September 18, 2025 • 54 mins
In this episode of Houselights, we journey back to the Old West with "Back to the Future Part 3." Join hosts Tristan, Darren, and John as they explore the film's unique charm and its pivotal role in concluding the iconic trilogy. From the genre shift to the unforgettable train sequence, we delve into how this installment stands out while tying together the beloved series. Discover why this film remains a fan favorite and how it solidifies Robert Zemeckis's legacy in the 1990s.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the net party. Hello everybody at home, and
welcome to Houselights. Today. We're saddling up for Back to
(00:25):
the Future Part three, the film that trades hoverboards for horses,
Deloreans for steam locomotives, and the male parking lot for
the Old West. It's our kickoff to a new retrospective
looking at Robert Zemechis in the nineteen nineties, a decade
where he wrangled cowboys, desert Island, FedEx packages, and death itself.
I'm your host, Tristan Riddell, and with me tonight is
(00:46):
a loud, unpredictable, drooling gunfighter who is looking for an
excuse to shoot at your feet. John Mills. Yes, also
is our own mad scientist who is one train model
away from slapping train wheel on his own mini van,
Darren Moser. So grab your stets and polish your flux
capacitor and let's all feel the power of enough.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yes, yes, all right. I love that intro, especially because
you cast right. That was very good casting.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This felt right. This kind of casting felt right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's natural. You just knew when people walked in who
they were going to play tonight.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I would just finished the model if I hadn't had
to spend so much time on my iced team machine.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Okay, it took a lot of time.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Guys thought the ice cube was dirty, like it was
the same.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, it's like, you know what. I don't know if
that could exist back then with the technology.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But I believe it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I feel like if John was hosting, he would have
cast me either as Shamus McFly or the mortician.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
M No, you would have been the baby hurtful, it's
not hurtful at all.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Would have made you. You're the cutest character strictly ancestor.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I like that one.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, discipline, that's yeah, Okay, I could see that.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I'm super excited. I'm I'm glad that I got to
host this week because this is I'm going to outright
and say this is my favorite back to the future
of film. I love this one.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, for me, it goes three to one. That's always
been my ranking, ever since the nineties, ever since I
watched these it's the one. I've seen this one more
than any of them. Okay, I've rewatched this one a lot.
I really really enjoyed. Is it perfect?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Are there things that I don't like about it? Absolutely,
But it's my favorite one of the three. And this
will be kind of hard not to talk about the
trilogy as a whole. Now, obviously we'll be focusing on
part three, but Part two and part one is going
to sneak in here and there. And John, did you
see this in theaters?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You know, it's been so long that I think I
might not have, because nineteen ninety, if memory serves no
pun intended, was the summer of Total Recall?
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So I think I might have watched Total Recall a
ton of times. I know I saw that at least
twice in the movie theater, which adult John looks back
on in regrets, because boy was set some wasted money.
But I was easier to impress back then. But you know,
so I don't remember exactly when I saw it for
the first time. I know that I'm coming at it
(03:21):
from a different angle than you are. I'm glad that
you're putting out there that it's your favorite one, because
I'm really gonna want to dig at that because the
entire time that I've had the Back to the Future
trilogy in my life, my rankings have basically flipped between
two and one in the number one spot for me.
I've always been one of those that loved Part two.
(03:43):
I just thought it was so so crazy, over the top,
unrestrained that I just always plugged into that, and at
the end of it, I couldn't wait for the next one,
and I always considered Part three. I'm going to borrow
Darren's term here, but it was in my head before.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It's like a like.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I have often used the Back to the Future trilogy
as an argument against simultaneously filming sequels, and we can
get into that later, but that's sort of my relationship
with it.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Darren. What about you.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh, you're gonna take my own words, So we're going
to get into it right now. John Mills nods.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Before we started recording.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Private moments before the record.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
But nobody said it was off the record. Nobody said
it was off the record.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
The recording is the record, John, It was literally off
the record.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
No, okay.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I had mentioned that there are times when this third
movie does feel like a coda, especially since I think
we can all say on a technical level of storytelling,
as far as the time travel miss it peaks at two,
they're literally revisiting the first movie, the first events, intercutting
(04:55):
with the movie, which I mean, if you're watching them
all together, that we literally just saw. Whereas this movie,
yes you have time travel, but you're spending ninety percent
of your time in the Old West and then you
jump back. So it's much more taking a page from
the first movie, where you're not hop skipping and jumping.
(05:15):
You have your problem, you know, you have your issues
and you have to and you have a picture that
keeps fading, so very much like the first movie coming
full circle, but in other ways it it's a very
different film. We're spending a lot more time with Doc
where I mean, it really makes you look back at
(05:37):
the time we spend with him in the other two
movies is a fraction, whereas this he gets I would
almost say top billing. And in as far as the
main plot goes so jumbling a bit as I try
to remember where I bury the Dolorean, But yes, I
would say that this movie it was also made with
(05:58):
the intention of being the finale of the story. It
says the end at the end, and I think it,
which I don't think is a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So well, I think actually just to mitigate maybe some
of the vibe from what I was saying initially. The
thing I do respect is that they said, this is it.
Everybody knows Gale and Zamechis have it in the contract.
You can't do it without us. There's no part for
there's no reboot, there's no nothing without our agreement to it. Now,
(06:29):
when they finally shuffle off this mortal coil, I'm sure
that Universal Studios will have a few different thoughts about that,
but for the time being, that's it. So I do
respect that this does very much approach as the ending
of the story. There's no continuation vibe at the end
of this. You know, yes, Doc goes off, but it's
(06:50):
it's very clear we're not concerned with these adventures anymore.
This is it cartoon series a few years later, notwithstanding,
and the who was going.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
To bring up? Oh yeah the cartoon. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I to this day I desperately wish I could have
ever ridden the ride at Universal Studios. I'm very familiar
with the Simpsons ride, and I very much while I'm
riding it, I'm sitting there trying to imagine. I'm like, okay,
where where would this have been?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Where he stood basically right now? Yeah, Now, the ride
was a lot of fun, I remember writing it a
couple times in Universal Studios, Hollywood, and I wouldn't go
far as to say it's part four, but it definitely,
you know, works with what's been established and and it's
a lot of fun for you know, eight or ten
or however many minutes long it is. It was a
(07:44):
really good ride.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, the I you know, actually, i'll put the I'll
put the question out like, do you think the fact
that they managed to stay true to their word and
not do a number four has helped cement this series,
like built its steel and kept it legendary that it
never got franchised later? Has that helped it grow in
(08:07):
esteem over time? Because we know that there are only three?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I think so. I think it's one of those things
where they didn't, you know, beat a dead horse. I
think that always goes a long way because there's I mean,
I I guess it's it's hard because I mean it's
different animals. Like if you look at Star Wars a
Star Trek, there's good, there's bad, there's ups, there's down.
But with Back to the Future, it's just this nice
(08:32):
package of three. You know, they're all enjoyable. Some have
their favorites, some you know, like some like more than others,
but you can't call any of them a bad movie,
like true, very true. Like with me, Like even though
the like the first one is my least favorite, it
doesn't mean I don't like it. It doesn't mean it's
not a good film. It's just my least favorite. It's
(08:53):
kind of like the Dark Knight Trilogy or Cheese. I'm
blanking on other trilogies, but it's you know, I know
this is a this is a stretch for some. But
like The Godfather trily.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
I like the third one.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
That's just me fine.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I like the recut. I like the Godfather coda. Okay,
the recut I think is great.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
But the but think about think about the Alien franchise.
I think that might be a good comparable cop.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Well, you have a steep drop off in the third,
like that's usually what happens.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I'd argue the first deep drop office in the second.
But that's just me, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Okay, let's let's talk about Zamecca's a little bit before
we get too deep into the woods. Because this is
a director of focused podcast. We're talking about Robert Zemecaz
of the nineties, and if you look at his work.
His first motion picture was I Want to Hold Your Hand,
and then used cars, Romancing the Stone, then Back to
the Future one in eighty five, he did a Oh
(09:53):
he did a TV movie for Amazing Stories. I didn't
know that, and who, of course who framed Roger Rabbit
in eighty eight, Back to the Future Part two in
eighty nine, and then that brings us to ninety so
obviously Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future one
and two and who framed Roger Rabbit? Are is? I mean,
that's that's a lot in one decade, just in the eighties.
(10:14):
That's a lot for directors and specific Yeah, not just.
But the thing is, I think that brings us back
to something that Darren was saying earlier again about like
he's a he's a guy who loves playing with the technology.
He pushes so much like Lucas. He's very much like
Lucas in that. And I don't think Lucas gets enough credit,
(10:36):
at least in later years, on how much he pushed
the envelope in technology.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
He doesn't.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
But I think Zamechas gets unfairly overlooked on how much
he's been so playful with everything and the thing is
it's always playful in the sense that you get the sense,
especially from Zamechas in the eighties and nineties, of a
director who is just having a blast. When he's pushing
me with something. It's because he has a crazy idea.
(11:03):
He has that comic book kid Brain where it's like, well,
wait a minute, what if they could do this? And
then it's such a fun idea. You get the sense
of the effects team being like, oh, that would be
really cool, wouldn't it Like that? Like, you get a
very much a vibe of a director who has this
infectious glee getting away with the magic trick. And I
think that that gets to the cast, that gets to everybody.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I would also say you're just on looking at his
entire filmography, I mean pro con with the full CG
movies in the two thousands, I mean you have Polar Express, Beowolf,
and Christmas Carol. I will say he is definitely trying
and pushing whether the technology was ready to really support that.
(11:48):
I mean, I always remind myself again, you know what
two thousand and two with Attack of the Clones was
like the first time we had gone full digital pipeline
for an entire movie.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
So absolute time, we didn't have a loss of generation.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
And but you also have something rendered at whatever pee.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
It was so up. Yeah, not even a good tenityp like.
But but the thing is is that it pushed the
boundaries that that's what he had available at the time.
