Line #90 Trivia/BackToTheFuture


1	!!Works with their own pages:
2
3	[[index]]
4	* ''Trivia/BackToTheFuture1''
5	* ''Trivia/BackToTheFuturePartII''
6	* ''Trivia/BackToTheFuturePartIII''
7	* ''Trivia/BackToTheFutureTheRide''
8	* ''Trivia/BackToTheFutureTheGame''
9	* ''Trivia/BackToTheFutureTheMusical''
10	[[/index]]
11
12	----
13	[[foldercontrol]]
14
15	[[folder:In general]]
16	* ActingForTwo:
17	** Creator/MichaelJFox plays Marty, his older self in 2015, his children Marty Jr. and Marlene (yes, the ''[[CrossCastRole daughter]]''), and Seamus in 1885. He also posed as William for the picture of him in ''Part III'', who he also later voiced in the Telltale game.
18	** Creator/ChristopherLloyd shares a scene in ''Part II'' with himself as Doc meets his 1955 self.
19	** Creator/ThomasFWilson plays 1955 Biff Tannen, 1985 Biff (''three versions'', no less: the {{Jerkass}} from the beginning of ''Part I'', the wimpy version from the end of parts ''I'' and ''III'' and beginning of ''Part II'', and the {{Jerkass}} In Chief from the 1985-A universe in ''Part II''), 2015 Biff and his grandson Griff, and Buford "Mad-Dog" Tannen in 1885.
20	** Creator/LeaThompson portrays both Lorraine Baines [=McFly=], George's wife, in 1955, three versions of 1985, and 2015, and Maggie [=McFly=], Seamus's wife.
21	** Creator/ElisabethShue plays Jennifer's younger and older self ''at the same time'' in ''Part II''.
22	** Creator/JamesTolkan played both Principal Gerald Strickland in 1955 and 1985 and his ancestor, the U.S. Marshal James Strickland in 1885.
23	* ApprovalOfGod: John [=DeLorean=] wrote a letter to Bob Gale after the first film's release, thanking him for immortalizing his eponymous car and saving the discontinued brand from falling into obscurity.
24	* CreatorBacklash: Creator/CrispinGlover was infuriated with the sequels because the production used StockFootage from the first film with an especially convincing lookalike as TheOtherDarrin to the point that many people do not realize he had no part in them, and so is credited for a performance that he didn't do. He successfully sued for misappropriation of his likeness. While he later patched up his relationship with Creator/RobertZemeckis, he has nothing positive to say about writer/producer Bob Gale.
25	* DawsonCasting: Marty, Lorraine, George, Biff, Jennifer, etc. Makes some sense in Lorraine, George, and Biff's cases, since in the first movie they had to play both their teenage selves and their adult selves. Initially, not so much the case with Jennifer, who was played by 19-year old Claudia Wells in the first film, but then played by 26-year old Creator/ElisabethShue in the Sequels and that wig she wore to make her resemble Creator/LeaThompson made her look every bit her age.
26	* {{Defictionalization}}:
27	** Marty's entire 2015 outfit is available to purchase. Nike sneakers with self adjusting laces can be yours... for $1,700. You can even buy a Hoverboard, although obviously non-functional (a joke by Zemeckis during a "Making of" video implied the Hoverboards were real devices about to come on to the market, and so Mattel was bombarded with questions about them).
28	** ''A Match Made in Space'', George's novel, was kinda-sorta defictionalized. The book itself was made as [[https://www.amazon.com/Match-Made-Space-Journal-Future/dp/1493558803 a blank diary with the book's cover]], and [[https://www.tor.com/2015/10/15/finally-we-find-out-what-george-mcflys-novel-is-about/ a companion book has the short summary that would go behind one of the covers on the dust sleeve]].
29	* DisownedAdaptation: Bob Gale hated many of the video game adaptations of the franchise, particularly [[VideoGame/BackToTheFuture1989 the first one]] by Creator/LJNToys. According to him, the makers of the game didn't want any input from the filmmakers, and when he saw it, he wanted a lot changed, but was told it was too late to do anything. He advised fans not to buy it, and felt that Creator/TelltaleGames handled the process much better.
30	* ExecutiveMeddling:
31	** Universal president Sidney Sheinberg insisted on several changes, several of them positive. He suggested "Professor Brown" be changed to "Doc Brown", which he felt was less stuffy. He also insisted on Emmett Brown's chimpanzee pet being changed[[note]]his reasoning was that movies with chimps didn't make money; when Creator/ClintEastwood's ''[[Film/EveryWhichWayButLoose Every Which Way]]'' films were pointed out, he retorted "That was an orangutan."[[/note]], which became the dog Einstein, and requested Marty's mother's name go from Eileen to Lorraine ([[Creator/LorraineGary his wife's]] name). One note that was heavily resisted was suggesting the title be ''Spaceman From Pluto'' after the comic seen in the film. Sheinberg went so far as to suggest multiple possible potential [[TitleDrop Title Drops]]. The Bobs were aghast at it, but Steven Spielberg used his clout to veto it by way of faxing Sheinberg and saying it was a "good joke", successfully banking on Sheinberg's massive ego preventing him from admitting he was being sincere.
