Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Back to the Future Part III (1990) - Robert Zemeckis | Houselights #245

Transcript

Back to the Future Part III (1990) - Robert Zemeckis | Houselights #245 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to the net party. Hello everybody at home, and
0:22
Speaker 1: welcome to Houselights. Today. We're saddling up for Back to
0:25
Speaker 1: the Future Part three, the film that trades hoverboards for horses,
0:28
Speaker 1: Deloreans for steam locomotives, and the male parking lot for
0:32
Speaker 1: the Old West. It's our kickoff to a new retrospective
0:35
Speaker 1: looking at Robert Zemechis in the nineteen nineties, a decade
0:38
Speaker 1: where he wrangled cowboys, desert Island, FedEx packages, and death itself.
0:43
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tristan Riddell, and with me tonight is
0:46
Speaker 1: a loud, unpredictable, drooling gunfighter who is looking for an
0:49
Speaker 1: excuse to shoot at your feet. John Mills. Yes, also
0:54
Speaker 1: is our own mad scientist who is one train model
0:57
Speaker 1: away from slapping train wheel on his own mini van,
1:01
Speaker 1: Darren Moser. So grab your stets and polish your flux
1:04
Speaker 1: capacitor and let's all feel the power of enough.
1:09
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, all right. I love that intro, especially because
1:13
Speaker 2: you cast right. That was very good casting.
1:16
Speaker 1: This felt right. This kind of casting felt right.
1:19
Speaker 2: It's natural. You just knew when people walked in who
1:21
Speaker 2: they were going to play tonight.
1:22
Speaker 3: I would just finished the model if I hadn't had
1:24
Speaker 3: to spend so much time on my iced team machine.
1:27
Speaker 4: Okay, it took a lot of time.
1:30
Speaker 1: Guys thought the ice cube was dirty, like it was
1:33
Speaker 1: the same.
1:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, you know what. I don't know if
1:38
Speaker 3: that could exist back then with the technology.
1:41
Speaker 4: But I believe it.
1:42
Speaker 1: I feel like if John was hosting, he would have
1:44
Speaker 1: cast me either as Shamus McFly or the mortician.
1:49
Speaker 5: M No, you would have been the baby hurtful, it's
1:53
Speaker 5: not hurtful at all.
1:54
Speaker 3: Would have made you. You're the cutest character strictly ancestor.
2:00
Speaker 1: I like that one.
2:01
Speaker 5: I like it.
2:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, discipline, that's yeah, Okay, I could see that.
2:05
Speaker 1: I'm super excited. I'm I'm glad that I got to
2:08
Speaker 1: host this week because this is I'm going to outright
2:12
Speaker 1: and say this is my favorite back to the future
2:14
Speaker 1: of film. I love this one.
2:16
Speaker 4: Yeah.
2:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, it goes three to one. That's always
2:19
Speaker 1: been my ranking, ever since the nineties, ever since I
2:22
Speaker 1: watched these it's the one. I've seen this one more
2:26
Speaker 1: than any of them. Okay, I've rewatched this one a lot.
2:29
Speaker 1: I really really enjoyed. Is it perfect?
2:32
Speaker 3: No?
2:32
Speaker 1: Are there things that I don't like about it? Absolutely,
2:34
Speaker 1: But it's my favorite one of the three. And this
2:37
Speaker 1: will be kind of hard not to talk about the
2:39
Speaker 1: trilogy as a whole. Now, obviously we'll be focusing on
2:42
Speaker 1: part three, but Part two and part one is going
2:44
Speaker 1: to sneak in here and there. And John, did you
2:49
Speaker 1: see this in theaters?
2:50
Speaker 2: You know, it's been so long that I think I
2:53
Speaker 2: might not have, because nineteen ninety, if memory serves no
2:57
Speaker 2: pun intended, was the summer of Total Recall?
2:59
Speaker 5: Was it?
3:00
Speaker 2: So I think I might have watched Total Recall a
3:02
Speaker 2: ton of times. I know I saw that at least
3:05
Speaker 2: twice in the movie theater, which adult John looks back
3:09
Speaker 2: on in regrets, because boy was set some wasted money.
3:13
Speaker 2: But I was easier to impress back then. But you know,
3:16
Speaker 2: so I don't remember exactly when I saw it for
3:18
Speaker 2: the first time. I know that I'm coming at it
3:21
Speaker 2: from a different angle than you are. I'm glad that
3:24
Speaker 2: you're putting out there that it's your favorite one, because
3:26
Speaker 2: I'm really gonna want to dig at that because the
3:30
Speaker 2: entire time that I've had the Back to the Future
3:33
Speaker 2: trilogy in my life, my rankings have basically flipped between
3:37
Speaker 2: two and one in the number one spot for me.
3:40
Speaker 2: I've always been one of those that loved Part two.
3:43
Speaker 2: I just thought it was so so crazy, over the top,
3:47
Speaker 2: unrestrained that I just always plugged into that, and at
3:50
Speaker 2: the end of it, I couldn't wait for the next one,
3:53
Speaker 2: and I always considered Part three. I'm going to borrow
3:56
Speaker 2: Darren's term here, but it was in my head before.
3:59
Speaker 4: It's like a like.
4:01
Speaker 2: I have often used the Back to the Future trilogy
4:04
Speaker 2: as an argument against simultaneously filming sequels, and we can
4:08
Speaker 2: get into that later, but that's sort of my relationship
4:11
Speaker 2: with it.
4:12
Speaker 5: Darren. What about you.
4:13
Speaker 3: Oh, you're gonna take my own words, So we're going
4:15
Speaker 3: to get into it right now. John Mills nods.
4:19
Speaker 1: Before we started recording.
4:22
Speaker 4: Private moments before the record.
4:24
Speaker 2: But nobody said it was off the record. Nobody said
4:27
Speaker 2: it was off the record.
4:28
Speaker 3: The recording is the record, John, It was literally off
4:31
Speaker 3: the record.
4:31
Speaker 5: No, okay.
4:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.
4:33
Speaker 3: I had mentioned that there are times when this third
4:36
Speaker 3: movie does feel like a coda, especially since I think
4:41
Speaker 3: we can all say on a technical level of storytelling,
4:45
Speaker 3: as far as the time travel miss it peaks at two,
4:50
Speaker 3: they're literally revisiting the first movie, the first events, intercutting
4:55
Speaker 3: with the movie, which I mean, if you're watching them
4:57
Speaker 3: all together, that we literally just saw. Whereas this movie,
5:01
Speaker 3: yes you have time travel, but you're spending ninety percent
5:04
Speaker 3: of your time in the Old West and then you
5:07
Speaker 3: jump back. So it's much more taking a page from
5:12
Speaker 3: the first movie, where you're not hop skipping and jumping.
5:15
Speaker 3: You have your problem, you know, you have your issues
5:19
Speaker 3: and you have to and you have a picture that
5:22
Speaker 3: keeps fading, so very much like the first movie coming
5:26
Speaker 3: full circle, but in other ways it it's a very
5:30
Speaker 3: different film. We're spending a lot more time with Doc
5:34
Speaker 3: where I mean, it really makes you look back at
5:37
Speaker 3: the time we spend with him in the other two
5:39
Speaker 3: movies is a fraction, whereas this he gets I would
5:43
Speaker 3: almost say top billing. And in as far as the
5:46
Speaker 3: main plot goes so jumbling a bit as I try
5:50
Speaker 3: to remember where I bury the Dolorean, But yes, I
5:54
Speaker 3: would say that this movie it was also made with
5:58
Speaker 3: the intention of being the finale of the story. It
6:01
Speaker 3: says the end at the end, and I think it,
6:05
Speaker 3: which I don't think is a bad thing.
6:07
Speaker 2: So well, I think actually just to mitigate maybe some
6:12
Speaker 2: of the vibe from what I was saying initially. The
6:14
Speaker 2: thing I do respect is that they said, this is it.
6:19
Speaker 2: Everybody knows Gale and Zamechis have it in the contract.
6:22
Speaker 2: You can't do it without us. There's no part for
6:24
Speaker 2: there's no reboot, there's no nothing without our agreement to it. Now,
6:29
Speaker 2: when they finally shuffle off this mortal coil, I'm sure
6:32
Speaker 2: that Universal Studios will have a few different thoughts about that,
6:35
Speaker 2: but for the time being, that's it. So I do
6:38
Speaker 2: respect that this does very much approach as the ending
6:43
Speaker 2: of the story. There's no continuation vibe at the end
6:47
Speaker 2: of this. You know, yes, Doc goes off, but it's
6:50
Speaker 2: it's very clear we're not concerned with these adventures anymore.