And if you look at the Mechus's filmography, you know,
like live action animation integration with Roger Rabbit motion control
(12:26):
and you know, really interesting VFX for Back to the
Future Part two, digital compositing with Forrest Gump, motion capture
for Polar Express. He pushed there's a lot of stuff
that happened in Polar Express that made Avatar possible. And
also I'm completely blanking on the movie just oh here
that just came out with like his integration of deep
(12:49):
fake technology with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, and I've I've yet to see that because it
came in so fast. See well, but see, that's that's
sort of the that's sort of the thing where you know,
every every director has their ups and downs and they
lose seam. But I think that you know, the thing is,
this is going to sound so much like Damning with
faint praise, but zamechis being the guy who loves to
(13:17):
push the boundaries, I would argue that what we see
is the disorienting nature of working digitally because you had
to be very clever to do the certain tricks, very measured,
very planned, very like there were there were so many
things through the entire pipeline again taking back to the
(13:38):
future part two, and like you have to line everything
up so perfectly in the optical compositor, and like get
the all of that stuff done and get the eye
lines right and all that type of stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I mean, they have trouble.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Doing split screen today and they could literally do it perfectly,
whereas like just look at that point right there, and
it's like.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Good, how why are you looking at his eyebrows? Stop right?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That sort of thing, and the fact that they you
enter into a digital age where I think I'm not
going to blame zamechis I'm going to actually wind up
blaming the crop of effects engineers. I think that with
a lot of Zamexa's later work, it would behoove effects
teams to be forced to go back to do like
(14:22):
one scene in the old ways, to force them to
think about how precise they have to line everything up
and match everything, and I think that it's just one
of those things where the tool the tool, I mean, honestly,
the digital tools are still so new quote unquote that
I think that that's why you see so many filmmakers
and audiences yearning for the more practical stuff so.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Well, and not just the practical I think, you know,
I've I've watched some videos about, you know, the the
shift of visual effects, but in regards to that, you're
also seeing a shift into post production where where post
production is now where movies are built and remade and
reshot and reconfigured versus again going back to the eighties
(15:09):
and nineties where not that you didn't have post production,
obviously you did, but so much was in pre production
pre viz.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Like getting the.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Story locked down, getting the shots locked down, because you
couldn't just say, oh, yeah, Marty's going to come around
the corner and we'll figure it out in post like no, no,
the camera has to be in a certain spot so
that he can be in two places at once, like
all of these rules of reality that you had to
work around. So it gave us that crop of films, Darren.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So when we had the first one, we had a
you know, like, obviously it's sci fi because it involves
time travel, but so much was spent in the nineteen fifties,
a very much glorified version of the nineteen fifties, and
so that was kind of the tone of the piece.
And then when we get to the second one, it's
pure sci fi. It's you know, all over the face place.
It's in our future at the time, and you know,
(16:05):
like the Jaws effect, you know, the hoverboards. Everything is
really crazy. And then we go back to an alternative reality,
which also is elements of sci fi. It's also the
plot is much more convoluted, it's a little darker. And
then we go to a complete genre shift with the
Western motif. It's a much more simplistic storyline. It's like,
we got to get to point A to point B
(16:26):
to point C in this amount of time. And so
I want to ask you, Darren, what did you think
about that genre shift? Was it nice? Was it a
nice departure, or was it too different? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I think it works because at its core, the sci
fi element of Back to the Future is a vehicle
to tell a unique story about friendship. It doesn't really
matter that there's a time machine, and like, we don't
spend barely anytime with the time machine, really not hot
tubbing in it. You know, we're not doing all of
(17:03):
this stuff. Instead, it's how do we get our characters
into this you know, highly improbable, impossible time journey where
they now have to figure out you know, friendship and
love and growing as characters and those truths. You could
take out the sci fi element and it wouldn't matter,
(17:25):
So it works regardless of that.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I love the sci fi element because it makes it fun.
I love I love the nineteen fifty five parts replacement
for the tiny mighty mic that's strapped to the hood
and is like four feet square, and it's vacuum tubes
and all of that. It's it's all those little things.
It's Doc talking about thinking fourth dimensionally and again all
(17:52):
of the payoffs because at its core, you still have
a writing team and a director that is very, very smart,
that is treating their audience as they're smart, and has
the setup and the payoff where they're nipping those what
could be plot holes, like the fact that Clara Ravine,
(18:15):
the fact that they established, oh, she would have died
if Doc had not been sent to the past so
the fact that she's pulled out of time doesn't impact
the future. And it's from two or three not throwaway lines,
but minor lines that I'm glad are in there, because
Back to the Future does that from the get go.
(18:36):
They work very hard. Now, I'm sure there's flaws and
cracks here and there, but for the vast majority of
the plot of the sci fi plot, it's very neatly
sewn up.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know, Yes, I'm not going to contradict anything that
you're saying. I think that one of my biggest issues
with things is that all of the charm that's in here,
I find everything you're talking about. They just don't get
to it quickly enough. In the first and the second one,
(19:11):
the pace is just bing ping ping ping pingk.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Like especially the second one is a different If you're.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Not paying attention in the second one, you're gonna get lost.
Like it's it's spaghetti. You're like, oh, okay, what threat
is going here?
Speaker 5 (19:22):
In this one?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's very straightforward, which is not a bad thing for
a movie. A to B, two C to D works
one hundred percent of the time. You'll never lose a
single person, but you have to keep an eye on pace,
and it's a little disorienting because they don't get there
fast enough. In my opinion, I think that they have
a for me. It's the it's the center. Third drags
(19:45):
a bit.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Well because if you think about it, in the first movie,
it's all about repairing the damage of getting his parents
back together. That gives you something to do because you're
you're still waiting out the clock to.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
The lightning strike.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
In this regard, we're kind of also waiting out the
clock to get there by Monday. But it's a very
different there. There's nothing to repair. It's Doc falling in love.
And now I think you're right it. I won't say
it just it doesn't destroy the movie, but it is
a definitely shift in pace where you're kind of like,
(20:21):
it's not even a will they won't they get together?
It's just a crawl as they're slowly turning the pages.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, I'll be honest upfront that that's actually why I'm
knocking some points off for this movie. Is exactly what
you guys are talking about. It's I feel like, even
though this is my favorite, I can't give it like
a perfect five because there is that drag there where
you're just like you're checking your watch. You're just like, Okay,
(20:47):
I want to get to more time antics. I want
to get I want to get to more craziness between
Rick and Morty, I mean Doc and Marty, and I
just feel like Clara kind of drags that down. And
this is you know, this movie is very much centered
around Marty, Doc, mad Dog, and Clara. Like those are
(21:08):
the four people that take up the most time in
this film. And so, John, what do you think about
Obviously we love Doc and Marty. What did you think
about the addition of Clara. What did you think about
her character and what she brought to the movie. Did
you think that she was used too much too little?
Was she a plot device, a fully fleshed out character?
What did you think?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I don't think she was fully fleshed out. She very
much feels like like weed to give Doc something in
this one to do for himself. You know, we all
agree Doc is not heavily and that we spend less
time with him in part one than we think we do, right,
And I think that this one they wanted to give
(21:49):
the Doc character a chance to shine. I think it's
the lag that slowness of pace is what works against
the Clara and Doc relationship because I think that steen
Virgin and Lloyd worked well together. I like the energy
that they have with each other. Of these two awkward
people who don't really know how to approach somebody in
(22:11):
this situation, I just think it it doesn't work to
her benefit because she shows up and when she's on screen,
stein Bergen is giving a very definite energy, and it
seems jarring sometimes because the pace is not that energy.
It's like she showed up with the energy for the
first two and they were doing a different movie, and
(22:33):
it's like, ah, but that's not her fault.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I think that I think that's very insightful. That's an
interesting take because there was something that always felt off
and I always thought maybe it was steen Virgin's acting,
but and I was just like, oh, maybe, you know,
maybe Zemecus didn't get the performance that he was trying
to get out of her. But I think that's more
apt because we've seen some amazing performances from her, and
(22:58):
I think she probably saw the first one and was like, Okay,
I'll do that, and then she brought it.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
You know it not to rewrite, but to rewrite now,
not to not to fix the third one, but it
made me think of City on the Edge of Forever,
one of the best Tos Star Trek episodes. And with
that you have the love interest Edith Keeler and Kirk
trying to decide, if you know, at the end, on
(23:30):
whether or not he's saving her and the impact on
the future.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
All that to say is what if they.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Had had a bit of conflict in that regard where
the exact plot points, but more along the fact of
he's trying to fix the future and unsure about how
she's going to fit into this and they're trying, like
maybe she keeps, you know, being in situations where she's
(23:56):
in peril or something, and at the end she realizes, oh,
we can bring her out of time and it's okay,
But you have something in the middle that's because you
we don't have that.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I I mean, I could pitch an idea right away,
but this movie is almost forty years old, and so
what's the point.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
But you know, so I won't unless you guys really
want me to. But I won't. I won't. I won't.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Don't worry, But I think I think, Darren, that would
have been a solution is to make her more integral
to what's happening outside of having to be in love
with Doc.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
He's worried the time trout, the time space continuum.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I think if anything, and people might consider me a
back to the future blasphemer for this, but I would
have stepped back on the mad Dog a bit and
instead had him be a smaller character where they know
he's coming and it's sort of this shadow that's in
the background and they're not interacting with him. Yes, oh no,
(24:55):
Beaufort Tannen is coming, and it's like, wait, bisk grant,
you know.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
And so when he.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Shows up to the end and you see you know
that that it's that it's Thomas Wilson in the makeup, you're.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Like, oh, yay, haha, yay.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
They did it right, as opposed to, you know, the
they carry forward this, you know, with the spatoon and
then the Manure and it's like, okay, this the gag
doesn't work as well here. And I think that if
you had Tannon as this sort of outside force that
they're racing against they know he exists, you would have,
(25:29):
but you don't have to spend as much time with
him directly. You wind up, giving Clara more time to
become integral to the plot.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I well, I'm not discounting what you're saying, because I
do think that that would work, absolutely, I think, but
it's that's a very different movie.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
And to me, I loved the the Tannin scenes, the
mad Dog scenes, and I like them more than probably
I liked his character more than any of the other
previous ones. And I know that he was heavily involved,
especially in the second one, you know, like you know,
because there's so many of them. There was what three
different versions of him in the in the third one.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, I mean the second one and one young yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, young, old and middle aged on the alternate fusure. Yeah.
But I liked mad Dog more. There was just something
about him that was just freaking hilarious, Like that's hout
you down and kill you look a duck, you know.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Just yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But but that is the conflict is Wilson is he's
the secret weapon of these movies. Like it's easy to
heat praise on Lloyd and Fox. Yes, they are core
to this, but Wilson plays the antagonist so well through
all three of them, and I agree it would have
been a completely different movie, and we would have had
(26:48):
to sacrifice a lot of great funny scenes with Tannin.
