YMMV / Back to the Future Part III

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: While the main moral of the movie is "don't pick stupid fights out of wounded pride", the main conflict with Buford Tannen isn't exactly resolved through pacifism and being the bigger man. Buford is a temperamental maniac who kills for petty reasons, and Marty has to fight him to save Doc, which he does through underhanded means. The real messages of the movie seem to be "don't seek out conflict, but be prepared to defend yourself against a maniac" and "be smart in a fight because your opponent won't likely play fair."
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • During the climax, Doc Brown has Marty specifically enter October 27, 1985, 11:00 am as the destination time. Given Doc's predilection for trains and remembering certain events down to the moment, and given his desire to destroy the time machine, did he remember the 1985 train schedule and have Marty set the time circuits in such a way that the DeLorean would be almost immediately destroyed upon their return to the future? On the other hand, given that Marty was only barely able to get out before the train hit, would he be willing to do something that, if something went wrong or they were only a second too slow, could have gotten himself and Marty killed? This would suggest that he didn't remember the schedule and it was simply chance the the time machine ended up destroyed.
  • Clara doesn't believe Doc when he claims to be a time traveler, but when she discovers the model of Doc and Marty's restart-the-Delorean plan, she races to the railroad line desperately calling his name. Did seeing the model actually convince her that Doc was telling the truth earlier and he really was from the future? Or did it convince her that the man she loved, whom she already knew had been stricken with grief, had crossed the Despair Event Horizon and was about to get himself killed by acting out a delusional fantasy, going over a cliff in a fake homemade "time machine"?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Marty is ridiculed by Buford for wearing Seamus' bowler hat instead of the typical Wild-west cowboy hat everyone else has on. The comedy in this may well have been intentional, but bowler hats were actually the popular style back then. The cowboy hat we know today (the Stetson)? Back then, it looked like this◊.
  • In the 1880s, there was a race to see who could get gaseous elements to liquid and solid form, and they were able to get pretty darn frigid. In the second half of the 19th century, this new understanding paved the way for steam power to artificially produce ice. Doc's genius is that he was able to build a working prototype using podunk Hill Valley parts.
  • You can actually run a modern car on alcohol without modification, assuming it lacks impurities and is nearly 200 proof (it's hard to get to pure, since alcohol tends to attract water vapor out of the surrounding air). In fact it's increasingly common for gasoline to have grain alcohol added to it as a way of stretching the oil supply and lowering gas prices.
  • The "Wake-up Juice" is an actual legit drink, the Bull Shot, a variant on the well-known Bloody Mary. The one made in the film is a combination of two versions (Bull Shot, Bull Shot #4) of the drink, consisting of one ounce of club soda, two ounces of beef broth, one ounce of tomato juice, one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, quarter of a teaspoon of lemon juice, three dashes of Tabasco-Habanero sauce, and some dried garlic.
  • The word "dude" is actually used in a period correct way. In the 1800s it meant something along the lines of "city slicker". This meaning is preserved today in the term "dude ranch". The modern usage of the term as a slang term to refer to any person, not even exclusively males, didn't start until the 1960s and the rise of surfer culture.
  • Black bears can be found in dry areas of California (and Utah, Arizona, New Mexico...), not just forested ones. In fact in 1885, even grizzlies were, so Marty should count himself lucky for running into a black bear only.
  • The Colt salesman at the festival is surprisingly cavalier about having his finger on the trigger and gesturing with the barrel at people, including Marty. That said, the Colt Peacemaker he is holding is a single action revolver, meaning that as long as the hammer was down, a finger on the trigger wasn't any more dangerous than a finger not on the trigger. This was even fairly true of double-action revolvers of the time (which had been invented in 1851) as they had long, heavy trigger pulls. Also, modern gun safety practices weren't common until much later.
