Back In Time

 

The Back to the Future (BttF) movies are some of my favorite movies of all time. This is especially true for parts 1 & 2 (we all know part 3 is the weakest). I know that the movies can be easily criticized from a movie critic perspective (time travel logistics, Marty's lack of character arc, etc.), but I've always found them to be well written and acted and they're honestly just fun to watch. Back in Time (BiT) is a documentary on Amazon Prime (more on that in an upcoming post) about the movies and their super fans. Despite the criticisms of the movies, I think the acting and writing that the movies offer are good enough that you tend to forget about the fact that Marty's mom is in love with him or that his family shouldn't be disappearing from photographs. The first movie is probably the best movie of the trilogy, but I also really enjoyed the complexity of the second movie and the interwoven settings of parts 1 & 2. Doc Brown does spend a lot of time explaining the situation to Marty (and the audience), but it is complex and he does it in such a memorable way that the movies are able to pull this otherwise negative stunt off without too much hiccup.

The movies are obviously well known and offer a ton of nostalgia, and the documentary focuses on this nostalgia in addition to discussing the pros/cons of the movies. There's discussion of BttF tribute bands and the obvious DeLorean owners who have turned their "classic" car, a car that is only remembered because of the movies, into replicas of the time machine. All in all, all of this "noise" surrounding the nostalgia of the movies is interesting to learn about, and discussion of some behind the scenes info is fun as well, making the documentary enjoyable for fans of the movies. For me, I'll stick with periodically watching the movies when they're on TV and to a smaller, replica time machine.