I still laugh at the you know, I'm gonna you know,
like a duck. I think it's like a dog.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
What.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Or when he's trying to count to ten to get
him to come outside, it's like six, he looks over
the other guy seven.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Seven, you know that's like cut cute gag.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Now, I would definitely praise his performance in this. I
think with the makeup, or not even makeup, just the
mustache and beard, I don't even see Wilson like. He
is so transformed in this movie. It's not like, oh,
that's just Biff, but with a mustache. Now I see
a different person, and I think that gives him the
(27:31):
freedom to be more. I'm gonna shoot you, then I'm
gonna beat you up and take your lunch money. Like
you know, that's Biff's level of involvement. This is a
serious outlaw and he should be.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Something I would have loved to see go differently, but
couldn't have because Crispin Glover famously isn't in two and
three is. I would have loved to have seen an
alternate timeline of our own where Glover played Marty's ancestor
as opposed to Michael J. Fox, because in the second one,
(28:07):
it's a fun gag seeing him play his son and
his daughter, like it's funny, it's silly, it's dumb. Right
with this one, it it just doesn't play the same way,
and I think it would have given I.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Think it does.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I loved him as Seamous.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I think they would have had an opportunity, though, to
have a more meaningful interaction between them instead of a
funnier interaction between them. Again, it's just like what I'm
saying about about Wilson. If there's less of him, then
there's less stuff that I liked happening, And the same
thing with Fox as Seamus. But I think you could
have had a more meaningful interaction between the two of
(28:48):
them if you had had that timeline where Glover was involved.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I'll go down the middle.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I see what you say, Tristan, and I wouldn't trade
Shemus for for anything because it's it's just I think it.
Fox is doing amazing in that, Like maybe not the accent,
but you know, it's it's a funny, great character.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I LOVELYA. Thompson's how she says Eastwood, She's like mysterious two.
It's they're both such horrible accents for thee he says,
it work.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
But I like the idea of it being Marty's dad
because really, when we see him in the first movie,
he's not confident yet. He's not really he's there's nothing
for him to teach Marty until the very last moment
when he gets his confidence punches out Biff and now
is worth it. So we never see the confident dad
(29:41):
get to share his wisdom with Marty, whereas if it
had been that actor, you know, for Seamus, now he is,
you know, because Shamus has he's got his head on straight.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
He he's a family man.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
He knows the value of, you know, of helping others,
but also not being a pushover. And and really Marty's
problem with being chicken and being inflamed by that. So
seeing that come from a father figure that's not physically him,
I think they could have leaned into that even more.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Well, it would have been nice to see Glover as
the dad because it would have had some really nice symmetry.
And also side note, it's Crispin Glover's favorite Back to
the Future film is the third one, which I find
really funny.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
That seems like such a Crispin Glover thing that I'm
not at all surprised to find that out.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Well, I think Fox and Wilson both said that this
is their favorite. Too is the thing.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
I know they had a lot of fun filming it.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I watched some of the back of the behind the
scenes stuff because this is my excuse to finally open
my four K set, and Fox sat there and talked
about how on his days off he was able to
just go down to the local fishing hole and he
would just spend all day fishing on his day off,
and he's like, it was really peaceful, and it's like, yeah,
I can imagine that it was, so they probably I
(31:02):
think that. I think that filming Too was extremely stressful
because it was very technical and then they got to
come into this and it was like, okay, everybody, you
can take a breath and it's not.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
One was a nightmare because they had to refilm everything
with Michael J. Fox right, and Wilson I think got
the brunt of that refilming, so he was exhausted for
like five years. But yeah, with Crispin Glover, that we
would have had some really I think you guys are right,
we would have had some really touching moments, But I
feel like that wouldn't have helped the pacing. I feel
(31:35):
like if we growted the time that we needed to
that in order to get that nostalgia, that symmetry, those
cool father son moments, it would have just prolonged him
getting to town, getting dragged by the horses and starting
the plot even further. And I think it just would
have been more frustrating. And because with with with Fox
(31:56):
as Shamus, you get in, you get out. It's the
it's the cute, you get the.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, he shows up when he's needing that set. We don't.
We don't feel like we have to hold on to
it because if it was Glover, I feel like we
would have had another major character. It would have been
five people instant, maybe five or six people, because if
you have Glover, you probably focus more on Leah Thompson too.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I just yeah, I think it's just you're adding to it.
I feel like you can't add to it and say, oh,
we need a faster pace as well, because I get
that from my clients all the time like make it longer,
but take stuff out.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
I think that there.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think that this gets to my whole bit about
saying this is an argument against filming your sequels simultaneously.
I think giving yourself the time in between films to
take a breath and really check your thinking about what
is going to work for the next one, how to
really take it. I think just a little bit more
(32:57):
development time on the script would have helped them get
to that point where they would have been able to
balance everything. And I think that you're going at this
breakneck pace. And I mean I remember even back then
it was when they said they were like, oh, they're
going to release practically one right after another, and everybody
was like, what that's insane, Like it was a crazy
idea back then.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
We don't think anything really of it.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Now, but they six months apart or so, which six crazy,
that's insane.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Even the Matrix sequels were released a year apart.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Yeah, it didn't help that.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Although for what they set up, I mean there's a
handful of Shemus double shots, like technically this one's the simplest,
Like there is way less special effects, way less time,
you know, duality so I mean, yeah, they're burning all
that in in the shooting of two, but it's not
(33:51):
like they shot this and then tried to do something
of the scale of two on the till. I think
they would have died like it would.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Have just apparently the mechus he was shooting three would
have to fly back and forth between Los Angeles and
was it northern or so it was it northern California
where they shot this, I can't remember. Anyway, it was
a flight and he had to approve the audio mixing
of the second one whilst doing principal photography on the
(34:18):
third one. And he would so he would get up
at four thirty in the morning to fly and then
fly back at night. It was insane. It was an
insane schedule. I'm surprised he's.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Been shot over eleven months. God.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, I mean it's no Lord of the Rings, but
that's a lot well.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I mean, if anything, you could give more credit, I
guess to back to the Future parts two and two,
because there was no source material for them to lean
on as their foundation, Like this is all just from there.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
You know, they didn't base this on a pre existing work.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Basically, I want to ask you guys, about the cinematography
before we get into the set pieces. This was photographed
by Dean Cundy, who also shot parts one and two.
I feel like each installment has a very unique look
and feel agree not just with the production design obviously,
but almost feels like the film stock that they use
(35:09):
is different, and just like I feel like Zamecha's has
a very clean approach to filmmaking. He very much you
know where you are at all times, like geographically speaking,
you know where the characters are, you know where the
town is, you know where the buildings are, you know
where you are in the room. Every shot shows you
exactly what's going on. He doesn't hide anything in editing
(35:31):
with any kind of tricks. You know what I'm saying
by that, Like, obviously there's editing tricks, but you know
what I'm trying to say, And a lot of that
is because of Dean Kundi and his editors. And so
I want to ask you, guys, how did you feel
about the look of the third one compared to the
previous two. Do you feel like it was apropos to
the Western style or did it feel kind of out
(35:52):
of place? I'm an open question to you guys.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
I wouldn't say out of place.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
And the thing is, I have to go back and
look at maybe an earlier edition because this is, like
I said, this is my first time watching the four K,
and there were moments where it was a little jarring
to me because some of the work looked too artificial
in terms of its its lighting.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
It was too.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
It was too bright.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I get like Kundy, I'm I think is one of
the greatest cinematographers that's worked over, you know, the last
several decades. I think his outdoor stuff in Back to
the Future Part three is really strong. Some of his
indoor stuff felt a little too and maybe this was intentional.
It felt a little and it's it's odd to put
(36:43):
it this way, but sort of like TV lighting in
some of the ways. But that could have very much
been intentional on their part, and I would just have
to go back and look at an earlier edition to
see if the remastering process undid them a little bit.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Here with this, that's interesting that you talk about the
indoor stuff, because I felt like you probably would have
criticized how bright the outdoor scenes were at nighttime, even
though Darren was salivating, well, he was watching in the outtime.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Any nighttime shots. It was so bright the entire film.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
It was great. Now.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, but see, the thing is I could see that
easily as a that that's a hallmark of the old Westerns.
You know, they shot everything so you could see it
back then, quote unquote sort of thing that held the
vibe of a Western to me. It's like inside the
saloon and stuff like that. But I really think it
might just be the addition because the indoor stuff in
the saloon later in the movie, like near the end,
(37:37):
was impeccable, couldn't couldn't throw a single stone at it.
It was some of the earlier stuff, especially, like I
think there's like a nighttime scene in the saloon where
it was like I could see the beam of light
coming from just off camera to light everything, and it
was it was a little disconcerting. You could tell it
was a spot and it was like it was just
(37:57):
it was odd.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I mean the vibe I got from the inside shots,
or some of them at least. Yeah, I kind of
see what you're saying, John about the TV niche feel.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
And I don't think it's the lighting.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
It's more of obviously they move around within the scenes,
but for the vast majority of the shots, it's coming
from one angle. It's like a TV set where you're
you never look at the other direction. So Doc's Blacksmith's shop,
we're almost always looking towards the door, like in every
single in the saloon, we're almost always looking out towards
(38:37):
the crowd from behind the bar. In the McFly house,
we're always looking So again, not every shot, obviously they
shot reverse shots and takes, but the vast majority feels
very one sided. And I'm not saying that's bad. It
just is a vibe. The train is always moving from
left to right, no kidding, that's just good filmmaking.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Speaking speaking of the Darren, I feel like, I mean,
we're all nerds here, this is the nerd Party dot com.
But Darren, I feel like you take it to the
next level in so many different avenues of your life.
Tell me you're a train guy too. You feel like
a train guy.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
No, I mean I am a train guy. It's more
of like Lego trains.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
I was never a growing up you know, Lionel anything
like that, but yeah, building things and trains they were
always fun and I always love the back of the
Future train I mean, it's just my platforms.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
My dad was a model train enthusiast. To put it lightly,
he bought he bought model trains the way that I
bought Star Wars toys. Like Star Wars toys was my
version of my dad's model trains. Comic books were my
brother's version of my dad's model trains. We just amassed
these massive collections because every time we saw one that
(39:57):
was cool, it was like, oh, and trust me, It's
taken years of taming that impulse over it. Like seeing
having to clean out my dad's house when he was
finally called home, I had a moment where I was like,
very famously, I was like, I now live my life
in such a way that if they wanted to erase
my existence in less than forty eight hours from this.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
House, it is possible to do. But yeah, model trains.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I am the one that's going to love the train
work in this one because I just thought it was
so much fun. It reminds me of my own dad.
And I've had the extreme pleasure of having seen the
time Travel train on display at Universal Studios Hollywood, not Hollywood,
Universal Studios Florida. Here in Orlando, and with the Doc
(40:47):
Brown standing there. They rolled out the DeLorean recently too,
so that everybody could see it. But yeah, that train
is here at Universal Studios. It's a kick to see it.
