Great Scene: “Back to the Future”

Where Marty meets his father for the first time… in the past!

I have a confession to make. On the day of our wedding, Rebecca and I traveled up the coast to spend the night in Santa Barbara. We had a wonderful meal on State Street, then as we took a walk, I looked up to see the sign at the venerable Arlington Theater. The movie that was playing: Back to the Future. It had been released three weeks earlier and normally I would have gone to see it that opening weekend, however, both Rebecca and I had been super busy working and prepping for the wedding, so I had yet to see the film.

We slow to a stop in front of the theater. I look at her: Please. She looks at me: Seriously… on our honeymoon night?

“Sure, why not,” she says.

And that’s when I first saw Back to the Future.

Rebecca and I will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary this July.

Story setup: Marty McFly finds himself transported 30 years back in time. He stops into a diner to get something to drink when a group of guys enters…

The movie version of the scene:

Background:

• The inspiration for the film largely stems from Bob Gale discovering his father’s high school yearbook and wondering whether he would have been friends with his father as a teenager. Gale also said that if he had the chance to go back in time he would really go back and see if they would have been friends.
• In the original script, Doc Brown and Marty sell bootleg videos in order to fund the time machine.
• In the first scene at the diner, Marty asks for a Pepsi Free. This refers to a brand of Pepsi that was the company’s first caffeine free cola. Ironically, in the same scene, Marty asks for a Tab, which was actually a diet cola brand produced by Pepsi’s rival Coca-Cola.
• The script was rejected 40 times before it was finally green-lit.

There a number of great scenes in Back to the Future, but this one stands out because of the way it handles several subplots:

• Marty and George (Crispin Glover): This is where Marty is ‘introduced’ to his father.
• Marty and Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson): This is where Marty first ‘meets’ his uncle Biff.
• George and Biff: We see how the bullying dynamic between the pair as evidenced in 1985 has its roots in 1955.
• Goldie Wilson (Donald Fullilove): When Marty blurts out, “You’re going to be mayor,” that sets into motion this character’s eventual election to city-wide office. This also sets into motion the dynamic that what Marty says and does in 1955 will have an impact on the future.

It’s a testament to the writers that they managed to handle all of these subplots intersecting in this one scene and do so seamlessly. It is a skill manifest in multiple scenes as Back to the Future is perhaps the single best example of how to use subplots to great effect.

To read all of the entries in the Great Scene archive, go here.

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