Back to the Future and the Nostalgia Trap | Video Essay
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- Опубликовано: 28 янв 2024
- Back to the Future is a 1985 film that was written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and directed by Zemeckis solo. It tells the tale of Marty McFly as he finds himself trapped in the 1950s and has to play matchmaker to his parents (or phase the consequences of never getting born). It was followed by two sequels in 1989 and 1990 respectively and... is super iconic. Like, super, SUPER iconic.
For many, the trilogy is a fun tale of time travel, pop culture humor, and some truly peak 80s mainstream film action. But, as I discovered upon a deeper look at the movies, there's actually quite a bit of subtle commentary on the nature of nostalgia to be found here. Or, at least, enough for me to string together 30 minutes worth of material about it! Idk man, you be the judge!
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You can also listen to my podcast Media Obscura here: pod.link/themediaobscura
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Credits:
Research:
Nostalgia: a conceptual history | PubMed
How ’80s Hollywood and Ronald Reagan fueled each other - and paved the way for Trump | Vox
Video/TV/Media:
Back to the Future (1985)
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Family Guy (1999-Present)
Ronald Reagan's Acceptance Speech at Republican National Convention, July 17, 1980 | YT: Reagan Library
Happy Days (1974-1984)
Late Night with David Letterman (1982-1993)
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Warner Bros Classics Promo (1996)
The Last Outpost (1951)
Tropic Zone (1953)
The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (2010)
Paris, Texas (1984)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Reagan at 1980 convention: "make America great again" (C-Span)
Cattle Queen of Montana (1954)
Johnny Rockets Original Crew | YT: Johnny Rockets
Michael Jackson - Slave to the Rhythm Performance
A Flying Car (1949)
Midnight In Paris (2011)
Ready Player One (Trailer)
Stranger Things Season 1 (Trailer)
Ghostbusters Afterlife (Trailer)
It’s A Wonderful Life (1948)
Music: Super Back to the Future II OST (Super Famicom)
#backtothefuture #videoessay #80smovies 
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Let's face it, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
.... but it will be again, someday.
RIMSHOT
@@jonisilk😂 let's make nostalgia great again
Yeah but great memories
Its still there, sadly it has been corrupted.
The 80s loved the 50s and the 2010s loved the 80s.
Half truth. The noughties also loved the 80s and were still in that phase now.
@@latenightlogic I remember the 2010s loved the 90s
and the 2040s loved the 2010s which oddly was similar to the 80s
I would argue only a select group of people "loved" the 50s. The rest of us were glad they were over.
@@latenightlogicAbsolutely and if you were born at the beginning of the decade you would only be 44 years old. 80’s nostalgia isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
I grew up in the eighties where evertthing was 50s nostalgia, now people are stuck in 89s and early nineties nostalgia. It's the age of the writers that dictates it
Early-2000s are now the thing on any elite college campus. Lots of baggy clothes, Jnco jeans, Birkenstocks & socks. It’s weird to say “I used to dress like that in high school” like my mom said when I was younger.
@@JoJoJoker I can't think of any aspect of Western culture in the early 2000s (art, music, movies, fashion...) that anyone in their right mind would feel nostalgic about. Maybe the PS2...but the PS2 is not Western, it is Eastern. The 2000s are not as horrible as the 90s but they are second on the list. The 2010s and 2020s are next on the list. 🤢🤮
Sorry to hear about your friend dying
Thanks, I appreciate your kind words. I’m sorry your account’s namesake had his brain eaten alive by an undiagnosed case of syphilis. He seemed, uh, really good at bootlegging lol
My grandpa used to say people who want to go back to the 50s clearly don't remember the 50s
Human nature doesn't change, no matter what decade it is.
Humans, humans never change.
The violent crime rate in the US was at an all-time low in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Something changed, and it certainly can't be blamed on weapons that were more easily accessible at the time.
@@behindthescenesphotos5133 Yes, all time LOW. Meaning it was higher before that. It dipped for a while, then spiked before leveling out to be lower than it was at the turn of the previous century. in 2018 the violent crime rate was almost as low as it was in 1954, and lower than any time prior to 1940.
