September 26, 2025 • 34 mins
The source material provides an extensive analysis of the 1985 film Back to the Future, arguing for its status as the best movie of that year due to its narrative brilliance, technical achievements, and lasting cultural impact. A significant portion of the episode focuses on the DeLorean DMC-12, explaining how the commercially failed sports car became an iconic cinematic vehicle after its transformation into the film's time machine, which boasted features like a stainless steel body and gull-wing doors. The analysis further highlights the film's perfectly crafted story by writer/director Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, emphasizing the unforgettable characters such as Marty McFly and Doc Brown, whose chemistry grounded the science fiction premise. Ultimately, the text asserts that the film's blend of humor, heart, and spectacle gave it a timeless and universal appeal that transcended its genre and solidified the DeLorean's legacy as a symbol of optimism and innovation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, let's unpack this. We've set the time circuits, we've
hit eighty eight miles per hour, and we are diving
deep into the cinematic landscape of nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Our mission for you, the listener, is to understand why
Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg's production Back to the Future
or BTTF is not merely a beloved classic, not just that,
but arguably the single best, most structurally perfect movie of
that entire decade, let alone that blockbuster year.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's a fantastic mission and a bold claim. But I
think we can back it up because I mean, nineteen
eighty five, what a year from movies. It was arguably
the peak of the blockbuster era.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Oh absolutely, you had huge competition, huge.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We're talking the Goonies, a total classic.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yep, Rambo, First Blood Part two, massive action hit, and.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The generation defining the breakfast club, huge cultural impact.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Right, But BTTF it achieved something none of those films
quite managed, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It really did. It hit this sweet spot of universal,
immediate and crucially enduring a peace. It wasn't just for
kids or teens or action fans.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Everyone seemed to connect with it exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It was a perfect scom really blending science fiction that
coming of age adventure feel, really sharp.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Comedy and genuine relatable heart. That's key.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Absolutely, it had soul and.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Its initial impact was just undeniable. It set the stage
for everything that followed, its whole lasting legacy. We often
talk about box office figures on these deep dives, maybe
sometimes too much, But in this case, while the numbers
really do cement its position, don't you think they really do?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
The film didn't just do well. It was the highest
grossing film of nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Period, breaking in over three hundred and eighty one million
dollars worldwide.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Back then, which is massive money for nineteen eighty five. Yeah,
that kind of financial success. It just confirmed that the story, structure,
the characters, it appealed across age groups, across genres, even
across borders.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It is the film everyone saw that year.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And everyone seemed to love it. It just clicked.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Now. That success was fueled by pure imagination, obviously, but
it was physically held yeah, literally by one object.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh yes, the car the heart of.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The film, the iconic vessel that carried Marty McFly through
time is the DeLorean DMC twelve.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Such a choice. This vehicle was, I mean, let's be honest,
kind of a footnote in automotive history before the film debuted,
A weird curiosity.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Definitely not a household name in the way a Mustang
or Corvette.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Was not at all. But it became a pop culture
legend almost overnight, purely because of this movie.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And it perfectly embodies the film's guiding philosophy, which Doc
Brown gives us so memorably. Oh, the classic line, the
way I see it, if you're going to build a
time machine into a car, why not do it with
some style perfection.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And that style is exactly what makes the DeLorean so
central to this whole thing. It's what we're diving into now.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Right because the choice itself, it's fascinating, it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Choosing the DeLorean was an act of profound, almost ironic
cinematic genius.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Ironic is a good word for it, because.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
The car itself was such an unlikely vehicle scream immortality.
It's a truly paradoxical icon.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So give us the real world context, the DeLorean Motor Company.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Okay, so DMC. It was the big dream of John DeLorean.
Now this guy was already a rock star execut General Motors,
a real Maverick.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Kind of legendary in the industry, right for things like
the gto.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Exactly he broke them mold and he left GM determined
to build his own ultimate car, stylish, sure, but also
supposedly an ethical sports car that was part of the.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Pitch high ambitions, very high.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But that ambition, well, it was unfortunately overshadowed by the
harsh reality of the car business.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, things didn't quite pan out as planned.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Not even close. By the time Back to the Future
hit theaters in eighty five, that Delareian Motor Company was
already bankrupt, done, finished.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Wow, So the timing was intense.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It was a spectacular commercial flop. They only produced about
nine thousand units total, maybe less.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Not many cars for a big launch.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
No, in the eyes of the automotive wars world back then,
the car was basically a failure. A cool looking failure maybe,
but a symbol of high stakes ambition gone spectacularly wrong. Plus,
you know, John Dolorian's personal legal troubles didn't help the image.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Either, right, that whole saga.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
But Zamechi's and Bob Gail, the writers, they saw pass
that commercial failure. They recognized the car's fundamental asthetic.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Strength, the look, which was undeniable totally.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
The design was by the legendary Georgetto Giujarro, an Italian
design master, and it was inherently futuristic. It always looked
like something that drove off the page of a sci
fi comic book.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It really did. You look at those key features, the
sleek angular lines, so aggressive and modern for the time.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And that's stainless steel body.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, unpainted, Yeah, that gave it this muted industrial but
somehow almost a fial glow. It didn't reflect light like normal.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Car paint, very distinctive. And then, of course the.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Show stoppers, the goal wing doors, the.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Dramatic gull wing doors in nineteen eighty five, I absolutely
nothing else on the road looked like that. It just
screamed the future, or at least, you know, a very stylish,
cinematic idea of the future.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It had that wow factor built in, definitely.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But here's the paradox, the other side of the coin.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
The high style was coupled with well pretty low performance.
That's where the quirky charm comes in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Right. It looked fast, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It was beautiful, but famously kind of slow. It had
this underpowered projo renou Volvo V six engine, a two
point eight to five literre thing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We're only making about only about one.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Hundred and thirty horse power, which for a car that
looked like that was underwhelming.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Huh yeah, definitely. So it was, in many ways this
esthetic masterpiece that kind of struggled with the basic task
of acceleration.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Pretty much, which strangely makes it such a brilliant cinematic choice,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
How so?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, think about Doc Brown, this eccentric genius. He's brilliant, obviously,
but maybe a bit disorganized, a bit out there.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Sure, yeah, flies by the seat of his pants.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Sometimes, so him choosing this flawed, beautiful, commercially failed machine,
it fits his character perfectly. It's an idiosyncratic choice for
an idiosyncratic inventor using challenged tech to achieve the impossible.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
That makes a lot of sense. It's not like he
picked a Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
He picked this exactly, and then the cinematic transformation just
layered profound fictional genius onto those real world flaws. They
didn't just film a stock deloreate.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh no, they went to town on it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It turned it into a proper time machine. You've got
all those modifications, Yeah, the intricate glowing blue wires snaking.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Around since pulsing with light.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
The iconic blinking flux capacitor right between the seats, which
we got to talk more about. That the centerpiece of
the movie's pseudoscience. Absolutely, and remember the power source change.
