Back to the Future Part II
Getting back was only the beginning.
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Production
Budget
$40 000 000
Revenue
$332 861 197
Director
Scenario
Robert Zemeckis
Author
Composer
Producer
Actors
Michael J. Fox
Marty McFly / Marty McFly Junior / Marlene McFly
Christopher Lloyd
Doctor Emmett Brown
Lea Thompson
Lorraine
Thomas F. Wilson
Biff Tannen / Griff
Elisabeth Shue
Jennifer
James Tolkan
Strickland
Jeffrey Weissman
George McFly
Short description
Marty McFly and Doc Brown return in Back to the Future Part II, picking up where the first film left off. Doc arrives in a much-improved time machine and takes Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer to 2015, hoping to prevent trouble involving Marty's future children. Their visit to a transformed Hill Valley goes wrong, and a sports almanac falling into the hands of the bullying Biff Tannen sets off changes that ripple through time. To undo the damage, Marty must travel back to 1955 once more and confront his teenage parents' world from an unfamiliar angle.
Robert Zemeckis directed the film, his sixth feature in chronological order, following Who Framed Roger Rabbit and preceding Back to the Future Part III. Bob Gale wrote the screenplay, and he produced alongside Neil Canton for Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment. Michael J. Fox plays Marty and several of his relatives, with Christopher Lloyd as Doc, Lea Thompson as Lorraine, Thomas F. Wilson as Biff and Griff, Elisabeth Shue as Jennifer, and James Tolkan as Strickland. The credited cast runs to 54 names and the crew to 127.
Made for 40 million dollars, the film took about 332 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for its era. On IMDb it holds 7.8 out of 10 from roughly 618,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.8 out of 10 from over 14,000 votes, while critics' reviews average 6.6 out of 10 across 67 notices. Audiences rate it a little more warmly than critics do, though both place it in solidly favourable territory.
What's left behind the scenes
- Charles Fleischer, who voiced Roger Rabbit, played an old man complaining that he didn't bet on the baseball champions.
- All the main actors from the first film agreed to reprise their roles in the sequel, with the exception of Crispin Glover (George McFly, Marty's father). He set too strict conditions for the producers. Therefore, in the second part of the film, the screenwriters "kill" him off. All the shots in the film featuring young George McFly are taken from the first part of the trilogy.
- We never learned Griff's last name, so it's unclear whether he is Biff's granddaughter's son or his grandson. We only know that Biff is Griff's grandfather.
- The futuristic taxi that Biff uses to follow Marty and Doc is a Citroen DS.
- The video waiters in the "Eighties Bar" are a direct reference to the "Max Headroom" show, where an actor in makeup performed "as" a computer model using audio and video effects.
- The man who talks to Marty about the baseball championship is the mechanic who fixed Biff's car in 1955.
- Crispin Glover sued Steven Spielberg for using video footage of him in the film without his permission. The court ruled in favor of Glover, and the "Screen Actors Guild" adopted new rules regarding the use of video and photographic materials featuring actors.
- The names of the two police officers are Reece and Foley. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale used these names for all police officers or government agents in the films for which they jointly wrote the screenplays.
- The working title of the film was "Paradox." On the DVD release of the film, this title can be seen on the clapperboards when viewing the bonus features.
- The promotional slogan for "Jaws 19" was: "This time, it's very, very personal."
- Doc says he visited a rejuvenation clinic. This episode was added to the script so that Christopher Lloyd would not have to wear makeup again that made him look older.
- In the jacuzzi scene, Biff is watching Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964).
- Cheryl Wheeler-Dickson, Darleen Vogel's stunt double, was injured while filming the scene with the flying boards.
- The movie theater is advertising "Jaws 19," directed by Max Spielberg. Steven Spielberg, who directed "Jaws" (1975), has a son named Max.
- During a television interview, Robert Zemeckis said that "flying skateboards were invented a long time ago, but skateboard companies don't want to put them into mass production, but the film crew still managed to get a few of those boards." The director was just joking, but after the broadcast, the "Mattel" company (whose logo can be seen on the flying skateboards) was inundated with phone calls from people asking when such boards would go on sale.
- In the area where Marty from 2015 lives, a dog being walked by one of the robots from the film "Short Circuit" (1986) can be noticed.
- Production of this film was postponed for three years until Robert Zemeckis finished work on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988).
- When Jennifer, who has lost consciousness, is taken home by two police officers in 2015, you can notice that the face of one of the law enforcement officers is persistently hidden from view. Mary Ellen Trainor, Robert Zemeckis' wife at the time of filming, played this police officer.
- One idea for a sequel involved a virtually identical plot for the first two-thirds of the film, but in the final part, old Biff was supposed to give the sports almanac to young Biff in the 1960s, not 1955. When Marty and Doc went back in time to stop him, Marty accidentally encountered his parents, who had become hippies, and almost prevented his own conception. Robert Zemeckis decided that this concept was too similar to the first film and came up with the idea of showing the original story from a different angle with two Martys in 1955.
- The scene where Marty meets his brother, Dave (Mark McClure), in an alternate 1985 was cut from the film.
- In "Cafe 80's", you can spot several television series filmed in the 1980s, including "Family Ties" and "Taxi", in which Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd starred, respectively.
- This film marks Elijah Wood's film debut.
- During the filming of "Future," Michael J. Fox played himself in old age, his son, and his daughter. Applying the makeup took about 4-5 hours. The scenes were filmed without the use of computer special effects; the frames were simply layered on top of each other. All props that appeared in the frame had to be glued down to prevent them from shifting during subsequent filming of the same scene.
- The final scene of the first film was reshot as the opening scene of the second film. However, changes were made to this scene, particularly regarding how Christopher Lloyd delivers his lines.