Most of the kids don't notice it, they just walked by.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
You guys, think of that set piece because when I
think back to the future, I think about the final
train sequence, Like that's what pops into my head. When
I think about the trilogy as a whole. That is
the set piece that sticks out in my brain.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I'm talking about the accelerate to eighty eight miles per
hour or the dots of the back at the very
end with Claric.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Oh uh no, like the when they're trying to get
it up to eighty eight.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Got it.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
I'll just say it's it's brilliant. They found a way
to I mean, we talked about slowing things down, but
they found a way to encapsulate that moment from the
first movie where he's accelerating to eighty eight and stretch
it out into like twenty minutes. Because it's the train.
Because you're very slowly and methodically advancing towards eighty eight,
(41:49):
you're while you're auto precipice, while you're almost falling off
the train, like it cinematically works, wonders you. Okay, So
we showed this to my two children, who are nine
and thirteen, and that entire sequence they could not sit still.
They were bouncing up and down, cheering. They're like, well,
(42:11):
he's gotta get in the car right, Like they could
not figure out how he's gonna get in the car.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
I'm like, boy, he's.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Gonna have to jump, and they're like, no, he can't jump.
She's gonna fall and they're not hearing her. Like they
were so invested in that scene. It is the climax
of climaxes for that movie.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
It's not the first thing I think of when I
think of Back to the Future, but I think that
for all of the qualms I have with the film,
Zamechis knows how to end them strong. It's like a
reverse Donna effect where every solbe with Richard Donner movie,
like you get the sensorhere, he's just like, E, that's
good enough. Whereas Zamechas, you could tell he's like, Okay,
(42:48):
I know I gotta end this a certain way. And
I think all three of the Back to the Future movies,
the endings are super tight.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Really well, ULTI Stephen King, Yes, but.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I I, you know, I think that technically speaking, I
mean I could watch that train sequence over and over
again because it is just trying to pull it apart
and say, how long did it take them to do this?
How sick were all of these people of this train
sequence by the end, like all right, back to train up, Okay,
that's going to take It's going to take another hour there.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Bob back her up, Yeah, backer up.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
Oh oh oh oh oh.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Camera wasn't up to speed. Take it back, take it back, okay,
you know that.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
And they couple it with the miniature work, you know,
not only in the future time train, but the driving
off like an amazing on it as it I still
it is so many. It had been a while since
I'd watched the third one, and I was telling my
wife as they were racing towards the end of track,
which is just twenty train ties, and I was thinking,
(43:55):
I'm like, they're going to destroy the DeLorean. You can't
drive a del you can have anything through that without
it being obliterated. I wasn't thinking fourth dimensionally, it would
say me there by the time they got to it.
But yeah, that that ravine drop is glorious.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
If you told me when I was a kid that
that was a miniature going off into the ravine, I
never would have believed you.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
I still don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I just tried a real train.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
I still don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Because it is filmed so well, it's absolutely convincing, and
I just huge kudos for it.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's weird that my favorite part of the crash is
the firewood. I don't know what it is, whether the
get it, the method of the frame rate, or if
they made the firewood out of like really dense heavy
material win it impacts and the way the firewood from
the tender car lands you believe it's full scale. It
(44:55):
doesn't bounce off like its styrofoam or something that like it.
It lands like, oh, that's a cord of wood that
just landed on the ground and nailed it.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And that gets back to the challenges of the digital
age is they always struggle with the weight of things,
and the model makers could easily show them the way
to say no, no, no, you have to think this
would weigh something.
Speaker 5 (45:18):
It has heft to it.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
You can't just have the model though it was like
six like it was huge to begin with.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
It was Oh it was.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
I'm pretty sure it was massive, like okay, like third
scale or something like it.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Oh, that is jeez, that is massive also during okay,
so this was my first time watching the four K
disc as well. And John, I want to ask you.
I don't know if you noticed this or not, but
when they were in the library in the fifties and
looking up the history of the town, they had a
bird's eye shot of the library. Yes, was that a
(45:55):
Matt painting.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
I'd have to go back and look. I didn't catch
it if it was.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
For some Okay, this is gonna sound weird, but I
know that you guys and our listeners will track with me.
At the end of a this is not a mat shot.
And at the end of Aliens, when right before they
go to credits, they pause on a still.
Speaker 5 (46:15):
Yes, it drives me crazy.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yes, of Sigourney, Weaver and Newt and there's there's no
grain movement, so you can tell that it's just a
still and it drives me nuts. That's something that happened
in the library. Around the edges of them, there was
no grain movement on the eye side. So I need
to look up. I was just wondering if you guys
knew if that was a Matt pinning or not.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I will have to go ahead and look that up
as well and rewatch it, because it did not jump
out at me.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
There was watching it on the four K disc was
the first time I noticed that. But I know that
we like to I know we're getting close to the
end here, and I know that we like to talk
about the music at the end. I friggin love Silvestri's
score in all three and especially this one because he
got to work with zz Top, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I I think it's I think it's a great score.
I think there's a lot of energy in it. I
can tell that Silvestri is also having a lot of fun.
The zz Top thing always makes me cringe a little bit, though,
because because the way that they have their appearance in
it is not as subtly done as when Huey Lewis
(47:28):
appears in the first one.
Speaker 5 (47:30):
It's too big.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
It's too big because they have that shot that that
focuses on them doing their trademark twirl and the camera pulling,
and it's like it's just it's too much, and it
doesn't It's not like I'm like I'm deducting a star
for this. I just I think it was a little bit,
a little bit over top, over the top with it
over the zz top.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
Yeah it it.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I mean we all saw the that come in the
whole spin the commercials back then.
Speaker 5 (48:01):
It's true they advertised at cz top was going to
be in the movie.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
That rendition of double back is in my head an
in order amount of time, like I am, I am
probably maybe once a week, maybe once every two weeks.
You'll hear me going around the house going Dunit Dune.
Speaker 5 (48:21):
It's a song.
Speaker 4 (48:23):
It's a great song.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
I learned something this is This is the first time
I've heard that as long as I've known you, Tristan, that.
Speaker 5 (48:29):
Is the first time I've heard you say that. Interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I'm I'm surprised you haven't heard me hummed in the background.
All right, Okay, we're rounding third here. Let's uh, how
many frisbees are we giving this film?
Speaker 4 (48:42):
Darren?
Speaker 1 (48:43):
I'm going to start with you because I'm hosting, and
I love starting with yoush.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Yeah, no, I mean one other effect. We were praising
the model train crash, although then they stick. I don't
think it's CG. It's just more compositing explosion dust over it,
and it looks that was very It looks so bad.
I'm like, you must have been driving to hide something
or I don't know, but yeah, we all know that
(49:09):
that shot was that part was terrible. But yeah, no, man,
this was fun to revisit. It's been a while since
i'd watched three. It's not usually in my rotation, not
that I don't care for it, it's just it's a
different vibe. Definitely, it feels like the third. It's the
odd one out when you're thinking of the two again,
(49:31):
not in a negative, just in a tonal location. I
had to suspend my disbelief that there's a giant like
mountain right behind the courthouse, and I'm like, I don't
I don't remember that mountain one hundred years later in
Hill Valley. But okay, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Landscapes change. Man, it's all about time.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Okay, sudden.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Maybe they meant.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Dug it up and filled in Cleara vine or something
has there? Is it an earthquake and he'll value that
destroyed a mountain. Possibly maybe doctor Brown that way with.
Speaker 5 (50:08):
It with an experiment of his, who knows, or the.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
Fact that you're in.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
We don't know what Here Valley is, but apparently it's
like right around the corner from Monument Valley, like really close, guys. Anyway,
all that to say, I can suspend that disbelief. I'm
giving this a solid four. It's a great movie. It's
fun to revisit. Like I said, though it's not in
my active rotation of sci fi. I'm not like, oh, man,
(50:35):
I can't wait to sit down to three again. It's
more like, when the time is right, it's fun to
put in and just enjoy it. I think we talked
about all the highs and lows of this and gave
it a real, a real fair shake. But as a
finale to the trilogy, it's great. It leaves me wanting nothing.
I don't want to be like, oh, but what happened
(50:58):
to Marty next week? The future is unwritten. Let that
you know, Let your imagination, Hey, what a wonder. Let
the audience imagination imagine what you know Doc and Clara
are up to, and what Marty and Jennifer are up to.
That is the best finale we.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Could have, So for four.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Frisbee pie pans.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
John, how many cartfuls of manure are you giving part three.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Well, I struggle a little bit with this. I've really
like sat with it since I watched it and initially
came out of it and I was like, Eh, that's
a three. But then I spent a lot of time
sort of chewing it over. And while there are problems
of pacing with this, I think that this movie could
and should have been shorter than it is. I think
(51:48):
that there is enough. Look you got, you still got.
Lloyd and Fox just their their charm just is just
exploding off the screen. I think that that last train
sequence is just a technical marvel and I have to
give it extra points for that. I think that while
I'm sitting there, you know, arguing about mad Dog, Tannin
(52:09):
Wilson is so much fun in this movie. He's having
such a great time and I'm having a great time
along with him. So I really sat a while with
it and thought it through, and actually I'm going to
land with a four as well, because it is overall satisfying,
and a strong ending can really make up for sins
(52:30):
in the first two thirds. If you end strong, your
impression of the movie is gonna be a lot better
than if you invert that.
Speaker 5 (52:38):
So it gets a four.
Speaker 4 (52:39):
This time.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
For me, I kind of echo the same thing that
you're saying, John, because you're not wrong about the pacing.
This movie should have been shorter. It should have either
because if you're not going to fully develop Clara, you
should have or cut down a little bit more, and
you know, up that pacing, put it together and make
it faster, cut to the chase. I'm just a little
bit more free giving, I think overall, just because I
(53:02):
love this movie so much, I'm giving a four point
five because it's not perfect, but yet for me, all
those negatives far outwagh. I'm sorry. All the positives far
outweigh the negatives, and I think that's a It's just like,
this is such a strong closing, Like Darren, you said,
it's you leave. You don't. You don't want a fourth one.
(53:24):
You're like, you could, you could have it, but you
don't need it. You really don't need it. It's like, like,
why on earth would they make a Toy Story four.
I hope they don't do that, you know, because you
know Toy Story three and it's so perfectly.
Speaker 5 (53:36):
Still haven't seen four and I won't see five, so
oh cheez. There is another one.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Coming out. Isn't there anyway there? Well, we're not going
to be talking about Back to the Future of five
next week, but Darren, what are we going to be
talking about next week?
