Hooray! Today marks the 30th anniversary of my favorite movie ever, and one of the higest grossing films of 1985! Back to the Future!
How do I describe how awesome this movie is? I mean it it so amazing!
I just love, love, love it.
Now what is incredible about this film is that Steven Spielberg and Rob Zemeckis really wanted Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly. The only problem? He was working on the TV show Family Ties, which refused to give him a hiatus. Michael J. Fox was too sweet to leave the show that gave him a chance when no one would, (read more in his memoir Lucky Man), but also wanted to do the film. What’s a guy to do?
When the two directors wouldn’t leave him alone and sent him a script, which Michael J. Fox absolutely loved, he went back to Family Ties and asked again. This time they agreeed to it, BUT it had to be done on Michael J. Fox’s time. So he would go to the studio in the morning, work all day on Family Ties, a car would pick him up, and he would work late into the early morning on Back to the Future.
Michael J. Fox talks about how at some times he would become horribly confused and forget which movie he was in. That schedule had to be excruciating, but Mike, we all thank you for the glorious end project you did. You are Marty, and you were amazing! (Still are)
And of course his gamble paid off as the film made him a huge star. Look you can even buy an action figure of him.
So Let me briefly recap the film series for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
The film is a combo of Science-fiction, historical fiction, the ’50s, and the ’80s. All things I love and hold dear. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), is the youngest of the McFly household and growing up in 1985. He wants to be a musician but is afraid of failing. He’s close friends with amateur scientist and millionare, Dr. Emmet Brown, Doc for short. Doc has finally created the time machine he’s been working on for 30 years. And put it in a Delorean.
Before he can set out on his trip through time, Doc is killed by the terrorists he bamboozled for uranium (needed to work the time machine). Marty jumps in the car and takes off, accidentally going back to 1955 and messing up his parent meeting and their love at first sight moment. If he doesn’t get them back together, he’s history.
What’s not to love? Comedy, romance, science-fiction, great music, clothes, 2 songs by Huey Lewis (and a cameo), Michael J. Fox? Plus amazing gags!
So is this is fantastic film? Oh, yes!
And I watch it over, and over, and over…
After the first time I saw this film, I immediately became obsessed with it. I memorized every single line in the films. I would comb through the TV listings, and watch it every, single time it came on. One time I even got up at 4:00 am! That’s commitment right there. And why not be obsessed with it? Duh, it’s AWESOME!
I visited Universal Studios in 2012 and was devastated to see that they had hardly anything from Back to the Future. The clock tower was destroyed in that big fire, the ride had been taken out for “newer” things, and you couldn’t find any cool souvenirs. When I went in 2013, things were different. Universal Studios has a studio museum that they constantly move props in and out and they had a whole Back to the Future collection. I was having a ball, in fact I wanted to climb over the plexiglass and sit in the Deloran.
Here are the clock tower building plans
And the beautiful car
Yes that was so amazing! And today, to honor this cinematic classic, I am going to marathon the three films! 🙂 And I suggest you do the same.
If you were following me last year, you probably saw my post in October reviewing the film and declaring how much of an enormous fan I am of the movie. I’ve probably seen it a gazillion times, have seen both sequels, and even read the book it’s based on.
And to further that, every 4th of July I bring it out to watch again.
So when I saw the ad that it was coming back to the big screen, I was estatic and bought my ticket to see it right away.
There weren’t that many people interested, I mean Jurassic World is all anybody wants to see lately. And I can’t blame them, I saw it twice already (come back in October for my review). But come on, Jaws is one of the best films ever made!
And when I saw it for the first time on the big screen, it was fantastic!
There were quite a few things I never noticed on a small screen, for instance two shooting stars in the background, but most of all it was just the experience. The music was better, the action was better, the shark was waaaay creepier as he was ginormous on screen.
I LOVED IT! It was an amazing experience and I recommend it for any fans out there Don’t miss out but see Jaws in theaters.
You’re implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will… breed? No, I’m, I’m simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.
I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ❤ IT IS ONE OF MY ABSOLUTE FAVS!!!!!!!!!!
First of all let me welcome you to my Jurassic Park Marathon!!! Yay! All this week Jurassic Park films! 🙂
So I love this movie, I absolutely do. I love the book too, but the movie was so amazing because of the people they chose to play the characters, they were absolutely perfect! Well it was a Michael Crichton/Steven Spielberg film.
