Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) vs. Back to the Future (1985): Part 2

<v Speaker 1>Welcome back, friends. This is part two of our series
<v Speaker 1>on Raiders of the Lost Arc versus Back to the Future.
<v Speaker 1>We really appreciate you joining us again and we hope
<v Speaker 1>you tune in for all the episodes to come without
<v Speaker 1>further ado.
<v Speaker 2>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely You Can't Be
<v Speaker 2>Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
<v Speaker 2>of eighties and nineties pop culture with your co hosts
<v Speaker 2>James D. Graves and Jason Colbin.
<v Speaker 1>Welcome back for part two of the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious Podcast.
<v Speaker 3>Welcome, Well, let's talk about the actors that were considered
<v Speaker 3>for India Jones for a second. Do that. Let's do that, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>So as it's I mean, it's well known, maybe maybe
<v Speaker 3>our listeners may have not, maybe sure or whatever. Tom
<v Speaker 3>Selleck was hired to be Indiana Jones had the part.
<v Speaker 3>He did. He actually auditioned with Sean Young. Se Sean
<v Speaker 3>Young who was in later Yes, and Tom Sellick had
<v Speaker 3>the part was Indiana Jones. You can watch the audition tape.
<v Speaker 3>Looked like he was going to do a good job.
<v Speaker 3>Of course, he's that still broad shouldered.
<v Speaker 4>He was in different looking Indiana Jones. He looked like
<v Speaker 4>a hulking Indiana Jones instead of Professor Jones.
<v Speaker 3>In a leather jacket. Right, But he had just filmed
<v Speaker 3>the pilot for the show called magnum p I and
<v Speaker 3>CBS said, no, don't think we're going to release Chef.
<v Speaker 3>We want to go ahead and do this magnip I thing.
<v Speaker 3>So he could have had to back out. And at
<v Speaker 3>the time, you know, Spielberg was like, what about what
<v Speaker 3>about Harrison You know, he was in American Effeini with
<v Speaker 3>George Lucas. You're supposed being fast thing in the valley Man,
<v Speaker 3>but can't be your car.
<v Speaker 2>It must be your mama's car.
<v Speaker 3>He was, of course Han Solo from the Star Wars,
<v Speaker 3>and George said, I don't really want him to be
<v Speaker 3>my Bobby de Niro. Like Scorsese had worked with Robert
<v Speaker 3>de Niro in several movies, and he keeps reappearing as
<v Speaker 3>different characters in all of his movies. George was very
<v Speaker 3>much against.
<v Speaker 4>Harrison Ford doing That's fascinating.
<v Speaker 3>As it turns out, Harrison Ford was the perfect fit.
<v Speaker 3>But here's a couple other guys who auditioned and were
<v Speaker 3>at least in consideration for Freddie and Jones. Tim Matheson,
<v Speaker 3>who you might remember from Animal House and Flitch, Yeah, right,
<v Speaker 3>he and he has the right look but not the
<v Speaker 3>right time. Right. Peter Coyote, he was an et, he's
<v Speaker 3>been in some movies. He's not tough enough, he's not
<v Speaker 3>a handsome man. A guy named John Shay, I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>It turns out he's That was a good call there too.
<v Speaker 3>Sean Young was very very close. Deva Winger actually turned.
<v Speaker 4>Down the part for Mary Raywood and dev Winger famous
<v Speaker 4>for Urban Cowboy and Beaches, which I can probably say
<v Speaker 4>I've never.
<v Speaker 3>Seen offstream chilling. So those were actors that were considered.
<v Speaker 3>Harrison Ford, of course, picks it up and runs with it, right.
<v Speaker 4>And then you have in the part of Marion Kroen Allen,
<v Speaker 4>who was also an Animal House. Yes, and I got
<v Speaker 4>to say, she didn't do a whole lot after this.
<v Speaker 4>You know, it's a shame about Crystal Skull and all,
<v Speaker 4>but but she didn't.
<v Speaker 3>But she was perfect in this part. She was great.
<v Speaker 4>Just there's no other person that I think would have
<v Speaker 4>done this place.
<v Speaker 3>She has the spunk ye in the fire, Yes, and
<v Speaker 3>you believe it when she is she has enough feminine
<v Speaker 3>wiles to seduce Melloch in the you know.
<v Speaker 4>And yes, so she was grave. Yeah, she's scrappy and pretty.
<v Speaker 4>She's tough but can be frightened like a Amsel in distress.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, she does it all very well. And that's
<v Speaker 4>something to consider about this character. You know, I'm all
<v Speaker 4>for the women who kicked butt, like Black Widow, but
<v Speaker 4>for this time, in this day, she kicked butt, but
<v Speaker 4>she was still someone who needed rescue, came.
<v Speaker 3>To hold off the white dress. Yep. She also you
<v Speaker 3>believe that punch when she hits Indy in the chin
<v Speaker 3>the first time. You know, I need one of the
<v Speaker 3>pieces your father collected. I learned to hit you in
<v Speaker 3>the last ten years anyway, So that's how it came about.
