Back to the Future Part III

In November 1955, moments after witnessing Emmett "Doc" Brown disappear in his DeLorean, Marty McFly learns that Doc was sent 70 years in the past to 1885. Using information from Doc's 1885 letter, Marty and the 1955 Doc find and repair the DeLorean, hidden away by Doc in 1885, so that Marty can return to 1985. After finding it, Marty comes across a tombstone inscribed with Doc's name, stating that Doc was shot by Biff Tannen's great-grandfather, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, six days after writing the letter. Despite the letter's warning, Marty travels to September 2, 1885, to save Doc, arriving in the middle of a cavalry pursuit of Native Americans, but the car's fuel line is damaged. Chased by a bear, he is knocked unconscious and found by his Irish-born great-great-grandparents Seamus and Maggie McFly, who allow him to stay the night. The next morning, under the alias Clint Eastwood, Marty arrives in a newly founded Hill Valley but runs afoul of Buford and his gang. Doc rescues Marty from Buford's attempted lynching. Doc agrees to leave 1885 after learning his fate, but without gasoline, the DeLorean cannot reach its required . He proposes using a steam locomotive to push the DeLorean to that speed. While inspecting a rail spur, Doc saves the town's new schoolteacher Clara Clayton from falling into the ravine, averting her death from the original timeline. They fall in love. At a town festival Buford tries shooting Doc, but after Marty intervenes, Buford challenges him to a showdown in two days by calling him "yellow". Doc urges Marty not to react to provocation, letting slip that Marty has a life changing accident in the future. Although reluctant to return to 1985, Doc visits Clara to end their relationship and bid her goodbye. She dismisses his story about being from the future. Doc goes on a drinking binge. Buford arrives for Marty, who sees his alias appear in the tombstone photograph and refuses to duel. Doc passes out and is captured by Buford's gang, forcing Marty to duel. Marty feigns death and knocks Buford into a wagon of manure. Buford and his gang are arrested for an earlier robbery. On the train to San Francisco, Clara learns how heartbroken Doc is and runs back to town. She finds the model time machine at his shop and realizes Doc was telling the truth. Doc and Marty use the locomotive to push the DeLorean along the spur line. Clara boards the locomotive and loses her footing. Marty, in the DeLorean, passes his hoverboard to Doc, who uses it to save Clara. The DeLorean hits 88 mph and vanishes as the locomotive plunges from the unfinished bridge. Arriving back in 1985 on October 27, Marty escapes the disabled DeLorean as a freight train destroys it. Reuniting with his girlfriend Jennifer Parker, Marty declines a street race with Douglas J. Needles, thus avoiding the future accident Doc warned him about. Jennifer opens the fax message she kept from 2015 and watches the text regarding Marty's firing disappear. As Marty and Jennifer examine the DeLorean wreckage, a steam locomotive time machine appears, operated by Doc, Clara, and their children. Doc gives Marty a photo of them standing next to the town clock in 1885. When Jennifer asks Doc about the blank fax, he says it means their future has not yet been written and encourages them to make it a good one. Doc and his family bid farewell and fly off in the locomotive. ==Cast==

Returning actors from previous films include Elisabeth Shue and Flea as Jennifer Parker and Douglas J. Needles, as well as Marc McClure, Wendie Jo Sperber and Jeffrey Weissman as Dave, Linda and George McFly, respectively. James Tolkan, who played Mr. Strickland in the first two films, plays his ancestor Marshal James Strickland. Buford's gang in 1885 is portrayed by Christopher Wynne, Sean Gregory Sullivan, and Mike Watson. Wynne also plays a member of Needles' gang in 1985, alongside J. J. Cohen and Ricky Dean Logan, who played Skinhead and Data, respectively, in previous films. Chester the bartender is played by Matt Clark, and three elderly patrons of the saloon are played by veteran Western film actors Pat Buttram, Harry Carey, Jr. and Dub Taylor. Hugh Gillin, Burton Gilliam, Donovan Scott and Bill McKinney portray Hill Valley's mayor, a gun salesman, Strickland's deputy, and an engineer respectively. Todd Cameron Brown and Dannel Evans play Doc and Clara's sons Jules and Verne Brown, and Lindsay Vail Clark portrays William McFly, Marty's great-grandfather. Frank Beard, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of ZZ Top cameo as the band at the Festival. ==Production==

The origins of the Western theme for Back to the Future Part III lay in the production of the original Back to the Future film. During filming for the original, director Robert Zemeckis asked actor Michael J. Fox what time period he would like to see. Fox replied that he wanted to visit the Old West and meet cowboys. Zemeckis and writer/producer Bob Gale were intrigued by the idea, but held it off until Part III. Some of the location shooting for the 1885 Hill Valley was done in Jamestown, California and on a purpose-built set at the Red Hills Ranch near Sonora, California. a heritage line in Jamestown. The shooting of the Back to the Future sequels, which were shot back-to-back throughout 1989, reunited much of the crew of the original. The films were shot over the course of eleven months, save for a three-week hiatus between filming of Parts II and III, and concluded in January 1990. The most grueling part was editing Part II while filming Part III, and Zemeckis bore the brunt of the process over a three-week period. While Zemeckis was shooting most of the train sequences in Sonora, Gale was in Los Angeles supervising the final dub of Part II. The film featured cameo appearances from veteran Western film actors Pat Buttram, Harry Carey Jr. and Dub Taylor as three "saloon old timers". The inclusion of these noticeable Western actors was promoted in several documentaries about the film, as well as the behind-the-scenes documentary of the DVD and in the obituary of one of the actors. Zemeckis considered having Ronald Reagan play the part of the Mayor of Hill Valley in 1885. Reagan, who in 1989 had recently finished his second term as president, had appeared in several Westerns during his earlier career as an actor before pursuing a career in politics and had not appeared in a motion picture since 1964 in which he starred in The Killers. Zemeckis personally contacted Reagan's agent Lew Wasserman, to gauge the ex-president's interest in the role, which Reagan declined. Shooting a film set in the Old West was appealing to the stuntmen, who were all experienced horse riders. Gale recalled in 2002 that many stuntmen in Hollywood wanted to work on Part III.), pyrotechnics, and special effects, and countless technicians all at once. ==Music==