Crichton got the idea for this when he was writing the screenplay Westworld. I love that movie too!
I was such a huge dino nut when I was a kid, I absolutely love this movie.
I’m the kid on the left
So why is this movie so awesome? Let’s get on it.
So John Hammond, CEO of InGen a genetic company has bought an island off of Costa Rica and created a place where Dinosaurs can roam again. Unfortunately for him, they have had far too many accidents so his lawyer is forcing him to bring in some experts to okay the park.
Unbeknownst to Hammond, one of his employees, Dennis Nedry, is selling him out. InGen’s biggest competitor offered Nedry a ton of money to bring dino embryos.
So back in the U.S., Dr. Alan Grant, paleontologist, and paleobotanist, Dr. Ellie Slatter are out on a site digging up bones.
Dr. Grant is played by the very hunky Sam Neil.
Love this guy!
One of the best scenes in the film is when a kid makes fun of the dino bones and Grant rips him a new one.
Soon after the group is disrupted by a helicopter and have to quickly cover up the bones. This helicopter is Hammond who offers to fund their group for many, many years if they come and visit his park. They are totally down for that and promptly agree.
Along with Dr. Grant & Ellie, the lawyer brings mathematician, Ian Malcolm, who is played by none other than the very attractive Jeff Goldblum.
He’s got such a great voice!
So this past January I went to visit my sister who lives near San Diego. When I was flying down there, I was trying to buckle up my seatbelt, but it wouldn’t work. I totally felt like Dr. Grant right there.
So they land on the island and the the group is wondering what this park is all about. The only one who knows what it holds is John Hammond. They are driving onto the compound when Dr. Grant sees it….a dino.
They are given the spiel of what Jurassic Park is all about. At the visitor center they find out, through a very cheesy video, that the cloning of the dinos was accomplished by extracting the DNA of dinosaurs from mosquitoes that had been preserved in amber. The strands of DNA were incomplete, so they took DNA from frogs and used the frog DNA to fill in the gaps. The dinosaurs were all made to be female and created without a specific lysine to be only given through the food supplied by the feeders so that if there was ever an issue they would stop the feeeding and all would die.
Dr. Grant gets out of the appointed seats and takes off to check out the lab and see the baby dinos. Some are hatching at that moment and Dr. Grant sees a baby raptor.
John Hammond: [as they gather around a baby dinosaur hatching from its egg] I’ve been present for the birth of every little creature on this island. Dr. Ian Malcolm: Surely not the ones that are bred in the wild? Henry Wu: Actually they can’t breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions. There’s no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park. Dr. Ian Malcolm: How do you know they can’t breed? Henry Wu: Well, because all the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We’ve engineered them that way. [they take the baby dinosaur out of its egg. A robot arm picks up the shell out of Grant’s hand and puts it back down] Dr. Ian Malcolm: But again, how do you know they’re all female? Does somebody go out into the park and pull up the dinosaurs’ skirts? Henry Wu: We control their chromosomes. It’s really not that difficult. All vertebrate embryos are inherently female anyway, they just require an extra hormone given at the right developmental stage to make them male. We simply deny them that. Dr. Ian Malcolm: John, the kind of control you’re attempting simply is… it’s not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is. John Hammond: [sardonically] There it is. Henry Wu: You’re implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will… breed? Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, I’m, I’m simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.
Everyone but the lawyer questions whether Hammond has really thought about the ramifications
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Gee, the lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here, uh… staggers me. Don’t you see the danger, John, inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun…the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it…You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now…your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should…
Dr. Ellie Sattler: Well, the question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? I mean, you have plants in this building that are poisonous, you picked them because they look good, but these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they’re in, and they’ll defend themselves, violently if necessary.
Dr. Alan Grant: Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?
John Hammond: [laughing] I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it! You’re meant to come down here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I’ve got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!
Donald Gennaro: Thank you.
After lunch and debate they all go out to check out the park. On the way they are joined by Hammond’s grandchildren, Lex and Tim. The groups go out in two different cars and view two no shows and a sick triceratops. Now I know how this feels. While visiting my sister in San Diego we went to the wildlife preserve, and since it is a natural habitat those animals can hide super well. In fact the whole day there I kept think that this is like Jurassic Park.