<v Speaker 3>But we've been together for a million ye Let's talk
<v Speaker 3>about the actors that were originally supposed to be in
<v Speaker 3>Back to the Future.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, So for the part of Marty McFly, they wanted
<v Speaker 4>Michael J. Fox from the get go, absolutely, but very
<v Speaker 4>much like Tom Selick, he had just become involved in
<v Speaker 4>a very popular TV show called Family Times. Yes, Alex peaking,
<v Speaker 4>Alex Pinking. I loved watching Family Times a great show,
<v Speaker 4>and ironically enough, he played this character who was who
<v Speaker 4>rebelled against his hippie parents by being the Republican of
<v Speaker 4>the family.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 4>He was the you know, the biggest supporter of Ronald Reagan,
<v Speaker 4>and he was the pull for the show.
<v Speaker 3>I mean everybody wanted to watch him. Oh. Absolutely.
<v Speaker 4>Goldberg's the name of the guy who's producing Family Ties,
<v Speaker 4>and he's like, I love the script. I will not
<v Speaker 4>let Michael J. Fox read it because if he reads it,
<v Speaker 4>he's going to want to do it and you cannot
<v Speaker 4>have him. I just need him too much. He's in
<v Speaker 4>full time, full time job being Alex P. Keaton right now,
<v Speaker 4>No way, right, So they consider several other people, including Johnny.
<v Speaker 3>Depp, John Cusack. Yes, see, Thomas Howe finished second to
<v Speaker 3>the guy they actually ended up hiring.
<v Speaker 4>Right, and also considered was Charlie Sheen Really Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I didn't know Charlie Sheen.
<v Speaker 4>See Thomas Howell at that time, Yes, was big because
<v Speaker 4>of the Outsiders, right, he's I mean it's very popular.
<v Speaker 4>We're talking about nineteen eighty three is when they're doing
<v Speaker 4>the casting. So he's at the top of his game
<v Speaker 4>right now.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Can you imagine Marty McFly, Johnny Depp or John Cusack. No, no,
<v Speaker 3>see Thomas Howe at the time made sense, but now no,
<v Speaker 3>it's Michael J. Fox. But they end up hiring There Stults.
<v Speaker 4>Who had been in a movie with Leah Thompson Wildlife, right,
<v Speaker 4>So that's actually how she got cast. They were looking
<v Speaker 4>at his Wildlife movie and they were like, who's like her, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>let's have her comment. And it was because she nailed
<v Speaker 4>the old Lorraine that.
<v Speaker 3>She got that part. It was meant to be, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>because I.
<v Speaker 4>Mean, obviously she's young and beautiful. She can pull off
<v Speaker 4>the high school student without any trouble. Let's see how
<v Speaker 4>she does with an old beat down lady.
<v Speaker 3>And she knail.
<v Speaker 4>So they start filming with Eric Stoles, and they filmed
<v Speaker 4>a lot. They didn't they filmed a whole lot, right,
<v Speaker 4>But at the outset they start to see trouble and
<v Speaker 4>Leah Thompson talks about how when they sat down to
<v Speaker 4>do their the reading, you know, they'll sit down on
<v Speaker 4>the table and everybody they'll go through the whole movie.
<v Speaker 4>Everybody reads their lines. You know, they go through this
<v Speaker 4>whole thing and it's You've got this funny rom com
<v Speaker 4>sci fi action adventure thing, and everybody's laughing at the
<v Speaker 4>end and talking about what they think, and they're like, Eric,
<v Speaker 4>what do you think? And he goes, you know, I
<v Speaker 4>think it's I think it's a tragedy and they're like what,
<v Speaker 4>and he's like, well, everything that this guy has ever
<v Speaker 4>known is all of a sudden gone. I mean, he
<v Speaker 4>comes back to a completely different existence. I can't imagine
<v Speaker 4>how upsetting that would be. And apparently that kind of
<v Speaker 4>was the way it went for the rest of the
<v Speaker 4>filming with Eric Stoltz. Now, Eric Stoltz was a method actor,
<v Speaker 4>which means he's kind of kooky about how he does stuff.
<v Speaker 4>We've heard about Sean Penn and Fast Times at Richmond
<v Speaker 4>High everybody had to call him Spaccoli. He wouldn't answer
<v Speaker 4>to anything else. Eric Stoltz did the same thing. He
<v Speaker 4>said he wanted people to only call him Marty. He
<v Speaker 4>wouldn't answer to anything but Martin.
<v Speaker 3>I love this story. And then you get ready to
<v Speaker 3>tell her.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, and so you know, they keep shooting. He's got
<v Speaker 4>this tragedy idea in his head. Bob Zemeckis calls Bob
<v Speaker 4>Gail and says, I need you to come look at
<v Speaker 4>some of these shots. I think we've got a problem.
<v Speaker 4>And Bob Gale's like, we never look at shots until
<v Speaker 4>the movie's done. That just doesn't happen. So this has
<v Speaker 4>got to be something really bad. So they go and
<v Speaker 4>look and it's just sad. I mean, it's not he's
<v Speaker 4>not making the funny funny. And so Spielberg, being the
<v Speaker 4>experienced guy that he is, it says, I'll talk to
<v Speaker 4>Eric about what's going on. And this may be this
<v Speaker 4>may be apocryphal, but hey, I'm gonna tell the story anyway.
