Written By: Dan Geer

That’s right folks. Twenty-five years ago today, on July 3, 1985, Back to the Future was released in theaters. While director Robert Zemekis has made great films since then (the Back to the Future sequels, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump, etc.), I think most everyone can agree that, out of all his films, this one is by far the most popular and most memorable by movie fans in general.

I can still remember doing a “double-feature” day back then when I was only five years old, watching this film and then going to see Disney’s Return to Oz, which came out roughly two weeks prior. Back to the Future was one of the first movies to introduce me to science fiction and the concept of time-travel, and I absolutely fell in love with the idea – however implausible it may be.

Ever since then, I have always been utterly fascinated by this movie as well as its two sequels. One time, when I was around 11 or so, I took a couple of old boxes, spray-painted them silver and blue, attached old beat-up mechanical devices to the inside of the box and put it all together to form my own time-traveling Delorean. I would sit inside of it, shouting “1.21 gigawatts!” as I pretended to go back and forth through time. In my childhood mind, that sucker was nuclear.

But it wasn’t just the time-machine or the science-fiction that I loved about the movie. It simply had a timeless quality to it, unmatched by most movies. If you think about it, it was made smack in the middle of the 80s, even took place in the 80s – and yet the film does not feel at all dated even today. It’s still just as watchable now as it was back then.

I think most of it had to do with the music of Alan Silvestri. The film had one of the most memorable soundtracks in cinema history – right up there with many of John Williams’ scores such as the music for Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark, for example. Any time you work in classical symphonic music into the soundtrack for a movie, it immediately helps the film to take on a more classic, ageless feel. Sure, they had “Huey Lewis and the News,” but even that music doesn’t date it to me like, say, Cindy Lauper’s music would have if they put that in there.

Of course, the great cast and characterization took care of the rest – particularly the chemistry between Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. To this day, their dialog together makes me laugh when I’m supposed to laugh, get emotional when I’m supposed to get emotional, etc. It just holds up so well. The film really had a stellar cast, not just with them, but also Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson who played “Biff.” Everything was pitch-perfect with everyone’s performances.

In the end, this film will be remembered as long as movies are around. Great music, lovable characters, extremely quotable dialog and a good story are always what make films stand out, and Back to the Future has it all. And hey, if there’s one thing I learned from watching this movie, it’s that if I didn’t ask out the girl of my dreams, that Darth Vader would come down from planet Vulcan and melt my brain. Seriously, I’m probably still alive today because of this movie.
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By the way, On October 26th this year, the Back to the Future trilogy will be released on Blu-ray (which is exactly 25 years later from when the story of the films takes place). You can check out the details by clicking here.