Back to the Future
40th Anniversary Collection
review by Bobby Blakey
In 1985 Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg teamed up for a film that had no business working with Back to the Future starring Michael J. Fox. The film was so successful it spawned a trilogy of films that have become beloved for the last 40 years. To celebrate its anniversary Universal is bringing all of them together in one brand new 4K collection like never before.
​Back to the Future follows Marty McFly, a small-town California teenager who is accidentally transported back to 1955 in a plutonium-powered DeLorean invented by his eccentric friend, Doc Brown. Stranded in the past, Marty must ensure his teenage parents fall in love or risk erasing his own existence. With time running out, he teams up with a younger Doc in a last-ditch effort to harness a bolt of lightning and return to 1985.
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The film continues to deliver and still holds up as one of if not the best time travel comedies of all time. The story, comedy, music and
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everything in between is classic and holds up to perfection. It doesn’t feel dated as it fully embraces the time periods its in and manages to keep you entertaining from beginning to end in a tight run time. To this day the scenes with McFly laughing at the TV with his insane style still crack me up every time. Like most I love this flick, and it never gets old.
The 1989 sequel Back to the Future Part II follows Marty McFly who has only just gotten back from the past, when he is once again picked up by Dr. Emmett Brown and sent through time to the future. Marty's job in the future is to pose as his own son to prevent him from being thrown in prison. Unfortunately, things get worse when the future changes the present.
As much as I love the original, I think this second entry is my favorite. The peek into the future and the creative way they crafted the story to do the same thing again in a completely different way just made for more fun. It’s direct segway into this film made for something we never saw before, and the use of the same cast is genius. Always bummed that the always fantastic Crispin Glover was screwed over and replaced in the sequels as it would have made this one all the better. While I dug Claudia Wells as Jennifer, Elizabeth Shue stepped in and did a great job as well.
Getting to see all these characters play yet more versions of themselves just added to the lore and fun. The iconic hover boards, hilarious fake sequel promotions and technology brings freshness to a film that is
essentially the same as the original yet feels like something new. Even going back to 1955 once again and overlapping the original film takes it to new levels and could have easily gone horribly wrong, but meshes together to perfection. I remember being blown away by getting to see the teaser for the next chapter in theaters like it was telling us the future that we didn't usually get further adding to its greatness and excitement for more.
In the final entry in 1990, Back to the Future Part III, stranded in 1955, Marty McFly learns about the death of Doc Brown in 1885 and must travel back in time to save him. With no fuel readily available for the DeLorean, the two must figure out how to escape the Old West before Emmett is murdered.
I know this final chapter isn’t as popular as the first two films and while not as good as them I still think it delivers. Of them all this only used the previous films to bookend it with it getting to the west and getting back with the old west setting making a whole new adventure. At the same time bringing back all the cast once again for their descendants is silly but a perfect use of the timeline and just as much fun.
The transition through time through the billboard of the old west right into a stampede is my favorite of the series. Throughout the series they re-enact numerous sequences in different ways with the most accurate being when Marty gets knocked out and wakes up to a version of his
mother. The film does feel out of place from the other films in some ways but dealing with time travel it should, and I still enjoy it quite a bit.
I think the Biff character shines the most this time around as an outlaw and getting to see the teased version in the previous film felt like a great payoff. Sure, it’s still pretty much the same guy and unlikable, but he just fits this time better. I also loved the recreation of the town and all the same ideals and people harkening back to every version in some way. Even the clock tower makes an appearance getting its own story of origin as well. It’s a fun and worthy finale to a nearly perfect trilogy that not only brings something fresh and fun to wrap it up but even a new time machine to take it to a new level.
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The Back to the Future Trilogy – 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Gift Set, featuring all three films in 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital, packaged with a collectible Flux Capacitor SteelBook, an exclusive Gibson Mini Guitar replica, an OUTATIME metal license plate, a Back to the Future: A Visual History booklet, and an assortment of replica items from the Universal archives.
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Fans can also collect individual Steelbooks for each film or pick up the Back to the Future 40th Anniversary Trilogy in 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital, perfect for commemorating four decades of time-traveling adventure.
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