32	** Why the sequels exist at all - the studio wanted to cash in on the first movie's success by putting forth two more sequels, which the Bobs had not planned on doing and had zero interest in, as the ending of the first movie was simply supposed to be an [[AndTheAdventureContinues implication of the grander adventure continuing]] without actually following through on it.[[labelnote:*]] For example, the Bobs have said that if they had genuinely planned on doing sequels from the outset they would never have had Jennifer get in the [=DeLorean=] with Marty and Doc at the end of the movie [[/labelnote]] When the ultimatum came down that the studio would make them with or without their involvement, Zemeckis and Gale agreed to return so the movies would be on their terms at least.
33	** Cost considerations during pre-production forced a complete change in the method of returning Marty to 1985 in Part I, from being powered by a nuclear test explosion to the lightning bolt. By all accounts it was a major improvement as keeping it "local" in Hill Valley added an immediate urgency, the lightning bolt stopping the clock provided not only a acceptable replacement for a nuclear explosion as a dramatic climactic element but also worked on a thematic level with the movie being so heavily focused on time, and it gave Doc something to do with the clock tower (in the original script, he simply watched from a mountainside).
34	* ExecutiveVeto: Creator/RobertZemeckis and Creator/BobGale, who own the franchise rights, have refused to make a fourth film or reboot the franchise because they don't want to turn the trilogy into a FranchiseZombie.
35	* FakeAmerican: Marty [=McFly=] -- Michael J. Fox is in fact Canadian. You can hear his accent when he pronounces "sorry" as "sore-y."
36	* HeyItsThatPlace: Courthouse Square, on the Universal Backlot, has been in ''dozens'' of productions; prior to BTTF, its most well known use was as the courthouse square in ''Film/ToKillAMockingbird''. The set tragically burned to the ground during the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire 2008 Universal Studios fire]], and was later rebuilt.
37	* IAmNotSpock: Actor Creator/ThomasFWilson (Biff). He even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwY5o2fsG7Y wrote a song about it]]. He also started carrying small laminated cards he'd hand out to fans he'd run into, featuring answers to the most frequent questions he's asked about the movies. Not only is he exactly the opposite of a bully (and Biff) in real life, he drew on his real life high school experiences of ''being'' bullied in order to play Biff.
38	* KidsMealToy:
39	** To promote Part II in 1989, Pizza Hut offered four pairs of [[{{Zeerust}} futuristic-looking]] plastic sunglasses called "solar shades."
40	** UsefulNotes/McDonalds had a set of Happy Meal toys for the animated series in 1992: Doc in the [=DeLorean=], Einstein in the Jules Verne train, Marty on his hoverboard, and Verne in the Junkmobile.
41	* OnSetInjury:
42	** ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'': During a "hoverboard" stunt scene, stuntwoman Cheryl Wheeler-Dixon was accidentally bounced off a pillar before falling thirty feet onto concrete, sustaining serious facial and wrist injuries.
43	** ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'': The scene of Creator/MichaelJFox being hanged wasn't acting. He actually ''was'' near hung to death there. He was quickly cut down when Creator/RobertZemeckis noticed the "acting" was getting a little too real.
44	* TheOtherDarrin: Jeffrey Weissman replaced Creator/CrispinGlover as George [=McFly=] in the sequels. Likewise, Elisabeth Shue replaced Claudia Wells as Jennifer Parker.
45	* PopCultureUrbanLegends: Once real-life history got into the decade of the 2010s, pretty much every year there would be a picture claiming that that day was the day Marty went to when he went to the future (with the date being photoshopped to the current date). It's easy to tell the fakes, since the real years in the movies [[ExactlyExtyYearsAgo all end in 5]]. Now that the real date has passed, only time will tell if these fakes will stop being made.
46	* TheRedStapler:
47	** The [=DeLorean=]. At the time the movie came out the Delorean Motor Company had been bankrupt for almost 3 years and [=DeLoreans=] were considered a failed car. Nowadays there's an active "time machine conversion" community, [=DeLorean=] dealers, and [=DeLorean=] conventions -- all because of ''Back to the Future''. There's apparently even a company in Texas that bought the rights to the design and is making new [=DeLoreans=].
48	** The skateboarding sequences in this film resulted in a boom in the sport's popularity.
49	* ScullyBox:
50	** While TheOtherMarty, Creator/EricStoltz, was around 6'0", Creator/MichaelJFox was 5'4", so many tricks were used to make him appear around the same height as the 6'1" Creator/ChristopherLloyd. For example, the two are rarely in the same shot together and, when they are, one is usually sitting down or much closer to the camera than the other. When Doc Brown is talking, he's often moving around so much that the viewer can't really tell how tall he is. Lloyd also improvised a hunch in his posture that helped give the character more of a MadScientist look.
51	** Creator/ThomasFWilson is 6'1" and was deliberately cast to serve as an imposing bully (the initial choice for Biff, J. J. Cohen, didn't look as imposing next to Stoltz), but in select scenes camera angles and boxes were used to make him appear even larger.
