STARS : Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson.

At long last the Back To The Future trilogy has been released on DVD and more importantly before any other region in the world. IE : We get it first!

There really isn’t anyone who doesn’t know the story of Marty McFly and Doc Brown but for those who don’t (where the hell have you been?), here’s a quick summary.

Marty (Fox) is your typical teenager : hates school, loves his girlfriend and dreams of making it as a rock ‘n’ roll star. His famiy are losers and his dad is contstantly bullied by a creep named Biff. However, Marty is also friends with scientist Doc Brown (Lloyd) who invites him to see his latest science experiment which turns out to be a Time Machine created out of a Delorean (a type of car).

Whilst explaining to Marty how the car works (plutonium is needed to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity required to time travel) Doc enters the date November 13 1955 which is the day he invented time travel. Just before Doc leaves to go forward 30 years, he remembers that he needs extra plutonium in ORDER to get back. At this point a GROUP of Libyan terrorists SHOW up, who Doc ripped off in ORDER to get the plutonium, and start shooting. Marty dives into the car and inadvertantly becomes the world’s first human time traveller ending up in 1955, the date set on the time travel clock, with no way of getting home.

Marty seeks out Doc to help him get back to 1985, but before doing so runs into his own parents who are teenagers, the same age as Marty. Now as luck would have it, November 13 1955 is also the same day that Marty’s parents met and fell in love. Marty’s mum Lorraine (Thompson) however sees Marty and decides that he’s a “dreamboat” and doesn’t even notice George (Glover) her future husband, which spells disaster for Marty.

Marty now not only needs to get home to 1985 but before doing so needs to make sure that his parents fall in love as they are supposed to otherwise he will never exist. There is also another obstacle in his way : man mountain Biff Tannen (Wilson) who has the hots for Lorraine and will do whatever it takes to make her, well, his.

It’s amazing just how many sub plots can be explored in just 100 minutes of screen time and at the end of the trip you are exhausted and sweaty palmed due to the unrelenting tension.

Watch It If You Enjoyed : The Time Machine

Verdict : It hasn’t aged and still holds its own.

THE EXTRAS

* Audio Commentary : Q) When is a commentary not a commentary? A) When it’s a Question and answer session. This Q & A session takes place at the University of Southern California after HAVING watched the film with Director Robert Zemeckis and Producer Bob Gale. Whilst there’s a lot of interesting information shared I still feel that overall this is a major dissapointment as it doesn’t directly address sections of the movie whilst on screen.

* Did You Know That? Universal Animated Anecdotes : This helps fill some of the void left by the insufficient commentary. Kind of like a pop up video writing appears on screen and supplies some info such as look at this clock, or this person was in this film or the reason this happened was….

* The making of “Back To The Future” (14:30): This is the making of that was used to promote the film back in 1985. This is an entertaining look at what went on during development of the first BTTF film and includes how the Delorean was chosen, how the car was fitted out, why Michael J Fox was chosen and more. There are also plenty of interviews with the stars, the cast and even Huey Lewis.

* Making The Trilogy - Chapter 1 (15:30) : This is a new documentary that has been split over the three films. Made in 2002 there are interviews with the two Bob’s Gale and Zemeckis as well as Michael. It also mentions that the 2 original choices for the role of Marty were C. Thomas Howell and Eric Stoltz with Stoltz being given the role. It also includes rare photos of Eric’s early scenes before being replaced by MJ.

* Outtakes (3 mins): Numerous scenes of the characters, mainly Michael, stuffing up. Very funny stuff.

* Deleted Scenes (8:50): there are 7 scenes included in this section. Some are scenes that have been totally deleted (ie George locked in the phone booth) and others extensions of scenes still included (ie Darth Vadar extended, very funny by the way). I would have liked to have seen some of Eric’s scenes due to legal reasons couldn’t be included.

* Original Makeup Tests (2:12): Christopher Lloyd, Thomas Wilson & Lea Thompson literally turing around in circles to test how their make-up looked to the camera. Inconsequential really.

* Storyboards to Final Feature comparisons : This has been broken down into 2 sections. The first is “Skateboard Chase” (1:40) and the second “Clock Tower Sequence” (5:00). Each shows the storyboards as envisioned in the top half of the screen and the actual film footage in the bottom half. In both cases the drawings faithfully capture the finished product.

* Production Archives : Also broken down into sections, the “Marty McFly Photo Album” (9:40) we have 58 photos with each being on screen for about 10 seconds. We then go straight into the “Behind The Scenes Photos” (3:00) which has another 18 shots. By the end of the 70 odd shots every major cast member is immortalised. Next up is “The Delorean Designs” (5:40) which is a 34 strong collection of black & white and colour drawings, blueprints and interior shots as well as some clips from the film. Finally there is “Time Travel Designs” (3:00) wich is another 18 prints of how the origin of time travel was envisioned to look.

* Theatrical Trailer : After watching the trailer I realised that I’d never actually seen it. This trailer shows you nothing about the film other than the fact that MJF is in it. Very clever.

CONCLUSION

This long awaited DVD lives up to expectations in so many ways that you simply must own it. The only let down is the commentary which is a complete bust and a waste of disc space.

With thanks to Universal, The Back To The Future Trilogy is available to buy from August 21st 2002