The Chaotic Past of Back To The Future

it's january 10th 1985 director robert zemeckis is at the puente hills mall in california he's shooting a scene where the delorean is blasting back to the past with a dog in the driver's seat the scene involves the characters marty and doc brown heavily however an interesting phenomenon is happening with the director he's favoring shots of actor christopher lloyd and entirely avoiding shots of eric stultz the actor hired to play marty mcfly why would he do this well little did anyone know what was about to go down so sit back relax grab a milk chocolate and let's go back to the future back to the future was six weeks into a grueling shoot and there was a storm brewing behind the scenes you see the first choice for the role of marty mcfly was a rising star named michael j fox zemeckis knew he wanted fox very early on the actor's comedic skills were very unique and charismatic so it made complete sense why he was so coveted for the role zemeckis couldn't have him though fox was busy with his tv show family ties as well as filming a low budget movie called teen wolf which was actually filming nearby the back to the future set and for what it was worth zemeckis was committed to working with his current leading man with gusto and he had full confidence in the rest of his cast they all had the comedic and dramatic chops he was looking for other actors who auditioned for the part of marty were johnny depp john cusack ralph macchio matthew broderick and charlie sheen however the head of the studio sid scheinberg was dead set on an actor named eric stoltz so dead set that he proclaimed if i'm wrong you can recast him yeah right like that would ever happen stoltz was not the first or probably even second choice for director robert zemeckis eric stoltz didn't really have the buoyancy or comedic predisposition that zemeckis was aiming for but hey maybe he could pull out what he needed in different ways so zamekas went forward and hired stoltz anyway however as the shoot progressed the director's greatest fears were unfolding eric stoltz was not a good fit from the beginning eric insisted that all cast and crew call him marty he literally would not break out of character or answer to the name eric in my opinion all that does is create a barrier between actor and crew but hey what do i know they had a table read of the entire script and at the end of it he lamented that it was sad that marty remembered a different past than everyone else which is frankly just too serious of a take and awkward as well for everyone around him you see he added a needlessly serious vibe to a movie that actually hinged on its light-hearted approach to a dense science fiction story zemeckis envisioned a movie where the sci-fi beats were surrounded by lovable characters and screwball energy and stultz did not have this prior to being cast in back to the future eric stoltz was coming off the much lauded movie mask the true story of teenager rocky dennis who had a craniodiphysial dysplasia which is a rare disease that causes severe deformity of the skull eric would go on to be nominated for a golden globe for his role as rocky dennis i vaguely remember seeing some of it on tv when i was younger stoltz obviously did a really good job in the movie and spent many hours in the makeup chair every day to get into the real life character's physical and emotional state he recounted that he had walked in rocky's shoes and discovered that humanity can be a little ugly eric even encountered some toxic pedestrians in real life who didn't know he was in makeup maybe that gave him more sensitivity when it came to looking at roles going forward this must have been a big confidence builder i can see where the thinking came from that eric could play anything after playing a serious role like that but i think he was in a different place than was needed for the character of marty when joining back to the future filming soldier don and robert zemeckis continually clashed with stoltz on the approach to marty's character time and time again eric was on a different wavelength than him here's an example for one particular scene zemeckis wanted marty to cross the street to meet doc and trip in his excitement while doing so stoltz didn't agree that he would trip as he didn't see marty as a schlub he thought he should just approach his destination straight on zemeckis told stoltz that it was an action that would help humanize marty but stoltz would disagree there was a constant battle going on between the two of them i mean could you imagine this part with stoltz he would have been like why would i slide across the hood like that i'd just go around and get in the car or this part why the hell would i jump the bench i'd just run around it looking back i doubt cementis had to try and humanize what michael j fox was bringing to the role fox has an inherent physical energy about him it's fascinating really he was known on family ties for taking one joke and somehow making it into two or three with his timing he's a gifted comedian zemeckis knew that hence why he originally wanted fox for the role who knows maybe he was trying to evoke very specific stoltz and stoltz picked up on that maybe it made him rebel more robert zemeckis tried to explain the vibe of the movie he was making to eric i legitimately think eric thought he was making more of a action drama than what zemeckis was going for it's okay to have a set interpretation but when the director is telling you that it's indeed not the vibe of the story being told well that's when eric should have recalibrated maybe he tried and just couldn't get into it wouldn't it be fascinating to see an alternate version of the movie to judge for ourselves unfortunately we can only go off of what we know of the final product and the final product just so happens to be a classic eric and tom wilson the actor playing biff tannen had a clashing of energies as well for the scene in the cafeteria where biff shoves marty and marty shoves him back stoltz was giving an overzealous shove to tom over and over take after take tom would ask him to please lay off the intensity of the shoves i mean takes add up and that stuff starts to hurt unfortunately eric or marty or whatever wouldn't listen there was always a separation from what everyone else was trying to make versus what stoltz felt should be made the only other actor who sort of clashed with zemenkus was crispin glover he was an eccentric character actor he would do things that were so out there that it didn't quite fit michael j fox recounted a story where crispin was doing this elaborate brooming motion while doing a scene and zamekus was like what's with the broom and crispin replied that it was a sweep of