Fishing in the Discount Bin - Back to the Future Part III

Here we are again, on Fishing in the Discount Bin, bloggin' about the movies I own.  We get to the end of the Back to the Future trilogy with Back to the Future Part III.  This is originally in my notes at July 5, 2015.

And now, we bring the trilogy to an end.  I do have a bit of soft spot for Back to the Future Part III.  First, it was my birthday movie for 1990.  Secondly, as I've always gravitated to sci-fi films, and my dad's always gravitated towards westerns, it's one of the few films we both enjoy.  Hell, to this very day, he'll quote the "Where'd you learn to shoot like that?" scene and chuckle to himself.




Since I was all part of the Back to the Future hype machine, I was all gung ho to see this movie.  ZZ Top did the theme song Double Back.  I had the Casingle, and played it constantly.  While it never achieved the same level of pop culture awareness as The Power of Love, it still has its charms.

But still, I remember walking out of the theatre on my 13th birthday and feeling mildly disappointed.  My opinion back then was that it was too much like the first film.  They're trapped in the past...have to figure out an outlandish way to power the time machine...a romance threatens to jeopardize the whole thing.  Yeah...it was the first film all over again.

But now, some 25 years later, I watch it again, and I enjoy it more.  The first one was mostly for the comedy, the second one was mostly for the action, but the third film is where we really finally get into the characters of Doc and Marty.  We've got Marty, finally learning how to be a man and walk away from a fight, and Doc, who almost has a crisis of his faith in science when he falls in love and he's willing to walk away from it all.  It's the performances of Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd who really sell it as, after all their adventures, they finally have a chance to grow. 

And while the ending with the DeLorean and the lightening bolt at the end of the first film is always the best, the ending with the train going over the cliff is pretty cool, too.

Lots of great performances again.  Mary Steenburgen joins the gang as Doc's soulmate, an 1880's schoolmarm.  She's shy and awkward enough to be adorable, without being too cloy.  And Thomas F. Wilson finally gets to be the most evil of the Tannen bloodline, Buford Tannen.  Finally!  A Tannen who can get away with killing people. 

And again, Alan Silvistri's score is amazing.  He introduces some new themes, and takes the older ones and makes them sound more like western themes. 

It's a great way to end the saga, and I finally appreciate it all these years later