As Back to the Future celebrates it’s 25th birthday you know a Hollywood executive is imagining
a way to remake it, imagine with me

When I was in Junior High School I remember hearing that The Wizard of Oz was one of the great films that could never be remade (apparently the film critic I heard conveniently forgot 1978’s The Wiz).

I remember thinking that’s really ashame because a modern Wizard of Oz would be so much cooler than a guy in a silly lion suit.

Apparently, as mentioned before, the idle daydreams of a preteen were shared by the decision makers in Hollywood and we now have a remake, a sequel, a prequel, and several other Wizard of Oz themed movies in the works.

If they’re remaking Oz, is there anything that’s truly remake proof? As Back to the Future gets re-released on Blu-Ray, DVD, and even for one day in some movie theaters to celebrate it’s 25th anniversary, and as the series captures headlines with cast reunions and video game developments is there not an executive sitting in an office somewhere thinking you know, we could reshoot that time travel movie in 3D!

And what if they did…

Would the iconic Deloraine be replaced with its modern day gull-winged relative, the 2011 Mercedes SLS AMG? I mean, like Doc said, if you’re going to build a time machine out of a car why not do it with style?

Would the Libyan terrorists of the 1985 film be re-written as an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell? Perhaps in a world that’s seen so much terrorism in the last decade, nervous studio executives would insist on axing the terrorist subplot all together. This would not only leave a gaping hole in Emmett Brown’s storyline, it’d also give a poor assignment writer some tough hoops to jump threw in explaining, in a positive light, where the good doctor’s stolen uranium came from.

Of course the biggest change would be a matter of time. The original film saw Marty travel from 1985 to 1955, a 30 year journey to a time when his parents were around the same age as him. If one were to remake the movie, present day Marty would have to have parent’s well into their 70s or the timeline would be seeing Marty travel way back in the past to… 1980.

That’s heavy, Doc.

Losing the setting of the 1950s changes the characters that inhabit the past, it changes their outlooks, their actions, and ultimately changes a good two thirds of your script… perhaps Back to the Future really is one that can never be remade?

In honour of the truly timeless Back to the Future’s 25th anniversary let’s imagine a classic scene built largely around a joke that was of it’s time…

And now updated for a remake…