<v Speaker 3>Whatever.
<v Speaker 4>So Spielberg goes goes over to Eric Stoltz's trailer and
<v Speaker 4>he's like, Eric, kam here, we need to talk. And
<v Speaker 4>he's like Marty and he's like Eric, just come here,
<v Speaker 4>we need to talk. And he's like, my name is Marty.
<v Speaker 4>He goes, no, your name is Eric, and you're fired.
<v Speaker 4>You are no longer Marty.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, you got to give it back, right.
<v Speaker 4>And so at that point, I don't remember what they
<v Speaker 4>said to Goldberg that convinced him to let Michael J.
<v Speaker 4>Fox come over and do both, but he was literally
<v Speaker 4>filming Family Ties and back in the future at the
<v Speaker 4>same time. Who would film uh, family tized during the
<v Speaker 4>day he would hop in a car and sleep in
<v Speaker 4>the car as he drove to the set for the
<v Speaker 4>shooting four Back to the Future. When they kind of
<v Speaker 4>approached him about this idea, he was like, twenty two
<v Speaker 4>years old, what do I need to sleep?
<v Speaker 3>Right? In fact, if you notice in Back to the
<v Speaker 3>Future the day shots and when he's on skateboard, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>all those were shot on the weekends. Anytime you see
<v Speaker 3>daylight as a weekend.
<v Speaker 4>Shot, and there's yeah, I mean quite a few night shots.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know if that's the reason that they had
<v Speaker 4>to go, that they had to have their experiment at
<v Speaker 4>one n fifteen in the morning.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe that was it. I mean, it's okay. I had
<v Speaker 3>a big part of it. Yeah, right. Also, somebody else
<v Speaker 3>was fired at the same time, Eric Stolets was fired.
<v Speaker 3>Did you hear this story?
<v Speaker 1>No?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So Laura Harden, she was originally supposed to be
<v Speaker 3>Jennifer Parker. She was fired when Eric Stolts was fired. Right,
<v Speaker 3>Laura Harden, You recognize her from the office. She's the
<v Speaker 3>girlfriend she's jan in the office. There you go, Yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 3>so she was fired. You know why she's fired? Too? Tall?
<v Speaker 4>She was too tall for Michael J. Fox right with Eric.
<v Speaker 4>Eric was a taller guy and so she fit with him.
<v Speaker 4>The girl originally cast was the girl who ended up
<v Speaker 4>playing Jennifer, but she just couldn't do it. She had
<v Speaker 4>started another TV series of her own at the time,
<v Speaker 4>so she wasn't able to do the movie. But by
<v Speaker 4>the time that they switched back and had Michael J. Fox, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>the TV pilot had busted and so she was free
<v Speaker 4>to film the movie and.
<v Speaker 3>So I inserted Klaudie Wells as Jennifer Parker. It's really cool.
<v Speaker 3>And before we move on, the fact that the cast
<v Speaker 3>all had six weeks to sort of live dress, rehearse
<v Speaker 3>could only improve their performances.
<v Speaker 4>I think, yeah, well, and you know they talked about that,
<v Speaker 4>talked to like Christopher Lloyd had obviously had to reshoot
<v Speaker 4>all of these scenes with Marty that he had done before. Now,
<v Speaker 4>Christopher Lloyd is a stage actor. I mean he was
<v Speaker 4>in Taxi, which is a TV show, but he is
<v Speaker 4>very script centric. You know, he gets an idea of
<v Speaker 4>who the character is and then he sticks to the script.
<v Speaker 3>Whereas Michael J.
<v Speaker 4>Fox, his acting chops had come along in TV shows
<v Speaker 4>which were constantly rewritten, and so Michael when he came in,
<v Speaker 4>but ad lib lines. It didn't throw Christopher Lloyd off
<v Speaker 4>because he's a talented man, but it was an entirely
<v Speaker 4>different experience from the method acting that he had gotten
<v Speaker 4>with Eric Staltz. And some of the best lines in
<v Speaker 4>this movie are lines they well, rock and Roll was
<v Speaker 4>an ad lib line. That's not how it was originally.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, hey, it's not the years, it's the mileage ad
<v Speaker 3>libline from Mariyters last.
<v Speaker 4>Stark, what are you looking at? But ed ad lib line?
<v Speaker 3>Wow, yep, that's cool. All right. So listen to this
<v Speaker 3>list of actors that were considered for Duc Brown. So
<v Speaker 3>here you go. John Lithgow, Dudley Moore, James Woods, Jeff Goldblum,
<v Speaker 3>Gene Wilder, Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Robin Williams, John Cleese.
<v Speaker 3>John Cleese is the only one of those guys that
<v Speaker 3>I could see I actually, but still it's not the
<v Speaker 3>same movie with him. Chris Lloyd kills it.
<v Speaker 4>Did you ever watch The Old Taxi a little bit?
