DVD Review: Back to the Future Trilogy (Widescreen) 447
All 3 movies have undergone audio and video re-mastering. Audio was updated to the de-facto 5.1 digital surround, and all film was not only digitally transferred, but cleaned up and rendered crystal clear. The bonus material not only gives additional value to the DVDs, but also helps to answer numerous questions about the movies, including time travel, plot lines, and the characters themselves. My intentions here are to generally review the DVD, but not reveal any of the specific deleted scenes, for those that still want something to remain a surprise.
To begin, the movies themselves are intact, as originally shown in the theaters. Unlike recent DVD releases of 80s classics (ie. the gun-to-walkie-talkie edits in E.T.), there were no political corrections made. While this is not usually something of concern, there were TV edits made that removed "the Libyans" from the first movie, shortly after the 9-11 events. All that aside, the DVDs are a pretty standard affair, with each one being themed after the respective movies: Part 1 in the 50s, Part 2 in the future, and Part 3 in the old west.
For a DVD box set that has been over 15 years in the making, Zemeckis and team definitely deliver. This set has all that you would expect of any feature-packed DVDs, including deleted scenes, outtakes, original trailers, and behind the scenes features. The movies themselves contain additional commentaries, and an option that pops up an icon for additional production notes and factoids during viewing. Even the deleted scenes have an option for viewing with commentary by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.
The larger behind the scenes features include a "Making of" for each of the three movies, and an overall "Making of the Trilogy" that spans all three DVDs. Among the smaller behind the scenes features are the evolution of special effects, production Q&A's, making of the DeLorean time machine, and the original discussion of the time-travel plot lines.
Among the only drawbacks I noticed were a few minor flaws in the DVD menus. While viewing the bonus material, some features returned to a pure black menu. However, the problem isn't critical, as pressing the Menu button on your DVD remote will eventually take you back to the main menu. It's just distracting to have such a flaw that appears on each of the DVDs.
Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the conversion of the movies to DVD format, and even more so with the additional material on the DVDs. Personally, I know I've had questions about what I thought were plot holes in the whole time travel theory, and Zemeckis made sure to include plenty of notes, FAQs, and Q&As to clear up any confusion, or add to it, depending on your acceptance of his answers. Bottom line: if you've ever waited for an answer to your "whys" or "what ifs" --- or if you just want to enjoy the movies as they are, then look no further than the Back to the Future trilogy.
However, hang on a second: NetGyver writes with a reason to hold off on buying this trilogy:
"The Digital Bits is reporting that the widescreen matting has been done in error on the BTTF Part II and III discs in the trilogy box set. The results very from minor to extremely irritating. Here is a side by side frame comparison between the full-screen DVDs/Laserdisc/and widescreen DVDs for you to view.The widescreen DVD set is considered defective and Universal has an exchange program on the way where you can mail in discs II and III for replacements. But that won't roll out until late February 2003. There is no word for disc replacements for other regions besides North America, at least for now. This a fix for those who already own the widescreen DVD set. The corrected DVD batch will arrive in U.S. stores in late February according to Universal Studios."
Slashdot welcomes reader-submitted features and reviews, and thanks da3dAlus for this one.
I travelled back in time... (Score:2, Funny)
Ha!
With just a little effort... (Score:2, Funny)
time machine (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm keeping my "defective" copy.... (Score:5, Funny)
You don't have a closet full of beanie babies in plastic bags, do you?
Shamelessly stolen from The Onion: (Score:1, Funny)
whether life will ever be the same again. But for all our pain, we can
heal, if each one of us pitches in. We all have a part to play,
whether donating blood, contributing to relief charities, or writing
high-quality fan fiction to help a grieving nation forget its troubles
for just a little while.
Such is the burden I have assumed.
Since 1997, through good times and bad, I have been there,
creating rousing tales of events that did not actually take place in
the official Back To The Future universe but could have. And now, in
this time of crisis, I humbly offer these tales to the American people
to help soothe their jangled nerves.
Certainly, I am neither the most prolific nor the most acclaimed
of America's many Back To The Future fanfic authors. But I like to
think that my work is among the most heartfelt, the most human. Take
my recently self-published fanfic novella Think, McFly, in which Marty
briefly becomes trapped in 1975 Hill Valley.
Let's not dwell on, for the purposes of this brief discussion,
my historically accurate portrayal of the era, right down to the TV
blaring All In The Family (a sly allusion to the whole theme of the
film series). My depiction of Marty as he discovers yet another layer
of the intertwined histories of his hometown and family surely
approaches the depth of Robert Zemeckis' own work. In one scene, I
have Marty encounter his 7-year-old self and, along with the reader,
discover why being called a "chicken" has become such a personal
curse. Who else in the online fanfic-writing community has taken such
a bold leap of imagination while remaining completely true to the
spirit of the film series? Can you name even one? I thought not.
But I am not here to cast aspersions on other BTTF fanfic
authors. (Not even the wildly overrated Marion Gehl.) Now is the time
for Americans to stand tall and united in the face of an ultimate
evil, not to nitpick about who obviously doesn't understand what the
films are even about. And it certainly isn't the time to actually dare
to claim that Claudia Wells was a better Jennifer than Elisabeth Shue.
But, then, it never is. (She didn't do anything!)
But I digress. Back To The Future is a timeless story of
universal human experiences, like the quest for self-knowledge,
overcoming adversity, and going to the school dance with your mother.
