A couple of times, you said 'this was great attention to detail for a movie made in 1985.' Great directors have done this since movies started. In fact, I would argue that it was more prevalent than today.
Yeah, that bugged me, too. Seriously, you're dismissing a hundred years of brilliant filmmakers? I also cringe when people say, "The effects were pretty good for that time," as if garish CGI is the gold standard over practical effects and great cinematography.
Considering he said Einstein was the world's first time traveler, and since the Delorean is remote controlled, my guess is his first test was simply sending the car into the future without anyone in it. Or it was a failed experiment...
There is a remote possibility that Doc's first time travel experiment was in the near future, and he himself traveled back in time to October 26th. This would mean that Einstein was - at that moment - _chronologically_ the world's first time-traveller. Though such a title would be very quickly revoked as soon as anyone went back further!
Not so sure that Stoltz. I think it was shot with a stunt person. They probably didn’t want to risk Michael hurting himself diving into a DeLorean head first like that.
Could be. Remember the deal Michael J. Fox had with him shooting that other movie or TV show. He had to be available; if something were to happen to him during filming BTTF, the movie could've never happened.
Yes! And we already know Doc Brown is actually a grown up Tony Stark. The variant who doesn't become Doom. Go back and watch all the MCU crap, the clues are everywhere!! For really!
14:05 I remember sitting in a theater in 1985 watching this movie when it first came out. When the destination time and date appeared in the car, October 26, I realized that was the same date we movie-goers were actually sitting there watching in the theaters, October 26, 1985. The creators of this film really thought of everything!
@SteveOnTheInterweb Oh. In which case, I've just realized for the first time that BTTF was set in the future! And this is my favorite film, I should have known that!
That's a good one! I never realized that. Just for your comment, I am going to reveal an Easter Egg that I previously mentioned was missed, but didn't reveal it, and I am looking to see if The Canadian Lad would have mentioned it. but didn't. There was a scene when Marty was fleeing from the terrorists. The odometer had changed its mileage twice, out of sequence.
@Fake._.Isagii due to production time, films are made in the past. And if I made a film in 20th March and I released in 21st March, then yeah it's made in past
Huey Lewis was actually told himself at an audition once, that his music was too loud, which is how he came up with that line. In truth, he actually loved the way Michael played that song. Also, that blonde guy with the sunglasses, playing next to Marty, is Michael's guitar instructor.
The thing is that Michael J. Fox couldn't play the guitar at all. He was basically shredding away random shit what they overdubbed with the sound of a professionall guitar player.
@Oli1974That's not true. This movie is actually one of best examples of an actor accurately miming along correctly to the audio. Everything you hear in the music, Michael J. Fox is accurately doing on the guitar. He studied for months leading up to filming to make sure he knew every note of the songs he was going to play in the film.
@Poparad Yes, he studied a bit, but only to make it look less obvious. Trust me on that, there's even a documental on RUclips with the original audio of that scene.
Did you notice... Marty picks a newspaper from the trash when he goes back to 1955; and he holds the paper in front of his face showing a large advertising headline that reads: "YOU'LL BE NOTICED DRIVING The Car of the Future!"
@RDdjjdActually movies used to have far more details than they do now because they weren't just computer-generated. It's people who think of the creative ways to add subtle details.. as opposed to say random details generated by AI like extra opposable thumbs and such.🤖👍
10:30 sorry to say this isn't exactly accurate. The signal is analog and The JVC GR C1 was supplied with a RF modulator which all TVs used for antennas and such until digital.
Exactly. He doesn't need "a way to read the tape" because the camera itself is a VCR. Basically, Marty brought a VCR from the future. The analog signal it outputs has been used since the invention of television. The "adapter" is as simple as disconnecting the TV antenna, connecting the wires on the back of the TV to the camera's output contacts, and then tuning the TV to a specific channel (probably 3 or 4), which is exactly what the film shows them doing.
yeah and it's very clear in the scene how the vcr is connected with a cable to the tv antenna. a very big thing to miss for a guy watching the movie in .25x speed,
I noticed this as well. It’s… stupid. Like somehow attention detail started being taught in film school in 2010 or something. It’s pretty ignorant to be honest.
@JWForPresident Maybe he was trying to make the point that general audiences lacked the option to stop and investigate frame by frame in the past, but that wouldn't apply to the 80s when every household had VHS players with pause buttons. BTTF wasnt released in the 60s after all.
@muratmhcoglu4184even then, attention to detail was important. Prior to VCR, people watched most movies at the theater, including re-releases. When everything is big, it's easy to spot when something is off. That's why production design is important. Also, it's art. It's craft. People who care about their work will be as meticulous as possible where it's required.
@PlainDistrict Yeah. Exactly. And if you liked it, you’d go see it again, often specifically to see things you missed before. You’d watch it as many times as you could.
Yea the clocks being off in the opening scene is just part of the narrative giving you a clue that Doc is doing some experiment related to time. It's a nice detail that there is an additional plutonium missing so if you notice that you can conclude it was used as part of the earlier experiment that altered the clocks.
That wasn't Eric Stolz jumping into the car it was most likely a stunt man because they couldn't risk Fox getting injured because he had to film family ties. You can clearly see it's a stunt man wearing a wig.
I guess in the 80s if we had made such videos about movies in the 50s, we might say "This is pretty amazing for a movie made in the 50s." but yeah, movies in the 80s were top of the line for not having computer graphics the way we do now.
@2:28 The missing piece of plutonium is probably why most of the clocks in the garage (Docs 1985 home) are off. He was running an earlier test on the Flux Capacitor (sans Delorean) to test the time dilation field. The body of the car makes the trip through time stable, a piece of dialog that gets cut off when Einstein returns.
old VHS camcorders COULD hook up to 1955 TVs because they used the same exact VHF technology used by TVs then. You can see how he has it hooked into the arial antenna. It would work on channel 3. I was born in the 1970s and have been a tech head my entire life. Things didn't change until RCA jacks started getting popular in the late 80s.
They used the same signals. But 1980s camcorders had coaxial cable connectors, while 1950s TVs just had two leads to connect to the antenna. Still doable, especially for a tech guy like Doc Brown.
@stevenlitvintchouk3131 It's correctly done. That JVC model has a built in RF modulator, and it's even possible to see the spliced cable in the movie. Doc got it right!
