This review includes full spoilers. Proceed accordingly. For other movie reviews from me, click HERE:
Young Dusty: [to new subscribers] Remember, where you’re going, there are no roads.
Rating: PG
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Robert Zemeckis (characters and story), Bob Gale (characters, story, screenplay)
Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Tom Wilson, Elisabeth Shue
Release Date: May 25, 1990
Run time: 1 hour, 58 minutes
The Plot
via wiki:
In November 1955, moments after witnessing Emmett “Doc” Brown disappear in his DeLorean, Marty McFly learns that Doc was sent 70 years in the past to 1885. Using information from Doc’s 1885 letter, Marty and the 1955 Doc find and repair the DeLorean so Marty can return to 1985. However, after finding it, Marty comes across a tombstone with Doc’s name, with the inscription stating that Doc was shot by Biff Tannen‘s great-grandfather, Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen, six days after writing the letter.
Despite the letter’s warning, Marty travels back to 1885 to save Doc, arriving in the middle of a cavalry pursuit of Native Americans, but the car’s fuel line is damaged in the process. Chased by a bear, he is knocked out and found by his Irish-born great-great-grandparents Seamus and Maggie McFly, who allow him to stay for the night. The next morning, under the alias Clint Eastwood, Marty arrives in a newly-founded Hill Valley, but runs afoul of Buford and his gang. Buford tries hanging Marty, but fails when Doc rescues him. Doc agrees to leave 1885 after learning his fate, but without gasoline, the DeLorean cannot reach its required 88 miles per hour (142 kilometers per hour). He thus proposes using a steam locomotive to push the DeLorean to that speed.
While inspecting a rail spur, Doc saves the town’s new schoolteacher Clara Clayton from falling into the ravine, averting her death from the original timeline. They fall in love at first sight and form a close relationship. At a town festival for the courthouse, Buford tries shooting Doc, but Marty thwarts him. Buford then challenges him to a showdown in two days by calling him “yellow“; an angry Marty accepts, believing that he and Doc would have left by then. Doc urges Marty not to react to provocation, letting slip that Marty has a life changing accident in the future.
Although he is reluctant to return to 1985, Doc eventually visits Clara to end their relationship and bid her goodbye. However, feeling insulted, she dismisses his story about being from the future. Despondent, he goes for a binge. In the morning, Buford arrives for Marty, who sees his alias appear in the photograph of the tombstone and refuses to duel. Doc passes out after downing just one shot; he is eventually revived, but is captured by Buford’s gang, forcing Marty into the duel. Marty fools Buford into believing that he was fatally shot and knocks him into a wagon of manure. Buford and his gang are promptly arrested for an earlier robbery.
On the train to San Francisco, Clara learns how heartbroken Doc is and runs back to town. She finds the model of the time machine at his shop. Realizing that Doc was telling the truth, she heads back to meet him. Using a stolen locomotive named Greyhound, Doc and Marty push the DeLorean along the spur line. Clara boards the locomotive and, attempting to reach Doc, nearly falls off. Marty, in the DeLorean, passes his hoverboard to Doc, and he uses it to save Clara and carry her to safety. Marty hits 88 mph and vanishes as the overheated Greyhound falls off the unfinished bridge.
Arriving back in 1985, Marty escapes from the powerless DeLorean just before an oncoming freight train destroys it. Reuniting with his girlfriend Jennifer Parker, Marty declines a street race with Douglas J. Needles, thus avoiding the future accident Doc warned him about. Jennifer opens the fax message she kept from 2015 and watches as the text regarding Marty’s firing disappears.
As Marty and Jennifer examine the DeLorean wreckage, a steam locomotive suddenly appears, operated by Doc, Clara, and their children. Doc gives Marty a photo of them standing next to the town clock in 1885. When Jennifer asks Doc about the blank fax, he says that it means that their future has not yet been written and encourages them to make it a good one. Doc and his family bid farewell and fly off in the locomotive to an unknown time.
My Review
Back to the Future Part III might be my favorite of the franchise. It’s essentially a straight-forward Western comedy, with a science-fiction flavoring. The acting is perfect, the plot and pacing are tense, quick, and just generally excellent, the complex plot problem and the problem solving were sufficiently surprising and fun, Alan Silvestri’s musical score is unbelievable – adding a Copeland-esque Western branch to the already amazing music score from the earlier films. The film locations of Senora, CA and Monument Valley, AZ were beautiful backdrops. Part III has the best costuming and action sequences of the franchise, with a particularly excellent out-of-control horse carriage chase scene to introduce Clara, and an amazingly well-done practical train robbery / time travel train scene to get Marty back to 1985. I even though the flying train at the end of the film still looks fantastic. Very few trilogies are great from start to finish, but this is one of them and the story ending was satisfying despite being open-ended. Actually, it was satisfying precisely because it was open-ended. As Doc Brown says, “Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one.” The story wouldn’t have had an optimistic ending without an undiscovered frontier in need of exploration. The trilogy works because it imbues in its audience a belief that things will work out for the best in the end, despite the difficulties along the way.