6:55
Speaker 2: This is it cartoon series a few years later, notwithstanding,
7:00
Speaker 2: and the who was going.
7:02
Speaker 1: To bring up? Oh yeah the cartoon. Yeah.
7:06
Speaker 2: I to this day I desperately wish I could have
7:08
Speaker 2: ever ridden the ride at Universal Studios. I'm very familiar
7:13
Speaker 2: with the Simpsons ride, and I very much while I'm
7:16
Speaker 2: riding it, I'm sitting there trying to imagine. I'm like, okay,
7:19
Speaker 2: where where would this have been?
7:22
Speaker 3: Where he stood basically right now? Yeah, Now, the ride
7:25
Speaker 3: was a lot of fun, I remember writing it a
7:28
Speaker 3: couple times in Universal Studios, Hollywood, and I wouldn't go
7:32
Speaker 3: far as to say it's part four, but it definitely,
7:35
Speaker 3: you know, works with what's been established and and it's
7:39
Speaker 3: a lot of fun for you know, eight or ten
7:41
Speaker 3: or however many minutes long it is. It was a
7:44
Speaker 3: really good ride.
7:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, the I you know, actually, i'll put the I'll
7:49
Speaker 2: put the question out like, do you think the fact
7:52
Speaker 2: that they managed to stay true to their word and
7:54
Speaker 2: not do a number four has helped cement this series,
7:58
Speaker 2: like built its steel and kept it legendary that it
8:02
Speaker 2: never got franchised later? Has that helped it grow in
8:07
Speaker 2: esteem over time? Because we know that there are only three?
8:10
Speaker 1: I think so. I think it's one of those things
8:12
Speaker 1: where they didn't, you know, beat a dead horse. I
8:15
Speaker 1: think that always goes a long way because there's I mean,
8:19
Speaker 1: I I guess it's it's hard because I mean it's
8:23
Speaker 1: different animals. Like if you look at Star Wars a
8:25
Speaker 1: Star Trek, there's good, there's bad, there's ups, there's down.
8:29
Speaker 1: But with Back to the Future, it's just this nice
8:32
Speaker 1: package of three. You know, they're all enjoyable. Some have
8:36
Speaker 1: their favorites, some you know, like some like more than others,
8:39
Speaker 1: but you can't call any of them a bad movie,
8:42
Speaker 1: like true, very true. Like with me, Like even though
8:46
Speaker 1: the like the first one is my least favorite, it
8:48
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I don't like it. It doesn't mean it's
8:50
Speaker 1: not a good film. It's just my least favorite. It's
8:53
Speaker 1: kind of like the Dark Knight Trilogy or Cheese. I'm
8:57
Speaker 1: blanking on other trilogies, but it's you know, I know
9:01
Speaker 1: this is a this is a stretch for some. But
9:03
Speaker 1: like The Godfather trily.
9:04
Speaker 5: I like the third one.
9:05
Speaker 4: That's just me fine.
9:06
Speaker 2: I like the recut. I like the Godfather coda. Okay,
9:10
Speaker 2: the recut I think is great.
9:11
Speaker 1: But the but think about think about the Alien franchise.
9:16
Speaker 1: I think that might be a good comparable cop.
9:20
Speaker 3: Well, you have a steep drop off in the third,
9:23
Speaker 3: like that's usually what happens.
9:25
Speaker 2: I'd argue the first deep drop office in the second.
9:28
Speaker 2: But that's just me, you know.
9:31
Speaker 1: Okay, let's let's talk about Zamecca's a little bit before
9:34
Speaker 1: we get too deep into the woods. Because this is
9:37
Speaker 1: a director of focused podcast. We're talking about Robert Zemecaz
9:40
Speaker 1: of the nineties, and if you look at his work.
9:43
Speaker 1: His first motion picture was I Want to Hold Your Hand,
9:47
Speaker 1: and then used cars, Romancing the Stone, then Back to
9:50
Speaker 1: the Future one in eighty five, he did a Oh
9:53
Speaker 1: he did a TV movie for Amazing Stories. I didn't
9:55
Speaker 1: know that, and who, of course who framed Roger Rabbit
9:59
Speaker 1: in eighty eight, Back to the Future Part two in
10:01
Speaker 1: eighty nine, and then that brings us to ninety so
10:04
Speaker 1: obviously Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future one
10:07
Speaker 1: and two and who framed Roger Rabbit? Are is? I mean,
10:11
Speaker 1: that's that's a lot in one decade, just in the eighties.
10:14
Speaker 1: That's a lot for directors and specific Yeah, not just.
10:18
Speaker 1: But the thing is, I think that brings us back
10:20
Speaker 1: to something that Darren was saying earlier again about like
10:25
Speaker 1: he's a he's a guy who loves playing with the technology.
10:29
Speaker 1: He pushes so much like Lucas. He's very much like
10:33
Speaker 1: Lucas in that. And I don't think Lucas gets enough credit,
10:36
Speaker 1: at least in later years, on how much he pushed
10:38
Speaker 1: the envelope in technology.
10:39
Speaker 5: He doesn't.
10:40
Speaker 2: But I think Zamechas gets unfairly overlooked on how much
10:43
Speaker 2: he's been so playful with everything and the thing is
10:46
Speaker 2: it's always playful in the sense that you get the sense,
10:52
Speaker 2: especially from Zamechas in the eighties and nineties, of a
10:55
Speaker 2: director who is just having a blast. When he's pushing
10:59
Speaker 2: me with something. It's because he has a crazy idea.
11:03
Speaker 2: He has that comic book kid Brain where it's like, well,
11:06
Speaker 2: wait a minute, what if they could do this? And
11:08
Speaker 2: then it's such a fun idea. You get the sense
11:11
Speaker 2: of the effects team being like, oh, that would be
11:13
Speaker 2: really cool, wouldn't it Like that? Like, you get a
11:16
Speaker 2: very much a vibe of a director who has this
11:19
Speaker 2: infectious glee getting away with the magic trick. And I
11:23
Speaker 2: think that that gets to the cast, that gets to everybody.
11:26
Speaker 3: I would also say you're just on looking at his
11:29
Speaker 3: entire filmography, I mean pro con with the full CG
11:35
Speaker 3: movies in the two thousands, I mean you have Polar Express, Beowolf,
11:39
Speaker 3: and Christmas Carol. I will say he is definitely trying
11:43
Speaker 3: and pushing whether the technology was ready to really support that.
11:48
Speaker 3: I mean, I always remind myself again, you know what
11:51
Speaker 3: two thousand and two with Attack of the Clones was
11:53
Speaker 3: like the first time we had gone full digital pipeline
11:57
Speaker 3: for an entire movie.
11:58
Speaker 1: So absolute time, we didn't have a loss of generation.
12:02
Speaker 3: And but you also have something rendered at whatever pee.
12:06
Speaker 1: It was so up. Yeah, not even a good tenityp like.
12:14
Speaker 1: But but the thing is is that it pushed the
12:16
Speaker 1: boundaries that that's what he had available at the time.
12:19
Speaker 1: And if you look at the Mechus's filmography, you know,
12:21
Speaker 1: like live action animation integration with Roger Rabbit motion control
12:26
Speaker 1: and you know, really interesting VFX for Back to the
12:29
Speaker 1: Future Part two, digital compositing with Forrest Gump, motion capture
12:35
Speaker 1: for Polar Express. He pushed there's a lot of stuff
12:38
Speaker 1: that happened in Polar Express that made Avatar possible. And
12:42
Speaker 1: also I'm completely blanking on the movie just oh here
12:46
Speaker 1: that just came out with like his integration of deep
12:49
Speaker 1: fake technology with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.
12:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've I've yet to see that because it
12:56
Speaker 2: came in so fast. See well, but see, that's that's
13:00
Speaker 2: sort of the that's sort of the thing where you know,
13:03
Speaker 2: every every director has their ups and downs and they
13:06
Speaker 2: lose seam. But I think that you know, the thing is,
13:10
Speaker 2: this is going to sound so much like Damning with
13:12
Speaker 2: faint praise, but zamechis being the guy who loves to
13:17
Speaker 2: push the boundaries, I would argue that what we see
13:21
Speaker 2: is the disorienting nature of working digitally because you had
13:27
Speaker 2: to be very clever to do the certain tricks, very measured,
13:32
Speaker 2: very planned, very like there were there were so many
13:35
Speaker 2: things through the entire pipeline again taking back to the
13:38
Speaker 2: future part two, and like you have to line everything
13:41
Speaker 2: up so perfectly in the optical compositor, and like get
13:44
Speaker 2: the all of that stuff done and get the eye
13:46
Speaker 2: lines right and all that type of stuff.