Speaker 3 (53:51):
Oh, we're kicking off this great decade of the nineties
with Robert Zemeckis next with Death Becomes Her from nineteen
ninety two, here on house Lights, Join
Speaker 1 (54:02):
The Revolution, join the Nerd Party,
Welcome to the net party. Hello everybody at home, and
welcome to Houselights. Today. We're saddling up for Back to
(00:25):
the Future Part three, the film that trades hoverboards for horses,
Deloreans for steam locomotives, and the male parking lot for
the Old West. It's our kickoff to a new retrospective
looking at Robert Zemechis in the nineteen nineties, a decade
where he wrangled cowboys, desert Island, FedEx packages, and death itself.
I'm your host, Tristan Riddell, and with me tonight is
(00:46):
a loud, unpredictable, drooling gunfighter who is looking for an
excuse to shoot at your feet. John Mills. Yes, also
is our own mad scientist who is one train model
away from slapping train wheel on his own mini van,
Darren Moser. So grab your stets and polish your flux
capacitor and let's all feel the power of enough.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yes, yes, all right. I love that intro, especially because
you cast right. That was very good casting.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This felt right. This kind of casting felt right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's natural. You just knew when people walked in who
they were going to play tonight.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I would just finished the model if I hadn't had
to spend so much time on my iced team machine.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Okay, it took a lot of time.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Guys thought the ice cube was dirty, like it was
the same.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, it's like, you know what. I don't know if
that could exist back then with the technology.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But I believe it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I feel like if John was hosting, he would have
cast me either as Shamus McFly or the mortician.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
M No, you would have been the baby hurtful, it's
not hurtful at all.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Would have made you. You're the cutest character strictly ancestor.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I like that one.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, discipline, that's yeah, Okay, I could see that.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I'm super excited. I'm I'm glad that I got to
host this week because this is I'm going to outright
and say this is my favorite back to the future
of film. I love this one.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, for me, it goes three to one. That's always
been my ranking, ever since the nineties, ever since I
watched these it's the one. I've seen this one more
than any of them. Okay, I've rewatched this one a lot.
I really really enjoyed. Is it perfect?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Are there things that I don't like about it? Absolutely,
But it's my favorite one of the three. And this
will be kind of hard not to talk about the
trilogy as a whole. Now, obviously we'll be focusing on
part three, but Part two and part one is going
to sneak in here and there. And John, did you
see this in theaters?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You know, it's been so long that I think I
might not have, because nineteen ninety, if memory serves no
pun intended, was the summer of Total Recall?
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So I think I might have watched Total Recall a
ton of times. I know I saw that at least
twice in the movie theater, which adult John looks back
on in regrets, because boy was set some wasted money.
But I was easier to impress back then. But you know,
so I don't remember exactly when I saw it for
the first time. I know that I'm coming at it
(03:21):
from a different angle than you are. I'm glad that
you're putting out there that it's your favorite one, because
I'm really gonna want to dig at that because the
entire time that I've had the Back to the Future
trilogy in my life, my rankings have basically flipped between
two and one in the number one spot for me.
I've always been one of those that loved Part two.
(03:43):
I just thought it was so so crazy, over the top,
unrestrained that I just always plugged into that, and at
the end of it, I couldn't wait for the next one,
and I always considered Part three. I'm going to borrow
Darren's term here, but it was in my head before.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It's like a like.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I have often used the Back to the Future trilogy
as an argument against simultaneously filming sequels, and we can
get into that later, but that's sort of my relationship
with it.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Darren. What about you.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh, you're gonna take my own words, So we're going
to get into it right now. John Mills nods.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Before we started recording.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Private moments before the record.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
But nobody said it was off the record. Nobody said
it was off the record.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
The recording is the record, John, It was literally off
the record.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
No, okay.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I had mentioned that there are times when this third
movie does feel like a coda, especially since I think
we can all say on a technical level of storytelling,
as far as the time travel miss it peaks at two,
they're literally revisiting the first movie, the first events, intercutting
(04:55):
with the movie, which I mean, if you're watching them
all together, that we literally just saw. Whereas this movie,
yes you have time travel, but you're spending ninety percent
of your time in the Old West and then you
jump back. So it's much more taking a page from
the first movie, where you're not hop skipping and jumping.
(05:15):
You have your problem, you know, you have your issues
and you have to and you have a picture that
keeps fading, so very much like the first movie coming
full circle, but in other ways it it's a very
different film. We're spending a lot more time with Doc
where I mean, it really makes you look back at
(05:37):
the time we spend with him in the other two
movies is a fraction, whereas this he gets I would
almost say top billing. And in as far as the
main plot goes so jumbling a bit as I try
to remember where I bury the Dolorean, But yes, I
would say that this movie it was also made with
(05:58):
the intention of being the finale of the story. It
says the end at the end, and I think it,
which I don't think is a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So well, I think actually just to mitigate maybe some
of the vibe from what I was saying initially. The
thing I do respect is that they said, this is it.
Everybody knows Gale and Zamechis have it in the contract.
You can't do it without us. There's no part for
there's no reboot, there's no nothing without our agreement to it. Now,
(06:29):
when they finally shuffle off this mortal coil, I'm sure
that Universal Studios will have a few different thoughts about that,
but for the time being, that's it. So I do
respect that this does very much approach as the ending
of the story. There's no continuation vibe at the end
of this. You know, yes, Doc goes off, but it's
(06:50):
it's very clear we're not concerned with these adventures anymore.
This is it cartoon series a few years later, notwithstanding,
and the who was going.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
To bring up? Oh yeah the cartoon. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I to this day I desperately wish I could have
ever ridden the ride at Universal Studios. I'm very familiar
with the Simpsons ride, and I very much while I'm
riding it, I'm sitting there trying to imagine. I'm like, okay,
where where would this have been?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Where he stood basically right now? Yeah, Now, the ride
was a lot of fun, I remember writing it a
couple times in Universal Studios, Hollywood, and I wouldn't go
far as to say it's part four, but it definitely,
you know, works with what's been established and and it's
a lot of fun for you know, eight or ten
or however many minutes long it is. It was a
(07:44):
really good ride.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, the I you know, actually, i'll put the I'll
put the question out like, do you think the fact
that they managed to stay true to their word and
not do a number four has helped cement this series,
like built its steel and kept it legendary that it
never got franchised later? Has that helped it grow in
(08:07):
esteem over time? Because we know that there are only three?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I think so. I think it's one of those things
where they didn't, you know, beat a dead horse. I
think that always goes a long way because there's I mean,
I I guess it's it's hard because I mean it's
different animals. Like if you look at Star Wars a
Star Trek, there's good, there's bad, there's ups, there's down.
But with Back to the Future, it's just this nice
(08:32):
package of three. You know, they're all enjoyable. Some have
their favorites, some you know, like some like more than others,
but you can't call any of them a bad movie,
like true, very true. Like with me, Like even though
the like the first one is my least favorite, it
doesn't mean I don't like it. It doesn't mean it's
not a good film. It's just my least favorite. It's
(08:53):
kind of like the Dark Knight Trilogy or Cheese. I'm
blanking on other trilogies, but it's you know, I know
this is a this is a stretch for some. But
like The Godfather trily.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
I like the third one.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
That's just me fine.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I like the recut. I like the Godfather coda. Okay,
the recut I think is great.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
But the but think about think about the Alien franchise.
I think that might be a good comparable cop.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Well, you have a steep drop off in the third,
like that's usually what happens.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I'd argue the first deep drop office in the second.
But that's just me, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Okay, let's let's talk about Zamecca's a little bit before
we get too deep into the woods. Because this is
a director of focused podcast. We're talking about Robert Zemecaz
of the nineties, and if you look at his work.
His first motion picture was I Want to Hold Your Hand,
and then used cars, Romancing the Stone, then Back to
the Future one in eighty five, he did a Oh
(09:53):
he did a TV movie for Amazing Stories. I didn't
know that, and who, of course who framed Roger Rabbit
in eighty eight, Back to the Future Part two in
eighty nine, and then that brings us to ninety so
obviously Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future one
and two and who framed Roger Rabbit? Are is? I mean,
that's that's a lot in one decade, just in the eighties.
(10:14):
That's a lot for directors and specific Yeah, not just.
But the thing is, I think that brings us back
to something that Darren was saying earlier again about like
he's a he's a guy who loves playing with the technology.
He pushes so much like Lucas. He's very much like
Lucas in that. And I don't think Lucas gets enough credit,
(10:36):
at least in later years, on how much he pushed
the envelope in technology.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
He doesn't.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
But I think Zamechas gets unfairly overlooked on how much
he's been so playful with everything and the thing is
it's always playful in the sense that you get the sense,
especially from Zamechas in the eighties and nineties, of a
director who is just having a blast. When he's pushing
me with something. It's because he has a crazy idea.
(11:03):
He has that comic book kid Brain where it's like, well,
wait a minute, what if they could do this? And
then it's such a fun idea. You get the sense
of the effects team being like, oh, that would be
really cool, wouldn't it Like that? Like, you get a
very much a vibe of a director who has this
infectious glee getting away with the magic trick. And I
think that that gets to the cast, that gets to everybody.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I would also say you're just on looking at his
entire filmography, I mean pro con with the full CG
movies in the two thousands, I mean you have Polar Express, Beowolf,
and Christmas Carol. I will say he is definitely trying
and pushing whether the technology was ready to really support that.
(11:48):
I mean, I always remind myself again, you know what
two thousand and two with Attack of the Clones was
like the first time we had gone full digital pipeline
for an entire movie.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
So absolute time, we didn't have a loss of generation.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
And but you also have something rendered at whatever pee.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
It was so up. Yeah, not even a good tenityp like.
But but the thing is is that it pushed the
boundaries that that's what he had available at the time.
