When I was about 5 or 6 years old, my dad sent me and my brother a lot of movies on VHS tapes. And that quote sort of stuck with me.
(Kids, by the way, this is what a VHS tape looks like.)
These tapes were a huge part of our childhood. We learned the ways of the Jedi with Lightsabers and how to talk like Yoda. We made-believe that we were the ORIGINAL Power Rangers (sorry, kids of today). Alfalfa and Spanky made us want to start our own he-Man Woman Haters Club. We wanted to skate with Charlie Conway and the Bash Brothers, and swim like the kid in ‘Free Willy.’
We didn’t have cable TV yet, so little bro and I would keep rewinding these tapes (our ‘rewinder’ was shaped like a car), and we would watch the same movies over and over, with cans of Hawaiian Punch in-hand.
But my personal favorite was the really cool story of a crazy-haired scientist, a high-school ‘slacker’ who didn’t like being called ‘chicken,’ a dog named Einstein, and a DeLorean that could travel through time by running 88 miles per hour, thanks to this thing called the Flux Capacitor.
Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and this dude named Steven Spielberg brought the world Doctor Emmett Brown, Marty McFly and the story of ‘Back to the Future,’ which helped define the late 80’s. And to this day, the trilogy continues to resonate with countless people who saw it.
Thank you, Universal Studios.
The 80’s had this longing for the future, and society underwent growing pains by continuously tinkering with technology, innovation and creativity. And the franchise, in itself, created a cult following that gave a very cool facade to the ‘nerdiness’ and eccentricity of that time, thanks to the vision of Bob Zemeckis.
That ever-growing following remains strong to this day, and I imagine that those who are seeing the trilogy just now would be captivated with the grandiose plot, despite how the then-futuristic cinematography would now look outdated.
It is hard not to find the story romantic. BTTF dares to visualize what it might be to make the impossible a reality, to see any period of time on this planet, and to fully embrace the concept that the future is what we make it. It is an epic message of how time flies so quickly, and we should always stand for something we believe in when we have the chance, how we owe it to ourselves to rise to the occasion, because those moments do not come very often.
It also doesn’t hurt that the gadgets and props throughout the entire film are just really, really fun and intriguing – such as the three-dimensional model maps in the first and third films, Einstein’s can opener in the first scene, and the ice maker and automatic toaster in the wild west. And, I love Elizabeth Shue. But I just wish Claudia Wells stayed for all three movies as ‘Jennifer Parker.’
Heck, even Nike, who was smart enough to invest their time and efforts with the film helped increase the ‘cool factor’ with the trilogy. From Marty’s red-swoosh Nike Bruins, to the 2015 self-drying jacket, the young generation that saw the films (myself included) definitely was influenced by the aesthetics these accessories brought to the films’ make-up.
They also happened to create “The Greatest Shoe Never to be Made…” (Until last year.)
(Oh, and a quick tidbit – the great Tinker Hatfield, who is responsible for a lot of Nike’s historic masterpieces, including the most recognizable signature shoe for the greatest basketball player ever, also submitted the patent for those power-lace Nike MAGs – coming 2015.)
And while I, for one, would not be opposed to seeing a fourth movie (provided that the original people are back), a remake of the original just sounds blasphemous. Harry Potter can go “make like a tree and get outta here“ with his fantasy of playing Marty.
I’m sure hardcore fans would agree. After all…
