Thursday

This is the first of two posts on Back to the Future, the trilogy of which I watched over the last week. Perhaps I had forgotten, but I didn't remember knowing that Eric Stoltz completed about half the film before they replaced him with Michael J. Fox. Undoubtedly they made the right choice. Anyway, I have a few small problems. The first involves the second film. In the first movie Marty had gone back accidentally, accidentally altered the future, and striven hard to rectify it. This all makes sense. However, in the second film they deliberately go into the future in order to make things better for themselves. Something then goes wrong and they have to travel back to the past to rectify it, and that's fine, but it's the first part, as you can see, that is ambiguous. It seems it's ok to alter the future if it makes it better for them. The third film appears to follow the formula of the first: accidentally gone back. However, the only reason Marty subsequently goes back is to prevent Doc being killed. Once again this is to their advantage. My final problem is with some of the last lines of the movie. Doc tells them that their future is unwritten, and they can make it for themselves. Surely, however, the movies have taught us that this isn't the case? It's only with a time machine that you are capable of changing the future. The films seem innocent, but perhaps promote ambiguous morals.