13:48
Speaker 5: I mean, they have trouble.
13:49
Speaker 2: Doing split screen today and they could literally do it perfectly,
13:54
Speaker 2: whereas like just look at that point right there, and
13:56
Speaker 2: it's like.
13:56
Speaker 5: Good, how why are you looking at his eyebrows? Stop right?
14:00
Speaker 2: That sort of thing, and the fact that they you
14:04
Speaker 2: enter into a digital age where I think I'm not
14:06
Speaker 2: going to blame zamechis I'm going to actually wind up
14:10
Speaker 2: blaming the crop of effects engineers. I think that with
14:16
Speaker 2: a lot of Zamexa's later work, it would behoove effects
14:20
Speaker 2: teams to be forced to go back to do like
14:22
Speaker 2: one scene in the old ways, to force them to
14:25
Speaker 2: think about how precise they have to line everything up
14:28
Speaker 2: and match everything, and I think that it's just one
14:33
Speaker 2: of those things where the tool the tool, I mean, honestly,
14:35
Speaker 2: the digital tools are still so new quote unquote that
14:39
Speaker 2: I think that that's why you see so many filmmakers
14:41
Speaker 2: and audiences yearning for the more practical stuff so.
14:45
Speaker 3: Well, and not just the practical I think, you know,
14:49
Speaker 3: I've I've watched some videos about, you know, the the
14:53
Speaker 3: shift of visual effects, but in regards to that, you're
14:56
Speaker 3: also seeing a shift into post production where where post
15:00
Speaker 3: production is now where movies are built and remade and
15:04
Speaker 3: reshot and reconfigured versus again going back to the eighties
15:09
Speaker 3: and nineties where not that you didn't have post production,
15:12
Speaker 3: obviously you did, but so much was in pre production
15:16
Speaker 3: pre viz.
15:17
Speaker 4: Like getting the.
15:18
Speaker 3: Story locked down, getting the shots locked down, because you
15:21
Speaker 3: couldn't just say, oh, yeah, Marty's going to come around
15:24
Speaker 3: the corner and we'll figure it out in post like no, no,
15:27
Speaker 3: the camera has to be in a certain spot so
15:29
Speaker 3: that he can be in two places at once, like
15:31
Speaker 3: all of these rules of reality that you had to
15:36
Speaker 3: work around. So it gave us that crop of films, Darren.
15:43
Speaker 1: So when we had the first one, we had a
15:45
Speaker 1: you know, like, obviously it's sci fi because it involves
15:47
Speaker 1: time travel, but so much was spent in the nineteen fifties,
15:51
Speaker 1: a very much glorified version of the nineteen fifties, and
15:54
Speaker 1: so that was kind of the tone of the piece.
15:56
Speaker 1: And then when we get to the second one, it's
15:58
Speaker 1: pure sci fi. It's you know, all over the face place.
16:02
Speaker 1: It's in our future at the time, and you know,
16:05
Speaker 1: like the Jaws effect, you know, the hoverboards. Everything is
16:09
Speaker 1: really crazy. And then we go back to an alternative reality,
16:12
Speaker 1: which also is elements of sci fi. It's also the
16:15
Speaker 1: plot is much more convoluted, it's a little darker. And
16:18
Speaker 1: then we go to a complete genre shift with the
16:21
Speaker 1: Western motif. It's a much more simplistic storyline. It's like,
16:25
Speaker 1: we got to get to point A to point B
16:26
Speaker 1: to point C in this amount of time. And so
16:29
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, Darren, what did you think
16:31
Speaker 1: about that genre shift? Was it nice? Was it a
16:36
Speaker 1: nice departure, or was it too different? What do you think?
16:40
Speaker 3: I think it works because at its core, the sci
16:45
Speaker 3: fi element of Back to the Future is a vehicle
16:49
Speaker 3: to tell a unique story about friendship. It doesn't really
16:54
Speaker 3: matter that there's a time machine, and like, we don't
16:56
Speaker 3: spend barely anytime with the time machine, really not hot
17:00
Speaker 3: tubbing in it. You know, we're not doing all of
17:03
Speaker 3: this stuff. Instead, it's how do we get our characters
17:07
Speaker 3: into this you know, highly improbable, impossible time journey where
17:14
Speaker 3: they now have to figure out you know, friendship and
17:17
Speaker 3: love and growing as characters and those truths. You could
17:21
Speaker 3: take out the sci fi element and it wouldn't matter,
17:25
Speaker 3: So it works regardless of that.
17:28
Speaker 4: Now.
17:28
Speaker 3: I love the sci fi element because it makes it fun.
17:31
Speaker 3: I love I love the nineteen fifty five parts replacement
17:35
Speaker 3: for the tiny mighty mic that's strapped to the hood
17:39
Speaker 3: and is like four feet square, and it's vacuum tubes
17:43
Speaker 3: and all of that. It's it's all those little things.
17:47
Speaker 3: It's Doc talking about thinking fourth dimensionally and again all
17:52
Speaker 3: of the payoffs because at its core, you still have
17:57
Speaker 3: a writing team and a director that is very, very smart,
18:02
Speaker 3: that is treating their audience as they're smart, and has
18:06
Speaker 3: the setup and the payoff where they're nipping those what
18:11
Speaker 3: could be plot holes, like the fact that Clara Ravine,
18:15
Speaker 3: the fact that they established, oh, she would have died
18:18
Speaker 3: if Doc had not been sent to the past so
18:21
Speaker 3: the fact that she's pulled out of time doesn't impact
18:24
Speaker 3: the future. And it's from two or three not throwaway lines,
18:29
Speaker 3: but minor lines that I'm glad are in there, because
18:33
Speaker 3: Back to the Future does that from the get go.
18:36
Speaker 3: They work very hard. Now, I'm sure there's flaws and
18:39
Speaker 3: cracks here and there, but for the vast majority of
18:42
Speaker 3: the plot of the sci fi plot, it's very neatly
18:46
Speaker 3: sewn up.
18:48
Speaker 2: You know, Yes, I'm not going to contradict anything that
18:52
Speaker 2: you're saying. I think that one of my biggest issues
18:56
Speaker 2: with things is that all of the charm that's in here,
19:04
Speaker 2: I find everything you're talking about. They just don't get
19:07
Speaker 2: to it quickly enough. In the first and the second one,
19:11
Speaker 2: the pace is just bing ping ping ping pingk.
19:13
Speaker 5: Like especially the second one is a different If you're.
19:16
Speaker 2: Not paying attention in the second one, you're gonna get lost.
19:18
Speaker 2: Like it's it's spaghetti. You're like, oh, okay, what threat
19:21
Speaker 2: is going here?
19:22
Speaker 5: In this one?
19:22
Speaker 2: It's very straightforward, which is not a bad thing for
19:25
Speaker 2: a movie. A to B, two C to D works
19:28
Speaker 2: one hundred percent of the time. You'll never lose a
19:30
Speaker 2: single person, but you have to keep an eye on pace,
19:33
Speaker 2: and it's a little disorienting because they don't get there
19:38
Speaker 2: fast enough. In my opinion, I think that they have
19:41
Speaker 2: a for me. It's the it's the center. Third drags
19:45
Speaker 2: a bit.
19:46
Speaker 3: Well because if you think about it, in the first movie,
19:49
Speaker 3: it's all about repairing the damage of getting his parents
19:53
Speaker 3: back together. That gives you something to do because you're
19:55
Speaker 3: you're still waiting out the clock to.
19:57
Speaker 4: The lightning strike.
19:59
Speaker 3: In this regard, we're kind of also waiting out the
20:01
Speaker 3: clock to get there by Monday. But it's a very
20:06
Speaker 3: different there. There's nothing to repair. It's Doc falling in love.
20:10
Speaker 3: And now I think you're right it. I won't say
20:14
Speaker 3: it just it doesn't destroy the movie, but it is
20:16
Speaker 3: a definitely shift in pace where you're kind of like,
20:21
Speaker 3: it's not even a will they won't they get together?
20:23
Speaker 3: It's just a crawl as they're slowly turning the pages.
20:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll be honest upfront that that's actually why I'm
20:33
Speaker 1: knocking some points off for this movie. Is exactly what
20:36
Speaker 1: you guys are talking about. It's I feel like, even
20:39
Speaker 1: though this is my favorite, I can't give it like
20:41
Speaker 1: a perfect five because there is that drag there where
20:45
Speaker 1: you're just like you're checking your watch. You're just like, Okay,
20:47
Speaker 1: I want to get to more time antics. I want
20:50
Speaker 1: to get I want to get to more craziness between
20:53
Speaker 1: Rick and Morty, I mean Doc and Marty, and I
20:56
Speaker 1: just feel like Clara kind of drags that down. And
21:01
Speaker 1: this is you know, this movie is very much centered
21:04
Speaker 1: around Marty, Doc, mad Dog, and Clara. Like those are
21:08
Speaker 1: the four people that take up the most time in
21:10
Speaker 1: this film. And so, John, what do you think about
21:14
Speaker 1: Obviously we love Doc and Marty. What did you think
21:17
Speaker 1: about the addition of Clara. What did you think about
21:20
Speaker 1: her character and what she brought to the movie. Did
21:23
Speaker 1: you think that she was used too much too little?
21:25
Speaker 1: Was she a plot device, a fully fleshed out character?
21:28
Speaker 1: What did you think?
21:28
Speaker 2: I don't think she was fully fleshed out. She very
21:32
Speaker 2: much feels like like weed to give Doc something in
21:35
Speaker 2: this one to do for himself. You know, we all
21:40
Speaker 2: agree Doc is not heavily and that we spend less
21:43
Speaker 2: time with him in part one than we think we do, right,
21:46
Speaker 2: And I think that this one they wanted to give
21:49
Speaker 2: the Doc character a chance to shine. I think it's
21:52
Speaker 2: the lag that slowness of pace is what works against
21:57
Speaker 2: the Clara and Doc relationship because I think that steen
22:00
Speaker 2: Virgin and Lloyd worked well together. I like the energy
22:06
Speaker 2: that they have with each other. Of these two awkward
22:08
Speaker 2: people who don't really know how to approach somebody in
22:11
Speaker 2: this situation, I just think it it doesn't work to
22:16
Speaker 2: her benefit because she shows up and when she's on screen,
22:20
Speaker 2: stein Bergen is giving a very definite energy, and it
22:23
Speaker 2: seems jarring sometimes because the pace is not that energy.
22:29
Speaker 2: It's like she showed up with the energy for the
22:31
Speaker 2: first two and they were doing a different movie, and
22:33
Speaker 2: it's like, ah, but that's not her fault.
22:35
Speaker 3: I like that.
22:37
Speaker 1: I think that I think that's very insightful. That's an
22:40
Speaker 1: interesting take because there was something that always felt off
22:43
Speaker 1: and I always thought maybe it was steen Virgin's acting,
22:47
Speaker 1: but and I was just like, oh, maybe, you know,
22:50
Speaker 1: maybe Zemecus didn't get the performance that he was trying
22:52
Speaker 1: to get out of her. But I think that's more
22:54
Speaker 1: apt because we've seen some amazing performances from her, and
22:58
Speaker 1: I think she probably saw the first one and was like, Okay,
23:03
Speaker 1: I'll do that, and then she brought it.
23:06
Speaker 3: You know it not to rewrite, but to rewrite now,
23:10
Speaker 3: not to not to fix the third one, but it
23:12
Speaker 3: made me think of City on the Edge of Forever,
23:15
Speaker 3: one of the best Tos Star Trek episodes. And with
23:21
Speaker 3: that you have the love interest Edith Keeler and Kirk
23:25
Speaker 3: trying to decide, if you know, at the end, on
23:30
Speaker 3: whether or not he's saving her and the impact on
23:32
Speaker 3: the future.
23:33
Speaker 4: All that to say is what if they.
23:35
Speaker 3: Had had a bit of conflict in that regard where
23:42
Speaker 3: the exact plot points, but more along the fact of
23:46
Speaker 3: he's trying to fix the future and unsure about how
23:50
Speaker 3: she's going to fit into this and they're trying, like
23:53
Speaker 3: maybe she keeps, you know, being in situations where she's
23:56
Speaker 3: in peril or something, and at the end she realizes, oh,
24:00
Speaker 3: we can bring her out of time and it's okay,
24:03
Speaker 3: But you have something in the middle that's because you
24:06
Speaker 3: we don't have that.
24:07
Speaker 2: I I mean, I could pitch an idea right away,
24:10
Speaker 2: but this movie is almost forty years old, and so
24:14
Speaker 2: what's the point.
24:15
Speaker 5: But you know, so I won't unless you guys really
24:18
Speaker 5: want me to. But I won't. I won't. I won't.
24:20
Speaker 2: Don't worry, But I think I think, Darren, that would
24:24
Speaker 2: have been a solution is to make her more integral
24:27
Speaker 2: to what's happening outside of having to be in love
24:30
Speaker 2: with Doc.
24:30
Speaker 3: He's worried the time trout, the time space continuum.
24:34
Speaker 2: I think if anything, and people might consider me a
24:38
Speaker 2: back to the future blasphemer for this, but I would
24:41
Speaker 2: have stepped back on the mad Dog a bit and
24:44
Speaker 2: instead had him be a smaller character where they know
24:48
Speaker 2: he's coming and it's sort of this shadow that's in
24:51
Speaker 2: the background and they're not interacting with him. Yes, oh no,
24:55
Speaker 2: Beaufort Tannen is coming, and it's like, wait, bisk grant,
24:58
Speaker 2: you know.
24:58
Speaker 5: And so when he.
24:59
Speaker 2: Shows up to the end and you see you know
25:02
Speaker 2: that that it's that it's Thomas Wilson in the makeup, you're.
25:05
Speaker 5: Like, oh, yay, haha, yay.
25:07
Speaker 2: They did it right, as opposed to, you know, the
25:11
Speaker 2: they carry forward this, you know, with the spatoon and
25:14
Speaker 2: then the Manure and it's like, okay, this the gag
25:18
Speaker 2: doesn't work as well here. And I think that if
25:22
Speaker 2: you had Tannon as this sort of outside force that
25:25
Speaker 2: they're racing against they know he exists, you would have,
25:29
Speaker 2: but you don't have to spend as much time with
25:31
Speaker 2: him directly. You wind up, giving Clara more time to
25:36
Speaker 2: become integral to the plot.
25:38
Speaker 1: I well, I'm not discounting what you're saying, because I
25:41
Speaker 1: do think that that would work, absolutely, I think, but
25:44
Speaker 1: it's that's a very different movie.
25:46
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
25:48
Speaker 1: And to me, I loved the the Tannin scenes, the
25:53
Speaker 1: mad Dog scenes, and I like them more than probably
25:56
Speaker 1: I liked his character more than any of the other
26:00
Speaker 1: previous ones. And I know that he was heavily involved,
26:04
Speaker 1: especially in the second one, you know, like you know,
26:06
Speaker 1: because there's so many of them. There was what three
26:07
Speaker 1: different versions of him in the in the third one.
26:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the second one and one young yeah yeah.
26:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, young, old and middle aged on the alternate fusure. Yeah.
26:17
Speaker 1: But I liked mad Dog more. There was just something
26:19
Speaker 1: about him that was just freaking hilarious, Like that's hout
26:23
Speaker 1: you down and kill you look a duck, you know.
26:26
Speaker 5: Just yeah.
26:27
Speaker 2: But but that is the conflict is Wilson is he's
26:32
Speaker 2: the secret weapon of these movies. Like it's easy to
26:35
Speaker 2: heat praise on Lloyd and Fox. Yes, they are core
26:38
Speaker 2: to this, but Wilson plays the antagonist so well through
26:43
Speaker 2: all three of them, and I agree it would have
26:46
Speaker 2: been a completely different movie, and we would have had
26:48
Speaker 2: to sacrifice a lot of great funny scenes with Tannin.
26:52
Speaker 2: I still laugh at the you know, I'm gonna you know,
26:55
Speaker 2: like a duck. I think it's like a dog.
26:58
Speaker 4: What.
26:59
Speaker 2: Or when he's trying to count to ten to get
27:01
Speaker 2: him to come outside, it's like six, he looks over
27:03
Speaker 2: the other guy seven.
27:04
Speaker 5: Seven, you know that's like cut cute gag.
27:09
Speaker 3: Now, I would definitely praise his performance in this. I
27:13
Speaker 3: think with the makeup, or not even makeup, just the
27:16
Speaker 3: mustache and beard, I don't even see Wilson like. He
27:20
Speaker 3: is so transformed in this movie. It's not like, oh,
27:24
Speaker 3: that's just Biff, but with a mustache. Now I see
27:27
Speaker 3: a different person, and I think that gives him the
27:31
Speaker 3: freedom to be more. I'm gonna shoot you, then I'm
27:36
Speaker 3: gonna beat you up and take your lunch money. Like
27:38
Speaker 3: you know, that's Biff's level of involvement. This is a
27:43
Speaker 3: serious outlaw and he should be.
