YMMV / Back to the Future Part II

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Mr. Fujitsu fire the older Marty McFly in 2015 because he was in cahoots with Needles to set Marty up or because he didn't approve Marty's dishonest actions to aid Needles on his illegal scam? Needles' smirk could suggest that he needed Fujitsu to enter into the call after setting Marty up, but he could have also smiled because of his supreme confidence in pulling off the scam by himself and because of how Marty was very easy to manipulate and thus Mr. Fujitsu may have fired him offscreen.
  • Does Griff just angrily call who he thinks is Marty McFly Jr. chicken in an attempt to get him to take part in his scheme, or does he know his father's Berserk Button and is counting on it carrying over to his son (as much as a wimp as he is)?
  • Considering Old Biff is a Grumpy Old Man and told his younger self to kill Marty and Doc, did he actually truly reform? Or is the "reformed Biff" in the alt-1985 just a facade? On the other hand, Old Biff actually laughed over the manure incident and his poor attempt at flirting with Lorraine, indicating that Old Biff is, at the very least, a bit more chill than his teenage self. It's also possible that he simply became bitter between 1985 and 2015.
  • Relatedly regarding how low Old Biff is willing to go, we don't actually hear what Old Biff told his younger self to do regarding Marty and Doc. Did he specifically tell his younger self to kill them, or did he simply say to deal with them somehow, and the more monstrous 1985-A Biff, when the opportunity arose, chose to interpret that as killing them?
  • Word of God stated that the reason Old Biff was in pain when he returned to 2015 and faded from existence in a deleted scene, was because Lorraine had killed Biff in 1996-A. This raises the question, did Lorraine kill him because she finally got fed up with his abuse, or did she kill him because she discovered the truth about Biff killing George?
• Contested Sequel: In contrast to the near-universal love the original film has enjoyed, Part II has many detractors due to its complicated storyline and for being more focused on the sci-fi aspect and spectacle than the heart and character relationships of the first film. However, Part II also has many fans of its own, who enjoy it precisely for its brisk pace and intricate plot, and its darker, more epic and adventurous feel.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Witnessing Future Marty getting fired from his job due to being goaded by Needles into participating in an illegal deal by exploiting his Fatal Flaw and calling him chicken. It would've been a heartbreaking and harrowing moment if it weren't for the fact that his boss is an over-the-top ham who confronts him about it within seconds of Needles hanging up and proceeds to send a fax with big, bold letters reading "YOU'RE FIRED!!!" to every fax machine in the McFly household, all while Future Marty tries to blame Needles and claim it was a sting operation and is left pathetically bemoaning his situation.
  • Marty being manhandled by Biff's goons? Scary. Being told to cooperate with either the easy way or the hard way, getting knocked out, and then told that was the easy way? Uproariously funny.
• Fan Nickname: "Hell Valley" for the alternate 1985. Named for the knocked over Hill Valley sign with the "I" spray painted into an "E". The Production Nickname was "Biffhorrific 1985"
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In Part II, Needles asks Marty "How's it hanging, McFly?", and in Part III, Marty nearly gets hanged for real by Buford Tannen in 1885.
  • The Chicago Cubs are depicted as winning the World Series on October 21, 2015. On the real October 21, 2015, the Cubs lost the National League Championship, preventing them from going on to the World Series. They did win the World Series the following year, though.
  • The USA Today front page in 2015 mentions the U.S. preparing for Queen Diana's visit. Unfortunately, in the real 2015, Diana had been dead for 18 years (and she divorced from Prince Charles the year prior, so even if she were still alive, she wouldn't have been queen). Then again, that also would suggest that Elizabeth II had died prior to that, when in real life, she was still on the throne and reigned until her death in 2022. On the real October 22, 2015, USA Today released its print edition with the front page from the film. All the original headlines were retained, except for the one about Queen Diana, which was replaced with a headline about 3D billboards.
  • When Doc, Marty, and Jennifer arrive over Hill Valley, California on October 21, 2015, they're in the middle of a rainstorm. On the real October 21, 2015, California was in the middle of its worst drought in recorded history.
  • Seeing an aged-looking Michael J. Fox struggling with his guitar might be a bit disconcerting to watch due to Fox's Parkinson's, which has weakened him to the point that he can no longer perform any serious roles.
  • The offhand mention of thumb bandits can make one a little uncomfortable if you own a smartphone released since 2013 which has contactless payment via NFC and is authenticated by fingerprint.
  • The scene of Marty finding his father's grave in 1985-A is even sadder given that Michael J. Fox's own father died only two months after the film's release.
  • The movie depicts the then-common predictions that Japan would overtake the United States economically, with Future Marty working for a Japanese company. By 2015, Japan would be amid economic and demographic stagnation.
  • The creators admitted that the wealthy and megalomaniacal 1985-A Biff was intended to be a swipe at Donald Trump and his excesses. In the Real Life 2015, Donald Trump would announce his run for office and in 2016, he would be elected, giving him more power and influence than even 1985-A Biff achieved.
