Back to the Future and the Trap of Nostalgia | Video Essay
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- Опубликовано: 21 окт 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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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
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.
My grandpa used to say people who want to go back to the 50s clearly don't remember the 50s
The 90s were good though. Waaay better than the dystopian semi hell that is the 2020s.
@@urkersen5246Uh. Were they, though?
@@Nyzackon Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Not perfect, no time era is but as I say waaaay better time to live than in the dystopian 2020s.
@@urkersen5246 people in 2030 will be saying that 2020 was way better than the dystopian they live in lol
@@jameslight4391 If the year of 2020 was NOT dystopian; I mean when the enture effing world went on lockdown then I really have NO idea what dystopian means! I certainly hope the year 2030 will not be WORSE than 2020; if so we are in big trouble. Seriously!
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. 🤢🤮
I can't wait till everything goes back to late 90s early 00s nostalgia so everything that was cool when I was a teenager is cool again 😂
@@atomicpunk7109 i assume you are older, im older gen z (25) and everyone is dressing like late 90's 2000s. I actually am one of the few that stays more goth/librarian mommy lol my skinny pants aren't going anywhere after I worked so hard on these legs!
@@AnneHathawayRulesI graduated in 94, and still dress like I did in the grunge era. Not nostalgia, just comfortable. 😆😆
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
He was thirsting for this comment when he recorded that part🤣
@@NicheCaesar Et tu, Brute?
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.
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...
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 lived through the 80s and i can tell you without a doubt it was incredible. The things that are hardest to describe or put your finger on was the sense of community and the incredible excitement and optimism we had towards the future.
Same. I remember them well. The Stagflation of the 70s was over, the Cold War was being won, there was a general good feeling about the time. Being mopey homebody was shunned. Engaging with people at the movies, the arcade, the mall, in parks, etc. was fun and healthy. Your friends were real people you could count on. Nowadays being a shut-in is almost celebrated. "Friends" today are very often parasocial online-only relationships.
It was only better because you didn’t have any responsibilities and you didn’t realize how complicated life really is.
@@bajojohn Very true. When you hear people being nostalgic about a certain time of their life, you find out they were little kids or maybe teenagers. I look back at my early days and I can find records of bad things going on at the time. If you had asked your parents about the time back then verses when they were young, you'd find that people were much nicer when they were young vs how bad people were in those times you remember.
That's what they were saying in 1962.
@palmercolson7037 maybe that is because it has been on line heading down as time goes by.
I personally would take a time when children could leave the house and not come home until the street lights came on and social didn't involve ad filled screens.
Just saying.
What does it mean when a film about nostalgia has become so nostalgic on it's own😮
Meta
We’re trapped in a nostalgia loop.
Michael said it himself - "Its ironic that a film about time travel is timeless."
Like Billy Joel said "The good ole' days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems".
Like Chuck Berry once said "How the F do you know my song? I just laid it down last week!"
The key is keeping alive the memories of things that made us feel good, sharing that with others but not imposing it on them.
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
And it had cute Clara in it, and that's all I remember, maybe the car was there again.
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.
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.
How anyone could think that the Great Depression was the "good old days" is insane!
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.
I never thought the '80s version of Lorraine was a prude. Drunk and depressed, sure - who wouldn't be with a life that far out of whack? But deep down, it seemed she really wanted all her kids to be better than she was. But like many parents (then and now), her main reflex when it came to discussing her own sins was to either avoid the subject, or lie outright. The scene in question strongly implies she knew exactly what George was doing in that tree, but never called him out on it.
@@Moviefan2k4 Sorry for replying late, only saw now. I don't think you have to be a prude as a whole to say prudish things to be clear. Lorraine did do the things she did as a teenager after all, a true prude would never. It's only, what she said is textbook conservative purity culture at work. That being said, unlike George who was completely checked out, she was trying her best. And she raised decent kids, Marty didn't just pop into existence so friendly.
Although I WAS disgusted by the hypocrisy, my heart went out to her for settling for a creepy peeper and seemingly forgiving his faults that anyone with eyes can see.
