Random Surprising Facts You Didn't Know About Back to Futu (45 items)

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  (#1) Doc Brown and Lea Thompson Only Meet Once in the Whole Franchise

  When Lorraine follows Marty back to Doc's house, she and Doc exchange an awkward greeting. This marks the only on-screen dialogue that Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson ever exchange, though they have appeared together in five films and one TV movie.
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  (#2) Marty Throwing the Frisbee in 1885 Is Technically Accurate

  In Part III, Marty uses a Frisbie pie plate to knock a gun out of Mad Dog's hand. In 1871, the Frisbie Pie Company started in Connecticut. Their pie pans were thrown on the campus of Yale and eventually lead to the invention of Frisbees.
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  (#3) The Third Movie Uses Time Travel to Tie Seamlessly Into the First FIlm

  In Back to the Future, Doc tells Marty he was inspired to create the flux capacitor after hitting his head on the bathroom sink while trying to hang a clock over his toilet. In Back to the Future III, when Doc freaks out after seeing Marty in his house and runs into the bathroom, you can just see the clock hanging above the toilet he slipped on.
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  (#4) The Franchise Has a Very Heartfelt Origin

  The inspiration for the films largely stemmed from Bob Gale discovering his father's high school yearbook and wondering whether he would have been friends with his father as a teenager. 
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  (#5) ZZ Top Had an Impromptu Concert on the Set of Back to the Future III

  According to the book Billy Gibbons: Rock & Roll Gearhead, ZZ Top was hanging around the set and was asked to be the town band. During one take, the camera broke and while waiting for it to be repaired, Michael J. Fox asked if they would play "Hey Good Lookin'," which they did. Afterwards, more requests were played. Two hours later, someone inquired as to whether or not the camera had been repaired. Robert Zemeckis replied that it had been fixed for quite a while, he just didn't want to stop the party that had evolved.
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  (#6) Some Creative Writing in the Sequel May Have Helped a Plot Point in Back to the Future

  At the school dance, Biff is shown "spiking" the punch with alcohol. In Back to the Future, George is shown drinking the punch before confronting Biff in the parking lot. It may be that George's uncharacteristic courage in the original scene can be attributed to drinking Biff's spiked punch.
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  (#7) Back to the Future II Is the First Film to Accomplish Interaction Between the Same Actor on the Screen Twice as Two Different Characters

  The biggest effect in Back to the Future II is the VistaGlide. There are three scenes that use the effect of the same actor interacting with themselves. The three scenes that were shot were the dinner sequence in 2015, 1955 Biff talking to 2015 Biff in the garage, and 1955 Doc talking with 1985 Doc. In order to create the dinner sequence with the VistaGlide, the camera had to be divided into thirds and Fox had to come in three different times to play his older self, Marty Jr., and his daughter Marlene.

  It's the first film ever to accomplish interaction between the same actor on the screen twice as two different characters.
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  (#8) There's a Fantastic Hidden Clint Eastwood Joke in Back to the Future III

  When Doc and Marty are at the drive-in preparing the DeLorean for the trip to 1885, Marty mentions Clint Eastwood and Doc replies, "Clint who?" In this shot, there is a movie poster on the drive-in's wall showcasing Revenge of the Creature and Tarantula, films which have some of the first film appearances of a young, then-unknown Eastwood.
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  (#9) They Actually (Accidentally) Hanged Michael J. Fox

  In Back to the Future III when "Mad Dog" tried to lynch Marty, Michael J. Fox was accidentally hanged, rendering him unconscious for a short time. He wrote about this in his autobiography Lucky Man.
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  (#10) Doc Wears a Shirt in Back to the Future II That Alludes to the Plot of III

  The shirt that Doc wears for the majority of the second film features a design depicting cowboys on horseback and a train, foreshadowing the climax of the third film.
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  (#11) Huey Lewis Makes a Cameo in the First Film

  When Marty is being judged at the band auditions, the judge who stands up to say he is "just too darn loud" is Huey Lewis whose songs, "The Power of Love" and "Back in Time" are featured on the movie's soundtrack. He also wrote Marty's audition song, a re-orchestrated version of "The Power of Love."
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  (#12) Doc's Iconic Hunch Was Developed Due to Michael J. Fox Being Just 5'4"