52	* StarMakingRole: For Michael J. Fox.
53	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: In 2018 there were plans for a manga, illustrated by Creator/YusukeMurata (of ''WebComic/OnePunchMan'' fame) and overseen by Bob Gale, which would have followed on the events of the original movie. However, due to rights issues the project was cancelled, leaving us with nothing but [[https://twitter.com/NEBU_KURO/status/1041170944797159424 a few]] [[https://twitter.com/NEBU_KURO/status/1041171943573975040 pieces]] of leftover artwork.
54	[[/folder]]
55
56	[[folder:The Animated Series]]
57	* ChannelHop: More than a decade after the original run on CBS, the show resurfaced from March to August 2003 on Creator/{{Fox}} on their then-new "Fox Box" Saturday morning lineup, programmed by Creator/FourKidsEntertainment- likely to fill the E/I quota.
58	* CreatorBacklash: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgMrmXIMbOY In one interview]], Bill Nye talks about a science demonstration segment he did where he was meant to demonstrate static electricity with two balloons sticking together. While they were filming, there wasn't enough static built up on the balloons to get them to stick, so the crew used some 77 adhesive spray to get them to stick, which in Nye's opinion completely ruined the realism of the demonstration.
59	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Only 18 episodes made it to VHS and Laserdisc, and none of them made it to DVD until October 20, 2015, when Universal released a Complete Series DVD set of the show--one day shy of the "futuristic" date Marty, Doc, and Jennifer visited in ''BTTF Part II''. Up until then, you had the aforementioned incomplete releases, and whatever tapes were circulating from the original run on CBS, and the reruns on Fox (see above).
60	* TheOtherDarrin:
61	** In the animated segments, only Creator/MarySteenburgen (Clara) and Creator/ThomasFWilson (Biff) reprised their roles from the movies.
62	** In a bizarre version of this trope, Creator/ChristopherLloyd played Doc in the live-action bits, and Creator/DanCastellaneta played his animated counterpart. In at least one instance (namely the episode “Time Waits For No Frog”), Cartoon!Doc’s voice was used for a brief voice-over during an otherwise live-action segment while stock footage of a bullfrog was shown.
63	** In the French dub, only Luq Hamet (Marty) reprised his role from the films.
64	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The head of children's programming for CBS suggested adding an alien to the ensemble for season two, but Bob Gale nixed the idea.
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	[[folder:The Pinball Table]]
68	* TheOtherDarrin:
69	** Michael J. Fox did not allow his likeness for the game. Instead, artist Paul Faris' son plays Marty on the playfield and the backglass.
70	** Similarly, it's unclear who voiced "Marty", but everyone agrees the voice doesn't even come ''close'' to sounding like Michael J. Fox.
71	* RealSongThemeTune: In addition to the movies' main theme, the game features Music/ZZTop's "Doubleback" and Music/HueyLewisAndTheNews' "The Power of Love" and "Back in Time".
72	[[/folder]]
73
74	[[folder:The IDW comic book]]
75	* AscendedFanon:
76	** George's reluctance at letting Creator/RobertZemeckis adapt ''A Match Made in Space'' into a movie references an article in ''USA Today'''s RealLife reproduction of the 2015 newspaper cover prop. According to [[http://www.slashfilm.com/usa-today-back-to-the-future-newspaper/#more-320613 this page]], the phony article was written by Gannett vice president Matt Urbanos to replace the junk filler used by the original newspaper prop.
77	** One popular fan theory was that Doc reverse engineered the hoverboard in order to get the time train working, since the board was pretty much the only bit of future tech at his disposal at the time. This idea was sort of used in "Continuum Conundrum," when Doc mentions he used components from the hoverboard to help get the steam trike time machine working.
78	** It confirms ''Website/{{Cracked}}'s'' theory that [[http://www.cracked.com/article_22284_7-disturbing-details-you-never-noticed-in-back-to-future.html Doc burned his house down for insurance money]].
79	* DevelopmentGag:
80	** Doc Brown's prototype flux capacitor is called a "temporal field capacitor," which was the original name of the flux capacitor in early script drafts of the first movie.
81	** Biff's daughter Tiff, who was considered as a character for the Telltale game but was ultimately dropped, shows up in the "Tannenville" timeline in the "Citizen Brown" adaptation of the game's story.
82	** Supplemental materials for ''Ride/BackToTheFutureTheRide'', [[https://web.archive.org/web/20010619034511/http://www.universalstudios.com/unicity/btf/archive.html once kept]] on Universal Studios' website and seen in the pre-ride queue, included Doc's plans for a [[http://www.thestudiotour.com/wp/wp-content/gallery/ush-bttf-preshow/DSCN1906.JPG "Timeman"]] time machine suit that is activated when the wearer runs to a speed of 8.8 mph. In the comic, Doc manages to create a time machine suit using a Victorian-era diving suit from 1893, although he still has to reach 88 mph for temporal displacement.
83	[[/folder]]

Context Trivia / BackToTheFuture