The soundtrack was released under Varèse Sarabande on May 29, 1990, and features much of the score by Alan Silvestri and the orchestral version of the song "Doubleback" performed at the festival in 1885 during the film. A two-disc special edition was released on October 12, 2015, in commemoration of the film's 25th anniversary, which includes the original score (26 tracks) on disc one and an arrangement of alternate cues and source music on a second disc. ==Release==

Home media On November 8, 1990, MCA/Universal Home Video released Back to the Future Part III on VHS and on December 17, 2002, on DVD. It debuted on Blu-ray in 2010 for the film's 20th anniversary, followed by a second Blu-ray remaster in 2015 for the film's 25th anniversary and a 4K Blu-ray remaster in 2020 for the film's 30th anniversary. ==Reception==

Box office The film grossed $23 million in its first weekend of U.S. release and $87.6 million altogether in U.S. box office receipts (or about $ million adjusted as of ) – $246 million worldwide. Critical response Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, same as the second installment. Kim Newman of Empire gave the film four out of five stars, saying that the film "restores heart interest of the first film and has a satisfying complete storyline". He praised Michael J. Fox for "keeping the plot on the move" and mentioned that Christopher Lloyd and Mary Steenburgen's romance was "funny". He said that the film's ending was the "neatest of all" and it "features one of the best time machines in the cinema, promising that this is indeed the very last in the series and neatly wrapping it up for everybody". Leonard Maltin preferred the film to the first two, giving it three-and-a-half stars out of four, praising the film as great fun, special effects and imagination, also saying that the movie magic works in the film. Michael McWhertor of the website Polygon wrote that while the film was not better than the original entry in the series, it is nonetheless "leagues better than the second"; he praised the film's comedic and romantic elements, and commended Thomas F. Wilson's performance as "Mad Dog" Tannen. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars. He said that the film's western motifs are "a sitcom version that looks exactly as if it were built on a back lot somewhere". Although Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised Christopher Lloyd's performance in the film, he also said that the film "looks as if it could be the beginning of a continuing television series". He complained that the film is "so sweet-natured and bland that it is almost instantly forgettable". Commentators noticed parallels between Part III and the film Time After Time (1979). Mary Steenburgen has said: Actually, I've played the same scene in that film [Time After Time] and in [Back to the Future Part III]…. I've had a man from a different time period tell me that he's in love with me, but he has to go back to his own time. My response in both cases is, of course, disbelief, and I order them out of my life. Afterwards, I find out I was wrong and that, in fact, the man is indeed from another time, and I go after him (them) to profess my love. It's a pretty strange feeling to find yourself doing the same scene, so many years apart, for the second time in your career. The casting of Steenburgen for Back to the Future Part III appears to be deliberately intended to mirror the earlier role. Accolades In 1990, the film won a Saturn Award for Best Music for Alan Silvestri and a Best Supporting Actor award for Thomas F. Wilson. In 2003, it received an AOL Movies DVD Premiere Award for Best Special Edition of the Year, an award based on consumer online voting. ==Future==

Co-writer and director Robert Zemeckis and co-writer Bob Gale, who have an agreement with Spielberg and Amblin that any further installments in the Back to the Future franchise will not be made without their involvement, have stated that another film is "not going to happen". Gale commented that he did not wish to see another film in the series without the Marty McFly character nor any other actor than Michael J. Fox playing him, while acknowledging that Fox's current health condition would make this impossible. He illustrated this at a 2008 fan convention in Florida, stating: "The idea of making another Back to the Future movie without Michael J. Fox – you know, that's like saying, 'I'm going to cook you a steak dinner and I'm going to hold the beef. Gale also said that the Telltale video-game adaptation is the closest thing to what a fourth film could be like. In an interview on October 21, 2015, the day of Marty McFly's purported arrival in the future, Christopher Lloyd stated that he would consider making a fourth film under the condition that the original cast and creative team returned, along with a story "worth telling". The same day, Lloyd reprised his role as Doc Brown in a brief segment in which the character returns with a special message marking the 2015 date. In 2020, actor Tom Holland claimed in an interview with BBC Radio 1 that he was approached by an unnamed producer over a possible reboot of the franchise with him starring the lead role as Marty McFly (or a similarly new character). However, Holland stated that he was reluctant to take up this offer as he described the existing films as "perfect films", though he would be interested in re-creating scenes from the films in a deep-fake homage video or short film. ==See also==