Marty McFly learns that if the future is going to change, he'll have to change it

Rating: 10/10 (3 May 2005)

I don't really see this movie as science fiction at all. Science fantasy, maybe. How does this time machine work? Marty asks. Well it's the good old flux capacitor, Dr. Brown "explains." In the original "Time Machine" movie, scientific explanations are even lamer. How does it work? Push the lever forward you go into the future; push it back and you go into the past! Why, thank you! It's perfectly clear now. No, no. There is no real science in "Back to the Future." The technological premise is a mere excuse to ruminate on the vicissitudes of fate and the possibility of doing something very difficult but crucial: changing your history. Marty learns that, maybe--just maybe--if you go beyond yourself and do something beyond what you think you can, beyond what you have seemingly been set up by fate to do, then you can change history--fate--not only for your self but for others as well, for your progeny, your family. Thus the real hero of this morality tale is not Marty but the old man. With Marty's help, he eventually stands up to Biff, something he never did the first time around and everything changes! The family is now hip and smart, classy, loving and cool! When I first saw that last scene (and when I still see it today), a tear of humanistic joy comes to my eye. The whole family is redeemed for at least a generation, because George learns a Hemingway lesson: a coward dies a thousand deaths, but a brave man only one. If Biff had killed him in the parking lot, then, at least, it would have been "The Short, Happy Life of George McFly." Sweet, sweet, sweet redemption. I love it!