People whine about violent crime, and the reported rates of crime are almost as low as ever.
Plus, you'd have to be pretty ignorant to only look at the last 50 or 60 years when discussing human nature. Humans have been around for thousands of years, our violent tendencies have been on full display all over the world since the beginning. But you go ahead and only consider the part you lived through, and only consider what 'Murica is doing. Cause 'Murica represents all of humanity everywhere, right? No one else counts, only what happens there. Bam, you're an expert on human nature. The last 60 years of American history is all you need... so long as you also cherry pick you statistics to support your nostalgia.... in a video about how nostalgia is a lie. Beautiful irony, it's just hilarious.
That is the message to take from these movies.
Try visiting 1950s and see how much human nature changed... not necessarily for the better in many ways
I don't have anything against nostalgia. I miss the 1990s.
I would assume we all miss the best years of our lives which coincide with the decade. I mean it would make no sense to miss any decades that sucked for us.
Should add... some might miss decades they were not even alive during and/or too young to remember but just going off perception, which can certainly be subjective.
totally, but the critique of nostalgia is a critique of make America great again. sure things looked good back in some imagined past, minorities were treated as second and third class citizens, women couldn’t vote or have a credit card, didn’t have bodily autonomy, couldn’t leave an abusive partner, etc. so the point is that the past is often gazed upon with rose colored glasses, and that is problematic because it ignores or previous injustices. example, 90’s music and media was awesome! but queer ppl lived in contestant fear of being outed, couldn’t marry, it was the beginning stages of politics turning into dramatic entertainment instead of working for the people, etc.
Like Billy Joel said "The good ole' days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems".
What does it mean when a film about nostalgia has become so nostalgic on it's own😮
Meta
Nostalgia will always be with us because every generation looks back in fondness to last one.
My parents would wax nostalgic about the 1940's bcuz they were young & the movies were classic awa the music & fashions but I'd always remind them that there was a WORLD WAR going on. Then my dad would reveal his fears about being drafted if it dragged on( he was 16 when it ended) & my mom would talk about having to draw a line on the back of her legs bcuz stockings & many other goods were being rationed & the Black Stars in neighbor's windows when they lost a family member who was fighting overseas. Anyway ,I just had to dig a bit deeper .
Lorraine prude scolding Marty's sister when she was out here wilder than the boys her age is the funniest thing ever to me. One's nostalgia blinds them to their own behavior.
Or she was ashamed of her actions.
The Back to the Future trilogy are my favourite films of all time. It's hard to pinpoint which one is my favourite but its probably the first one. Despite being about time travel it is a timeless classic that I think anyone can watch with ease. This was an interesting analysis on the film about nostalgia & repeating past mistakes.
Glad you enjoyed it and yeah, I totally agree that the movies are totally timeless. I had a blast doing my yearly rewatch of the trilogy for this video
Facts
The plants, leading of course to the payoffs, are so good that upon rewatching , you can’t believe the writers weren’t telegraphing them. How could you have not seen the hem coming.
The first film stood alone for a huge portion of my childhood....and then came the sequels. If you saw the first one in theaters back in '85, you hold the first one separate, regardless of your opinion of part 2 and 3.
more time will pass more back to the future will be one of the favourite movies for more people. The reason is that there will never a remake until Bob Gale will be alive so it will not be smeared as it happened to all other pop-cultural icon franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Terminator, Aliens...
I appreciate that you had something different to say about Back To The Future. I don't think you even mentioned that the actor who played Marty was recast. Bravo.
Ah, but did you know that it was... Eric Stoltz???
@@FragginWagon76 serious, strange, Eric. His role as his dad was still pretty strange and compelling. He wanted to play Marty as haunted and fraught but they changed him to childlike instead.
@@iwanttocomplain Probably for the best.
@@FragginWagon76 yeah he's quite a serious actor. He was in Dead Man with Johnny Depp. That's a really horrible monochrome film about sad things that haunts me.
People in their forties run Hollywood, late thirties write the scripts. That's why nostalgia is always in that range reversed
So long as there's an audience for it. In the 1930s and 40s, there were a lot of movies set at the turn of the century, Multiple TV shows about 1920s gangsters in the 1950s, WWII in the 60s, Happy Days in the 70s, Wonder Years in the 80s, That 70s Show in the 90s, etc...