First it's that bulky nuclear reactor fueled by stolen plutonium.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Which is hilarious and dangerous, right, and then later it
gets upgraded to the infinitely more whimsical household refuse powered
mister fusion generator just throws banana peels and beer in there.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
It becomes a character in itself, truly. And the fact
that Docs specifically chose a car that was a pivotal
narrative decision.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Oh right, I heard it wasn't always a car.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
No. Originally, the sources say Galeen zameca Is considered building
the time machine into get this, a refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Rich Seriously, seriously, can you imagine that's terrible? Thank goodness,
they changed their minds.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah. Apparently, Spielberg himself raised concerns worried that kids would
start locking themselves in refrigerators trying to time travel. Yeah,
which is a valid safety concern.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Very valid. But beyond that, think about the narrative.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Exactly refrigerator static. It just sits there. There's no speed requirement,
no needing to hit eighty eight miles per.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Hour, no chases, no dramatic acceleration.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
None of it. The car allowed for chases, dynamic action sequences,
and critically it tapped directly into that mid eighties American
fascination with technology, speed and personal freedom. Cars meant something absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
The Laurian was just the ultimate symbol of that era's futurism,
wasn't it Against the backdrop of like foxy forward tempos
and chabby cavaliers.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Or even the standard muscle cars.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, that stainless steel body just looked utterly otherworldly. It
embodied the technological optimism of the time, even if the
real car didn't quite deliver, and.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
That optimism it manifested visually in those amazing time travel sequences.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Oh yeah, still look cool today they do.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
The specific visual design of the time jump, the fiery
tire trails left.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Behind, burning streaks on the pavement.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The dramatic burst of light, that crackle of electricity required
a vehicle that looks strong, aero dynamic, unique.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
The DeLorean just looked like it could do that.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
It really did. It delivered that visual spectacle seamlessly, cementing
those moments in our collective memory. Forever you see those
fire trails, you instantly think back to the future.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Okay, here's where it gets really interesting, because while the
DeLorean is unforgettable, maybe the most iconic movie car ever.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Arguably yeah, up there with the Batmobile or Bonds Aston
Martin for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
But the movie's success, it's claim to being the best
of eighty five, rests just as much, maybe more, on
its narrative strength. And we have to compare that critically
to its nineteen eighty five rivals. We mentioned them earlier,
The Goonies Brilliant Kids Adventures loved It, still do, the
hard ar action of Rambo First Blood Part two, huge
cultural moment to.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Find a certain kind of eighties action, and the.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Deep teen angst drama of The Breakfast Club So important.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Those were all defining films, absolutely, but they were also
in a way kind of niche worth they how do
I mean? Well, The Breakfast Club really spoke to a
very specific gen X high school anxiety. True Rambo catered
to that emerging Reagan era action movie zeitgeist very specific audience,
and the Goonies Wonderful as it is was primarily childhood
(09:52):
wish fulfillment, pure adventure for kids.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Right. So bttf's distinction was.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Its universal appeal. That's the key difference. It was a
film your teenage son, your grandmother, and your eccentric scientist
friend could all watch together and equally enjoy.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
That's a rare thing, very rare.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It transcended genre categories. It was perfectly executed, and it
offered genuinely innovative storytelling within a familiar framework.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
It is truly a model of structural economy. I mean
the script by Zamechi's and Bob Gail. People still study it.
It's regularly cited as one of the best examples of
plotting ever written.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Absolutely, film schools use it all the time. The premise
is just so clean, so simple, yet deeply compelling.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Let's break it down. Marty McFly ordinary team through a
chaotic event involving terrorists and his eccentric scientist friend. As
you do, ends up traveling from nineteen eighty five back
to nineteen fifty five in that stylish Dolorean, and he
has basically one week to perform one crucial task.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Fixed the past.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
He immediately screwed up right ensure his own parents George
and Lorraine, who are teenagers in fifty five connect and
fall in love.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Why to secure his own existence otherwise poof no more, Marty.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
The states are incredibly personal and the structural air tightness,
that's what sets it apart for me.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Oh completely, There is zero wasted set up in this movie.
Think about it. The very first.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Scenes, the opening sequence in Doc's lab garage.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, it introduces Doc's ridiculously overpowered guitar amplifier.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Which Marty uses later at the dance exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It shows the clocks, establishing Doc's obsession with time. It
introduces the specific time and location of the future clock
tower lightning strike through a news clipping.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yet the Preservation Society Flyer.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It establishes that George McFly is a timid keeping tom sorry.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Birdwatcher, Yeah, painfully awkward.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And that Biftannan is and always has been a consistent,
domineering bully.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
All of that packed into the first what fifteen minutes maybe.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Less, and every single one of those elements is an
essential piece of the puzzle for the second act in
nineteen fifty five, and crucial for the climactic third act
solution back in eighty five, or rather getting back to
eighty five.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's incredible screenwriting. Doc's radiation suit helmet is mentioned early,
almost a throwaway gag, and.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Then it saves his life later when he's shot because
he's wearing it under his clothes.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The clock tower petition flyer becomes the literal countdown device
for the climax.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Marty's knowledge of future events like Rock and Roll allows
him to manipulate George into finally confronting Biff. It all connects.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's like a Swiss watch. Every year meshes.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Perfectly, it really is, and the film manages to make
time travel work narratively without making the audience feel stupid
or getting bogged down in jargon.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That's a tricky balance.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Very they introduced these concepts, these time mechanics, it just
felt logical and easy to grasp within the movie's world,
which is the brilliance of accessible pseudoscience.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Exactly. We're talking about the flux capacitor, that y shaped glowing.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Thing, the thing that makes time travel possible, right.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
The critical component needed for temporal displacement as Doc calls it,
and the specific power requirement gigawa It had to be
one point two one or jigowatts as Doc famously mispronounces it.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Right, which Christopher Lloyd apparently just kept saying based on
a consultant mispronouncing it, And they decided to keep it
because it sounded funnier and more eccentric.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
That's amazing. These terms are scientifically speaking, complete nonsense, right, Oh.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Absolutely gibberish, yeah, but they sound just realistic enough. The
numbers are precise, one point two one eighty eight miles
per hour, they're memorable.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Catchy even, and they become the shorthand for the big
problem Marty and Dock need to solve, how do we
generate that much power? In nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
What's fascinating here reading about the making of is that
Zamechis and Gail knew they couldn't and shouldn't bog down
the narrative with actual theoretical physics. Nobody wants a lecture, No,
it would kill the pacing completely. So they created these simple,
almost cartoonish rules. You hit eighty eight mile to hour
and the DeLorean, the fluxipastor gets powered by one point
two to one gigawats, and woosh, time jump.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
It's a clean equation. We don't need to know how
the gigawats interact with the fluck capacitor.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
We just need to know they come from plutonium or conveniently,
a lightning bolt hitting a specific clock tower at a
very specific time. Problem meats solution.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And crucially, keeping those rules simple makes the stakes feel
incredibly immediate and personal. It's not about complex temporal paradoxes
threatening the universe.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Not really. It's about Marty's fear of being erased from existence.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, watching his siblings literally disappear from that photograph he carries.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Or that horrifying moment where he sees his own hands
start to fade away during the Johnny be Good performance chilling.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That visceral existential dread grounds the entire fantastical plot in
really high human emotion. The threat isn't the universe collapsing.
The threat is his identity, his very being collapsing.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
That emotional hook is absolutely what drives the pacing. The
film feels relentless, but it's perfectly balanced. Howso, it constantly
toggles between those high energy action moments like Marty inventing
skateboarding basically to outrun Biff's gangs, and the quiet, sometimes awkward,
but deeply emotional scenes, particularly Marty trying to mentor his
(15:09):
own teenage father trying to build George's confidence.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, those scenes are great, awkward, but great.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
That whole progression for George McFly from being this bullied,
insecure kid to becoming a self actualized adult who finally
stands up for himself. That's the emotional engine of the
entire nineteen fifty five plot line.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
His success is Marty's success exactly. Speaking of self actualization,
we got to talk about the unforgettable characters because they
are absolutely why the Wild Fantasy premise connects with audiences.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The ensemble cast just provided the necessary relatability to sell
the whole idea of traveling back thirty years and you know,
potentially interfering with your parents' courtship.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Which is a weird idea when you say it out loud,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And the casting process itself is actually a famous Hollywood
anecdote that really underscores how important getting it right was.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
This is the Eric Stolt story that's the one.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Initially, Michael J. Fox wasn't available. He was locked into
his contract for the hugely popular sitcom Family.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Ties, Right NBC wouldn't let him go initially.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So they cast Eric Stultz as Marty McFly and they
filmed with him for about five weeks.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Five weeks, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Of footage, a significant amount. But Zamechis and the producers
started realizing that Stultz's approach, which was apparently much more
intense and dramatic, Yeah, it just wasn't hitting the right
comedic light tone the movie needed. He's praying it too
seriously apparently, so it lacked the charm, the vulnerability, this
sort of reactive comedy that Fox brought. So they made
(16:40):
an incredibly difficult and expensive decision.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
They fired him in recast they did.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
They managed to finally work out a deal where Michael J.
