When I first saw Back to the Future Part III in the theater in 1990 I thought it blew. I was 11 at the time, and I wasn't yet able to appreciate Zemeckis, Gale, and Spielberg's' decision to plunk Marty and Doc into the cowpoke Old West of 1885; 20 years later I'm still not sure I do. From the full-blown comic buffoonery of Dr. Emmet Brown (compare the Doc of the first film to the finger-in-socket caricature in the third and you'll see what I mean) and his - barf - "love interest" (good ol' "Mary Steamburger" as I thought her name was) to the inclusion of ZZ Top as a bunch of bearded troubadours, Part III is clearly not the apex of the trilogy. As a conclusion to the series, it serves it purpose and has some nifty moments ("Shit! The cavalry!"), but as a youngster, I wanted more flux capacitors, hoverboards, Mr. Fusion, and George McFly; more of what made the first two films amazing. But wait, let's go back in time a second. Why am I writing this op-ed piece for the AV Club, in honor of the Alamo Drafthouse's upcoming Back to the Future trilogy feast on June 13th? It might have something to do with the fact that I'm good friends with the local editor, but I'd like to think it's because I played guitar in the world's most BTTF obsessed rock 'n roll band.
The group was called Oxford Collapse and Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd's time-traveling exploits provided us with a constant, endless source of inspiration. We started out as a four-piece, but cut the keyboardist when we realized that where we were going, we didn't need Rhodes. Marvin Berry's proverbial phone call got us to Sub Pop records, as we were that new sound they were lookin' for. We peppered our lyrics with opaque references to films and at almost every show we played I'd bookend some song with the "this next one's an oldie/I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet" banter. We shot a music video driving around rural Pennsylvania in an EXACT REPLICA of Doc Brown's souped-up Delorean and designed a t-shirt that pictured the Time Machine hauling an enormous cheeseburger (combining our two favorite loves: burgers and time travel). On our first US tour we made a pilgrimage to many of the landmarks from the original movie: Marty's house, Doc's palatial manse in Pasadena (the Gamble house, a registered US historic site), even the fucking Burger King where McFly hitches a ride via skateboard on the back on some dude's 4x4. At our final show last summer we made pins to replicate Marty's large "Art in Revolution" button (after years pausing and zooming to discern what exactly it said), came onstage to Alan Silvestri's majestic score, and played a medley of "Johnny B. Goode" (including the guitar freakout) along with the Jim Carroll Band's "People Who Died." We had a love affair with the series and it helped fuel us creatively for many years. It was most definitely a Match Made in Space.
What was it about the original Back to the Future that resonated with us more than other films that came out of our impressionable youth? On top of its great story and amazing special effects, it probably had to do with that fact that Marty could have been our older brother (although he'd never wear a suit to the office) or my cousin "Dood;" provincial guys who played in bands, had nerdy parents, wanted to marry their first serious girlfriends, and thought high school sucked; guys who at some point in time we could relate to. John McClane cut with sardonic wit and Indiana Jones shot swordsmen because he had diarrhea; both awesome, but more figments of a runaway imagination and unattainably, impossibly cool. You couldn't imagine any of the Ghostbusters taking the 4x4 up to the lake and putting a couple of sleeping bags in the back (well, maybe Winston Zeddmore), but you know that Michael J. Fox probably did that with the cast of Family Ties. We were all Marty McFly, even when we became assholes in the future.
The first movie is that magical mix of art and commerce pulled off so well and assembled by steadied, able hands, that its classic status is inarguable. Part II is extremely watchable but too clever by half; a paradox that loves to show off state-of-the-art special effects, but lacks the heart and soul of the original (although it goes without saying that almost every kid who sees it for the first time wants the world of 2015 to occupy more of the landscape, even though in retrospect it was purely a "look what we can do" FX set piece). The final film limps home, probably because the filmmakers wanted to revisit the dusty old cowboys and indians flicks of their youth more than the audience did. The films work in tandem, however, because you're invested in the McFlies from the beginning. That first BTTF has enough goodwill to last for three movies.
I've had the pleasure of seeing the original Back to the Future on the big screen in a huge, once majestic, but currently decrepit theater in Jersey City that looked like something out of Biff's alternate universe 1985, complete with "back to 1955" prices for popcorn and soda pop, but I can't imagine it will compare to what the Alamo is cooking up for the trilogy. If my calculations are correct, you're gonna see some serious shit.