- Instead of Crispin Glover, who played George McFly in "Back to the Future" (1985), Jeffrey Wiseman played the role of Marty's father, and was made up to resemble Glover.
- In the 2015 newspaper, you can notice the following headlines: “Washington prepares for a visit from Queen Diana,” “Big-thumb bandits strike again.” The latter article discusses the fact that in the future, people will use thumbprints for payments (for example, this is how Biff pays for a taxi). Therefore, bandits will begin to “steal” thumbs.
- While writing the screenplay for the film, Robert Zemeckis was filming the comedy detective story "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".
- Filming of the second and third parts of the film was done simultaneously.
- If you pay attention to the article in 'USA Today' about Griff's gang, you can learn the real names of Data, Spike, and Whitey – Rafe Anger, Leslie O’Malley, and Chester Nogura, respectively.
- For the filming of the first movie, the Hill Valley 1955 sets were built first. After shooting the middle of the film, they were converted into Hill Valley 1985, and the beginning and end of the film were shot. For 'Back to the Future Part II', the sets were again remodeled to match 1955. This rebuilding of the sets cost the creators more than it would have to build them from scratch.
- In 1955, Doc Brown from 1985 talks to Doc Brown from 1955, who doesn't know who he's speaking to. During this conversation, the Doc from 1985 is wearing a brown coat and hat. While watching "Back to the Future" (1985), you can notice a person dressed in exactly the same clothes (presumably Doc) walking down the street shortly before the scene with the clock tower begins.
- When Doc is reading the newspaper and watching the headlines change, one of them transforms from “Nixon runs for a fifth term” to “Reagan runs for a second term.”
- On the fax informing Marty of his firing, you can notice the address “11249 Business Center Road, Hill Valley, CA 95420-4345”. Although the address is, of course, fictional, the zip code belongs to the town of Caspar, which is 500 miles north of Los Angeles.
- In an antique store in 2015, you can find the jacket Marty wore in 1985, a Roger Rabbit doll, and a "Jaws" video game for the "Nintendo" console. Robert Zemeckis directed the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988). The "Jaws" video game was created by "LJN." This company also developed video games based on the second and third installments of "Back to the Future."
- When Biff returns to 2015 and gets out of the “DeLorean,” he accidentally bumps into his cane and writhes in pain. However, according to Robert Zemeckis, in addition to the pain from the impact, Biff is experiencing the same thing as Marty during the dance in the first film at that moment: he is fading from time. The creators' idea was that, having returned to 1955 and given the sports almanac to himself, Biff changed the future. According to Zemeckis, Biff's wife (Marty's mother) shot him after 1985. In a deleted scene, we see Biff disappear.
- In 2015, several vehicles from other science fiction films can be spotted, including the "Spinner" from "Blade Runner" (1982) and the "StarCar" from "The Last Starfighter" (1984). Other vehicles are mostly modified "Ford Probes" and various "Mustang" models, as well as different concept cars.
- A heavily cut scene of a family dinner made it into the final edit. When older Marty says, "I missed everything," he is commenting on a deleted scene where Lorraine mentions her Uncle Joe being back in jail.
- By reading George McFly's tombstone, you can learn his middle name – Douglas.
- A "The Wild Gunman" arcade game was created specifically for the film. This game was developed exclusively for the "Nintendo Entertainment System" and was never released for arcades. In the film, the game's sound effects are exactly the same as for the video game console, but the graphics are completely new. Paradoxically, the animation in the actual video game was an order of magnitude better.
- The neon sign above Biff's casino was modeled after the "Vegas World Casino" (now Stratosphere) in Las Vegas.
- During the filming of the school dance, Michael J. Fox genuinely plays the guitar himself. It's not editing or a stunt double. The music was broken down into chords, and the actor learned each one – chord by chord – to make the performance look 100% believable. The scene took 2 weeks to film.
- In the five years that passed since the completion of filming "Back to the Future" (1985), Michael J. Fox had forgotten how to ride a skateboard.
- In the original version of the script, the main events of the film were supposed to take place in the 60s, specifically in 1967.
- Initially, only one sequel was planned. A script titled "Paradox" combined elements of the second and third parts of the trilogy, compressed into a single film. However, by watching the bonus features on the DVD release of the film, one can learn that an even earlier version of the script existed, in which Marty meets his parents when they were college students in the 1960s.
- The rail on top of the clock tower, which Doc broke in 1955, is still broken in 2015.
- Griff Tanner's car in 2015 is a modified BMW 6 Series.
- Claudia Wells, who played Jennifer in "Back to the Future" (1985), chose to end her acting career in 1987. In "Back to the Future Part II", Elizabeth Shue took on the role of Jennifer. The final scene of "Back to the Future" (1985) was specifically reshot with Elizabeth's participation.
- Doc says he left Einstein in the animated kennel in 2015. This phrase was added to the film's script to explain where Doc's dog disappeared to: when Doc goes to the future after talking to Marty, Einstein is with him, but when Doc picks up Marty and Jennifer from 1985, Einstein is no longer with him.
- The television version of the film, shown in 1990, contained two additional scenes cut from the theatrical release: Biff disappears upon returning to 2015; Marty sees the destroyed Hill Valley High School.
- Michael Balzari aka Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers played Needles. He also played Needles from the present in "Back to the Future Part III" (1990).
- At the end of the film, when Doc and Marty are chasing Biff's car in the DeLorean, small green wheels are clearly visible in one of the shots, on which the "flying" car is riding, and the shadow of the camera operator's dolly.
- At the 22nd minute, when Marty (played by Michael J. Fox) climbs the stairs next to the fountain, a logo is visible above the stairs – an arrow clock and a lightning bolt striking it.
- One of the newspaper headlines from 2015 reads: "Marshall ran a mile in three minutes."
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