Back in Time
Netflix's Back to the Future fan documentary is interesting, if not wholly successful.
If you’re on social media (or even just frequent pop culture news sites), you can’t fail to have noticed that Wednesday just passed was “Back to the Future Day”, the exact date Marty McFly and Doc Brown (and Marty’s girlfriend) travel to in Back to the Future Part II. As one of the many, many (many) things that went on to mark the occasion, Netflix debuted this crowdfunded documentary worldwide.
It begins with a hefty behind-the-scenes making-of type section about the film in question. Interviewees including Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, supporting cast members, production crew, and at least one studio executive, talk us through the genesis of the project, the travails of getting it greenlit, some of the making of the first film (not least the recasting of Eric Stoltz), touch on their imaginings of 2015 for Part II (not least the famous hoverboard), and only mention Part III in the context of it being the end (reiterating that there are no plans for either Part IV or any kind of remake).
Then it moves on to the fans — what the film means to them, and what that’s led them to do.
