Class Work - Things that Back to the Future taught us about scriptwriting

A post because Back to the Future 30th anniversary is this week and it's nothing like they said it would be in Part II.

Yesterday I watched Back to the Future for the first time in my life, yes I managed 16 years of my life without watching one of the most iconic movies and now that I have seen it I will say my life won't change much, other than the fact that I can now say "I've seen that movie" and also be able to discuss the possibility of time travel that uses plutonium to fuel the flux capacitor. My opinion on the film? Well, it was okay - that's all I can really say, I neither liked or disliked the movie and I think that's because it is not one genre of film, it is a sci-fi, teens, comedy, adventure, 80s film so I believe that if I look at the film in the different genres I may be able to identify whether I liked it or not, or maybe it's just one films that I can't describe how I feel about it; the film didn't give me a reason not to like it but it didn't really give me a reason to love it either.

From a sci-fi perspective the film was great, a little confusing at times, it gave a good look into how time travel could be achieved and how changing something in the past affects the future. It was semi-scientific, I know for a fact a flux-capacitor is a made up name but the principle of time travel being possible is explored to an almost believable level, I'm not always the smartest and sometimes a little gullible in things I see mostly because they can't be explained and when the film finished I had lots of questions, even asking my parents whether time travel is real because, well, is it? Is time travel real and we just don't know about it or is it real and someone went into the past and changed something and that's the reason we don't have hover boards and flying cars? They went into the past and changed events so that we would believe it wasn't real when in due fact it was used in order to change these events?

Did that even make sense? I'm even confusing myself now, my thoughts are all jumbled up and I don't know what's real and what isn't - is that what makes this such a good Sci-fi film?

Putting all the time travel stuff behind me and just accepting the fact they went back in time and then forward to the present/future it was an okay film. It was a typical 80s teen movie, though it is longer than most reaching almost 2 hours, and includes more than just the typical teens movie conventions. A teen movie isn't just one directed at teens but focuses on teens. In this movie it focuses on 17 year old Marty who goes back in time to meet his parents as teens, the movie includes some teen stereotypes by including a bully and a nerdy guy. It featured romance, mostly with Marty's mother who at first loved Marty himself, this raised some eyebrows as well as added humour to the film, Marty then found out that he would have to make his mother fall in love his father in order for him to be alive and not disappear. I found it a little slow in places and a little boring but I think these were just natural lulls in the film and were meant to happen like that. Because of how iconic the movie is and the fact that I have heard lots about it I tried not to have any expectations, and I didn't, I did however know that he was going to make it back to the present and everything would work out fine, especially since there are another 2 movies.

 Overall, I'm still undecided on whether or not I liked the movie, I think the mix of the genres worked well but is also what is confusing me, my had can't wrap around the idea and decide on an opinion - unless that is my opinion: indifference, I neither liked nor disliked the film. I am quite proud of myself though, I managed to watch the 116 minute film, only getting slightly bored once. There's a reason why I don't watch many films - I don't have the ability to sit through them without looking at my phone, getting bored or pausing it and needing to walk around for a while. For me to watch a film I need an incentive to watch, a good incentive, whether it's because I like an actor that's in it or I've seen it before and I know I like it, if I don't have an incentive or someone to force me to watch it with them I simply find it difficult to watch and pay attention. But today I watched it all and I didn't even daydream when I did get bored so because of this I am proud of myself and believe that although the film may not be my favourite or amazing or include an actor I like it must have been good or entertaining enough to keep my focus for 116 minutes.
I will be watching the second one to see whether that is faster paced as it doesn't need the setup of the time machine car.

I read an interview with Bob Gale, the co-writer of the screenplay, who explained how the idea of the movie came about, he simply wondered whether he would have been friends with his parents if he's gone to high school with them, and from that thought the a trilogy was born, or was it? I found out that they didn't originally intend to make a sequel, I also found out and was amazed by the fact that the script was rejected 40 times, why did the 41st believe it had potential? As a retired actor myself I found this very interesting:  the type of actor affects the script - TV actors learn lines and rephrase so Michael J Fox leant his lines 10 minutes before needing them, whereas Christopher Lloyd was a theatre actor who would learn all of his lines at once, this allowed for him to have big paragraphs of speech.

Research task:

Mike Fenton:

Casting director and producer; famous for Back to the Future, the Godfather Part II and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He was one of the founders and a former president of the Casting Society of America (CAS). He has 280 credits for Casting Director on IMDB throughout a range of movies and TV episodes. He has been nominated 13 awards in total winning 4, in 2000 he won a Hollywood Film award for Casting Director of the year. Despite doing lots in the industry there is limited information about him on the internet.