  Doc's distinctive hunched-over look was developed when the filmmakers realized the extreme difference in height between Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox. To compensate for the height difference, director Robert Zemeckis used specific blocking where the two often stood far apart at different camera depths. For close ups, Lloyd would have to hunch over to appear in frame with Fox.
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  (#13) Back to the Future Wasn't Originally Planned with Sequels in Mind

  Robert Zemeckis has explained that he was not originally interested in doing a sequel and that the open ending of the first movie was simply meant as a final joke. However, when plans for a sequel were made by the studio, he chose to remain involved in the continuation of his creation, and even extended it to two sequels.
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  (#14) The Franchise Cast Michael J. Fox, Lost Him to Scheduling Conflicts, Then Cast Him Again

  Michael J. Fox had always been the first choice for Marty, but he was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts with his work on Family Ties. Fox was carrying a lot of the show than usual and producers simply couldn't afford to let him go. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale then cast Eric Stoltz as Marty based on his performance in Mask.

  After five weeks of filming, Zemekis and Gale felt that Stoltz wasn't right for the part and Stoltz agreed. By this stage, Baxter was back fully on the show and producers agreed to let Fox go off to make the film. Fox worked out a schedule to fulfill his commitment to both projects, driving straight to the movie set after taping of the show each day, averaging a few hours of sleep per night. Reshooting Stoltz's scenes added $3 million dollars to the budget.
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  (#15) 1:21 or 1.21 Is Used Quite Cleverly with Time Travel

  When Doc Brown first sends Einstein "one minute" into the future, the time elapsed between when the DeLorean disappears and reappears is actually 1 minute 21 seconds, just as the reappearance occurred at 1:21 am, and the flux capacitor required 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.
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  (#16) The Fateful Clock from the First Movie Makes Its (Chronological) Debut in Back to the Future III

  The clock for the Hill Valley Clock Tower can be seen in the background, being unloaded from the train, as Doc and Marty talk to the conductor about the train's speed.
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  (#17) Mom, Mom Is That You?

  When 1985 Jennifer discovers herself in her 2015 home, her daughter Marlene (played by Michael J. Fox) appears at the top of the stairs, saying, "Mom? Mom, is that you?" This is the same exact line spoken by Marty (also played by Fox) in each film of the trilogy when he is knocked out and wakes up in an unfamiliar place.
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  (#18) The Town in Which They Filmed Back to the Future III Was Destroyed by Lightning Years Later

  The site of Hill Valley circa 1885 was destroyed by lightning in 1996.
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  (#19) Ronald Reagan Loved Back to the Future

  Apparently Ronald Reagan was quite amused by Doc Brown's disbelief that an actor like him could become president. He also seemed to enjoy it so much that he even made a direct reference of the film in his 1986 State of the Union address: "As they said in the film Back to the Future, 'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'"
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  (#20) Elijah Wood Makes His Theatrical Debut in the Franchise

  Elijah Wood's first feature film appearance came with the role of Video Game Boy in Back to the Future II. He played one of the two video game boys with whom Marty speaks in the diner near the beginning of the film.
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  (#21) It Took a Lot of Work (Especially Back in the '80s) to Have a Fake Crispin Glover in Back to the Future II

  The principal actors had committed to the sequels before any scripts were written. However, there was a stumbling block in negotiations with Crispin Glover (George McFly), who voiced his disapproval of the script and backed out of the next film. 

  Jeffrey Weissman was cast as George, and, using molds of Glover made on the set of the first film, was dressed in facial prosthetics to look like Glover, so that they could incorporate excerpts from the original movie. All shots of Weissman either show him from behind, at a distance, upside down, or with sunglasses on, in effect, fooling audiences into believing that Crispin had taken part in the sequel.
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  (#22) Universal Pictures Execs Had Some... Interesting Ideas About the Title

  Universal Pictures head Sid Sheinberg did not like the title Back to the Future, insisting that nobody would see a movie with "future" in the title. In a memo to Robert Zemeckis, he said that the title should be changed to Spaceman from Pluto, tying in with the Marty-as-alien jokes in the film, and also suggested further changes like replacing the "I'm Darth Vader from planet Vulcan" line with "I am a spaceman from Pluto!"

