The Second Anniversary of the Future

Well, by now, you've probably figured out that this is the special post that I told you about earlier in the week. And in that special post, I said that it was an anniversary. Well, today is the second anniversary of the future. By which, I mean...



BACK TO THE FUTURE!

That's right: today is the second anniversary of the day Marty McFly and Doc Brown travelled to the future. In fact, I scheduled this post to come out at the exact time--4:29 PM--that they arrived. Put quite briefly, I am a very big fan of this trilogy. They're some of the few movies that make me get all excited every time I watch them, and probably the only series that makes me get that way over every single movie in it. That is what this post is going to be about.

Now, I've got to tell you: before I watched Back to the Future, I liked time travel. I really did. But after I watched it... I loved time travel. The first time I watched it was the night before we went to a certain Renaissance Faire somewhere in our state. The Renaissance Faire had a theme: it was Time Traveller's Weekend. And at that Renaissance Faire, they had the DeLorean. It played music from the movies and everything. I was very, very excited!



Well, enough background: now on to the movies themselves. Now, I won't go into every little detail that make those movies great in this post. I do need something for later Back to the Future posts, and I'll go into the specifics in those. But for now, I'm going to tell you, in general terms, a few things I like about the Back to the Future trilogy.

First, it's time travel. I've said already that I liked time travel anyway, and, having watched these movies, I now love it. You could see some of your favorite times in the past, or discover how things will look after your time, far in the future. There are so many possibilities, but I think my favorite parts would be when I could meet people--from heroes in days past to distant grandchildren, and yes, even my parents and grandparents when they were my age.

Back to the Future is a wonderful example. Not only is it a Time Travel Story, but it's also a Time Paradox Story as well. Those are always fun, if sometimes a bit brain-breaking. The logic of the thing generally holds up well enough (except for one slight discrepancy in the third one, but it really isn't that big a deal), and it also doesn't break my brain when I think about it. Usually. But I haven't thought about it hard in a while, so I may have to get back to you on that.

Second, the characters are so memorable. Marty is almost a master of ceremonies, taking us--the -audience--through these many adventures, characters, and good times (and even some bad ones). Doc Brown is very funny, Great-Scotting every-which-way, and being hilariously expressive about everything. Biff, the constant villain, is a wonderful source of comedy as well. He always messes up his puns, and he too is incredibly expressive. And there are multiple versions of him too, all played by the same man, so for every version to be funny is pretty good on the film-makers. The rest of the characters are interesting too: a few of my favorites are Clara Clayton and George McFly. They all just sort of... click, I suppose. They work well together.

And this is an important part of the story to me. The story partly hinges on this point, on whether or not you have great characters. That's why I try to bring to life great characters in my writing, characters who are real but can take people by the hand and lead them into any fancied world I invent. And I don't mean realistic, which has now come to mean dark and depressing, humourless and perpetually hopeless. No, characters must be real to the readers. Or watchers, or listeners. And the characters in Back to the Future do that, for me anyway. I don't think about the acting: I think about the characters themselves. They're real to me.

This is one reason why I hope that they never remake or reboot Back to the Future, because at the current rate of reboots, they will screw up colossally, especially with the characters. But I get the feeling that it will not happen anytime soon, so that's a relief.

Along with those two reasons, the whole thing's just so well done. It's well-written, and the funny lines just keep coming, one after another after another. It's well-acted, on all counts, and well-directed, and well-cast. The special effects look particularly great for that day and age, and the music--well, let's just say it's been played a lot through the past few days, and is also going to be played a lot in the very near future. You may have actually heard one of the songs recently on this blog.

Not only that, but the action in this thing has me practically hopping up and down on the edge of my seat, despite knowing what's going to happen. It's exciting, and there are so many moments worthy of a fist pump and a yelled-out "Yes!!" My family actually says every time we watch it "No, we can't watch it anymore, it makes Grace too happy." But we always watch them again anyway. Whatever else they may be, the Back to the Future movies are some of the most fun movies of all time.

I think there's a term some people use, where people just love some movie or TV show to death, and never get tired of it. What is it... fangirl? Yeah, that's the word for it. I'm a fangirl of Back to the Future. If I'm a fangirl of anything, it'd probably be Back to the Future. I know there are flaws and shortcomings, as there are in every movie. And I'll willingly acknowledge those, and point them out. But because I can pick them out and say they're wrong without messing up the movie, I'd say it's absolutely worth it.

In short, fast-paced action and quick-witted characters are revved all the way up to 88 in this epic classic. Little wonder that this movie is one for the ages.

This clip is about how I feel every time I watch a Back to the Future movie.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that watching this movie had partially inspired a certain script I've been working on. It isn't really the main project I'm working on (or the main one I should be working on), but, you know, I've been working on it. It's currently called There and Back in Time. Funny, considering the picture that was included in that earlier post. But no, it's not a time-travel story having to do with Middle Earth. That one will come even later on.

You see, this one has a main character named Ben. He accidentally time-travels from his time (early 18th century/1700s) to this one (early 21st century, for those who don't know to which time they have jumped). He makes friends with a few different people, not least among them a girl called Glory. He furthermore makes enemies with a familiar-looking fellow named Jack Tanyer. So he has to figure out not only how to navigate this odd new world, but also how to get back home.

Now, the script's not done, and it may be some time before it's recorded and ready for listening. I'm pretty busy with other things, and those keep getting interrupted anyway. So don't be surprised if it's more than months before I say I have made an end. However, I have been working on it, and several of the details are influenced by the Back to the Future trilogy. A character here, a scene there, a few odd references dotted around, and probably more, too. What did you expect?

Well, that about wraps it up for this post. But I would also like to say that I am going to begin a tradition for this day. From now on, October 21 is Time Travel Day. The week preceding could also be considered Time Travel Week, but I won't make that official. The Mid-Week Music for that week will have something to do with either Back to the Future or time travel of another kind. And on every October 21, I will do a post having to do with the Back to the Future trilogy.

But as I said, that's about it for now. I have some things I need to do that are waiting impatiently. Great Scott, it's later than I thought. Perfect. Sorry, gotta go now. Don't want to be late again! *So take me away/I don't mi-i-i-ind/But you better promise me/I'll be back in time!*