I remember the RF modulators you had to use with early video games. In fact, I had an Amiga monitor Intended up using for my primary TV because it was the first TV set I owned that had an RCA input.
You missed another bit about Uncle Joey, right after Marty comments about the bars, Marty's grandmother says that Joey just cries whenever they take him out of the playpen, so they just leave him in all the time. Meaning that Joey likes it better on the inside of prison than outside.
@clintbuhs7708 Right. In fact, that entire moment, from the cake to the mom's reply was literally and glaringly obvious to everyone, and we were meant to get it.
Bonus detail: Sometime it is mentioned in 1985 that the cause of the fire that burned down Doc's estate was believed to be a pile of oily rags. In 1955, when Doc showed Marty a scaled representation of how he was going to harness the lightning bolt with the windup car, the flaming windup car crashes into a trash can of oily rags. Luckily, Doc puts out the fire, but he probably should have took care of the rags too. 😂
Hmmmm Lad missed the Peabody reference. In the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, there was a segment with a dog named Mr. Peabody and a boy named Sherman that used their wayback machine to travel through time to witness historical figures in action.
I like how most of the comments show that nearly all of theses are this dude just speculating, thinking a scene is something more than it is, or simply not understanding how anything shown in the film actually works.
after several watches when younger, I noticed almost all of these things. Some you can catch even on first watch, but definitely second watch. It's like each time watching, something new reveals itself
4:46 Not Michael J Fox, but not Eric Stoltz either. Actually a stuntman. If it were Eric Stoltz, he wouldn't have been wearing a bad wig that made him look like Fox.
dude missed, possibly no balls to say it, the most important hidden event showed in the movie - 911. Twin Pines is referred to Twin Towers which will become ONE on 1:16 which is upside down 9:11. No to mention Trump as president and World War 3. Which we are seeing happening
@ricardoklement8090 It sounds like you’re projecting a lot of internal frustration right now. I’m happy to have a conversation, but I’ll wait until you’re able to express yourself without the name-calling. You seem a bit overwhelmed by my comment, yeah I know heavy truths are not for the weak minded. Poor sod.
A couple of other easter eggs for you... At the opening scene when Marty is being chased in the DeLorean, the odometer mileage changes down then up, then down again. Same later on when he is going from 1955 to 1985. Look at the licence plates on the cars when he is walking through the town square with Jennifer near the start of the film. There is a dedication to a lady on the Nissan's plate.
I checked. The NTSC format, used in the United States, was invented in 1941. The signal from the camcorder would have been completely compatible with a 1950s TV (the colour NTSC signal was designed to be compatible with older black-and-white sets). So in terms of the signal, this absolutely would have been possible. The one thing is that 1950s TVs didn't have a "video in" socket. But there was a deleted scene where Marty actually looks for wires in Doc's garage to hack together a connector - and even without the deleted scene, you can see that they've got extra wires and used alligator clips to hook it up. It's not too hard, you've basically got to hook it up like it's an "antenna" to the TV - the NTSC standard would do the rest, as the signals are compatible. 1980s camcorders could play back to TV sets - I did it with a friend's camcorder in that very decade, probably a few years after this movie. This is entirely feasible and plausible to do this in the 1950s with a 1980s camcorder. Even without accounting for the fact that, like, Doc Brown is the inventor of time-travel, so he could handle basic electrical stuff, particularly with Marty's future knowledge of how the camcorder's supposed to work. In fact, how else did they get the footage on the TV? This is the 1980s, so you can't CGI footage on an antique '50s TV prop and the camera moves in that scene, that a perfect tracking compositing shot would have been too difficult for the '80s. No, it's very possible that the connector they hooked up is real and what we're seeing on the vintage TV set is genuinely the output of the camcorder.
Exactly! That model of camcorder came with an RF modulator which would output on channel 3 or 4, compatible with a 1950's tv. The output was 75 ohm coax, and although the standard back then was 300 ohm twin-lead, the signal was strong enough to not require any conversion. (in fact I did that quite often)
About Eric Stoltz being in the film, I believe there is a scene in the cafe where Marty punches Biff and that singular few frames where the blow is landed, that is Eric Stoltz's arm and fist.
Absolutely right. And here we must once again point to the talent of a great, then completely unknown, newcomer to the acting profession named Tom Wilson.👍😉
My favouite Back to the Future fact is Michael J. Fox was simultaneously starring as Alex P. Keaton on the hit sitcom Family Ties. Thats why so many of his scenes were set at night. Enjoyed your video, especialy the guitar pick and Huey bits
I feel (am) old...i watched it when it came out in the movie theater... And for "BTTF 3 III"...i watched as part of a double feature (when that was a thing) along "Indiana Jones and the last crusade"!!
@zobook Here we are, more than a decade past the distant future of flying cars and Hoverboards, depicted in this series, and I still can’t get myself to think of these films as retro.
Number 37: When the alarm clock on the dashboard rings the Delorean stalls out, not starting again for almost 30 seconds, if Marty had left according to Doc's calculations he would never have met the lightning at the correct time.
@robb233in all fairness the "second" or close to it 'could' be calculated by obeserving the clock...but hey its a movie...LOL lets not even get into plutonium not being a liquid...or how doc was able to make a reactor that "small" and "safe" and use "that much weapons grade plutinium' for each run...
10:30 That’s perfectly possible. The camcorder he’s holding can also playback… and they all had optional RF modulators. Just tune to the correct channel and connect it like you would a VHF antenna.
Yes, the NTSC standard was invented in 1941, and they made sure that the colour signal was 100% compatible with black-and-white sets when they transitioned to colour. So a 1950s TV set absolutely could have understood the NTSC signal from a 1980s camcorder. They would have been 100% signal compatible. The only detail is that 1950s TVs didn't have a "video in" socket. But there's apparently a deleted scene in Back to the Future that showed Marty looking for the wires and alligator clips - that you can still see are there in the final movie - to rig up a RF modulator to VHF antenna cable. Indeed, they had to get that footage onto the '50s TV for the film itself, so it's very possible that the cable they rigged is actually real and they're genuinely using the camcorder to put the footage on a real antique 1950s TV set. Like, this was the '80s, you couldn't just CGI stuff like that into a movie. And it's not compositing - the camera moves in the scene and tracking composited shots were way too difficult in the 1980s. No, it's entirely possible the footage we see on the TV is genuinely from rigging up a 1980s camcorder to a vintage 1950s TV prop for real.