Fox could do both jobs, which sounds insane. What was
his schedule like, ruling He'd rehearse in film Family Ties
all day, then he'd be driven straight to the back
of the future set in film all night, often until
the early hours the morning. Minimal sleep for months.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Wow, that's dedication. But it was clearly pivotal, absolutely pivotal.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Fox's Marty m flies just perfect. He's the quintessential nineteen
eighties every man teen. He's cool but believably so quick witted,
definitely vulnerable, and deeply authentic.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You just root for him instantly, You.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Do his charisma, his natural comedic timing. It carried the
entire film and somehow made even the potentially really awkward
scenes work, like.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The whole edible tension when his teenage mother gets a
huge crush on him exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That could have been incredibly uncomfortable, but Fox plays Marty's
panicked reactions so perfectly it becomes funny instead of creepy.
Mostly funny mostly.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And then you have the other half of the duo,
Christopher Lloyd as Doctor Emmitt Brown.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Doc Brown. What a character. He is, the absolutely necessary
foil to Marty's every man persona.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
If Marty is relatable, Doc is aspirational in a crazy way.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Maybe. While Marty grounds the movie, Doc provides the unbridled imagination.
The spark Lloyd's performed is this incredible fusion of manic
wild energy, the.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Great Scott exclamations, the wide eyes, the crazy hair.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
The slightly unhinged inventions, but crucially, it is always balanced
by this profound, almost childlike passion for science and invention.
He's not portrayed as a truly mad scientist, No.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
He's fundamentally optimistic, a dreamer, exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
An optimistic dreamer who happens to build a time machine
out of a Dolorean and hangs out with a high
school kid. That's a critical difference. His passion drives the
story forward in.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Their partnership, their friendship. It feels earned. It's the emotional core,
but the supporting players are just as essential.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh absolutely. Crispin Glover is George McFly.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
What a performance, so uniquely awkward.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
He captures that awkward, almost alien quality of a bullied,
timid teenager perfectly. He gave George this really unique physicality,
that strange laugh, the way he moved it made his
lack of confidence completely believable. You feel for.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Him, and his transformation then becomes one of the most
satisfying character arcs maybe ever in cinema.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I think so. The moment at the Enchantment under the
Seed Dance where he finally punches Biff.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yes, that single decisive act, it's.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
The turning point, not just for his character, but for
the entire narrative timeline, it's what allows him to secure
Lorraine's affection and ultimately Marty's future. It's such a powerful
lesson in finding your courage, even if it's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So well done. And Leah Thompson as Lorraine Bains McFly
she had a tough job too.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
She really did. She brings the necessary complexity because she
has to play this slightly worn down, disillusioned housewife in
nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Kind of sad, really drinks a bit too much.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, and then shift entirely to being this vibrant, curious,
maybe slightly boy crazy, but ultimately romantic, nineteen fifty five
teenager who becomes utterly infatuated with Marty, her own future son.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That shift required incredible nuance. She had to make sure
the humor landed without making the whole situation feel genuinely
creepy or predatory.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
She gives nineteen fifty five Lorraine this spark that makes
you understand why George is so smitten and why Marty
is so desperate to get her focused back on his dad.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And we can't forget the antagonist, the constant obstacle.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Biff Tannin, Thomas F. Wilson just pitch perfect.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
He's the quintessential bully.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
He is, and he's perfect because he is simultaneously genuinely menacing,
like you believe he could really hurt George or Marty,
but he's also fundamentally inept and kind of dumb.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Make like a tree and get out of here exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
His malapropisms, his clumsy attempts at being tough, they provide
necessary comic relief. He's the immovable object in Marty's path.
Generation after generation, it seems.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That whole ensembled dynamic is just flawless. They ground the
extraordinary premise in profoundly relatable human struggles, identity, courage, family, destiny.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Couldn't agree more. It's cast perfectly.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Okay, let's pivot. Now we've talked script characters, let's talk
technical brilliance. Because while the story is masterful, the execution
had to deliver on the massive promise of time travel on.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Screen absolutely and for nineteen eighty five, this was a
marvel of filmmaking technology. You have to remember this is
pre digital revolution.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Mostly right, practical effects, optical printing.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Exactly, which makes its Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Even more impressive, they were pushing boundaries.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
What were some of the key technical challenges they faced.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Well, the visual effects team at Industrial Light and Magic
ILM had to use highly specialized techniques, lots of detailed
motion control miniature shots to the DeLorean flying and landing.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Ah, so not always the real car often.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Not, especially for complex moves. They use multi layered optical
compositing to make the DeLorean appear to genuinely shimmer, spark,
and disappear or reappear. Getting those layers lined up perfectly
was incredibly painstaking work back then.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Wow, we take that stuff for granted with CGI now totally.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
These shots were genuinely groundbreaking for the time and really
helped establish the visual language of how time travel.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Looked in se and the soundscape equally vital, wouldn't you say.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Oh, indispensable Allen Sylvestry's score, it's just iconic.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That main theme dot duh, duh.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Instantly recognizable. That rousing, brass, heavy fanfare doesn't just accompany
the action, it drives the pace. It amplifies the sense
of adventure, the excitement, the danger.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, when that brass theme kicks in during the skateboard chase,
or especially the clock tower scene, the emotional stakes immediately
feel ten times higher.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's perfectly married to the visuals and the sound design too,
the wine of the Dolorean powering up, the electrical crackles,
the sonic boom, all crafted to sell the reality of
the machine.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
The production design, too, deserves immense credit. Recreating Hill Valley
two versions of it.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
The meticulous recreation of the town square and its surroundings
in two distinct decades nineteen fifty five and nineteen eighty five,
required incredible attention to detail.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
You really feel the difference in eras the cars, the clothes,
the storefronts.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But crucial, the town square itself is visually different yet
structurally recognizable. The layout is the same that allows the
audience to track the changes over time and importantly, the
changes Marty might be causing.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And the film absolutely rewards attentive viewers, doesn't it, with
those subtle, brilliant details that reinforce the whole theme of causality.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Oh, the East Rays are fantastic. The most famous example,
of course, not.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
To be the mall.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
It's the mall. The transition from the Twin Pines Mall
in nineteen eighty five, named after the two pine trees
on Old Man Peabody's farm back in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Five, which Marty encounters very abruptly when he first arrives.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Right he crashes the DeLorean right through the barn and
runs over one of those poor pine trees in his
escape fighting tiers, leading to the mall in the corrected
nineteen eighty five at the end being called the Lone
Pine Mall because there's only one pine tree left standing
in the past.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
It's such a perfect visual gag, but it also summarizes
the entire premise of the movie in one subtle sign change.
Even small, seemingly.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Accident actions like running over a tree.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Can have significant long term ripple effects on the present.