  Sheinberg was persuaded to change his mind by a response memo from Steven Spielberg, which thanked him for sending a "humorous note," and that everyone got a kick out of it. Sheinberg, too proud to admit he was serious, gave in to letting the film retain its title.
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  (#23) The Third Movie Is Set in the Old West, Because Michael J. Fox Thought It Would Be Fun

  The 1885 setting was partly due to a suggestion by Michael J. Fox, who had commented to producers how he always thought it would be fun to act in a Western.
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  (#24) The First Film Accidentally Laid Some Great Groundwork for Its Sequel

  During Doc's demo of the time machine, just before he is about to leave for the future, he tells Marty "I'll get to see who wins the next twenty-five World Series." At the time the scene was written and shot, no one was thinking there would be a sequel, let alone one where the hook would be Marty wanting to get a hold of a "sports almanac" so he could bet on games.
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  (#25) The Idea of a Mother Falling Love with Her Son Wasn't Risqué Enough for '80s Teen Comedy Standards...

  When Robert Zemeckis was trying to sell the idea of the film, one of the companies he approached was Disney, which turned it down because they thought that the story of a mother falling in love with her son (albeit with the twist of time travel) was too risqué for a film under their banner. In fact, Disney was the only company to think this was risqué. All other companies said that the film was not risqué enough, considering the other teen comedies at the time (e.g. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Revenge of the Nerds, etc.).
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  (#26) Michael Fox Starred in Science Fiction Theatre, Which Michael J. Fox Visits in the First Film

  The Screen Actors Guild can't have two people with the same name on their books. So Michael J. Fox inserted the letter J in his name to differentiate himself from an actor named Michael Fox. In the first Back to the Future, Marty goes back to the year 1955. His dad is a huge fan of the show Science Fiction Theatre, something Marty uses to his advantage. The original Michael Fox starred on the real Science Fiction Theatre in 1955.
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  (#27) Before He Was Edward Scissorhands, Hunter S. Thompson, or Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp Could Have Been Marty McFly

  According to Bob Gale, Johnny Depp auditioned for the role of Marty McFly: "I looked through the notes, and I said, 'Geez, I don't even remember that we read Johnny Depp!' So whatever he did, it wasn't all that memorable, I guess!"
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  (#28) Marty McFly Intentionally Mimics Rock Stars from His Time Back in the '50s Scene

  Marty McFly mimics famous rock stars during the later part of his performance at the school dance, when he starts playing heavy metal. He kicks of the speakers (The Who), plays the guitar while lying down (AC/DC), hopps across the stage with one leg kicked up (Chuck Berry), and solos in the style of Jimi Hendrix and Van Halen.
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  (#29) The Blu-ray Release for the Trilogy Was Timed Perfectly

  In the entire Back to the Future trilogy, the "present" date is October 26, 1985 (2015 is the future, 1885 and 1955 are the past). Exactly 25 years later, on October 26, 2010 the entire Back to the Future trilogy was released as a Blu-ray 25th Anniversary Edition.
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  (#30) Just as Doc's Wardrobe in II Reflects III, Marty's Wardrobe in III Reflects I

  The embroidery on Marty's western costume in Back to the Future III is the symbol for atomic energy.
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  (#31) 1.21 Jigawatts (Is an Actual Quantity of Electricity)

  Doc Brown refers to "jigawatts" of electricity. This is the now-obscure but once-standard pronunciation of the word "gigawatt," one billion watts. Nowadays it is usually pronounced with a hard "g" as in "gander" and "gold." In neo-Latin languages, still, it's pronounced with a soft "g."
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  (#32) Carl Sagan, Lover of the Franchise, Alias of Doc Brown

