{"id":9517,"date":"2010-10-24T16:55:57","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T15:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=9517"},"modified":"2010-10-24T20:24:30","modified_gmt":"2010-10-24T19:24:30","slug":"blu-ray-back-to-the-future-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2010\/10\/24\/blu-ray-back-to-the-future-trilogy\/","title":{"rendered":"Blu-ray: Back to the Future Trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Back to the Future Trilogy<\/a><\/strong> (Universal): The time-travel comedy trilogy gets released on Blu-ray for the first time and Universal have put together a package which does full justice to these inventive and much loved films.<\/p>\n

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the first film was the tale of high school student Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) who accidentally travels back 30 years in time after an eccentric scientist (Christopher Lloyd) builds a time machine which strands him in 1955.<\/p>\n

There he inadvertently interferes with the romance of his then teenage parents: nerdy father (Crispin Glover) and mother (Lea Thompson), whilst also having to deal with Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty’s dad’s bullying supervisor.<\/p>\n

The story, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, then becomes a race to reunite his parents-to-be and find a way of getting back to 1985.<\/p>\n

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An instant critical and commercial hit on its release in the summer of 1985, it launched Fox as a movie star and established Zemeckis as an A-list director.<\/p>\n

The inventive premise, smart humour and excellent performances still shine and it has aged remarkably well, appealing to a new generation of audiences.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, some of the comedy is surprisingly daring: it is difficult to imagine a studio comedy today featuring gags about terrorists (“the Libyans!”), potential incest (“are you telling me that my mom …has the hots for me?!”) and Ronald Regan (“who is the Vice-president in 1985? Jerry Lewis?).<\/p>\n

Despite those more daring undercurrents, it is one of those rare mainstream films that genuinely appeals to audiences of all ages, combining innocence, invention and a great central premise which makes older and younger audiences think whilst they laugh.<\/p>\n

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The sequels, shot back-to-back, were not as good as the original but certainly had their moments.<\/p>\n

The second film, which picked up precisely where they left off, saw Marty and Doc Brown travel to 2015 to fine-tune the future, only to cause havoc with the space time continuum, which they have to repair by going back to 1955 again.<\/p>\n

One can only imagine the hoops Zemeckis and Gale had to jump through in writing the follow up – they hadn’t initially planned one – and their screenplay ingeniously interacts with the events of the first film.<\/p>\n

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Another impressive aspect, sometimes overlooked, is the visual effects, which are used to create multiple characters from the same actor, as well as painting a detailed picture of the future.<\/p>\n

Made in 1989 on the cusp of the CGI revolution ushered in by The Abyss, Terminator and Jurassic Park, the visual effects still hold up well.<\/p>\n

The third film, released in 1990 saw Marty (Michael J. Fox) travel back to 1885 in order to rescue Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) before he becomes smitten with a schoolteacher (Mary Steenburgen).<\/p>\n

Cleverly referencing the first two films, it doesn’t quite match up to them but is still an amiable and entertaining end to the series.<\/p>\n

A lot of viewers will be pleasantly surprised how good a job Universal has done with the audio and visual transfer (screenshots can be seen here<\/a>) and it certainly gives them an added kick if you haven’t seen them in a while.<\/p>\n

But for most people the reason for getting this box set will be the huge array of extras detailing the production.<\/p>\n

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The supplements duplicate all the extras from the previous DVD releases, including commentaries, but also feature a lot of brand new material, principally Tales from the Future, a 6 part, 2 hour documentary in HD.<\/p>\n

The whole package is spread over 3 Blu-ray discs and there are brand new interviews with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, director Robert Zemeckis, producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton, plus executive producer Steven Spielberg.<\/p>\n

There is also a digital copy of each film for playback on a portable device.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>SPECIAL FEATURES<\/span><\/p>\n

(*Denotes new footage debuting on the 25th Anniversary Trilogy Blu-ray)<\/p>\n