It's an incredibly sophisticated piece of structural filmmaking, just disguise
as a funny background detail.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It shows how much thought went into every frame at all.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
These technical elements, the effects, the sound, the design, the
subtle details, they all converge spectacularly in that climactic.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Sequence, the clock tower scene.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's not just a great action set piece. It's regularly
cited as an absolute masterclass in editing suspense and paying
off every single narrative setup they built.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
It truly is a symphony of controlled chaos. The entire
sequence hinges on that literal countdown. Marty has to accelerate
the DeLorean to exactly eighty eight mileth ro hour at
the precise fraction of a second that the lightning strikes
the clock tower.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Which will channel the one point two to one gigawatts
through cables.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Doc has rigged up down to the street, into the
Dolorean's hook and into the flex capacitor. The plan is
insane but clear, and.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
The suspense is just un bearable because everything goes wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Everything the cable disconnects when a branch falls, Doc gets
stuck up there, the rain is pouring, and the ultimate nightmare,
the car won't start.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Oh god, that moment.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
It stalls that classic movie trope, but use so effectively here.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Your heart just sinks, And the editing is key to
that feeling. It cuts frantically between like three or four
simultaneous desperate actions.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
You've got Marty desperately trying to get the DeLorean running again.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Doc dangling precariously from the clock tower, Ledge scrambling to
reconnect the main cable.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
The storm raging, the lightning flashing.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Closer, and that big clock face ticking down the final
seconds TikTok.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That rapid cross cutting just builds this perfect blend of
genuine peril, high stakes, unexpected humor from Doc's frantic.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Reactions, Yeah the cable.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And ultimately this incredibly cathartic sense of triumph when the
hook catches, the lightning hits, and the Glorian finally vanishes
in that massive flash of light and fire trails just
nanoseconds before hitting the line Banner Phew.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Gets me every time. It is the ultimate culmination of
all the previous structural elements we talked about exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We know the stakes of Marty's existence, we understand the
mechanism eighty eight mile prile plus one point two to
one gigawatz via lightning, and the character's entire fate hinges
on this single, perfectly timed, almost impossible act.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
It's an emotional release that the entire filmmaking team, writers, director, actors, effects, score,
editing absolutely nailed. It proves that the film success wasn't
some happy accident.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, it was meticulously engineered storytelling, just brilliant.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Execution, and that brilliant payoff leads directly into the enduring
cultural footprint of this film. So what does this all
mean for us today? Why are we still talking about it?
Great question, because Back to the Future didn't just top
the nineteen eighty five box office and then fade away.
Its lasting legacy goes far, far beyond mere financial success.
It spawned a true cinematic empire.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It really did. It became the defining time travel trilogy
for a whole generation, maybe the defining one. It produced
two massively successful.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Sequels which continued the story in inventive ways, Going to
the Future and The Old West.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Right, an animated series, followed numerous video games across different
platforms over the years.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I think I played one on Nintendo probably.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
And today there's a hugely popular, award winning stage muticle
running in London and on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Still going strong. That sustained presence over nearly four decades
just shows the narrative's incredible longevity.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It really does. And think about how it utterly changed
the cultural lexicon.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Oh yeah, phrases from the movie are everywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Great Scott became instantly recognizable shorthand for surprise or.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Amazement totally and that specific measurement one point two to
one gigawatts.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Or jigowa huh.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It entered common usage almost as a meme before memes,
as a term for just massive, slightly impossible amounts of
power or energy.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
When a film's fictional jargon becomes global shorthand like that,
I know, it's penetrated pop culture at a really.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Deep level, and critically for filmmaking itself. It kind of
became the blueprint for subsequent time travel narratives, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I think that's fair to say. Before BTTF, time travel
movies were often kind of handwavy about the rules or
incredibly complex.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Like Primer later on maybe right.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Or it just didn't bother explaining much. BTTF laid down specific,
easy to understand rules about causality, the core idea that
altering the pass has immediate, often unpredictable, sometimes disastrous consequences
on the present, the ripple effect. The ripple effect exactly
that structural rigor that clear if a then b logic
about changing the timeline. It influenced pretty much everything that
(28:37):
came after it.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
So modern blockbusters that deal with time travel, you think
of something like Looper or even the Big One, Avengers endgame.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
They all had to explicitly define their own specific rules
of causality. How does changing the past affect their present?
Can you change your own timeline? Or does it create branches?
And very often they use the BTTF model, the single
mutable timeline as the standard reference point, sometimes explicitly referencing it,
even if just to say that's not how it works
(29:07):
for us.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
It's at the benchmark it really did.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And of course we have to revisit the DeLorean itself.
Its post film legacy is almost as amazing as the movies.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
The car became something totally different after nineteen eighty five, totally.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
It transformed from automotive footnote to a genuine symbol of
nineteen eighties nostalgia and a permanent globally recognized pop culture artifact.
Its screen frame completely redefined as real world market failure.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
It's probably more famous now than ninety nine percent of
cars actually produced in large numbers.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Easily, and you see that dedication in the fan community.
Fans around the world spend serious time and resources restoring
original Deloreans.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
But not just restoring them to factory condition.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
No, often the goal is specifically to transform them into
screen accurate time Machine.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Replicas complete with the flux capacitor replicas that light up
and blink.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Custom wiring the vents, maybe even a mister Fusion prop
on the back. The demand for that specific iconography for
owning a piece of the movie.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Was so high that the Dolorean Motor Company actually came back.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Sort of. A different company bought the name and the
remaining parts inventory in the nineteen nineties, based in Texas,
specifically to service the existing cars and provide parts for
this passionate movie fueled fan base. They keep the originals
on the road.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's incredible. The movie literally resurrected the brand in a way, and.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That reach continues to ripple outwards even now. Just recently
in twenty twenty two, the revived company announced the DeLorean
Alpha Vive, a new car, a new, fully electric DeLorean,
and its design, while modern, clearly evokes the original shape
and yes it has going doors. They are capitalizing entirely
on the original car's visual legacy and its unbreakable cinematic connection.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
That is monumental cultural capital for a car that, like
you said, by all rights, should have been totally forgotten
almost forty years ago.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Failure redeemed by fiction.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Ultimately, I think the film's enduring success taps into something deeper,
maybe the underlying optimism of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That's an interesting point. It was a complicated decade, right,
Cold War tensions, economic shifts, anxieties were definitely there.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
But BTTF, despite starting with terrorists and family dysfunction, offered
a fundamentally hopeful vision, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
It really did. It argued that ingenuity, coupled with personal
courage and determination, plain old grit, could overcome any obstacle,
even something is existentially terrifying as messing up the space
time continuum.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
You can fix your mistakes, you can make things better.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah. And the Dolorean, with its futuristic stainless steal sheen,
those cool doors and its impossible time travel capabilities. Yeah,
it was the perfect physical embodiment of that optimism. It
looked like the future, a clean, stylish, exciting future.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It showed that maybe the best way forward was through creativity,
taking chances, and maybe having a slightly crazy friend with
a flex capacitor.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Huh, couldn't hurt. It embodied the idea of turning the
mundane or the failed into the extraordinary. Through sheer will
and imagination.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So when you look back at the entire cinematic output
of nineteen eighty five and again it was a great year,
Back to the Future arguably stands as the best.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I think the argument holds up.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Because it so effortlessly blends that high concept spectacle time
travel car chases with profound structural depth in the writing
and genuinely moving heart from the character.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It's all the marks.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
It successfully appeals to basically all ages, with these timeless
themes family, finding your courage, getting second chances, and it's
all wrapped up in this visually iconic, unforgettable package.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And that paradox of the dolore in itself. It's the
perfect microcosm for the film's overall genius, isn't it? How
so well Doc Brown, the ultimate dreamer, the optimist. He
chose a commercially failed, technically flawed, yet undeniably beautiful and
stylish car, and through his genius and imagination, he transformed
it into the most extraordinary, most famous vehicle in.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Cinema, turning led into gold basically exactly that choice perfectly
reflects the film's central belief.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Maybe failure isn't final. Maybe the ordinary or even the
discarded can become extraordinary if you just apply enough ingenuity
and style. Imagination is eternal.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
That is a powerful message to take forward from this
deep dive. The DeLorean was defined by its market failure
until it was entirely redefined by creativity and well a
massive burst of cinematic energy on screen. So perhaps our
final thought for you, the listener, to carry forward is this.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Think about any failed idea or concept in your own life.
