When filmmakers tackle a project, they have such an intimate relationship with it that it gives them a fairly unique perspective on the finished work. That also means they see flaws in their movie that most don’t. Back to the Future writer Bob Gale is no exception to this, and while there’s not much he would fix with Back to the Future, there’s one major scene in the movie that makes him cringe.
Back to the Future is considered by some to be a perfect movie. The writing, the acting, the directing and everything involved comes together so well, it’s hard to imagine it being done any differently. There is one part of the movie, however, that Bob Gale has a hard time with, according to Comicbook.com, and it sounds like if he could go back and change it, he would. Here’s what he had to say:
Not too many. I'll tell you, though, the thing that aggravates me every time I see it is, and, again, we ran out of time, we didn't have time to perfect the special effect, in the Johnny B. Goode scene, when Marty starts to be erased from existence and there's the shot where he looks at his hand, and there's a hole in it, it really wasn't supposed to be like that. Everybody else is kind of just fading out of existence, and why is there this hole in his hand? That, we were up against a deadline. We just didn't have time to have ILM do a rethink on that and figure out a better way to do that. That would be the main, number one thing that makes me cringe.
Again, it’s interesting how filmmakers see things like this that most people wouldn’t bat an eye at. It’s also difficult to pinpoint exactly what he means. If you watch Back to the Future now, it just looks like Marty McFly’s hand is disappearing with no hole. So perhaps Bob Gale sees something I don’t, or the studio fixed this scene in later editions, like the special editions of Star Wars.
Even though Back to the Future is beloved by many and considered a perfect film, that doesn’t mean production was smooth sailing. One problem those involved ran into was the original actor they cast to play Marty McFly, Eric Stoltz. When they realized it wasn’t working, they had to let him go and re-cast with Michael J. Fox. While we've seen stills of Eric Stoltz playing the role, they've never released the full footage.
There’s also been a long-debated plot hole in the movie that Bob Gale had to eventually address. Fans have often raised the question how Marty’s parents, George and Loraine, wouldn’t have recognized their son as the same guy who set them up years before. Bob Gale cleared things up by saying he doesn’t think either of them would really remember Calvin Kline very much after 25 years.
Of course, the one thing that makes most fans cringe is not getting a sequel to the trilogy, but that might just have to be something we’ll have to live with. Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more movie and TV news.
