A few years ago Empire has drawn up a ranking of the 33 best film trilogies of all time. One of those occasions occurred in which those present in the three highest steps of the podium could safely exchange places because each of the various possible combinations – few, only 6 – would still have gone well.

That “gone in print” sees the lord of the rings in the first position, at the second the classic Star Wars trilogy and the third one returning to the future. O back to the future if you like the original title.

Speaking of the saga conceived by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and produced by the greatest Hollywood director to date in activity, Steven Spielberg, the English cinema magazine writes something that I subscribe to the letter by letter: Show US A Person Who Doesn’T Like Back To The Future and We’ll Show You A Person WHO is Tired of Life (show us a person I don’t like Back to the future And we will show you a tired person of life). Normally I am a person of wide views on anything, but on return to the future I do not settle. Or, to better specify, I conduct my existence following a personal rule of life that leads me to keep me as far as possible from any person I do not appreciate the vicissitudes for a walk in Marty and Doc. I belong to that category of people who own the three films in DVD, Blu-ray and 4K and who, if possible, presents himself in the room, to the various celebratory projections, dressed as the character of Michael J. Fox, with a lot of volopate. That yes, in agreement, it is of the second part, but being without a de Lorean I have to make a virtue of necessity.

A trilogy that, contrary to the other two present in the podium of Empire, such was and has remained. And such is destined to remain in the time to come, at least in theory.

The others have been enriched (?) From sequel, prequel, TV series, spin-offs that have contributed to triggering a rereading process of the original stories.

With back to the future, the only possible rereading is the one that can be reviewed today with today’s Crisems a trio of films in which the first, released in American theaters on July 3, 1985 (in Italy it would arrive on October 18, a very appropriate date considering that in the film the journey through time of Marty Mcfly takes place on October 26, 1985).

From 1985 onwards he inspired films, TV series and cartoons of all kinds, but Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale have not been dreamed of widening the fresco of history (if not with a musical) and all of us will be eternally grateful than this more dynamic duo than that composed of Batman and Robin.

Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale: they are the ones who keep the reins back to the future

Hollywood is an industrial entity made up of various realities all or almost somewhat lazy. Studios of “Tinseltown” does not like to risk too much, especially in the field of high budget films. Which is a bit of the reason why we are increasingly rarely we see films with a particularly high production cost that are not part of some comic, videogame or literary trend already well consolidated. Or that they are not the remake (or reboot or, as it now goes out of fashion, Legacyquel) of some old glory.

In the case of returning to the future, we do not doubt about the fact that in the universal offices there would be someone ready to approve the budget for a remaking or restart of the saga without thinking twice, but fortunately it is something that will not happen theoretically ever.

The reason is simple: as long as Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale will be alive, every decision on the franchise is up to them. When they have gone to better life we ​​will see. For the moment, on more than one occasion, they underlined with a certain peremptory that do not intend to start operations of this type.

It is not a mystery – it is quietly reported also in my author’s card on uisjournal.com – ​​which for thirteen years out of twenty I supervised the editorial activities of the deceased Badtaste.it site which was one of the verticals on the world of most well -known and respected entertainment of the Italic web scene. Here, among the many chats made in those thirteen years, there is also one – telephone – with Robert Zemeckis whose audio still kept jealously together with that of any other Hollywood star with whom I chatted for written and non -video pieces (it is the problem of being a serial accumulator regardless). Since in those days, it was the summer of 2018, Christopher Lloyd, historical interpreter of “Doc” Emmett L. Brown, had said that if Gale and Zemeckis had decided to do it, he would have greatly participated in a fourth return to the future I took the opportunity to ask the director, as the last question, what he thought of the actor’s words.

Zemeckis, who had immediately taken me in sympathy as Marches, his mother Rosa Nespeca was born in that arrival of the Tronto almost entirely razed to the ground in the 2016 earthquake, gave an unequivocal response and tranchant: “There will never be and then ever and in the most absolute way a return to the future 4. There will be no more return to the future”.

Back to the future is fine like this

Of course, that was a consideration made on a sequel rather than a remake, but it makes the idea of ​​what the approach of those who, in 1985, brought a piece of cinema history in cinemas. A masterpiece that many have undoubtedly gone to see initially because they are produced by the Steven Spielberg of Lo Shark, et and Indiana Jones and played by the young star of the house Keaton Michael J. Fox, but who would then have definitively projected that Robert Zemeckis who had managed to make the film after the good success of in search of the green stone has managed among the greats.

Return to the future part 1 already contained all the obsessions of a director who, during his filmography, has always and in any case reflected on the concept of time. Time that passes, time that re -emerges from the past, time that is literally crossed. There is a red thread that starts from back to the future and passes through Forrest Gump, the hidden truths, to Christmas Carol and Cast Away.

A filmmaker that has also always tried to push forward the boundaries of what the technology applied to cinema can do, from the optical and practical effects used 40 years ago in return to the future to artificial intelligence used to rejuvenate Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in his latest film, here.

Return to the future part 1 is a feature film where everything works and where everything comes back. There is an obsessive cure for details so much that, when Marty ends up in 1955, we perfectly understand why we are showed or listened to a date in the segment set in 1985. It is extraordinary in telling how easy it is to become parents who forget what to have been young. Like the mother of the protagonist who, in the prologue, seems to be an authentic stick but, however, as a young man, he loved to “park” with the boys so much so that he also tries to get entitled that boy who is actually … his son. The interpretations are memorable, the perfect comic times, the action calibrated to the millimeter.

But above all: return to the future has certainly not invented the journey through time to the cinema, but it is certainly what has established the most solid foundations. Think about a book (and a movie) like Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban, a kolossal like Avengers: endgame or an animated series like Rick and Morty and how much they are indebted to the film.

In short, just to insist on this allegory: 40 years have passed but I return to the future is a watch yet perfectly on time that has not lost even half a second.