27:46
Speaker 2: Something I would have loved to see go differently, but
27:50
Speaker 2: couldn't have because Crispin Glover famously isn't in two and
27:54
Speaker 2: three is. I would have loved to have seen an
27:57
Speaker 2: alternate timeline of our own where Glover played Marty's ancestor
28:03
Speaker 2: as opposed to Michael J. Fox, because in the second one,
28:07
Speaker 2: it's a fun gag seeing him play his son and
28:11
Speaker 2: his daughter, like it's funny, it's silly, it's dumb. Right
28:15
Speaker 2: with this one, it it just doesn't play the same way,
28:19
Speaker 2: and I think it would have given I.
28:23
Speaker 5: Think it does.
28:23
Speaker 1: I loved him as Seamous.
28:26
Speaker 2: I think they would have had an opportunity, though, to
28:29
Speaker 2: have a more meaningful interaction between them instead of a
28:32
Speaker 2: funnier interaction between them. Again, it's just like what I'm
28:35
Speaker 2: saying about about Wilson. If there's less of him, then
28:38
Speaker 2: there's less stuff that I liked happening, And the same
28:42
Speaker 2: thing with Fox as Seamus. But I think you could
28:45
Speaker 2: have had a more meaningful interaction between the two of
28:48
Speaker 2: them if you had had that timeline where Glover was involved.
28:52
Speaker 4: I'll go down the middle.
28:53
Speaker 3: I see what you say, Tristan, and I wouldn't trade
28:56
Speaker 3: Shemus for for anything because it's it's just I think it.
29:00
Speaker 3: Fox is doing amazing in that, Like maybe not the accent,
29:04
Speaker 3: but you know, it's it's a funny, great character.
29:07
Speaker 1: I LOVELYA. Thompson's how she says Eastwood, She's like mysterious two.
29:13
Speaker 1: It's they're both such horrible accents for thee he says,
29:16
Speaker 1: it work.
29:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.
29:18
Speaker 3: But I like the idea of it being Marty's dad
29:22
Speaker 3: because really, when we see him in the first movie,
29:26
Speaker 3: he's not confident yet. He's not really he's there's nothing
29:31
Speaker 3: for him to teach Marty until the very last moment
29:33
Speaker 3: when he gets his confidence punches out Biff and now
29:37
Speaker 3: is worth it. So we never see the confident dad
29:41
Speaker 3: get to share his wisdom with Marty, whereas if it
29:45
Speaker 3: had been that actor, you know, for Seamus, now he is,
29:51
Speaker 3: you know, because Shamus has he's got his head on straight.
29:54
Speaker 4: He he's a family man.
29:56
Speaker 3: He knows the value of, you know, of helping others,
30:00
Speaker 3: but also not being a pushover. And and really Marty's
30:03
Speaker 3: problem with being chicken and being inflamed by that. So
30:07
Speaker 3: seeing that come from a father figure that's not physically him,
30:12
Speaker 3: I think they could have leaned into that even more.
30:15
Speaker 1: Well, it would have been nice to see Glover as
30:19
Speaker 1: the dad because it would have had some really nice symmetry.
30:22
Speaker 1: And also side note, it's Crispin Glover's favorite Back to
30:26
Speaker 1: the Future film is the third one, which I find
30:28
Speaker 1: really funny.
30:30
Speaker 2: That seems like such a Crispin Glover thing that I'm
30:33
Speaker 2: not at all surprised to find that out.
30:34
Speaker 1: Well, I think Fox and Wilson both said that this
30:37
Speaker 1: is their favorite. Too is the thing.
30:39
Speaker 5: I know they had a lot of fun filming it.
30:42
Speaker 2: I watched some of the back of the behind the
30:44
Speaker 2: scenes stuff because this is my excuse to finally open
30:46
Speaker 2: my four K set, and Fox sat there and talked
30:50
Speaker 2: about how on his days off he was able to
30:52
Speaker 2: just go down to the local fishing hole and he
30:54
Speaker 2: would just spend all day fishing on his day off,
30:57
Speaker 2: and he's like, it was really peaceful, and it's like, yeah,
30:59
Speaker 2: I can imagine that it was, so they probably I
31:02
Speaker 2: think that. I think that filming Too was extremely stressful
31:06
Speaker 2: because it was very technical and then they got to
31:09
Speaker 2: come into this and it was like, okay, everybody, you
31:12
Speaker 2: can take a breath and it's not.
31:14
Speaker 1: One was a nightmare because they had to refilm everything
31:17
Speaker 1: with Michael J. Fox right, and Wilson I think got
31:19
Speaker 1: the brunt of that refilming, so he was exhausted for
31:24
Speaker 1: like five years. But yeah, with Crispin Glover, that we
31:28
Speaker 1: would have had some really I think you guys are right,
31:30
Speaker 1: we would have had some really touching moments, But I
31:32
Speaker 1: feel like that wouldn't have helped the pacing. I feel
31:35
Speaker 1: like if we growted the time that we needed to
31:38
Speaker 1: that in order to get that nostalgia, that symmetry, those
31:41
Speaker 1: cool father son moments, it would have just prolonged him
31:45
Speaker 1: getting to town, getting dragged by the horses and starting
31:48
Speaker 1: the plot even further. And I think it just would
31:51
Speaker 1: have been more frustrating. And because with with with Fox
31:56
Speaker 1: as Shamus, you get in, you get out. It's the
31:59
Speaker 1: it's the cute, you get the.
32:03
Speaker 4: And that's it.
32:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, he shows up when he's needing that set. We don't.
32:06
Speaker 1: We don't feel like we have to hold on to
32:07
Speaker 1: it because if it was Glover, I feel like we
32:10
Speaker 1: would have had another major character. It would have been
32:12
Speaker 1: five people instant, maybe five or six people, because if
32:15
Speaker 1: you have Glover, you probably focus more on Leah Thompson too.
32:20
Speaker 5: That's fair, that's fair.
32:22
Speaker 1: I just yeah, I think it's just you're adding to it.
32:24
Speaker 1: I feel like you can't add to it and say, oh,
32:26
Speaker 1: we need a faster pace as well, because I get
32:29
Speaker 1: that from my clients all the time like make it longer,
32:32
Speaker 1: but take stuff out.
32:34
Speaker 5: I think that there.
32:35
Speaker 2: I think that this gets to my whole bit about
32:39
Speaker 2: saying this is an argument against filming your sequels simultaneously.
32:43
Speaker 2: I think giving yourself the time in between films to
32:48
Speaker 2: take a breath and really check your thinking about what
32:52
Speaker 2: is going to work for the next one, how to
32:55
Speaker 2: really take it. I think just a little bit more
32:57
Speaker 2: development time on the script would have helped them get
33:01
Speaker 2: to that point where they would have been able to
33:03
Speaker 2: balance everything. And I think that you're going at this
33:06
Speaker 2: breakneck pace. And I mean I remember even back then
33:09
Speaker 2: it was when they said they were like, oh, they're
33:11
Speaker 2: going to release practically one right after another, and everybody
33:14
Speaker 2: was like, what that's insane, Like it was a crazy
33:17
Speaker 2: idea back then.
33:19
Speaker 5: We don't think anything really of it.
33:20
Speaker 3: Now, but they six months apart or so, which six crazy,
33:25
Speaker 3: that's insane.
33:26
Speaker 1: Even the Matrix sequels were released a year apart.
33:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, it didn't help that.
33:30
Speaker 3: Although for what they set up, I mean there's a
33:33
Speaker 3: handful of Shemus double shots, like technically this one's the simplest,
33:39
Speaker 3: Like there is way less special effects, way less time,
33:44
Speaker 3: you know, duality so I mean, yeah, they're burning all
33:47
Speaker 3: that in in the shooting of two, but it's not
33:51
Speaker 3: like they shot this and then tried to do something
33:53
Speaker 3: of the scale of two on the till. I think
33:56
Speaker 3: they would have died like it would.