<v Speaker 4>So his character was this kind of crazy which pulled
<v Speaker 4>him in, and he had rejected the script initially like
<v Speaker 4>they sent it to him. They wanted him, but he
<v Speaker 4>was like, I'm doing this other thing. I'm not really interested.
<v Speaker 3>And his wife said, you know you always said you
<v Speaker 3>would never turn down something without looking at it first, right.
<v Speaker 3>He's like, okay, well, my wife feels like I need
<v Speaker 3>to look at it. Didn't look at it, right. So
<v Speaker 3>I know you and I've talked about this. I have
<v Speaker 3>some other friends that I talk about on Twitter. But
<v Speaker 3>the alternate universe of a Back to the Future movie
<v Speaker 3>with ce Thomas Howe and Gene Wilder, I mean, are
<v Speaker 3>you kidding me? Watch what twas?
<v Speaker 4>So In the TV series Taxi, he plays this kind
<v Speaker 4>of nutty office rocker, just you know, off center a
<v Speaker 4>little bit, and he always does the bug act thing.
<v Speaker 4>You know, he throws his head back and he bugs
<v Speaker 4>his eyes out, and so the very first time that
<v Speaker 4>you see him in Back of the Future he does
<v Speaker 4>that look he gets out at the toddle of the car.
<v Speaker 3>That's right, right.
<v Speaker 4>So there's your mcguffin for Back in the Future. Of
<v Speaker 4>McGuff and for Lebrators of the Lost Dark is obviously
<v Speaker 4>the arc, it's the driving force.
<v Speaker 3>Behind the movie.
<v Speaker 4>The MacGuffin for Back to the Future is the time
<v Speaker 4>machine de Lawyer, Okay, and so it's you know, it's
<v Speaker 4>got an earlier, beautiful introduction, and you know, just to
<v Speaker 4>compare him, you've got this bright, shiny, golden religious treasure here,
<v Speaker 4>and then on the other side of the future, you've
<v Speaker 4>got this bright shiny silver ultra modern scientific wonder as
<v Speaker 4>the driving forces.
<v Speaker 3>Behind the movies.
<v Speaker 4>And so then he pops up the wing doors and
<v Speaker 4>pops out of the driver's seat and does his bug
<v Speaker 4>eye look from taxi, and everybody's like, a it's I'm familiar.
<v Speaker 3>I know this man suck.
<v Speaker 2>Delated down.
<v Speaker 4>We've always so we we've had a little bit of
<v Speaker 4>an establishment when Strickland, Yeah, he talks about him being
<v Speaker 4>a nut, so we kind of have this idea of
<v Speaker 4>the nuttiness behind him already. And then of course we've
<v Speaker 4>seen the shed outside of the Burger King that is
<v Speaker 4>his current abode after his mansion is by the way
<v Speaker 4>again set up. I had to try. I was like,
<v Speaker 4>why why are we seeing a newspaper clipping about the
<v Speaker 4>mansion being destroyed and him selling the brown estate of
<v Speaker 4>prime real estate? And I realized that's how he got
<v Speaker 4>all the money to do.
<v Speaker 3>All this stuff. How he funds this stuff. Yeah, he
<v Speaker 3>sold everything that he had just to make the flux
<v Speaker 3>capacitor and whatever the machine is that turns plutonium into electricity, right,
<v Speaker 3>the whole He sold his entire fortune for a dream
<v Speaker 3>that he had after he had on file hanging the Okay, cool,
<v Speaker 3>we got that covered.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, So Tom Wilson, there were some other options, Tim Robbins.
<v Speaker 4>Tim Robbins was one of the possibilities for the part
<v Speaker 4>of Biff Tannon.
<v Speaker 3>You know, Tim Robbinson is a good He can be
<v Speaker 3>menacing a little bit, but he can be funny. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>But Tom Wilson is the perfect ultra butt head. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>And when you say I can remember seeing him all
<v Speaker 4>of them, I mean every single one of them. Crispin Glover,
<v Speaker 4>Tom Wilson, and Leah Thompson, every single one of them.
<v Speaker 4>The first time I saw that movie, I thought they
<v Speaker 4>are that old, And then we got to the nineteen
<v Speaker 4>fifty five I thought, how do they do that?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 4>Oh my gosh, that's really them. And they just made
<v Speaker 4>them look old because they did such a great job
<v Speaker 4>with their makeup and the lighting so that you just
<v Speaker 4>believe there Tically.
<v Speaker 3>Crispin Glover I think, yeah, he was the one that
<v Speaker 3>I was like, Man, is he old or yelling? I
<v Speaker 3>can't tell him.
<v Speaker 4>I really like the combover that Beff has though in
<v Speaker 4>nineteen eighty five, pretty good, pretty good with his polyester pants,
<v Speaker 4>Crispin Glover, he's the only one that kind of rubs
<v Speaker 4>me the wrong way out of this whole cast. You know,
<v Speaker 4>it's interesting that you say that, because obviously the directors
<v Speaker 4>didn't keep him around for number two or number three.
<v Speaker 3>He drove them insane.