It was great to see some analysis on the third film since most people dismiss it, despite it being a great part of the story that gives closure to all of the character arcs.
@@WinstonCodesOn from what I experienced most people loved the second one the most in the 90s but the mindset altered to dismissing the second and the third one is in second place now
Man.. the 2050s were so much better than the 2020s
The key is keeping alive the memories of things that made us feel good, sharing that with others but not imposing it on them.
I'd still go back to the 80s or 90s if I were given the option. lol
Stop lying, You wouldn’t last a day without today’s necessities
@@HouseofVenesianbergFor the 90's it actually wouldn't be that difficult. The internet was getting common by the mid 90's, cable was a thing and honestly better as there were barely any reality shows. You could rent movies at Blockbuster, basic cellphones existed, there were plenty of good video games out. The 80's would be pretty much the same thing, just with slightly more primitive tech and basically no Internet or affordable cell phones. I'm not saying that I would personally want to go back to those eras but it wouldn't be terrible. I definitely wouldn't want the 50's though, just way too primitive from a tech stand point and too many backwards values.
If I went back to the 90's the technology I would miss the most would be always having the Internet and camera with me as well as GPS but it wasn't the dark ages.
Time only moves forward and you'd only realize how empty your life is reliving through the same era
@@HouseofVenesianberg That's an odd thing to say. I did fine the first time, I think I would do fine the second. I get the feeling you didn't actually live through those decades and don't know what they were actually like. What do we have now that we didn't have then in some form, smart phones and the internet? I've never even owned a smart phone so I know I wouldn't miss that, and we did have cell phones and a very simple and slow form of the internet in the 90s which I used quite a lot. I would make due and likely be very wealthy with the knowledge I'd have of the future. The thing I'd miss the most is probably ordering things online and having them delivered in 2 days. Truth is my daily life now is not very different from how it was then. The world has not changed that much.
@@ClellBiggs I was born in 1981 so I should know. Can’t say the same for you though
I grew up around older individuals who universally considered the Great Depression as better than the (then current) 80's. Only we kids saw the irony of calling the time before our area had electricity (pre 1950) the "good old days", while sitting under the air conditioner.
Perhaps you’ll find this interesting: the Bible of all things has a line burying nostalgic thinking: Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this”
(Ecclesiastes 7:10 NRSVue).
That's very good, actually. I should go look that up and then go by that wisdom.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad a little while ago. He told me he'd finally watched the second movie - for years he'd seen Part 1 and Part 3, but apparently never the movie in the middle. Quite apart from the fact this shows us that in some ways Part 2 is maybe the least essential - he managed to pick up a lot of the plot beats in 3 without ever needing to see 2 - his main other observation was that 2 wasn't tonally in complete step with the others, and that the whole thing felt a bit messy and self indulgent. I love all three movies, but I can't deny that his critiques do hold up. Parts of 2 are a bit silly and stretch credibility to its breaking point - I don't think it crosses that line, but it does skirt it a bit.
The seventy’s also loved the 50s. The 80s, to an extent, the 60s and the 90s, the 70s.
We didn’t give a shit about the 70s in the 90s
The 90s seemed more about boomers reminiscing on the 60s. Movies like Forrest Gump, Apollo 13 and Austin Powers were loaded with nostalgia and there was even that Brady Bunch movie.
@@coreym162 Ta for you lengthy response. “ Verrry Interesting”. Get the reference?👍
@@coreym162 Oh. Your welcome.
I don’t know where it was but it said, skip X decade, get nostalgic for decade prior to that.
70s for 50s I think. 80s for 50s too?
What yr did ‘ that 70s show premiere?🙂
The 90s loved the 60s. It was reflected in the music of the 90s
Nostalgia for me is a time when things just didn't suck. I know the world has always been a messed up place, but I didn't know that as a kid. I had no responsibilities, no one relying on me for anything. I just played with toys, watched cartoons, and had a blast with my friends. I look back fondly on those times.