  • Marty Jr. was wrongfully incarcerated because, in 2015, lawyers as an institution were abolished. Since the 2010s, Project Innocence and criminal justice reform advocates have revealed that countless people were wrongfully incarcerated due to overzealous prosecutors who were more interested in securing convictions than determining guilt.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Even though Japan Takes Over the World by 2015, the Toyota (formerly Studebaker) dealership bizarrely now sells Pontiacs. Pontiac folded in 2009. However, before Pontiac went under, they did the Matrix/Vibe crossover car project... with Toyota. Zemeckis was in the ballpark...
  • A broadcast has the Chicago Cubs finally winning the World Series (off by one year, but still, close enough to count; the BTTF Twitter even said the delay was because MLB cancelled the 1994 playoffs, forcing the space-time continuum to adjust the "prophecy"). The adversary is the "Miami Gators", as Miami was one of the biggest markets outside the MLB... and now they have a team, the Marlins! (which started in 1993 as "Florida", but later renamed after the city to make the movie's joke more precise! And in 2015, they even made a #RewriteTheFuture campaign, that included the gator logo). In 2016, the Cubs finally win the World Series, only one year late.
  • The idea of Jaws 19 looks hilarious considering the series ended with Jaws: The Revenge. Once 2015 arrived, Universal made a preview gleefully exploiting all the Sequelitis and Franchise Zombie possibilities. In the real 2015, another Steven Spielberg movie would see a sequel: Jurassic World, the fourth film in the Jurassic Park film series.
  • A headline on the 1985-A newspaper says that Nixon ran for a fifth term in 1984. In Futurama, Nixon got a sixth term in office and also became President of Earth as a whole!
  • That in 2015, there are flying cars and holographic projectors...yet people still use fax machines, read print newspapers and the Internet doesn't seem to exist.
  • Cafe '80s itself is quite amusing to look at nowadays, considering that it ended up being 100% accurate about the exact elements of the decade that would be best remembered and glorified by 2015.
  • In 2015 we see a dog being walked by a hovering drone. In 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdowns, a man in Cyprus used a quadcopter drone to walk his dog.
  • The kids in the Cafe '80s insulting the Wild Gunman arcade game because you had use the controls by hand. The XBox Kinect attempted to be the first controller-less device in 2010... and while initially successful, it was soured by lackluster games which didn't take advantage of the Kinect's strengths and limitations. When a more advanced (and thus expensive) iteration of the device was bundled with their next console, the Xbox One, there was immediate backlash that contributed to the console's sales. When the bundle was dropped, all interest in the Kinect dried up and it would be discontinued in 2017, two years after the future 2015 of this movie. Even VR devices at the time of this writing still use controllers by hand. Guess the "baby's toy" still wins.
  • One of the kids in the 80s cafe is played by Elijah Wood in his first film role. Interestingly enough, this won't be the last time Wood is involved in a production that features Christopher Lloyd.
  • The original Apple Macintosh showing up in the 2015 antique store predicted 1980s computers, particular Apple machines, becoming collector's items.
• Love to Hate: 1985-A Biff, who is a horrifically realistic depiction of an abusive husband with too much power for comfort.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • To a lesser extent than most BttF memes, but the Wallet Guy's lines are eminently quotable.
  • "Shark still looks fake", is a frequent snark used when watching the Jaws films.
  • The scene featuring Needles and Fujitsu spawned the memes "How's it hanging, McFly?" and "MCFLY!!!" on YTMND.
  • "Today is the day Marty McFly arrives when he travels to the future" is a popular way of trolling people, by editing the date on the Delorean's dashboard so that it looks like it's the then-current date. This started as early as 2012, and wouldn't be accurate for another few years.
  • During the 2015 MLB season, especially leading up to the World Series, "I wish I could go back to the start of the season and put some money on the Cubbies!" became popular. Alas, the Cubs would fall short, losing to the New York Mets on the very day the film is set. That doesn't really matter though, since Cubs won it all the next season; which, you guessed it, prompt this meme to return.
  • Now that October 21, 2015 has come and gone, many jokes that this movie is now about the past.^note Technically, the first week of November 2035 is the furthest date alluded to in the trilogy, as Doc says Marlene gets twenty years in prison for her attempts to break Marty Junior out in November 2015.
  • "You mean you have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!" gets thrown around lot due to the Hilarious in Hindsight aspect of the concept that by 2015 video games wouldn't need physical input.
• Moral Event Horizon: Biff himself definitely crosses it when he kills George and becomes Lorraine's abusive rapist husband after becoming rich through the Gray's Sports Almanac. Even though this is an alternate timeline that is later rectified, knowing that he even had the potential for it is enough. Thankfully, in the revised timeline he doesn't stoop to such lows.
• Nausea Fuel: The sight of Biff ramming his tongue down Lorraine's throat. Marty's reaction is very appropriate.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The "Wallet Guy", who milks his Captain Obvious status for all its worth.
