Subtitles:

English (SDH), French, Spanish, none

Extras:

Blu-ray Exclusives

U-Control
• Setups & Payoffs: Note key scenes and see how they play out as you watch the movies
• Storyboard Comparison: Compare key scenes in the movie with the original storyboards.
• Trivia Track: Get inside trivia and facts while you watch the movies.
• Pocket BLU: Experience Blu-ray in an exciting new way with the app for iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, Android and more
• BD-Live: Access the BD-Live Center through your Internet-connected player and download even more bonus content, the latest trailers and more
• My Scenes: Bookmark your favorite scenes from the movies

Bonus Features

• Q&A Commentaries with Director Robert Zemeckis and Producer Bob Gale Feature Commentaries with Producers Bob Gale and Neil Cantony

• "Tales from the Future:" 6-part retrospective documentary featuring all-new interviews with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Director Robert Zemeckis, Producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton plus Executive Producer Steven Spielberg
• "In the Beginning..."
• Time to Go
• Keeping Time
• Time Flies
• Third Times the Charm
• The Test of Time
• The Physics of Back to the Future
• 16 Deleted Scenes
• Michael J. Fox Q&A
• Archival Featurettes
• The Making of Back to the Future Parts I, II & III
• Making The Trilogy: Chapters One, Two & Three
• Back to the Future Night
• The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy
• Behind-the-Scenes
• Outtakes
• Original Makeup Tests
• Nuclear Test Side Ending Storyboard Sequence

It sounds like a clichéd science fiction movie that could only appeal to fans of the genre - but that couldn't be more wrong. A huge hit, it appealed across the board for its invention, its exuberant energy, and the famous finale - so tense, so very exciting and yet able to make you gasp and laugh at the same time.

Looking back at it now, it seems less subtle than it did on release and you can't help but recognise how carefully the story sets out to manipulate you. Every scene, every line works but then later you see how you were set up: nobody says anything that doesn't become important to the plot later. That should be terrible, but it's done so very well that it's a treat. It's undeniably formulaic but so outstandingly executed that it vindicates the formula.

No surprise then that there were two sequels (and subsequent video releases of the film had the line "To Be Continued" added to the closing moments). They are good but not quite to the standard of this gem.

Teenager Marty McFly's dad is a hideous wimp, his mother a dipso, so he befriends mad scientist Dr. Brown (Lloyd). In a DeLorean time machine they travel back to 1955, the year his parents met in high school. But at that age, mom rather fancies her offspring more than his prospective father. Zemeckis takes obvious pleasure in solving not just the technical but also the emotional problems of time travel: how to avoid incest, how to unite your parents in order that you will be born, how to return to the future when both the car and the professor have blown a fuse, and above all how to avoid tampering with history. If this all sounds schematic, it shouldn't: the movie has all the benign good nature of a Frank Capra.

Gary Tooze

October 20th, 2010