It has recently occurred to me that my movie viewing in my childhood was
pretty mixed up. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was introduced to
no fewer than five classic series with the second installment. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Ghostbusters II. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And the one that got me thinking about it in the first place, Back to the Future II.
I guess the second installments all made their way to video just as I
was old enough to start immersing myself in movies – and my family was
up with the times enough to have a VCR…
At least with Back to the Future II,
if you’ve seen the second movie, you’ve sort of seen the first movie
too. That’s because much of the first film is embedded in the second as
ordinary 80s teen Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back in time with
zany scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) in order to prevent
perpetual antagonist Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) from acting on a
tip from his future self that will lead to disaster for Marty, the Doc
and the town in general. This segment of the movie is dizzying and
confusing, since there are two versions of both Doc and Marty running
around and the events from the first movie are being presented from a
slightly different perspective. It sure is a lot of fun, though.
Before
Marty and the Doc travel back to 1955, they head to 2015 with Marty’s
girlfriend in tow, on a mission to prevent a future calamity involving
Marty and Jennifer’s lily-livered son (also Fox). While this portion of
the movie is independent of the first, several scenes closely mirror
those in the first movie. In particular, Marty’s thrilling skateboard
chase from the first movie becomes a hoverboard chase in the second, and
instead of wowing everybody with his mad skills, Marty is something of a
laughingstock. Same goes for his arcade game prowess. There’s nothing
hip about him here, and he has to adjust quickly to this new time if he
is to have any hope of making a better future for his family.
While the first Back to the Future
movie lovingly spoofs both the 1950s and the 1980s, this movie adds
another era into the mix, the as-yet-unknown future that now is only
four years away. Something tells me that I won’t be able to zoom down
the street on a hoverboard by then, but some of the other futuristic
innovations don’t really seem too far off. One of the niftiest gadgets
in the movie is Marty’s self-drying vest, though I’m not clear on
whether that is something of the future or an exclusive invention of the
doc’s.
In the first movie, Marty’s main objective is to get his
parents to fall in love with each other. Here, we see him in three
different time periods, but his ultimate objective is to prevent Biff
from acting on the information contained in the almanac that Marty
purchased in 2015 and the much older Biff stole, then promptly presented
to the teenage Biff after taking the time machine for a joy ride. He
has to get the almanac away from Biff, but he can’t stop him from
getting it in the first place or the space-time continuum will be
compromised. Of the three installments in the series, this is the one
that most emphatically demonstrates the dangers of meddling with time
travel. As Marty doubles back on his previous adventures, it becomes
clear just how complicated maintaining the space-time continuum truly
is.
Back to the Future II is basically divided into three
segments. Of these, the future portion is the most fun and imaginative,
though it contains the most annoying performances. Wilson ramps up the
obnoxious factor to play Biff’s hot-headed grandson, and ornery old coot
Biff is a bit grating too. We’ve got three different Fox characters all
in close proximity to one another; Marty Jr. is even wimpier than
George in the first movie, while the older Marty is just depressing. And
Fox playing Marty’s daughter is just plain weird. Mostly, though, it’s
Lea Thompson’s Lorraine who gets under my skin. I find her voice
obnoxious whether she’s a teen, a middle-aged mom or a pushing-80
grandma, and her voice is so wobbly at this stage of her life that I
would almost rather listen to the insufferable Olive Oyl from Popeye. Almost.
The alternate 1980s segment reminds me of It’s a Wonderful Life;
instead of Pottersville, we’re getting a vision of what Marty’s town
would look like if Biff ran the joint. It’s not a very nice place. Dark
and oppressive except for the centerpiece of a shiny casino, Biff’s
personal den of debauchery, it’s the most nightmarish set in the series,
and the movie never allows us to see whether Marty has managed to make
everything right again with his 1950s interference. No, for that we have
to check out the third movie, and I can’t believe it took me until this
year to do that. Rewatching Back to the Future II recently, I
was struck by just how much sequel bait is scattered throughout the
movie. I didn’t remember this at all, nor did I recall just how much of a
cliffhanger the ending was. Clearly, we’re meant to see the last
installment as essential to fully appreciating the second.
Director
Robert Zemeckis and composer Alan Silvestri, whose stirring,
adventurous score feels almost as epic as John Williams’ here, are a
fantastic team in this movie, as well as the two that bookend it. All
those actors playing multiple characters gets a bit silly, and you can’t
scrutinize the time travel too carefully or the logic will start to
crumble, but this sure is a fun movie. So what are you waiting for? As
Biff would say, “Make like a tree and get outta here” – to the nearest
video store so you can get zapped back to this quintessential 80s
series.
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