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.
so, it is nostalgia for a childhood in general, not for some exact times
@@ingvar3072 i have nostalgia in both forms.
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. By Jim Jarmusch. It's a masterpiece. Jarmusch is spookier than Tim Burton.
That is still INSANE to me.
BTTF is a special case of nostalgia: the 80’s were a whole decade of looking back at the 50s and reliving them in real life. The movie is a document of a time when culture in the US tried to reclaim the strength and innocence people liked to selectively remember from 30 years before. It posits “what if we had changed one little thing back then?” It’s one of the factors making it a perfect movie of sorts.
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 .
That's not quite correct. Every generation looks back in fondness _to themselves, when they were younger._
True, this may include glorifying "the last one"... but it's usually from the view of a child admiring their parents.
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.
Love those movies! But the problem I have with 2 is that you can't jump to the future and visit yourself. You have to leave the present and jump over the intervening years to get there. By leaving the present you "skew into a tangent" future where you don't exist.You can visit anyone else, just not yourself.
yeah but when you watch part two, now you can feel like the people in 1955 relating to 1985. Now we'd need part four - set in 2055. Hey, there's an idea.
@@RobKMusic It depends on what "rules" you're using, for the nature of the story. In the films, the end of Part 3 takes place on October 27th of 1985, just two days after the beginning of Part 1. With that in mind, the older Marty seen in 2015 is an alternate extrapolation of a former timeline, where Needles wins the car accident and Marty breaks his hand in the crash. But the ending of Part 3 shows Marty having gained a new confidence not defined by others, so Doc's words to he and Jennifer are perfect: "Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one."
@@Moviefan2k4 Let's assume that "Prime Marty" was the initial catalyst of all this. At the end of Part 1 when he jumps to the future, it's a future where he, Jennifer and Doc disappeared without a trace 30yrs ago. Then he goes to alternate 1985. Then to alternate 1955. Then to 1885. Then to 4 times alternate 1985 where he chooses NOT to race Needles. The only way what I said in my last post isn't true is if we assume the "rules" are nobody has any free will and all of this was just pre-determined to happen. Nothing anybody did ever made any difference at all.
I go by the rules as Doc explained them. When you jump to the past you automatically create a new tangential future. When you jump to the future, you leave the present and skip over the intervening time to get the to future. Doc LITERALLY says this when explaining Einstein's trip in the first movie. Einstein was GONE from the present in the minute he skipped over.
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.
I miss the days before smartphones and social media
@@sinnsage He does not want ti go back to the 1950s maybe bring back manufacreing ro rhe usa so that 90-99% of is not made in China or ar least nor overseaa
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...
thefuck are you talking abouyt?! There was hardly any shit from 50s or 70s in 80s or 2000s !!! Theres practically nothing besides BTTF, ocassionally they do it when it fits the story.
This one has become my favorite reading of these amazing movies. Excellent job!
Man.. the 2050s were so much better than the 2020s
Nice! I see what you did there.
Doc, please tell me, do the 2050s have any flying cars?
@@Fatih_M177 No, and neither do the 2100s.
@@MatthewTheWanderer Great Scott! The future sure does suck!
@@Fatih_M177 No, the future is awesome! Flying cars are stupid.
It’s incredible how back to the future has managed to avoid being picked by modern Hollywood for a remake or unnecessary sequel, better to leave nostalgia as it is.
You turned a Tesla into a time machine? And it runs on recycled vegetable cooking oil? And now it only needs to hit 8.8 mph?
It seems so crazy that in 1985 they thought that in 30 years cars would be flying.
What's amazing about this movie is it's still just as relivent after nearly 40 years and still worth watching and talking about and even just discovering.
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
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.
The 50's were guilded as hell but damn did they make some cool looking cars
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.
Nostalgia is a temporal version of, "The grass always looks greener on the other side", roughly what Isaiah 40:8 says. Most people misquote it as, "The grass IS always greener on the other side", which only further proves the point.
Ecc. 1:9 …there is no new thing under the sun.
“Ronald Reagan? The actor?!” Might be one of my all time favorite movie lines.