And if you look at the Mechus's filmography, you know,
like live action animation integration with Roger Rabbit motion control
(12:26):
and you know, really interesting VFX for Back to the
Future Part two, digital compositing with Forrest Gump, motion capture
for Polar Express. He pushed there's a lot of stuff
that happened in Polar Express that made Avatar possible. And
also I'm completely blanking on the movie just oh here
that just came out with like his integration of deep
(12:49):
fake technology with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, and I've I've yet to see that because it
came in so fast. See well, but see, that's that's
sort of the that's sort of the thing where you know,
every every director has their ups and downs and they
lose seam. But I think that you know, the thing is,
this is going to sound so much like Damning with
faint praise, but zamechis being the guy who loves to
(13:17):
push the boundaries, I would argue that what we see
is the disorienting nature of working digitally because you had
to be very clever to do the certain tricks, very measured,
very planned, very like there were there were so many
things through the entire pipeline again taking back to the
(13:38):
future part two, and like you have to line everything
up so perfectly in the optical compositor, and like get
the all of that stuff done and get the eye
lines right and all that type of stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I mean, they have trouble.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Doing split screen today and they could literally do it perfectly,
whereas like just look at that point right there, and
it's like.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Good, how why are you looking at his eyebrows? Stop right?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That sort of thing, and the fact that they you
enter into a digital age where I think I'm not
going to blame zamechis I'm going to actually wind up
blaming the crop of effects engineers. I think that with
a lot of Zamexa's later work, it would behoove effects
teams to be forced to go back to do like
(14:22):
one scene in the old ways, to force them to
think about how precise they have to line everything up
and match everything, and I think that it's just one
of those things where the tool the tool, I mean, honestly,
the digital tools are still so new quote unquote that
I think that that's why you see so many filmmakers
and audiences yearning for the more practical stuff so.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Well, and not just the practical I think, you know,
I've I've watched some videos about, you know, the the
shift of visual effects, but in regards to that, you're
also seeing a shift into post production where where post
production is now where movies are built and remade and
reshot and reconfigured versus again going back to the eighties
(15:09):
and nineties where not that you didn't have post production,
obviously you did, but so much was in pre production
pre viz.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Like getting the.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Story locked down, getting the shots locked down, because you
couldn't just say, oh, yeah, Marty's going to come around
the corner and we'll figure it out in post like no, no,
the camera has to be in a certain spot so
that he can be in two places at once, like
all of these rules of reality that you had to
work around. So it gave us that crop of films, Darren.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So when we had the first one, we had a
you know, like, obviously it's sci fi because it involves
time travel, but so much was spent in the nineteen fifties,
a very much glorified version of the nineteen fifties, and
so that was kind of the tone of the piece.
And then when we get to the second one, it's
pure sci fi. It's you know, all over the face place.
It's in our future at the time, and you know,
(16:05):
like the Jaws effect, you know, the hoverboards. Everything is
really crazy. And then we go back to an alternative reality,
which also is elements of sci fi. It's also the
plot is much more convoluted, it's a little darker. And
then we go to a complete genre shift with the
Western motif. It's a much more simplistic storyline. It's like,
we got to get to point A to point B
(16:26):
to point C in this amount of time. And so
I want to ask you, Darren, what did you think
about that genre shift? Was it nice? Was it a
nice departure, or was it too different? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I think it works because at its core, the sci
fi element of Back to the Future is a vehicle
to tell a unique story about friendship. It doesn't really
matter that there's a time machine, and like, we don't
spend barely anytime with the time machine, really not hot
tubbing in it. You know, we're not doing all of
(17:03):
this stuff. Instead, it's how do we get our characters
into this you know, highly improbable, impossible time journey where
they now have to figure out you know, friendship and
love and growing as characters and those truths. You could
take out the sci fi element and it wouldn't matter,
(17:25):
So it works regardless of that.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I love the sci fi element because it makes it fun.
I love I love the nineteen fifty five parts replacement
for the tiny mighty mic that's strapped to the hood
and is like four feet square, and it's vacuum tubes
and all of that. It's it's all those little things.
It's Doc talking about thinking fourth dimensionally and again all
(17:52):
of the payoffs because at its core, you still have
a writing team and a director that is very, very smart,
that is treating their audience as they're smart, and has
the setup and the payoff where they're nipping those what
could be plot holes, like the fact that Clara Ravine,
(18:15):
the fact that they established, oh, she would have died
if Doc had not been sent to the past so
the fact that she's pulled out of time doesn't impact
the future. And it's from two or three not throwaway lines,
but minor lines that I'm glad are in there, because
Back to the Future does that from the get go.
(18:36):
They work very hard. Now, I'm sure there's flaws and
cracks here and there, but for the vast majority of
the plot of the sci fi plot, it's very neatly
sewn up.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know, Yes, I'm not going to contradict anything that
you're saying. I think that one of my biggest issues
with things is that all of the charm that's in here,
I find everything you're talking about. They just don't get
to it quickly enough. In the first and the second one,
(19:11):
the pace is just bing ping ping ping pingk.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Like especially the second one is a different If you're.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Not paying attention in the second one, you're gonna get lost.
Like it's it's spaghetti. You're like, oh, okay, what threat
is going here?
Speaker 5 (19:22):
In this one?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's very straightforward, which is not a bad thing for
a movie. A to B, two C to D works
one hundred percent of the time. You'll never lose a
single person, but you have to keep an eye on pace,
and it's a little disorienting because they don't get there
fast enough. In my opinion, I think that they have
a for me. It's the it's the center. Third drags
(19:45):
a bit.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Well because if you think about it, in the first movie,
it's all about repairing the damage of getting his parents
back together. That gives you something to do because you're
you're still waiting out the clock to.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
The lightning strike.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
In this regard, we're kind of also waiting out the
clock to get there by Monday. But it's a very
different there. There's nothing to repair. It's Doc falling in love.
And now I think you're right it. I won't say
it just it doesn't destroy the movie, but it is
a definitely shift in pace where you're kind of like,
(20:21):
it's not even a will they won't they get together?
It's just a crawl as they're slowly turning the pages.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, I'll be honest upfront that that's actually why I'm
knocking some points off for this movie. Is exactly what
you guys are talking about. It's I feel like, even
though this is my favorite, I can't give it like
a perfect five because there is that drag there where
you're just like you're checking your watch. You're just like, Okay,
(20:47):
I want to get to more time antics. I want
to get I want to get to more craziness between
Rick and Morty, I mean Doc and Marty, and I
just feel like Clara kind of drags that down. And
this is you know, this movie is very much centered
around Marty, Doc, mad Dog, and Clara. Like those are
(21:08):
the four people that take up the most time in
this film. And so, John, what do you think about
Obviously we love Doc and Marty. What did you think
about the addition of Clara. What did you think about
her character and what she brought to the movie. Did
you think that she was used too much too little?
Was she a plot device, a fully fleshed out character?
What did you think?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I don't think she was fully fleshed out. She very
much feels like like weed to give Doc something in
this one to do for himself. You know, we all
agree Doc is not heavily and that we spend less
time with him in part one than we think we do, right,
And I think that this one they wanted to give
(21:49):
the Doc character a chance to shine. I think it's
the lag that slowness of pace is what works against
the Clara and Doc relationship because I think that steen
Virgin and Lloyd worked well together. I like the energy
that they have with each other. Of these two awkward
people who don't really know how to approach somebody in
(22:11):
this situation, I just think it it doesn't work to
her benefit because she shows up and when she's on screen,
stein Bergen is giving a very definite energy, and it
seems jarring sometimes because the pace is not that energy.
It's like she showed up with the energy for the
first two and they were doing a different movie, and
(22:33):
it's like, ah, but that's not her fault.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I think that I think that's very insightful. That's an
interesting take because there was something that always felt off
and I always thought maybe it was steen Virgin's acting,
but and I was just like, oh, maybe, you know,
maybe Zemecus didn't get the performance that he was trying
to get out of her. But I think that's more
apt because we've seen some amazing performances from her, and
(22:58):
I think she probably saw the first one and was like, Okay,
I'll do that, and then she brought it.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
You know it not to rewrite, but to rewrite now,
not to not to fix the third one, but it
made me think of City on the Edge of Forever,
one of the best Tos Star Trek episodes. And with
that you have the love interest Edith Keeler and Kirk
trying to decide, if you know, at the end, on
(23:30):
whether or not he's saving her and the impact on
the future.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
All that to say is what if they.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Had had a bit of conflict in that regard where
the exact plot points, but more along the fact of
he's trying to fix the future and unsure about how
she's going to fit into this and they're trying, like
maybe she keeps, you know, being in situations where she's
(23:56):
in peril or something, and at the end she realizes, oh,
we can bring her out of time and it's okay,
But you have something in the middle that's because you
we don't have that.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I I mean, I could pitch an idea right away,
but this movie is almost forty years old, and so
what's the point.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
But you know, so I won't unless you guys really
want me to. But I won't. I won't. I won't.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Don't worry, But I think I think, Darren, that would
have been a solution is to make her more integral
to what's happening outside of having to be in love
with Doc.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
He's worried the time trout, the time space continuum.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I think if anything, and people might consider me a
back to the future blasphemer for this, but I would
have stepped back on the mad Dog a bit and
instead had him be a smaller character where they know
he's coming and it's sort of this shadow that's in
the background and they're not interacting with him. Yes, oh no,
(24:55):
Beaufort Tannen is coming, and it's like, wait, bisk grant,
you know.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
And so when he.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Shows up to the end and you see you know
that that it's that it's Thomas Wilson in the makeup, you're.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Like, oh, yay, haha, yay.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
They did it right, as opposed to, you know, the
they carry forward this, you know, with the spatoon and
then the Manure and it's like, okay, this the gag
doesn't work as well here. And I think that if
you had Tannon as this sort of outside force that
they're racing against they know he exists, you would have,
(25:29):
but you don't have to spend as much time with
him directly. You wind up, giving Clara more time to
become integral to the plot.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I well, I'm not discounting what you're saying, because I
do think that that would work, absolutely, I think, but
it's that's a very different movie.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
And to me, I loved the the Tannin scenes, the
mad Dog scenes, and I like them more than probably
I liked his character more than any of the other
previous ones. And I know that he was heavily involved,
especially in the second one, you know, like you know,
because there's so many of them. There was what three
different versions of him in the in the third one.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, I mean the second one and one young yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, young, old and middle aged on the alternate fusure. Yeah.
But I liked mad Dog more. There was just something
about him that was just freaking hilarious, Like that's hout
you down and kill you look a duck, you know.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Just yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But but that is the conflict is Wilson is he's
the secret weapon of these movies. Like it's easy to
heat praise on Lloyd and Fox. Yes, they are core
to this, but Wilson plays the antagonist so well through
all three of them, and I agree it would have
been a completely different movie, and we would have had
(26:48):
to sacrifice a lot of great funny scenes with Tannin.
