My favorite movie (actually, movie trilogy) of all time is Back to the Future. It's probably not necessary to explain what this movie's about since almost everyone here has probably seen it. It was, as mentioned before (quite a few times) part of the inspiration for 2214. Some people have told me that the HC is kind of a rip-off of the DeLorean time machine... which it may, very well, be.
Back to the Future was written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The first movie came out in 1985; the second movie in 1989 and the third in 1990.
A lot of people I've talked to about these movies tend to like the first and second one but not particularly the third. Personally, I enjoyed all three but concede that part III departed quite a bit from the tone of the first two and had some aspects, like surviving in the Old West and the romance aspect between Doc Brown and Clara Clayton, that seemed very forced. Part III did have a stronger focus on comedy, however.
Just in case you haven't seen it, I'll summarize the series:
In the first movie, Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) is Dr. Emmett Brown's (played by Christopher Lloyd) lab assistant. One night, Marty is called to the Twin Pines Mall to assist the Doc in an experiment. When Marty arrives, he sees Doc Brown's latest experiment -- a 1985 DMC DeLorean sports car, outfitted with some unusual-looking equipment. Doc Brown demonstrates its functionality as a time machine.
Doc Brown discloses to Marty that he obtained the plutonium for the time machine's nuclear reactor from some Libyan terrorists who, coincidentally, find Doc Brown at the mall at that very moment and gun him down. Marty, desperate to escape the terrorists, jumps into the DeLorean, which is still armed to make a time jump as he speeds up to 88 miles per hour, triggering the time machine's wormhole generator and sending him back to the year 1955, which Doc Brown had set earlier during a discussion about the day that Doc Brown had first thought of the idea for the time machine's core component, the flux capacitor.
Once in 1985, Marty has to figure out what had happened and quickly tracks down the 37-year-old version of Doc Brown. At first, Doc Brown is skeptical of Marty's story but quickly learns that he is telling the truth. The two come up with a plan to power the time machine with lightning during a thunderstorm which is accurately predicted with Marty's knowledge of the future (and a conveniently-obtained flyer Marty brought with him from 1985) since there was no plutonium easily available (for obvious reasons).
In the week leading up to the thunderstorm, Marty inadvertently distracts his mother from starting a relationship with his father. This unintentional meddling begins to erase Marty and his siblings from existence. Marty must now come up with a plan to ensure his parents eventually get married and have children.
Eventually, Marty is successful in both of his endeavors and returns to 1985, if only for a brief moment, to once again be asked by Doc Brown for assistance, this time in the future.
In the second movie, Marty, Doc Brown, and Marty's girlfriend Jennifer travel to the year 2015 (which is just a few years away from right now, incidentally) in order to clear up a situation with Marty and Jennifer's children. While distracted at Marty's future home due to Jennifer ending up there via the aid of the police, Biff Tannen, the main antagonist from the first movie, who is now an old man, borrows the DeLorean to execute a "get rich quick" scheme involing his younger self and a sports almanac from 2015.
Biff manages to drastically change 1985 due to becoming extremely wealthy through gambling, since the future sports almanac empowered him to know all future sports outcomes. Marty and Doc Brown have to figure out how this happened and once again travel back to 1955 to take the sports almanac away from Biff. They eventually do so and Marty burns the sports almanac during the same thunderstorm that sent Marty back to the future in the first movie. As Doc Brown hovers overhead in the flying DeLorean, lightning strikes him, sending him back to the year 1885 and damaging the time circuits in the vehicle in the process.
A Federal Express agent hands Marty a letter from 1885 just moments later, which is from Doc Brown. It informs Marty that the Doc is safe in 1885. Marty finds out soon afterward that the Doc is, in fact, not safe at all and that he is shot by an outlaw who is the great grandfather of Biff Tannen.
Marty, with the 37 year old Doc Brown's help, retrieves the DeLorean from an abandoned mine shaft in 1955 and they restore it so that Marty can travel back to 1885 and rescue Doc Brown.
Back to the Future III's story is fairly simple so I'll make it short: Marty finds Doc Brown in the Old West and they hijack a steam locomotive in order to speed the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour. Through some complications in their plan, Marty returns to 1985 by himself but leaves the Doc in the past. Unable to remove the DeLorean from the train tracks, a freight train smashes the DeLorean into pieces, destroying the time machine.
At the very end, a bizarre-looking steam locomotive materializes on the tracks with Doc Brown and his new family inside. Doc Brown has built a new time machine out of a train and tells Marty that he's been traveling all over the timeline with it.
There you have it. I guess I wrote a fairly long synopsis of the trilogy.
