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Back to the Future Part III
Back to the Future Part III film poster
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Produced by	Steven Spielberg
Written by	Robert Zemeckis Bob Gale
Starring	Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd Mary Steenburgen Thomas F. Wilson Lea Thompson
Music by	Alan Silvestri James Horner (Universal logo only)
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Editing by	Harry Keramidas Arthur Schmidt
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	May 25, 1990 (1990-05-25)
Running time	118 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$40,000,000
Preceded by	Back to the Future Part II
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Back to the Future Part III is a science fiction western comedy film starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd that opened on May 25, 1990. It is the third and final part of the Back to the Future trilogy, following Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II. The film's events begin in 1955 and then take place in the year 1885 for the majority of the film.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Release and recognitions 3 Western homages 4 Cast and crew 4.1 Cast 4.2 Crew 4.3 Other notes 5 Video and computer games 6 References in other media 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

Picking up where Part II left off, Marty McFly is now stranded in 1955. The 1985 Doc Brown is trapped in 1885, and has written a letter to Marty with the explicit instructions that he not attempt a rescue. The letter explains where the De Lorean is and tells Marty to immediately return to 1985, where he is to destroy the time machine to prevent further disruption of the space-time continuum.

With the help of the 1955 version of Doc, Marty uncovers the De Lorean from a mine. Nearby they discover a tombstone that reveals the Doc died just six days after writing Marty the letter, having been murdered by Biff Tannen's great-grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen "over a matter of $80". With the De Lorean restored to working order, Marty and the 1955 Doc agree that Marty will go back to 1885 and bring the 1985 Doc back to his own time.

After arriving in 1885, and surviving brushes with Indians, the cavalry, and a bear, Marty finds refuge for the night with his great-great-grandfather Seamus McFly (also played by Fox). Marty introduces himself as Clint Eastwood to forestall questioning. Marty goes into Hill Valley to try to find Doc, who has taken refuge there as a blacksmith. He quickly has a run-in with Buford Tannen, who Marty inadvertently angers. Buford attempts to hang Marty, but he is saved when Doc arrives and shoots the rope. Buford demands $80 from Doc to compensate him for an incident in which his horse, which Doc shoed, threw one of its shoes. Doc refuses, since Buford never paid for his services in the first place, to which Buford replies with a death threat.

Doc takes Marty back to his workshop, both eager to return home, only to discover that the De Lorean's fuel line is broken, and Unleaded Gasoline will not be available for years. Doc makes several futile attempts to get the car to the required speed of 88 miles per hour until he devises a plan to push the De Lorean with a train locomotive. The only portion of track which is straight and level enough for the plan ends at Shonash Ravine. Doc explains that in 1985, there is a bridge over the ravine; and as long as the De Lorean attains a speed of 88 miles per hour before reaching the ravine, the car will arrive in 1985 where it will safely cross the bridge. However, while surveying the track, Marty and the Doc see the town's new schoolteacher Clara Clayton on a runaway carriage. Doc saves her just before the carriage plummets into the ravine. The two fall instantly in love before Marty and Doc realize that the Clara was intended to fall to her death, resulting in the ravine being renamed Clayton Ravine in her memory.

Buford attempts to kill Doc at the festival dedicating the town's new clocktower, only to have Marty disrupt the attempt. Buford goads Marty to a gunfight, which Marty schedules for the morning he and Doc plan to leave for 1985. Marty realizes that he, and not Doc, is now intended to die. As Marty and Doc camp out the night before they leave, Doc sneaks off to say goodbye to Clara. He tells her the truth about his time travel, but she believes he is making up the story just to avoid seeing her again; both are crushed. Clara buys a train ticket to San Francisco, but overhears a comment by a man who spoke to Doc about his love for her.

The next day, Marty attempts to find with Doc, only to be confronted by Buford Tannen. Buford shoots Marty, but Marty, inspired by a film he had earlier seen in part 2 of back to the future , is wearing armor made from the door of an iron stove. Marty beats up Buford and gets him arrested, then him and Doc head to meet the train. They steal the locomotive and push the De Lorean down the tracks with Marty in the car, and Doc in the locomotive. As Doc climbs along the outside of the train to board the De Lorean, he sees that Clara has boarded the locomotive. He goes back for her, making the decision to take her with him to the future. However, he runs out of time, saving Clara and escaping the locomotive just before the De Lorean sends Marty back to 1985.