You know, maybe a project that stalled out, a personal
goal that kind of fell flat, or even just a
quirky concept that others dismissed, something you put on the
shelf exactly. Consider what that concept might be missing right now,
and then ask yourself, what would happen if you dared
to apply, say one point two one gigawatts of your own, pure,
(33:56):
unadulterated creative scark to it.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Could you transform it into something truly spectacular?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Maybe perhaps your greatest success story is just sitting there
waiting for you to get it. Up to eighty eight
miles per hour
Okay, let's unpack this. We've set the time circuits, we've
hit eighty eight miles per hour, and we are diving
deep into the cinematic landscape of nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Our mission for you, the listener, is to understand why
Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg's production Back to the Future
or BTTF is not merely a beloved classic, not just that,
but arguably the single best, most structurally perfect movie of
that entire decade, let alone that blockbuster year.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's a fantastic mission and a bold claim. But I
think we can back it up because I mean, nineteen
eighty five, what a year from movies. It was arguably
the peak of the blockbuster era.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Oh absolutely, you had huge competition, huge.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We're talking the Goonies, a total classic.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yep, Rambo, First Blood Part two, massive action hit, and.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The generation defining the breakfast club, huge cultural impact.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Right, But BTTF it achieved something none of those films
quite managed, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It really did. It hit this sweet spot of universal,
immediate and crucially enduring a peace. It wasn't just for
kids or teens or action fans.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Everyone seemed to connect with it exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It was a perfect scom really blending science fiction that
coming of age adventure feel, really sharp.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Comedy and genuine relatable heart. That's key.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Absolutely, it had soul and.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Its initial impact was just undeniable. It set the stage
for everything that followed, its whole lasting legacy. We often
talk about box office figures on these deep dives, maybe
sometimes too much, But in this case, while the numbers
really do cement its position, don't you think they really do?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
The film didn't just do well. It was the highest
grossing film of nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Period, breaking in over three hundred and eighty one million
dollars worldwide.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Back then, which is massive money for nineteen eighty five. Yeah,
that kind of financial success. It just confirmed that the story, structure,
the characters, it appealed across age groups, across genres, even
across borders.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It is the film everyone saw that year.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And everyone seemed to love it. It just clicked.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Now. That success was fueled by pure imagination, obviously, but
it was physically held yeah, literally by one object.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh yes, the car the heart of.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The film, the iconic vessel that carried Marty McFly through
time is the DeLorean DMC twelve.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Such a choice. This vehicle was, I mean, let's be honest,
kind of a footnote in automotive history before the film debuted,
A weird curiosity.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Definitely not a household name in the way a Mustang
or Corvette.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Was not at all. But it became a pop culture
legend almost overnight, purely because of this movie.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And it perfectly embodies the film's guiding philosophy, which Doc
Brown gives us so memorably. Oh, the classic line, the
way I see it, if you're going to build a
time machine into a car, why not do it with
some style perfection.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And that style is exactly what makes the DeLorean so
central to this whole thing. It's what we're diving into now.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Right because the choice itself, it's fascinating, it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Choosing the DeLorean was an act of profound, almost ironic
cinematic genius.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Ironic is a good word for it, because.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
The car itself was such an unlikely vehicle scream immortality.
It's a truly paradoxical icon.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So give us the real world context, the DeLorean Motor Company.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Okay, so DMC. It was the big dream of John DeLorean.
Now this guy was already a rock star execut General Motors,
a real Maverick.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Kind of legendary in the industry, right for things like
the gto.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Exactly he broke them mold and he left GM determined
to build his own ultimate car, stylish, sure, but also
supposedly an ethical sports car that was part of the.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Pitch high ambitions, very high.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But that ambition, well, it was unfortunately overshadowed by the
harsh reality of the car business.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, things didn't quite pan out as planned.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Not even close. By the time Back to the Future
hit theaters in eighty five, that Delareian Motor Company was
already bankrupt, done, finished.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Wow, So the timing was intense.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It was a spectacular commercial flop. They only produced about
nine thousand units total, maybe less.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Not many cars for a big launch.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
No, in the eyes of the automotive wars world back then,
the car was basically a failure. A cool looking failure maybe,
but a symbol of high stakes ambition gone spectacularly wrong. Plus,
you know, John Dolorian's personal legal troubles didn't help the image.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Either, right, that whole saga.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
But Zamechi's and Bob Gail, the writers, they saw pass
that commercial failure. They recognized the car's fundamental asthetic.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Strength, the look, which was undeniable totally.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
The design was by the legendary Georgetto Giujarro, an Italian
design master, and it was inherently futuristic. It always looked
like something that drove off the page of a sci
fi comic book.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It really did. You look at those key features, the
sleek angular lines, so aggressive and modern for the time.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And that's stainless steel body.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, unpainted, Yeah, that gave it this muted industrial but
somehow almost a fial glow. It didn't reflect light like normal.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Car paint, very distinctive. And then, of course the.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Show stoppers, the goal wing doors, the.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Dramatic gull wing doors in nineteen eighty five, I absolutely
nothing else on the road looked like that. It just
screamed the future, or at least, you know, a very stylish,
cinematic idea of the future.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It had that wow factor built in, definitely.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But here's the paradox, the other side of the coin.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
The high style was coupled with well pretty low performance.
That's where the quirky charm comes in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Right. It looked fast, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It was beautiful, but famously kind of slow. It had
this underpowered projo renou Volvo V six engine, a two
point eight to five literre thing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We're only making about only about one.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Hundred and thirty horse power, which for a car that
looked like that was underwhelming.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Huh yeah, definitely. So it was, in many ways this
esthetic masterpiece that kind of struggled with the basic task
of acceleration.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Pretty much, which strangely makes it such a brilliant cinematic choice,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
How so?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, think about Doc Brown, this eccentric genius. He's brilliant, obviously,
but maybe a bit disorganized, a bit out there.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Sure, yeah, flies by the seat of his pants.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Sometimes, so him choosing this flawed, beautiful, commercially failed machine,
it fits his character perfectly. It's an idiosyncratic choice for
an idiosyncratic inventor using challenged tech to achieve the impossible.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
That makes a lot of sense. It's not like he
picked a Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
He picked this exactly, and then the cinematic transformation just
layered profound fictional genius onto those real world flaws. They
didn't just film a stock deloreate.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh no, they went to town on it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It turned it into a proper time machine. You've got
all those modifications, Yeah, the intricate glowing blue wires snaking.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Around since pulsing with light.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
The iconic blinking flux capacitor right between the seats, which
we got to talk more about. That the centerpiece of
the movie's pseudoscience. Absolutely, and remember the power source change.