One of the best scenes is this one.
Ellie leaves with the Vet so the cars now have Lex, Tim, & Gennaro the lawyer in one, and Malcolm and Alan in the other.
Back at the compound, a huge storm is headed for the island amd all the ferries are leaving early. This disrupts Nedry’s plan as the time is shortened for his plan, but he decides to go for it, shutting down all different parts of the system, electric fences, and the motorized cars the group are in.
Nedry’s plan doesn’t work as the rain causes him to be confused and he loses his glasses, the embryos, and his life. Don’t make fun of a dino.
One area that is shut down is the T-Rex’s fence, where all the cars are in front of.
Tim gets stuck in the car and thrown off the side into a tree. Dr. Grant and Lex scale down the wall to get away and help him. Ellie and Muldoon, the keeper, come looking for everyone, but find Malcolm. They pick him up and have to leave as they are chased away by a T-Rex.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: [as they escape the T-Rex chasing after them in the Jeep] You think they’ll have that on the tour?
Dr. Grant goes up in the tree to get Tim, but as they are climbing down they have to hurry even faster as the car falls down as well. The end up having the car fall on them and being trapped again. They find shelter and rest.
Back at the compund, they can’t get around the stuff Nedry set up and decide to do a complete shut down and then restart the system. However, the system doesn’t restart. NOw everything is shut down.
The next day Dr. Grant and the kids roam through the park. They discover that the dinosaurs are having children, they cannot be controlled. They had used frog DNA to make the dinos complete, but some frogs change sex multiple times before they decide on one.
Dr. Alan Grant: [finding egg shells] Oh my God. Do you know what this is? This is a dinosaur egg. The dinosaurs are breeding. Tim: But Grandpa said all the dinosaurs were girls. Dr. Alan Grant: Amphibian DNA. Lex: What’s that? Dr. Alan Grant: Well, on the tour, the film said they used frog DNA to fill in the gene sequence gaps. They mutated the dinosaur genetic code and blended it with that of a frog’s. Now, some West African frogs have been known to spontaneously change sex from male to female in a single sex environment. Malcolm was right. Look…life found a way.
As they continue through the park the discover that the animals are all loose and running free in a more natural way. They are also hunting each other.
Back at the compound; Malcolm, Ellie, Hammond, & Muldoon wait for one of the employees, Ray Arnold, who was sent out to the electrical building to restart it manually. Ellie can’t wait any longer, so she and Muldoon run to the area but get hunted by Velociraptors. Muldooon doesn’t make it. While Ellie begins the restart at the same time Tim, Lex, & Dr. Grant are climbing over an electric fence. I love this scene as it is so intense.
Poor Tim. He makes it out okay, but he has had the worst of it out of everybody. First his idol (Dr. Grant) doesn’t want to talk to him, his car gets attacked by a T-Rex, he gets stuck in a car and thrown into a tree, he throws up on himself, he gets out of the tree but the car falls on him, he almost gets run over by a stampede of dinos, gets electrocuted, and the trips not over.
Ellie gets attacked by Velociraptors, but manages to get away from them.
Now I took a class on Dinosaurs and the way they are portrayed on the screen is not how they believe they looked in real life, they think they had feathers and were colorful.
Anyways, Dr. Grant leaves the kids in the compund so they can eat, while he goes looking for Ellie. They are reunited and head back to the compound.
In the compound Lex and Tim are in one of the scrariest scenes ever!!!
They manage to get back with Dr. Grant & Ellie and they all head over to the computer system so Ellie can restart it. However, the raptors attack and she has to help Dr. Grant with the doors as they are are electrical. While they do that Lex reboots the system. They call Hammond and make him call a helicopter. A raptor starts attacking them and they have to crawl into the air vents to get out. They end up having to battle them later.
T-Rex = Awesome
Raptor = Awesome
T-Rex and Raptor fight = Super Awesome
They all end up getting away. Hammond having realized that his idea is not thought through all the way, Malcolm with his broken leg, Dr. Grant and Ellie closer than ever, and Dr. Grant having formed a great relationship with the kids and realizing kids would be great to have one day.
Now even though the movie has a LOT of differences from the book but it is so amzing of a story.
Now even though this movie, Frankenstein, and The Bride of Frankenstein show you that one shouldn’t try to take life into their own hands, still scientists just won’t listen.
