Five Things I Hated in "Back to the Future III"

I wanted to talk about movies finally. What I hope to focus on are movies which were flops but should have been big hits. Take today’s discussion, Back to the Future Part 3. After the enormous success of the first two this one should have been great! Then, why wasn’t it? At first I was going to do an entire plot summary but then I realized that has been done to death. If you don’t know the plot by know then how much more can I add to it? I also will be ignoring the time paradox stuff, like why Doc didn’t take the gas out of the car in the mine shaft. These paradoxes can be, and have been, discussed again and again. I want to focus on what is in the actual movie, and why I think it contributed to its failure.

#5. The opening. I still remember seeing this movie at the theatre’s and after the exciting re-cap of the ending of the 2^nd movie, we get the action and thrill---of a rainstorm. I mean, I realize they wanted to change the tone of the movies a bit but that opening was such a letdown. We see the rain as Marty gets Doc back to his house. We are treated to a pan of the house while the dullest music ever plays. I know the first movie has kind of a quiet opening, but we don’t need to establish Doc’s character this time and for me this was just a disappointment.

#4. Odd coincidences. Okay, follow me on this. After digging the time machine out of the cave, Doc sets everything up for the trip to 1885. Doc picks the location because it is wide and open, this makes sense. We get the exciting time travel sequence and then flash….Indians! Marty barely escapes the Indians and the pursuing Calvary. Marty finds a cave, and notices that the gas line was ruptured. Nothing else was damaged, just that. Then we find the cave has a bear, and running from it Marty crashes into a farm which just happens to belong to his great great grandparents. When he wakes he finds a woman who looks like his mother, even though she isn’t even a blood relative to the McFly family. This whole sequence is so contrived, even for a science fiction movie about time travel.

#3.A Western? I bet it sounded like a great idea, let’s go back to the Wild West! Sorry guys but I came to see a science fiction movie. In the first movie I didn’t go to see a period movie on the 50’s. The time period is all for the background, we don’t dwell on the fact that it’s the 50’s, it just is. Sure they throw in a few jokes but the plot is not central to the time frame, the characters are. This movie dwells on the fact that it’s the Wild West. We see gunfights, hangings, and everything. I think this is why so many didn’t like this movie. The characters are all western cliche's and we don't care about them. Ever notice how Doc and Marty figure out how to get home, but conveniently have to wait a few days. The movie is then put on hold so we can get a square dance and a gun fight. Then the movie resumes. In the first film the reason they had to wait a week made sense; here it’s obviously just to drag the love story out.

#2. That ending. I mean the very ending, with the train and all that. I mean, talk about beating a horse to death. We had accepted that Doc and Clara had survived and were going to live out there days in the past. I may have disagreed with it, but whatever. They establish everything is back to normal, and even resolve that whole thing with Marty and the Rolls Royce. It seems like everything has been tied up nicely. Then what happens? Doc suddenly blows into town with a freight train. So much for no one seeing the time machine, how could no one have noticed that? And how in the world did he make this train? It works on steam, how? The worst part is when Doc gives Marty the photo and tosses in that line about our futures aren’t written yet, and blah blah. It was a silly ending so corny and over the top which rather than tying up the story just leaves it wide open.

#1. The plot. First of all, I totally disagreed with making Doc the focus on this one. These movies were about Marty, and Doc was just the words of wisdom that provided exposition and moved the story along. I mean, imagine if the focus of “Return of the Jedi” had been on C3PO and R2D2, while suddenly the others became minor characters. Sounds crazy, but that’s what happens here. We see Marty sleeping not once, but twice. Then to make matters worse, at the end when he gets back to 1985 the movie does a 180 and resumes his story! All of a sudden it is about him again. The worst part of all of this is that boring love story. Not putting down the actors, they were fine; I just don’t care if Doc falls in love. Remember in the first movie, we see Jennifer for about ten minutes. They establish Marty has a girlfriend, and then she doesn’t show up till the end. She’s almost forgotten about, so the argument that Marty had the love story in part 1 so this time its Doc’s turn is crazy. What should have happened is they changed time by saving Clara and had to figure out how to go back and set things right because, just like the first film, saving Clara would have the same unforeseen consequences that happened when Marty saved George from getting hit by the car. This drove the plot of the first movie, here it is mentioned then quickly forgotten. Doc loves her so screw the time line. (By the way Marty, it is a big deal if Clara survived that could radically alter history and the way Doc doesn’t care about how his actions may change the future is preposterous! As Marty reminds him, he's a scientist!).  Rather than pursue that angle, which would have been much more entertaining, they do this boring love story. They should have gone “City on the Edge of Forever” with this, it would have added suspense to the romantic crap and then we could have had Doc return with Marty to destroy the time machine after Doc had realized all the potential damage he almost caused. Oh, and that B story about Marty getting into the gunfight was lame and ended very predictably especially if you saw part 2.

The only thing to match the other two films was that train sequence, when they finally get to it. I usually watch this movie with a fast forward button. The movie is much better that way. I loved the first two movies; in fact Back to the Future is my all time favorite movie ever, which is why this was such a letdown. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie, in fact if you want to see a western I’d say this is a decent one. As a science fiction/time travel movie? Sorry, it’s just not what I was hoping for. Thanks for reading this, I think I’ll go watch the first Back to the Future for the 100^th time.