YMMV / Back to the Future: The Ride

• Cult Classic: The ride is easily one of the most beloved and missed of all the retro Universal Studios attractions.
• Fanon Discontinuity: As much as BTTF fans love this ride, many of them don't consider it canon due to its inconsistencies with the films. This gets a nod in the IDW comic, where Doc is less than impressed with the idea of using a fleet of time machines to grab future tech.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The ride appeared to be quite popular with guests at Universal Studios Japan; always having long lines even in its later years, and its final day of operation attracted many loyal fans.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The ride gets a plug on the VHS special The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy, when host Kirk Cameron says that even though Universal won't make a fourth BTTF, the series "will live on" through the ride. Considering the ride no longer exists in any Universal park, one could conclude the series has essentially died.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Doc's bronzing gun today recalls to mind Warehouse 13.
  • The "Doc on the March" short film features newsreel footage of Doc Brown with numerous historical figures. Three years later, another Robert Zemeckis-directed film would feature something just like that.
  • Just before Biff takes off with the DeLorean, he gives Doc a taunting "Hasta la bye-bye!" Five years later, Universal Studios released Terminator 2 3-D: Battle Across Time, whose series was responsible for making that particular phrase^note In its correct form, "Hasta la vista" popular, and which also featured time travel.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The T-Rex not only doesn't look like any T-Rex that existed, but is clearly a stiff animatronic puppet. Though that didn’t stop it from being terrifying watching it on an IMAX screen.
  • Some of the miniatures are also obviously fake, like the sequence in 2015 and the rocks during the above-mentioned T-Rex scene.
  • Shortly before the riders crash into the clock tower at the end of the 2015 sequence, a styrofoam coffee cup that one of the crew members left on the miniature set can be spotted to the right of the building.

---