Back in Time

It's just such an

endlessly-Entertaining myth,

And it has a little bit

of modernized aesthetic to it.

But it really is just satisfying on

the level of "jack and the beanstalk"

Or Ulysses fighting

a Cyclops or something.

It's just sort of a bunch of

neat sh*t to happen to a kid.

Ray Bradbury once said that

Coming up with an idea is like

trying to behead the Medusa.

If you face the problem straight-On,

you get turned to stone.

But if you let it just kind of

sneak in by the corner of your eye,

You might just snag it.

That "back to the future" would be

considered a quote-Unquote classic.

It just was sort of one of those that

melted into the beauty and perfection.

Just... It was

that magic something.

This is gonna sound like hyperbole,

and I don't mean it to.

But it's almost a perfect movie.

It's a flawless film.

It's perfect.

You can't change a thing...

can't improve a thing on it. It's perfect.

It's a masterpiece.

There's really nothing like it.

This tone that they did,

The comedy,

the suspense, the drama...

you just care

about the characters.

It really is

kind of unparalleled.

It was beautifully cast.

It was beautifully directed,

beautifully written.

The writing and the acting

was so good,

And the editing was so good,

and the timing was so good.

Every thread that Bob gale laid down

to be picked up later got picked up.

They really cared

for that film so much,

And it's just

so very, very well-Written,

Well-Produced, well-Acted,

And, of course,

they picked the right song.

You got a booming soundtrack by

Huey Lewis and the news, okay?

You got a delorean

for crying out loud,

And you have these very defined,

quirky yet compelling characters.

Stir it all together in the soup.

Look what you got.

It really is, for me,

Inarguably the greatest time-Travel

movie ever put on film.

Bob Zemeckis and I had always

wanted to do a time-Travel movie

For years and years,

since the '70s,

And we'd never really been able to

figure out what the hook for it was.

We had tentatively titled it

"professor brown visits the future."

And that was

pretty much all we had.

Who knows if they've got

cotton underwear in the future?

We were never able to really come up with

anything every time we kicked it around

Until, uh, I was visiting my

parents in St. Louis, Missouri

Over the summer of 1980,

Came across my father's

high school yearbook.

My father had gone to the same

high school that I'd went to,

And I discovered he was the

president of his graduating class.

And I'm looking at this picture of my

dad looking very straight and serious.

"President mark gale."

And I'm thinking about the

president of my graduating class.

And I thought to myself, "gee, was my dad

one of these ra-ra, school spirit guys

"If I had gone to high school with my dad,

would I have been friends with him?"

Which one is your pop?

That's him.

Okay. Okay, you guys.

Very funny.

You guys are being real mature.

So when I came back

to California after that,

I'm telling Bob about this,

And he's loving it,

and he's thinking to himself,

"Yeah." Says, "what if your mom

went to the same high school?

"What if it turned out

she was, like, the school slut?"

Do you mind if I sit here?

No, fine. No, good.

It just started

going, and going, and going.

And pretty soon,

we had the germ of this idea

About a kid

who goes back in time

And ends up in high school

with his parents.

George, buddy,

Remember that girl

I introduced you to, Lorraine?

We eventually worked

the thing up into a pitch.

We were at Columbia pictures, because we'd

just made a movie called "used cars."

I'd produced their film

"used cars"

Over at Columbia with them.

I really believed in them

so much.

Bob Zemeckis brought me

a USC short film he had made

Just before I went off

to direct "jaws" in 1974.

It was called "field of honor."

Stop, or I'll shoot!

And I came back from "jaws,"

came back from that experience,

And we began hanging around,

and we were friends.

Bob gale, Bob Zemeckis, we used to go

shooting skeet and trap with John Milius.

And we were sort of... it was Milius,

and me, and gale, and Zemeckis,

And that was the team

for a long time.

Frank price,

the head of the studio, loved "used cars."

And he told us when we had our next idea,

please... he wanted to hear it first.

So we went in, and we pitched frank,

and frank got in immediately,

And Columbia hired us

to write "back to the future."

They pitched me

"back to the future,"

And I liked... I've always liked

science-Fiction.

So this was old home week.

I grew up on science-Fiction.

As a writer, you aspire

to write something like this.

You want everything to be the

"back to the future" screenplay.

You want everything set up

perfectly paid off.

You want every character to be complex,

three-Dimensional, compelling.

I think it's the best thing that I've

ever written. Along with bob, of course.

But even... it's...

you probably have one of

those in you in a lifetime.

Columbia had been

extremely successful

Between 1978, when I went there,

And this is now 1982.

"Blue lagoon" turned out

a huge hit.

"Kramer" was a huge hit.

We had "tootsie," "karate kid."

So coca-Cola bought Columbia,

And that was a huge revolution.

And there were some problems of fit,

though, once coke was there,

Because coke prided itself

on its marketing.

And I thought we did

very good marketing.

They started interfering

with our marketing.

We couldn't get an agreement on

how to run the movie operation,

So that's when I left behind

a lot of projects.

"Back to the future" breaks

as many rules as it follows.

I mean, it...

Marty McFly is

a flawless protagonist.

He doesn't learn a damn thing.

He has no unconscious wish

that he needs to fulfill

Except maybe if you count the idea that

he wishes his parents were cooler,

Which is a selfish, dumb thing

to wish for.

And it's not like he learns

a lesson through any of it.

He's just this willing hero that

charges across this threshold

And mucks things up

a little bit.

He's really nervous

that his mom is gonna,

You know, give him

a HJ in the parking lot.

Oh, you mean like how you're

supposed to act on a first date.

For a movie where the guy that

you're in the shoes of doesn't...

he doesn't have an arc.

And that's one of many things

about that movie that's like,

Oh, this, strictly speaking, according to

Robert McKee or a screenwriting class,

It shouldn't be

as satisfying as it is.

I mean, it's definitely not

a perfect movie.

There might even be

one or two shots in it

That are a little bit,

a hair out of focus.

You know,

so it's not a perfect movie.

But the screenplay

is really good.

I mean, that's really something that

they should study in film school.

I know people who

have been to USC film school,

And certain teachers use the script of

"back to the future"

As the perfect script.

It rides this

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