<v Speaker 4>I think it was one of the most disappointing things
<v Speaker 4>for Leo tom. She felt like he did such a
<v Speaker 4>good job. And really, if you go look he does
<v Speaker 4>and he does out. Hey, you get your damn hands off.
<v Speaker 3>Oh I think you got the wrong Commonfly, do help me?
<v Speaker 4>Just turn around on M thefly and walk away?
<v Speaker 3>Are you death? McFly closed the door and beat it
<v Speaker 3>no good?
<v Speaker 4>You leave her alone?
<v Speaker 3>And he again.
<v Speaker 4>He was one of the method actors who did these
<v Speaker 4>kind of weird things, so that probably rubbed them a
<v Speaker 4>bit wrong with their Eric Stoltz experience. But also he
<v Speaker 4>was infamous for missing the marks. Where As you're filming
<v Speaker 4>a movie, you have to land at a certain spot
<v Speaker 4>so that you're the right spot in the frame of
<v Speaker 4>the shot, and he would miss it and they'd redo it,
<v Speaker 4>and they'd miss it and they'd redo it. And so
<v Speaker 4>in the sequels you had a stand in who was
<v Speaker 4>hung ups down right, which honestly they had. I thought, oh,
<v Speaker 4>they hung him upside down, so we can't really see
<v Speaker 4>his face.
<v Speaker 3>Now.
<v Speaker 4>The truth is they had written that scene in already
<v Speaker 4>with him in mind, and it was to keep him
<v Speaker 4>from missing his mark.
<v Speaker 3>And it was Yeah, it was intentionally to miss with him,
<v Speaker 3>to miss with Christmas. Which here's his quote that I
<v Speaker 3>found that. This is one of the reasons why it
<v Speaker 3>kind of bugs me. So christmah Glover claims to have
<v Speaker 3>only seen the film once shortly after its release. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that this whole that whole thing just bugs me. Well,
<v Speaker 3>here's the thing, I don't know. I mean, just think
<v Speaker 3>about this. Johnny Depp never watches any of his movies.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's the dumbest thing.
<v Speaker 4>Well, I can understand it because a lot of times
<v Speaker 4>when I see myself on camera, I'm uncomfortable. I'm like,
<v Speaker 4>is that really what I look like? And if you've
<v Speaker 4>got that in your head as you're trying to perform
<v Speaker 4>in other situations, it's going to mess with you. I
<v Speaker 4>get it, I can I understand how it can be
<v Speaker 4>bothered him. And then as far as only seeing it
<v Speaker 4>one time, I think a lot of them probably just
<v Speaker 4>saw it one time that when you've been in the movie,
<v Speaker 4>you don't have to keep going, you don't have to
<v Speaker 4>watch it like the fan boys.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know that just me Anyway, he apparently.
<v Speaker 4>Is is a kind of eccentric.
<v Speaker 3>He is that type of guy there.
<v Speaker 4>He's there's an infamous interview that he did with David Letterman,
<v Speaker 4>his appearance on David Letterman that was just bizarre, beyond belief.
<v Speaker 2>And then they I don't have seemed to be distraught.
<v Speaker 3>They don't. You seem to be trying to make me
<v Speaker 3>sound a lot weird.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm just I'm strong.
<v Speaker 4>You know I'm strong.
<v Speaker 5>I can arm wrestle. Do you want to arm muscle?
<v Speaker 1>I mean taking you know, I'm taking us the artline?
<v Speaker 5>I can, I can, I can chick.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'm gonna go check on the top ten.
<v Speaker 3>You enjoy that, Paul.
<v Speaker 5>It was an interesting segment.
<v Speaker 2>I think that's the first time we've been doing the
<v Speaker 2>show that a guest actually tried to kick me.
<v Speaker 3>But you couple that with Christopher Lloyd Chris Lloyd. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>he has said publicly he's channel servant whatever comes across
<v Speaker 3>Hey by Future. So how watch interesting. I think that's
<v Speaker 3>really cool. Yeah, it's I think it's cool that he
<v Speaker 3>can join us and p and Okay, let's talk about
<v Speaker 3>composers and Huey Lewis for a minute.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah, absolutely, specifically on Huey Lewis, I can remember him.
<v Speaker 1>There's a major part of things I was seeing and
<v Speaker 1>hearing in my early childhood. I before this movie we had.
<v Speaker 1>Sports was one of the first three set tapes that
<v Speaker 1>I owned, along with Minute Work and William Nice.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, nice shout out for Careless Whisper right there.
<v Speaker 1>All I cared about was Waked Me Up before you
<v Speaker 1>Go six?
<v Speaker 5>Okay cool. So yeah, for me, I'm with you.