So true, it isn't that it was a better time exactly. It was that we were kids. For example pretty much the only people nostalgic for the 90s are people who grew up in that time. There aren't many people who were 30+ in the 90s who is nostalgic for it like it was the best time. Those people would say 60s and 70s were the best time. Everyone just misses the simple times of being a kid. I remember back in High School talking about how older people say school was the best time of their lives. We said if this is the best times then life must really suck.....we weren't exactly wrong.
What I love about the past is I know how it ended. The future is an open book.
I've observed that people don't actually miss an era/decade as much as they miss being young. In most cases., they miss being young enough where they didn't have responsibilities, hadn't seen the real world to know that it's not "getting worse!!!!" It's always been like this, but thanks to 24/7 media, and internet lies (lol), people BELIEVE it's "worse now than it's ever been!!"
😂
There are some objective ways to measure a time being worse though. Example suicide rates, divorce rates, murder and crime rates, etc. are they improving or getting worse?
I love the reference to Midnight In Paris. It nailed the allure and inherent trap of nostalgia so well.
Agreed. Anyone living in the now has no idea how this moment will be looked upon in the future. People will claim they do but they don't.
For some reason, this video came back in my recommended feed. This is one of my favorite videos essays on my favorite movie of all time!
This is going to be interesting because, while I saw these movies years ago I didn't think anything special about them (but enjoyed them), around 2009 or so I started hearing about it being held in such massively high regard.
Doc kind of missed a golden opportunity in 3.
With knowledge of coming events, techniques honed with decades of practice, and the ability to control time itself, Doc could have been an absolute god.
The older you get, the easier it is to see how the present will become the past in the future. Nostalgia for the current decade will probably focus heavily on its second half while the first half will be glossed over except for certain pop culture highlights (works going for realism will include the pandemic, inflation, etc., but even those will likely avoid dwelling on them).
I'd only seen a couple of episodes on the DVD special features, but Back to the Future's animated series had continued Doc's and Marty's adventures, with Clara, Jules, and Vern along for the ride. It was pretty cute. Another movie that involved time travel and romance was 2001's Kate and Leopold, from Miramax Films. Liev Schreiber's character, Stuart, found himself in 1876, via time travel, and had discovered an inventor, the titular Leopold, played by Hugh Jackman. The only exception was that Stuart didn't need a machine but had uncovered a portal in the fabric of time. When Leopold had followed Stuart back to the 21st century, he met Kate, played by Meg Ryan, and her brother, Charlie, played by Breckin Meyer. I won't reveal any more details, for those who haven't seen it.
The best Back to the Future movie for me is probably the original, although I also enjoy the sequels. I love how much George learns from Marty about perseverance, whether it involved pursuing his dreams of becoming an author, or finding the love of his life, Lorraine, or both. I love that George quotes Marty back to him at the end, when he tells him that if he puts his mind to it, then he can accomplish anything. I suppose the message of part 2 is that greed doesn't pay. But part 3 brings it full circle: The future is whatever we want it to be, so it better be a good one!
It's just like the 2020s love the 80s and moreso the 90s. Nostalgia is a POWERFUL tool, and I capitalize on it to sell retro computers, albeit my sales have slowed steadily, so that era may be coming to an end, or people just have less discretionary money.
Yeah the nostalgia for the 2000s has been on a steady rise for a few years now that the generation that grew up in that decade are adults.
@@pcb1175 I was a teenager in the 2000s (for two years lol) but I don't often think about it much past 2005 or so. It was a more complicated time, with responsibilities, a marriage, living independently, University, etc. It was fun, but not as good as either the 90s or the first half of the 2010 decade. Each person's accounts and experience will be different, but I find many people have a strong attachment to whatever period they were 10-20 in.
Really interesting take on BTTF. It’s also my favorite and has been since I was really young, and this is an interpretation I haven’t heard before. It’s good to see a fellow up and comer making good sh*t. Keep it up!
The '90s suits me fine 🤔😆😆😆
Great video. I'm a BTTF fan myself and was bitten by nostalgia. Thanks for the video!
I am a huge fan of this movie. I can't believe people still remember it!