Upon arriving back to 1985 over what is now named Eastwood Ravine, Marty dives from the De Lorean just before it is destroyed by a diesel freight train. Marty reunites with his girlfriend Jennifer and his family at home, to find that the history shown in Back to the Future Part II has ceased to exist, and that things have returned to how they were at the end of Part I. Marty and Jennifer drive to the ravine so that Jennifer can learn the truth of Marty's adventures. On the way, Marty is challenged to a street race by Douglas J. Needles. Marty seems to accept the challenge, but puts the car in reverse instead of forward gear, proving that he has learned a lesson about not being provoked into shows of bravery. As Needles' truck pulls away, it avoids a Rolls Royce which Marty would surely have hit. Jennifer, remembering that in 2015 she overheard that Marty's life was changed by an accident with a Rolls Royce (in Part II), sees the words "you're fired" disappear from a fax she took from the future.

As the two look over the wreckage of the De Lorean, reminiscing about Doc, Marty and Jennifer are thrown to the ground as a steam-powered locomotive appears out of nowhere. The door opens to reveal Doc, Clara, and their two sons aboard Doc's newest time machine. Doc gives Marty a memento of 1885, says farewell and takes off on another trip through time.

The movie grossed US$23 million in its first weekend of US release and $87.6 million altogether in US box office receipts – $243 million worldwide. On December 17, 2002, Universal Studios released Back to the Future Part III in a boxed set with the first two films on DVD and VHS which did extremely well. In the DVD widescreen edition there was a minor framing flaw that Universal has since corrected, available in sets manufactured after February 21, 2003.

In 1990, the movie won a Saturn Award for Best Music for Alan Silvestri and a Best Supporting Actor award for Thomas F. Wilson. In 2003, it received AOL Movies DVD Premiere Award for Best Special Edition of the Year, an award based on consumer online voting.

The film received a Thumbs Up from Gene Siskel and a very marginal Thumbs Down from Roger Ebert on Siskel & Ebert.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)

On the DVD commentary, Bob Gale and Neil Canton acknowledge that the film gave them a chance to play around with a genre they loved as children -- the Western. The film is full of references, jokes, and homages to the genre.

• The three old timers in the saloon are played by classic Western character actors Harry Carey, Jr., Dub Taylor, and Pat Buttram.
• Doc (in 1955) clads Marty in an absurd outfit based upon B-Westerns of the period.
• The scenes where Marty arrives in 1885 and is chased by Indians, and later when Doc hitches the DeLorean to a team of horses, were filmed in Monument Valley, known as "John Ford country" after the great director who used it extensively in his Westerns.
• Marty chooses "Clint Eastwood," the most notable modern Western actor, as his alias in 1885. The locals make fun of it as a sissy name, and tell Marty that if he doesn't face Buford "Clint Eastwood" will forever be known as a coward.
• Marty defeats Buford by imitating the final showdown in A Fistful of Dollars (which he had seen in Biff's penthouse suite in Part II).
• The establishing shot of Hill Valley, in which the camera is on a crane and rises over the train station to reveal a birds-eye view of the bustling main street, is an exact copy of a shot in Once Upon a Time in the West.

• Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly (aka "Clint Eastwood") and Seamus McFly
• Christopher Lloyd as Dr Emmett "Doc" Brown
• Mary Steenburgen as Clara Clayton
• Thomas F. Wilson as Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen and Biff Tannen
• Lea Thompson as Maggie McFly and Lorraine Baines McFly
• James Tolkan as Marshal Strickland
• Elisabeth Shue as Jennifer Parker
• Jeffrey Weissman as George McFly
• Matt Clark as Chester, the bartender
• Dub Taylor as Saloon Old-Timer #1
• Harry Carey, Jr. as Saloon Old-Timer #2
• Pat Buttram as Saloon Old-Timer #3
• Burton Gilliam as Colt Gun Salesman
• Richard Dysart as Barbed-Wire Salesman

• Robert Zemeckis: director/screenwriter
• Bob Gale: producer/screenwriter
• Neil Canton: producer
• Kathleen Kennedy: producer
• Frank Marshall: executive producer
• Steven Spielberg: executive producer
• Steve Starkey: associate producer

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The Back to the Future Part III novelization explains that Doc drained all the fluids from the DeLorean before storing it in 1885 to prevent corrosion, thus clarifying that the option to get gasoline from the stored DeLorean in 1885 was not available.