<v Speaker 3>Sports was the tape that I wore out at my
<v Speaker 3>house hard rock and roll. Yeah, they said my hometown
<v Speaker 3>in there right right, Austin, Oklahoma City. So that was
<v Speaker 3>big for my fifth grade self right there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's awesome. You know, Hugh Lewis is a big
<v Speaker 1>factor for Back to the Future. And then we can
<v Speaker 1>look at the composers as well, and they are both icons,
<v Speaker 1>and we're both kind of at the beginning stages. At
<v Speaker 1>the time that these movies came out. John Williams was
<v Speaker 1>the composer for Raiders Have Lost Arc and he had
<v Speaker 1>done a few movies before that, but was really kind
<v Speaker 1>of building the momentum. He'd obviously done Star Wars for
<v Speaker 1>George Lucas, he had done Superman for Richard Donner. He
<v Speaker 1>had done Close Encounters, Thank you, Close Encounters and Jaws. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and let me just take this moment right here to
<v Speaker 1>pay homage to a podcast that you and I both
<v Speaker 1>listened to call The Soundtrack Show.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, it's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>It is. It is incredible. It does a better job
<v Speaker 1>than we could ever hope to do with what it does,
<v Speaker 1>and it is brilliant. Thank you David W. Collins for
<v Speaker 1>putting that out there for us to learn from.
<v Speaker 5>If you haven't listened to it, do yourself a favor.
<v Speaker 3>And I will tell you from my standpoint as somebody
<v Speaker 3>who's seen both of these movies so many times, I
<v Speaker 3>can barely count it. When you listen to his podcast
<v Speaker 3>and he breaks down the music, I'm like, I got
<v Speaker 3>to go rewatch this movie. Absolutely it's a fresh approach
<v Speaker 3>to a movie that I know by heart.
<v Speaker 1>I'll say this. You know, growing up, I can remember
<v Speaker 1>punching on a sugar Ray Leonard boxing bag while listening
<v Speaker 1>to the Rocky soundtrack. I can remember putting on my
<v Speaker 1>Superman T shirt, my little red cape that Grandma made me,
<v Speaker 1>and flying around the room to the Superman soundtrack. When
<v Speaker 1>I started playing music and doing music, that was one
<v Speaker 1>of the things that I did was try to put
<v Speaker 1>together things that I thought would sound good in a movie.
<v Speaker 1>And when I was in the theater program, I would
<v Speaker 1>listen to classical music and imagine scenes and create scenes
<v Speaker 1>from the music that I was listening to.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, for sure.
<v Speaker 1>As it turns out, the way that movies typically go
<v Speaker 1>is the soundtrack doesn't happen until the end. You know,
<v Speaker 1>they do all of the filming, they do they do
<v Speaker 1>the writing, they do the editing, they do all of that,
<v Speaker 1>and then last stage, the symphony gets together and they
<v Speaker 1>put the soundtrack to the movie. And so knowing that
<v Speaker 1>it's it's almost it's counterintuitive to me. Almost. I'm just like,
<v Speaker 1>the movie seems so inspired by the music, but as
<v Speaker 1>it turns out, what really is happening is that these
<v Speaker 1>composers have been inspired by what they've seen and they
<v Speaker 1>take that and they give us these amazing sound draps.
<v Speaker 5>That's so true.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So John Williams, Spielberg sits down with John Williams
<v Speaker 3>and tells him a little bit about what's going on.
<v Speaker 3>John Williams comes back with a couple of themes. I
<v Speaker 3>thought this was kind of an interesting story. Yes, and
<v Speaker 3>he plays them both for Spielberg and I'm gonna try
<v Speaker 3>and do them. Okay, I'm not singing or anything like that,
<v Speaker 3>but so he plays the D right right. That's one yes,
<v Speaker 3>and then he plays another one for me, so, okay,
<v Speaker 3>that's one theme that I like. Spieber's like, yeah, that's
<v Speaker 3>really good. And then he plays this one. He says,
<v Speaker 3>du right right, and he says, well, what do you
<v Speaker 3>think of that one? Philberg's like, well, kids, you use both,
<v Speaker 3>and he does and they come together and it is awesome.
<v Speaker 1>What John Williams has done. I mean, I don't think
<v Speaker 1>that there's any bigger icon at this time and is
<v Speaker 1>the best at this moment in history right now, not
<v Speaker 1>talking about nineteen eighty one, I'm talking about right at
<v Speaker 1>this moment. I don't think there's anybody that has reached
<v Speaker 1>the pinnacle that John Williams has reached. But Alan Silvestri
<v Speaker 1>is certainly an icon as well, and he may not
<v Speaker 1>just have the notoriety that some of these guys have.
<v Speaker 1>But if you've seen any of the Marvel movies, you've
<v Speaker 1>been listening to Alan Silvestri and his soundtracks. If you've
<v Speaker 1>seen most of Robert Jamackis's movies, which would include Forrest Gump,
<v Speaker 1>you've heard Allan Savestrie's music and it is it is
<v Speaker 1>a critical ingredient to all of the movies that it's
<v Speaker 1>involved with.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, for sure.
<v Speaker 1>But back to Back of the Future, what Allan Silvestrie
<v Speaker 1>has done with the music for that is so simple
<v Speaker 1>and so perfect. And I know we can't know his
<v Speaker 1>thoughts and whether this was intentional or not, but what
<v Speaker 1>he does with three notes that defines the whole movie
<v Speaker 1>is just awe inspiring to me. So those three notes,
<v Speaker 1>it is a note that falls down to another note
<v Speaker 1>as in it goes back and then the note that
<v Speaker 1>leads back in is almost the first note, but not quite.