I was born in 1967 so my land of nostalgia is the 1970s. I listen to 1970s music all the time.
I was born in 1967 too, apart from the music the 70’s sucked. Mainly because I lost my dad,grandma and grandpa, and my great grandma. And my mom went through breast cancer but survived. So I saw the 70’s as a dark time. But the 90’s were my favorite decade. I got a great job in 1989 and everything started falling into place and I met my wife and got married in 96’. And the music was amazing too.
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
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.
I thought the title "Back to the Future" was a reference to him being stuck in the past and trying to get back to his present time (the future in perspective).
It is - the line I said about it never being about going to the future was a half-thought out non sequitur to transition from one thought to another. It’s just poorly worded sentence: I was saying that the movie was never about Marty going back to 1985, but rather about him learning about the past/his family history.
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.
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!
Nostalgia ceases to exist when you attempt to recreate it.
What do we want?
TIME TRAVEL!
When do we want it?
IT'S IRRELEVANT!
I think this is a valid interpretation, and I suspect it was an aspect of the righting. Someone once pointed out to me that each of the 3 films focuses on one character and their relationship to time travel. 1 was about Marty, 2 was about Biff and 3 was about Doc Brown.
Question: are those who respect and honor their parents more likely to indulge in wistful nostalgia than those who don't have that sentiment?
I love how 50 years of sports statistics fit in a small magazine... a magazine with a dust cover? smh
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).
ok, so here's the thing about nostalgia, is it's all about naivety, things WHERE simpler, things WHERE easier, things DID make more sense, FOR YOU, BECAUSE YOU WHERE A NAIVE KID! their are two core reasons you have a nostalgic view of a place, time, or object (game, movie, etc) the first is, you where younger and where dealing with way less problems on your plate, and therefore, compared to now when you gotta worry about bills, job, economic issues, personal things, etc, the childhood or young adulthood, looks WAY better in comparison, this is doubly true for objects, because they REMIND you of a time when you had less real life problems, and therefore make you feel happy for a while because their taking you back, and then theirs the fact that you pulled through those times largely unscathed, realizing that you already conquered that time in your life and so now it seems less daunting than the current time, like how a lot of people look back on the good times in high school and not the bad, if they had more good than bad going for them, in fact the opposite can be said for people who suffered in their childhood, they'll usually latch on to something specific that represents and time when things weren't so bad, this can cause those people to be EVEN MORE nostalgic of a thing or place, than others because they had a lot more bad layered on top than the rest of us.
This was very well done
Thank you for your hard work
the 90s have a hard time coming back because black culture and grunge were prominent in that time.
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!
'71 GEN X-er here... yeah, we had problems in the '80's, but I still look back with longing...We had the best Music, TV shows, Video Games and Pop Culture in general. We weren't naive by any means, but there was an underlying Innocence that pervaded that decade all the same. This began to erode during the '90's, but it was nowhere near as bad as it is today. It is that Innocence, Joy, and Fun that I miss. Yes, things weren't perfect in the '80's but the scales were more balanced then. Like most of my fellow GEN X-ers, I am homesick for a decade the likes of which will never happen again...😎
I think that's true for the later half of the 80s, once the nuclear war hysteria had subsided a bit. I recall a certain optimism, the belief in a positive future, that the rapidly developing technology was going to make our lives better. And it felt like the world was getting smaller, that people were being brought closer together. That kind of optimism disappeared a long time ago.
The thing about back to the future is this: if you came up for a reason for the "present day" of the film to still be set in the 80s, you could STILL film that film today shot for shot and it would still be a box office smash.
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!
Glad i found this channel, good stuff. Subbed
Great take, great production quality. This Ytber has a future on this platform.
Well said about successful Biff from the vol. 2: the dude just can't let it go and grow the hell up. So he spends the rest of his life on achieving teenage jock's values and goals, like having the hottest girl and the biggest toys. Even killing his school rival.
What a rich development of character following a flawless story and a masterpiece film.
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?