I watch a lot of old movies from the Golden Age 1930 to 1960. If you look at what the camera picks up incidentally in the background of the movie that is being filmed, you can often see that 1950s America truly had hit a sweet spot of awesomeness. Vertigo is a good example. By the time of 1959 movie The Apartment you can also see that the seeds of its decline have already been sown.
As a kid in the late 60's early 70's I did romanticize the 50's by being into the music and dressing like a greaser and driving old hot rods etc. Heck even as a teen in the late 70's we went to the movie "American Graffiti" like a dozen times in the theatre. It pissed off my dad so bad who used to tell me the 50's sucked and was nothing like we were portraying.
I have to wonder if he was correct or perhaps it was just that the 50's were bad for him for whatever reason. Of course I was only seeing it through the eyes of a middle/working class white kid but that is also what my dad was in the 1950's. I guess maybe it is human nature to look back assuming better times because so often the future seems bleak. And never in my lifetime has the future seemed bleaker then it does now.
That said, when I hear "Make America Great Again" I see nothing wrong with striving for a great America but it is the "again" part that needs consideration. I mean was it really that great for everyone? After WW2 the slogan was "Never Again". Food for thought.
I love how 50 years of sports statistics fit in a small magazine... a magazine with a dust cover? smh
It is fun movies! Nostalgia is great! And the 80ies weren´t so terrible. Plutonium is hard to get even in 2024
really cool video easy, food for thought! Gracias.
It’s not the Four Aces. It’s the Chordettes’ version of Mr. Sandman we hear when Marty first arrives in 1955.
Not that it really matters, but it is in fact The Four Aces cover that plays in the movie. You can pull clips of it up on RUclips or on the wiki for the soundtrack or even The Aces’ cover itself.
@@NicheCaesar As you suggested, I pulled a clip.
ruclips.net/video/3zgdZZmX7r8/видео.htmlsi=8BA_1aNFjFlzwMNY
And you, of course, are right. How could I have possibly gotten it wrong?
Must be the Mandela Effect! 😉
lol no worries, happens to all of us. I actually thought it was the Chordettes version for a while too, likely because someone had marked a download of the song as that back in the Limewire days
Being a massive BTTF fan as well… the film is the reason why I picked up the guitar in 8th grade and why I wanted to do something in the film industry. I believe the Bob’s would whole heartedly agree with this video.
Our nostalgic view of history is true for some people who lived it, but probably untrue for most people who didn't benefit from it. People who bought all those 50s and 60s cars we admired were maybe living the dream.. most people couldn't afford them actually. That doesn't make the past untrue, it makes it selective. We can still guide the future towards the best parts of the past.
3 was always my favorite
I saw Back to the Future when it was one movie, ad ended with "To Be Continued...". I was wondering if they would ever make a second one.
Biff, in his ideal 1985 could be swapped for Trump and it would fit perfectly. They are very similar.
Even though I academically agree that the first film is superior, my personal favourite is the second film. It’s the one that I happened to see the most as a child, and I love the ridiculous future and dystopian 1985. The car scene in the tunnel is boring for me, though.
My favourite moment from the whole trilogy is the moment when the delorian gets struck by lightning and Doc is sent back to 1885.
I never thought so deeply about these movies but your take makes a lot of sense! I love the first and saw the next 2 in the theater and never rewatched them. I didn't like the second one. Dystopias are not my thing! The third was more fun. I still remember the glass of nice clear well water! I really need to watch the whole series again. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed the video and thanks for sharing your memories of the series! Back to the Future II was actually my favorite one as a kid but, after decades of rewatching it, I actually think it’s the weakest by a long shot! The third one has a lot of great jokes though (like the water gag you mentioned, or Marty noticing some buckshot in his dinner!)
I love these movies so much. First watched them in the mid 2000's as a youngster. A bit funny hearing my mom talk about seeing it when it first came out in her teens...nostalgia upon nostalgia upon nostalgia here. But when i dressed up as marty for a movie themed trivia night earlier this year, i won 2nd place so sorta paid off
What do we want?
TIME TRAVEL!
When do we want it?
IT'S IRRELEVANT!