• Angst? What Angst?: Doc seems quite amused by the idea of him getting trapped in the old western period. When we get to meeting Doc of that era, we find he has indeed adapted rather well. Could be considered justified by the fact he had successfully completed his life's work, explored the future he knew he'd never live to see, and then realized the dangers of time travel and intended to destroy the DeLorean — becoming a blacksmith in an Old West township probably seemed like a peaceful retirement plan (1955 Doc, hearing of what became of him at the start of the movie, says as much).
• Award Snub: The only film in the series not to be nominated at the Academy Awards. It was one of the shortlisted films for Best Visual Effects along with Dick Tracy, Ghost (1990) and Total Recall (1990), but due to Oscar nomination rules at the time, only Total Recall received enough votes to advance to the final nomination, so there were no official nominees in that category and Total Recall received a special achievement award.
• Awesome Music: The acoustic, Western version of ZZ Top's "Doubleback" the band plays at the town dance.
• Base-Breaking Character: Clara is either a boring Satellite Love Interest and a Damsel Scrappy or a interesting character on her own right and the perfect pairing for the Doc.
• Cliché Storm: To quote Roger Ebert:
  The Old West of Back to the Future Part III might have been interesting if it had been an approximation of the real Old West — the one we saw in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, say. But this movie's West is unfortunately a sitcom version that looks exactly as if it were built on a back lot somewhere. The movie is so filled with old Western cliches that the regulars in the bar even include Pat Buttram. Now don't get me wrong: I was delighted to see Buttram again (he was Gene Autry's sidekick in the old days) and even happier to hear that his voice still is in need of oiling. But the town in Future III is made up of lots of pieces from old movies, including even a shootout on Main Street and the usual troubles with the local sheriff.
• Contested Sequel: Some feel this film's too similar to the original. Others love it for its slower pace after Part II's high-speed narrative.
• Evil Is Cool: Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen is an absolute crazed maniac, but it's hard to deny how badass he is for it, especially in regards to being the logical conclusion to the Tannen family's antagonism.
• Genius Bonus:
  • After being sent to 1885, Doc mentioned that he was unable to repair the time machine because "suitable replacement parts wouldn't be invented until 1947," which is the year when the transistor was invented.
  • When the Colt salesman tries to get Marty to shoot the Peacemaker, he forces it into his left hand (causing the first shot to miss completely, being Marty's weak hand). The Colt Single Action Army was actually originally designed to be fired left-handed while riding a horse.
  • Marty uses a Frisbie pie tin like a Frisbee. This actually is how the titular toy was invented and named.
  • In the scene where 1955 Doc doesn't recognize the name Clint Eastwood, posters for Revenge of the Creature and Tarantula! (Eastwood's first screen appearances which were released that year, though he only had a cameo in one scene of both movies and wasn't credited in either of them) can be seen in the background. Marty even gestures to the poster when he remarks that he hasn't been heard of yet.
  • It makes perfect sense that 1955 Doc would think that the chip from Japan would be a piece of junk while Marty confusedly remarks that "all the best stuff is made in Japan". Prior to the mid-1970s, Japanese products were notorious for their shoddy quality and were essentially the "made in China" of their day. However, after that point, there was a massive restructuring of the Japanese manufacturing industry which is what caused a sudden leap forward in quality products. Which means that Marty would be too young to remember when Japan didn't make good products. Also, having lived during World War II, Doc would likely harbor some anti-Japanese sentiments.
  • Doc explains that his family came from Germany and his father changed the original surname, Von Braun, during World War I. For one, it's a homage to the space architect Wernher von Braun (almost as if there was some distant relationship...). Secondly, during and after WW1 German Americans became increasingly ostracized due to Germany being an enemy to the USA. They were pressured into integrating and forfeiting their culture, so that many opted to anglicize their surname.
  • Similarly, it's indicated that 1885 Hill Valley has a sizeable Chinese population, but the same town has nay an Asian on sight again until 2015. 1885 is right before growing anti-Chinese violence in the late 1880s pushed Chinese-Americans away from rural Western areas and towards large cities like San Francisco.
