Synopsis

Getting back was only the beginning as the most spectacular time-travel adventure ever continues in Back to the Future Part II — the sequel that proves that lightning can strike twice! Picking up precisely where they left off, Marty and Doc (Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd) launch themselves to the year 2015 to fine-tune the future and inadvertently disrupt the space-time continuum. Now, their only chance to fix the present is by going back to 1955 all over again before it is too late.

Having decided their film would indeed start in the future, Zemeckis and Gale faced the monumental task of deciding what shape the future of Hill Valley would take. "The first thing we knew was that the future wasn't going to be Orwellian," says Zemeckis. "It wasn't going to be a totalitarian state where people walk around in uniform, and have their heads shaved, which is actually a very easy way to depict the future in motion pictures."

"We also knew that we couldn't accurately predict the future," adds Bob Gale. "We looked at a lot of movies, World's Fair memorabilia, as well as books and other materials that foretold the future. None of it ever happened the way it was predicted, so we knew we were going to fail in some way if we tried to offer real predictions of the future. Accepting that, we decided the only way to deal with it was to make it optimistic, and have a good time with it."

"The idea of our future is not to belabor the hardware and technology aspects, although that does play a small part," explains Zemeckis. "What we tried to do was make the year 2015 fun from a pop culture standpoint. Our view is that those facets of the past societies which have become nostalgia to us--things like fashion, sports, advertising and the like, will have their counterparts in the future. A problem one faces in depicting the future is that you can't identify with something that doesn't exist. If you invent new devices, you run the risk of the audience saying 'I can't relate to this weird device because I don't know where it's coming from.' To prevent this from happening, we went back into the past to see how far certain things had evolved into the present, which if you think of it, is the future of the past. What we present in this vision of the future are devices and situations that are extensions of our culture, and we have tried to have fun with them." "No one knows just what the future will look like," says producer Neil Canton, "but we are talking about having a reunion in the year 2015 to see how close we were."

Once the filmmakers had a clear notion of what they wanted their cinematic future to be, they turned to production designer Rick Carter to translate those visions into reality. "There's a line in the script describing the future which reads 'Hill Valley has changed for the better.' That's a very simple line to write, but when it came to actually building the town square for the screen, it had to be designed so the audience would immediately get that feeling upon seeing the image," says Carter of his challenge.

The first decision Carter and the filmmakers made was that although the Hill Valley town square of the future would have some interesting designs, it would still be recognizable as the town square that played a major part of "Back to the Future." "The future," says Carter, "is built upon the present. We didn't want to put up a bunch of spires, or a totally white highly glossed metallic city. We wanted something that you can relate to as being a part of your environment, despite the layering that progress has made. So many movies and science fiction stories look like one guy designed everything and built it all so that it looks uniform and high-tech. That's not the way the world is."

"Bob Zemeckis had explained that the people of the future had become more conscious of the environment and the ecology, and I felt that town square should reflect that awareness," explains Carter. "To balance out the references to commercial outlets and businesses, I introduced a strong sense of nature to turn the town square into a place where you'd enjoy just sitting and watching people."

One problem Carter faced was that of time. Since the production schedule dictated that the town square first be filmed as the altered 1985, the construction team had only a matter of weeks to remove signs of ruin and depravity that Marty and Doc's disruption of the time continuum had inadvertently caused. The courthouse, with a clock-face still frozen at 10:04, saw its altered 1985 function as Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise. With glitz and neon removed, the landmark is returned to its more traditional look in the year 2015, and serves as the entrance to an underground shopping mall. A 60' x 80' piece of the square was excavated, filled with more than 80,000 gallons of water, and surrounded by a diverse variety of tropical foliage.

The end results of Carter's labors found a huge, glistening pond in the middle of the square, complimented by waterfalls and lush greenery. Asked about the final look of the town square, Zemeckis remarks, "It's a true example of how the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the first film, the town square of the '50s had a beautiful, grassy park. In the '80s they paved it over for a parking lot, and now in the future, once again, we have this serene park and pond--with 75 shops underneath."