<v Speaker 1>It is a half step off, and this perfect little
<v Speaker 1>those notes together give us the picture of what happens
<v Speaker 1>with Marty. He starts at one place, he moves back
<v Speaker 1>in time, and when he returns to the future, it's
<v Speaker 1>exactly as it was, except not quite. It's about a
<v Speaker 1>half step difference.
<v Speaker 3>I love it, Okay, Yeah, Alex Sevestri actually was this
<v Speaker 3>is kind of his big break.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, absolutely. And if you want to talk about
<v Speaker 1>some different backgrounds here, John Williams and Allen Sastry are
<v Speaker 1>perfect comparisons of Hey, two totally different types of people
<v Speaker 1>can be very successful on the same field. John Williams
<v Speaker 1>classically trained, was part of big bands, did whole lots
<v Speaker 1>of composition, worked with a whole lot of orchestras that
<v Speaker 1>did soundtracks to other movies. Alan Savestri was in a
<v Speaker 1>rock and roll band, right, I mean that's that's really
<v Speaker 1>as cool as it can be.
<v Speaker 5>When you listen.
<v Speaker 3>When I listened to Alan Savestri talk, Yeah, I'm like,
<v Speaker 3>this is just Joe Blow, you know, like Joe New
<v Speaker 3>York guy, you know. And John Williams is very you know,
<v Speaker 3>very precise and very you know, refined, and.
<v Speaker 1>They had a little bit of concern about Alan Silvestri
<v Speaker 1>and he was a part of Romancing the Stone that
<v Speaker 1>was the movie that kind of said, Okay, he's good
<v Speaker 1>enough to be involved with Back in the Future. He's
<v Speaker 1>in this position now where it's it's it's like, oh
<v Speaker 1>my gosh, I'm I'm involved in a movie that's a
<v Speaker 1>pretty big deal.
<v Speaker 2>Big deal.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Spielberg is involved with this thing that I'm doing
<v Speaker 1>and this is new and crazy. And so Spielberg had
<v Speaker 1>his reservations about Silvestri. He was worried that he wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>have it. And they at some point they're watching the movie.
<v Speaker 1>They've got Alan Silvestrie's soundtrack playing, and Spielberg's like, this
<v Speaker 1>is it. This is what you need for the music
<v Speaker 1>to this thing, not what Silvestry is doing. And Bob
<v Speaker 1>Zemeckis is like, this is Alan, this is it, and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, oh, then he's got it right now. As
<v Speaker 1>far as the movies go, here's another interesting thing. You've
<v Speaker 1>got John Williams as the first guy in Raiders of
<v Speaker 1>the Lost Arc. I mean, his music starts in at
<v Speaker 1>the beginning, and it's the mysterious walking through the Jungle music.
<v Speaker 1>Alan Silvestri's music doesn't come in for half an hour
<v Speaker 1>at least into the movie Back to the Future, So
<v Speaker 1>We've got this thing that comes in when the delrium
<v Speaker 1>yes pops out right. Yes, the scene where the back
<v Speaker 1>of the truck opens, the smoke or what a steam.
<v Speaker 5>Smoke coming out? Who cares, I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>Want the dry ice whatever, that dry ice effect is
<v Speaker 1>that happens, and it's like wah. That's when the music
<v Speaker 1>comes in. And it's a perfect point to do that
<v Speaker 1>because in my mind, what Back to the Future does
<v Speaker 1>that Raiders didn't do for me is that it tied
<v Speaker 1>two things that I left together. Raiders change the paradigm
<v Speaker 1>and I can talk about that more later, But with
<v Speaker 1>Back to the Future, it took this action adventure scenario
<v Speaker 1>and it made something that was more relatable to me,
<v Speaker 1>Like I almost felt like I could be that guy.
<v Speaker 1>I could be Marty McFly. I could do the skateboarding,
<v Speaker 1>I could deal with the teachers. I can play the guitar.
<v Speaker 1>I could do those things, and so I was more
<v Speaker 1>identifiable to me. And so you were tardy for Glass,
<v Speaker 1>I was always I'm still tardy. I don't feel tardy.
<v Speaker 5>Actually what you did there.
<v Speaker 1>But what we've got is for the first thirty minutes
<v Speaker 1>of the movie, we've got rock and roll music. Playing,
<v Speaker 1>We've got Huey Lewis in the news rocking us out,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm thinking cool. This is another of the eighties
<v Speaker 1>teen comedy movies. It's just happens to be about time
<v Speaker 1>travel too, okay, rock and roll. But then Silvestrie's soundtrack
<v Speaker 1>comes in at that moment that you see the DeLorean
<v Speaker 1>for the first time, and suddenly the movie is more
<v Speaker 1>than it has been for the last thirty minutes.
<v Speaker 3>Right, that's right.
<v Speaker 5>Let's talk about Power of Love for just a second.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So the Power of Love was huge starting June
<v Speaker 3>of nineteen eighty five. Yes, and to be honest between
<v Speaker 3>you and I, this is the best Huios song that
<v Speaker 3>they've ever made in my opinion.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, it's certainly one of the best ones for sure.
