BACK TO THE FUTURE - CG DeLorean and Why a Remake Would Be Awful

This is really impressive CG artwork by djordje of cghub of the most famous American time machine there is--the DMC-12 DeLorean time machine from 1985's Back to the Future. It was built by Doctor Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) after 30 years of research and spending his family's entire fortune realizing a vision he had of a device that could power temporal displacement--the flux capacitor. Originally powered by plutonium, Doc Brown took the DeLorean 30 years into the future to 2015 where he installed Mr. Fusion which used trash and other waste to power the flux capacitor. He also gave the DeLorean a simple hover conversion which allowed for a flying time machine. However, once Doc Brown found himself in 1885 without gas to return to 1985, his inventive instincts came through, having the DeLorean run under locomotive power. As it's been said, "Whether you're crossing the high plains, or riding the rails in the old West, the original Doc Brown DeLorean time machine is just the vehicle for the job."

As you can probably guess, the Back to the Future trilogy are some of my all-time favorite films, and I know them pretty much by heart. I can even quote the "alternate 1985" speech without missing a beat. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is pretty much my hero, the person I aspire most to be. He's smart, funny, handsome, brave, resourceful and clever. He and Doc Brown are, to me, two of film's most underrated heroes. Which is why I think it is blasphemous when I hear news about two young filmmakers who think they can pull off a better job than Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The cinematic criminals in question? None other than American Reunion directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg.

After signing a first-look deal with Universal Studios, Hurwitz and Schlossberg seem to be the new hot young moviemakers in Hollywood since Josh Trank. Commenting on their new deal and Hollywood status to Moviehole, Hurwitz said the unthinkable: "We want Back to the Future." Schlossberg continued with his insanity, "30 years from now when Spielberg’s like 90 and those guys are kind of on their way out, and those movies just look really old because we’re watching movies that are old, literally in two dimensions or something, it would be great to have all these classics that you’re able to remake."

First of all, remaking Back to the Future would involve taking this American institution and trying to film it from a different story angle, to find something new within an old story (a la Harold Zwart's The Karate Kid and Craig Brewer's Footloose). Neither Hurwitz and Schlossberg have shown that they have the chops necessary to take the reigns from Zemeckis and Gale. The reason Back to the Future Part IV was never made was because Zemeckis and Gale felt the story of Marty and Doc had come to a conclusion and there was nothing more to do with their characters - Marty had learned patience and Doc had found the love of his life and started a family. Trying to find more to do with them is pretty darn near impossible - with the exception of Back to the Future: The Ride, Back to the Future: The Animated Series, and Back to the Future: The Game (which was finally able to bring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd together again for a BTTF project). All of the publicity surrounding the 25th Anniversary of Back to the Future and its debut on Blu-Ray involved multiple cast reunions (including rare appearances by Fox). Two years ago, they proved they can still bring a cheering crowd to their feet.

Since the initial story, Hurwitz managed to speak out and clear up his side of story; even though the Internet may not be so forgiving. Responding to Slashfilm's article, Hurwitz said that, "...the truth is we were joking around and it was taken out of context. Nobody respects BTTF more than us." (A likely story...) Hurwitz continues,

It all started with us talking about how as diehard Karate Kid fans, we were furious when KK was being remade. Then it got into a conversation about the business of remakes. And we talked about how KK proved that nerds like us make up such a small portion of the public and people embraced KK. Then we talked about how for business reasons all classics will one day be remade. We speculate BTTF will one day be remade, because its so... awesome the world needs those stories. But if it were to be remade, we hope its WAAAAAY in the future. We were totally joking when saying we wanted it. Joking about remaking BTTF is like when Larry David jokes about Hodgkin’s or Trey & Matt joke about AIDS. One of the few truly taboo topics.

I truly hope that Hurwitz and Schlossberg have learned their lesson and continue making films like their enjoyable Harold & Kumar films and stay far away from the time-traveling adventures of Doctor Emmett Brown and Marty McFly because as the films prove, "Your future is whatever you make it." Note that it's not "remake." Do you still love Back to the Future?