Back to the Future (film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


In General

  • Acting for Two: Tom Wilson as Biff & Griff, Elisabeth Shue as Jennifer & Old Jennifer, and Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown from 1955 & 1985. And then there's Michael J. Fox as Marty, Marty Junior, Marlene, Old Marty and Marty from the first film.
  • Actor Allusion: It's funny that this isn't thought about concerning Marty, since Michael J. Fox technically time traveled six months before the first film was released.
  • Dawson Casting: Marty, Lorraine, George, Biff, Jennifer, etc. Makes some sense in Lorraine, George, and Biff's cases, since in the first movie they had to play both their teenage selves and their adult selves. Initially, not so much the case with Jennifer, who was played by 19-year old Claudia Wells in the first film, but then played by 26-year old Elizabeth Shue in the Sequels and that wig she wore to make her resemble Lea Thompson made her look every bit her age.
    • Also Doc, to stretch the trope a little. They had him get plastic surgery in the future for II so they could stop giving him wrinkle makeup. Doc's a weird case, as Christoper Lloyd was both older than his 1955 self and younger than his 1985 self in the movie.
  • Executive Meddling: Basically, this is the whole reason why the sequels exist in the first place - but Sid Sheinberg had insisted on certain changes to be made in the first movie.
    • One of Sid Sheinberg's changes, from "Professor Brown" to "Doc Brown" has become integral in Back to The Future culture. (Just how much so is suggested by Michael J. Fox's repeated bloopers in filming The Frighteners: he called the Judge character "Doc".)
    • Cost considerations forced a complete change in the tactic to return to 1985 in Part I, from powered by a nuclear test explosion to powered by the lightning bolt. By all accounts, it was a major improvement.
  • Fake American: Marty McFly -- Michael J. Fox is actually Canadian.
  • Hey, It's That Place!: Courthouse Square, on the Universal Backlot, has been in dozens of productions.
  • I Am Not Spock: Actor Thomas F. Wilson (Biff). He even wrote a song about it.
  • The Other Darrin: Elisabeth Shue replaced Claudia Wells as Jennifer Parker in the sequels. And Jeffrey Weissman takes the part of George McFly.
  • The Red Stapler: The DeLorean. At the time the movie came out the Delorean Motor Company had been bankrupt for almost 3 years and DeLoreans were considered a failed car. Nowadays there's an active "time machine conversion" community, DeLorean dealers, and DeLorean conventions — all because of Back to the Future. There's apparently even a company in Texas that bought the rights to the design and is making new DeLoreans.
  • Scully Box: Because Christopher Lloyd is 6'1", much taller than the 5'4" Michael J. Fox, camera tricks were used to avoid using one. For example, the two are rarely in the same shot together and, when they are, one is usually sitting down or much closer to the camera than the other. When Doc Brown is talking, he's often moving around so much that the viewer can't really tell how tall he is. Lloyd also improvised a hunch in his posture that helped give the character more of a Mad Scientist look.
  • Star-Making Role: For Michael J. Fox.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The 1985 scenes, by being so current at the time of filming, falls headlong into this.

The First Movie

  • The Cast Showoff: Kind of. Although Michael J. Fox is miming his performance of "Johnny B. Goode" he did actually learn to play the song (having played guitar in high school) so he could do so accurately.
  • Non-Singing Voice: Michael J. Fox did not sing "Johnny B. Goode", although he did learn to play it so he could "mime" the guitar.
  • The Other Marty: Trope Namer. Eric Stoltz was cast as Marty, and filmed some scenes, before being replaced by Michael J. Fox. You'll get to see some Stoltz footage in the Blu-Ray release of the Back to the Future trilogy.

The Second Movie

  • Defictionalization:
    • Marty Jr's hat became an actual piece of merchandise. Sadly, there is no sign of hoverboards yet.
    • Mattel released a hoverboard in late 2012. Some buyers were not impressed.
    • In 2008, Nike released 1000 pairs of (rather pricey) "Air McFly/Nike Mag" sneakers. And in 2011, they released 1500 more. The '11 versions light up. But, neither version self-laces, though.
  • Fatal Method Acting: Averted. The end of the hoverboard chase, in which Griff's gang crashes through the Courthouse Mall, nearly ended in the death of the girl's stunt-double when she crashed into the hard stone instead of the stunt-glass. This was the take they used in the movie.
  • Life Imitates Art:
    • Sorta. Miami didn't have a baseball team when the film was made; they do now. However, not only is the name wrong, it's not in the right league. The Marlins and the Cubs are both in the National League, so they could never compete in the World Series against each other.
    • In a much more subtle example, the Elijah Wood kid complaining about having to use your hands on the arcade machine. Guess what Microsoft made recently that brought about hands-free gaming...
    • The Marlins are changing the "Florida" prefix to "Miami" starting with the 2012 season.
    • Movie-2015 has blockbuster 3-D movies. Guess what started becoming popular again in the real-world 2010s?
    • The woman at the curio shop mentions that the sports almanac is from the days where books were still made with paper. Is everyone in 2015 running around with Kindles or Nooks?
  • Prop Recycling: All of the futuristic cars were recycled from other films.
  • The Red Stapler: We're still waiting for our hoverboards... ones that really work, that is (see Defictionalization, above).
  • Shrug of God: Bob Gale admitted in the DVD commentary that he has no idea what "lithium mode" is, and he doesn't know what illicit activities Future!Marty was getting into with the card scan.

The Third Movie

  • Actor Allusion:
    • Mary Steenburgen stars as a woman who falls in love with a time-traveler, just like in Time After Time. It's also worth noting that her first role was in a Western, where her character was being romanced by a man played by -- Christopher Lloyd! He lost her to Jack Nicholson in that one, though.
      • Also worth noting is that the date traveled to in Time After Time, November 5, is the same date Marty (accidentally) travels to in Part I.
    • The three old-timers at the saloon are all played by veterans of westerns: Dub Taylor, Harry Carey, Jr. and Pat Buttram.
    • Doc's squeal of shock against the piano is the same as the death cry of his bad guy in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.
  • Fake Irish: Seamus and Maggie McFly.
  • Fatal Method Acting: Barely averted by Michael J. Fox. While shooting the scene where he gets hanged, his hand slipped and he actually got hanged. Fortunately, a crewmember noticed he wasn't breathing and he got resuscitated.
  • Refitted for Sequel: It's widely known that the time machine was originally a chamber (specifically a refrigerator), and in order to travel through time, Doc and Marty would've sneaked into a nuclear test site in the desert to get the necessary 1.21 gigawatts. In this film, Doc sends Marty to 1885 at a drive-in theater in the desert.
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