Back to the Future (1985)

Screenplay Genre:
Adventure / Family / Sci-Fi
Movie Time: 116
minutes
1. INCITING INCIDENT
Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) meets Doc Brown (Christopher Loyd) at the Twin Pines
Mall at 1:15 AM to help him conduct an experiment involving a tricked-out
DeLorean. When the DeLorean carrying Doc's dog Einstein disintegrates in a flash of
lighting, flames shooting between their legs, Doc is ecstatic shouting, Eighty-eight
miles per hour! Marty can only look on in horror thinking that Doc has killed
Einstein. He soon learns, though, that Doc has just invented time travel. (00:22:42)
2. LOCK IN (End of Act One)
Doc prepares to travel into the future, but Libyan terrorists arrive seeking revenge for
the plutonium Doc stole from them. Doc is gunned down, and Marty is forced to flee
in the DeLorean. After a car chase around the parking lot, Marty hammers the
accelerator, pushing the car to 88 miles an hour, sending him back in time to 1955.
(00:31:30)
3. FIRST CULMINATION (Midpoint)
The young Doc Brown of 1955 agrees to help Marty get back to 1985 by using the energy from a bolt of lightning set to strike the town clock tower, warning Marty that he
must not interact with anyone, but Marty has already disrupted the space/time continuum by bumping into both his mother, Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson) and
father, George McFly (Crispin Glover). And to their horror, they discover that Marty's
brother is slowly vanishing from a photograph Marty has. If Marty cannot mend the
damage he has caused, he and his siblings will be erased from existence. (00:55:47)
4. MAIN CULMINATION (End of Act Two)
Marty manages to get his parents back together, but his future isn't safe until they
kiss for the very first time on the dance floor. While sitting in on guitar with the band,
Marty watches as another guy rips Lorraine from George's arms. His very future now

hanging in the balance, Marty starts to weaken, fumbling at the strings as he begins
to fade from existence. Luckily, George reclaims his future bride and kisses her, thereby saving Marty and his siblings. (1:26:07)
5. THIRD ACT TWIST
Marty arrives in 1985, hoping that he will somehow be able to save Doc from the
terrorists, but hes too late, and can only sit weeping next to his fallen friend bemoaning the fact that if Doc hadn't torn up the letter Marty had given him in 1955, he
might have lived. As luck would have it, Doc wakes up, revealing that he is wearing
a bulletproof vest. To Marty's astonishment, Doc hands him a taped-up copy of the
letter. When Marty asks him why he would risk screwing up the future, Doc smiles
impishly and says, Well, I figured, what the hell. (1:44:39)
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