@@HarrisProPerformanc they are not so objective, especially divorce rates. For example, in more conservative society diverse rates could be lower because it is considered inappropriate or even almost impossible to do, not because people happily live together
@@HarrisProPerformancfun fact: crime and murder rate today is way down than it was in the 1980's. It peaked in the 90's and has declined ever since. But the news reports crime more than before. So perception is different than reality.
Some things do get worse, like community or employment prospects or how easy it is to afford education.
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.
right up there with ghostbusters pal, now learn some respect. ok, part three sucked - let's just say it.
Thank goodness, finally someone telling it like it is about Nostalga.
My life currently SUCKS. It’s not nostalgia. If I could QUANTUM LEAP back to 1993 then I’d be overjoyed. Only thing is that after everything horrible that has happened...I probably would be scarred and not enjoy it.
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.
but while i am not sure what the 50s were truly like i think if its anything like later decades you had a lot of older stuff still hanging around like in the 90s you still had a lot of junk from the 80s being used .even now i am using a bunch of things from the 2010s like my pc and monitor are from 2017 my keyboard is even older i have no idea how old my desk is its at least 30 but could be from the 1950s for all i know
@@belstar1128 Yeah my PC I built in 2010 and my 3 HD 22 inch monitors also bought in 2011, my 40 inch 4K monitor I think from 2018, and my IKEA desk is from 2010. The house is from 2015.
@@belstar1128 The point wasn't that things from the 1940s were present, it was the lack of things associated with the 1950s. Comparatively, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits you with rock 'n' roll and racing teens in the first minute, a switchblade wielding character is dressed like Brando from The Wild One, Howdy Doody's on TV, Indy utters, "I like Ike," there's a nuclear test, a rumble with greasers in a diner, students protesting communism, and more than a few newer cars from the era.
Lorraine's family getting their first TV is one of the few things associated with 50s nostalgia in Back to the Future, along with the music at the dance (Night Train and Earth Angel). They obviously weren't indulging in 50s nostalgia. Imagine Marty arriving in the town from American Graffiti, THAT would be embracing nostalgia
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.
Nostalgia was originally considered a painful illness by the Greeks. It was when one was mentally afflicted with a painful longing of an idealized and mostly fictional past. It’s only recently in English that the term has developed a positive connotation
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.
Hey fun fact thanks to Picard and even being able to re-watch every single scene of tng I have been able to recreate new context for the show that I don't think the writers intended to happen or realize was happening but just flows so naturally. I say this because I can totally understand the idea of giving new context to something that decades old that not even the writers were aware was happening.( Same thing for star wars there is random throw away shot in return of the Jedi which now makes hardcore fans get so excited to watch.( It's basically the equivalent of discovering wolferine was helping the avengers this whole time but off screen and random throw away shot conforms that lol)
People don't change. Their desires don't change. The environment around them changes. Comfort level changes. Sometimes better, sometimes not.
Brilliant analysis. Thank you.
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.
don't worry new things are coming i see way more drones now until recently i thought the 2000s were recent. but i found some pictures of my room in the 2000s and 2011 and it looks so old i had to check the dates to be sure they were not from the 90s
They got them phone screens that bend in half. mmm - lots of people to support is a bubble waiting to burst. half of them don't have much now and never did, too many to look after.
My drama teacher (in 2005ish) said to us, "People think that in the '50s it was just like _Happy Days._ Really, it was the same as it is now, only more boring."
Let's acknowledge that a massive part of these films' quality is the triple-S-rank acting clinic being put on by Thomas Wilson.
Nostalgia is such lucrative industry. You'd be putting hell of lot of people out of work if you abolished it.
Fabulous video. BTTF is/are three of my favorite movies ever. I saw the musical in NYC this spring and it was super cute. I LOVE your take on nostalgia and will definitely be rewatching. I also adore the third movie. They could’ve phoned it in and they gave it the love and time it deserved. ❤
Ahh so jealous you saw the show. I’m hoping to catch it sometime this month!
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
80s nostalgia in 2010s (nostalgia that keeps going in the 2020s) is the best prediction BTTF has ever made.