First it's that bulky nuclear reactor fueled by stolen plutonium.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Which is hilarious and dangerous, right, and then later it
gets upgraded to the infinitely more whimsical household refuse powered
mister fusion generator just throws banana peels and beer in there.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
It becomes a character in itself, truly. And the fact
that Docs specifically chose a car that was a pivotal
narrative decision.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Oh right, I heard it wasn't always a car.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
No. Originally, the sources say Galeen zameca Is considered building
the time machine into get this, a refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Rich Seriously, seriously, can you imagine that's terrible? Thank goodness,
they changed their minds.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah. Apparently, Spielberg himself raised concerns worried that kids would
start locking themselves in refrigerators trying to time travel. Yeah,
which is a valid safety concern.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Very valid. But beyond that, think about the narrative.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Exactly refrigerator static. It just sits there. There's no speed requirement,
no needing to hit eighty eight miles per.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Hour, no chases, no dramatic acceleration.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
None of it. The car allowed for chases, dynamic action sequences,
and critically it tapped directly into that mid eighties American
fascination with technology, speed and personal freedom. Cars meant something absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
The Laurian was just the ultimate symbol of that era's futurism,
wasn't it Against the backdrop of like foxy forward tempos
and chabby cavaliers.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Or even the standard muscle cars.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, that stainless steel body just looked utterly otherworldly. It
embodied the technological optimism of the time, even if the
real car didn't quite deliver, and.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
That optimism it manifested visually in those amazing time travel sequences.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Oh yeah, still look cool today they do.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
The specific visual design of the time jump, the fiery
tire trails left.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Behind, burning streaks on the pavement.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The dramatic burst of light, that crackle of electricity required
a vehicle that looks strong, aero dynamic, unique.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
The DeLorean just looked like it could do that.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
It really did. It delivered that visual spectacle seamlessly, cementing
those moments in our collective memory. Forever you see those
fire trails, you instantly think back to the future.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Okay, here's where it gets really interesting, because while the
DeLorean is unforgettable, maybe the most iconic movie car ever.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Arguably yeah, up there with the Batmobile or Bonds Aston
Martin for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
But the movie's success, it's claim to being the best
of eighty five, rests just as much, maybe more, on
its narrative strength. And we have to compare that critically
to its nineteen eighty five rivals. We mentioned them earlier,
The Goonies Brilliant Kids Adventures loved It, still do, the
hard ar action of Rambo First Blood Part two, huge
cultural moment to.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Find a certain kind of eighties action, and the.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Deep teen angst drama of The Breakfast Club So important.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Those were all defining films, absolutely, but they were also
in a way kind of niche worth they how do
I mean? Well, The Breakfast Club really spoke to a
very specific gen X high school anxiety. True Rambo catered
to that emerging Reagan era action movie zeitgeist very specific audience,
and the Goonies Wonderful as it is was primarily childhood
(09:52):
wish fulfillment, pure adventure for kids.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Right. So bttf's distinction was.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Its universal appeal. That's the key difference. It was a
film your teenage son, your grandmother, and your eccentric scientist
friend could all watch together and equally enjoy.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
That's a rare thing, very rare.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It transcended genre categories. It was perfectly executed, and it
offered genuinely innovative storytelling within a familiar framework.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
It is truly a model of structural economy. I mean
the script by Zamechi's and Bob Gail. People still study it.
It's regularly cited as one of the best examples of
plotting ever written.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Absolutely, film schools use it all the time. The premise
is just so clean, so simple, yet deeply compelling.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Let's break it down. Marty McFly ordinary team through a
chaotic event involving terrorists and his eccentric scientist friend. As
you do, ends up traveling from nineteen eighty five back
to nineteen fifty five in that stylish Dolorean, and he
has basically one week to perform one crucial task.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Fixed the past.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
He immediately screwed up right ensure his own parents George
and Lorraine, who are teenagers in fifty five connect and
fall in love.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Why to secure his own existence otherwise poof no more, Marty.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
The states are incredibly personal and the structural air tightness,
that's what sets it apart for me.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Oh completely, There is zero wasted set up in this movie.
Think about it. The very first.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Scenes, the opening sequence in Doc's lab garage.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, it introduces Doc's ridiculously overpowered guitar amplifier.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Which Marty uses later at the dance exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It shows the clocks, establishing Doc's obsession with time. It
introduces the specific time and location of the future clock
tower lightning strike through a news clipping.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yet the Preservation Society Flyer.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It establishes that George McFly is a timid keeping tom sorry.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Birdwatcher, Yeah, painfully awkward.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And that Biftannan is and always has been a consistent,
domineering bully.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
All of that packed into the first what fifteen minutes maybe.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Less, and every single one of those elements is an
essential piece of the puzzle for the second act in
nineteen fifty five, and crucial for the climactic third act
solution back in eighty five, or rather getting back to
eighty five.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's incredible screenwriting. Doc's radiation suit helmet is mentioned early,
almost a throwaway gag, and.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Then it saves his life later when he's shot because
he's wearing it under his clothes.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The clock tower petition flyer becomes the literal countdown device
for the climax.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Marty's knowledge of future events like Rock and Roll allows
him to manipulate George into finally confronting Biff. It all connects.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's like a Swiss watch. Every year meshes.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Perfectly, it really is, and the film manages to make
time travel work narratively without making the audience feel stupid
or getting bogged down in jargon.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That's a tricky balance.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Very they introduced these concepts, these time mechanics, it just
felt logical and easy to grasp within the movie's world,
which is the brilliance of accessible pseudoscience.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Exactly. We're talking about the flux capacitor, that y shaped glowing.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Thing, the thing that makes time travel possible, right.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
The critical component needed for temporal displacement as Doc calls it,
and the specific power requirement gigawa It had to be
one point two one or jigowatts as Doc famously mispronounces it.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Right, which Christopher Lloyd apparently just kept saying based on
a consultant mispronouncing it, And they decided to keep it
because it sounded funnier and more eccentric.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
That's amazing. These terms are scientifically speaking, complete nonsense, right, Oh.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Absolutely gibberish, yeah, but they sound just realistic enough. The
numbers are precise, one point two one eighty eight miles
per hour, they're memorable.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Catchy even, and they become the shorthand for the big
problem Marty and Dock need to solve, how do we
generate that much power? In nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
What's fascinating here reading about the making of is that
Zamechis and Gail knew they couldn't and shouldn't bog down
the narrative with actual theoretical physics. Nobody wants a lecture, No,
it would kill the pacing completely. So they created these simple,
almost cartoonish rules. You hit eighty eight mile to hour
and the DeLorean, the fluxipastor gets powered by one point
two to one gigawats, and woosh, time jump.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
It's a clean equation. We don't need to know how
the gigawats interact with the fluck capacitor.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
We just need to know they come from plutonium or conveniently,
a lightning bolt hitting a specific clock tower at a
very specific time. Problem meats solution.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And crucially, keeping those rules simple makes the stakes feel
incredibly immediate and personal. It's not about complex temporal paradoxes
threatening the universe.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Not really. It's about Marty's fear of being erased from existence.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, watching his siblings literally disappear from that photograph he carries.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Or that horrifying moment where he sees his own hands
start to fade away during the Johnny be Good performance chilling.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That visceral existential dread grounds the entire fantastical plot in
really high human emotion. The threat isn't the universe collapsing.
The threat is his identity, his very being collapsing.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
That emotional hook is absolutely what drives the pacing. The
film feels relentless, but it's perfectly balanced. Howso, it constantly
toggles between those high energy action moments like Marty inventing
skateboarding basically to outrun Biff's gangs, and the quiet, sometimes awkward,
but deeply emotional scenes, particularly Marty trying to mentor his
(15:09):
own teenage father trying to build George's confidence.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, those scenes are great, awkward, but great.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
That whole progression for George McFly from being this bullied,
insecure kid to becoming a self actualized adult who finally
stands up for himself. That's the emotional engine of the
entire nineteen fifty five plot line.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
His success is Marty's success exactly. Speaking of self actualization,
we got to talk about the unforgettable characters because they
are absolutely why the Wild Fantasy premise connects with audiences.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The ensemble cast just provided the necessary relatability to sell
the whole idea of traveling back thirty years and you know,
potentially interfering with your parents' courtship.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Which is a weird idea when you say it out loud,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And the casting process itself is actually a famous Hollywood
anecdote that really underscores how important getting it right was.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
This is the Eric Stolt story that's the one.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Initially, Michael J. Fox wasn't available. He was locked into
his contract for the hugely popular sitcom Family.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Ties, Right NBC wouldn't let him go initially.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So they cast Eric Stultz as Marty McFly and they
filmed with him for about five weeks.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Five weeks, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Of footage, a significant amount. But Zamechis and the producers
started realizing that Stultz's approach, which was apparently much more
intense and dramatic, Yeah, it just wasn't hitting the right
comedic light tone the movie needed. He's praying it too
seriously apparently, so it lacked the charm, the vulnerability, this
sort of reactive comedy that Fox brought. So they made
(16:40):
an incredibly difficult and expensive decision.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
They fired him in recast they did.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
They managed to finally work out a deal where Michael J.
