We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (23 page)

“We knew we were doing a risky ending, but that’s what we signed on for,” Robert Zemeckis says. For the director, the lackluster critical response was all par for the course. Although he willingly signed on for two
Future
follow-ups, Bob Z had, and has, a generally distasteful opinion of sequels. Of the fifteen movies he’s directed as of 2015, with the exception of the sequels in question,
Back to the Future
remains the only one of his films that he has revisited. The less-than-stellar response the picture received in the days following its theatrical release didn’t rattle his confidence and, in fact, was probably better than he had expected. “I didn’t pay any attention to the reviews. First of all, I was still making
Back to the Future Part III
when it came out, so I didn’t have a lot of time to even pay attention. A sequel to a gigantic title like that movie is totally critic-proof, and the critics know it, so you knew they were going to shit all over the movie. They hate sequels, yet we keep making them.

“I hate ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all sequels,” he continues. “I just don’t like them, so I’m like every other normal critic. I don’t want to keep going back and seeing the same thing
over and over again. I have no interest in that at all, and I don’t really understand the sort of coin of the realm that we have with them in the movie business now. It’s like watching somebody else play a video game. There’s no emotional investment; you just watch a bunch of shit happening, you know? The two best movie sequels are
The
Godfather I
and
II
and the
Back to the Future
trilogy, because they really continued the story rather than just going back and doing the same story and same gags all over. We tried really hard to deliver that premise.”

A lot of the criticism of
Part II
stemmed from the Biffhorrific sequences, which many critics found to be too much of a departure from the first film. While Marty and Doc remain central to the story, a lot of the action hinges on the actions of Biff, with the stealing of the sports almanac, the altering of the original timeline, and the final battle for the book in the last act of the movie. Tom Wilson’s role in the sequel was dramatically increased, which perhaps set up an inescapably darker tone. “When I look back now, the second parts of a lot of our trilogies have been the dark side,” Frank Marshall says, referring not only to the
Back to the Future
films, but also the 1981–1989
Indiana Jones
, 1993–2001
Jurassic Park
, and 2002–2012
Bourne Supremacy
trilogies. “Even George Lucas said that about
The Empire Strikes Back
. The second movie is the hardest because you’re setting up the third and it’s in the middle. It seems like the critics aren’t happy with that.”

“Maybe it was dark, but I thought it was great because they were determined by the time,” Lea Thompson says. “
Back to the Future
was kind of celebrating the fifties as being an innocent time, but Biffhorrific was not innocent. I love
Back to the Future Part II
.”

“The success of the original put more creative pressure on us, there’s no question,” Bob Gale says. “
Part I
had been an unknown quantity when it was released. No one had any preconceived
notions about it, so it took the audience by surprise. In creating sequels for a movie that was such a huge hit, we had to constantly think about the expectations of the audience. We had set a tremendously high bar for ourselves, and even we knew we could never surpass it.”

Despite the mixed reaction,
Back to the Future Part II
was still applauded within the industry both overseas and stateside, although the response was more measured. Ken Ralston, Michael Lantieri, John Bell, and Steve Gawley were nominated for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards, and the team won in the same category at the BAFTAs in the United Kingdom. Michael J. Fox and Lea Thompson both took home prizes at Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards for their performances, a testament to the movie’s impact with those not old enough to enter Biff Tannen’s Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel in 1985-A.

As the awards season rolled by, Zemeckis and company readied
Part III
for its theatrical release. The preceding year was a tornado of preproduction and long shooting days, ambitious camerawork, and the occasional misstep. Filming the two sequels back-to-back was a smart decision fiscally and creatively, and although
Part II
was not as well received as its predecessor, its strong box office performance further vindicated the idea to split the original long script into two. With the final installment just months away from hitting theaters, Zemeckis and company hoped that the public would show up to see them strive to reach the bar they had set for themselves for the conclusion of the
Back to the Future
trilogy.