There was a New York radio station in the late 1970's. The theme was the best of the old and the best of the new. Strive for that
honestly, since i have been watching this movie since i was 3, it’s easy to miss all of this. imo this is one of the best videos on youtube because now it seems clear this movie is a critique of reagan era culture and economics, and it is truly wild how the movies were able to imagine the future so damn accurately with regards to Biff Tannen/donald tr*mp. thank you for this fuckin great video so i can rewatch With this context!!!
which lense worked best?
Loved you análisis, I’m glad to know I’m not the only bttf fan that saw Midnight in Paris and changed my opinion on nostalgia. Both are amazing movies.
Great choices. Midnight in Paris is beautiful.
I've been thinking that future nostalgia is dead because as a society we've reached a kind of a cultural singularity. If you think about last century there's a profound difference in scientific, industrial, and cultural advancements and evolutions between the 1910's and 1920's,, and between the 1920s and 1930s, and on and on. But there really isn't that much different in that regard between the 2010s and 2020s. Cell phones have about as much utility today as they did 10 years ago. You could say maybe that smartwatches are a thing that wasn't around 10 years ago but those types of things are insignificant gadgets. There's going to be no more meaniful advancment in anything, the 2030's will be just as indistinguishable from the 2020s as it is from the 2050s and 2080s. Unless we ever run out of oil then billions will starve and within 50 years we'll be back to the 1800s, then nostalgia will kick back in.
Life is not about reliving in the past it's about learning from the past and not repeating the mistakes. It's about going with what works and getting rid of what doesn't work. There are things in the past that worked well and would be good to have again. Start with a good foundation, and you can build anything. Without a good moral foundation, moving forward simply for the sake of moving forward and not establishing a good foundation will result in the crumbling of whatever is built.
I consider Back to the future up there with Forrest Gump and The Beatles as far as nostalgic cultural significance. I never get tired of any of it and always crave more.
I grew up in the 80s, and think that I am in the here and now. I only liked those times, because I had my youth and new found freedom!
I like part 2 the best because it's meta & contains the 1st movie in it. If you watch the first one closely you can see the 2nd Marty sneaking around.
The 80s was The Super Era of America.
In the original script, the present was 1982 (reflecting when it was written) and Marty went to 1952. The creators said they made the 50s look like the 40s because the 50s looked too recent. 50s nostalgia wasn't a consideration. It's evident when you watch the movie. The theater's playing Cattle Queen of Montana, a traditional western, not something "current" like Blackboard Jungle or Rebel Without a Cause. When Marty passes the record store you hear Tennessee Ernie Ford, not Fats Domino or Bill Haley. Biff drives a car from 1946, and you don't see a greaser, leather jacket, or hot rod anywhere. They don't even have any rock n' roll music until the dance. 1955 was intentionally as old-fashioned as possible.
A similar idea was done with Hangin' Out With Cici, a 1977 YA novel where a teenage girl having issues relating to her mother goes back in time and meets her as a teenager. It was made into an ABC Afterschool Special called My Mother Was Never a Kid in 1981.
Biff's a kid, he would drive an old car.
If nostalgia were a consideration, they'd have given him something more "1950s-ish." Some teenagers also have relatively new cars. The V8 shown at the service station was from 1940.
So sorry to hear of your loss of your friend. I lost many along the way, including my father when I was 21 and a close friend my age that I did a hell of a lot with at 23. Both died in horrible ways, Jim Jim was gunned down by three AK47 wielding robbers where he worked as a bartender, RIP my friend.
I just came across your video, and it was really cool! I love these movies and your analysis was super interesting and showed a new look at them !
Have you played the BTTF games on the ZX Spectrum or other 8-bit machines.
Great eassy here.
Glad you enjoyed it! I haven’t, but I have played the NES games (I actually like the first one as a harmless means to kill twenty minutes), the Super Famicom one, that dreadful Genesis one, the Universal Theme Park game w/the BTTF Ride minigame, and the Tell Tale series. Oh, and the Vice City mod if you wanna count that too.
Was the ZX Spectrum game(s) any good?
Great great video essay here
Nostalgia is a form of depression
Nostalgia is such lucrative industry. You'd be putting hell of lot of people out of work if you abolished it.
I liked this film series too.