indignation i surmised though that what did work with crispin worked really well george mcfly is so memorable and hilarious in this movie i'm so glad he made the cut because he's truly a great presence in this film anyway my boy zemeckis he's got gut feelings deep down gut feelings he knows something isn't right he's tried to push on and make lemonade however he calls in his buddy spielberg to watch an assembled cut of about 40 minutes of footage and everything comes to light stoltz doesn't have the comedic buoyancy that is crucial for the part of marty it's dragging the whole picture down so we end up back at the puente hills mall it's around 10 30 p.m and eric stoltz is let go this whole situation could not have been easy i mean when researching this video i found out that the author of back to the future the ultimate visual history michael klestoren tried to speak with eric to get his side of the situation in fact they even friended each other on facebook but as soon as michael revealed he was trying to get an interview he got a swift unfriending i don't blame eric either this is a hard thing to have people talking about throughout the years and it's probably only gotten harder with the prevalence of the internet stoltz is a very talented actor his part in pulp fiction has a buoyancy and lightness to it he does have the ability to be comedic i wonder if he leaned into that more after this whole experience i have sympathy for him and what went down i've heard zemeckis talk about the situation and it was painful for him as well however it was necessary i'm sure stoltz would rather erase this whole thing from existence okay so here's where the movie time travel comes in seven weeks of footage had already been shot but not all of the footage had stoltz in it after zemeckis had gotten the go-ahead from the studio to reshoot with michael j fox he organized his footage and he figured out exactly how much he needed to reshoot it was like zomeka saw how to save his film and went back in time to do so in the last few days of filming with stoltz the director would purposely favor shots without him in it only shooting close-ups of the other actors when possible he was essentially getting his coverage ahead of time so he would only need to shoot michael j fox's side of things when he arrived on set the editors would then plug this new footage into the previously shot scenes thank god because the shooting schedule had already been pushed back considerably this would help save time this form of filmmaking time travel gave back to the future many advantages number one michael j fox is marty mcfly number two the iconic red bubble vest he wears that was an addition after stoltz left the project before marty blended in with his surroundings a lot more and the vest was a way for him to actually stick out more giving a greater fish out of water feel number 3. marty's physical stature biff somehow became much more of a formidable foe when you see the height difference between he and fox's marty michael j fox is five foot four inches eric stoltz in comparison is six foot tall the difference in height between doc and marty was something i can't imagine being different either it just adds something to their chemistry it's funny you can see in the shots it was composed so that marty was always at a different depth than doc or doc was always scrunching over to kind of meet that height but it kind of gives an interesting physicality number four why does it look like eric is looking at the ceiling here [Music] number five they had to change the actress playing jennifer due to the new height difference i don't know what melora hardin's performance would have been but i like claudia wells as jennifer she's the one in my opinion the replacement midway through filming perfectly fit the plot of the movie i'll explain in the movie the characters from 1955 had a stranger drop out of the future and affect their timeline in a big way well that happened on the real film set too imagine re-shooting with a brand new actor and getting a chance to approach the scenes with a different perspective it could have gone so bad if it weren't for zemeckis gut being 100 correct michael j fox came in and gave the role a believability a likeability he was part of the crew as opposed to apart from them fox was spending his nights shooting back to the future and his days shooting family ties he was so out of it at times that he would search for his camera prop from back to the future while on the family ties set he was so sleep deprived that he didn't have time to overthink his role on the other hand eric stultz was overthinking his role to the point of getting fired was there a nicer way to phrase that let me know in the comments below anyway shooting wrapped up and the rest is history back to the future is my favorite movie period i remember the first time i ever saw it was on laserdisc my dad introduced me to it and i fell in love i would watch it over and over again i remember i would imitate marty from the teaser trailer when a lady would ask him how far are you going and he'd say about 30 years although it sounded like i was saying 30 years my mom used to make me repeat that line for family and friends i would ride behind my dad's car while on a skateboard it was only for short distances since our property had too much gravel but you get the point while visiting universal studios in orlando florida my favorite experience hands down was the back to the future ride i'm so sad that they discontinued that one and replaced it with the simpsons ride and absolutely shameless plug here i was inspired to make my own movie series about a guy who uses astral projection to travel back in time they're called mandeo of the dead and mandela returns you can watch those movies for free on my channel okay i'm done now thank you robert zemeckis for sticking to your guns and going back in time to bring the version of back to the future we all know and love today and if any studio tries to do a cynical remake of back to the future and thinks they'll get away with it well we'll be waiting for you [Music] you

Channel: Scotty Dunn

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Keywords: back to the future, the chaotic past of back to the future, eric stoltz, the eric stoltz story, marty mcfly, scotty dunn, special features, bakc to the future, back to teh future, bakc to teh future, back to the future 2, back to the future trailer, back to the future reaction, back to the future 3, back to the future theme, back to the future johnny b goode, back to the future soundtrack, back to the future full movie, back to the future 4, back to the future musical

Id: Z6nUsHqHBZE

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 23 2022