I still laugh at the you know, I'm gonna you know,
like a duck. I think it's like a dog.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
What.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Or when he's trying to count to ten to get
him to come outside, it's like six, he looks over
the other guy seven.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Seven, you know that's like cut cute gag.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Now, I would definitely praise his performance in this. I
think with the makeup, or not even makeup, just the
mustache and beard, I don't even see Wilson like. He
is so transformed in this movie. It's not like, oh,
that's just Biff, but with a mustache. Now I see
a different person, and I think that gives him the
(27:31):
freedom to be more. I'm gonna shoot you, then I'm
gonna beat you up and take your lunch money. Like
you know, that's Biff's level of involvement. This is a
serious outlaw and he should be.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Something I would have loved to see go differently, but
couldn't have because Crispin Glover famously isn't in two and
three is. I would have loved to have seen an
alternate timeline of our own where Glover played Marty's ancestor
as opposed to Michael J. Fox, because in the second one,
(28:07):
it's a fun gag seeing him play his son and
his daughter, like it's funny, it's silly, it's dumb. Right
with this one, it it just doesn't play the same way,
and I think it would have given I.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Think it does.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I loved him as Seamous.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I think they would have had an opportunity, though, to
have a more meaningful interaction between them instead of a
funnier interaction between them. Again, it's just like what I'm
saying about about Wilson. If there's less of him, then
there's less stuff that I liked happening, And the same
thing with Fox as Seamus. But I think you could
have had a more meaningful interaction between the two of
(28:48):
them if you had had that timeline where Glover was involved.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I'll go down the middle.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I see what you say, Tristan, and I wouldn't trade
Shemus for for anything because it's it's just I think it.
Fox is doing amazing in that, Like maybe not the accent,
but you know, it's it's a funny, great character.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I LOVELYA. Thompson's how she says Eastwood, She's like mysterious two.
It's they're both such horrible accents for thee he says,
it work.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
But I like the idea of it being Marty's dad
because really, when we see him in the first movie,
he's not confident yet. He's not really he's there's nothing
for him to teach Marty until the very last moment
when he gets his confidence punches out Biff and now
is worth it. So we never see the confident dad
(29:41):
get to share his wisdom with Marty, whereas if it
had been that actor, you know, for Seamus, now he is,
you know, because Shamus has he's got his head on straight.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
He he's a family man.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
He knows the value of, you know, of helping others,
but also not being a pushover. And and really Marty's
problem with being chicken and being inflamed by that. So
seeing that come from a father figure that's not physically him,
I think they could have leaned into that even more.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Well, it would have been nice to see Glover as
the dad because it would have had some really nice symmetry.
And also side note, it's Crispin Glover's favorite Back to
the Future film is the third one, which I find
really funny.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
That seems like such a Crispin Glover thing that I'm
not at all surprised to find that out.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Well, I think Fox and Wilson both said that this
is their favorite. Too is the thing.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
I know they had a lot of fun filming it.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I watched some of the back of the behind the
scenes stuff because this is my excuse to finally open
my four K set, and Fox sat there and talked
about how on his days off he was able to
just go down to the local fishing hole and he
would just spend all day fishing on his day off,
and he's like, it was really peaceful, and it's like, yeah,
I can imagine that it was, so they probably I
(31:02):
think that. I think that filming Too was extremely stressful
because it was very technical and then they got to
come into this and it was like, okay, everybody, you
can take a breath and it's not.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
One was a nightmare because they had to refilm everything
with Michael J. Fox right, and Wilson I think got
the brunt of that refilming, so he was exhausted for
like five years. But yeah, with Crispin Glover, that we
would have had some really I think you guys are right,
we would have had some really touching moments, But I
feel like that wouldn't have helped the pacing. I feel
(31:35):
like if we growted the time that we needed to
that in order to get that nostalgia, that symmetry, those
cool father son moments, it would have just prolonged him
getting to town, getting dragged by the horses and starting
the plot even further. And I think it just would
have been more frustrating. And because with with with Fox
(31:56):
as Shamus, you get in, you get out. It's the
it's the cute, you get the.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, he shows up when he's needing that set. We don't.
We don't feel like we have to hold on to
it because if it was Glover, I feel like we
would have had another major character. It would have been
five people instant, maybe five or six people, because if
you have Glover, you probably focus more on Leah Thompson too.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I just yeah, I think it's just you're adding to it.
I feel like you can't add to it and say, oh,
we need a faster pace as well, because I get
that from my clients all the time like make it longer,
but take stuff out.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
I think that there.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think that this gets to my whole bit about
saying this is an argument against filming your sequels simultaneously.
I think giving yourself the time in between films to
take a breath and really check your thinking about what
is going to work for the next one, how to
really take it. I think just a little bit more
(32:57):
development time on the script would have helped them get
to that point where they would have been able to
balance everything. And I think that you're going at this
breakneck pace. And I mean I remember even back then
it was when they said they were like, oh, they're
going to release practically one right after another, and everybody
was like, what that's insane, Like it was a crazy
idea back then.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
We don't think anything really of it.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Now, but they six months apart or so, which six crazy,
that's insane.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Even the Matrix sequels were released a year apart.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Yeah, it didn't help that.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Although for what they set up, I mean there's a
handful of Shemus double shots, like technically this one's the simplest,
Like there is way less special effects, way less time,
you know, duality so I mean, yeah, they're burning all
that in in the shooting of two, but it's not
(33:51):
like they shot this and then tried to do something
of the scale of two on the till. I think
they would have died like it would.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Have just apparently the mechus he was shooting three would
have to fly back and forth between Los Angeles and
was it northern or so it was it northern California
where they shot this, I can't remember. Anyway, it was
a flight and he had to approve the audio mixing
of the second one whilst doing principal photography on the
(34:18):
third one. And he would so he would get up
at four thirty in the morning to fly and then
fly back at night. It was insane. It was an
insane schedule. I'm surprised he's.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Been shot over eleven months. God.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, I mean it's no Lord of the Rings, but
that's a lot well.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I mean, if anything, you could give more credit, I
guess to back to the Future parts two and two,
because there was no source material for them to lean
on as their foundation, Like this is all just from there.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
You know, they didn't base this on a pre existing work.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Basically, I want to ask you guys, about the cinematography
before we get into the set pieces. This was photographed
by Dean Cundy, who also shot parts one and two.
I feel like each installment has a very unique look
and feel agree not just with the production design obviously,
but almost feels like the film stock that they use
(35:09):
is different, and just like I feel like Zamecha's has
a very clean approach to filmmaking. He very much you
know where you are at all times, like geographically speaking,
you know where the characters are, you know where the
town is, you know where the buildings are, you know
where you are in the room. Every shot shows you
exactly what's going on. He doesn't hide anything in editing
(35:31):
with any kind of tricks. You know what I'm saying
by that, Like, obviously there's editing tricks, but you know
what I'm trying to say, And a lot of that
is because of Dean Kundi and his editors. And so
I want to ask you, guys, how did you feel
about the look of the third one compared to the
previous two. Do you feel like it was apropos to
the Western style or did it feel kind of out
(35:52):
of place? I'm an open question to you guys.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
I wouldn't say out of place.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
And the thing is, I have to go back and
look at maybe an earlier edition because this is, like
I said, this is my first time watching the four K,
and there were moments where it was a little jarring
to me because some of the work looked too artificial
in terms of its its lighting.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
It was too.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
It was too bright.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I get like Kundy, I'm I think is one of
the greatest cinematographers that's worked over, you know, the last
several decades. I think his outdoor stuff in Back to
the Future Part three is really strong. Some of his
indoor stuff felt a little too and maybe this was intentional.
It felt a little and it's it's odd to put
(36:43):
it this way, but sort of like TV lighting in
some of the ways. But that could have very much
been intentional on their part, and I would just have
to go back and look at an earlier edition to
see if the remastering process undid them a little bit.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Here with this, that's interesting that you talk about the
indoor stuff, because I felt like you probably would have
criticized how bright the outdoor scenes were at nighttime, even
though Darren was salivating, well, he was watching in the outtime.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Any nighttime shots. It was so bright the entire film.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
It was great. Now.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, but see, the thing is I could see that
easily as a that that's a hallmark of the old Westerns.
You know, they shot everything so you could see it
back then, quote unquote sort of thing that held the
vibe of a Western to me. It's like inside the
saloon and stuff like that. But I really think it
might just be the addition because the indoor stuff in
the saloon later in the movie, like near the end,
(37:37):
was impeccable, couldn't couldn't throw a single stone at it.
It was some of the earlier stuff, especially, like I
think there's like a nighttime scene in the saloon where
it was like I could see the beam of light
coming from just off camera to light everything, and it
was it was a little disconcerting. You could tell it
was a spot and it was like it was just
(37:57):
it was odd.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I mean the vibe I got from the inside shots,
or some of them at least. Yeah, I kind of
see what you're saying, John about the TV niche feel.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
And I don't think it's the lighting.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
It's more of obviously they move around within the scenes,
but for the vast majority of the shots, it's coming
from one angle. It's like a TV set where you're
you never look at the other direction. So Doc's Blacksmith's shop,
we're almost always looking towards the door, like in every
single in the saloon, we're almost always looking out towards
(38:37):
the crowd from behind the bar. In the McFly house,
we're always looking So again, not every shot, obviously they
shot reverse shots and takes, but the vast majority feels
very one sided. And I'm not saying that's bad. It
just is a vibe. The train is always moving from
left to right, no kidding, that's just good filmmaking.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Speaking speaking of the Darren, I feel like, I mean,
we're all nerds here, this is the nerd Party dot com.
But Darren, I feel like you take it to the
next level in so many different avenues of your life.
Tell me you're a train guy too. You feel like
a train guy.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
No, I mean I am a train guy. It's more
of like Lego trains.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
I was never a growing up you know, Lionel anything
like that, but yeah, building things and trains they were
always fun and I always love the back of the
Future train I mean, it's just my platforms.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
My dad was a model train enthusiast. To put it lightly,
he bought he bought model trains the way that I
bought Star Wars toys. Like Star Wars toys was my
version of my dad's model trains. Comic books were my
brother's version of my dad's model trains. We just amassed
these massive collections because every time we saw one that
(39:57):
was cool, it was like, oh, and trust me, It's
taken years of taming that impulse over it. Like seeing
having to clean out my dad's house when he was
finally called home, I had a moment where I was like,
very famously, I was like, I now live my life
in such a way that if they wanted to erase
my existence in less than forty eight hours from this.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
House, it is possible to do. But yeah, model trains.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I am the one that's going to love the train
work in this one because I just thought it was
so much fun. It reminds me of my own dad.
And I've had the extreme pleasure of having seen the
time Travel train on display at Universal Studios Hollywood, not Hollywood,
Universal Studios Florida. Here in Orlando, and with the Doc
(40:47):
Brown standing there. They rolled out the DeLorean recently too,
so that everybody could see it. But yeah, that train
is here at Universal Studios. It's a kick to see it.