Great analysis and very relevant to today. Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nah it’s not real, but bloody hell is it painful. I mean, I look back on the 90’s sometimes with a really horrid longing that brings me down.
I’m a Brit but I was caught up in what I believe is called Pax Americana, a lull in the horribleness of history. And it makes me believe sometimes that the 90’s offered us a promise that hasn’t been fulfilled.
But that’s the trap right? My nostalgia doesn’t take into account all the shit that lead up to Pax Americana coming to an end. The geopolitical stuff. Doesn’t take into account all the outdated offensive stuff that’s quite ugly to look upon now.
Shit, even some of the 90’s movie classics showed a great distrust of the era. Fight Club, Matrix etc.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your analysis. Great video 👍
I've never heard of the term 'pax americana' before but after reading over it, that is exactly what the 50s is depicted as being, and that is a great name for it. And your comment about the 90's almost being an extension of that? Spot on.
@NicheCaesar I think that what your critique of nastalgia - and so far as it truly is a lens of the BTTF films, the critique of the films themselves - fails to consider, is the distinction between nostalgia for a single era flash frozen in time( call it 'dead' history), and nostalgia for the aspirations and community of a certain era, measured against an ideal 'destination' that is never reached, but worth pursuing, a far more living history.
Yes, in retrospect, the fifties( and the eighties) fell short of their own aspirations in many ways, and it is foolish to forget that, and to fail to ask and learn from why what was worth keeping about those times ebbed and flowed rather than just sticking. But I also think that it would be foolish to deny the injury of what was lost from those times. I don't think you can look at any era without considering what people expected of the future, from their institutions, and from each other. If you live in an era of division, blatant mass deception, and a widespread sense from each other, and fear that the very idea of impartial just and rule of, by and for the people has lost it's appeal to a disturbingly high percentage of your fellow citizens, then there is valid grounds for wishing for _what was good_ in a time when community and public ethics were expected( as a standard, if not a consistent practice of those in power), and it was taken for granted that such things could and would be fought for and preserved.
Yes, we shouldn't torment ourselves by idolizing the past as something too bright and shiny for the people who lived it. But we shouldn't pretend that that the injuries of history can't cause the cultural knowledge of those deep, human things that make a life and a world worth living in to wither and even die. And we let a rejection of the 'nostalgia trap' lead us to the equal and opposite mistake of assuming that a sense of cultural loss or decline is never valid. It's all comes down to asking where we are, and where should we be heading,
@@NicheCaesar @NicheCaesar I think that what your critique of nastalgia - and so far as it truly is a lens of the BTTF films, the critique of the films themselves - fails to consider, is the distinction between nostalgia for a single era flash frozen in time( call it 'dead' history), and nostalgia for the aspirations and community of a certain era, measured against an ideal 'destination' that is never reached, but worth pursuing, a far more living history.
Yes, in retrospect, the fifties( and the eighties) fell short of their own aspirations in many ways, and it is foolish to forget that, and to fail to ask and learn from why what was worth keeping about those times ebbed and flowed rather than just sticking. But I also think that it would be foolish to deny the injury of what was lost from those times. I don't think you can look at any era without considering what people expected of the future, from their institutions, and from each other. If you live in an era of where belief in the things that define the essence of the 'good society' are being forgotten and even opposed, and the culture as a whole seems move ever further from a 'more perfect' realization of those ideals, and it can be validly that in general a past era set and desired a different course, then so far as that is true it is perfectly valid and healthy to look that past as motivation to shape a better future.
Yes, we shouldn't torment ourselves by idolizing the past as something too bright and shiny for the people who lived it. But we shouldn't pretend that that the injuries of history can't cause the cultural knowledge of those deep, human things that make a life and a world worth living in to wither and even die. And we let a rejection of the 'nostalgia trap' lead us to the equal and opposite mistake of assuming that a sense of cultural loss or decline is never valid. It's all comes down to asking where we are, and where should we be heading,
I saw it at the movies in 1985. It was the first movie that matched the Star Wars trilogy. I saw the original Star Wars in the late seventies and everyone else had a hard time competing.
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.
