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Back to the Future: The Screenplay
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's screenplay for the 80's classic Back to the Future. Teenager Marty McFly, accidentally travels back in time from 1985 to 1955, where he meets his future parents and encounters all sorts of trouble and adventures. Stuck in the past due to the time machine's technicalities, he must figure out how to get back.
- GenresFiction
132 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
About the author
Robert Zemeckis
27 books5 followersRobert Lee "Bob" Zemeckis is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future films as well as the live-action/animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), though in the 1990s he diversified into more dramatic fare, including 1994's Forrest Gump, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director.
His films are characterized by an interest in state-of-the-art special effects, including the early use of match moving in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and the pioneering performance capture techniques seen in The Polar Express (2004). Though Zemeckis has often been pigeonholed as a director only interested in effects, his work has been defended by several critics, including David Thomson, who wrote that "No other contemporary director has used special effects to more dramatic and narrative purpose."
His films are characterized by an interest in state-of-the-art special effects, including the early use of match moving in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and the pioneering performance capture techniques seen in The Polar Express (2004). Though Zemeckis has often been pigeonholed as a director only interested in effects, his work has been defended by several critics, including David Thomson, who wrote that "No other contemporary director has used special effects to more dramatic and narrative purpose."
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 21, 2025
Back To The Future – Screenplay by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale – another look at this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/06/...
9 out of 10
Back to The Future is a classic film that works so well because it is amusing, does not pretend to offer ‘technical, scientific solutions’, instead, we are laughing with Marty McFly aka Michael J Fox as he tries to fix problems from the past, which would reflect on the future, which is sometimes the present, he can disappear, for one thing…
The travel through time is not done with a Time Machine https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/... at least not the famous one from the quintessential HG Wells book, they go back and forth with a…DeLorean, a car brand that is not extant any more, disappeared decades back
To return, Doctor Emmett Brown aka Christopher Lloyd thinks of how to produce so much energy, he is studying the problem in 1955, they come from 1985 flying through three decades, when technology was not so advanced, well, it was when compared with 1935, 1866, 1242 and so on, and he comes up with a creative solution
On the way Back to The Future, Marty will have to drive the DeLorean and touch a cable that would be up on the spire of a church, ready to get the electricity off a thunder that would hit at a certain time, they know of it from the newspapers, and that channeled energy will just propel this Icarus into the tunnel of time
Evidently, this is just nonsense, but it is presented with some charm by the ‘doctor’ and we are seeing this feature for the comedy, not the time is relative argument…just as Marty arrives in the past, in 1955, he meets his own father, George McFly, the former knows of the latter, but not vice versa, it would upset events
Indeed, in terms of ‘scientific limits’, the script takes good care to try and avoid the compromising of the future, you cannot alter the past in such a way as to modify the future, it is impossible, an oxymoron, say that somehow, George and Linda do not meet, or they fail to get married, then Marty will not be born, the future is different
To mix humor with this issue, we have Marty disappearing from photos, just as his sibling, when it looks as if the circumstances are hostile and George is too lame, acts with cowardice and does not show any merits to entice Linda, and he is humiliated by the villain, Biff Tannen, it looks as if Marty is an impossibility…
Or, turning future and past upside down, we need him to get Back to The Future, in order to have his parents get intimate and produce him…for some time, his mother is attracted to him, as in her own future child, take that for a Freudian complication, incest looming on the horizon, the mother ready to hump the son
Oedipus Rex https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/... is one of the Top 100 Greatest Books of All Time, wherein the king finds he has killed his father, married his mother, had children with her, and in the tragedy, he takes out his eyes and starts wondering with his daughter, Antigona
Aristotle https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/... wrote that a play needs to have revelation, and reversal, to be good, and Oedipus fulfills the two conditions, at the same time, for the king Oedipus finds about the murder of his father, and it is a reversal all at once, a horrible moment
In Back to The Future, when Marty arrives in 1955, he is about the same age as his mother, hence, the chemistry, the age seems appropriate, and the way they handle this Freudian aspect is magisterial, for it does not slip into awkward, outré, or worse, creepy scenes, the son avoids with skill the interest of his parent
He channels the mother towards the father, it is after all essential for his very existence, without the coitus, there would be no baby, and at times, there is tension, and the public fears that the rather docile, ethereal George will never do the necessary to attract Linda, she is good looking and feels way better than this lame duck
However, smart Marty maneuvers with talent, he is even engaging the audience from the stage, with popular hits that would cause a furor, years into the future, he needs something special, so that shy George dances with and impresses the future, would be wife, against all odds, and the assault of Biff and his gang
