Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part II is a 1989 American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Bob Gale and a story by both. It is the sequel to the 1985 film "Back to the Future" and the second installment in the "Back to the Future" franchise. The film stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue (replacing Claudia Wells), and Jeffrey Weissman (replacing Crispin Glover), and follows Marty McFly (Fox) and his friend Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown (Lloyd) as they travel from 1985 to  2015 to prevent Marty's son from sabotaging the McFly family's future. When their arch-nemesis Biff Tannen (Wilson) steals Doc's DeLorean time machine and uses it to alter history for his benefit, the duo must return to 1955 to restore the timeline. The film was produced on a $40 million budget and was filmed back to back with its sequel "Part III". Filming began in February 1989, after two years were spent building the sets and writing the scripts. "Back to the Future Part II" was also a ground-breaking project for visual effects studio Industrial  Light & Magic (ILM). In addition to digital compositing, ILM used the VistaGlide motion control camera system, which allowed an actor to portray multiple characters simultaneously on-screen without sacrificing camera movement. "Back to the Future Part II" was released by Universal Pictures on November 22, 1989. The film initially received mixed reviews from critics and grossed over $332 million worldwide in its initial run, making it the third highest-grossing film of 1989. Reception of the film has improved with time, as the performances, story, direction, cinematography, musical score and predictions have been singled out for praise. Some critics  have noted it as one of Zemeckis' best films, as well as one of the best sequels of all time. Plot. On October 26, 1985, Dr. Emmett Brown arrives in the DeLorean time machine and persuades Marty McFly and his girlfriend, , to travel to the future with him and help their future children, with Biff Tannen witnessing their departure. They arrive on October 21, 2015, where Doc electronically incapacitates Jennifer and leaves her asleep in an alley, explaining that she should not have too much knowledge of future events. He has Marty pose as his own son and lookalike Marty  Jr. to refuse an offer to participate in a robbery with Biff's grandson Griff, thus saving Marty Jr. from prison. Marty switches places with Marty Jr. and refuses Griff's offer, but Griff goads Marty into a fight, and a subsequent hoverboard chase ensues. Griff and his gang are arrested, saving Marty's future children. Before rejoining Doc, Marty purchases an almanac containing the results of major sporting events from 1950 to 2000. Doc discovers it and warns Marty about profiting from time travel. Before Doc can adequately dispose of it, they are interrupted by the police, who have  found Jennifer incapacitated and are taking her to her 2015 home. They pursue, as does the elderly Biff, who has overheard their conversation and retrieved the discarded almanac. Jennifer wakes up in her 2015 home and hides from the McFly family. She overhears that her future self's life with Marty is not what she expected, due to his involvement in an automobile accident. She witnesses Marty being goaded by his co-worker, Douglas Needles, into a shady business deal, resulting in Marty's firing. Jennifer tries to escape the house but faints after she encounters her 2015 self. While  Marty and Doc attend to her, Biff steals the time machine to give the almanac to his younger self, then returns to 2015. Marty, Doc, and an unconscious Jennifer return to 1985, unaware of Biff's actions. They leave Jennifer on her own front porch. The 1985 they return to has changed dramatically, with Biff now one of the wealthiest and most corrupt men in the country. He has turned Hill Valley into a chaotic dystopia, secretly killed Marty's father, George, in 1973, and forced Marty's mother, Lorraine, to marry him. Doc has also been committed to a  mental hospital. Doc deduces that the 2015 Biff took the time machine to give his younger self the almanac, and Marty learns from the alternate 1985 Biff that he received it on November 12, 1955. Biff tries to kill Marty, but Marty flees and travels to 1955 with Doc. Marty secretly follows the 1955 Biff and watches him receive the almanac from his 2015 self. Marty then follows him to the high school dance, being careful to avoid interrupting the events from his previous visit. After several fruitless attempts, Marty finally gets the almanac, leaving Biff to crash into a  manure truck. Marty burns the almanac, nullifying the changes to the timeline that it had caused, as Doc hovers above in the time machine. Before Marty can join him, the DeLorean is struck by lightning and disappears. A Western Union courier arrives immediately after and delivers a 70-year-old letter to Marty; it is from Doc, who explains that the lightning strike transported him back to 1885. Marty races back into town to find the 1955 Doc, who had just helped Marty to return to 1985. Shocked by Marty's sudden reappearance, Doc faints. Development. Director Robert Zemeckis said  that, initially, a sequel was not planned for the first film, but its huge box office success led to the conception of a second installment. He later agreed to do a sequel, but only if Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd returned as well. With Fox and Lloyd confirmed, Zemeckis met with screenwriting partner Bob Gale to create a story for the sequel. Zemeckis and Gale would later regret that they ended the first one with Jennifer in the car with Marty and Doc Brown, because it required them to come up with a story that would fit her in , rather than a whole new adventure. Gale wrote most of the first draft by himself as Zemeckis was busy making "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". At first, the film was to take place in 1967, but Zemeckis later stated that the time paradoxes of it provided a good opportunity to go back to 1955 and see the first film's events in a different light. While most of the original cast agreed to return, a major stumbling block arose when negotiating Crispin Glover's fee for reprising the role of George McFly. When it became clear that he would not return , the role was rewritten so that George is dead when the action takes place in the alternative version of 1985. The greatest challenge was the creation of the futuristic vision of Marty's hometown in 2015. Production designer Rick Carter wanted to create a very detailed image with a different tone from the film "Blade Runner", wishing to get past the smoke and chrome. Carter and his crew spent months plotting, planning, and preparing Hill Valley's transformation into a city of the future. Visual effects art director John Bell stated they had no script to work with, only the  indications that the setting would be 30 years into the future featuring "something called hoverboards". When writing the script for "Part II", Gale wanted to push the first film's ideas further for humorous effect. Zemeckis said he was somewhat concerned about portraying the future because of the risk of making wildly inaccurate predictions. According to Gale, they tried to make the future a nice place, "where what's wrong is due to who lives in the future as opposed to the technology" in contrast to the pessimistic, Orwellian future seen in most science fiction. To keep production costs low  and take advantage of an extended break Fox had from "Family Ties" (which was ending its run when filming began), it was shot back-to-back with sequel "Part III". Production. Two years were needed to finish building the sets and writing the scripts before shooting could begin. During filming, the creation of the appearance of the aged characters was a well-guarded secret, involving state-of-the-art make-up techniques. Fox described the process as very time-consuming: "it took over four hours, although it could be worse". Principal photography began on February 20, 1989. For a three -week period near the end of the filming, the crew split and, while most remained dedicated to shooting "Part III", a few, including Gale, focused on finishing its predecessor. Zemeckis himself slept only a few hours per day, supervising both films, having to fly between Burbank, where it was being finished, and other locations in California for "Part III". The film was considered one of the most ground-breaking projects for Industrial Light & Magic. It was one of the effects house's first forays into digital compositing, as well as the VistaGlide motion control camera system, which enabled them to  shoot one of its most complex sequences, in which Fox played three separate characters (Marty Sr., Marty Jr., and Marlene), all of whom interacted with each other. Although such scenes were not new, the VistaGlide allowed, for the first time, a completely dynamic scene in which camera movement could finally be incorporated. The technique was also used in scenes where Fox, Thomas F. Wilson, Christopher Lloyd, and Elisabeth Shue's characters encounter and interact with their counterparts. It also includes a brief moment of computer-generated imagery in a holographic shark used to promote a fictional "Jaws 19", which wound  up unaltered from the first test done by ILM's digital department because effects supervisor Ken Ralston "liked the fact that it was all messed up." Animation supervisor Wes Takahashi, who then was the head of ILM's animation department, worked heavily on the film's time travel sequences, as he had done in the original film and in "Part III". As "Part II" neared release, sufficient footage of "Part III" had been shot to allow a trailer to be assembled. It was added to the conclusion of "Part II" before the closing credits, as a reassurance to moviegoers that  there was more to follow. Replacement of Crispin Glover. Crispin Glover was asked to reprise the role of George McFly. He expressed interest but could not come to an agreement with the producers regarding his salary. He stated in a 1992 interview on "The Howard Stern Show" that the producers' highest offer was $125,000, less than half of what the other returning cast members were offered. Gale has since asserted that Glover's demands were excessive for an actor of his professional stature at that time. In an interview on the "Opie and Anthony" show in 2013, Glover stated  that his primary reason for not doing "Part II" was a philosophical disagreement on the film's message; Glover felt the story rewarded the characters with financial gain, such as Marty's truck, rather than love. Rather than write George out of the film, Zemeckis used previously filmed footage of Glover from the first film as well as new footage of actor Jeffrey Weissman, who wore prosthetics including a false chin, nose, and cheekbones to resemble Glover. Various techniques were used to obfuscate the Weissman footage, such as placing him in the background rather than the foreground, having him wear  sunglasses, and hanging him upside down. Glover filed a lawsuit against the producers of the film on the grounds that they neither owned his likeness nor had permission to use it. As a result of the suit, there are now clauses in the Screen Actors Guild collective bargaining agreements stating that producers and actors are not allowed to use such methods to reproduce the likeness of other actors. Glover's legal action, while resolved outside of the courts, has been considered as a key case in personality rights for actors with increasing use of improved special effects and digital techniques , in which actors may have agreed to appear in one part of a production but have their likenesses be used in another without their agreement. Replacement of Claudia Wells. Claudia Wells, who had played Marty's girlfriend Jennifer Parker in the first film, planned to reprise her role, but turned it down due to personal reasons. The producers cast Elisabeth Shue instead, which involved re-shooting the closing scenes of the first film for the beginning of "Part II". The re-shot sequence is a near shot-for-shot match with the original, with only minor differences: for example, Doc  noticeably hesitates before reassuring Marty that his future self is fine – something he did not do in the first film. Marty is also wearing a watch in the second film whereas he was not in the first. Wells returned to acting with a starring role in the 2008 independent film "Still Waters Burn". She is one of the few cast members not to make an appearance within the bonus material on the "Back to the Future Trilogy" DVD set released in 2002. However, she is interviewed for the "Tales from the Future" documentaries in the trilogy's 25th anniversary issue  on Blu-ray Disc in 2010. In 2011, she finally had the opportunity to reprise her role from the first film, 26 years after her last appearance in the series, by providing the voice of Jennifer for "" by Telltale Games. Hoverboard hoax. Zemeckis said on the film's behind-the-scenes featurette that the hoverboards (flying skateboards) used in it were real, yet not released to the public, due to parental complaints regarding safety. Footage of "real hoverboards" was also featured in the extras of a DVD release of the trilogy. A number of people thought Zemeckis was telling the  truth and requested them at toy stores. In an interview, Wilson said one of the most frequent questions he was asked was if they are real. Depiction of the future. Though the filmmakers did research contemporary predictions by scientists on what might occur by 2015, Zemeckis has said that the film was not meant to be a serious attempt at predicting the future, commenting, "For me, filming the future scenes of the movie were the least enjoyable of making the whole trilogy, because I don't really like films that try and predict the future. The only ones I've  actually enjoyed were the ones done by Stanley Kubrick, and not even he predicted the PC when he made "A Clockwork Orange". So, rather than trying to make a scientifically sound prediction that we were probably going to get wrong anyway, we figured, let's just make it funny." Similarly, Gale said, "We knew we weren't going to have flying cars by the year 2015, but God we had to have those in our movie." However, the film did correctly predict a number of technological and sociological changes that occurred by 2015, including: the rise of ubiquitous cameras; use  of unmanned flying drones for newsgathering; widescreen flat-panel television sets mounted on walls with multiple channel viewing; smart home technology; video chat systems; hands-free video games; talking animated billboards; wearable technology; tablet computers with fingerprint scanners and head-mounted displays. Payment on personal portable devices is also depicted. Although payment by thumbprint is not widely used, fingerprint scanning is in use as security at places such as airports and schools, and electronic payment with fingerprint scanning as a security feature is deployed for Apple Pay. Other aspects of the depiction of the future had not come to pass  by 2015, but efforts were made to replicate the technology advances. The film shows Marty putting on Nike "Air Mag" tennis shoes with automatic shoelaces. Nike released a version of their Hyperdunk Supreme shoes, which appear similar to Marty's, in July 2008. Fans dubbed them the "Air McFly". In April 2009, they filed the patent for self-lacing shoes, and their design bears a resemblance to those worn by Marty in the film. In 2010, a fan named Blake Bevin created shoes that tie themselves. Though Nike had made a very limited quantity of Air Mags in the same  style as the movie, they stated in September 2011 that their consumer-line MAG line of shoes would not feature the self-lacing feature shown in it. Tinker Hatfield, one of the shoe's designers, indicated in 2014 that they would introduce shoes with power-lacing technology the following year, 2015. In March 2016, Nike unveiled the HyperAdapt 1.0 shoe, which is a consumer-market model of the Air Mag and features the same self-lacing technology they used for the commemorative Air Mags, and were put on sale in limited quantities in late 2016. The producers created a futuristic  flying car to depict a typical taxi cab in the future world of 2015. This taxi was based on the Citroën DS. <ref>