Trailer
Plot summary
In 1985, Doc Brown arrives in the DeLorean and talks Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker into a trip to 2015, where their children need help. Doc leaves Jennifer asleep in an alley so she will not learn about her own future. He explains that Marty's son is set to fall in with Griff Tannen's gang, and tells Marty to take his son's place and turn Griff down. Griff calls Marty chicken, and a chase on hoverboards follows. Before they leave 2015, Marty buys an almanac of sports results, and Doc takes it from him, warning against making money from time travel. Old Biff Tannen overhears the two of them and picks the almanac up.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After Crispin Glover learned that molds made from his face for the first film were reused to make prosthetics for Jeffrey Weissman's George McFly, he sued the producers for using his likeness without permission; the suit led to Screen Actors Guild clauses banning the practice.
- Crispin Glover was asked to return as George McFly but could not agree on a fee: the producers' highest offer was $125,000, less than half of what the other returning cast members were offered.
- Industrial Light & Magic's VistaGlide motion control system let Michael J. Fox play three characters, Marty Sr., Marty Jr. and Marlene, interacting with each other, and for the first time allowed camera movement in such a shot.
- Robert Zemeckis joked on the behind-the-scenes featurette that the hoverboards were real but withheld over parental safety complaints; some viewers believed him and asked toy stores for them, and Thomas F. Wilson said it became one of his most frequent questions.
- Cowriter Bob Gale said the characterization of the 1985 version of the villain Biff Tannen took inspiration from Donald Trump.
- Claudia Wells planned to return as Jennifer Parker but withdrew during a family health crisis, so Elisabeth Shue replaced her and the producers re-shot the first film's closing scenes almost shot-for-shot for the opening of Part II.
- The third act was first written to take place in 1967, with Lorraine as a flower child protesting the war and George a college professor at Berkeley, until Zemeckis saw a chance to revisit 1955 and the first film's events.
- A 2020 Netflix release of the trilogy carried an edited Part II that shortened the shot revealing a soft-porn magazine; Bob Gale said he and Zemeckis were unaware of the change, and Universal soon gave Netflix the unedited theatrical version.
