michael j. fox – How To Write Your Favorite Movie

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How to Write Back to the Future part 3

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Write a sequel so long that you have to make two movies out of it. Call all three films a trilogy because it sounds more professional and less like you couldn’t edit yourself.

2 – The Genre. Different than the first two, actually. What? Yes! This is a Western, mostly, and even partially a Romance! Sure, we have time travel and DeLoreans and promotional agreements with Nike and we eventually do get Back to the Future, but first, Marty becomes a cowboy and finds out Doc can dance with the woman we add to the poster!

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Since this is the third of a trilogy, the worst that could happen is this movie being terrible. Thank goodness we are seasoned writers by this point and know what we are doing and this movie is great. In order for it to be great, it has to make sense with parts one and two but still have its own story. Same but different. What’s the 1885 version of the skateboarding scene – Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen drags Marty on a noose from horseback through town and hangs him in an attempt to kill him. This ain’t the 1950s anymore. At least we hang Marty in front of the newly built Courthouse, with the Clock nearby so we can show the audience the history of Hill Valley. Let’s just have Marty get saved by the sniper shot from Doc. Sweet. Also, the Back to the Future trilogy could be considered a “time-dash Harold” for all of you improv students out there. Same scene, same location, similar characters, different details from the time period. But this time, the time period is the rough and tumble Old West, so of course our 1885 villain almost instantly kills the 1985 teenager.

4 – The Fun Stuff. The Old West! What’s complicated is also what’s fun! Trains! Horses! Throwing explosives into a ravine to blow stuff up! Cool hats and ponchos and gun fights! But structurally, you get to play with reversing things from part one – Doc warns Marty about the future, they switch who says “This is heavy” and “Great Scott” by the end. Doc is the one that says “I’m from the future, I came here in a time machine that I invented.”, reversing the speech given to him by Marty in part one. You don’t have to write a new movie, just invert the lines from the first one!

5 – The Device. It’s the thing that makes time travel possible. This time it is a train. We’re going back to the “how are we going to get you Back to the Future?” question. It worked and we can answer it again without lightning. Oh, and the studio backlot does not look like the Old West, so we are building an entire Hill Valley 1885 up in Northern California near a train museum that will let us use their locomotive. Ironically, that set gets burnt down after being struck by lightning.

6 – The Clara. Doc gets a lady friend. Finally. School teacher Clara Clayton reveals a softer side of Doctor Emmett. Have Clara wear purple and like science and adore Jules Verne. Oh, and why Jules Verne, author of From the Earth to the Moon, and not H.G. Wells, the author of The Time Machine? Turns out timing. H.G. Wells won’t publish that book for another decade, also it’s a bit too “on the nose” for a time travel movie, and Jules Verne is a delightful reference.

7 – The Jokes. Just like the first two, same but different, but this time, 1885 is different and way more deadly than 1985. Confuse the cowboys with things like Nike, running, Frisbees, and 7-11 jokes. Let’s see if we can get now former President Ronald Reagan to play Mayor of Hill Valley 1885. Oh, he doesn’t remember that he used to be an actor? Sad. Let’s at least get ZZ Top to play at the dance, they’re writing a new song for part three and look like they belong in the Old West anyway.

8 – The Title. A Fistful of Dollars. No, but we make a lot more money that with Back to the Future part 3. That Clint Eastwood movie is just what we pay homage to in the shootout before we send Marty Back to the Future. Part three is where we get to steal all the great scenes and shots from classic Westerns because no one watches Westerns in the late 1980s but can kind of get the references from those old Eastwood movies. Oh and remember to add a third person to the poster, because Back to the Future part 3. Three people.

9 – The Ending. We’ve got to end the Western homage, then we’ve got to save Clara and Doc’s relationship, then we have to get Marty Back to the Future, then we’ve got to destroy the DeLorean, then we’ve got to deal with Marty’s insecurities about being called a chicken, then we have Marty open up emotionally to Jennifer by showing her the destroyed time machine, then boom, another time machine with Doc and his new family. Lots of endings here. But when we are done with all of the endings, make sure people know that this is the end of all Back to the Future movies by putting “The End” after Doc’s train time machine takes off into the screen, as if a tribute to one of the first moving pictures “A Train Leaves the Station” by the Lumiere Brothers. But really, this is The End.

10 – The Heart. “The Future is what you make it, so make it a good one.” Doc gives Marty some good advice. He was the first one that told Marty “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” in part one. While part one is about learning to love your parents, the entire trilogy is about a friendship that stands the test of time.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Back to the Future part 3. Bob Gale did from a story he and Robert Zemeckis developed.

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How to Write Back to the Future part 2

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Make a movie so popular that the studio threatens to make a sequel. I mean they offer to make a sequel with you and your buddy, but if you say no, they’ll make it anyway because it is impossible for Hollywood to not make a sequel to a movie that grossed over $100 million domestic box office. You both say ye$.

