Hank Pym.com

Category: Movies
Genre: Science Fiction Comedy Western *whew*

“You’re the Doc, Doc.” - Martin Seamus “Marty” McFly, Sr.

Overview:

"To Marty, partner in time. September 5, 1885" - Doc Brown

November 12, 1955

The third and last installment of the Back to the Future (BTTF) franchise beings where the second movie left off: Protagonist Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) has just learned that his friend Doctor Emmett L. Brown (Christopher Lloyd) is alive and well in the year 1885.  He then makes haste to the Hill Valley town square where at that very moment, the Doc Brown of 1955, has just sent back Marty (from the first BTTF film) to 1985.

Upon reaching a festive Doc Brown, Marty’s presence startles and sends him into a state of shock.  McFly, unable to revive the unconscious scientist, carries him back to his home on 1640 Riverside drive.

November 13, 1955

Brown regains consciousness the following morning and Marty begins to explain his situation with the help of the 70-year old letter [“70 years, 2 months, and 12 days to be exact”] written by his 1885 counterpart.  In the letter dated September 1, 1885, the Doc Brown of 1985 shares that aside from adjusting quite well to life in the old west, he has also set up shop as Hill Valley’s local blacksmith.  The letter also gives the precise location of the DeLorean (buried inside the abandoned Delgado Mines) as well as “explicit instructions” to repair the time machine, return to 1985, and destroy it as “unnecessary time travel only risks further disruption of the timeline.” [Yeah, like they haven’t done enough of that already!]

As Doc and Marty recover the DeLorean, they discover that the 1985 Doc Brown had been gunned down (by an outlaw named Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen [played by Thomas F. Wilson]) the week after he had sent the September 1 letter.  Uneasy with these turn of events, Marty decides to go against the 1985 Doc’s wishes and travel to 1885 in order to rescue him.

"Hey, Frisbe. Far out!" - Marty McFly, Sr.

September 2, 1885

Coming out of temporal displacement, Marty finds himself face-to-face with an incoming wave of Indians and their pursuers—a U.S. cavalry regiment.  McFly manages to keep his wits, shifts the DeLorean in reverse, and floors the accelerator.  Eventually, Marty puts some distance between himself and the warring groups and is able to [conveniently, I might add] find the nearby cave that the Doc Brown of 1955 mentioned and—as instructed—hide the time machine there.

However, McFly soon discovers that his momentary dilemma has not left him unscathed.  A well-placed arrow manages to find its mark and ruptures the DeLorean’s fuel line—effectively, immobilizing its ability to run under its own power.

September 3–7, 1885

Over the next few days, Doc is involved in a forbidden romance; Marty’s (now known in these parts as Clint Eastwood) temper manages to put him in yet another tight spot; and collectively, the duo will take part in the “science experiment” of the ages.

If you haven’t already seen it, catch the 25^th anniversary trilogy on DVD or Blue-ray today.

"We may have to blast." - Doc Brown

Reflection:

Needless to say, I’ve been watching a lot of Back to the Future (BTTF) since I purchased the Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy (+Digital Copy) [Yes, they got me at “digital copy”] in Singapore last December 2010 and the other night, it finally hit me.

In the 1885 letter written by the 1985 Doc Brown, he shares:

The overload shorted out the time circuits [specifically the time circuit control microchip] and destroyed the flying circuits.  Unfortunately, the car will never fly again.

What about the gasoline? The Doc didn’t say anything about the gasoline tank exploding or the gas running out.  Couldn’t Doc and Marty simply dug up the DeLorean that was sealed in the Delgado Mines and siphoned its full/half/quarter full tank of gasoline?

Well, scratch that idea.  Even if it was a remote possibility, once Doc and Marty blew up the car’s fuel injection manifold: Gas was no longer an option.

Now, the Doc has always been a precise guy [Seriously, when has any of his calculation over the last three movies been wrong?] and maybe the pressure of being shot on Monday the 7^th of September 1885 may have been bearing down on him.  But they really missed the train on that one *pun intended*

Then again, without this seemingly insurmountable conundrum, we wouldn’t have a movie now would we

"What idiot dressed you up in that outfit?" - Doc Brown

Memorable excerpt:

Did you know that while filming Back to the Future III, Michael J. Fox accidentally hung himself during a stunt.

Here is an excerpt from Fox’s memoir entitled, Lucky Man (2002):

Marty McFly, stranded in 1885, finds himself at the mercy of a lynch mob.  At the last moment before they string him up, he manages to insert his left hand between the role and his neck.  The shot was not designed to include my whole body, so for the first couple of takes, I stood on a small wooden box.  While this was technically a stunt, it was also my close-up, so [stuntman] Charlie [Croughwell] was on the sidelines.  No matter how I shifted my weight, the swinging effect was not realistic, so I offered to try it without the support of the box.  This worked well for the next couple of takes, but on the third I miscalculated the positioning of my hand.  Noose around my neck, dangling from the gallows pole, my carotid artery was blocked, causing me briefly to pass out.  I swung, unconscious, at the end of the role for several seconds before Bob Zemeckis, fan of mine though he was, realized even I wasn’t that good an actor.

Wow, huh?

When it comes to his personal experiences, Mike Fox can certainly put his readers in the front seat.

He is a true talent.