  • Clara not believing Doc about being a time traveler makes a good deal of sense: aside from such a thing not being believable, the time travel genre was not yet a serious form of fiction in 1885. It wasn't until H. G. Wells published The Time Machine in 1895 that going back and forth through time gained serious literary attention. To Clara, a woman born in the 19th century, the concept of time travel would sound even more nonsensical than it does today.
  • Marty getting laughed at after asking for ice water in 1885 makes sense: in the late 19th century, technology that could make ice was still incredibly rudimentary. Also, non-alcoholic water supplies were unreliable in the Old West since irrigation was less developed, and water-borne diseases like dysentery lacked medicines and were incredibly lethal.
  • When the 1955 Doc reads the letter his future self sent to Marty, he's confused when it asks Marty to "take care of Einstein", before Marty explains that Einstein is the name of Doc's dog in 1985. The 1955 Doc's confusion comes from the fact that Albert Einstein died earlier in 1955 (on April 18, seven months before the events in the BTTF films). Maybe he thinks that Einstein didn't actually die but went into the future.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The first film had Doc and Marty use lightning striking Hill Valley's clocktower to enable the DeLorean and Marty to get back to 1985; this lightning damaged the clock, causing it to stop functioning completely. The town used for the 1885 Hill Valley was destroyed by lightning in 1996.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Towards the end of the film, Seamus muses about trading a gun for a new hat. The clip can be found on YouTube with the title "Team Fortress 2 in a Nutshell".
  • A time traveling train, you say?
  • A white haired time traveling doctor meeting a woman (a teacher to boot) named Clara? Where have I seen that before? Funnier, considering said Clara is played by the same actress who played Amy Robbins in Time After Time. Funnier still, both of these doctors would one day meet.
  • Marty says Doc's dynamite blast must have woken the dead. One year later, Christopher Lloyd would play Fester in The Addams Family which ends with the family playing a game called Wake the Dead.
• Memetic Mutation: "He's an asshole!"
• Moral Event Horizon: In a Deleted Scene, Bufford shoots Marshall Strickland on the back and leaves him to die on his young son's arms. The creators later decided that it didn't feel right for Bufford to not die after this, and since they couldn't kill him before his descendants were born, they cut the scene and changed the dialogue referencing the murder of Strickland during Bufford's arrest.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • ZZ Top's appearance as the band at the Hill Valley Festival.
  • Marshal Strickland, the gun-toting no-nonsense, identical ancestor of Marty's principal, who faces down Buford Tannen in a memorable fashion.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The movie received a video game adaptation for the Sega Genesis, which it was ported to the Sega Master System. It had only four levels the whole game, all based on moments from the movie. It starts off with a tedious horse riding level that is very easy to make mistakes and lose due to how many hazards and enemies it throws at the player.
• Signature Scene:
  • One of the more enduring images of the film is the scene showing one of the methods used to attempt to have the DeLorean reach 88 mph: the DeLorean being pulled across Monument Valley by a team of horses.
  • Everyone remembers Doc Brown's time-travelling train at the end.
• So Okay, It's Average: While the movie wasn't as critically well-received as the first, it is still an adequate adventure story and finale to the original trilogy.
• Special Effect Failure: When Doc and Clara ride off on the Hoverboard, it’s very clear that they are greenscreened onto the background.
• Tear Dryer: Marty returns to 1985, but the DeLorean is destroyed and Doc is stuck in 1885. Marty and Jennifer return to the wreckage of the time machine and then Doc appears in a time machine made from a steam train with Clara and his sons Jules and Verne.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While still a Fish out of Temporal Water comedy, the fact it heavily incorporates The Western genre made it the Oddball in the Series.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Seamus passing a plate to Marty. Doesn't sound like anything...until you realize that Michael J. Fox passed a plate to himself!

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