Back to the Future, the object of cult cinema
Do you know the film Back to the Future? The cult sci-fi film may have been released in the mid-1980s, but it has managed to retain an unwavering appeal for all generations of moviegoers. Let's take a look at the past with this cult object that never ceases to feed passions. Here are 5 things you probably don't know about the film.
But what is it about?
An American film released in 1985, Back to the Future tells the story of Marty McFly, a teenager who travels to the past thanks to a time machine built by Emmett Brown, a friend of Marty's and a true scientist. The particularity of the time machine is that it was built in a car, a DeLorean DMC-12. Marty arrives in the past, on November 5th 1955. He is then helped by Doctor Brown (from that period) to return to the time he came from. All this while trying to avoid the temporal paradoxes that are gradually taking shape. Marty meets his own mother and father.
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A title that could have been something else
The film is called Back to the Future. However, the legendary film starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd could have been called something completely different. In fact, the name we know today is due to the director himself, Robert Zemeckis. At the time of the film's release, Sidney Sheinberg, a Universal producer at the time, wanted to change the title of the film, thinking that the word "future" would not bring enough people into the cinemas. The title that was proposed was Spaceman from Pluto. Zemeckis burst out laughing at the proposal, which deeply embarrassed the producer. It was all it took for Sheinberg to shelve his idea.
Catching a night shoot
If you're a true Back to the Future fan, you know that Michael J. Fox was not Zemeckis' first choice to play Marty McFly. The role was intended for Eric Stoltz. However, the actor didn't have the humour to play the young teenager. Moreover, the actor had gone overboard, even going so far as to play his character backstage. This was too much for the director who fired Eric Stoltz and hired Michael J. Fox. However, he had to face two major problems: several scenes had already been shot with Eric Stoltz and Michael J. Fox was already engaged on the shooting of Family Ties. It was therefore necessary to return certain scenes at night to allow the latter to continue with his other shoot. It is notably for this reason that we often see Marty McFly alone on screen. The shots were then inserted into the others already shot with the original actors.
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A very different ending
Like the title of the film, the ending could have been quite different. If it is the lightning striking the bell tower of the town hall that allows Marty's car to be propelled in the future, in another version of the scenario, the cause of this time travel was quite different. Indeed, the scriptwriters thought that it could have been... a nuclear explosion. America being in the middle of the Cold War at the time could indeed have carried out the test of an atomic bomb which would have served as a trigger for the time machine. But the idea was abandoned because of the budget.
A fridge as a time machine
Initially, the time machine did not have the features of the car that has now become part of pop culture. The scriptwriters imagined that time travel could very well have been achieved using... a fridge. Problem: children watching the film might have been tempted to reproduce the actions of Marty McFly locking himself in the fridge. We can't imagine the number of accidents that could have caused.
Christopher Lloyd or John Lithgow?
Like Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd was not the production's first choice. The latter had set its sights on John Lithgow. When he was not available, they offered the role to Christopher Lloyd. But it wasn't easy as the actor was not interested at first. It took the intervention of his own wife for the actor to finally agree to read the script and take the role.
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