Here’s a cover photo/poster I made as part of my countdown to Halloween this year.
The producer of this film got the idea for the story from a myth he was told about a half-fish and half-human race in the Amazon River. He wanted to go with a Beauty and the Beasttype vibe, but having an ending that was more reminiscent of King Kong.
Last October I created my own “poster” and changed my cover photo on facebook every day in honor of Halloween. This is it.
Love it! ❤
So the film begins when a fossil of a skeletal hand with webbed fingers is found in the Amazon.
Thinking this is the link between human evolution from sea to land Dr. Carl Maia goes to his former student Dr. David Reed to have him look into it.
From left to right Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson), David’s girfriend and collegue Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams), Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning), & Dr. Edwin Thompson (Whit Bissell)
David persuades his boss Dr. Mark Williams that they should look into it. It could mean fame, fortune, etc, the possibilities are endless for the ones who find out more.
That night we the viewer see a clawed, webbed, hand emerge from the inky black lagoon
Followed by screams of terror. We know what that means. The diggers es muerte.
Meanwhile the scientists are blissfully unaware of what lies before them, they all go aboard the ship the Rita with a silly (comical relief) Captain Lucas.
Now when I went to Universal Studios in May 2012, in the special effects show they had the boat Rita and picked a family to go on it and show how they would make it look as if the ship was moving down a river when it actually wasn’t. I wanted them to pick my family, but they said only families of four and there were only three of us there. 😥
Anyways, so as the group travels down the Amazon, problems arise. It turns out that David isn’t the only one who likes Kay. Mark has a thing for her as well, but Kay only has eyes for David.
Love Triangle!
When they arrive at the camp, they find the rest of Dr. Carl’s team dead, having been utterly clawed up. Everyone assumes that a jaguar did it, but Captain Lucas is pretty sure that something more sinister is afoot.
Meanwhile, Kay is off by herself roaming about. Seriously, in practically every horror film there is always that one character that decides they are going to be stupid and go off somwhere on their own and almost gets or does get killed. In Kay’s case she is pretty lucky. The creature notices her and we see his clawed hand come for her foot when she is called back by the others.
I really love how they don’t show his face right away. That always adds to the effect of the horror film.
The team isn’t able to find any remains that they thought they would, and Mark is very upset that they have nothing. He threatens to cut all funding, but David is able to convince him that they should go downriver and check the Black Lagoon where the river ends. David figures that cliffside where the hand was found probably eroded and went downstream. Lucas doesn’t like the idea of going down into the Black Lagoon and neither does his crew. They have heard many, many, many stories about that place.
“Lucas: I can tell you something about this place. The boys around here call it ‘The Black Lagoon’; a paradise. Only they say nobody has ever come back to prove it.”
This part of the film always reminds me of King Kong. How all the crew members care for Kay, very similar to how they care for Ann.
Mark and David go diving and collect rocks. There we see that the tension between the two is more than just Kay. Mark is VERY ambitious and tends to take credit for others work. Kay talks David down and decides to go for a swim. Dun-Dun! Dun-Dun! Dun-dun-da-da! Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, da-na-na!
THE CREATURE TRIES TO GRAB HER!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is also the part where we are finally able to see what the creature looks like. He’s pretty creepy. The person who played him, Ricou Browning, was a professional diver and swimmer and played the Creature whenever he was underwater. The director said that since the Creature had gills, air bubbles couldn’t come out from his mouth or nose. Browning was required to hold his breath for up to 4 mins and his costume was designed without an air tank. Eeep! that’s pretty crazy! They things they did back in the day.
That scene when Kay is swimming always makes me think of Jaws as well. I bet Steven Spielberg was influenced by it.
Kay gets called back before the creature can do anything, and everyone prepares to go out, but they are stopped by the monster. In a Finding Nemo-esque way, where he pulls on a net and messes with the ship. When they pull up the net they see a ginormous hole in it, and a claw.
David and Mark decide to go after it, Mark carrying a harpoon gun. David is against this as he wants to capture the monster alive so that they can study it. Mark thinks it is better to just destroy it and live.
Look at these Hunky men! 🙂
The go swimming and see the creature. Mark tries to hit it with his gun, which angers David. When they return to the boat, they can hardly believe what they saw and ran into, trying to describe it to the others. Kay doesn’t find it too far fetched, reminding everyone that some fish can breathe air. Mark goes to print the pics David took with his underwater camera. To their disappointment, nothing can be seen at all. However, they don’t have to be disappointed long as the creature has come on board the ship!