A lot of fun.
What did he mean about breeding pine trees being a strange idea.
?
The Californian pine trees are a great and in demand building material.
I really have no idea why he said that.
I saw the lone pine joke. but there seems to be more to it...
It never stops to amaze me how great American movies and music were during the 80's. Both large and small productions were done with passion, and that shows.
But each era has its own stuff where people's passion shines through. Videos on RUclips are incredible today, and indi games are fantastic.
And who knows what the next era will show us. I think AI will be incredible at visualizing our imagination, rather than just doing something similar to what we asked for as it does today. And a whole new world will open up when VR finally becomes more comfortable with higher quality than a monitor.
Those two decades were really recognizable. Imagine a movie created today with traveling back to 2001. Pffff... 😁
In needless half-hearted defense of Lou, he could have been speaking as a realist about the situation, as if it is a pie in the sky dream, but still a good one.
That’s fair. For all we know he could actually be progressive for the fifties since he hired Goldie at all. Him handing the broom over with that zinger can also be read as a playful gesture, or as him being a bit of a dick about it too depending on the viewer
@@NicheCaesar Yeah he’s really hostile with everybody so its hard to gauge, still poignant, great video.
@@NicheCaesar My impression was always that he was half-realist, half-dick about Goldie's dream of becoming the mayor.
Thoughtful observations.
I rarely ever give part 3 a full watch if it’s even on. Now 1 and 2 I’ve watched so many times. It gives me memories of rainy days and not going anywhere so it was always a good watch on TBS. They played them so much as a kid.
What hurts 3 is that I changes the perspective of character.
1 and 2 are very much about Marty, and it's from Marty's perspective.
3 is about Doc, and Marty is there, so we have a reason to be there.
It's this pivot that makes 3 the weaker movie. Especially since we know Marty is trying to save doc, but we have this whole shoot out thing that really doesn't hold the weight it should...cause the movie is about Doc.
Not a bad thing, it just falls into less interesting content with the focal change.
In my own experience with nostalgia it was always a rejection of reality, and it derived mainly from a wish to escape my current reality. It was a good escape during dark times but its pain relief for a problem that should be treated as one. Now to take some of that energy previously spent on countless fake realities and use it on my current one... good video tho!
No, the movies are just good? I have 0 nostalgia for them as I first watched them a few years back. They plots may not be the best but its a great ride with some cool sfx being done for the time.
Nostalgia about nostalgia
Nostalgia by definition=pain
Look around. Nostalgia for the 80s is doing pretty well.
just because we can't be happy, doesn't make it wrong.
Regardless of how obvious the message of BttF is, your video is EXCELLENT.
Nostalgia is missing the good times of the past, despite its flaws, not the bad times. Not everything in the past should be discarded (that’s like saying everything in the present should be discarded, which isn’t true or rational).
Not unhealthy to be appreciative of/remember things that are gone or have lost quality over time, even if it’s now trendy to hate on Nostalgia in general.
Also considering the internet and social media have destroyed a lot of society/ mental health etc. in the last decade I think some level of nostalgia is usually warranted
5:45 p much the premise works well even now despite the film being over 40 at this point
Great video essay, I have been thinking a lot about this topic myself lately. Ultimatly the present is better than the past and the future can always be better. On another note, How did old Biff get back to the "prime" future after he gave himself that book? Like Doc says if he went forward in time it would have been the future from that point on... Food for thought.
(I have one of those Twin Peaks lunchboxes, too.)
who Droved the truck the doc didn't he in the back of the truck inside the car
I agree with you that the first movie has such a perfect plot and casting it really is rock solid. With that said I too have a soft spot for the third one, something about it is just comfy and inviting. Great video essay! Also have you watched the cartoon series?
Seeing with all the problems we have now the past seems easier and safer than now.
I loved the "Back To The Future" trilogy but I think the worst part of 3 is the tease at the end of 2… otherwise it was great!! I also liked your take on this franchise!!
Doc's home is not the same place as Doc's lab. Doc didn't live there in 1985 which is why Marty had to find him by looking it up in the phone book.