33:57
Speaker 1: Have just apparently the mechus he was shooting three would
34:01
Speaker 1: have to fly back and forth between Los Angeles and
34:06
Speaker 1: was it northern or so it was it northern California
34:09
Speaker 1: where they shot this, I can't remember. Anyway, it was
34:11
Speaker 1: a flight and he had to approve the audio mixing
34:15
Speaker 1: of the second one whilst doing principal photography on the
34:18
Speaker 1: third one. And he would so he would get up
34:20
Speaker 1: at four thirty in the morning to fly and then
34:22
Speaker 1: fly back at night. It was insane. It was an
34:24
Speaker 1: insane schedule. I'm surprised he's.
34:26
Speaker 4: Been shot over eleven months. God.
34:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's no Lord of the Rings, but
34:30
Speaker 1: that's a lot well.
34:32
Speaker 2: I mean, if anything, you could give more credit, I
34:35
Speaker 2: guess to back to the Future parts two and two,
34:38
Speaker 2: because there was no source material for them to lean
34:41
Speaker 2: on as their foundation, Like this is all just from there.
34:45
Speaker 5: You know, they didn't base this on a pre existing work.
34:48
Speaker 1: Basically, I want to ask you guys, about the cinematography
34:51
Speaker 1: before we get into the set pieces. This was photographed
34:53
Speaker 1: by Dean Cundy, who also shot parts one and two.
34:57
Speaker 1: I feel like each installment has a very unique look
35:01
Speaker 1: and feel agree not just with the production design obviously,
35:06
Speaker 1: but almost feels like the film stock that they use
35:09
Speaker 1: is different, and just like I feel like Zamecha's has
35:12
Speaker 1: a very clean approach to filmmaking. He very much you
35:17
Speaker 1: know where you are at all times, like geographically speaking,
35:21
Speaker 1: you know where the characters are, you know where the
35:23
Speaker 1: town is, you know where the buildings are, you know
35:24
Speaker 1: where you are in the room. Every shot shows you
35:27
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. He doesn't hide anything in editing
35:31
Speaker 1: with any kind of tricks. You know what I'm saying
35:33
Speaker 1: by that, Like, obviously there's editing tricks, but you know
35:34
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say, And a lot of that
35:37
Speaker 1: is because of Dean Kundi and his editors. And so
35:42
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, guys, how did you feel
35:44
Speaker 1: about the look of the third one compared to the
35:47
Speaker 1: previous two. Do you feel like it was apropos to
35:50
Speaker 1: the Western style or did it feel kind of out
35:52
Speaker 1: of place? I'm an open question to you guys.
35:56
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say out of place.
35:57
Speaker 2: And the thing is, I have to go back and
35:59
Speaker 2: look at maybe an earlier edition because this is, like
36:02
Speaker 2: I said, this is my first time watching the four K,
36:05
Speaker 2: and there were moments where it was a little jarring
36:08
Speaker 2: to me because some of the work looked too artificial
36:14
Speaker 2: in terms of its its lighting.
36:16
Speaker 3: It was too.
36:18
Speaker 5: It was too bright.
36:20
Speaker 2: I get like Kundy, I'm I think is one of
36:23
Speaker 2: the greatest cinematographers that's worked over, you know, the last
36:28
Speaker 2: several decades. I think his outdoor stuff in Back to
36:31
Speaker 2: the Future Part three is really strong. Some of his
36:34
Speaker 2: indoor stuff felt a little too and maybe this was intentional.
36:39
Speaker 2: It felt a little and it's it's odd to put
36:43
Speaker 2: it this way, but sort of like TV lighting in
36:45
Speaker 2: some of the ways. But that could have very much
36:47
Speaker 2: been intentional on their part, and I would just have
36:50
Speaker 2: to go back and look at an earlier edition to
36:52
Speaker 2: see if the remastering process undid them a little bit.
36:56
Speaker 1: Here with this, that's interesting that you talk about the
36:59
Speaker 1: indoor stuff, because I felt like you probably would have
37:02
Speaker 1: criticized how bright the outdoor scenes were at nighttime, even
37:06
Speaker 1: though Darren was salivating, well, he was watching in the outtime.
37:10
Speaker 3: Any nighttime shots. It was so bright the entire film.
37:13
Speaker 4: It was great. Now.
37:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, but see, the thing is I could see that
37:16
Speaker 2: easily as a that that's a hallmark of the old Westerns.
37:20
Speaker 2: You know, they shot everything so you could see it
37:22
Speaker 2: back then, quote unquote sort of thing that held the
37:25
Speaker 2: vibe of a Western to me. It's like inside the
37:28
Speaker 2: saloon and stuff like that. But I really think it
37:30
Speaker 2: might just be the addition because the indoor stuff in
37:34
Speaker 2: the saloon later in the movie, like near the end,
37:37
Speaker 2: was impeccable, couldn't couldn't throw a single stone at it.
37:41
Speaker 2: It was some of the earlier stuff, especially, like I
37:43
Speaker 2: think there's like a nighttime scene in the saloon where
37:45
Speaker 2: it was like I could see the beam of light
37:49
Speaker 2: coming from just off camera to light everything, and it
37:53
Speaker 2: was it was a little disconcerting. You could tell it
37:55
Speaker 2: was a spot and it was like it was just
37:57
Speaker 2: it was odd.
37:58
Speaker 3: I mean the vibe I got from the inside shots,
38:02
Speaker 3: or some of them at least. Yeah, I kind of
38:05
Speaker 3: see what you're saying, John about the TV niche feel.
38:10
Speaker 4: And I don't think it's the lighting.
38:12
Speaker 3: It's more of obviously they move around within the scenes,
38:17
Speaker 3: but for the vast majority of the shots, it's coming
38:20
Speaker 3: from one angle. It's like a TV set where you're
38:24
Speaker 3: you never look at the other direction. So Doc's Blacksmith's shop,
38:28
Speaker 3: we're almost always looking towards the door, like in every
38:32
Speaker 3: single in the saloon, we're almost always looking out towards
38:37
Speaker 3: the crowd from behind the bar. In the McFly house,
38:41
Speaker 3: we're always looking So again, not every shot, obviously they
38:43
Speaker 3: shot reverse shots and takes, but the vast majority feels
38:48
Speaker 3: very one sided. And I'm not saying that's bad. It
38:51
Speaker 3: just is a vibe. The train is always moving from
38:55
Speaker 3: left to right, no kidding, that's just good filmmaking.
38:59
Speaker 1: Speaking speaking of the Darren, I feel like, I mean,
39:02
Speaker 1: we're all nerds here, this is the nerd Party dot com.
39:05
Speaker 1: But Darren, I feel like you take it to the
39:08
Speaker 1: next level in so many different avenues of your life.
39:12
Speaker 1: Tell me you're a train guy too. You feel like
39:15
Speaker 1: a train guy.
39:16
Speaker 4: No, I mean I am a train guy. It's more
39:19
Speaker 4: of like Lego trains.
39:20
Speaker 3: I was never a growing up you know, Lionel anything
39:25
Speaker 3: like that, but yeah, building things and trains they were
39:30
Speaker 3: always fun and I always love the back of the
39:32
Speaker 3: Future train I mean, it's just my platforms.
39:36
Speaker 2: My dad was a model train enthusiast. To put it lightly,
39:41
Speaker 2: he bought he bought model trains the way that I
39:44
Speaker 2: bought Star Wars toys. Like Star Wars toys was my
39:48
Speaker 2: version of my dad's model trains. Comic books were my
39:51
Speaker 2: brother's version of my dad's model trains. We just amassed
39:54
Speaker 2: these massive collections because every time we saw one that
39:57
Speaker 2: was cool, it was like, oh, and trust me, It's
40:00
Speaker 2: taken years of taming that impulse over it. Like seeing
40:06
Speaker 2: having to clean out my dad's house when he was
40:09
Speaker 2: finally called home, I had a moment where I was like,
40:13
Speaker 2: very famously, I was like, I now live my life
40:15
Speaker 2: in such a way that if they wanted to erase
40:17
Speaker 2: my existence in less than forty eight hours from this.
40:19
Speaker 5: House, it is possible to do. But yeah, model trains.
40:25
Speaker 2: I am the one that's going to love the train
40:28
Speaker 2: work in this one because I just thought it was
40:30
Speaker 2: so much fun. It reminds me of my own dad.
40:34
Speaker 2: And I've had the extreme pleasure of having seen the
40:37
Speaker 2: time Travel train on display at Universal Studios Hollywood, not Hollywood,
40:42
Speaker 2: Universal Studios Florida. Here in Orlando, and with the Doc
40:47
Speaker 2: Brown standing there. They rolled out the DeLorean recently too,
40:51
Speaker 2: so that everybody could see it. But yeah, that train
40:53
Speaker 2: is here at Universal Studios. It's a kick to see it.