  • Mr. Fujitsu, Future Marty's boss. You can tell the actor was enjoying himself.
    Mr. Fujitsu: MCFLYYYYYYYYYYYY!
  • The Western Union courier guy only has about a minute of screen time, but he proves pretty memorable, with his scene enhancing the cliffhanger ending and setting up the next movie in an effective manner.
  • Spike O'Malley, the one girl in Griff Tannen's gang, and the only female member of any Tannen's gang.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • One of the little kids in the Cafe '80s (who mocks Wild Gunman for being a game that you have to use your hands to play) is played by a very young◊ Elijah Wood, in his first film role.
  • Flea. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had a decent following by the late '80s but did not meet mainstream success until the release of their fifth album Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991, after Part II and III were released.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • All the scenes of past and present characters interacting with each other were well done, except when 1955 Biff tosses the sports almanac to 2015 Biff in his garage. Bob Gale even points out this one in the DVD commentary, and expresses regret over it. Although, most of the scenes with multiple characters played by the same actors in the same shots suffer from weird motion blur issues at times, as well as the compositing looking weird, as it can cause colors to look weird de to lighting differences which became all the more obvious when the movies were remastered and rereleased in HD years later. Part III also suffers from this in places, but it's used a lot less.
  • In a related vein, the rear-view mirror in Biff's car is missing in every scene with both Biffs sitting in the front seats. This would be easier to forgive if the rear-view mirror didn't have a critical part in the final act.
  • Pay attention to the DeLorean when it makes its alleyway landing in the future at the beginning. It switches several times to a model with MUCH less detail than the actual "hero" car. When it lands, the stunt car's rear louvers in particular are horribly Off-Model; they don't extend over the taillights like they're normally supposed to.
  • When Marty, Doc, Jennifer, and Einstein arrive in 1985A and land on the street in front of her house to drop her off, the flying version of the car is clearly a model shot on a blue screen composited into the shot of the night sky before it passes the lamppost that shows up in front of the camera and switches to the real car. It's obvious because of the bad lighting contrast on the model that makes it stick out against the night sky.
  • The "flying" stunt car used with the actors — particularly in the scenes where Doc rescues Marty from the top of Biff's tower and where Marty uses the hoverboard to jump from the DeLorean onto Biff's car — has a front DMC grille emblem that is much larger than normal and looks like it's made out of painted cardboard.
  • During the scene at the dance, due to needing to refilm shots from the first film with the new camera setup, it goes from footage of Michael J. Fox shot 4 years prior to the movie, then to footage shot when this film was shot, then back to footage from the first film. This was in an era before computers could just let them splice new footage into old shots with green screens and digital compositing easily, so the reshoots are understandable, but it wouldn't be nearly as jarring if Michael J. Fox hadn't aged as much as he did in between when the films were shot unlike most everyone else. His voice is also slightly deeper than it was in the first movie too. They try to hide this with far away wide shots, shots from behind, and reusing his audio from the first movie, but it's still noticeable since the suit looks a bit small on Fox in the new footage as opposed to a bit too big for him like in the first movie.
  • During the final struggle for the almanac, stunt dolly wheels can be seen under the DeLorean — which is in hover mode at the time — in a brief shot of Marty's feet as Marty grabs onto Biff's car.
  • In the same scene, a couple of side shots of Marty's legs on the hoverboard (as he flees from Biff in the tunnel) are poorly greenscreened, making it look like his blue jeans are acid-washed and have a glowing aura.
• Tear Dryer: Marty witnesses Doc in the DeLorean get struck by lightning and vanish, leaving him stranded in 1955. Right on cue, a man from Western Union appears with a letter for Marty from Doc informing him that he's alive and well in 1885.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: It's unfortunate that the Bobs only saw Jennifer as The Load and immediately pushed her out of the story, depriving her of potential Character Development. Though, it's possible she was minimized out of respect to Claudia Wells, Jennifer's original actress that couldn't return for the sequels.
• Values Dissonance: The movie would have you believe Marty in 2015 is a loser with a menial job living in the poor part of town. Yet despite being a loser, Marty can not only afford to live in a suburban home but raise two kids and support a wife comfortably, which is harder for the average American post-2008. Though granted, we don't see or hear much about 2015 Jennifer so maybe she works too.
• Values Resonance: 1985-A Biff is rightly depicted as a sleazy asshole for bullying and abusing Lorraine in their marriage. In the modern day, the abusive behavior of wealthy men toward women has gained greater attention with the Me Too movement.
• Vindicated by History: The film has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of the trilogy, and was highly polarizing back in the day (especially given its Cliffhanger ending immediately followed by the trailer for Part III). However, it has gradually become more popular over time, with more and more people regarding it as a great sequel. Once 2015 actually arrived, the film gained even greater appreciation by audiences. October 21, 2015 was celebrated as "Back to the Future Day", with all kinds of special events.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: As noted above, the scenes aren't perfect, but considering 1980's FX limitations, the bits with the various doubled-actors still hold up pretty well.