Most of the kids don't notice it, they just walked by.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
You guys, think of that set piece because when I
think back to the future, I think about the final
train sequence, Like that's what pops into my head. When
I think about the trilogy as a whole. That is
the set piece that sticks out in my brain.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I'm talking about the accelerate to eighty eight miles per
hour or the dots of the back at the very
end with Claric.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Oh uh no, like the when they're trying to get
it up to eighty eight.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Got it.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
I'll just say it's it's brilliant. They found a way
to I mean, we talked about slowing things down, but
they found a way to encapsulate that moment from the
first movie where he's accelerating to eighty eight and stretch
it out into like twenty minutes. Because it's the train.
Because you're very slowly and methodically advancing towards eighty eight,
(41:49):
you're while you're auto precipice, while you're almost falling off
the train, like it cinematically works, wonders you. Okay, So
we showed this to my two children, who are nine
and thirteen, and that entire sequence they could not sit still.
They were bouncing up and down, cheering. They're like, well,
(42:11):
he's gotta get in the car right, Like they could
not figure out how he's gonna get in the car.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
I'm like, boy, he's.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Gonna have to jump, and they're like, no, he can't jump.
She's gonna fall and they're not hearing her. Like they
were so invested in that scene. It is the climax
of climaxes for that movie.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
It's not the first thing I think of when I
think of Back to the Future, but I think that
for all of the qualms I have with the film,
Zamechis knows how to end them strong. It's like a
reverse Donna effect where every solbe with Richard Donner movie,
like you get the sensorhere, he's just like, E, that's
good enough. Whereas Zamechas, you could tell he's like, Okay,
(42:48):
I know I gotta end this a certain way. And
I think all three of the Back to the Future movies,
the endings are super tight.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Really well, ULTI Stephen King, Yes, but.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I I, you know, I think that technically speaking, I
mean I could watch that train sequence over and over
again because it is just trying to pull it apart
and say, how long did it take them to do this?
How sick were all of these people of this train
sequence by the end, like all right, back to train up, Okay,
that's going to take It's going to take another hour there.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Bob back her up, Yeah, backer up.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
Oh oh oh oh oh.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Camera wasn't up to speed. Take it back, take it back, okay,
you know that.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
And they couple it with the miniature work, you know,
not only in the future time train, but the driving
off like an amazing on it as it I still
it is so many. It had been a while since
I'd watched the third one, and I was telling my
wife as they were racing towards the end of track,
which is just twenty train ties, and I was thinking,
(43:55):
I'm like, they're going to destroy the DeLorean. You can't
drive a del you can have anything through that without
it being obliterated. I wasn't thinking fourth dimensionally, it would
say me there by the time they got to it.
But yeah, that that ravine drop is glorious.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
If you told me when I was a kid that
that was a miniature going off into the ravine, I
never would have believed you.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
I still don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I just tried a real train.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
I still don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Because it is filmed so well, it's absolutely convincing, and
I just huge kudos for it.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's weird that my favorite part of the crash is
the firewood. I don't know what it is, whether the
get it, the method of the frame rate, or if
they made the firewood out of like really dense heavy
material win it impacts and the way the firewood from
the tender car lands you believe it's full scale. It
(44:55):
doesn't bounce off like its styrofoam or something that like it.
It lands like, oh, that's a cord of wood that
just landed on the ground and nailed it.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And that gets back to the challenges of the digital
age is they always struggle with the weight of things,
and the model makers could easily show them the way
to say no, no, no, you have to think this
would weigh something.
Speaker 5 (45:18):
It has heft to it.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
You can't just have the model though it was like
six like it was huge to begin with.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
It was Oh it was.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
I'm pretty sure it was massive, like okay, like third
scale or something like it.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Oh, that is jeez, that is massive also during okay,
so this was my first time watching the four K
disc as well. And John, I want to ask you.
I don't know if you noticed this or not, but
when they were in the library in the fifties and
looking up the history of the town, they had a
bird's eye shot of the library. Yes, was that a
(45:55):
Matt painting.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
I'd have to go back and look. I didn't catch
it if it was.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
For some Okay, this is gonna sound weird, but I
know that you guys and our listeners will track with me.
At the end of a this is not a mat shot.
And at the end of Aliens, when right before they
go to credits, they pause on a still.
Speaker 5 (46:15):
Yes, it drives me crazy.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yes, of Sigourney, Weaver and Newt and there's there's no
grain movement, so you can tell that it's just a
still and it drives me nuts. That's something that happened
in the library. Around the edges of them, there was
no grain movement on the eye side. So I need
to look up. I was just wondering if you guys
knew if that was a Matt pinning or not.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I will have to go ahead and look that up
as well and rewatch it, because it did not jump
out at me.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
There was watching it on the four K disc was
the first time I noticed that. But I know that
we like to I know we're getting close to the
end here, and I know that we like to talk
about the music at the end. I friggin love Silvestri's
score in all three and especially this one because he
got to work with zz Top, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I I think it's I think it's a great score.
I think there's a lot of energy in it. I
can tell that Silvestri is also having a lot of fun.
The zz Top thing always makes me cringe a little bit, though,
because because the way that they have their appearance in
it is not as subtly done as when Huey Lewis
(47:28):
appears in the first one.
Speaker 5 (47:30):
It's too big.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
It's too big because they have that shot that that
focuses on them doing their trademark twirl and the camera pulling,
and it's like it's just it's too much, and it
doesn't It's not like I'm like I'm deducting a star
for this. I just I think it was a little bit,
a little bit over top, over the top with it
over the zz top.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
Yeah it it.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I mean we all saw the that come in the
whole spin the commercials back then.
Speaker 5 (48:01):
It's true they advertised at cz top was going to
be in the movie.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
That rendition of double back is in my head an
in order amount of time, like I am, I am
probably maybe once a week, maybe once every two weeks.
You'll hear me going around the house going Dunit Dune.
Speaker 5 (48:21):
It's a song.
Speaker 4 (48:23):
It's a great song.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
I learned something this is This is the first time
I've heard that as long as I've known you, Tristan, that.
Speaker 5 (48:29):
Is the first time I've heard you say that. Interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I'm I'm surprised you haven't heard me hummed in the background.
All right, Okay, we're rounding third here. Let's uh, how
many frisbees are we giving this film?
Speaker 4 (48:42):
Darren?
Speaker 1 (48:43):
I'm going to start with you because I'm hosting, and
I love starting with yoush.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Yeah, no, I mean one other effect. We were praising
the model train crash, although then they stick. I don't
think it's CG. It's just more compositing explosion dust over it,
and it looks that was very It looks so bad.
I'm like, you must have been driving to hide something
or I don't know, but yeah, we all know that
(49:09):
that shot was that part was terrible. But yeah, no, man,
this was fun to revisit. It's been a while since
i'd watched three. It's not usually in my rotation, not
that I don't care for it, it's just it's a
different vibe. Definitely, it feels like the third. It's the
odd one out when you're thinking of the two again,
(49:31):
not in a negative, just in a tonal location. I
had to suspend my disbelief that there's a giant like
mountain right behind the courthouse, and I'm like, I don't
I don't remember that mountain one hundred years later in
Hill Valley. But okay, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Landscapes change. Man, it's all about time.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Okay, sudden.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Maybe they meant.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Dug it up and filled in Cleara vine or something
has there? Is it an earthquake and he'll value that
destroyed a mountain. Possibly maybe doctor Brown that way with.
Speaker 5 (50:08):
It with an experiment of his, who knows, or the.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
Fact that you're in.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
We don't know what Here Valley is, but apparently it's
like right around the corner from Monument Valley, like really close, guys. Anyway,
all that to say, I can suspend that disbelief. I'm
giving this a solid four. It's a great movie. It's
fun to revisit. Like I said, though it's not in
my active rotation of sci fi. I'm not like, oh, man,
(50:35):
I can't wait to sit down to three again. It's
more like, when the time is right, it's fun to
put in and just enjoy it. I think we talked
about all the highs and lows of this and gave
it a real, a real fair shake. But as a
finale to the trilogy, it's great. It leaves me wanting nothing.
I don't want to be like, oh, but what happened
(50:58):
to Marty next week? The future is unwritten. Let that
you know, Let your imagination, Hey, what a wonder. Let
the audience imagination imagine what you know Doc and Clara
are up to, and what Marty and Jennifer are up to.
That is the best finale we.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Could have, So for four.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Frisbee pie pans.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
John, how many cartfuls of manure are you giving part three.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Well, I struggle a little bit with this. I've really
like sat with it since I watched it and initially
came out of it and I was like, Eh, that's
a three. But then I spent a lot of time
sort of chewing it over. And while there are problems
of pacing with this, I think that this movie could
and should have been shorter than it is. I think
(51:48):
that there is enough. Look you got, you still got.
Lloyd and Fox just their their charm just is just
exploding off the screen. I think that that last train
sequence is just a technical marvel and I have to
give it extra points for that. I think that while
I'm sitting there, you know, arguing about mad Dog, Tannin
(52:09):
Wilson is so much fun in this movie. He's having
such a great time and I'm having a great time
along with him. So I really sat a while with
it and thought it through, and actually I'm going to
land with a four as well, because it is overall satisfying,
and a strong ending can really make up for sins
(52:30):
in the first two thirds. If you end strong, your
impression of the movie is gonna be a lot better
than if you invert that.
Speaker 5 (52:38):
So it gets a four.
Speaker 4 (52:39):
This time.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
For me, I kind of echo the same thing that
you're saying, John, because you're not wrong about the pacing.
This movie should have been shorter. It should have either
because if you're not going to fully develop Clara, you
should have or cut down a little bit more, and
you know, up that pacing, put it together and make
it faster, cut to the chase. I'm just a little
bit more free giving, I think overall, just because I
(53:02):
love this movie so much, I'm giving a four point
five because it's not perfect, but yet for me, all
those negatives far outwagh. I'm sorry. All the positives far
outweigh the negatives, and I think that's a It's just like,
this is such a strong closing, Like Darren, you said,
it's you leave. You don't. You don't want a fourth one.
(53:24):
You're like, you could, you could have it, but you
don't need it. You really don't need it. It's like, like,
why on earth would they make a Toy Story four.
I hope they don't do that, you know, because you
know Toy Story three and it's so perfectly.
Speaker 5 (53:36):
Still haven't seen four and I won't see five, so
oh cheez. There is another one.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Coming out. Isn't there anyway there? Well, we're not going
to be talking about Back to the Future of five
next week, but Darren, what are we going to be
talking about next week?
Speaker 3 (53:51):
Oh, we're kicking off this great decade of the nineties
with Robert Zemeckis next with Death Becomes Her from nineteen
ninety two, here on house Lights, Join
Speaker 1 (54:02):
The Revolution, join the Nerd Party,
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