In case you don’t remember, and it’s important to the plot that you do remember, BttF Part II ended with Marty stranded again in 1955, and this time without a DeLorean (the 1985 version of Doc disappeared in it alone after they destroyed Biff’s 2015 sports almanac.) Now we know he went to 1885. The Doc from 1885 solves the problem of getting Marty home by hiding the time machine until they are able to find it, seventy years later, and leaving a note with instructions to his past and future self on how to repair it.
For the most part, the movie avoids some of the more overt “time travel paradox” plot elements from the first two films. We don’t see Marty avoiding another Marty, or characters disappearing from existence. We do get a tombstone picture that disappears, a call back to the disappearing picture from Part I. Those things are present in this film, but they’re much more subtle. While in the past, Marty is told by Doc that he gets into an accident in the future (it happens at some point between 1985 and 2015 and was a major background plot point from Part II explaining why the future had gone so wrong.) Marty seems to be unaware of said accident when Doc tells him about it in 1885. He shouldn’t be unaware. This raises questions as to whether the Marty from Part III lived – or entirely lived – the events of Part II. We have some reason to believe that 1955 Biff successfully killed original Marty, and that 2015 Biff also killed Marty, which is how Doc knew in both cases where to be to provide Marty a rescue. It can all be confusing if you think about it too hard.
If you’re telling a time travel story, you have the choice to either attempt tying up your plot’s loose ends, or to leave them loose. The trilogy opts to leave them loose and it is much better served by making that choice.
Part 1: 1985 (original version) -> 1955 -> 1985 (improved version)
Part 2: improved 1985 -> 2015 -> hellscape 1985 -> 1955 -> 1885 (Doc goes alone)
Part 3: 1955 -> 1885 (Marty joins Doc) -> still improved 1985 (Marty goes alone)
In addition to all of that confusion, the version of Marty who grew up in the good version of 1985 disappears in the sequel and is never seen nor heard from again. We don’t actually know what version of Doc Brown shows up from the future to start the sequel and we don’t know what version of Doc shows up at the end of this movie aboard the train. We assume in both cases that it’s the original 1985’s Doc, but it might not be and that’s okay. The movie ends happily for at least one version of Doc, and one version of Marty. The minutia is fun to theorize over, but not important to enjoying the story.
One of the fun things about the film, which adds to the above sense of fun confusion, is that it recycles actors to play multiple characters throughout time. Marty’s great great grandfather Seamus looks exactly like him (they’re both played by Michael J. Fox), except the 1885 Seamus is red-headed. His great-great grandmother looks exactly like his own mother. This is a time travel story, and with people who are not accounted for. Is Seamus an alternative timeline version of Marty? Or a more immediate descendant of Marty gone back even farther in the past? We might need to consider the same thing re: Biff – who also at some point possessed the time machine. If 2015 Biff had the time machine for a year, creating numerous timelines, and various versions of himself, would we even know from our vantage point in the audience? Our only clue would be how the characters look. To be more clear, what if instead of believing that people look *exactly* like their relatives, we make the jump that they *are* their relatives thanks to an of-screen action made possible by the time machine.
One undercurrent of the story – if taken at face value – is genetic destiny. The McFlys – over a 130 year span are innately weak losers. The Tannens are strong and violent Alpha outlaws. The Strickland family, whether serving as Marshalls or high school principals, are the local rules enforcers. The three families remain largely intertwined and the same from 1885 until 2015. Doc Brown and Marty’s time travel adventures are focused primarily on changing the McFly family’s place in the world. First they made George strong and successful. Then they kept Marty Jr.’s innate weakness from wrecking the future they created. Here in Part III they help original Marty avoid the wreck that makes him weak, too. But you do have to wonder whether at some point genetics will win out again. Intervention seems to be continuously needed. Then again, is there a better story to tell than a story about changing your destiny and making it better?
As science fiction movies go, this is one of my favorites, ever. It stuck the landing of an all-time great trilogy. I highly recommend it.
Have you seen Back to the Future Part III? If so, what did you think?