058" said:

Other cartoons based on live action movies in the 80's/90's included Robocop, Conan the Adventurer, Toxic Avenger. and Chuck Norris and the Karate Commandos.

I didn't know about those either. Even if I did, I think I might have avoided the Chuck Norris one! LOL! :biggrin Do you remember in the 90s there was also a cartoon series starring Hulk Hogan? I can't recall the name.

"Wilycub, post: 120169, member: 25043" said:

I didn't know about those either. Even if I did, I think I might have avoided the Chuck Norris one! LOL! :biggrin Do you remember in the 90s there was also a cartoon series starring Hulk Hogan? I can't recall the name.

The Chuck Norris one only lasted for five episodes. It was basically just an advert for the toys.
Yes I remember Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling. I actually just downloaded it last week lol. After getting a couple wrestling figures cheap in a sale at Smyths I got inspired to download it. It had a pretty awesome theme tune.
[MEDIA=youtube]BYMnr62VjZ4[/MEDIA]

I Used to like BTTF 2 the best of the trilogy. As an adult I've come to realise that if course part one is the best, just as Superman the Movie is better than part 2. It's still great though. As well as all of the iconic future tech, the story is fantastic and expertly weaves back into part one before setting up part 3. It's a shame Claudia Wells didn't come back as Jennifer, and the now infamous behind the scenes goings on with Crispin Glover meant that George was killed off in the alternate present, and had to be strategically hidden. I'm so glad that Bob Gales idea of going to the sixties and having Marty's parents be happies never came to fruition.

Little bit of personal trivia: I got married on October 21st 2015.

I remember watching the bonus material and the producers saying about Crispin Glover. To be fair though, they managed perfectly well without him in the sequel. Having George murdered by Biff worked really well.

As for the original idea of going to the 1960s - well, whether that would have worked or not, I don't know. But hitting on the idea of them going back to revisit the events of the first movie was sheer genius. Every time I watch the first one, I never remember that at the same time, Marty and Doc have come back here to fix another hole in the space-time fabric. One of these days . . .

"Booshman, post: 120183, member: 25641" said:

I Used to like BTTF 2 the best of the trilogy. As an adult I've come to realise that if course part one is the best, just as Superman the Movie is better than part 2. It's still great though. As well as all of the iconic future tech, the story is fantastic and expertly weaves back into part one before setting up part 3. It's a shame Claudia Wells didn't come back as Jennifer, and the now infamous behind the scenes goings on with Crispin Glover meant that George was killed off in the alternate present, and had to be strategically hidden. I'm so glad that Bob Gales idea of going to the sixties and having Marty's parents be happies never came to fruition.

Little bit of personal trivia: I got married on October 21st 2015.

Congratulations Booshman. :)

I actually just found out the other day their was a gap of four years between parts one and two. I always thought they were made closer together like parts two and three.

Yeah I remember reading about the feud between Glover and Zemeckis. It did get quite ugly. But years later Zemeckis did work with Glover again in "Beowulf". I guess they buried the hatchet eventually. :)

"Mark M, post: 120189, member: 5058" said:

I actually just found out the other day their was a gap of four years between parts one and two. I always thought they were made closer together like parts two and three.

I believe that initially they had no plans of making a sequel. BTTF was just supposed to be a one-off movie and that "teaser" in the end was just meant as a joke. I don't think anyone, the filmmakers included, could have imagined that the film would end up becoming such a massive hit. Only after its success did they think about making sequels, hence the big gap between 1 and 2. It's good that they stopped at 3 and didn't go on milking the franchise with unnecessary sequels.

Absolutely spot on. They said on the DVD bonus material that it was planned as a one-off. The biggest clue for this was Jennifer's presence in the DeLorean. They said very emphatically that if they had planned the sequels in advance, she wouldn't have been with them.

Funnily enough, when October 21st of 2015 rolled around, I remember facebook was inundated with joking reports from various police forces reporting sightings of a DeLorean travelling at 88mph, and giving descriptions of the two occupants of the vehicle. They'd all forgotten that Jennifer was in the car as well at that point. And, for that matter, Einstein the dog!

Did any of you read about the Mattel BTTF prop replica Hover Board from a few years ago?
https://www.scifinow.co.uk/news/star-trek-into-darknesss-benedict-cumberbatch-isnt-gary-mitchell/
The writer of BTTF 2 was not impressed with it as it wasn't very accurate to the film. Not that it didn't hover lol. It was missing some decals and not exactly like it was in the film.
When it is being sold as a prop replica it has to be an exact copy/replica of the original.

I didn't know about that. I did hear something about hover board technology actually existing in the 1980s but parents lobbies were understandably against it.

Also, Roll Over Beethoven, make room for Chuck Berry, RIP. The man who Marty gave the idea of rock & roll to.

"LiamABC, post: 120209, member: 25438" said:

I didn't know about that. I did hear something about hover board technology actually existing in the 1980s but parents lobbies were understandably against it.

Also, Roll Over Beethoven, make room for Chuck Berry, RIP. The man who Marty gave the idea of rock & roll to.

In Family Guy they did a spoof of the concert scene. Instead if Chuck Berry it's Rick Astley that gets the idea for his song. I once sold something to a Rick Astley on eBay but I am pretty sure it wasn't the singer lol.