IT’S BEHIND!!!!!
They manage to fight him off, but they know they have to capture him or else he will kill them all. They try and drug the water and fish in hopes that he will eat them and knockout. That day and night they wait for him.
The creature manages to sneak on the ship.
Kay’s screams alert the rest of the crew and they scare the creature away by using light. He is having trouble as the drugs are stating to affect him. David and Mark chase after him and discover his underground grotto. The creature manages to kill one more person before he passes out. They tie him up in a net and take him onto the boat. They lock him up in a cage, but that doesn’t hold him for long. Dr. Edwin tries to save Kay by thrusting himself in front of her as a shield, but the Creature attempts to strangle him. Kay throws a lantern on the creature and sets him on fire. Scaring the monster off.
See fire is the way to go. It scares off Zombies, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, etc.
After this, David convinces everyone that they need to leave. They try, but as they are attempting to exit the lagoon, they discover a ton of felled trees block their way. Mark, being the guy he is, decides to go after the Creature and capture him. Of course now the Creature takes him down.
The Creature then jumps onto the boat and carries Kay away.
David goes after his lady love, taking Mark’s harpoon gun with him.
David and Kay get out, but the creature manages to follow them. They shoot him and he retreats floating in the water, but is he really dead? Or just recuperating?
NEVER SAY DIE!
Actually before the script was finished, plans had already been made to leave the Creature’s fate uncertain at the end of the picture, in order to leave an opening for a sequel. Which it had. Two of them, but neither was as good as the original deal.
The Creature has been such a huge thing in our culture. There was the parody Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961), has a part in The Munsters, makes an apperance in Scooby-Doo & the Ghoul School, makes an apperance in The Nightmare Before Christmas song “Town Meeting”, Lagoona Blue from Monster High is the daughter of the Creature, Gary Larson did a hilarious comic, and Jenny Clack, from the University of Cambridge, discovered a fossil amphibian named it Eucritta melanolimnetes, which means (literally) “the creature from the black lagoon”.
Today is a very important day in Back to the Future history.
It has been 27 years since Doc Brown thought up the flux capacitor.
Without him slipping on the toilet and getting knocked out, he never would have dreamed of the flux capacitor or created the time machine. And one of the most amazing stories could never have been told.
And I know time travel has been around long before, but let’s face it. A Delorean it is the best way to travel through time:
![John Hammond: [as they gather around a baby dinosaur hatching from its egg] I've been present for the birth of every little creature on this island. Dr. Ian Malcolm: Surely not the ones that are bred in the wild? Henry Wu: Actually they can't breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions. There's no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park. Dr. Ian Malcolm: How do you know they can't breed? Henry Wu: Well, because all the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We've engineered them that way. [they take the baby dinosaur out of its egg. A robot arm picks up the shell out of Grant's hand and puts it back down] Dr. Ian Malcolm: But again, how do you know they're all female? Does somebody go out into the park and pull up the dinosaurs' skirts? Henry Wu: We control their chromosomes. It's really not that difficult. All vertebrate embryos are inherently female anyway, they just require an extra hormone given at the right developmental stage to make them male. We simply deny them that. Dr. Ian Malcolm: John, the kind of control you're attempting simply is... it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is. John Hammond: [sardonically] There it is. Henry Wu: You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will... breed? Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, I'm, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way.](https://janeaustenrunsmylife.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/jurassic-park-dinosaur-egg-5.jpg)
![Dr. Alan Grant: [finding egg shells] Oh my God. Do you know what this is? This is a dinosaur egg. The dinosaurs are breeding. Tim: But Grandpa said all the dinosaurs were girls. Dr. Alan Grant: Amphibian DNA. Lex: What's that? Dr. Alan Grant: Well, on the tour, the film said they used frog DNA to fill in the gene sequence gaps. They mutated the dinosaur genetic code and blended it with that of a frog's. Now, some West African frogs have been known to spontaneously change sex from male to female in a single sex environment. Malcolm was right. Look... [we see a trail of baby dinosaur footprints] Dr. Alan Grant: Life found a way.](https://janeaustenrunsmylife.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/jp93-eggs1.jpg)
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