Back to the future

The Back to the Future saga is known by practically every self‑respecting movie enthusiast. Among the three chapters, everyone has their favorite: some choose the first, the one that launched the series; others prefer the second, perhaps the most sci‑fi of them all; and still others love the last one, thanks to its wonderful Old West setting.

As for me, I’ve always had a soft spot for the middle episode, with the brilliant idea of the sports almanac handed by old Biff to his younger self — a gesture capable of drastically altering the course of events and overturning the social dynamics that had been established.

In Back to the Future, the present of the characters at the center of the story is far from perfect. Marty, the film’s main protagonist, is a complicated teenager, constantly struggling against his own character flaws, and even “Doc” Emmett Brown is a brilliant but misunderstood scientist, marginalized by his colleagues.

And yet, even that far‑from‑idyllic present is infinitely better than the alternate present created after Biff’s sudden enrichment — Biff being the antagonist and main negative figure of the story. From a peaceful, livable town, Hill Valley has turned into a hellscape under Biff’s control, where crime and corruption run rampant.

When Marty returns to his own time, he no longer finds the neat rows of houses and the quiet peace he had left behind, but streets infested with thugs and loafers, where the only rule seems to be surviving until the next day. The police are powerless and corrupt, directly dependent on the whims of what increasingly looks like the city’s supreme oligarch.

According to the more “conspiratorial” minds, Hollywood has accustomed us to anticipating catastrophic or globally significant events that would occur years later, either through raw storytelling or allegory.

It’s impossible not to notice, for example, the similarity between Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and the vile atrocities revealed in the Epstein case, or the brilliant allegory proposed by the Wachowski siblings with the Matrix saga, meant to expose the reality often hidden beneath the protective layers of traditional information.

However, whether one looks at it with a more critical eye or not, I feel confident excluding the idea that the events of our beloved Back to the Future contain any reference to reality. Robert Zemeckis’ masterpiece is simply a highly successful work of cinematic fiction, created to entertain viewers of all ages.

There is no — and never will be — any time traveler, any great sports almanac capable of changing the fate of the world, or any high‑tech flying DeLorean. Unfortunately. Yes, because besides causing endless trouble, knowingly or not, the film’s charming duo also had the extraordinary ability to always set things right again and fix mistakes — their own or others’ — to make the present even better than before.

Despite all the talk and the various rumors that have surfaced in specialized publications, a fourth episode of the series is not planned. Zemeckis himself has categorically denied the rumors that circulated some time ago, adding that no reboots or remakes are planned either.

It’s a saga that could have been extended in many ways, even by exploring a slightly more sports‑themed storyline. Marty could have returned home after a trip to the past only to discover that his favorite sport — once fun and exciting — had turned into a sort of circus of horrors.

He would have noticed how simple sports rivalry had gradually turned into hatred. How the results on the field had become completely influenced by a clique of referees under judicial investigation. How an entire structure, once one of the country’s crown jewels, now survived solely to serve a club tied to organized crime.

And all of this not because of a book, but to satisfy the whim of an incompetent man with the right connections. And for variety, one could even imagine an alternative happy ending: the two true excellences of the system being crushed and sidelined by force, in favor of provincial or historically irrelevant realities.

Perhaps that would be too much — but as we know, sometimes reality surpasses fantasy.

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@girolamomarotta, @sardrt, @mikitaly, @mad-runner, @famigliacurione

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