OMG HE LEFT HIS NAME ON THE TRUCK 🤣🤣🤣
I wasn't sure where this video was going when I clicked on it, but man you already won me over!
People of Any decade at the Very least beginning from the 70 want to Go back but i dont think its wrong because there were Surely things that were better
i see what youre saying, but mid 2000s is clearly the best time 😎
Nice video essay. Another example of a nostalgia trap is the Indiana Jones franchise--with "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" dipping into the Fifties. Indiana Jones worked better in the Thirties, but that's fodder for another video.
Nostalgia traps seem to snare more firmly those who didn't live through that actual Golden Era. Malls illustrate this well. Enclosed malls were shiny and clean nostalgia traps for the small-town square of fables. The downtown area became dirty, dangerous and neglected, so the town square was re-imagined in the suburbs where more-positive environmental control was practical. The same social ills that caused small town America's downtown district to become run-down and neglected hit the shopping mall. Want an artificial example of the mall that is still mostly successful? Try Main Street USA in Disneyland. "Back to the Future" had a lot of Disney references due to early production history including Fess Parker singing "The Ballot of Davy Crockett" from the 1954 television mini-series. Like the town square, the successful malls became overcrowded, and traffic snarls took away all the fun--so a larger and newer mall was built, and the crowds abandoned the now-neglected mall or town square. Over-regulation becomes a problem, too--because the attempt to limit traffic and control crowds siphons spontaneous fun. Malls are nostalgia traps for small-town America, except that malls got bigger and bigger to handle larger crowds and more traffic, and there went that small town feeling.
But how many people today have grown up in towns with less than 5000 population? Urban sprawl has merged the suburbs into one big city. Having nostalgia for something never experienced makes nostalgia traps snare people more firmly.
I personally consider the trilogy in my totem yem films a d the first one in the top 3 of the 1980s
Great vid with lots of interesting ideas. I do think we are stuck in a nostalgia loop but at the same time everything has become fractured as society has separated out so that I'd say the defining aspect of the 2010's and 2020's is that they are very hard to define culturally. There is no one style or image or mindset that defines them and people are reaching back to all different times in the past at the same time.
15:15 while we are a bit nostalgiapilled, it is nowhere near as strong as it was back then, mostly because it is EXTREMELY expensive to invest in it. While I think the internet peaked sometime in the 2000s-early 2010s, I can't exactly easily access most of the stuff from this era. Hell, the Xbox 360 and its physical library is beginning to grossly inflate right now. In 2018 I could get a disc copy of Forza Horizon 1 for like $10, now I am lucky to find it for $20-30, let alone $15! Not as popular 360 titles like Naughty Bear are being sold for at or above MSRP. When the past becomes increasingly inaccessible, how can we look back upon it, even with fondness?
And I think we give Goldie Wilson way too big of a pass. I dunno if it's because he was the first black mayor or what (technically we don't know he was the first but it's assumed), but we kinda overlook that Hill Valley has gone to hell under his governance. I mean he let the theater in the town square turn into a peep show, had terrorist activity happening, the schools had graffiti on them, homeless alcoholics sleeping on park benches, etc. This wasn't stuff you saw in small, Everytown USA in the 1980s. That came a little later, sooner for others depending on where they live. I say DON'T re-elect Goldie Wilson. He couldn't even fix a clock that had been broken for 30 years, you think he cares about you?
The homeless guy was the Mayor in the 50's. The reason downtown has changed is cause of the Mall being built. It's the 80's their deep into Reagonomics so the citizens have been sold a bill of goods that stuff like that would revitalize Hill Valley but as you can see in 2015 Hill Valley has gotten better. Goldy the third even praises his Grandfather for being the start of that change. Nice try though loser.
He didn’t have terrorist activity happening that was Doc who caused that
Also what was he suppose to do? Predict that Doc Brown would piss off some terrorists?
I recommend Super Back to the Future 2 for the Super Famicom. I lost my mind when I saw it existed. I like the gameplay, animation and music. It’s an alright game but better than any other BttF game we had in the states .
It's a bit weird that everyone in the highschool seems to be in their 30's
It's more of one continuous movie in 3 parts than it is a trilogy or sequels. (That way you don't have to pick a favorite)😉