When I watched YOUR video at .5 speed I noticed the car ad on the back of the newspaper at 13:50 says "You'll be noticed driving THE CAR OF THE FUTURE"..." :)
He's surprised by the attention to detail in 1985! it was hardly the stone age and 1000s of films would have been made before with attention to detail.
The older a movie is, the MORE likely it is that there is a greater attention to detail. There was no CGI to bedazzle people with - you actually had to have an attention to detail, because the details were the story. These days, people have a much shorter attention span and are satisfied enough with pretty visuals.
Yes, I am proud to say I got to see this movie when it first came out in the theater. My biggest question was, I wonder what the heck the title means. And, a few years back, my tiny local theater put on a Back To The Future party. They had a real DeLorean, two actors to play Marty and Doc for everyone to pose for pictures with, a red carpet and a bunch of lights strung out everywhere. They sold pizza for cheap and the house was packed! It was a blast!
10:33 DUDE!!!! The camera can read the VHS tape and playback on any TV, as long as you have/make jack for it! Wooh! Gen Z is really clueless of anything 80s and 90s related !!!!
@csmarkham It took me a few plays of that part to realise that what he probably meant was that Doc's town model seen in the film was originally made as part of the real-life design process for the sets, and was not just made with the sole purpose of being a prop in that scene.
One detail of the movie that I've never heard anyone mention is the Mr. Fusion upgrade at the end. That was referencing a coffee maker back in the 80's called Mr. Coffee.
Also, when reading the earlier script, the license plate on the DeLorean was NO TIME which has six letters. The film changed it to OUTATIME which is 8 letters. License plates can only be 7 letters at that time so NO TIME is more realistic. OUTOFTIME sounds and looks better but for reality the first is better.
just had a wild thought, what if when Marty called doc he heard the phone and that's what made him slip and fall. So kind of like what this video is saying but one step further. what a great movie.
i watched the scene where doc opens the case of plutonium multiple times now and you can see, that there isn't a second fuel dose missing. it's just sitting a bit deeper in the glass. you can see the yellow label through the outer glass and can spot it shaking a bit when doc opens the case. even the metallic cap is visible and reflecting light.
There is implication that there should be more than one be missing, though - he sent about a hundred clocks 20 minutes into the future (test #1 possibly to test #9, does it work) and proceeded with a biological test (test #10, Einstein) before he is confident he can use it without melting. Either that or never testing before Einstein means he just set 100 clocks with the wrong time and is just Doc being batshit.. I honestly think it’s the former, if there’s not an empty one already in the case that would then imply he may have used up a whole case of plutonium already, he stole a lot more than that one set. Not sure it is a plot hole…
@jjtt248 worked for a clock, anyway - I guess that experiment is to send clocks different amounts of time ahead so they all look like they’re 20 minutes slow (maybe 20 mins, maybe a day and 20 mins, maybe 5 mins forward 4 times, etc.) and then prove that they did move through time and it wasn’t e.g. some mechanical change that caused the clocks to tick at different rates, or something else. There’s a progression to the experiments and his final test is “does Einstein come back alive” to prove the Time Machine is safe, and the 5 minute slow digital clock on his collar is proof now he knows clocks act that way. Not a single assumption was made, he tested everything. He is EXTREMELY confident with the remote control. He’s been doing this for a while. He was already pretty confident that it *would* work because he jumped out of the way when his watch beeped. His only real scientific failing is that the mall event is the first time he seems to bother DOCUMENTING any of it :)
10:25 #20 Camcorders were typically capable of playing back from the tapes they recorded on and in the 80s would at the very least include co-axial cable with RF Connectors for hooking up to televisions. As many televisions in the 80s were still set up with screw terminals for Twin-Lead antenna input and didn't have a place to plug in co-ax, converters from 75 ohm co-ax to 300 ohm twin-lead were also quite commonplace. 1985 Doc Brown probably had the needed cable and adapter among the accessories for the camcorder, and 1955 Doc Brown's TV would have had the screw terminals for Twin-Lead as that standard for Television dates back to the 40s.
There is apparently a deleted scene where Marty is seen looking around Doc's garage for the parts to hook it up. So, yeah, totally 100% possible. (In fact, they had to get that footage on the '50s TV set for the movie itself. This was the '80s and you couldn't just CGI it onto the screen, and the camera moves in that scene, so it's either a 100% perfect tracking composite shot... or, more likely, they genuinely hooked up the camcorder to an antique '50s TV set prop and what we're seeing is the actual camcorder footage for real. Seriously, in the '80s, that would be the easiest and best way to do it, as VFX weren't that good to just "photoshop" it in. Therefore, the cable they rigged up? Entirely possible it's 100% real.)
@klaxoncowthere are framerate issues when filming output from an off-the-shelf VCR on a CRT. (You get a horizontal black bar periodically rolling over the screen) The movie industry had special equipment to synch the screen's refresh rate to the movie camera's shutter speed to fix this. There was probably a specialized B&W variable refresh rate monitor with a 50s TV shell built around it, with the camcorder and cable on top just for show.
This is 100% accurate. That actually dates the guy making this video - too young to have been around when camcorders had an RF out. In 30 years when we're explaining to kids how we used to listen to music by sticking a wire into a little hole on our phones, their reply will probably be, "What's a phone?" 🦶
Thank you! As a further add. Analog TV protocols were developed well before 1955, colorized TV was ”added on” to the standard so they would still be compatible with black and white sets. The standard stayed the same until the phase out of analog television signals. Multicast, and closed captioning were later add ons but the core of the standard meant that this was not only possible, but stupidly easy. 3 and 4 years olds understood how to make the connections in the 80's. Proof of that. Nintendos.
@radwolf76They likely did something like that, but that's due to a framerate conflict, not a compatibility challenge between an 80's camcorder and a 1955 TV.
Nobody: Me waiting for Canadian lad to drop Spiderman brand new day trailer breakdown and hidden details because I know he is the only one who can do it best.