2 – The Genre. Same as the first one. Sci-fi adventure buddy comedy, but with more time travel! So much more time travel. And while both of you come up with the story, let’s have the one with the typewriter actually write out the screenplay while the other one directs a movie about framing rabbits.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Well, you have to go to the future now because of that little joke you made at the end of part one. So start with that. Then get out of it because you don’t want people writing articles about how inaccurately your movie predicted the future when the real 2015 rolls around and everyone is angry that we don’t have hoverboards or flying cars. And to make things worse, we stupidly put Jennifer in the DeLorean. Ugh, girls. Find a way to knock Jennifer unconscious for most of the movie. Also change the actress to someone more comedic. Okay now we need to get back to the past so we can get Back to the Future. But which past? Marty’s conception at Woodstock, with Marty messing up his parents having sex? No, that’s just the same movie different details. Let’s get more creative with this.

4 – The Fun Stuff. There has never been a time in Hollywood that your characters get to go into their own movie, so let’s have the most fun going back into Back to the Future. The last half of the movie takes place conveniently on the night of the famous Hill Valley lightning storm we know and love so well from part one. Doc says that the day could be important to the space time continuum, or a coincidence, but either way, you’re the writer, so you get to write whatever you want as long as you admit to your chosen conveniences. Go back into your own movie. There are now two Martys at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance and two Docs trying to get their Martys Back to their respective Futures. Paradox. We get to recreate scenes from the first film, but to save money only change one side of the street or something. Only build what the camera can see. Thank goodness Lea Thompson saved her dress. Okay let’s figure out how we get from the future to the past.

5 – The Device. Grays. Sports. Almanac. Every sports result from 1950-2000 in one little book. This book gives Biff the power to eventually become Donald Trump. Sorry to say that name, but he is the real inspiration for the terrible Alternate 1985 casino-owning Biff, even when writing this movie in the mid 1980s. The Almanac is our MacGuffin, as it drives the plot and then is destroyed at the end. Oh and how the DeLorean time travels needs to change – we travel a lot so simplify it with Mr. Fusion and whatnot. Seriously, we go from 1985 to 2015 to Alternate 1985 to 1955 to a trailer for part 3 in 1885. It’s a lot of time travel, so the machine works for most of the film. It won’t really break again until part three.

6 – The Marty. George McFly is the protagonist of part one, meaning his character goes through a change. We don’t particularly want to work with Crispin Glover again, though, so make George hang upside down in the future or cast someone else or both. We also need a protagonist, so give Marty something personal to deal with. Ah, he’s chicken. Yeah. His insecure machismo ruins his music career, so Marty has something to learn. There is no mention of Marty’s hatred of being called a chicken in part one. We’ve gotta add it in part two, so hide the first “nobody calls me chicken” in the familiar cafe before the hoverboard chase. The audience will be too distracted by the “I remember that! It’s the same but different!” to notice that you’ve added a previously nonexistent character flaw to Marty. Sneaky.

7 – The Jokes. Same but different. Everything in 2015 is a joke of the projected culture from the mid 1980s. Advertisements for tourism to “Surf Vietnam”, weathermen that can predict the weather, Ronald Reagan as your tv waiter in Cafe 80s, flying cars, and the abolishment of lawyers. And then, more same but different – in Alternate 1985, we need a way for Marty to wake up with his mother again, but how? “The easy way.”, meaning we just knock him unconscious. There are actually fifteen separate instances of a character getting knocked unconscious in this film, so we really do use “the easy way” quite a bit. It’s fine, as long as we call it out. Make it a joke. Laughter distracts. And then, in good ole’ 1955, even more same but different. Same movie, more of the same characters, different perspectives. Pretty cool.

8 – The Title. Paradox. No, but that is what we will use during filming so no one invades the set of Back to the Future part 2. Also add Doc to the poster, you know, because two people. Part two.

9 – The Ending. Part two is really just the set up for part three because we are successful movie nerds now and we want to make a Western and play with horses and trains and guns for three months. Foreshadow part three when Alternate Biff watches Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars, inspiring Marty to mimic Eastwood and defeat Buford in part three. It also lets the audience know that Marty knows that reference. Assume that no one in the audience knows your references, you movie nerd, so you must make all references self-contained within the movie, meaning it is set up before it is revealed. And now that we’ve set up the real ending in part three, let’s end part two with a lightning strike, but instead of Marty in the DeLorean, it’s Doc in the flying DeLorean – same but different, am I right? We can have fun with the Western Union guy and have 1955 Doc faint at the sight of another Marty after seeing him go Back to the Future. But really, the most important thing, as per the director’s request, is that there is a teaser for part three tagged on before the credits of part two. The audience needs to know that this story isn’t over. There is more. One more. But no more. Never any more. Trilogy forever.

10 – The Heart. Part two really builds the friendship between Doc and Marty, and the opening sequence inspires the first scene in the popular adult cartoon Rick and Morty. It also gives Marty a character flaw, and gives Doc something to hope for in discovering women. It gives two film school buddies the chance to make cinema history and go back into their own movie. Also, hoverboards.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Back to the Future part 2. Bob Gale did from a story he and Robert Zemeckis developed.