Saturday, October 26, 2013

Where are they now? Back to the Future

by +Alexa Rankin

The year was 1985 and the world was waiting for a time travel trilogy to change it's life. As usual Steven Spielberg had his finger on the pulse and with the help of Robert Zemeckis they put together a series of movies to feed our time travel desires. James Cameron had just blown our minds with the negative angle of time travel with The Terminator, and Back to the Future was set to re-balance the time travel karma.

By now, everyone has seen at least one of these movies and knows the story of Marty, Doc and Jennifer, but do you know what they are up to now? Here is your chance to find out what these people have been up to since BTTF.

The Michael J. Fox story is well known since he has spent many hours on our TV screens as an actor and as a spokesperson for Parkinson's disease. He has spent time as a teen werewolf, an assistant to the mayor of New York as well as using his voice talents in the animated and video game versions of the BTTF franchise. He currently relaunching his TV career (again) with NBC's 'The Michael J. Fox Show'.

Christopher Lloyd was an ideal choice for the eccentric scientist, Doc Brown in the 3 movies. Lloyd was a well established stage and screen actor long before he was recruited as a time traveler. Since BTTF he has appeared in an awful lot of TV movies and series, none of which are really worth mentioning. Many of his later roles revolve around playing or parodying Doc Brown, the best of which was his appearance as Owen Kingston in Spin City, where he plays alongside Michael J. Fox again.

Lea Thompson played Marty's mother, Lorraine, both in 1955 and 1985 and then went on to TV obscurity for a while, surfacing briefly for Caroline in the City, and then Switched at Birth. She had the movie world at her feet after BTTF and in 1986 chose to take a career killing role in George Lucas's feathered flop, 'Howard the Duck'. It took her nearly ten years to get over that one.

You thought Crispin Glover was creepy as Marty's dad, George...? You should see some of his post BTTF roles. His most notable creeps were the flesh crawlingly creepy Thin Man in the 'Charlie's Angels' movies and the teflon coated ass kissing Knave of Hearts, Stayne in Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland'. Not much else happened for Crispin except Comic-Con.

The bad guy in all three movies was played by Thomas F. Wilson wearing various amounts of make up. He found more luck as a voice actor than a screen actor after playing multiple generations of Tannens. His most prolific post-Biff role is as a voice actor in the series known as Spongebob Squarepants which he has been doing for the last 12 years. His latest role was keeping Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy apart in 'The Heat'.

The Delorean DMC-12 is possibly the most recognizable movie car in the world (except maybe Herbie or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). Since the third movie, the Delorean has had few roles, including 'The Wedding Singer', 'Big Fat Liar' and 'Bikini Planet' and that's about it. Like most Hollywood actors, the Delorean is getting a makeover and is being rejuvenated in electric form.


That's it. I almost included Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who played Needles, in parts 2 & 3, and I deliberately omitted Elisabeth Shue and Claudia Wells (both incarnations of Jennifer) because the character in the movies is superficial and I didn't want to make this post too long.




2 comments :

Unknown said...

I can only observe that you have no liking for this trilogy. How sad especially since a lot of your info is either incomplete....or just wrong. Sad indeed!

Alexa Rankin - Slap the Penguin said...

Thanks for your kind words Robert. We love it when our fans actually take the time to write a comment. It makes our otherwise thankless hard work seem so worthwhile.
I wasn't sure which vibe you were picking up on, but I don't dislike this trilogy, I think you may have just mistaken our website for a serious one. How sad that your information is incomplete....or just wrong. Sad indeed!

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