Uh... doc was cleaerly using the camcorder as the playback device. and the camcorder probably has the option to playback to channel-3/4.... trivial to hookup to tv's antenna input
4:00- definitely every audience member caught that in real time!! He looked right at us- and WE are in the future ... Such a great inclusion from the director
When Marty returns to 1985 and crashes into the movie theater, the homeless guy that sees him was the mayor in 1955. Also, allegedly, some shots where Marty is driving in the Twin Pines parking lot before he travels back in time is actually Eric Stoltz, it’s just impossible to tell.
11:00 - regarding the playback, technically those VHS recorders can play the video back (you can see the controls) so really what Doc did was invent the video signal converter/adapter (still an amazing thing)
Those old VHS camcorders played back on analog TVs just fine on antenna jacks. I was around then. This was the way until Nintendo made RCA jacks popular in the late 80s.
@tec@technerd5637 Very few NES owners used the composite AV jacks in USA… so few, Nintendo got rid of them in the NES-101 “toploader” model. It wasn’t until the N64 that they got rid of the RF modulator and almost everyone I knew was still using an RF modulator or running it through the AV jacks on their VCR since so few of us had composite inputs. Even in the mid ‘90s, the cheapest TVs often had no dedicated composite inputs, and it’s not like everyone had the latest and greatest.
You act as if 1995 is ancient history, but that was actually the golden age for movies: Right before all the attention went to digital special effects and CGI.
i cant wait for the brand new day trailer vid to see what you can see
Same, I keep checking to see if it uploaded yet
It's out
@firealarm8739 no im saying i cant wait for him to make a vid about the trailer
I came here for this😂
When he's gonna post??
A couple of times, you said 'this was great attention to detail for a movie made in 1985.'
Great directors have done this since movies started. In fact, I would argue that it was more prevalent than today.
More a function of budget. When able to afford Continuity and/ or Script Supervisor.
Some directors do have stricter on set rules also.
Yeah, that bugged me, too. Seriously, you're dismissing a hundred years of brilliant filmmakers?
I also cringe when people say, "The effects were pretty good for that time," as if garish CGI is the gold standard over practical effects and great cinematography.
@WoefulMinion I worked with a guy that said Star Wars sucked because the CGI was so bad.
Glad others were confused by this statement, if anything the attention to detail was far greater then and before then in many cases.
@82angelfanOh hell. 🙄
"Hey I've seen this one it's a classic"
fr
"What do you mean you've seen this? This is brand new ".
@yasin6118"I saw it on a...rerun."
@eashanpatel1799" Whats a re-run? "
@yas@yasin6118”You’ll find out”
The Eric Stoltz jump clip is probably a stunt man.
You git that right.
Considering he said Einstein was the world's first time traveler, and since the Delorean is remote controlled, my guess is his first test was simply sending the car into the future without anyone in it.
Or it was a failed experiment...
True!!
Or maybe it’s sending clocks in the garage we were talking about just a minute before…
There is a remote possibility that Doc's first time travel experiment was in the near future, and he himself traveled back in time to October 26th. This would mean that Einstein was - at that moment - _chronologically_ the world's first time-traveller. Though such a title would be very quickly revoked as soon as anyone went back further!
Waiting for your brand new day trailer breakdown.
Not so sure that Stoltz. I think it was shot with a stunt person. They probably didn’t want to risk Michael hurting himself diving into a DeLorean head first like that.
Yes that doesn't look like stolz at all it's probably a stunt man
100%
Right. Stoltz’s hair wasn’t even styled that way from the shots they have of him.
Could be. Remember the deal Michael J. Fox had with him shooting that other movie or TV show. He had to be available; if something were to happen to him during filming BTTF, the movie could've never happened.
The shoes are a giveaway. Michael wore Nike bruins, Eric wore converse. So it’s a double for michael
The mall sign changing was meant to be noticed.
Exactly
Indeed…..you are paying attention when you notice that
And the "OUTATIME" license plate wasn't exactly a subtle Easter egg either :)
Doc will return in avengers doomsday
Literally
Definitely
Yes! And we already know Doc Brown is actually a grown up Tony Stark. The variant who doesn't become Doom.
Go back and watch all the MCU crap, the clues are everywhere!! For really!
Hell yeah
Marty will…as well…lol BUT
14:05 I remember sitting in a theater in 1985 watching this movie when it first came out. When the destination time and date appeared in the car, October 26, I realized that was the same date we movie-goers were actually sitting there watching in the theaters, October 26, 1985. The creators of this film really thought of everything!
That's neat!
Maybe in a different country, in US it was released early 3rd July 1985, but was planned for later.
Yes, I remember that too.
@SteveOnTheInterweb Oh. In which case, I've just realized for the first time that BTTF was set in the future! And this is my favorite film, I should have known that!
That's a good one! I never realized that. Just for your comment, I am going to reveal an Easter Egg that I previously mentioned was missed, but didn't reveal it, and I am looking to see if The Canadian Lad would have mentioned it. but didn't. There was a scene when Marty was fleeing from the terrorists. The odometer had changed its mileage twice, out of sequence.
He ran out of movies to watch so he went to past 😂😂
Every movie was made in the past
@IAMYAMAMAwhat💀
or maybe he went back, back to the future
@Fake._.Isagii due to production time, films are made in the past. And if I made a film in 20th March and I released in 21st March, then yeah it's made in past
I'm not complaining
Old man Peabody' son was named Sherman in the credits.
Huey Lewis was actually told himself at an audition once, that his music was too loud, which is how he came up with that line. In truth, he actually loved the way Michael played that song. Also, that blonde guy with the sunglasses, playing next to Marty, is Michael's guitar instructor.
The thing is that Michael J. Fox couldn't play the guitar at all. He was basically shredding away random shit what they overdubbed with the sound of a professionall guitar player.
@Oli1974That's not true. This movie is actually one of best examples of an actor accurately miming along correctly to the audio. Everything you hear in the music, Michael J. Fox is accurately doing on the guitar. He studied for months leading up to filming to make sure he knew every note of the songs he was going to play in the film.
@Poparad um...no. a musician on this platform plays what actors are actually doing with their hands in films. He was nowhere close to accurate.
@Poparad Yes, he studied a bit, but only to make it look less obvious. Trust me on that, there's even a documental on RUclips with the original audio of that scene.