While Carter was modifying the architecture of Hill Valley, costume designer Joanna Johnston worked to clothe its inhabitants. Although the description of Bob Zemeckis' future was decidedly an optimistic one, the costume designer initially found the prospect "terrifying--because in my career, I've only done recreations of the past or present, and Bob's concept had no basis in anyone else's work. We were starting from scratch."

"In the future, clothes are truly one-size-fits-all, because you can put them on, and touch a button, the garment conforms to the shape of the body. Running shoes lace themselves, and if one should happen to get wet, as Marty inadvertently does, there is a device that automatically blow dries the clothing while still being worn."

Avoiding the traditional futuristic metallic look, Johnston used bright "but not fluorescent," colors, and a vast array of fabrics to create outfits for the cast, as well as over 150 extras. Johnston worked closely with production designer Rick Carter to make silre "my costumes balanced his set. The audience has to believe that people routinely go in and out of these buildings, and fit in this environment." As the times have changed, the future has become a truly equal society for men and women, so Johnston felt no qualms about a fashion style that was "absolutely sexist. Men look like men, and women look like women. There is no chance of confusion."

Movie Stills

Here are some behind the scenes shots from Part II of Back to the Future and a few facts about the filming:

- The concept of returning to relive, and in some cases re-act" the experience of "Back to the Future" had its original cast members excited about being part of the sequel. "When you go to see a sequel, you don't want to see the same film again, nor do we as actors or filmmakers want to rest on our laurels and score points from past victories," says Michael J. Fox. "By using the first film as a backdrop for part of the sequel, and setting up a whole new crisis, we're hopefully giving the audience a new way to look at what they liked about the first film."

- Warehouses and wardrobe departments were scoured to find props and clothing that had not been used for the four years in between the films. Frames from the movie were enlarged for the production team to recreate the look of the first movie in minute detail. Whittier High School again doubled for Hill Valley High, and the gymnasium of the First United Methodist Church in Hollywood hosted its second "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance, although it looked exactly like the first, with many of the same dancers returning to be part of the most unique "revival."

The Arduous Makeup Process

Fox spent in excess of four hours in the make-up chair in preparation of his scenes as old Marty, yet the actor felt the time justified the end results. "It's not the most pleasant thing in the world," he admits. "It can get quite hot underneath all of the rubber, and the wig pieces are somewhat uncomfortable, but when you're finally in character, that's when the fun starts. You suddenly acquire a freedom to experiment, to try different facial contortions or voices that might have looked or sounded ridiculous for young Marty, but under two inches of rubber you're a lot less self-conscious, and find a new character."

"Sometimes," says Lea Thompson of the make-up, "you forget that your face is actually working. You get to the point of where you think that once you have the make-up on, you can just wear it, and it will act for you. What's remarkable about the process is that even though my face was totally covered with prosthetics, it was still me. The make-up does put the extra years on, but one can still see the person underneath, almost to the point of being able to see the passage of time that leads to what you're seeing on the screen."

The actor who undoubtedly went through the most arduous make-up schedule was Thomas F. Wilson. On many occasions, Wilson would have to portray both old Biff and young Biff, or old Biff and his grandson Griff in the same day, in the same scene. Beginning the make-up process at 3:00 a.m., Wilson would film his scenes as old Biff, have the make-up removed (another hour and a half), and then get remade into young Biff or Griff to act opposite himself. "It would have been a lot easier," concedes Wilson, "if we were doing 'The Patty Duke Show,' and I could have just put a bow in my hair and come back as Cathy, who enjoys the minuet."

"The make-up technicians did a spectacular job," says Bob Zemeckis, "but one has to remember to give the actors their due. We now have the technology to use make-up to get anyone to look like they're 47 or 77, but the actor has the power to make it live. Michael, Lea and Tom made those characters believable through their acting."