<v Speaker 3>Does this movie perform as well if it has I
<v Speaker 3>Want a New drug in there instead of Power of Love?
<v Speaker 5>I mean, it doesn't really work, but it's just a better.
<v Speaker 1>Song, right, yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 3>But I thought it was interesting that Zamechas went to
<v Speaker 3>Huey Lewis and said, hey, Marty McFly, if you were
<v Speaker 3>a real person, his favorite rock band would be Huey
<v Speaker 3>Lewis in the News and that's kind of what clinched
<v Speaker 3>it for him. Yeah, So the first time out of
<v Speaker 3>the gate, Hugh Lewis wrote a song, gave it to
<v Speaker 3>Robert Zemeckis, and it just wasn't really working right. He
<v Speaker 3>tried to kind of match it to the movie. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>does it make us like, don't don't even worry about that,
<v Speaker 3>Just give me a just give me a good Huey
<v Speaker 3>Lewis song. And he said, well, I've kind of been
<v Speaker 3>working on this one. He played it for him, was like, man,
<v Speaker 3>it's perfect powerful love. That's the power. And then later
<v Speaker 3>after he had had Power of Love in the bank,
<v Speaker 3>he came back with Back in Time, which is another
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's another great song, and that's the closing
<v Speaker 3>credit song. Yeah, two great great songs from here list
<v Speaker 3>in the news.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely. I remember getting tons and tons of radio play.
<v Speaker 1>I can remember after seeing the movie, my brother didn't
<v Speaker 1>have to get up as early as I did because
<v Speaker 1>I had to take the bus and he get to drive.
<v Speaker 1>So I would wake up and then later I would
<v Speaker 1>hear my brother's alarm clock go off, and every time
<v Speaker 1>it went off in like the next three months, after
<v Speaker 1>Back to the Future came out, Power of Love was
<v Speaker 1>the song that was playing.
<v Speaker 5>It's the best song in the nation, right, no, Power
<v Speaker 5>of Love?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, So I remember watching the video premiere on MTV.
<v Speaker 3>It was like a big deal, like, hey, tonight at
<v Speaker 3>seven MTV premiere Power of Love. Nice. So anyway, here's
<v Speaker 3>what okay, So Power of Love, Hue, listen the news,
<v Speaker 3>Alan Selvestrie. I didn't want to mention one more thing before.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, we can talk all day about the music. Absolutely,
<v Speaker 3>there is a chime that they play throughout the movie
<v Speaker 3>in Back to the Future. Every time that chime hits,
<v Speaker 3>it's when time has been altered, right, which is so cool. Right,
<v Speaker 3>It's like a little thing that accues you to time
<v Speaker 3>just changed.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, guess what you just killed yourself.
<v Speaker 3>Exactly.
<v Speaker 1>You screwed up Artie.
<v Speaker 5>Real quickly. Just something I want to mention about the
<v Speaker 5>Raider soundtrack.
<v Speaker 3>So Indy has his own theme. Yes, the arc has
<v Speaker 3>its own theme, which is a home run. The head
<v Speaker 3>piece to the staff of Raw has its own theme.
<v Speaker 3>The basket chase has its own theme.
<v Speaker 1>Right, and he does something you know that's kind of
<v Speaker 1>a terrifying scene. But what John Williams does with the
<v Speaker 1>music that moment with this kind of plinkety little DNC
<v Speaker 1>to DNC to ding ding it it makes you realize
<v Speaker 1>the humor and what's going on instead of oh my gosh,
<v Speaker 1>this strategy is about to occur, you know, right. And
<v Speaker 1>he also not only that, but he'll let you know
<v Speaker 1>just like they did in the old movies where you
<v Speaker 1>get the plane that's flying from one place to the other,
<v Speaker 1>like you see in Casablanca, you get that identifying music like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>guess what here we are. I mean, honestly, what I'm
<v Speaker 1>thinking of is the Three Stooges. Like when the Three
<v Speaker 1>Stooges were in Baghdad, they had a definite, you know,
<v Speaker 1>bagdad kind of music shoing on, and John Williams says
<v Speaker 1>that same thing.
<v Speaker 3>It's so good. Yeah, okay, are you done talking about music?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right.
<v Speaker 1>So that'll do it for part two. Please join us
<v Speaker 1>next week where we will do a deep dive into
<v Speaker 1>the big ideas behind Raiders of the Lost Arc and
<v Speaker 1>Back to the Future. Thank you so much for your
<v Speaker 1>support of the Sureley You Can't Be Serious podcasts.
<v Speaker 5>Don't forget. We also love to discuss these on social media.
<v Speaker 1>So be sure to follow us at Shirley Podcast on.
<v Speaker 5>Twitter, Shirly Podcast on Facebook.
<v Speaker 1>Email us at Shirleypodcast at gmail dot com.
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<v Speaker 1>And as always, please hit the subscribe button now so
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<v Speaker 1>Can't Be Serious podcast. All music, images, and movie clips
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<v Speaker 1>conjunction with the fair Use agreement under the US copyright law.