Did you notice... Marty picks a newspaper from the trash when he goes back to 1955; and he holds the paper in front of his face showing a large advertising headline that reads:
"YOU'LL BE NOTICED DRIVING
The Car of the Future!"
OMG Yes!! I just went and checked, I never saw that before.
"So much detail for a movie made in 1985!"
@RDdjjdActually movies used to have far more details than they do now because they weren't just computer-generated. It's people who think of the creative ways to add subtle details.. as opposed to say random details generated by AI like extra opposable thumbs and such.🤖👍
10:30 sorry to say this isn't exactly accurate. The signal is analog and The JVC GR C1 was supplied with a RF modulator which all TVs used for antennas and such until digital.
Exactly. He doesn't need "a way to read the tape" because the camera itself is a VCR. Basically, Marty brought a VCR from the future. The analog signal it outputs has been used since the invention of television. The "adapter" is as simple as disconnecting the TV antenna, connecting the wires on the back of the TV to the camera's output contacts, and then tuning the TV to a specific channel (probably 3 or 4), which is exactly what the film shows them doing.
That's what I was gonna say! (jk)
@kyrodes I actually did this, back in the day, when the camera came out.
yeah and it's very clear in the scene how the vcr is connected with a cable to the tv antenna. a very big thing to miss for a guy watching the movie in .25x speed,
Came here to post exactly that. I had a similar camcorder in 1990 and would hook it up to my friend's TV all of the time.
Those smaller objects in the model aren't salt and pepper shakers, they're vacuum tubes.
Correct!
Wasn't expecting you watching back to the future in your signature style 😂
NO, he didnt test the time machine on himself first, he used a clock.
Why do you think older movies would naturally have less attention to detail??
I noticed this as well. It’s… stupid. Like somehow attention detail started being taught in film school in 2010 or something. It’s pretty ignorant to be honest.
@JWForPresident Maybe he was trying to make the point that general audiences lacked the option to stop and investigate frame by frame in the past, but that wouldn't apply to the 80s when every household had VHS players with pause buttons. BTTF wasnt released in the 60s after all.
@muratmhcoglu4184even then, attention to detail was important. Prior to VCR, people watched most movies at the theater, including re-releases. When everything is big, it's easy to spot when something is off. That's why production design is important.
Also, it's art. It's craft. People who care about their work will be as meticulous as possible where it's required.
@PlainDistrict Yeah. Exactly. And if you liked it, you’d go see it again, often specifically to see things you missed before. You’d watch it as many times as you could.
Because they do
What movie audience couldn't connect to the humour of Christopher Lloyd. He is brilliant.
I thought the first test would’ve been the car by itself
That's what I was thinking.
Me too
Or say, full of clocks…
Yea the clocks being off in the opening scene is just part of the narrative giving you a clue that Doc is doing some experiment related to time. It's a nice detail that there is an additional plutonium missing so if you notice that you can conclude it was used as part of the earlier experiment that altered the clocks.
Not all the clocks....there was at least one showing the correct time...
That wasn't Eric Stolz jumping into the car it was most likely a stunt man because they couldn't risk Fox getting injured because he had to film family ties. You can clearly see it's a stunt man wearing a wig.
What do you mean, "For a movie made in 1985"?
I guess in the 80s if we had made such videos about movies in the 50s, we might say "This is pretty amazing for a movie made in the 50s." but yeah, movies in the 80s were top of the line for not having computer graphics the way we do now.
i was a teen back in 85 i watched this when it came out on a date yep i was on a date
@ASMRREMEMBER-x4qhow'd the date go?
@2:28 The missing piece of plutonium is probably why most of the clocks in the garage (Docs 1985 home) are off. He was running an earlier test on the Flux Capacitor (sans Delorean) to test the time dilation field. The body of the car makes the trip through time stable, a piece of dialog that gets cut off when Einstein returns.
Why is nobody talking about how incredibly cozy and classy 1955's Doc Brown's living room is?
It better be cozy and classy because Doc Brown was living in a famous Greene and Greene mansion.
You are
@naromsky haha, fair enough.
The character had significant inherited wealth.
I bet it smelled like old books, WD-40, and hot electronics.
Did you notice... When Marty is in the phone booth trying to call Doc his father is sitting at the counter in the scene behind him.
old VHS camcorders COULD hook up to 1955 TVs because they used the same exact VHF technology used by TVs then. You can see how he has it hooked into the arial antenna. It would work on channel 3. I was born in the 1970s and have been a tech head my entire life. Things didn't change until RCA jacks started getting popular in the late 80s.
Yes, the NTSC television signal standard was invented in 1941 and remained in use until the 2009 switch-over to ATSC 1.0.
you're right. i was born in the 50s. yep, RCA and channel 3....
They used the same signals. But 1980s camcorders had coaxial cable connectors, while 1950s TVs just had two leads to connect to the antenna. Still doable, especially for a tech guy like Doc Brown.
@stevenlitvintchouk3131 It's correctly done. That JVC model has a built in RF modulator, and it's even possible to see the spliced cable in the movie. Doc got it right!
I remember the RF modulators you had to use with early video games. In fact, I had an Amiga monitor Intended up using for my primary TV because it was the first TV set I owned that had an RCA input.
"Every other clock in this room is agreeing..." 1:57
You missed another bit about Uncle Joey, right after Marty comments about the bars, Marty's grandmother says that Joey just cries whenever they take him out of the playpen, so they just leave him in all the time. Meaning that Joey likes it better on the inside of prison than outside.
You're right, but that was fairly obvious. It didn't take a quarter-speed viewing to catch.
Yes, that isn't a hidden detail, everyone knows that.
@clintbuhs7708 Right. In fact, that entire moment, from the cake to the mom's reply was literally and glaringly obvious to everyone, and we were meant to get it.
Bonus detail: Sometime it is mentioned in 1985 that the cause of the fire that burned down Doc's estate was believed to be a pile of oily rags. In 1955, when Doc showed Marty a scaled representation of how he was going to harness the lightning bolt with the windup car, the flaming windup car crashes into a trash can of oily rags. Luckily, Doc puts out the fire, but he probably should have took care of the rags too. 😂
Doc Brown stepping over the bike was prolly foreshadowing of the moment when he rode a bike later in the 2nd film.
wakey wakey spidey's trailer just dropped. Eagerly waiting for your breakdown
4:28 "Just wasn't his density" 😆👍
It might surprise you but even movies before this paid even greater attention to details.