Thursday, May 24, 1990

T
he crowd outside the Cinerama Dome Theatre on Sunset Boulevard had grown considerably since 2:00
A
.
M
.
Several dozen people had skipped work, or cut classes, and forgone sleep during the twilight hours to be among the first in the world to see Robert Zemeckis’s last installment in the
Back to the Future
saga. Some were dressed as Marty McFly and Doc Brown, long before cosplay became en vogue. An hour or so before the morning rush, Bob Gale arrived at the movie house, surprised to see people already lined up. He turned back around, and returned a few minutes later with coffee and donuts—enough for all who had been waiting. The fans appreciated the gesture, but it was clear that the producer appreciated them more.

The group that had assembled marked a nice beginning to the end of a long week, and an even longer five-year odyssey. That Monday, the cast and crew had assembled for the world premiere of
Part III
, which was held at the Cineplex Odeon in Los Angeles. It was a star-studded event, with celebrities like
Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Matthew Perry, and Sally Field in attendance. Several women wore brown suede or leather boots, and the men skipped their silk neckties. Not to be outdone in terms of fashion or statement-making, Steven Spielberg wore a light blue button-down shirt with a maroon Aztec sweater with an array of colors woven into the design. He wore a silver necklace with a large piece of turquoise and, topping off his getup, a yellow wide-brimmed hat and black reflective sunglasses. This was not your typical red carpet event, and all in attendance seemed grateful for a little change of pace.

To generate an added bit of publicity, Universal organized “Back-to-Back-to-Back” marathons in nineteen cities across the United States and Canada on the eve of
Back to the Future Part III
’s official theatrical release date. The results were just what the studio had hoped for and, perhaps, even better than the Bobs had expected. In New York City, outside the Cineplex Odeon National, the line stretched over a block from Broadway to Forty-Third Street. In Los Angeles, more than a hundred more patrons had joined the group that Gale had brought refreshments to, waiting six hours before the screenings were to begin. A DeLorean was parked outside, and musicians who looked like ZZ Top, the band that provided music for this installment of the series, were playing “Doubleback,”
Part III
’s answer to “The Power of Love.” A woman on horseback was doing rope tricks near a juggler passing pie tins from hand to hand. As the start time neared, the rodeo circus reached a fever pitch when Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, and Neil Canton arrived. Their congregation greeted them with rapturous cheers, not knowing that the three unexpected guests had one more surprise in store. They pulled out white T-shirts with the
Back to the Future
logo outlined in red. Underneath, the Roman numeral
IV
was printed within a large
circle with a downward diagonal line splitting its diameter. If a silkscreen top can say a thousand words, three of them must have spoken volumes.
It has been fun, but just in case you crazy kids are wondering, the ride is over
.

The director and his producers were hoping for the best, and the attendance at the trilogy screenings firmed their backbones a bit, but they always knew
Back to the Future Part III
was going to be the hardest sell of the three. The second film in the trilogy was released just six months earlier, and while many fans of the franchise loved it, the picture failed to garner the sort of widespread support and success of the first. The box office receipts for the sequel were strong—$118 million domestically, nearly $332 million worldwide—but significantly lower than the original’s mammoth success. Internally, there was some concern that some audience members might not show up for round three. Putting a teaser at the end of the second movie was a smart idea, and piqued the interest of die-hard fans, but it also revealed an inescapable problem in terms of marketability to the masses. The final film was a western, and by and large, moviegoing audiences in 1990 did not kick off their summer by watching cowboys and Indians on the big screen. The Bobs had faith in their story and Bob Gale’s screenplay, but as they were reminded by the tepid critical response to
Part II
, there are no guarantees in Hollywood.