It is this spirit I seek to honor and uplift through my works.
Consider my upcoming 1920s adventure, tentatively titled
Density. In it, Marty and Doc find themselves in the year 1925, only
to meet Marty's grandfather, Cyrus McFly, operating a "speakeasy" out
of a familiar-looking beverage hall in downtown Hill Valley. The naïve
young Marty romances a pretty young flapper who turns out to be his
own grandmother. As if that weren't enough, to ensure the proper flow
of time, he must mix things up with the Hill Valley crime syndicate,
led by Bart Tannen, the eventual father of Biff! Particularly deft is
my passing mention of a congenital heart defect in Bart, which helps
foreshadow why Biff is raised by his grandmother in the '50s.
Still hurting? The weary and dispirited among us can turn to
Biffco, a recently completed novella that reveals more tantalizing
details about the powerful alternate version of Biff that appears in
the middle of BTTF2. I don't want to give away the ending, but let's
just say that the age-old conundrum of how the elderly Biff
encountered his younger self without creating a time paradox will
finally be answered.
These are merely one man's meager efforts, to be sure. Such
fanciful tales are far less than is needed to salve the wounds of
Sept. 11. But, hopefully, they're enough to assure America that better
days lie ahead. Better days and even better Back To The Future fanfic.
Specifically, my nearly completed masterwork: It's an ambitious,
never-before-attempted Back To The Future/Star Trek crossover titled
Trek To The Future.
Operating on the premise that Hill Valley is a suburb of San
Francisco, my magnum opus takes the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage
Home and throws Marty, Doc, and Jennifer into the mix. While Kirk and
crew stumble around the year 1986, attempting to save two humpback
whales before returning to the 23rd century, Doc and Marty hover about
the fringes, "helping" where necessary and borrowing Starfleet
technology in myriad ingenious ways. It may well be my finest hour as
a fanfic writer when Doc modifies a phaser to generate the necessary
1.21 gigawatts (I refuse to use the unscientific and meaningless
"jigowatts") of power for the DeLorean.
Trek To The Future's coda, in which Bryce McFly, the
24th-century descendant of Marty, is a skittish Starfleet Academy
cadet menaced by half-Klingon Ba'Qa Tannen, will surely represent a
high-water mark of American fan fiction. And the throwaway gag about
Picard being descended from Principal Strickland will be masterfully
rendered.
No, these humble offerings don't match the healing power of,
say, an all-frills DVD box set of the trilogy (we're still waiting,
Universal!), but it's important that each of us does what he or she
can.
Sadly, the flux-capacitor technology masterminded by Dr. Emmet
Brown remains a fantasy. As such, we cannot go back in time and change
the terrible events of Sept. 11. But we can draw strength by drawing
close to one another and holding fast to the faith that tomorrow will
be a brighter day. And also by reading my Back To The Future fan
fiction. My next story should be up on the site as soon as my renewal
money order to Dreamhost clears.
/.ers guilty admission (Score:3, Funny)
Dirty birds...
What BTTF is really about (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I travelled back in time... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nixing the Libyans (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This isn't anything new (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I travelled back in time... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I won't be buying it (Score:3, Funny)
Might as well enjoy them now
Re:What the MPAA did RIGHT (Score:2, Funny)
Every once in a while there's really cool supplemental stuff in a CD, like videos or images or something. I also love reading the editorials written by music historians in the sleeves of rereleases of old albums remastered. I spent hours studying Eddie Vedder's drug-inspired doodles on the Vs. album. Same goes for Thom Yorke's doodles in OK Computer.
But that's not quite enough. Movies have something that music doesn't have. A large number of people are impressed by and can appreciate visual special effects. It's therefore obvious that people would want to pay extra for a DVD with a large section devoted the the creation of the film. I spent hours watching disc 2 of Attack of the Clones, even though I don't really dig the film. And how many people saw the movie just to see the special effects?
On the other hand, most people I know laugh at me for how thoroughly I read album sleeves and band biographies. They look at me funny when I stop and say something like, "Listen to this guitar line - isn't that cool? He routed his guitar through a flanger and a phase shifter in series...etc." There just isn't the demand for that sort of thing in the public. People just want to hear their Moby (or whatever). They don't want to know what kind of wah-wah pedal he uses or how he looped a particular sample. That's one reason why some technically brilliant bands aren't all that famous, like Kraftwerk [kraftwerk.com], for instance. Their sound engineering is INCREDIBLE, especially considering that they were among the first to use a lot of the technology and techniques so common in music today. (The recording, mixing, and mastering for Electric Cafe (1986) was entirely digital.) I would repurchase all of my Kraftwerk collection at a higher price if there included notes about the making of the album, but I'm a music geek.
Re:Unfortunately misframed... (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, let's see. You used the words "an astounding display of audacity" when referring to the DVD release of a mid '80s sci-fi film, you keep up with a site called "The Digital Bits", and you're calling this poor shmuck a fanboy? I mean, for god's sake, your nickname is "Obiwan Kenobi"!
you know, not that there's anything wrong with that...
*grin*
m-
Re:I'm keeping my "defective" copy.... (Score:3, Funny)
Hey man - I got some Enron stock you can buy.
Re:Unfortunately misframed... (Score:2, Funny)
time travel?
-matt