Hmmmm Lad missed the Peabody reference.
In the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, there was a segment with a dog named Mr. Peabody and a boy named Sherman that used their wayback machine to travel through time to witness historical figures in action.
Great Scott!!!!
(now figure out who Scott is)
Someone below said Mr Peabody’s son is called Sherman in the credits. Nice.
@BajkonurBobby I think I saw that too. LOL
I like how most of the comments show that nearly all of theses are this dude just speculating, thinking a scene is something more than it is, or simply not understanding how anything shown in the film actually works.
9:15 when Marty is on the skateboard and makes the turn on the sidewalk, you can see scratch marks on the concrete from previous takes.
Great Scot
You beat me to it
I’ll have to go back in time to post the comment before you do
after several watches when younger, I noticed almost all of these things. Some you can catch even on first watch, but definitely second watch. It's like each time watching, something new reveals itself
4:46 Not Michael J Fox, but not Eric Stoltz either. Actually a stuntman. If it were Eric Stoltz, he wouldn't have been wearing a bad wig that made him look like Fox.
Plus Eric stolz woulda sued them like Crispin did
"For a movie that came out in 1985, that's some crazy attention to detail." wait till you discover what Stanley Kubrick was doing in the 70s/.
dude missed, possibly no balls to say it, the most important hidden event showed in the movie - 911. Twin Pines is referred to Twin Towers which will become ONE on 1:16 which is upside down 9:11. No to mention Trump as president and World War 3. Which we are seeing happening
ILM.. this whole vid is clickbait
@WeOutlawsTV88 - Congratulations on being a complete twit.
@WeOutlawsTV88
Seek professional help, loon.
@ricardoklement8090 It sounds like you’re projecting a lot of internal frustration right now.
I’m happy to have a conversation, but I’ll wait until you’re able to express yourself without the name-calling. You seem a bit overwhelmed by my comment, yeah I know heavy truths are not for the weak minded. Poor sod.
Michael J Fox did a great job portraying this character!
I really liked this series of movies 😎👍
A couple of other easter eggs for you...
At the opening scene when Marty is being chased in the DeLorean, the odometer mileage changes down then up, then down again. Same later on when he is going from 1955 to 1985.
Look at the licence plates on the cars when he is walking through the town square with Jennifer near the start of the film. There is a dedication to a lady on the Nissan's plate.
It's true. Guitarists drop picks everywhere
I watched this in the theater when it first came out back in the 80s and everyone laughed at the "bird watcher" line. We all got it back then.
I checked.
The NTSC format, used in the United States, was invented in 1941. The signal from the camcorder would have been completely compatible with a 1950s TV (the colour NTSC signal was designed to be compatible with older black-and-white sets). So in terms of the signal, this absolutely would have been possible.
The one thing is that 1950s TVs didn't have a "video in" socket. But there was a deleted scene where Marty actually looks for wires in Doc's garage to hack together a connector - and even without the deleted scene, you can see that they've got extra wires and used alligator clips to hook it up. It's not too hard, you've basically got to hook it up like it's an "antenna" to the TV - the NTSC standard would do the rest, as the signals are compatible. 1980s camcorders could play back to TV sets - I did it with a friend's camcorder in that very decade, probably a few years after this movie.
This is entirely feasible and plausible to do this in the 1950s with a 1980s camcorder. Even without accounting for the fact that, like, Doc Brown is the inventor of time-travel, so he could handle basic electrical stuff, particularly with Marty's future knowledge of how the camcorder's supposed to work.
In fact, how else did they get the footage on the TV? This is the 1980s, so you can't CGI footage on an antique '50s TV prop and the camera moves in that scene, that a perfect tracking compositing shot would have been too difficult for the '80s. No, it's very possible that the connector they hooked up is real and what we're seeing on the vintage TV set is genuinely the output of the camcorder.
It also seems like he genuinely didn't know camcorders also play back the tapes.
But TV's did not have a coax input and would have needed a 75Ω to 300Ω balun to connect to the antena.
Exactly! That model of camcorder came with an RF modulator which would output on channel 3 or 4, compatible with a 1950's tv. The output was 75 ohm coax, and although the standard back then was 300 ohm twin-lead, the signal was strong enough to not require any conversion. (in fact I did that quite often)
@bobnelson8995 They seem to show one in the scene.
he's still probably watching the trailer at 0.25x speed
People paid attention to things in the 80s! Shock!
Right? Good god, it's like it was the dark ages.
So true though.
we're waiting on you, lad..
Bro please bring the brand new day 0.25x breakdown, I haven't watched any other ytber vid, cuz I am waiting for your first.
At 4:55 when Marty starts up the DeLorean, the address on Doc Brown's key ring tag reads "...BROWN" and "JFK Drive". THAT is attention to detail!!!
About Eric Stoltz being in the film, I believe there is a scene in the cafe where Marty punches Biff and that singular few frames where the blow is landed, that is Eric Stoltz's arm and fist.
That's true. There was a documentary that confirmed that they didn't film this scene with Michael J Fox
Fascinating. Is that the blow that crippled the guy Tom?
the first thing you mentioned.. was brought up by my dad.. a real fan of these three movies.. made me pay attention even more..
Biff Tannen's variants are more terrifying than most MCU multiversal villains so far.
Absolutely right. And here we must once again point to the talent of a great, then completely unknown, newcomer to the acting profession named Tom Wilson.👍😉
We're waiting for your Brand new day trailer
My favouite Back to the Future fact is Michael J. Fox was simultaneously starring as Alex P. Keaton on the hit sitcom Family Ties.
Thats why so many of his scenes were set at night.
Enjoyed your video, especialy the guitar pick and Huey bits
I’ve always interpreted the start of the movie as meaning that the first plutonium rod was used to transport his entire house 25 minutes forward.
This movie series was one of the first retro sci-fi movies I watched and it opened a whole new world for me.
I feel (am) old...i watched it when it came out in the movie theater...
And for "BTTF 3 III"...i watched as part of a double feature (when that was a thing) along "Indiana Jones and the last crusade"!!