Fox could do both jobs, which sounds insane. What was
his schedule like, ruling He'd rehearse in film Family Ties
all day, then he'd be driven straight to the back
of the future set in film all night, often until
the early hours the morning. Minimal sleep for months.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Wow, that's dedication. But it was clearly pivotal, absolutely pivotal.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Fox's Marty m flies just perfect. He's the quintessential nineteen
eighties every man teen. He's cool but believably so quick witted,
definitely vulnerable, and deeply authentic.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You just root for him instantly, You.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Do his charisma, his natural comedic timing. It carried the
entire film and somehow made even the potentially really awkward
scenes work, like.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The whole edible tension when his teenage mother gets a
huge crush on him exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That could have been incredibly uncomfortable, but Fox plays Marty's
panicked reactions so perfectly it becomes funny instead of creepy.
Mostly funny mostly.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And then you have the other half of the duo,
Christopher Lloyd as Doctor Emmitt Brown.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Doc Brown. What a character. He is, the absolutely necessary
foil to Marty's every man persona.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
If Marty is relatable, Doc is aspirational in a crazy way.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Maybe. While Marty grounds the movie, Doc provides the unbridled imagination.
The spark Lloyd's performed is this incredible fusion of manic
wild energy, the.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Great Scott exclamations, the wide eyes, the crazy hair.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
The slightly unhinged inventions, but crucially, it is always balanced
by this profound, almost childlike passion for science and invention.
He's not portrayed as a truly mad scientist, No.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
He's fundamentally optimistic, a dreamer, exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
An optimistic dreamer who happens to build a time machine
out of a Dolorean and hangs out with a high
school kid. That's a critical difference. His passion drives the
story forward in.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Their partnership, their friendship. It feels earned. It's the emotional core,
but the supporting players are just as essential.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh absolutely. Crispin Glover is George McFly.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
What a performance, so uniquely awkward.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
He captures that awkward, almost alien quality of a bullied,
timid teenager perfectly. He gave George this really unique physicality,
that strange laugh, the way he moved it made his
lack of confidence completely believable. You feel for.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Him, and his transformation then becomes one of the most
satisfying character arcs maybe ever in cinema.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I think so. The moment at the Enchantment under the
Seed Dance where he finally punches Biff.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yes, that single decisive act, it's.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
The turning point, not just for his character, but for
the entire narrative timeline, it's what allows him to secure
Lorraine's affection and ultimately Marty's future. It's such a powerful
lesson in finding your courage, even if it's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So well done. And Leah Thompson as Lorraine Bains McFly
she had a tough job too.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
She really did. She brings the necessary complexity because she
has to play this slightly worn down, disillusioned housewife in
nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Kind of sad, really drinks a bit too much.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, and then shift entirely to being this vibrant, curious,
maybe slightly boy crazy, but ultimately romantic, nineteen fifty five
teenager who becomes utterly infatuated with Marty, her own future son.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That shift required incredible nuance. She had to make sure
the humor landed without making the whole situation feel genuinely
creepy or predatory.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
She gives nineteen fifty five Lorraine this spark that makes
you understand why George is so smitten and why Marty
is so desperate to get her focused back on his dad.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And we can't forget the antagonist, the constant obstacle.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Biff Tannin, Thomas F. Wilson just pitch perfect.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
He's the quintessential bully.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
He is, and he's perfect because he is simultaneously genuinely menacing,
like you believe he could really hurt George or Marty,
but he's also fundamentally inept and kind of dumb.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Make like a tree and get out of here exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
His malapropisms, his clumsy attempts at being tough, they provide
necessary comic relief. He's the immovable object in Marty's path.
Generation after generation, it seems.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That whole ensembled dynamic is just flawless. They ground the
extraordinary premise in profoundly relatable human struggles, identity, courage, family, destiny.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Couldn't agree more. It's cast perfectly.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Okay, let's pivot. Now we've talked script characters, let's talk
technical brilliance. Because while the story is masterful, the execution
had to deliver on the massive promise of time travel on.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Screen absolutely and for nineteen eighty five, this was a
marvel of filmmaking technology. You have to remember this is
pre digital revolution.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Mostly right, practical effects, optical printing.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Exactly, which makes its Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Even more impressive, they were pushing boundaries.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
What were some of the key technical challenges they faced.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Well, the visual effects team at Industrial Light and Magic
ILM had to use highly specialized techniques, lots of detailed
motion control miniature shots to the DeLorean flying and landing.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Ah, so not always the real car often.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Not, especially for complex moves. They use multi layered optical
compositing to make the DeLorean appear to genuinely shimmer, spark,
and disappear or reappear. Getting those layers lined up perfectly
was incredibly painstaking work back then.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Wow, we take that stuff for granted with CGI now totally.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
These shots were genuinely groundbreaking for the time and really
helped establish the visual language of how time travel.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Looked in se and the soundscape equally vital, wouldn't you say.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Oh, indispensable Allen Sylvestry's score, it's just iconic.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That main theme dot duh, duh.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Instantly recognizable. That rousing, brass, heavy fanfare doesn't just accompany
the action, it drives the pace. It amplifies the sense
of adventure, the excitement, the danger.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, when that brass theme kicks in during the skateboard chase,
or especially the clock tower scene, the emotional stakes immediately
feel ten times higher.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's perfectly married to the visuals and the sound design too,
the wine of the Dolorean powering up, the electrical crackles,
the sonic boom, all crafted to sell the reality of
the machine.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
The production design, too, deserves immense credit. Recreating Hill Valley
two versions of it.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
The meticulous recreation of the town square and its surroundings
in two distinct decades nineteen fifty five and nineteen eighty five,
required incredible attention to detail.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
You really feel the difference in eras the cars, the clothes,
the storefronts.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But crucial, the town square itself is visually different yet
structurally recognizable. The layout is the same that allows the
audience to track the changes over time and importantly, the
changes Marty might be causing.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And the film absolutely rewards attentive viewers, doesn't it, with
those subtle, brilliant details that reinforce the whole theme of causality.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Oh, the East Rays are fantastic. The most famous example,
of course, not.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
To be the mall.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
It's the mall. The transition from the Twin Pines Mall
in nineteen eighty five, named after the two pine trees
on Old Man Peabody's farm back in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Five, which Marty encounters very abruptly when he first arrives.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Right he crashes the DeLorean right through the barn and
runs over one of those poor pine trees in his
escape fighting tiers, leading to the mall in the corrected
nineteen eighty five at the end being called the Lone
Pine Mall because there's only one pine tree left standing
in the past.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
It's such a perfect visual gag, but it also summarizes
the entire premise of the movie in one subtle sign change.
Even small, seemingly.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Accident actions like running over a tree.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Can have significant long term ripple effects on the present.