40:56
Speaker 2: Most of the kids don't notice it, they just walked by.
40:59
Speaker 1: You guys, think of that set piece because when I
41:02
Speaker 1: think back to the future, I think about the final
41:05
Speaker 1: train sequence, Like that's what pops into my head. When
41:08
Speaker 1: I think about the trilogy as a whole. That is
41:11
Speaker 1: the set piece that sticks out in my brain.
41:14
Speaker 3: I'm talking about the accelerate to eighty eight miles per
41:18
Speaker 3: hour or the dots of the back at the very
41:20
Speaker 3: end with Claric.
41:21
Speaker 1: Oh uh no, like the when they're trying to get
41:24
Speaker 1: it up to eighty eight.
41:25
Speaker 4: Got it.
41:26
Speaker 3: I'll just say it's it's brilliant. They found a way
41:30
Speaker 3: to I mean, we talked about slowing things down, but
41:33
Speaker 3: they found a way to encapsulate that moment from the
41:36
Speaker 3: first movie where he's accelerating to eighty eight and stretch
41:40
Speaker 3: it out into like twenty minutes. Because it's the train.
41:43
Speaker 3: Because you're very slowly and methodically advancing towards eighty eight,
41:49
Speaker 3: you're while you're auto precipice, while you're almost falling off
41:54
Speaker 3: the train, like it cinematically works, wonders you. Okay, So
41:59
Speaker 3: we showed this to my two children, who are nine
42:01
Speaker 3: and thirteen, and that entire sequence they could not sit still.
42:07
Speaker 3: They were bouncing up and down, cheering. They're like, well,
42:11
Speaker 3: he's gotta get in the car right, Like they could
42:13
Speaker 3: not figure out how he's gonna get in the car.
42:15
Speaker 4: I'm like, boy, he's.
42:15
Speaker 3: Gonna have to jump, and they're like, no, he can't jump.
42:18
Speaker 3: She's gonna fall and they're not hearing her. Like they
42:21
Speaker 3: were so invested in that scene. It is the climax
42:25
Speaker 3: of climaxes for that movie.
42:28
Speaker 2: It's not the first thing I think of when I
42:30
Speaker 2: think of Back to the Future, but I think that
42:32
Speaker 2: for all of the qualms I have with the film,
42:36
Speaker 2: Zamechis knows how to end them strong. It's like a
42:39
Speaker 2: reverse Donna effect where every solbe with Richard Donner movie,
42:43
Speaker 2: like you get the sensorhere, he's just like, E, that's
42:45
Speaker 2: good enough. Whereas Zamechas, you could tell he's like, Okay,
42:48
Speaker 2: I know I gotta end this a certain way. And
42:51
Speaker 2: I think all three of the Back to the Future movies,
42:53
Speaker 2: the endings are super tight.
42:55
Speaker 1: Really well, ULTI Stephen King, Yes, but.
43:01
Speaker 2: I I, you know, I think that technically speaking, I
43:03
Speaker 2: mean I could watch that train sequence over and over
43:06
Speaker 2: again because it is just trying to pull it apart
43:10
Speaker 2: and say, how long did it take them to do this?
43:12
Speaker 2: How sick were all of these people of this train
43:15
Speaker 2: sequence by the end, like all right, back to train up, Okay,
43:19
Speaker 2: that's going to take It's going to take another hour there.
43:22
Speaker 1: Bob back her up, Yeah, backer up.
43:24
Speaker 4: Oh oh oh oh oh.
43:25
Speaker 5: Camera wasn't up to speed. Take it back, take it back, okay,
43:29
Speaker 5: you know that.
43:30
Speaker 4: Sort of thing.
43:31
Speaker 3: And they couple it with the miniature work, you know,
43:34
Speaker 3: not only in the future time train, but the driving
43:37
Speaker 3: off like an amazing on it as it I still
43:43
Speaker 3: it is so many. It had been a while since
43:45
Speaker 3: I'd watched the third one, and I was telling my
43:46
Speaker 3: wife as they were racing towards the end of track,
43:50
Speaker 3: which is just twenty train ties, and I was thinking,
43:55
Speaker 3: I'm like, they're going to destroy the DeLorean. You can't
43:58
Speaker 3: drive a del you can have anything through that without
44:01
Speaker 3: it being obliterated. I wasn't thinking fourth dimensionally, it would
44:04
Speaker 3: say me there by the time they got to it.
44:07
Speaker 3: But yeah, that that ravine drop is glorious.
44:12
Speaker 1: If you told me when I was a kid that
44:14
Speaker 1: that was a miniature going off into the ravine, I
44:17
Speaker 1: never would have believed you.
44:19
Speaker 5: I still don't know.
44:20
Speaker 1: I just tried a real train.
44:22
Speaker 5: I still don't believe it.
44:24
Speaker 2: Because it is filmed so well, it's absolutely convincing, and
44:30
Speaker 2: I just huge kudos for it.
44:32
Speaker 3: It's weird that my favorite part of the crash is
44:35
Speaker 3: the firewood. I don't know what it is, whether the
44:39
Speaker 3: get it, the method of the frame rate, or if
44:43
Speaker 3: they made the firewood out of like really dense heavy
44:46
Speaker 3: material win it impacts and the way the firewood from
44:50
Speaker 3: the tender car lands you believe it's full scale. It
44:55
Speaker 3: doesn't bounce off like its styrofoam or something that like it.
45:00
Speaker 3: It lands like, oh, that's a cord of wood that
45:02
Speaker 3: just landed on the ground and nailed it.
45:05
Speaker 2: And that gets back to the challenges of the digital
45:07
Speaker 2: age is they always struggle with the weight of things,
45:11
Speaker 2: and the model makers could easily show them the way
45:14
Speaker 2: to say no, no, no, you have to think this
45:17
Speaker 2: would weigh something.
45:18
Speaker 5: It has heft to it.
45:20
Speaker 3: You can't just have the model though it was like
45:24
Speaker 3: six like it was huge to begin with.
45:26
Speaker 4: It was Oh it was.
45:29
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it was massive, like okay, like third
45:33
Speaker 3: scale or something like it.
45:34
Speaker 1: Oh, that is jeez, that is massive also during okay,
45:38
Speaker 1: so this was my first time watching the four K
45:40
Speaker 1: disc as well. And John, I want to ask you.
45:44
Speaker 1: I don't know if you noticed this or not, but
45:47
Speaker 1: when they were in the library in the fifties and
45:49
Speaker 1: looking up the history of the town, they had a
45:52
Speaker 1: bird's eye shot of the library. Yes, was that a
45:55
Speaker 1: Matt painting.
45:56
Speaker 5: I'd have to go back and look. I didn't catch
45:58
Speaker 5: it if it was.
45:59
Speaker 1: For some Okay, this is gonna sound weird, but I
46:02
Speaker 1: know that you guys and our listeners will track with me.
46:05
Speaker 1: At the end of a this is not a mat shot.
46:08
Speaker 1: And at the end of Aliens, when right before they
46:12
Speaker 1: go to credits, they pause on a still.
46:15
Speaker 5: Yes, it drives me crazy.
46:17
Speaker 1: Yes, of Sigourney, Weaver and Newt and there's there's no
46:21
Speaker 1: grain movement, so you can tell that it's just a
46:23
Speaker 1: still and it drives me nuts. That's something that happened
46:28
Speaker 1: in the library. Around the edges of them, there was
46:31
Speaker 1: no grain movement on the eye side. So I need
46:34
Speaker 1: to look up. I was just wondering if you guys
46:36
Speaker 1: knew if that was a Matt pinning or not.
46:38
Speaker 2: I will have to go ahead and look that up
46:39
Speaker 2: as well and rewatch it, because it did not jump
46:43
Speaker 2: out at me.
46:45
Speaker 1: There was watching it on the four K disc was
46:47
Speaker 1: the first time I noticed that. But I know that
46:49
Speaker 1: we like to I know we're getting close to the
46:51
Speaker 1: end here, and I know that we like to talk
46:52
Speaker 1: about the music at the end. I friggin love Silvestri's
46:58
Speaker 1: score in all three and especially this one because he
47:02
Speaker 1: got to work with zz Top, you know.
47:06
Speaker 2: I I think it's I think it's a great score.
47:09
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of energy in it. I
47:11
Speaker 2: can tell that Silvestri is also having a lot of fun.
47:15
Speaker 2: The zz Top thing always makes me cringe a little bit, though,
47:19
Speaker 2: because because the way that they have their appearance in
47:24
Speaker 2: it is not as subtly done as when Huey Lewis
47:28
Speaker 2: appears in the first one.