Retro. 🙄
@zobookman,I know exactly what you mean. When I just read "retro movie," I - at 51 years old - really jumped 😂!
@zobook Here we are, more than a decade past the distant future of flying cars and Hoverboards, depicted in this series, and I still can’t get myself to think of these films as retro.
If you put that insane amount of details in a movie you really love your job.
Number 37: When the alarm clock on the dashboard rings the Delorean stalls out, not starting again for almost 30 seconds,
if Marty had left according to Doc's calculations he would never have met the lightning at the correct time.
Yah I always thought it was a bit fishy they knew the exact minute, but not the exact second lightning struck.
@robb233in all fairness the "second" or close to it 'could' be calculated by obeserving the clock...but hey its a movie...LOL lets not even get into plutonium not being a liquid...or how doc was able to make a reactor that "small" and "safe" and use "that much weapons grade plutinium' for each run...
@robb233 But Doc previously had said the flyer says "precisely 10:04"... wouldn't that imply zero seconds?
@bparker06 I guess so. Big leap of faith to think the flyer wasn't exagerating!
"Yeah, it's amazing, back in 1985 they had forks and knives! And clothes and stuff! What an amazing thing for a film from 1985!"
10:30 That’s perfectly possible. The camcorder he’s holding can also playback… and they all had optional RF modulators. Just tune to the correct channel and connect it like you would a VHF antenna.
JVC GR-C1U… and, yes, an RF modulator was available for it, often stowed in the same carrying case where you’d keep batteries, charger, tapes, etc.
Yes, the NTSC standard was invented in 1941, and they made sure that the colour signal was 100% compatible with black-and-white sets when they transitioned to colour.
So a 1950s TV set absolutely could have understood the NTSC signal from a 1980s camcorder. They would have been 100% signal compatible.
The only detail is that 1950s TVs didn't have a "video in" socket. But there's apparently a deleted scene in Back to the Future that showed Marty looking for the wires and alligator clips - that you can still see are there in the final movie - to rig up a RF modulator to VHF antenna cable.
Indeed, they had to get that footage onto the '50s TV for the film itself, so it's very possible that the cable they rigged is actually real and they're genuinely using the camcorder to put the footage on a real antique 1950s TV set.
Like, this was the '80s, you couldn't just CGI stuff like that into a movie. And it's not compositing - the camera moves in the scene and tracking composited shots were way too difficult in the 1980s. No, it's entirely possible the footage we see on the TV is genuinely from rigging up a 1980s camcorder to a vintage 1950s TV prop for real.
I agree. My Sony camcorder came with that modulator.
Channel 3 or 4?
@sleepydog223 Only reason I hesitated to say it is because some early RF modulators used channels 2 or 3. :)
When I watched YOUR video at .5 speed I noticed the car ad on the back of the newspaper at 13:50 says "You'll be noticed driving THE CAR OF THE FUTURE"..." :)
Chop chop boy.. brand new day.. get to work
He's surprised by the attention to detail in 1985! it was hardly the stone age and 1000s of films would have been made before with attention to detail.
The older a movie is, the MORE likely it is that there is a greater attention to detail. There was no CGI to bedazzle people with - you actually had to have an attention to detail, because the details were the story. These days, people have a much shorter attention span and are satisfied enough with pretty visuals.
Yes, I am proud to say I got to see this movie when it first came out in the theater. My biggest question was, I wonder what the heck the title means. And, a few years back, my tiny local theater put on a Back To The Future party. They had a real DeLorean, two actors to play Marty and Doc for everyone to pose for pictures with, a red carpet and a bunch of lights strung out everywhere. They sold pizza for cheap and the house was packed! It was a blast!
We waiting lad
10:33 DUDE!!!! The camera can read the VHS tape and playback on any TV, as long as you have/make jack for it!
Wooh! Gen Z is really clueless of anything 80s and 90s related !!!!
One of my favorite details is that Alan Silvestri's score doesn't start until we see the DeLorean.
My only complaint: being a 1985 movie has NOTHING to do with attention to detail.
Yeah that one made think wtf
Like the creation of the town model ‘before shooting’. Umm, storyboard much? 😂
@csmarkham It took me a few plays of that part to realise that what he probably meant was that Doc's town model seen in the film was originally made as part of the real-life design process for the sets, and was not just made with the sole purpose of being a prop in that scene.
One detail of the movie that I've never heard anyone mention is the Mr. Fusion upgrade at the end. That was referencing a coffee maker back in the 80's called Mr. Coffee.
The eric running scene was a stunt man, not eric.
What stunt person was that? Someone knows. That dude should be autographing that picture all over the place
The only detail I noticed on my own was Eastwood Ravine.
Brand new day trailer, im waitingghh
Spider-Man brand new day trailer just dropped. Make a video of it
Also, when reading the earlier script, the license plate on the DeLorean was NO TIME which has six letters. The film changed it to OUTATIME which is 8 letters. License plates can only be 7 letters at that time so NO TIME is more realistic. OUTOFTIME sounds and looks better but for reality the first is better.
For unknown friendly neighborhood spiderman. We need u
pls drop Spiderman Brand New Day...Hurry
just had a wild thought, what if when Marty called doc he heard the phone and that's what made him slip and fall. So kind of like what this video is saying but one step further. what a great movie.
"What's a re-run?"
Amazing line.
Now, it's unknown to OUR youth.
i watched the scene where doc opens the case of plutonium multiple times now and you can see, that there isn't a second fuel dose missing. it's just sitting a bit deeper in the glass. you can see the yellow label through the outer glass and can spot it shaking a bit when doc opens the case. even the metallic cap is visible and reflecting light.
There is implication that there should be more than one be missing, though - he sent about a hundred clocks 20 minutes into the future (test #1 possibly to test #9, does it work) and proceeded with a biological test (test #10, Einstein) before he is confident he can use it without melting. Either that or never testing before Einstein means he just set 100 clocks with the wrong time and is just Doc being batshit.. I honestly think it’s the former, if there’s not an empty one already in the case that would then imply he may have used up a whole case of plutonium already, he stole a lot more than that one set. Not sure it is a plot hole…
@jjtt248 worked for a clock, anyway - I guess that experiment is to send clocks different amounts of time ahead so they all look like they’re 20 minutes slow (maybe 20 mins, maybe a day and 20 mins, maybe 5 mins forward 4 times, etc.) and then prove that they did move through time and it wasn’t e.g. some mechanical change that caused the clocks to tick at different rates, or something else. There’s a progression to the experiments and his final test is “does Einstein come back alive” to prove the Time Machine is safe, and the 5 minute slow digital clock on his collar is proof now he knows clocks act that way.
Not a single assumption was made, he tested everything. He is EXTREMELY confident with the remote control. He’s been doing this for a while. He was already pretty confident that it *would* work because he jumped out of the way when his watch beeped.
His only real scientific failing is that the mall event is the first time he seems to bother DOCUMENTING any of it :)
Exactly. You can clearly see it in my large TV.
Unable to go back and watch it right now, but I believe the bicycle Doc steps through is the same bike he rides to the town hall in the second movie.
13:57 Three different colors on the display definitely have significant value from a design perspective, especially in terms of error prevention.
ironic considering your username :P
Nostalgia is an age-old rock that's hard to crack an omelette with.
Cmon bro just drop the brand new day video already
We all waiting for you Canadian lad ❤️
10:25 #20 Camcorders were typically capable of playing back from the tapes they recorded on and in the 80s would at the very least include co-axial cable with RF Connectors for hooking up to televisions. As many televisions in the 80s were still set up with screw terminals for Twin-Lead antenna input and didn't have a place to plug in co-ax, converters from 75 ohm co-ax to 300 ohm twin-lead were also quite commonplace. 1985 Doc Brown probably had the needed cable and adapter among the accessories for the camcorder, and 1955 Doc Brown's TV would have had the screw terminals for Twin-Lead as that standard for Television dates back to the 40s.
There is apparently a deleted scene where Marty is seen looking around Doc's garage for the parts to hook it up. So, yeah, totally 100% possible.
(In fact, they had to get that footage on the '50s TV set for the movie itself. This was the '80s and you couldn't just CGI it onto the screen, and the camera moves in that scene, so it's either a 100% perfect tracking composite shot... or, more likely, they genuinely hooked up the camcorder to an antique '50s TV set prop and what we're seeing is the actual camcorder footage for real. Seriously, in the '80s, that would be the easiest and best way to do it, as VFX weren't that good to just "photoshop" it in. Therefore, the cable they rigged up? Entirely possible it's 100% real.)
@klaxoncowthere are framerate issues when filming output from an off-the-shelf VCR on a CRT. (You get a horizontal black bar periodically rolling over the screen) The movie industry had special equipment to synch the screen's refresh rate to the movie camera's shutter speed to fix this. There was probably a specialized B&W variable refresh rate monitor with a 50s TV shell built around it, with the camcorder and cable on top just for show.
This is 100% accurate.
That actually dates the guy making this video - too young to have been around when camcorders had an RF out.
In 30 years when we're explaining to kids how we used to listen to music by sticking a wire into a little hole on our phones, their reply will probably be, "What's a phone?" 🦶
Thank you! As a further add.
Analog TV protocols were developed well before 1955, colorized TV was ”added on” to the standard so they would still be compatible with black and white sets. The standard stayed the same until the phase out of analog television signals. Multicast, and closed captioning were later add ons but the core of the standard meant that this was not only possible, but stupidly easy. 3 and 4 years olds understood how to make the connections in the 80's.
Proof of that. Nintendos.
@radwolf76They likely did something like that, but that's due to a framerate conflict, not a compatibility challenge between an 80's camcorder and a 1955 TV.
Nobody:
Me waiting for Canadian lad to drop Spiderman brand new day trailer breakdown and hidden details because I know he is the only one who can do it best.
Uh... doc was cleaerly using the camcorder as the playback device. and the camcorder probably has the option to playback to channel-3/4.... trivial to hookup to tv's antenna input
And Marty would know how to connect it to the TV.
4:00- definitely every audience member caught that in real time!! He looked right at us- and WE are in the future ...
Such a great inclusion from the director
A girl I was dating at the time insisted we watch Back to The Future on VHS. She pointed out many intricacies and details, and I was forever hooked!
so you married her?
@himhim6135Nope. The movie was about the best it ever got. My son, on the other hand is a BTTF SuperFan!
12:59 every ½ serious guitarist has a pick in their pocket!!!
Please do a lot like this...I adore seeing old classics ❤
When Marty returns to 1985 and crashes into the movie theater, the homeless guy that sees him was the mayor in 1955. Also, allegedly, some shots where Marty is driving in the Twin Pines parking lot before he travels back in time is actually Eric Stoltz, it’s just impossible to tell.
11:00 - regarding the playback, technically those VHS recorders can play the video back (you can see the controls) so really what Doc did was invent the video signal converter/adapter (still an amazing thing)
Those old VHS camcorders played back on analog TVs just fine on antenna jacks. I was around then. This was the way until Nintendo made RCA jacks popular in the late 80s.
Most camcorders had optional RF modulators.
@tec@technerd5637 Very few NES owners used the composite AV jacks in USA… so few, Nintendo got rid of them in the NES-101 “toploader” model. It wasn’t until the N64 that they got rid of the RF modulator and almost everyone I knew was still using an RF modulator or running it through the AV jacks on their VCR since so few of us had composite inputs. Even in the mid ‘90s, the cheapest TVs often had no dedicated composite inputs, and it’s not like everyone had the latest and greatest.
@technerd5637 right but you wouldn't carry it with you while recording in the field … so Doc Brown would have to reverse engineer it
No, he did not actually invent that. This is just a film and he is just an actor! 😏
When Marty plays Darth Vader, the time on the Clock of George's night stand is aproximately 1:21 am.
Hell yeah, I love these random movies you choose
"Random movies" it's literally one of the greatest movies ever made
Woosh..
If Back To The Future is a random movie then Titanic, Predator, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Home Alone, etc are also random movies.
Dude got a movie almanac
You act as if 1995 is ancient history, but that was actually the golden age for movies: Right before all the attention went to digital special effects and CGI.
3:35 doc brown knows that the the shortest distance between two points is a straight line
a true scientist
“I watched Spider man Brand New Day Trailer in 0.25x speed and heres what I found”