Michael J. Fox became the coolest – if oldest – high school kid since Danny Zucco when he jumped into the DeLorean and zoomed off into the past in Back to the Future. However, like many films, everything you see wasn’t exactly as it appeared, and Fox has just shattered many illusions about what it was like to get behind the wheel of one of the most famous cars in cinema history.
Fox recently released his new memoir, “Future Boy,” in which he obviously speaks in depth about his time working on the 40-year-old time travel classic. When it comes to his feelings for the car itself…the memories aren’t quite as magical as in the movie. Fox wrote:
“I get to drive the DeLorean. I know what you’re thinking… cool! I thought so too, at first, but soon I grew to hate driving the DeLorean. First of all, let’s face it – it’s a sh-t car. Slow to accelerate, with cheap appointments – and that’s before our special effects crew added their two cents (or several million dollars, all in).”
As you would expect, the interior of the DeLorean came with plenty of additional items that were not found as standard on the car. The problem was, that most of them were also not entirely safe.
“Those jerry-rigged accoutrements – the flux capacitor and various time clocks and flourishes – tend to be rather rough-edged, metallic and sharp. After that first night in the driver’s seat and for the remainder of the movie, my hands are crisscrossed with lacerations, my knuckles bruised, and my elbows contused from slamming into the space-edged console. As they say in show business, pain is temporary, film is forever.”
‘Back to the Future’ Still Holds Up Today
While the DeLorean car went the same way as many older vehicle models and became a thing of the past, Back to the Future continues to be an incredibly watchable movie four decades after its original release. Going with the old theory that if a movie is made with mostly practical effects that look good at the time, it will look good forever, the film easily holds up against modern movies.
While we are still waiting for flying cars and “Jaws 19” (if Back to the Future 2 had predicted “Halloween 19,” it wouldn’t have been too far off the mark), the Back to the Future franchise did manage to both predict some aspects of the future (powerful man with dodgy hair in a big tower pulling all the strings, anyone?) and influenced others (self-tying shoelaces and “hoverboards”). It also managed to completely flip the story in its third installment to deliver not only a fantastic third act but a great homage to the Western genre as well.
While we will never see a fourth Back to the Future movie, and no one will attempt to remake it (if there is any justice in the world), the franchise lives on with a musical stage show and plenty of repeat viewings on streaming and home media. Michael J. Fox’s memoir, “Future Boy,” is now available in hardback from the usual retailers.
- Release Date
-
July 3, 1985
- Runtime
-
116 minutes
- Director
-
Robert Zemeckis
- Producers
-
Bob Gale, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, Neil Canton
- Sequel(s)
-
Back to the Future Part II, Back to the Future Part III
Source link
Add Comment