This weekend’s movie was Back to the Future from 1985.

“Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.”

I’m not quite sure why I’m on a kick of watching movies from the 1980s right now, but I was heavily motivated to watch Back to the Future today.

This movie was such a unique story for when it came out. It provided a look at questions many of us have about the history of where we came from; not a broad picture of where we came from in the perspective of humanity, but where we as our individual selves came from. What were our parents like? How has my neighborhood changed?

One of the more interesting aspects of this movie is how several small changes can make such a huge impact. The movie starts with a look at Marty’s life, where his parents don’t seem to actually get along very well, his older brother works in fast food, his sister doesn’t seem to have a job, Biff just wrecked their car, and Marty himself isn’t seen very highly by anyone.

But then when he gets back to the Future (1985), his house is very nice and well-kept, his brother is wearing a suit to the office, his sister works at a boutique, and his parents are very much in love. Even Biff, instead of still being a bully and a supervisor to George McFly, now seems to run his own auto-detailing shop. George actually submitted his science fiction work and published his first novel and Marty actually has the fancy black truck he was eyeing.

I think the really hard part would be how Marty remembers a world and past that never happened and he has no one he would be able to talk about it with. I can see this would probably create a significant amount of issues for him, as he would probably remember his life growing up differently than what actually happened. It’s possible he might even question his sanity. Even being friends with Doc Brown wouldn’t help, as Marty changed his life and history, too. When he meets Doc Brown, he’ll already be living in a changed past.

Overall, this movie is a low three on my rating scale. I’m glad I bought the 25th anniversary box collection but I don’t need to rewatch this too frequently.

Back to the Future. Directed by Robert Zemleckis, Executive Producers Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall, Produced by Bob Gale and Neil Canton, performances by Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Universal Studios, 1985.