The process of bringing the last chapter to the screen was a marked difference from the preceding adventures. Unlike
Part II
, where a significant number of the shots were technically demanding and the high potential for continuity errors kept Arthur Schmidt and Harry Keramidas on their toes, the last film was simpler. There were no flying cars and far fewer hoverboard sequences, and no scenes from the previous films to re-create.
There were still technical challenges, complicated camera shots, and long nights, but compared to the precedent set on the first two films, making this
Back to the Future
was a vacation.

While some of the third picture was shot at Universal,
Three
was mostly a location shoot. The exterior of Doc’s 1955 mansion was filmed at the Gamble House in Pasadena, while the sequence with Marty and Doc at the drive-in movie theater was shot in Monument Valley, home base for many John Ford/John Wayne films. However, most of the picture saw Zemeckis and company taking their show on the road to Sonora, more than three hundred miles northwest of the comfortable confines of the Universal backlot. The town is not only a beautifully versatile blank canvas for filmmakers to use, but it is also a well-tested piece of real estate. By the time the DeLorean rolled its wheels across the terrain, hundreds of movies and television series had been shot in the town, including
Bonanza
and
The Lone Ranger
.

The beginning of making the film provided the most stress for the filmmakers. When production on
Three
started, Arthur Schmidt and Harry Keramidas split up so they could divide and conquer, as both sequels were being cut simultaneously. Initially they both went to Sonora, where Zemeckis was working with them on the final edit of what was now being referred to as
Back to the Future Part II
, but the director’s focus was sporadic. He was shooting during the day and during nights and weekends was sitting in with his two editors. It was great to have his collaborators on site with him, but Zemeckis’s head wasn’t completely in the game, and he knew it. The editors did too, but there was nothing that could be done. Once again, they were racing against the clock toward not only one release date, but now two.

After a while, Artie left for Los Angeles, to assist with the sound dub recording of
Part II
, while Harry stayed behind in
Northern California to continue piecing together
Part III
’s climax, an elaborate and lengthy sequence that took place on an antique steam locomotive and was shot over the course of several weeks. Things might have been rough on the director beforehand, but they were about to get significantly more challenging. With
Family Ties
’ run concluded, Michael J. Fox reveled in his ability to play an eighties kid-turned-cowpoke without having to spend his days as Alex P. Keaton. Now it was Zemeckis’s turn to make the long commute, and this time the transportation was even more intricate than being chauffeured around in a station wagon. For a three-week period, as Bob Z was shooting the climactic train sequence by day, Bob G stayed in Los Angeles to supervise the dub of
Part II
. After the business on the rail line wrapped for the day, the director would take a private plane south, where a driver would meet him at the airport in Burbank and take him to the dubbing stage at the Hitchcock Theatre at Universal. Zemeckis would eat dinner there, review the footage that had been worked on that day, and make notes. He’d turn in at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, get dropped off at the Burbank airport in the morning, return to the Old West, lather, rinse, and repeat. Several weeks later, back in San Jose, the test screenings for
Part II
started. More edits were required before the film was locked, and all the while, work on
Three
continued.

When
Part II
failed to connect with some viewers, Zemeckis wasn’t completely surprised. It was a different film—a darker film—but, also, a less refined one. “When I say it suffers from editing, I don’t mean that it should have been shorter or should have been longer,” Zemeckis says. “I just didn’t have enough time to sit with my film. The editing process is really delicate, and it’s different for every film. If you have too much time to edit, you can start to be self-destructive, but if you don’t
have enough time, you maybe don’t get the rhythms just right. You don’t have enough time to let it gestate, which is what it needs, but if you’ve got too much time on your hands, you can start to think about things you shouldn’t worry about. I just felt I didn’t have enough time, which doesn’t mean that I should have cut more stuff out. It might have been that I should have let more things breathe. I just didn’t have that time to do that final little polish because we were too busy in the middle of making this other gigantic movie.”