It's an incredibly sophisticated piece of structural filmmaking, just disguise
as a funny background detail.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It shows how much thought went into every frame at all.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
These technical elements, the effects, the sound, the design, the
subtle details, they all converge spectacularly in that climactic.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Sequence, the clock tower scene.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's not just a great action set piece. It's regularly
cited as an absolute masterclass in editing suspense and paying
off every single narrative setup they built.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
It truly is a symphony of controlled chaos. The entire
sequence hinges on that literal countdown. Marty has to accelerate
the DeLorean to exactly eighty eight mileth ro hour at
the precise fraction of a second that the lightning strikes
the clock tower.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Which will channel the one point two to one gigawatts
through cables.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Doc has rigged up down to the street, into the
Dolorean's hook and into the flex capacitor. The plan is
insane but clear, and.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
The suspense is just un bearable because everything goes wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Everything the cable disconnects when a branch falls, Doc gets
stuck up there, the rain is pouring, and the ultimate nightmare,
the car won't start.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Oh god, that moment.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
It stalls that classic movie trope, but use so effectively here.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Your heart just sinks, And the editing is key to
that feeling. It cuts frantically between like three or four
simultaneous desperate actions.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
You've got Marty desperately trying to get the DeLorean running again.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Doc dangling precariously from the clock tower, Ledge scrambling to
reconnect the main cable.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
The storm raging, the lightning flashing.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Closer, and that big clock face ticking down the final
seconds TikTok.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That rapid cross cutting just builds this perfect blend of
genuine peril, high stakes, unexpected humor from Doc's frantic.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Reactions, Yeah the cable.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And ultimately this incredibly cathartic sense of triumph when the
hook catches, the lightning hits, and the Glorian finally vanishes
in that massive flash of light and fire trails just
nanoseconds before hitting the line Banner Phew.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Gets me every time. It is the ultimate culmination of
all the previous structural elements we talked about exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We know the stakes of Marty's existence, we understand the
mechanism eighty eight mile prile plus one point two to
one gigawatz via lightning, and the character's entire fate hinges
on this single, perfectly timed, almost impossible act.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
It's an emotional release that the entire filmmaking team, writers, director, actors, effects, score,
editing absolutely nailed. It proves that the film success wasn't
some happy accident.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, it was meticulously engineered storytelling, just brilliant.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Execution, and that brilliant payoff leads directly into the enduring
cultural footprint of this film. So what does this all
mean for us today? Why are we still talking about it?
Great question, because Back to the Future didn't just top
the nineteen eighty five box office and then fade away.
Its lasting legacy goes far, far beyond mere financial success.
It spawned a true cinematic empire.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It really did. It became the defining time travel trilogy
for a whole generation, maybe the defining one. It produced
two massively successful.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Sequels which continued the story in inventive ways, Going to
the Future and The Old West.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Right, an animated series, followed numerous video games across different
platforms over the years.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I think I played one on Nintendo probably.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
And today there's a hugely popular, award winning stage muticle
running in London and on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Still going strong. That sustained presence over nearly four decades
just shows the narrative's incredible longevity.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It really does. And think about how it utterly changed
the cultural lexicon.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Oh yeah, phrases from the movie are everywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Great Scott became instantly recognizable shorthand for surprise or.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Amazement totally and that specific measurement one point two to
one gigawatts.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Or jigowa huh.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It entered common usage almost as a meme before memes,
as a term for just massive, slightly impossible amounts of
power or energy.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
When a film's fictional jargon becomes global shorthand like that,
I know, it's penetrated pop culture at a really.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Deep level, and critically for filmmaking itself. It kind of
became the blueprint for subsequent time travel narratives, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I think that's fair to say. Before BTTF, time travel
movies were often kind of handwavy about the rules or
incredibly complex.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Like Primer later on maybe right.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Or it just didn't bother explaining much. BTTF laid down specific,
easy to understand rules about causality, the core idea that
altering the pass has immediate, often unpredictable, sometimes disastrous consequences
on the present, the ripple effect. The ripple effect exactly
that structural rigor that clear if a then b logic
about changing the timeline. It influenced pretty much everything that
(28:37):
came after it.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
So modern blockbusters that deal with time travel, you think
of something like Looper or even the Big One, Avengers endgame.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
They all had to explicitly define their own specific rules
of causality. How does changing the past affect their present?
Can you change your own timeline? Or does it create branches?
And very often they use the BTTF model, the single
mutable timeline as the standard reference point, sometimes explicitly referencing it,
even if just to say that's not how it works
(29:07):
for us.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
It's at the benchmark it really did.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And of course we have to revisit the DeLorean itself.
Its post film legacy is almost as amazing as the movies.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
The car became something totally different after nineteen eighty five, totally.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
It transformed from automotive footnote to a genuine symbol of
nineteen eighties nostalgia and a permanent globally recognized pop culture artifact.
Its screen frame completely redefined as real world market failure.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
It's probably more famous now than ninety nine percent of
cars actually produced in large numbers.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Easily, and you see that dedication in the fan community.
Fans around the world spend serious time and resources restoring
original Deloreans.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
But not just restoring them to factory condition.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
No, often the goal is specifically to transform them into
screen accurate time Machine.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Replicas complete with the flux capacitor replicas that light up
and blink.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Custom wiring the vents, maybe even a mister Fusion prop
on the back. The demand for that specific iconography for
owning a piece of the movie.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Was so high that the Dolorean Motor Company actually came back.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Sort of. A different company bought the name and the
remaining parts inventory in the nineteen nineties, based in Texas,
specifically to service the existing cars and provide parts for
this passionate movie fueled fan base. They keep the originals
on the road.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's incredible. The movie literally resurrected the brand in a way, and.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That reach continues to ripple outwards even now. Just recently
in twenty twenty two, the revived company announced the DeLorean
Alpha Vive, a new car, a new, fully electric DeLorean,
and its design, while modern, clearly evokes the original shape
and yes it has going doors. They are capitalizing entirely
on the original car's visual legacy and its unbreakable cinematic connection.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
That is monumental cultural capital for a car that, like
you said, by all rights, should have been totally forgotten
almost forty years ago.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Failure redeemed by fiction.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Ultimately, I think the film's enduring success taps into something deeper,
maybe the underlying optimism of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That's an interesting point. It was a complicated decade, right,
Cold War tensions, economic shifts, anxieties were definitely there.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
But BTTF, despite starting with terrorists and family dysfunction, offered
a fundamentally hopeful vision, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
It really did. It argued that ingenuity, coupled with personal
courage and determination, plain old grit, could overcome any obstacle,
even something is existentially terrifying as messing up the space
time continuum.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
You can fix your mistakes, you can make things better.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah. And the Dolorean, with its futuristic stainless steal sheen,
those cool doors and its impossible time travel capabilities. Yeah,
it was the perfect physical embodiment of that optimism. It
looked like the future, a clean, stylish, exciting future.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It showed that maybe the best way forward was through creativity,
taking chances, and maybe having a slightly crazy friend with
a flex capacitor.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Huh, couldn't hurt. It embodied the idea of turning the
mundane or the failed into the extraordinary. Through sheer will
and imagination.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So when you look back at the entire cinematic output
of nineteen eighty five and again it was a great year,
Back to the Future arguably stands as the best.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I think the argument holds up.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Because it so effortlessly blends that high concept spectacle time
travel car chases with profound structural depth in the writing
and genuinely moving heart from the character.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It's all the marks.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
It successfully appeals to basically all ages, with these timeless
themes family, finding your courage, getting second chances, and it's
all wrapped up in this visually iconic, unforgettable package.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And that paradox of the dolore in itself. It's the
perfect microcosm for the film's overall genius, isn't it? How
so well Doc Brown, the ultimate dreamer, the optimist. He
chose a commercially failed, technically flawed, yet undeniably beautiful and
stylish car, and through his genius and imagination, he transformed
it into the most extraordinary, most famous vehicle in.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Cinema, turning led into gold basically exactly that choice perfectly
reflects the film's central belief.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Maybe failure isn't final. Maybe the ordinary or even the
discarded can become extraordinary if you just apply enough ingenuity
and style. Imagination is eternal.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
That is a powerful message to take forward from this
deep dive. The DeLorean was defined by its market failure
until it was entirely redefined by creativity and well a
massive burst of cinematic energy on screen. So perhaps our
final thought for you, the listener, to carry forward is this.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Think about any failed idea or concept in your own life.
You know, maybe a project that stalled out, a personal
goal that kind of fell flat, or even just a
quirky concept that others dismissed, something you put on the
shelf exactly. Consider what that concept might be missing right now,
and then ask yourself, what would happen if you dared
to apply, say one point two one gigawatts of your own, pure,
(33:56):
unadulterated creative scark to it.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Could you transform it into something truly spectacular?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Maybe perhaps your greatest success story is just sitting there
waiting for you to get it. Up to eighty eight
miles per hour
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