They clash, the villain, as always, has a keen pleasure in targeting, bullying, pushing, humiliating George, and that is not very seductive for Linda, and any other girl, and Marty has to interfere, he dances around the goons, manages even to make his would be father look courageous, manly, and strong enough to kick the foes
Nostalgia, the feeling that ‘it was so much better in those days of tranquility, less tension’ can be overwhelming, and I am tempted these days to think of the America I used to admire, the standards, the values they cherished and look at what is happening now, when they have elected the buffoon once, and could do it again
I mean, was not one term enough, is it not clear that this Orange Jesus is an idiot, a narcissist that only cares for himself and he is ready to destroy anything and everything for his own profit, he will cheat like he did with his business, he is an absolute fraud…
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
9 out of 10
Back to The Future is a classic film that works so well because it is amusing, does not pretend to offer ‘technical, scientific solutions’, instead, we are laughing with Marty McFly aka Michael J Fox as he tries to fix problems from the past, which would reflect on the future, which is sometimes the present, he can disappear, for one thing…
The travel through time is not done with a Time Machine https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/... at least not the famous one from the quintessential HG Wells book, they go back and forth with a…DeLorean, a car brand that is not extant any more, disappeared decades back
To return, Doctor Emmett Brown aka Christopher Lloyd thinks of how to produce so much energy, he is studying the problem in 1955, they come from 1985 flying through three decades, when technology was not so advanced, well, it was when compared with 1935, 1866, 1242 and so on, and he comes up with a creative solution
On the way Back to The Future, Marty will have to drive the DeLorean and touch a cable that would be up on the spire of a church, ready to get the electricity off a thunder that would hit at a certain time, they know of it from the newspapers, and that channeled energy will just propel this Icarus into the tunnel of time
Evidently, this is just nonsense, but it is presented with some charm by the ‘doctor’ and we are seeing this feature for the comedy, not the time is relative argument…just as Marty arrives in the past, in 1955, he meets his own father, George McFly, the former knows of the latter, but not vice versa, it would upset events
Indeed, in terms of ‘scientific limits’, the script takes good care to try and avoid the compromising of the future, you cannot alter the past in such a way as to modify the future, it is impossible, an oxymoron, say that somehow, George and Linda do not meet, or they fail to get married, then Marty will not be born, the future is different
To mix humor with this issue, we have Marty disappearing from photos, just as his sibling, when it looks as if the circumstances are hostile and George is too lame, acts with cowardice and does not show any merits to entice Linda, and he is humiliated by the villain, Biff Tannen, it looks as if Marty is an impossibility…
Or, turning future and past upside down, we need him to get Back to The Future, in order to have his parents get intimate and produce him…for some time, his mother is attracted to him, as in her own future child, take that for a Freudian complication, incest looming on the horizon, the mother ready to hump the son
Oedipus Rex https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/... is one of the Top 100 Greatest Books of All Time, wherein the king finds he has killed his father, married his mother, had children with her, and in the tragedy, he takes out his eyes and starts wondering with his daughter, Antigona
Aristotle https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/... wrote that a play needs to have revelation, and reversal, to be good, and Oedipus fulfills the two conditions, at the same time, for the king Oedipus finds about the murder of his father, and it is a reversal all at once, a horrible moment
In Back to The Future, when Marty arrives in 1955, he is about the same age as his mother, hence, the chemistry, the age seems appropriate, and the way they handle this Freudian aspect is magisterial, for it does not slip into awkward, outré, or worse, creepy scenes, the son avoids with skill the interest of his parent
He channels the mother towards the father, it is after all essential for his very existence, without the coitus, there would be no baby, and at times, there is tension, and the public fears that the rather docile, ethereal George will never do the necessary to attract Linda, she is good looking and feels way better than this lame duck
However, smart Marty maneuvers with talent, he is even engaging the audience from the stage, with popular hits that would cause a furor, years into the future, he needs something special, so that shy George dances with and impresses the future, would be wife, against all odds, and the assault of Biff and his gang
They clash, the villain, as always, has a keen pleasure in targeting, bullying, pushing, humiliating George, and that is not very seductive for Linda, and any other girl, and Marty has to interfere, he dances around the goons, manages even to make his would be father look courageous, manly, and strong enough to kick the foes
Nostalgia, the feeling that ‘it was so much better in those days of tranquility, less tension’ can be overwhelming, and I am tempted these days to think of the America I used to admire, the standards, the values they cherished and look at what is happening now, when they have elected the buffoon once, and could do it again
I mean, was not one term enough, is it not clear that this Orange Jesus is an idiot, a narcissist that only cares for himself and he is ready to destroy anything and everything for his own profit, he will cheat like he did with his business, he is an absolute fraud…
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
January 27, 2020
Clever.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews