The official BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY discussion thread

Well, Palpateen, you make some good points there. Spike Lee has made some great films, though: "Malcolm X", "Do the Right Thing", "Clockers", "He Got Game", "4 Little Girls", "Get on the Bus", etc. However, Spike's last film was the dreadful "She Hate Me". What film preceeded that one? The even worse "Bamboozled". Let's just hope that his next film is above par.

"Back to the Future" is a fantasy. Zemeckis deliberately toys with the audience by manipulating pop culture references and by placing them in an unexpected context, a strategy which forms the basis for much of the humor in the film. I think people know that Marty McFly didn't teach Chuck Berry rock and roll. As I mentioned earlier, the fact that we know this adds to the level of amusement that Zemeckis is able to mine from the scene. That Michael J. Fox is white has nothing to do with it. People tend to bring their own issues to films, and project them onto whatever they see on the screen (Hmmmmm.......I think there might be a few people around these boards who do a very similar thing.....). That isn't always a good manner in which to approach things.

It sounds to me that Spike is talking about Marty (a white boy) changing history & he himself creating rock & roll, when in fact it was a black man. I've heard people call it racist before...

You are correct, Bad_Feeling. But I am much more curious as to your position on the matter. As I have suggested before, I think that the film is a fantasy, and it uses the Marty McFly - Chuck Berry issue as the means to pay off a joke. What do you think?

Back To The Future = ONE OF THE BEST TRILOGIES EVER

Thats an understatement.

Always have wondered,
Were they ever planning on giving Doc' his own series?

Nothing to add discussion-wise. Just a statement that Back to the Future is a beautifully put together trilogy that's gloriously OTT and has so many self-references it's truly mind-boggling.

Only part 3 is slightly disappointing because I just don't like old west films anyway.

Oh and it's a lot funnier than many, MANY so called comedies of current day!

Regarding the racism angle - I think it's very confusing because technically Marty learnt his stuff from Chuck Berry and never even realised he himself had inspired Berry in the first place.

It's a classically confusing chicken and egg problem.

I think there was certainly no intentional racism intended and it is after all just a nice pay-off.

I think the point that clinches it is that Marty hasn't got this original music in his head - he's just repeating what Berry invented. Also, until that moment in the movie I suspect that as Marty hadn't interfered with his mum and dad's future he probably hadn't interfered with Chuck Berry's either and Chuck probably came up with the music himself.

I'm confusing myself...

In case some of you haven't seen this before, here is a site dedicated to showing the filming locations of the various locales of BTTF: http://www.bigwaste.com/bttf/