Nostalgia itself isn't a lie (see: Almost Famous, The Sandlot, etc.), but liars love faking nostalgia as a product to sell. I sincerely dislike Robert Zemeckis movies for this reason, even though BTTF reaches a place of honor by other means.
All three films are great, but Back to the Future part 2 has certain lessons in it that, while harsh and sometimes poorly portrayed, are essential to understanding the trilogy as a whole, in my opinion.
Im nearly 50 and i have seen enough decades to realise that people are more ornless the same, just with cultural differences - but the basics are kind of the same.
Values are changing - and much like throughout history, some things improve, while other things get worse.
What the 80's did have, was a great understanding of cinema and stories.
Music was fantastic, fashion was frightful lol.
There is a trade-off between progress and loss.
I will say that the current era is a low point in culture, society and progress - but the generation of children now in school will change things.
Im hopeful for the future, things always go round in roundabouts.
It is fun movies! Nostalgia is great! And the 80ies weren´t so terrible. Plutonium is hard to get even in 2024. Some things are nearly the same in 2015 because it's a in movie joke without a deeper meaning
I really Appreciate the Analysis. Great Vid Makes you think!
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!
The people that made the movie grew up in the 50s and made what they knew? Stop the presses.
The current 90s nostalgia is as strong as I remember the 50s nostalgia being. The rising 2000s nostalgia is the strangest of all though. That decade was pretty awful, symbolized most by Heath Ledger’s Joker. But not as bad as the next two Trump decades. In truth, every time period sucks. I honestly don’t feel nostalgia for anything. It all sucked.
There's an element of truth in what you say. Clearly, throughout history, there has been a tendency for folks to complain about the times in which they live and romanticize the supposed idealism of times past. That said, anybody who can't immediately recognize that we were better off, overall, 30 years ago, needs their head examined. Whatever folks may have thought about Reagan, he was at least sentient. We knew what a man was. We knew what a woman was. We knew what a nation was. We knew what a border was. We knew what a family was. We weren't genitally mutilating and chemically castrating children. Men weren't physically assaulting women and calling it sports. We have crossed a threshold in the last 10 years that no preceding nation has ever survived, after having done so. We're bent on self-destruction. That was never true of us in any era that came before. I grew up in the 80's and, while it certainly was still a time of great sin and debauchery, people hadn't lost their collective minds. But over the years, as more and more people have bought the lie that the train is only free when it's off the tracks, we have become completely unhinged, tethered to nothing, standing for nothing, and believing in nothing other than the absolute purposelessness of existence. We're finally experiencing the inevitable consequences of that mindset and the society it produces. So yes, I'll take the 80's any day.
None of that is happening now, outside of the fever dreams of right-wing politicians and the people who decide to follow them blindly. The "Man" you are hinting at assaulting a woman for sport is a cis-woman (a woman by any definition, including the right-wing one).
And while we might be in a current state of moral panic, mainly due to awful people stoking the fires of discrimination, it wasn't any really any different in the 80s. Then it was just the Satanic Panic and the AIDs Crisis. Same dumb "moral" outrage, different target.
The only thing better about the 80s was the music, and that is largely nostalgia and personal preference talking.
The theme of this essay is also one of the main themes of No Country for Old Men
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’m so sorry you lost your best friend. I know that pain.
"Ghoulardi hates nostalgia. Ghoulardi knows nostalgia ain't what it used to be." ~ Ghoulardi
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
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 am a huge fan of this movie. I can't believe people still remember it!
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.
I wonder if the uploader even has any sense of how predictable his video is. How derivative and played out his thesis is, how his conclusions were ideologically forced and predetermined and how dreary and derivative his ideas are. Or does he think he is breaking ground by chirping “50s was racist”. Is he do dull as to think these ideas are even ideas at all.
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.
Sorry about your best friend 😔 😢 I hope he resting peacefully where he is
You know, I made a time machine car commercial featuring the DeLorean.
just because we can't be happy, doesn't make it wrong.
An incredibly nice analysis, gr8 watch, thank you for the effort
An un-ironic discourse on Manifest Destiny in three films.