Back To The Future

It is very difficult to make a good time travel movie. The filmmakers don't only have to cope with the consistencies within the plot itself but they also have to try to manage the consistency within the whole space-time continuum. And most filmmakers fail at this enormously.
Some crimes of the film and some other thoughts ...
- One of the little injokes thrown into this homage to the 50s is Chuck Berry's cousin (the black guitarist from the dance) calls up Chuck Berry and plays Chuck Berry's own song to him. If this little scenario is extrapolated to its eventual conclusion we must conclude that Chuck Berry completely ripped off a small-town American time traveller by writing that song he heard word for word and taking it for its own (one might wonder how how he managed to get all the words for the song despite only listening to part of it and also why he didn't throw in the Van Halen esque conclusion that the movie portrayed). So, either this is just sloppy filmmaking or its an easter egg with the subtle but undeniable message that Robert Zemeckis thinks that Chuck Berry is a song stealing crook.
- Always nice to see a 'who were they then' with the breathtakingly handsome Crispin Glover playing the quintessential loser kid comes good father. Before he was playing a host of psychotic symbols of evil he was just a nice young kid who couldn't ask out a girl to the prom.
- Why the director chose a car as the time machine is obvious. As a vehicle, it's certainly a hell of a lot cooler than a police box, a laboratory or even a spaceship. I would even edge it over the Terminator principle of arriving naked in the position of a Rodin sculpture because of the sheer ridiculousness of that particular reason (metal can't go back in time - unless its covered with skin, of course - so why didn't they keep a gun under the skin as well???). But the technobabble that explains how the whole thing works is offensive. 88 miles an hour sets off the time travelling mechanism (light speed or the generally well explained Warp 10 is always an acceptable speed to set off a fantastic voyage - 88 miles an hour is not). The fact that the car's speed shows its speed accellerating despite it just spinning its wheels is another woeful oversight.
- Disappearing photograph? Not even going to get into that one.
- Flex capacitor, what the f**k was that?
- Jigawatts ... Who would have ever thought that the word 'giga' would have made its way so insidiously into the cultural lexicon - at least it will be there until it gets superceded by tera.
- Marty's parents name their third son after Marty? If he had such a big impact on their lives wouldn't it be their first? If he had sucha small impact on their lives why would they have named him after the mysterious stranger at all? ... Surprising when their son starts to turn into the man that introduced them they don't seem to give it much thought. You'd think Biff would have remembered at least
- The ethics of improving your lot through time trave are very iffy. Jean Claude Van Damme's time cop would have executed the Doc and Marty for their meddling with space time.
- Did the clock that was struck by lightening have a second hand? I don't think so.
- Doc and Marty watch the movie of the experiment and the doc is happy to fast forward through the 'boring bits', hardly the kind of behaviour you'd expect from the guy who invented the machine (and had probably never seen himself on TV before!!!)
- The protection the doc has from his assailants at the end of the movie? A bulletproof vest ... He just presumed they wouldn’t take him out with a headshot???
- What are the chances of everyone's lives being changed for the better yet marty still has the same girlfriend?
- Biff's tracksuit ... Priceless
- The symbol of Marty's life having been turned for the better is ... A 4X4 truck!!!