• The clothes that Doc wears in the final scene in the movie were modeled after the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz^[1]

• While shooting the stunt where Marty is being hanged by Tannen and his gang, Fox offered to try the stunt without using a box to stand on. He then miscalculated where his hand would slip between the rope and his neck, actually hanging himself, causing him to pass out. It was originally thought that there was a connection between Fox's Parkinson's symptoms and this incident.^[2]

• Maggie McFly would presumably be an ancestor of Marty's father George McFly. Oddly, however, she is played by Lea Thompson. This was done in part to allow the "Marty waking up after being hit on the head" scene to take place with Lea Thompson, just like the other two films. The producers have stated that the scene should not suggest she is an ancestor of Marty's mother, and that a possible explanation is that "McFly men are genetically predisposed to be attracted to women who look like Lea Thompson."'^[3]

• When Marty first arrives in 1885, the De Lorean does not have ice on it, as it does immediately after some of the other time trips. The producers explained this in the DVD commentary of the first movie. They found it to be difficult to cover the De Lorean with ice for repeated takes, so as the three movies went on in time the De Lorean began to be progressively less covered in ice with each trip through time. The time trips in this last film apparently have no ice at all on the car, though if you watch the very last trip it takes, you can still see that the De Lorean has minor ice in a close up of Marty's face through the window.

• Late former President Ronald Reagan, reportedly a fan of the BTTF series, was offered the role of the Mayor of the 19th century Hill Valley, to which he ultimately declined.^{[citation needed]}

• A number of historical references are made to product inventions. Marty throws a pie plate manufactured by the "Frisbie" pie company; this is, in fact, how the Frisbee company started. Doc talks to a barbed wire salesman at the saloon. Barbed wire was an important invention in the American west. The salesman in the film bears some resemblance to Joseph Glidden, who patented the invention in 1874. It is unknown if this resemblance was intentional by the creators.

Main article: Back to the Future video games

LJN released an NES game called Back to the Future II & III, a sequel to their game based on the first movie. An arcade Back to the Future Part III game was also released that would eventually be ported to several home video game systems, including the Sega Genesis.

• In an episode of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show when the family travels back in time to the old west, when main character and father Wayne Szalinski is asked his name by the town's inhabitants, he says it's John Wayne. When his wife gives him a look of disbelief, he says that if Marty could be Clint Eastwood in Back to the Future Part III, there was no reason why he could not be John Wayne.

• Back to the Future timeline
• Back to the Future trilogy
• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future Part II

• Official Universal Pictures site
• BTTF.com
• BTTF Frequently Asked Questions written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis
• Back to the Future Part III at the Internet Movie Database
• Back to the Future: Part III at All Movie Guide
• Back to the Future: Part III at Rotten Tomatoes

v • d • e Back to the Future trilogy
Back to the Future · Back to the Future Part II · Back to the Future Part III
Characters
McFly family	Marty McFly · George McFly · Lorraine Baines · Jennifer Parker · Seamus & Maggie McFly
Brown Family	Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown · Clara Clayton · Jules Brown · Verne Brown · Einstein
Tannen Family	Biff Tannen · Griff Tannen · Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
Related articles
Entertainment	Animated Series · Soundtrack · The Ride · Video games · Pinball machine · "The Power of Love"
Other	Timeline · De Lorean time machine · Other characters · Hill Valley

v • d • e Films directed by Robert Zemeckis
A Field of Honor • I Wanna Hold Your Hand • Used Cars • Romancing the Stone • Back to the Future • Who Framed Roger Rabbit • Back to the Future Part II • Back to the Future Part III • Death Becomes Her • Forrest Gump • Contact • What Lies Beneath • Cast Away • The Polar Express • Beowulf