"Great Scott!"
Back for the Future is a 2011 Web Video taking place in the Back to the Future universe, and following on the heels of Back to the Future: The Game a year before, is one of the first new stories set in the BTTF universe since the animated series ended in 1992.On the evening of September 8, 2011, a Nike Store clerk (Bill Hader) at Hill Valley's Lone Pine Mall assists a customer (Kevin Durant) with some new Nike MAG sneakers. Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), on his way to pick up Marty McFly in 1985note , briefly stops in to inquire about the shoes.
The video, which was produced by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and directed by the trilogy's executive producer Frank Marshall, was made to promote the eBay auctions of 1500 pairs of light-up Nike MAG sneakers, made by Nike as reproductions of the same ones worn by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future Part II. The proceeds of the auctions went towards the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
The video can be seen here.
Tropes:
- Apathetic Clerk: The second store manager is completely uninterested in the goings-on, and barely looks up from his newspaper to mention that power laces won't be available until 2015.
- As Himself: Kevin Durant, presumably. The clerk calls his character "Kevin" at the end, making him
The Danza at the very least. - Bag of Spilling: Inverted; the 2011 MAG's don't have the power laces that Doc is expecting, but the sales manager says they will by 2015. Easy enough for a time traveler.
- The Cameo: Donald Fullilove, who played Goldie Wilson in the original movie and his grandson in Part II, appears as one of the store managers.
- Call-Forward:
- Doc immediately determines that the time circuits must have malfunctioned, since he was shooting for 2015 and ended up in 2011. In Back to the Future Part II, which takes place after this, a glitch in the time circuits becomes a plot point.
- The shoes themselves. We know that Marty uses power lace shoes when going undercover as Marty Jr.; this short shows part of Doc's search for them.
- In a meta sense, the sales manager's line about no power laces "until 2015" was one, as Nike did end up announcing a power-lacing variant in 2015.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Just about everything in this counts as a reference to the trilogy. It takes place at Lone Pine Mall at 10:04 pm, a VW van similar to the Libyans' is in the parking lot, Kevin quotes three lines from the first movie, Kevin's shirts looks a lot like Marty's, the MAG shoebox resembles Doc's yellow plutonium case, and the DeLorean loses its license plate yet again.
- Creator Cameo: Tinker Hatfield, the Nike shoe designer who designed the original Nike MAG sneakers for Part II, appears as one of the store managers.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: As soon as Doc is told that it's 2011, he thinks out loud about how the time circuits must have malfunctioned, then gasps as he realizes what he's just said.
- Incoming Ham: "SHOES! I NEED SHOES!"
- Interquel: From Doc's perspective, this short takes place as he's gathering items for the Marty Jr. disguise, just before he goes to pick up Marty at the beginning of Part II.
- Literal-Minded: Kevin's first reaction to the sneakers is an impressed, "This is heavy." The clerk says that the sneakers are in fact rather light.
- Loose Canon: It doesn't even have an entry over on Futurepedia, and the Continuity Cavalcade makes it feel almost like a parody at times. But it was clearly designed to fit into BTTF canon, it features Christopher Lloyd reprising his role as Doc Brown, it has executive producer credits for Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and it was directed by Frank Marshall.
- Malaproper: Kevin Durant, apparently. He gets the words density and destiny mixed up (but corrects himself), and he says the "make like a tree" line that Biff is known for.
- Next Sunday A.D. / 20 Minutes into the Future: Sort of a combination due to
Fridge Logic. It was made and set in the then Present Day of 2011, which technically is the future compared to 1985 or 1989, but largely averts Part II's Zeerusty future that's canonically four years away. - Technobabble: The clerk has absolutely no idea what Doc means by "the time circuits must've malfunctioned."
- Unfazed Everyman: Both Kevin and the clerk. They barely react to a DeLorean loudly appearing in the parking lot, they're just slightly wary of the loudly-dressed old guy who loudly gets the year wrong, and they get over their amazement of the DeLorean's temporal displacement relatively quickly — the clerk seems more concerned about the fire trails left in the parking lot than the speeding car exploding into nothingness.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The sales manager seems pretty uninterested in the wild-eyed old man who's just burst in exclaiming about shoes.
- What Year Is This?: A variation in that Doc insists that it's 2015, but the clerk corrects him and tells him it's actually 2011.
- Zeerust: Averted aside from the shoes and Doc's yellow suit. From what we see, everything else looks more like Real Life 2011 than something four years away from the 2015 depicted in Part II.