  Renowned scientist Carl Sagan considered this the greatest time travel movie ever made. He praised the accuracy in handling the multiple timelines as what would really happen if time travel were possible. In Back to the Future: The Game, Carl Sagan is the alias used by Doc Brown when visiting Hill Valley in 1931.
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  (#33) The Flying Time Traveling Train Is the Culmination of the Whole Franchise

  Doc's flying time travel train is a culmination of technology used by Doc in all three films - the train (1885), time travel (originated in 1955, completed in 1985); hover conversion and fusion (2015).
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  (#34) Filming Two Movies Back to Back Can Be Grueling on a Director

  For approximately three weeks Robert Zemeckis would fly to Los Angeles after his filming of the train climax of Back to the Future III during the day, to approve the sound dub that Bob Gale had been supervising for Back to the Future II. He would then get up at 4:30 am the next morning to fly back to the northern California set to continue with filming.
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  (#35) Eric Stoltz Was a Much More Violent Marty

  Thomas F. Wilson (Biff) almost had his collarbone broken in the scene in which Marty and Biff are about to fight in the cafeteria. Eric Stoltz roughed up Wilson for real take after take, despite repeated requests from Wilson to tone down the aggression. 
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  (#36) Three Actresses Actually Played Marty's Girlfriend

  Elisabeth Shue was actually the third person to play Marty McFly's girlfriend, Jennifer. Melora Hardin (not pictured) played Jennifer when Eric Stoltz was Marty. Claudia Wells played Jennifer in Back to the Future, then Elizabeth Shue took over the role.
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  (#37) Back to the Future Was Not an Easy Sell

  The script for the original Back to the Future was reportedly rejected 40 times before it was finally green-lit.
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  (#38) Crispin Glover Suing Over His Likeness in Back to the Future Resulted in New SAG Regulations

  Crispin Glover sued the filmmakers, as he had not granted permission to use his likeness in Part II. Glover ended up dropping the lawsuit after the case was settled out of court for $760,000. The Screen Actors Guild subsequently introduced new rules about illicit use of actors.
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  (#39) Back to the Future II and III Were Originally Just One Movie

  Originally, only one sequel was planned. The script for this sequel, known as Paradox included all the elements of both Back to the Future II and Back to the Future III, compressed to fit into one movie. 
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  (#40) Even the Locations Evolve to Reflect the Prior Installments

  In Back to the Future II the "Cafe 80's" restaurant in 2015 is a mashup of the storefront's two previous incarnations in Back to the Future. In 1955, it was the home of "Lou's Cafe" and in 1985, it was an health/workout club. While the "Cafe 80's" is primarily a restaurant, there are people seen working out on the exercise bikes, when Griff tells the riders "Keep pedaling, you two."
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  (#41) There Is an Official Back to the Future Day

  October 21, 2015 is officially "Back to the Future Day" because this is the day that Doc Brown and Marty McFly are supposed to travel to in their time machine. 
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  (#42) Marty McFly Was Almost the Karate Kid

  Ralph Macchio turned down the role of Marty McFly, thinking the movie was about "a kid, a car, and plutonium pills."
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  (#43) Back to the Future II Was Almost Set in the '60s and Very Different

  The original draft of the script had Doc and Marty traveling to 1967 instead of back to 1955 to stop Biff. Marty once again encounters his mother, and accidentally prevents her from going on vacation with his father, thus stopping his own conception and endangering his existence once more. 
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  (#44) Back to the Future III Debuted Universal's New Logo

  Part III was the first movie to use Universal's new 75th Anniversary opening studio logo. 
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  (#45) Eric Stoltz Is Actually Still in Back to the Future

  The filmmakers famously hired Eric Stoltz to play Marty, shot much of the movie, recast, and reshot with their original first choice, Michael J. Fox. Officially, there's not a single shot in Back to the Future that features Stoltz, but unofficially, it seems there's at least one moment in which the first Marty makes a (partial) appearance. According to Thomas F. Wilson, who played Biff, a shot of Marty throwing a punch was never reshot, so it must be Stoltz, not Fox, who threw it. Universal is unlikely to ever confirm as much, since it would entitle Stoltz to residuals, but there you have it.
  

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