Going Back to Beloved Franchises with Back to the Future Part III

Recently I purchased the new game "Back to the Future: The Game" that just came out on PlayStation 3 and PC, and it made me remember how much I loved this franchise. It was just so fun to see all those characters again. But it kept referencing things I didn't recall, and then it struck me. I had never seen the third movie in the series! This had to be fixed! So today I did just that and watched Back to the Future Part III. I'm sure almost everyone knows the premise of this. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back in time to the wild west to save Doc Brown (Christopher Llyod). Hilarity ensues. Hit the jump for to see if it lives up to my nostalgic memories of the rest of the series.


So this movie starts off with the final scene from the previous Back to the Future films in which (spoilers for Back to the Future & Back to the Future Part II) Doc Brown helps Marty escape from 1955 to return to 1985. But just as he vanishes, Marty comes running from around the corner and says he just came back from the future and he needs Doc's help. This was pretty damn helpful to be honest as I didn't exactly remember what had happened since I last saw the movies. I had also forgotten how much they actually overlap. Definitely very cool.

I think it's pretty clear that at least the second and third films were filmed back to back due to the stories being so heavily connected. Checking the end of Back to the Future Part 2 they basically have a whole trailer for the 3rd attached at the end. This of course smartly allowed them to make the story even more overlapping and involved. Also allows the actors to be able to keep their characters and performances solid between the two films, which of course makes this 3rd film totally live up to how I remember it.

The Delorean causes more troubles than it's worth sometimes

Something that I noticed while watching this movie is Marty's clothes. Thanks in no small part to having watched Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More, but the outfit Marty ends up wearing once he gets some real time period appropriate clothes are very similar to the outfit worn by the man with no name in those films. This is obviously on purpose as Marty tells everyone in the town that his name is Clint Eastwood. Basically I just thought that was a really cool touch for fans of those movies.

Lastly I'll just briefly mention that I think the special effects used in this move hold up pretty well. Sure I can tell where things are overlays or added into the scene, but I think they did a really good job of blending those things together.

So how did the third part of the Back to the Future trilogy live up? I think it lived up very well. I just wish there were more, but luckily I have this great new game that will fill that gap as the months continue and more episodes of that are released.