“It was an extremely difficult time, and it was very difficult for Bob creatively,” Arthur Schmidt says. “It was extremely demanding on him. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why
Back to the Future Part II
suffered a bit. He just didn’t have the time that he usually has, and likes to have, to devote to the postproduction and editing of his film. I’ve had a chance to sit back and look at it more objectively and say, ‘Oh, I wish I had more time because I would have done this. I would have changed that. I would have brightened it up here.’”

While hindsight has since kicked in, there was little time for reflection on the second film while the third was in motion. For several of the actors, the experience of making
Part III
was one of the highlights of making the trilogy. Many welcomed the change of scenery, and being among the dirt and the mountains. Sure, the Sonora shoot had the occasional discomforts—the morning call time was 6:00
A
.
M
.
, when the temperature was often hovering around twelve degrees—but the cast and crew did manage to have a lot of fun. “Over a period of time, we really developed the town into almost a resort for the crew,” Dean Cundey says. “We began to develop little areas behind the set for different kinds of interests and activities. Some of the drivers built a little pitch-and-putt driving range for golf. There were three or four of us
who were interested in old firearms, myself being one of them, and we built a nice little shooting range off to one side. There was a horseshoe pit. Hidden behind this set that appeared to be out in the middle of nowhere was what we called ‘Cup BTTF,’ our playground where everybody would relax. We had a great caterer, but everybody would rush through their meal so that they could get off to spend the rest of their lunch hour in their favorite activity. And at the end of it, we were all delighted to go back to work. We all came back revived. Everybody remembers that production on location fondly as being a great experience. It was not only the fun of making a film, but just the fun of being there, the camaraderie, and the fact that you spend your entire time having a really rewarding experience.”

Without the rigors of having to race to and from the
Family Ties
set, Michael J. Fox was able to kick back and enjoy being a movie star. He joked that Zemeckis enjoyed coming up with new ways to abuse him during the making of the
Back to the Future
films—skateboard stunts on the first film, hanging from a harness while filming the hoverboard sequences on the second, walking atop a moving train on the third—but the actor enjoyed the challenge. He couldn’t help but feel impressed with himself when he found out that at one point he traveled at thirty-five miles per hour while on horseback, something he never expected to do when he was a young kid growing up in Canada.

Meanwhile, Christopher Lloyd was able to bask in the spotlight as one half of the romantic focal point in the film, the other half being Mary Steenburgen, who was cast as Clara Clayton, Doc’s love interest. Playing Doc had become almost second nature to the actor by this point, but he relished the opportunity to explore a new side of the wide-eyed scientist. “I could relate to the desire to have a romantic experience, but Doc had never
even thought about it,” he says. “He was so involved and obsessed with his various projects—time travel and all the rest of his little things that he was constantly involved in. I don’t think it was on his agenda. It wasn’t until he rescues Clara and their eyes meet, then suddenly the whole world changes. I just thought, what a wonderful situation for the guy to be in. He is totally smitten. He does not know how to handle it, but it has taken control and he has discovered himself, in a sense.”

Working with Mary Steenburgen was an added benefit for the actor. The two had worked together before in her screen debut, the 1978 film
Goin’ South
, which was written and directed by Jack Nicholson. Lloyd couldn’t have been happier to have another opportunity to spend time with the actress both on- and off-screen. “I confess to having been infatuated with her, and I think it was mutual,” he says. “We never got involved at all in any kind of relationship, other than being on the set and enjoying each other’s company. We had fun, and that chemistry was already there. I was delighted to hear she was going to play in the film, she was delighted to be there, and we continued to have this wonderful experience for the sake of Clara and Doc.” Working with Steenburgen on
III
also marked a milestone in Lloyd’s career: The actor had been in nearly three dozen films and close to a hundred episodes of television series, including the memorable role of Reverend Jim Ignatowski on
Taxi
, yet the actor had never kissed on-screen. Christopher Lloyd and Mary Steenburgen may have kept their real-life relationship strictly platonic, but Doc and Clara were able to share one sweet moment of family-friendly physical romance under the stars.