Back in Time

I was looking forward to an interesting and in-depth celebration of this great movie trilogy but this has one of the weakest plays from a strong hand I've ever seen. Boy did it drag and dwell on uninteresting aspects. It felt like it was 6 hours long. So some guy bought one of the deloreans and proud of it, cool, but does it really need that much screen time when you've got Doc and Zemeckis, and Michael J Fox and crew. What a wasted opportunity. What a waste of the viewers time. Instead of invigorating my love for the movies it made me wary of watching things like this again. Who do we blame for this? Directors mistake?

Any documentary covering such a great franchise automatically has lots of potential, especially since they were able to interview most of the greats behind the trilogy. While I felt it opened strong, about halfway through it felt unfinished. I attribute this to editing that could have been improved. Of course you're going to have mounds of interview footage, but it's the job of the editor to prioritize, summarize, and excite for the sake of telling a well-defined story. It could have been about 30 minutes shorter than it was, and certain tangents (like the hoverboard and Delorean restorations) could have been summarized more concisely. It was also a bit distracting that interviews with the stars was interspersed with fans and others whom the audience has never heard of. I'm glad fans were interviewed, but their footage could have been more separate and not given equal screen time with the celebrity interviews. I mean if you have these exclusive big-name interviews that are hard to get that people want to see, why spend less time on them? Oh, and the part where Dan Harmon said parts II and III sucked could have been taken out altogether. On that note, Harmon's screen time should have been severely cut. Most of his comments were either sexual or overly negative in nature and didn't really fit with the tone of any of the other interviews.

I was also surprised that nothing was mentioned about the amazing score Alan Silvestri wrote for the trilogy, considered by many to be the best film score ever written, especially after all the fuss they made about Huey Lewis's role with the first film. It was also quite strange that all the interviews they included about Alan Silvestri had nothing to do with his role with BTTF. As a musician I felt this was a huge missed opportunity to hear about his composing process for the trilogy. And I have to agree that the guitar cover of Silvestri's score that was featured was too somber in tone and was overused.

Greetings again from the darkness. Thirty years is an eternity in the filmmaking world. Only a few dozen movies even get a cable run in year two. So, it's worth noting, and maybe even magical, when a movie is beloved and worshiped by a rabid fan base some three decades after release. Such is the case with Back to the Future, the story of Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown and their time-traveling escapades. First time director Jason Aron offers up a look at the BTTF community of fans, and some behind-the-scenes scoop from those involved.

Talking heads abound in the first part of the movie, as we see and hear from the masterminds of the classic: Robert Zemekis and Bob Gale, as well as Michael J Fox, Lea Thompson, Steven Spielberg, Huey Lewis, Christopher Lloyd, Claudia Wells, Alan Silvestri, Dean Cundey, Dan Harmon, Frank Price and others. Very little new information is served up, and in fact Mr. Zemekis doesn't seem especially excited to be involved, whereas Mr. Gale seems quite pleased and comfortable with his role in film history. The best "making of" anecdotes come from Michael J Fox, though it is interesting to note just how difficult it was for the film to get studio backing – "time travel" movies didn't have a successful box office track record.

The middle third of the movie is dedicated to the iconic Delorean car, and all that entails. This sequence would have been effective were it completed in 10 minutes, but instead it brings the film's flow to a dead stop. Sure, it's amazing that this many have a hobby related to this obscure car and its role in a classic film, but enough already!

Fan-based clubs and the accuracy of the film's "future" predictions for 2015 make up the final third of the run time, as we get a glimpse of how close we are to real hover boards and flying cars. The question that seems unanswered is just who is this film aimed at? Most of the insight has been long ago discussed in DVD "bonus" coverage or previous interviews with the key players. The fan communities are certainly of interest if one is part of it, but the vast majority of those who have held the film close to their heart for 30 years care little for the obsessive fringes, and only for the emotions and imagination delivered by the film that needs no roads.

I was super excited to see this film being a kickstarter backer being a back to the future fan since seeing it as a teenager. (We will ignore the total failure to deliver digitally and physically the movie on time for backers for this review else it would loose another 4 marks).

The film is an enjoyable romp through the film but is decidedly flat in what it delivers. The first half like all these films just trawls over the making of etc. that has been done a thousand times over and seen in countless TV programs. I was hoping for more in depth analysis but that did not occur.

The second half of the film however is better talking to the fans, it's great to hear from other people with the same passions as you.

Overall it is worth a watch, but not something to keep going back to.

As a die hard BTTF fan I was pretty excited for this. I contributed to the Kickstarter campaign based off the trailer, which looked amazing. With all the coverage the trilogy was getting this year and especially in October, I thought finally viewing this would be a great way to cap it all off. Unfortunately, it left me pretty disappointed.

The marquee names involved are obviously great, but way too much time is spent on random fans and contributors. It's hard to believe that what we see in the final piece is the best they got out of the interviews with Fox, Lloyd, and Thompson; all of which appear on screen for a total of maybe 10 minutes total.

There are a few nice anecdotes and facts sprinkled throughout but overall the surface barely gets scratched on the depth of not only the movies themselves, but also the incredibly devoted subculture that has been generated over the years. To be fair, I am an above average fan so I know or am at least aware of the more behind the scenes stories and facts. However, even for the regular person with just basic knowledge of the films the documentary leaves a lot of holes.

Storywise the editing is not good at all and very fragmented. For example, the first part (it's split into 2 very unequal parts for some unclear reason. Part 1 is about the move getting made) ends on the topic of the iconic delorean. Then we see a title card for "Part 2: The Fans", and for a minute or 2 they talk to some people, but then somehow the topic gets back to the delorean and into a pretty long exposition about people replicating the cars etc. Now sure, technically this is fans who build the cars, but there is so much of it there really should have been an entire section just about the car. Then, another part about the subculture of fans. I really saw no point at the attempt to segment the film into actual parts, of which there are only 2.

There are some really nice nuggets and stories in there—like the private owner who actually owns the delorean from part 3 and 4x4 from part 1. But overall this really fell flat for me which is a big shame. I contributed because of my love for the movies. And although I'm sure the director is a passionate fan, it may have been better left in the hands of experienced story tellers.