47:30
Speaker 5: It's too big.
47:32
Speaker 2: It's too big because they have that shot that that
47:36
Speaker 2: focuses on them doing their trademark twirl and the camera pulling,
47:40
Speaker 2: and it's like it's just it's too much, and it
47:44
Speaker 2: doesn't It's not like I'm like I'm deducting a star
47:47
Speaker 2: for this. I just I think it was a little bit,
47:49
Speaker 2: a little bit over top, over the top with it
47:52
Speaker 2: over the zz top.
47:53
Speaker 4: Yeah it it.
47:55
Speaker 3: I mean we all saw the that come in the
47:57
Speaker 3: whole spin the commercials back then.
48:01
Speaker 5: It's true they advertised at cz top was going to
48:04
Speaker 5: be in the movie.
48:04
Speaker 1: That rendition of double back is in my head an
48:09
Speaker 1: in order amount of time, like I am, I am
48:12
Speaker 1: probably maybe once a week, maybe once every two weeks.
48:16
Speaker 1: You'll hear me going around the house going Dunit Dune.
48:21
Speaker 5: It's a song.
48:23
Speaker 4: It's a great song.
48:24
Speaker 2: I learned something this is This is the first time
48:26
Speaker 2: I've heard that as long as I've known you, Tristan, that.
48:29
Speaker 5: Is the first time I've heard you say that. Interesting.
48:31
Speaker 1: I'm I'm surprised you haven't heard me hummed in the background.
48:34
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, we're rounding third here. Let's uh, how
48:38
Speaker 1: many frisbees are we giving this film?
48:42
Speaker 4: Darren?
48:43
Speaker 1: I'm going to start with you because I'm hosting, and
48:44
Speaker 1: I love starting with yoush.
48:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean one other effect. We were praising
48:52
Speaker 3: the model train crash, although then they stick. I don't
48:56
Speaker 3: think it's CG. It's just more compositing explosion dust over it,
49:00
Speaker 3: and it looks that was very It looks so bad.
49:04
Speaker 3: I'm like, you must have been driving to hide something
49:07
Speaker 3: or I don't know, but yeah, we all know that
49:09
Speaker 3: that shot was that part was terrible. But yeah, no, man,
49:15
Speaker 3: this was fun to revisit. It's been a while since
49:17
Speaker 3: i'd watched three. It's not usually in my rotation, not
49:20
Speaker 3: that I don't care for it, it's just it's a
49:24
Speaker 3: different vibe. Definitely, it feels like the third. It's the
49:28
Speaker 3: odd one out when you're thinking of the two again,
49:31
Speaker 3: not in a negative, just in a tonal location. I
49:36
Speaker 3: had to suspend my disbelief that there's a giant like
49:39
Speaker 3: mountain right behind the courthouse, and I'm like, I don't
49:43
Speaker 3: I don't remember that mountain one hundred years later in
49:46
Speaker 3: Hill Valley. But okay, it's funny.
49:50
Speaker 1: Landscapes change. Man, it's all about time.
49:52
Speaker 4: Okay, sudden.
49:54
Speaker 1: Maybe they meant.
49:56
Speaker 3: Dug it up and filled in Cleara vine or something
49:59
Speaker 3: has there? Is it an earthquake and he'll value that
50:03
Speaker 3: destroyed a mountain. Possibly maybe doctor Brown that way with.
50:08
Speaker 5: It with an experiment of his, who knows, or the.
50:11
Speaker 4: Fact that you're in.
50:13
Speaker 3: We don't know what Here Valley is, but apparently it's
50:15
Speaker 3: like right around the corner from Monument Valley, like really close, guys. Anyway,
50:22
Speaker 3: all that to say, I can suspend that disbelief. I'm
50:24
Speaker 3: giving this a solid four. It's a great movie. It's
50:29
Speaker 3: fun to revisit. Like I said, though it's not in
50:32
Speaker 3: my active rotation of sci fi. I'm not like, oh, man,
50:35
Speaker 3: I can't wait to sit down to three again. It's
50:38
Speaker 3: more like, when the time is right, it's fun to
50:40
Speaker 3: put in and just enjoy it. I think we talked
50:44
Speaker 3: about all the highs and lows of this and gave
50:47
Speaker 3: it a real, a real fair shake. But as a
50:51
Speaker 3: finale to the trilogy, it's great. It leaves me wanting nothing.
50:55
Speaker 3: I don't want to be like, oh, but what happened
50:58
Speaker 3: to Marty next week? The future is unwritten. Let that
51:02
Speaker 3: you know, Let your imagination, Hey, what a wonder. Let
51:05
Speaker 3: the audience imagination imagine what you know Doc and Clara
51:09
Speaker 3: are up to, and what Marty and Jennifer are up to.
51:13
Speaker 3: That is the best finale we.
51:14
Speaker 4: Could have, So for four.
51:17
Speaker 3: Frisbee pie pans.
51:19
Speaker 1: John, how many cartfuls of manure are you giving part three.
51:24
Speaker 2: Well, I struggle a little bit with this. I've really
51:28
Speaker 2: like sat with it since I watched it and initially
51:32
Speaker 2: came out of it and I was like, Eh, that's
51:33
Speaker 2: a three. But then I spent a lot of time
51:36
Speaker 2: sort of chewing it over. And while there are problems
51:40
Speaker 2: of pacing with this, I think that this movie could
51:44
Speaker 2: and should have been shorter than it is. I think
51:48
Speaker 2: that there is enough. Look you got, you still got.
51:51
Speaker 2: Lloyd and Fox just their their charm just is just
51:56
Speaker 2: exploding off the screen. I think that that last train
51:59
Speaker 2: sequence is just a technical marvel and I have to
52:02
Speaker 2: give it extra points for that. I think that while
52:06
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there, you know, arguing about mad Dog, Tannin
52:09
Speaker 2: Wilson is so much fun in this movie. He's having
52:13
Speaker 2: such a great time and I'm having a great time
52:15
Speaker 2: along with him. So I really sat a while with
52:19
Speaker 2: it and thought it through, and actually I'm going to
52:21
Speaker 2: land with a four as well, because it is overall satisfying,
52:26
Speaker 2: and a strong ending can really make up for sins
52:30
Speaker 2: in the first two thirds. If you end strong, your
52:34
Speaker 2: impression of the movie is gonna be a lot better
52:36
Speaker 2: than if you invert that.
52:38
Speaker 5: So it gets a four.
52:39
Speaker 4: This time.
52:40
Speaker 1: For me, I kind of echo the same thing that
52:42
Speaker 1: you're saying, John, because you're not wrong about the pacing.
52:44
Speaker 1: This movie should have been shorter. It should have either
52:47
Speaker 1: because if you're not going to fully develop Clara, you
52:50
Speaker 1: should have or cut down a little bit more, and
52:53
Speaker 1: you know, up that pacing, put it together and make
52:55
Speaker 1: it faster, cut to the chase. I'm just a little
52:59
Speaker 1: bit more free giving, I think overall, just because I
53:02
Speaker 1: love this movie so much, I'm giving a four point
53:05
Speaker 1: five because it's not perfect, but yet for me, all
53:08
Speaker 1: those negatives far outwagh. I'm sorry. All the positives far
53:13
Speaker 1: outweigh the negatives, and I think that's a It's just like,
53:18
Speaker 1: this is such a strong closing, Like Darren, you said,
53:21
Speaker 1: it's you leave. You don't. You don't want a fourth one.
53:24
Speaker 1: You're like, you could, you could have it, but you
53:26
Speaker 1: don't need it. You really don't need it. It's like, like,
53:29
Speaker 1: why on earth would they make a Toy Story four.
53:31
Speaker 1: I hope they don't do that, you know, because you
53:34
Speaker 1: know Toy Story three and it's so perfectly.
53:36
Speaker 5: Still haven't seen four and I won't see five, so
53:41
Speaker 5: oh cheez. There is another one.
53:42
Speaker 1: Coming out. Isn't there anyway there? Well, we're not going
53:44
Speaker 1: to be talking about Back to the Future of five
53:47
Speaker 1: next week, but Darren, what are we going to be
53:49
Speaker 1: talking about next week?
53:51
Speaker 3: Oh, we're kicking off this great decade of the nineties
53:54
Speaker 3: with Robert Zemeckis next with Death Becomes Her from nineteen
53:59
Speaker 3: ninety two, here on house Lights, Join
54:02
Speaker 1: The Revolution, join the Nerd Party,